Today was a non-running day. I may regret that later but sometimes you just need to sightsee and not run.
It was a surreal night of half-sleep. I was inexplicably wired from the wine overflows and power point slide shows and didn’t get to la-la land until probably 12:30/1am. I got up around 6:15/6:30 with a partially remembered dream involving me apparently during my pseudo-entertainment journalism life covering a revival of the tv show House. David Shore, the creator of the series who in reality I wouldn’t be able to pick out of a police usual suspects lineup if my life depended on it. But in my dream, A man identified as Shore kept calling me the wrong name. Hendricks. Henning. Hawkins. I kept correcting him but to no avail.
I don’t know what this means and wish some I met some dude in a technicolor coat who could give me the 411. But if i had to hazard a guess, I’d assume it’s because I met a lot of folks last night at the welcome dinner and am typically terrible at name recall. If people always wore the same clothes and sat in the same seats, I might stand a chance but the associations I come up with for people go out the window when they change clothes or meet me in another situation. What House being revived has to do with this I can only guess. Maybe because I have people?
Breakfast at the hotel included a delightful omlette station. Because I only knew a few Spanish words for the various ingredients, I went with a request of “todos” figuring why not go big?
The morning saw a city tour with an incredibly informative guide by the name of Jeremy. Sights included such varied locales as the city center seat of government, a pink building that screams Equatorial chic. It’s from these balconies that Eva Peron and her presidente husband would give their speeches.
From there it was a detour to the city center’s cathedral that once was the home of now Pope Francis. The exterior facade is more courthouse than church but features 12 Corinthian columns representing the 12 apostles.
A short bus ride through cartoon character alley (which Meg and I hope to re-visit tomorrow for photos) brought us to Caminito, a funky section of town that when the sun sets becomes incredibly dodgy… Something our tour guide implied might involve Argentinian cosa nostra. It was here that I paid 100 pesos for three tango poses with a busker. It was… Odd.
I finally got a shot of me and Meg that I think conveys what was happening in this square; if a typical picture is worth a thousand words, I feel like this one might be worth 2000.
A quick tour of the city’s famed cemetery, including the surprisingly tasteful Eva Peron mausoleum, was followed by a stop at the flower sculpture that reminded me more than a little of the Chicago Bean. I need to google later if it was the same sculptor.
Returning to the hotel, a leisurely lunch of Argentinian BBQ skewers lead into a stroll past little Big Ben, a U.K. gift to Argentina on their independence centennial. Our tour guide couldn’t think of what the US gave; one assumes it was a tea cozy.
Meg and I then headed out to see the famed book store that was housed in a converted theater, El Ateneo Grand Splendid. It was a sight to see for sure.
The huge lunch sabotaged our plans for an Argentinian steakhouse and we wound up grabbing a beer at the Kraken Bar because, well, it was called the Kracken Bar and the bar was a ship.
There we met Margo and Rich, two itinerant Americans in their own wayward journey through South America. They were headed out in the morning on a 30 hour bus ride over the Andes that Margo had booked that sounded both awful and awesome; they thought the same thing about Meg and my soon to start journey to Antarctica.
But as the sun set, we thought we should eat something. We wound up at a place a lot of our tour group would also be seen at, the recommended expansive menu of El Establo.
We both ordered the skewer but this time requested a half portion – it was gargantuan nonetheless and I’m headed for a food coma. Perhaps tonight I will sleep soundly … That or I’ll be visited by three ghosts a la Ebenezer Scrooge. Didn’t he ascribe the culprit for the appearance of Marley’s ghost to an undigested morsel of something or other?
Nonetheless, the night has come and I’ve set an alarm for an early run to try and make up for missteps throughout the day. Tomorrow is our last day in Buenos Aires before heading to the Ioffe (pronounced so many ways but I think it’s “Yaw-fee”).
Come what may, I need to run out a bit before the Drake Passage gets ahold of me. Let’s hope unlike every patient on every episode of House, I’m not lying about this. Given the great food, a few miles running are definitely needed.