Buenos Aires

The city of Buenos Aires is beautiful. It's so clean, European like, very green, cars don't honk :) We stayed in the hotel right in the center of the action. The owner of the hotel is Russian, so we made her learn Russian again :) We had a stupid moment in the hotel. The electricity in the room works from a card. You put the card into some reader, and the electricity gets turned on. We put it in, and only the light in the bathroom works, so we asked for a technician. He came in the morning, all dressed up. Then he pushed the card more firmly into the reader, and tada! All the light is on ... we stood there .... uuuu... thank you. A little bit embarrassing :)) But what? It's not completely our fault, how come in the bathroom the light worked!!?? ;)
We walked around, and there is nothing but cafes cafes and more cafes!! All the stores sell cakes and chocolates, and somehow everybody in Buenos Aires is slim and not even chubby! There are so many tango shows in the city, and of course we have to go!! On the street a bunch of people are selling tickets, so we went to ask in one of the agencies. Not only we got the show for $40 cheaper, they also included a free city tour with it.
In the evening we went to a restaurant, and every time we go to a restaurant we order nothing but beef! And I have no idea why, they don't do anything with the beef except grill it, but for the whole 2 weeks that I've been to BA it has never tasted the same. And every time I took a bite ... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm O.M.G.!!!! I must be in heaven!!! It is soooo good !! The slices are thick, juicy, and easily sliceable with a spreading knife! You know how in cooking shows, they cook something, then try it at the end, and do the mmmmm sound? Well, I tell you, they're lying, they haven't tried the Argentinian stake !! :)) In the restaurant, there was a saxophone musician, playing saxophone to a popular music. It was so beautiful, that we had to order a desert just to stay there longer :))
Guess what?? Bon Jovi is coming to Buenos Aires !!! This is one of my favorite singers !! And last time he was in BA was 15 years ago... this MUST be fate :)) We went to the ticket master kind of office, and there are almost no tickets left, 2 good seats on the side of the stadium, and everything else in the front rows, we got the side seats. The tickets themselves where $125, and the ticketmaster fee was $40 !!! YYYYEEAAHHHH !! We're going to Bon Jovi !!! super exciting !!! :)))
The main street in BA is 140 meters wide, and is the widest street in the world. There are 4 lights to cross it, and good luck crossing it in 1 time. Only once we crossed it in 1 try, when it was cold outside, and we didn't want to wait :) There are 2 roads going 1 way. 3 lanes on one road, and 9 lanes in the other road!
Next day we went to the city tour. It was so boring, that I couldn't wait to get back. I can't believe people would pay for $17 for it !! BA is famous for street protests, and the day we took the tour of course one had to happen. The bus was going in all the zigzags that it could to avoid the traffic, but pretty much during the whole tour we were stuck in it. We stopped in Plaza de Mayo which is where the pink house is (similar to the white house in USA). We were given 10 minutes to run around the house, then we visited the famous soccer stadium with a coca cola commercials. The colors of coca cola are blue and red, which are the colors of the enemy team, so the coca cola signs were changed to black and white :) Then we stopped at caminito which is an Italian neighborhood of colorful houses, and finally came back. In the morning we went for our own city tour. It's so beautiful. All the buildings are restored, and there is a very interesting mixture of old and new. There is one amazing old church with new glass windows in it, another big old house, with a new tall house growing right in the middle of it.
This day we moved hotels. In our previous hotel they charged $40/night which was a good price, but then in 2 days, the price jumped to $100. In the evening we went to the tango show. We all had a tango class with a funny teacher who was weeping and giving high 5s to everybody, we learned 3 combinations, and then combined them. For 1 hour beginners class it was good, but the thing is, it's not right, you don't learn tango by combinations, the guy is supposed to lead the girl. Then we had dinner and watched the show. The show was very nicely done with dances, humour, singing, folk singing and dancing. One singer was singing "don't cry for me Argentina" in Spanish of course, with so much power and passion that I had tears in my eyes :)
We also went on a very relaxing boat tour in a near by town of Tigre, to the government house tour, and a flee market.
Going to the Bon Jovi concert !!!!! Whooohoooo !!! The tickets were for 5pm. We were waiting for the bus, and it just wasn't coming. So we took a taxi, got there, and the stadium is only maybe 10% full. We were wondering what had happened, and why in the ticket office they told us that there are almost no seats available. Waiting and waiting, and still no people, 3 hours later some band started playing, nobody's paying attention to them, people are still coming. 4 hours later it finally started. But I tell you. This 4 hours wait, was much easier than a 4 hour opera in Rio :) All the stadium was full !! Not one seat empty. We were doing waves and waving, or singing. Any time he would smile, and the whole stadium would go crazy :)) Nobody understands English, cause when he talked, there wasn't much reaction, but everybody knew all the words to all his songs :) and then they would leave and come back, and leave and come back. He has such a good and strong voice. There was this one song, where he let the public sing, and he's like louder, louder, and we just can't. The whole stadium in singing and it's so quiet. And then he started, with all his strength, I really don't know how it's possible ... so loud !! Our places were relatively close to the stage, but still we were looking at the big screens, and I thought since I barely go to the concerts anyway, so next time, front row!! On the way back, the taxi said, there are no buses so they charge 100 pesos. No thank you, I'd rather take the one for 30 pesos.
There is this one very famous cafe, it's in all the books, everybody knows about it, and I think it's the oldest cafe in BA. We went there, and there is a huge line to get in only to drink coffee or tea. We got the tickets to the tango show, and it was so boring! I didn't like the singers voice, there was no room on the stage for dancers, and I got bored after 5 minutes. I would've left at intermission, but decided to be bored 40 minutes more :)
Mom already learned Spanish, and gets along in the restaurants pretty well. She asks is this bbeeee eeeeee eee? He answers, no, it's oink oink. Very well understood :)))
Went to a tango practice, because everybody dances in there, so I figured that there will be less couples and I'll dance more than in a club. This turned out to be true, except that most of the people dancing tango are 60+. One grandpa asked me to dance, seriously, I don't know how he's still standing. We danced, and he asked me if I'd like him to take me back to my seat, and all the seats are around a dance floor which is 5 meters in diameter, and my seat is like 2 meters away, I have no idea what to answer and at the same time I don't want to make him feel uncomfortable or stupid, but I kinda got stuck with my reply :) Then I danced with actually someone who's 50- , and when he left, there was this 77 year old officer kind of grandpa. Usually I danced on a distance, and he's like, that's not how you dance tango, and pulled me up very very close. It was actually much easier to dance :) He was so strict though. Why did you move left, don't you feel the lead? I didn't move you left !!! YES SIR !!! But then during the break, he took care of me, brought me water :) Then he danced around the circle of the dance floor, and was bragging to everybody, look at her, it's only her 3rd time, she's from Canada! Look how she dances ! :)) I'm not going tango anymore! It's not fun walking back and forth, and yeah .. maybe I'll start dancing it again when I turn 50 :)
I met a really nice guy from Israel in the hostel. He made a short 20 minute film which won awards and now is shown around the world, and Israeli consulate pays for his plane tickets to go to the premier of his movie! Pretty cool !!
After a week, I got tired of Buenos Aires, people are way too rude in there. So all I did was sit in the hostel and caught up on my blogs.
Going to Toronto for 1 month+ !
I flew through JFK. The plane was so huge, I think it's the largest plane I've been on. It had 9 seats per row, and 50 rows. We had pretty good dinner and lots and lots of movies, but the seats didn't recline at all, and I couldn't really fall asleep. In JFK there was a huge lineup for passport control for about an hour, so I got out my book and started reading. 1 hour passed by, and I have my flight in an hour. I called the lady who stood there, and told her that I have a connection in an hour, and if it's possible to move to the front of the line. She told me that she was already going around, calling connection, connection. I said that I'm sorry, I didn't hear her. She said, well of course not, you are reading the book ! OMG ! That is so rude ! What am I supposed to do for an hour, stand and count flies?? They don't even fly in here !!
In Toronto, it took 10 minutes to get from a plane into the terminal. Super fast ! In the waiting area all the people were all by themselves. It was so strange to see that.
Overall impression on Toronto: people are stressed out, rude and gray with no life in their eyes, in a constant hurry, and too much by the book. The good thing is that none of my things got stolen yet :))) And fall colours are incredibly beautiful :)

pix at http://picasaweb.google.com/evadikushin501/BuenosAires#