April 12, 2006
Day 196
Andrea Visit Day 4
Andrea in front of a nice street in Tigre.
Considering I went to bed late last night, I slept in this morning. I did not get carried away by bed bugs last night as I thought I might. I did wear as much clothes as possible last night; I even put the hood up on my windbreaker so my head wouldn't come into direct contact with the pillow. During the night I did have to get under a blanket, because I was cold, but I survived.
It was about 11am when Dan and I finally got all our stuff together so we could leave. The two guys we met last night were having breakfast and we decided to make our way back to Buenos Aires together. So Dan and I got something to eat and waited for them to get all their stuff together. We had coffee, which was good, medialunas, and juice, which tasted like tang. It was all good though. It seemed to take forever to settle up with the owners and arrange for a boat ride back to the mainland. Supposedly the hostel owners had called a cab for us to get to the train station and told us not to walk around that area because we would get robbed. Nice huh? (Dan Says: A weird guy drove up and started staring at us for several minutes, so we figured it was time to get out of there. The cab never showed up.) After waiting for about five minutes, we spotted some buses that we thought would get us to the train station. We walked about a block and found out that the bus would stop at the train station. By this time it was almost 1pm and the streets and the bus were filled with people. Many of them were kids in school uniforms going home for siesta. (Dan Says: Everyone takes off work/school for around three hours to eat lunch with the family and rest.) I was so intent on looking out the window watching the kids that I was shocked to see Dan stepping off the bus onto the sidewalk. I quick jumped up and got off the bus. Good thing I wasn't totally off in la la land or who know where I would have ended up. When I 'thanked' Dan for telling me that was our stop, he seemed completely unphased. (Dan Says: Should I have been phased? I thought I caught everyone's attention at our stop, but I guess not. The bus driver clearly indicated that this was our stop.)
The train ride took about 40 minutes. We parted ways with the Kiwis and headed to Puerto Madero, the more modern neighborhood that we had dinner at Monday night. We wanted to find more of the fiber glass cows that were part of the Cow Parade. Apparently there are 115 cows scattered throughout the neighborhood. We took pictures of each one that we came across. Eventually we hit the jackpot of cows, an area where the majority of them were located. There was a small gift shop there. We stopped in, got a few postcards, and picked up a map that showed the location of all the cows. We walked a few more blocks, but decided it was time to end the quest for the cows. (Dan Says: I think we fulfilled our quest just fine. We probably looked at about 30 of them). We spotted a TGI Friday's to my surprise. We went in for lunch and each got a burger. It was very yummy, but not the same as you would get in the States. The waitresses though, took flare to a whole new level.
Next on the agenda was the Catedral Metropolitana. We had seen this on the city tour and wanted to go back. On the way we walked past the Pink House and stopped in to visit the museum that featured every president of Argentina, as well as a small exhibit on Eva Peron. I had learned on the city tour that the building is pink to symbolize the union of two different political parties, a blend of white and red. We walked across the plaza to the cathedral. The church was very ornate, with many alters along each side of the main part of the church. The alters represent the apostles. I also noticed there were many small vases of flowers around the whole church. This is done to celebrate Easter. Normally, flowers are not placed throughout the church.
After a long day of walking around we checked back into the same hostel we had been at. Our room is very nice, although we don't have our own bathroom. Dan got out his computer so that I could work on the blog again, but as soon I closed my eyes to rest a bit I fell asleep.
Ahh, naps are good. (Dan Says: You got that right.) It was time to get some supper. We stopped and got pizza at a little place that only sold cheese, small or large. Dan had made it sound like the pizza here wasn't that great, but I liked it. (Dan Says: Normally I don't like pizza here, but this one was good.) Then we just got a beer at a place where we could sit outside. (Dan Says: One of about 1000 choices.) Even though it doesn't seem like we did much tonight, it was still about 2am before I got to bed.
Observation: When you get a bottle of water, soda, or juice, you always get a straw. According to Dan they love straws here. I noticed that almost right away, but now I'm experiencing it myself, every time I get a bottle of water, even from a street vendor.
