Dancing in the street

Oh my, oh my...

Today was the last full day of my parents visit (big boo hoo).

This morning my dad and I walked down to the River Plate stadium hoping for a tour - and they said no! We don't know why but there were no tours today. There was some sort of filming going on but absolutely no interest in helping a lonely tourist see the stadium. We walked around the periphery and found the gate to their car park open so we strolled in, up to the roof to get a look behind the scenes. We didn't sneak in and we didn't hide our presence. We managed to hang around for about ten minutes before a security guard arrived. Of course, being Argentine he insisted on talking to my dad, even though my dad answered him in English and referred the guard to me - I might as well have been invisible. He escorted us off the premises, wanting to know how we had got in. Finally I was able to demonstrate (polite hand gestures) and the guard gave the man on the gate a bit of a bollocking. We walked off laughing and my dad has changed his allegiance to Boca.

Lunch was had at my stand-by restaurant (ie this is my stand-by if I don't know where to go) because the steak restaurant was closed (second boo hoo). It was a long, lazy lunch and thoroughly enjoyable.

Oh, and my dad's solved my studying problem. I have a lot of books to read before the end of the month and I don't want to stay in the flat while I do this (I'll only use the computer). During the stroll home after lunch, my dad showed us a really old tree in my local park - one I had totally missed - and all around its railings there are tables and benches. It's shady, quiet and outside - perfect.

My dad loves this park: there's a dog compound where the dog walkers take their charges for exercise (up to twelve dogs to one walker); a bandstand where people learn tango; and the tree. My dad keeps threatening to learn to dance tango, terrifying my mum (huge backstory I won't bore you with), but he has become quite a twinkle toes - the pavements here are so bad that everyone keeps tripping up so my dad has become very quick on his feet!

The day ended with wine and my dad beating me at backgammon (again!).