Saturday: Landed, found our accommodation, attempted to contact a friend who lives here, had dinner at what turned out to be a vegitarian restaurant and shared a table with three women in their 50s who we entertained with broken Spanish and poorly phased questions.
Sunday: Wandered around the local area (Palermo). There is quite a contrast between very poor and rich buildings, sometimes right next to each other. Palermo is home to the richer residents of BA, as is evidenced be a really really nice mall in one section, but also has dodgy little store and abandoned buildings.
The highlight of the day however was the opportunity to go to a futbol (aka soccer) game - Boca Jr vs Racing. Before we even got to the game we we experienced our first vehiculac accident (our bus vs a small red car at an intersection - winner: bus) and a fake Diego Maradona who gave us our tickets signed one guy's shirt. Once we got into the the stadium, there were still two hours to kill before the game actually started. We were in the 'local' section - standing room only - which
was uncomfortable, but fun once the game started. They have at least 10 different chants, which everyone knows. Our end quieted down during interesting play, but the other end, which contained the official fan club (aka 'Player No. 12) kept going all night. The game itself was ok, but the atmosphere was great. Dave Cohen only got spit on once by opposition fans. Fun!
Monday: Caught a one-hour bus back into the La Boca area, which is distingushed by brightly coloured houses and a high crime rate. On the way, we finally made contact with our friend, and then sat out the rain in a cafe. After it cleared, we wondered around and ended up in an art galley pretty much at random. This lead to an hour-long conversation with the proprieters who gave us some travel advice, offered to take us around BA for 50% of the tours from our hostel. We didn't buy any art, but Dave C helped to sell a piece to some American tourists who wandered in.
Anyway, that about sums it up for now. I'm not sure if it stayed under the word count, but stay tuned for the next edition, which may or may not include: The Daves learn to tango, the Daves visit the cemetary and The Daves figure out what to do next...
Until then, hasta luego amigos!
