Buenos Aires

Thursday 8 March 2007
On the flight from Miami to Buenos Aires I was even more excited than on the way to New York, fuelled by great conversation with my lovely Argentine travel mate, Carlidos who told me lots about the places to go.

Lee, Flavia and Jason (Lee´s brother) met me at the airport, Lee´s parents had arrived a few hours earlier and unfortunately Lee´s mother was in the airport hospital suffering problems with high blood pressure. She emerged after a little while and was taken home by her family to rest and recover. I jumped on the bus and headed into the city and found a hotel.

The hotel I´d selected from the guidebook was full, as were the next three on the block, but I found the Hotel Madrid and was able to escape the pouring rain. Almost immediately I fell asleep with the TV on and woke a few hours later to discover Argentina´s version of the Big Brother reality show. The only currency I had was US so I headed out to find a money changer, no luck, but I did find a plaza and wandered about looking at the stores and admiring the sights - stunned at how good looking all of the men were, hel-lo Argentina!! :D

Later in the evening I headed to Flavia´s parents house to join the celebrations for Flavia´s birthday. Greeted with kisses as I was introduced to each member of the family, we sat chatting and drinking wine, whilst posing for photos being taken by Flavia´s great uncle Lalo. I tried some empanadas - small pastries filled with beef or vegetables (ones I tried a few days later were filled with blue cheese and mozzarella: a-ma-zing!), then there was birthday cake - an apple flan and a meringue cake, the perfect desert - like a pavalova but much better with a layer of dulce de leche (a caramel type substance that the Argentines like to put on everything) - absolutely delicious. Afterwards we browsed through many many wonderful photos that Lalo and Lee had taken on a recent trip and a selection of pictures of Flavia as she grew up, Lalo is an incredible photographer.