Hotel Las Naciones Buenos Aires

... to my own devices at the hotel. I was tired, but determined to see a little of BA before I had to leave, so I had a little rest for an hour and then set off at lunchtime to see what I could see.

I did a big circle up towards Government House, where Eva Perón addressed the nation, and the Plaza de Mayo, before heading down to the Obelisk, and weaving my way back through the shopping district towards the Place de San Martin. Cecilia had carefully marked on the ...

... that provided we came back on the day of the game, two hours before kick-off we would get in quite easily.

Sunday came. Unfortunately, we couldn't even get past the first police barrier as the police had banned all match day tickets as they were worried about hooliganism. They were absolutely emphatic that there was no way of getting into the ground without a ticket.

As we went to walk away, the senior plain clothes officer called us back and handed ...

In the morning I took the lift down from my exclusive bedroom on the third floor and went for rather nice breakfast in the hostel restaurant. After this I decided to give Haley a call. The phone number actually worked; she put Troy on and we arranged to meet up in five minutes. By sheer coincidence Haley lives only two blocks down the road from my hostel. Once the pair had arrived we caught a bus to the Palermo district. This area is lovely. We went to an attractive cafe whose name ...

... stinks! So theres the first attempted mugging of the trip, and he ain't having nothing of mine!

We spent nearly 10days in Buenos Aires so this blog would be very long and boring if I detailed all, i'll just say we saw all the sights, San Telmo antiques market on sunday, went shopping on Florida street and saw live tango in the street. Went on a Tour to La Boca and around the Boca Juniors football stadium. A guy in Boca was very excited to meet someone from Wales, he ...

... les parents et Mimi mais pas vu ! Je me suis dit que comme ils étaient sénsé arriver vers 8H30, s'il m'avaient attendu (ce que j'avais dit de ne pas faire) ils seraient juste devant l'entrée. Bon, je prends donc un taxis (alors que ce n'est pas dans mes habitudes) pour pourvoir les rejoindre plus tôt et aller manger ensemble. J'arrive à l'hôtel Suipacha Inn et la j'explique que je suis la dernière à arriver et que toute la famille est là ! Une femme me répond ...

... to heal while in Buenos Aires. I don't know if one can ever 'announce' that he is 'healed' but I no longer feel broken as I had just a few weeks and months ago. There is joy, there is laughter, there is love. And there is a faith that I may not know what the future holds, but there is a good God with good things for me. I am a beautiful, woman who chooses to accept creativity, hope, healing and God's help unfolding my life. No. I didn't find Paris at all.

... it turned out I was to get none of that with these guys! It turned out that after a while we had bankrupted the supply of scotch on the plane but by that stage we didn't seem to care. I feel for the people around us who had to endure our frequent outbursts of laughter and loud voices.  I think we were the typical kind of people you generally would not want to be sitting near on plane when you're traveling over a long journey. In any case, it ...

... beef in the world and I can see why! We got a tip to eat in a local restaurant where we ate the best steak we have both ever eaten with some potatos and a bottle of wine, all for less than 8 pounds sterling each. You could really taste the difference! The knife cut thru the stake like butter and I even ate the fat (which i would never dream of doing back home!). Another good snack was the Empandaers. These are sold everywhere you go! They are little ...

... The menu itself is also traditional and it focuses on meat (naturally), there are all different cuts of meat available, from biffe de lomo (tenderloin) to biffe de chorizo (sirloin), to asado di tiro (ribs) or even kidney or intestines. All served up with a large bowl of chimicuri (sauce) to dip your meat in! If your not in the mood for cow flesh , you can have chicken, calamari, or even just a salad, but you should probably go for the meat as thats what it does best. If all ...

... our descent into Buenos Aires.
What a brilliant start to my adventure.
The flight deck looked like this:

Arriving in Buenos Aires was a massive shock. Seven rubbish language lessons in Sydney didn't prepare me for South America in the slightest.
Somehow I battled my way through the Airport, found a bus and rode for 2 hours towards central Buenos Aires, clinging to my bags while the sneaky Argentineans behind me worked out a way to ...