Notes from the Big City

Here we are in Buenos Aires, doing Joni’s paperwork. Now he has an English birth certificate and a passport, and we’re heading back to Cordoba on the night-bus in a couple of hours. We discovered on the night-bus coming here that we could all have a reasonable trip if Joni slept in the footwell; I just had to remember not to stand on him. We continue to be jolly grateful that babies in Argentina can be breast-fed more or less wherever is convenient; our favourite places so far have been the foyer of the British embassy, and the steps to Harrods; what a fantastic culture.
As always we have made the most of the trip and enjoyed visiting people and fitted in a bit of touristing here and there. Sunday afternoon we went on a long explore, taking in the nature reserve, which is the one oasis of relative calm in Buenos Aires. On route we went to see the latest phase at Puerto Madero, where the old port buildings have been redeveloped into shops, flats and restaurants, “Docklands”-style. I’m not a city-scape connoisseur, but I was impressed by the way in which they had used the character-filled old red-brick dock buildings to recreate Stevenage, through the addition of grubby concrete verandas and balconies.

One experience that we had promised ourselves was a trip to the Indian Restaurant. There are two Indian restaurants in Argentina, both in Buenos Aires, and Indian food is one of the tastes we have been missing from England, curry being our national dish and all. It wasn’t cheap, but it was definitely worth it. The proprietor is from Jaipur, but he has been in Argentina for about twenty years. He wins an award for the best quote we have heard in a while… “Argentinian taste in food is very primitive: Ten thousand years ago, man was throwing meat on a fire, and here there hasn’t been much evolution since then.” Actually we like the food here, but we will also look forward to another fine curry when we’re next down this way.

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