South America 1

Hi Family, Friends, Davenanters, Dancers and Bloggers,

Thursday:

I remember learning about Argentina when I was about thirteen years old. My Geography teacher would try to explain what the Pampas was and we would try to imagine these vast expanses of green fertile plains and we would all try to look interested. Well, today, forty five years later, I actually saw from the plane these very things and my memories came flooding back.

Our flight from London with Brazilian airways TAM took about twelve hours to Sao Paulo in Brazil and then it took another two and a half hours to Buenos Aires. In total, it took us twenty four hours to get from home to our hotel in Buenos Aires and we did it all with just a couple of short naps! I watched The Great Gatsby - that I quite enjoyed -  and Friends with Benefits - that had been recommended by several so called friends! Can't imagine why!

Friday:

We spent a couple of hours unwinding on the sun terrace of the Hotel, after we had unpacked, and tried to catch up on some sleep but we were not very successful! We then planned to go out for a drink, have a meal and then find a Milonga. We dressed up in our Tango dresses and dancing shoes and went out looking for somewhere to have a civilised evening drink. Sue made a friend on route!

We stumbled upon a really nice Argentinian bar and this is when our plans started to go astray! Here is the bar and the measures we were given!

After the equivalent of six gin and Tonics for Sue and Six Amarettos for me we staggered out of the bar with Sue hiding her glass, full of Gin and Tonic, under her cardigan, so that we could make our dinner reservation at 8.00pm in an Argentinian Restaurant called Fervor.

As you can see from this photo, I do look rather happy eating my 400gram steak (the size of a side plate), chips, spinach and salad. 

The steak was magnificent but we both had to give up after eating about two thirds of it. If you are wondering what happened to the glass of G&T, well she tipped the drink into her water glass, hid the slice of lemon under the bread and then asked me to dispose of the glass, so in proper Dowrick style I put it in my handbag! Don't tell anyone!

Needless to say, we didn't make the Milonga, we screamed laughing all the way back to the hotel and I passed out on the bed as soon as my head hit the pillow! Sue decided she was going up to the roof terrace to rescue a bird with a broken wing - mental!

How I am going to keep her under control I will never know!