Sweet, although might I add distinctly fickle, lady luck has returned, if fleetingly, to me. The Sanchez Elias are absolutely lovely and their home beautiful. In addition the other students staying are fun too and I can waltz along Marcello T Alvear to school in the blazing sunshine feeling like a French aristocrat. I have disgracefully indulged myself last week by squandering the luxury of time in BsAs. So this weekend I atoned for my sins by packing it in, I even turned down friday night at Crobar.
On friday after a much needed siesta (thursday is a big night out here) i ran off to palermo, in true porteno tradition i stuck to the rule of thumb that 1/2 late is a hora, and took a graffetti tour around the 3 districts of palermo (viejo/soho/proper) by way of the street art that appears there. It was quite incredible and a brilliant way to understand the issues facing argentinians today since the artists are in fact situated all over the demographic - in terms of age, sex and wealth they come from diverse backgrounds but, largely, are able to work alongside eachother happily.
Saturday got off to an affrontively early start in order to catch the 10am to Lobos (thankfully camilla told me reservations necessary and booked for me), which fortunately turned out to leave at 10.30 since i arrived at 10 needing to get out money. Not so fortunately lady luck had not frequented Serena who was coming adrenaline hunting too. 10.30 came and went and serena awoke to the not so blissful ignorance of my trail of messages. ahhh... although she arrived an hour after me nursing a particularly hateful `resaca´ as a souvenir from the previous nights adventures it wasn´t of any consequence as the paracadismo (hanggliding) was a very argentine outift and consequently we slept in the sunshine and ate under the canopy of parachutes and discoballs in the clubhouse until disturbed from our slumbers with a slew of thickly accented spanish from which we understood vamos and little else. I think it must of been the safety talk.
getting in the tiny little hawk and gradually climbing, watching the earth disappear intermittently as a cloud encompassed us was strange. at several points i thought it was time to bail out now; quite high enough. It was quite incredible to see somewhere so completely flat as well. a patchwork of fields broken only by an erratic display of lakes and rivers, the odd clump of forest as far as the eye could see. time to jump and remembering the simple tasks of jump 2nd, legs together, arch your back and hold onto the harness was pretty darn intellectually demanding! tumbling the 1st few seconds was simply surreal and so much so that you´re not afraid, after that it was amazing to voom towards terra firma and have absolutely no responsibility for pulling the zipcord. parachute out we circled about happily trying to catch the attention of Serena and chatting abouts superpowers and landing procedures (FAIL). Slight crash landing (no te preoccupades - todo es un el pericula) and greeted a similarly poor lander in the form of serena who was clasping a sick bag having experienced some midflight nausia! hysterical.
we then managed to miss 2 buses back to BA and instead found a really sweet traditional polo shop in charming, developed but traditional, Lobos where we clad up in bombatches and gaucho hats and bought presents for the boys back home at prices a tenth of london and a third of BA. Most impressively did a huge supermarket sweep for $30 of all the fresh local fruit&veg (amazing supper later with the contents; acelga, cebolla, ajo, zapallo, papas, huevos de pato YUM). the helados were a steal at $1/ball too but not as nice as freddos or chungas.
Despite two hours sleep i managed to arrive on time for the bike tour but since most failed in the task of rising at ungodly hours / had failed yet to make it into bed we didn´t head to Tigre as planned but around La Boca, San Telmo and Puerto Madryn instead working up a hefty appetite for a spoiling lunch at palermo hotspot mott. delicious and beautiful but so glad i dont live there as every shop was a tantalising prospect. i discovered Chungas, much better than Freddos and opted for mousse de maracuya which though pricey for a little thing was sublime, regretfully not quite as good as the pistachio that i probare pre purchase. totally exhausted I managed to stay awake to discuss the socialist agenda of Argentine politics preventing production and export of grain as well as the push for aggarian reform whilst Marina decided that she would be tracing the Duggans to see which are my cousins before inviting them round for a reunion... phew que fin de la semana!
On friday after a much needed siesta (thursday is a big night out here) i ran off to palermo, in true porteno tradition i stuck to the rule of thumb that 1/2 late is a hora, and took a graffetti tour around the 3 districts of palermo (viejo/soho/proper) by way of the street art that appears there. It was quite incredible and a brilliant way to understand the issues facing argentinians today since the artists are in fact situated all over the demographic - in terms of age, sex and wealth they come from diverse backgrounds but, largely, are able to work alongside eachother happily.
Saturday got off to an affrontively early start in order to catch the 10am to Lobos (thankfully camilla told me reservations necessary and booked for me), which fortunately turned out to leave at 10.30 since i arrived at 10 needing to get out money. Not so fortunately lady luck had not frequented Serena who was coming adrenaline hunting too. 10.30 came and went and serena awoke to the not so blissful ignorance of my trail of messages. ahhh... although she arrived an hour after me nursing a particularly hateful `resaca´ as a souvenir from the previous nights adventures it wasn´t of any consequence as the paracadismo (hanggliding) was a very argentine outift and consequently we slept in the sunshine and ate under the canopy of parachutes and discoballs in the clubhouse until disturbed from our slumbers with a slew of thickly accented spanish from which we understood vamos and little else. I think it must of been the safety talk.
getting in the tiny little hawk and gradually climbing, watching the earth disappear intermittently as a cloud encompassed us was strange. at several points i thought it was time to bail out now; quite high enough. It was quite incredible to see somewhere so completely flat as well. a patchwork of fields broken only by an erratic display of lakes and rivers, the odd clump of forest as far as the eye could see. time to jump and remembering the simple tasks of jump 2nd, legs together, arch your back and hold onto the harness was pretty darn intellectually demanding! tumbling the 1st few seconds was simply surreal and so much so that you´re not afraid, after that it was amazing to voom towards terra firma and have absolutely no responsibility for pulling the zipcord. parachute out we circled about happily trying to catch the attention of Serena and chatting abouts superpowers and landing procedures (FAIL). Slight crash landing (no te preoccupades - todo es un el pericula) and greeted a similarly poor lander in the form of serena who was clasping a sick bag having experienced some midflight nausia! hysterical.
we then managed to miss 2 buses back to BA and instead found a really sweet traditional polo shop in charming, developed but traditional, Lobos where we clad up in bombatches and gaucho hats and bought presents for the boys back home at prices a tenth of london and a third of BA. Most impressively did a huge supermarket sweep for $30 of all the fresh local fruit&veg (amazing supper later with the contents; acelga, cebolla, ajo, zapallo, papas, huevos de pato YUM). the helados were a steal at $1/ball too but not as nice as freddos or chungas.
Despite two hours sleep i managed to arrive on time for the bike tour but since most failed in the task of rising at ungodly hours / had failed yet to make it into bed we didn´t head to Tigre as planned but around La Boca, San Telmo and Puerto Madryn instead working up a hefty appetite for a spoiling lunch at palermo hotspot mott. delicious and beautiful but so glad i dont live there as every shop was a tantalising prospect. i discovered Chungas, much better than Freddos and opted for mousse de maracuya which though pricey for a little thing was sublime, regretfully not quite as good as the pistachio that i probare pre purchase. totally exhausted I managed to stay awake to discuss the socialist agenda of Argentine politics preventing production and export of grain as well as the push for aggarian reform whilst Marina decided that she would be tracing the Duggans to see which are my cousins before inviting them round for a reunion... phew que fin de la semana!
No comments:
Post a Comment