Rude Awakening

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Ahhh, the joys of Buenos Aires. I love the quirky neighborhoods, the good nightlife, but most of all, the beautiful women. It’s very difficult to walk around Buenos Aires without either A. forgetting what you were going out for or B. getting run over and the hospitals are full of men with whiplash and lamppost related injuries.

That day was a work day, as my Dad was coming in the next morning and I wanted to have most things done before he arrived. I woke up fairly early and made my way to the internet place (on the way a Nissan clipped a fire hydrant on account of a long legged blond, and water was shooting 15 feet into the air). I took care of some of the more pertinent emails and wrote my itinerary for the next 3 weeks. In every major city, which are usually about 3 weeks apart, I give out itineraries describing in some detail the places and activities that are coming up.

Afterwards, I meant to go to the photocopy place to copy off an itinerary for each pax, but I got distracted and ended up near the neighborhood of Boca. Realizing where I was and the fact that I wasn’t in the safest neighborhood I hopped in a taxi to take me back to the city center. I eventually got my copies done and headed back to hotel narrowly missing a German tourist who went head over heels over a post box.

I decided that it was safer to work in the hotel and spent the afternoon macroing. That night I took my group to a tango show. The first time I watched a tango show I was dubious going into it, but the beauty of the music and passion of the dance rapidly won me over. It’s amazing how clearly art reflects culture and watching the tango you quickly get a sense of who the Argentineans are. Their sense of humor and zeal for life is obvious within the first few moments.

After the tango show we out in Palermo a funky little neighborhood in the North. As it was only midnight or so, we head to a pool hall for some pool. I think that this is the first night that Claire kicked my ass at pool. It started a bit of a rivalry for the next week or two.

By two o’clock in the morning when the clubs finally started to open, I decided that I had had enough and went back to the hotel to get some sleep. The last image I have from that Evening is Cath coming up to the Taxi and waving through the window wearing a police man’s cap.

4:30 am Kate, Naomi and Cath burst into my room in a panic. I can’t even understand what Kate and Naomi are saying, so I send them to their room. I find that Cath is bleeding from the chin and after a couple of minutes the story comes out. It turns out that after we left they continued on until about 3:30 when they came out into the plaza and started horsing around on the playground. Cath and Andy decided to use the teeter-totter and as Andy is a bit heavier she was a bit intoxicated she took a dive and landed on her chin. We spent the next hour and a half looking for an open hospital to give her stitches. In the end they just put some glue in there and sent us on our way. It’s a 24 hour a day job.