March 14, 2017

Today was an interesting day; we had a chance to visit the downtown shopping street, Florida Avenue. To get there was possibly the longest taxi ride of my life. Although the distance to downtown is only around 7km away, it took us 1h to get there because of traffic. Our taxi ride was quite terrifying since Argentinian traffic does not follow the same order as Canadian traffic. As Daniel put it, our drivers seemed to be driving in “all lanes at the same time”. Blinkers were never used to change lanes and lane markings were merely guidelines.

As for Florida ave, the narrow walking street was fairly busy, lined with expensive clothes stores such as Nike and Adidas and sprinkled with small kiosks selling souvenirs. Every few metres, a person would shout, “Cambio, cambio!” – change your money. We walked into the the Gallaria, a shopping mall. Its Victorian architecture fit in with the rest of the buildings around it. In the centre of the mall was a Sistine chapel remake and a fountain. There were many familiar stores to us such as Timberlands and Lacoste, but to our dismay, they were a great deal more expensive than in Ottawa. For lunch we had delicious empanadas and for desert a few of us went to Freddo, an ice cream chain that almost tops Stella Luna for the “world’s most expensive ice cream” award. The smallest size is very small (2/3 the size of a Stella Luna small) and costs $6CAD. We walked around a bit then attempted- and failed- to hail taxis outside the shopping mall for all 20 of us. A few people managed to get taxis and the rest of us headed to a bigger street and successfully got taxis.

At the hotel, we rehearsed our pieces and went swimming. Today was the warmest day so far 26 degrees in the afternoon.

Dinner was pizza at the Kentucky pizzeria, that we went to on Friday. Ordering skills have greatly improved since Friday, most of us can get by ordering food with minimal help from Sofi.

After dinner came quite a strange ordeal. Arlene, Minh Anh, Sofi and I got into a taxi, on our way to a tango show. The show was downtown, close to the “Casa Rosada” (Argentinian Parliament). Two taxis had already left (an all boys taxi and the Rentenaars). As soon as we got into the taxi, the driver started rambling at us in Spanish. Sofi was quick to translate: “he says that all the roads to the tango cafe are blocked!”. We kept talking to him and eventually understood what was going on: there was a protest going on downtown that was blocking many the main street (Avenido 9 de Julio). “Well can’t we walk?” we asked. The answer, to our dismay, was no, the rioters were too violent. He warned us that the protesters would cut our bags open and steal our phones. We decided to turn back, and met a few others at the hotel. As it turned out, the boys’ group and the Retenaars had made it there safely, and had walked a few blocks to the cafe when the cabs could no longer get through. At the hotel, those of us that were left (aka all the girls) gathered in Sarah’s room for a girl’s card game night. We drank matte (traditional Argentinian tea), ate snacks and talked. Although we are sad that we missed the show, the tickets Judy (who was at the show) managed to change our tickets so that we can go Thursday night, so at least we are not missing out. (Now begins a part written by the boys who went to the show)The tango show was nothing short of spectacular. It was a great way for us to explore the Argentinian culture and traditions. On the way back to the hotel, the stellae guys took taxis, which led to the “epic taxi race” between the senior stellae guys and the intermediate stellae guys. The taxis were neck in neck all the way to the hotel. Once the taxis got to the hotel, all the guys sprinted out of their taxis, and ran up the stairs at such a fast rate to see who would get to the ninth floor first. In the end, the senior stellae guys came on top as Austin took the elevator instead of walking. They celebrated by taking the W and think that the intermediates are sore losers.

A.F.