The Weekend

Well, I hear you ask, how was the weekend?

Well my dears, it was an interesting experience. I got there at 10:55pm, only 25 mins late (pretty good since we drove through a marvellous lightning and rain storm) but what's 25 mins between friends - enough to have my host running up and down the station convinced I'd changed my mind and wasn't coming at all. Luckily I have more patience than him and waited for his re-appearance just five minutes after I arrived.

From there a short taxi ride to his home - ummm... it would have been a short taxi ride if we hadn't got lost (I tell you all those packed-sand roads look exactly the same at midnight after a rainstorm and at one point I thought I'd have to get out and push as the taxi was getting mired in the mud) - some beer and a long, long chat deep into the night.

One unfortunate outcome of this chat was that I discovered my host to be a practiced debater but holding opinions on which we have absolutely no agreement. For example: the reason the tax on cigarettes and tobacco in the UK is so high is because the British Government is in the pocket of the Mafia. This means the Mafia are instructing the government to maintain the high taxes so that the great British public will continue buying blackmarket cigarettes (which according to my host account for 62% of all tobacco consumption in the UK) supplied by the Mafia. Now I know it sounds plausible but I have great difficulty in believing this (and I like conspiracy theories). Anyway we agreed to disagree (or I refused to discuss the issue any further, whichever version you prefer) and finally we went to bed at 4am.

The next day we did nothing; walked to the bakery for medialunas, sat and chatted, went to the supermarket for food, played a board game he has invented - good but not really my thing and in the evening we walked down to the beach, then onto his local bar where I met M&F who run the bar and J&S (who I think are a couple but mine host says no). Good discussion including how Eire benefitted from the EU and how it has mainly avoided the problems of the UK, the relative virtues of New York and BsAs, what I do for a living and where I'm off to next. J also teaches English although he isn't trained to do so (A "I speak the language therefore I must be able to teach it even though I don't know why we use the words we do in the order we do and how to spot, correct and prevent mistakes" type of teacher).

Early to bed that night and up early the next morning for a bus trip into town to buy my ticket home (next time I'll get a return), more medialunas, more chat, a short walk around the area, a skim of the local free-ads paper (my host is trying to buy a car) then back onto the bus for the journey into Mar del Plata.

My journey home was a bit confusing. We got stuck in a traffic jam and then suddenly the coach did a u-turn and went back the way we'd come (very worrying). Turns out there was a demonstration on our motorway so we were diverted. Go into the bus terminal only an hour late but luckily picked up a taxi immediately and was home before midnight (just).

Sorry to tell you that there are no photos. I took my camera but the batteries died on me - maybe next time.

Getting off the bus in BsAs was like walking into warm chicken soup whereas Mar del Plata was wonderfully fresh. The heat and humidity haven't let up since I've been back and I'm sitting here in a puddle of my own juices. I'm back to two showers a day just to get rid of the stickiness. I had planned on going to the gym tonight but just couldn't be bothered - maybe tomorrow.