Buenos Aires - Week 26

7th - 19th March

So back to Buenos Aires for the second time. After a pretty good bus journey with Andasmar from Mendoza we arrived early morning into BA. We upgraded to semi-cama seats this time so short-arse Katie had a part of the chair supporting her legs so they didn´t dangle above the floor all night as she tried to sleep - luxury! We arrived to good weather. Most days were 25-30C without a cloud in the sky, just a couple of days of rain, if torrential.

First off we stayed in Palermo this time at a hostel called Casa Fitzroy. A nice enough hostel, but the owner was a money obsessed idiot and so we were immediately put off with the place. However, Palermo is a lovely district, lots of little boutiques and great restaurants and bars. After checking in, we headed out to have a wander round and went for some mexican fajitas in Tazz bar at Plaza Serrano. We were exhausted after the overnight bus so we decided instead of partying all night with the Porteños we would go into the centre to watch Borat. Very funny.

Next day it rained all day but after a late start we got out of the hostel and went to Central restaurant in Palermo for the lunch special. Really fancy restaurant with 3 courses for 4 quid. Wicked. After that we took the tube (Subte 'A' line, the oldest part of the Subte opened in 1913 still using the original cars) to Congreso Square and went on a really good tour of the Congreso building. The tour went into the government chambers with their wierd chairs. There is one for every MP and attendance is recorded only when they bums touch the cushion, so if they stand next to their chair they can listen without officially being in the session of parliment.

Looking towards Congresso from Palacio Barolo

Early Friday morning, we headed over to the Spanish school recommended by Katie & Bill, who we met in Chile, to enrol for the following week. The manger of the school put Katie in the advanced class while James got put in with the dunces! Fair enough, we didn't want to be in the same class together anyway because we probably would have irrated each other.
Next, we went to the estate agent and signed up for a little apartment right in the heart of the city. It was so easy, we wrote down our names and the apartment was ours, starting the next day!

After that, we headed to Campo Bravo restaurant in Palermo to celebrate with a big lunch (quel suprise) then walked over to the Evito museum which was excellent. Her life and works were highly controversial and really interesting and the guide round the museum was really passionate and knowledgable. See below in the all-new 'History with James' section for details of Evita's life...

Evita's last public appearance a month before she died of cancer.

One of the famous beautiful dresses she wore.

That evening we went for happy hour in Wherever Bar, recommended by Alex, Alfie and Matt that we met in Mendoza. Great bar playing lots of Charlatans, Ian Brown, Stone Roses etc - right up Katie's street - oh, and the happy hour was for five hours and was GBP 1.15 for two glasses of (nice) champagne! James was well pleased as the owners invited james up a few times to put music on from their computer. We then moved on to check out the irish bar O'Sullivans (St Patrick's day coming up and we wanted to be prepared!!) but it was very expensive and didn't have a great atmosphere so we left after a pint of guiness for a drunken pizza on the way home.

We checked out of Casa Shitzroy on Saturday morning and moved into our apartment. It was lovely, double bed, sofa, telly, kitchen with table and chairs and bathroom, right in the centre and all for $30 a night. We spent the afternoon/evening wandering round the town, checking out the restaurants!

View out of our apartment window up Av Cordoba

On Sunday we walked through town, down the historical Calle Florida which is the main shopping street but has some very beautiful old buildings (including one lovely old mansion bought by Burger King and now with suspended polystrene celings over the ornate plasterwork! Even though they won't let you go upstairs, you can still just about see the second floor which is absolutely stunning - what a disgrace). We then got to the district of San Telmo which has an enormous antiques market in the square on Sundays. There are also plenty of tango bands (full on with pianos, double bass and everything) and tango dancers on all the street corners. Our favourite entertainment, however, was this old bird:

She was trying to sound like Louis Armstrong by using some yoghurt pot/funnel creation!

As we were in San Telmo, we had to go back to our favourite Bar Notable from when we were here last time, El Federal, for lunch and then to the brilliant deli to buy empanadas, cheese, serrano ham, etc for tea.

Monday morning was the start of school for five days. The classes were really good. James had just two of them in his class and Katie had three (the other two speaking four other languages each so were complete naturals, I was a little left behind...!).

The highlight of Monday, however, was the phonecall from Dunc telling us that he was a Daddy!!! Baby Alexander was born early in the morning on Sunday (Katie's dad's 60th!) so they were phoning us from the hospital. Vic and Alexander both sounded well and the photos are gorgeous! Katie was very tearful for the rest of the afternoon because she was missing them and wanted to see the baby (also missed Dad's 60th party where all the friends and family were that weekend!).

On Tuesday after school we did some shopping at one of the big shopping centres (after our homework, of course!). Weds, not much, then Thursday afternoon we went to La Boca which is one of the poorest districts of Buenos Aires and also home to the Boca Juniors football stadium, Maradona the fat cheating bastard's, team. We went to try and get tickets for the match on Sunday but it was impossible. They all sell out to the club members who then sell them on match day for extortionate prices. So no football in Buenos Aires, maybe Brazil...? La Boca has lots of very old, poor houses which have all been painted bright colours by the locals.

Some fat bloke trying to pass himself off as Maradona - yep his hair was real! Tourists were paying to have their photo taken with him!!!

Friday was our last day of school and that night we had a tango lesson. It was surprisingly good and James found a bit of a knack for it - he stayed for the whole lesson! After the lesson, we went with a few other people from school to a milonga (tango hall) to watch the pros. What an experience that was! The hall is very, very old and has not changed for decades, bits of the ceilings had holes in. It was packed with locals dressed beautifully (many with full on dancing gowns) and dancing the very serious tango. The main impression was that of vanity. There were a good range of ages there so the Tango passion is alive and well with the younger generation, all very serious and intent on looking the best. The really interesting part of the evening was watching the oldies. Obviously they had been dancing Tango for years as there were very good, but there were a lot of them over 70 with tiny dresses, lots of flesh on show, clearly with lots of Jacksonesque plastic surgery, and plastic boobs - weird and a little vain on a 70+ woman... In between the 'normal people' dancing, there were professionals performing amazing dances. The live tango band was fantastic with piano, double bass, 2 squeeze boxes, violins and a singer. It really was another world!

The milonga went on well into the small hours of the morning so we had a lazy start to Saturday. We walked through Plaza Lavalle one of the plazas surrounded by more old, beautiful buildings and Ave de Mayo down to the Plaza de Mayo. Last time we were here, the Casa Rosada (of Evita balcony fame) was all in scaffolding but we got a good picture this time.

We also took a tour around Casa de Cultura (as it is now) which was previously owned by the newspaper La Prensa, a very influential newspaper in the 1900s. The tour round the building was really good with lots more information and history about Buenos Aires. Which now everyone knows thanks to this excellent blog entry...

As it was St Patrick's Day, we met up with Katie and Bill in the evening for a few pints of guiness. There are a couple of irish pubs on the same street as school so the whole road was cordoned off for the evening and there was a real party atmosphere. The local news were filming there too and we got on live telly!!

Katie and Katie (in green of course) edging their way on to the telly!

Later that night we ended up in a different district in The Shamrock and met up with some people from school for more beers and celebrations.

On Sunday we walked over to the district of Recoleta via a very fancy street where all the very expensive designer shops are. Also there is the Four Seasons hotel where all the rich and famous stay. When Madonna was staying for the filming of Evita, she practised her Evita speech from the balcony to adoring fans below:

On the same street is the most famous hotel in Buenos Aires, The Alvear Palace Hotel. There was a wedding going on while we were there so there were all sorts of rich, beautiful people milling around. Nevertheless, we tramped in in our crappy travelling gear for a coffee and the waiters were just as couteous to us as everyone else! And you should see what we got, a silver platter with lovely little choccies on (except Katie didn't give James much of a chance to take the picture...)!:

In Recoleta, we went to a modern art exhibition next to the cemetry which was surprisingly good. We then went across the road to the musuem of Fine Arts which was amazing. It was an enormous place and about five rooms were filled with originals by very famous artists (eg: Monet, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec etc) and there were at least 10 original sculptures by Rodin. We didn't expect to see so much famous European art. There must have been some very rich people in Beunos Aires in the past to house these collections! The whole of the upstairs was dedicated to Argentinian artists and there were some beautiful paintings up there.

Our last full day was Monday so we had to fit in a lot more sightseeing!! We toured round the buildings of Plaza San Martin (the nucleus of the microcentro, just down the road from our apartment) where there is the Arms museum with a crazy amount of swords, guns and cannons from the 1800s to present day, the Falkland Islands war memorial, Retiro train station which the English helped to build and the Clock Tower, a gift from the English after completion of the Retiro train station (renamed from the British Clock Tower to Torre Monumental after the Falklands war!).

After Plaza San Martin, we walked to a favourite restaurant, Guerrin on Avenida Corrientes on the way to Palacio Barolo. This is a palace built in 1923 by Italian architect Mario Palanti who based the building on Dante's 'Inferno' and who hoped to be allowed to bring Dante's ashes here but that never happened. The entrance is supposed to be Hell (with gargoiles of snakes and dragons, the 1st to 14th floors, Purgatory and 15 to 22 represent Heaven. We went right up to the rooftop lighthouse and the view was amazing! The first photo at the top of this blog is taken from the top.

Tuesday morning, we packed up and quite literally shipped out to Uruguay!

History with James (Katie has insisted on the boring history section at the end in case people don't want to read it...):

The city was first founded 1536 as Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre, Beunos Aires = City of Fair Winds . After attacks by the indigenous peoples the settlers were forced away and in 1541 the site was abandoned. A second (and permanent) settlement was established in 1580. Spain insisted that all trade to Europe pass through Lima, Peru so that taxes could be collected this started a deep resentment in porteños, the Buenos Aires poeple, towards Spanish authorities and started the thought of revolution.
The British at war with Spain in the early 19th century tried to invade Buenos Aires twice in 1806–1807 but were repulsed by local militias. With Spain at war citizens of Buenos Aires successfully ousted the Spanish Viceroy and established a provisional government and became independent from Spain in 1816. In the second half of the 19th century, Britain provided the expertise, to the now independant Argentina, to build vast railroads to export the Argentina's products to Europe. With this increased economic power Buenos Aires became a metropolitan and multicultural city that ranked itself with the major European capitals. For example, the Teatro Colón was one of the world's top opera venues. The city's main avenues were built in those years, and the dawn of the 20th century saw the construction of South America's then-tallest buildings and first subway network. By the 1920s Buenos Aires was a favoured destination for immigrants from Europe, as well as from the poorer provinces and neighbouring countries. Large shanty towns (Boca being one of them) started growing around the city's industrial areas, leading to extensive social problems.
Buenos Aires was completely controlled by the elitist rich members of society so when Juan Peron worked his way into the miltiary goverment of the time with his socialist ideals he became very people with the working class and unions with the end result the demonstration 1945 in Plaza de Mayo after members of the military goverment forced his resignation. He easily won the presidential elections in 1946 and soon started making sweeping new social policies aimed at empowering the working class, with the support of his charismatic wife Eva (little Eva = Evita) at his side. He greatly expanded the number of unionized workers, and further industrialized the country with newly nationalized industries. Among middle and upper class Argentines, the improvement of the laborers' situation was a source of resentment; negative feelings abounded towards the new industrial workers from rural areas, who had formerly been treated as servants.
Eva Perón became powerful within the Trade Unions, founded the charitable Eva Peron Foundation and the nation's first large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party. Her work and influence empowered women to obtain the right to vote for the first time in 1952. Her charities built homes for the poor and homeless, and also provided free health care to citizens. She used to reguarly go to each of her charitable schemes and visit with the people, she was the visible, down to earth face of Peronism and therefore became a cult figure to many.
In 1951, Evita set her sights on earning a place on the ballot as candidate for vice-president. This move angered many military leaders who despised Evita and her increasing powers within the government. According to the Argentine Constitution, the Vice President automatically succeeds the President in the event of the President's death. The possibility of Evita, a woman, becoming president in the event of Juan Perón's death was not something the military could accept. The unions arranged a huge rally in Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada (2 million people were said to have attended) to demand Evita annouce her official candidacy as vice president. Eva could not stand for two reasons. Firstly if she did become the vice-president there was a good chance there would be a military coup, and secondly unknown to the public, she had cervical cancer and she was extremly ill even while she made her famous speech, fainting after she returned inside.
On June 4th 1952 Evita rode with Juan Perón in parade through Buenos Aires in celebration of his re-election as President of Argentina. Evita was by this point so ill that she was unable to stand without support. Underneath her oversized fur coat was a frame made of plaster and wire that allowed her to stand. Eva died July 26th 1952 at age 33 and her body embalmed. The peron government was overthrown in 1955 and Juan Peron went into exile. The military dictatorship removed Eva's body from display and it disappeared. After sixteen years, the military finally revealed the location of Evita's body. It had been buried in a crypt in Milan, Italy, under the name "María Maggi". Evita's legacy and cult status is still so strong that she was exhumed, brought home and is now buried very securely, 10m down in the Recoleta Cemetery.

Books we read: 'Girls' by Nic Kelman - wierd, don't bother
'The Travelling Hornplayer' by Barbara Trapido - not bad