One of my favourite things to do here in Buenos Aires has been to hang out in the cemetery.
As morbid as that sounds, if you visited the Recoleta Cemetery you’d understand why:
Yes believe it or not, each elaborate, marble construction is a grave, or houses an entire family. Some of them even have internal stairs leading to a lower chamber. Kicks Anglo-Saxan graves’ asses!
Yes this is a grave, not a church!
I love coming here, sitting on a bench in the shade, and going through my Spanish notes. It’s one of the quietest, cleanest places in the city. And I never feel dumb because there are so many tourists here who speak crap Spanish.
Ah Aussie backpackers ... you can always spot them a mile away.
The most popular question asked by tourists is, “where is Evita (Peron’s) grave?” It’s by no means the most extravagant, but I think the only one which is always covered in flowers.
No I don't know who these people are. There were too many tourists to bother waiting for a shot without them.
Kylie has a great write-up on her blog of our recent three day trip to the land across the river.
More pics:
Behind Kylie is a corner of rock 'n' roll bars, including La Ronda. We spotted a lot of hip, young Montevideans there.
Beside La Ronda is Cheesecake Records, which has vinyl and great cheesecake!
Kylie laps up the sun in Piriapolis
We totally picked up! This gorgeous, wonderful dog accompanied us through all the holidaying hordes of drunk, horny teenagers in Piriapolis, all the way until we were safely home at our hostel doorstep.
Icecream at the Argentino Hotel, Piriapolis.
A gorgeous guy on a poster, in Montevideo. LOL.
My translation:
It is the best election
At least we have something in common
We women: we know
What do we want, we are loyal
What else can we ask for?
NADA
With some help from Babelfish and Kylie… cheers!
And an FYI, Argentina has a female president. Her husband was previously president, making her a sort of Hilary Clinton. And her daughter Florencia made international headlines when it was revealed she had a fotolog. (Remember my post about floggers?)
There are a number of fairly banal but important things that the majority of the human population do, and that I don’t, because I don’t like to. I’m not proud of this list. In fact, I’ve always felt that the fact that I don’t do these things disqualifies me from being able to call myself a “real person”.
These things are:
- Eating fruit
- Playing sport
- Cooking
- Driving
Now if I were to meet a guy who had a similar list, I might very well think he was a bit of a loser. In fact, I’d suspect he isn’t the kind of upstanding, functioning human being that I would ever want to be with, which is kind of a distressing realisation. (As Woody Allen Groucho Marx once said, “I would never want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.”)
You will be glad to hear that here in Buenos Aires, I am working on three of the four (driving is not currently on the cards).
Eating fruit: I now eat grapes, grapefruit, all berries, papaya, paw paw, pineapple, kiwi and mango. And not only am I able to eat these fruit, I joyfully want to eat them … I’m SO into the grape scene! But I have yet to tackle the Big 3 (apples, oranges and banana.) Mandarin will never happen, I can tell you that now.
Playing sport: Kylie and I are taking tennis lessons! I’m not playing too well yet, but I’m actually enjoying it. I think key is that there is strategy involved, so it’s not boring and it’s not a team sport, so I don’t feel all this pressure that I’m letting the side down.
Cooking:* With assistance from Kylie, who is an excellent cook, I am slowly becoming more comfortable in the kitchen. I cannot yet say that I enjoy cooking – and perhaps I never will. Which is a shame because I really enjoy eating.
I think my inability to really enjoy the act of cooking, is similar to my inability to really enjoy learning a language (in both cases I do it for the end result, rather than the process.) Both feel mechanical – follow instructions, memorise rules. Any suggestions with how I can turn both into something creative, and therefore fun?
Some of the meals that have come out of our kitchen:
White chocolate Chelsea buns
Chicken and capsicum
Ribs in plum sauce
Beef and salad
Unless chocolate souffles are meant to taste flabby, and not very chocolately, I don't think I nailed these.
* In one of my recent Spanish classes, my Argentine teacher was having trouble remembering the English words for certain vegetables. She would draw a picture of it on the board so I could work out the English word. For too many I would shrug, equally clueless. Eventually she laughed and guessed, correctly, “you don’t cook, do you?”
