Christmas in Buenos Aires
Ever since I left Ireland 6 months ago I’ve been planning Christmas. The only problem with my plan was that it kept changing every few days. I wanted to go to a beach, wanted to go home and wanted to stay in Nicaragua all at the same time, In the end I decided to meet up with two people I worked with in Nicaragua, Christian and Ylva.
The next problem with Christmas was agreeing what day to celebrate it, Ylva is Swedish and they celebrate on the 24th, same day as the Argentinians. Christian and I were avid campaigners for the 25th. But as we were in the area we decided to follow the locals and so signed up to a dinner with our fellow hosteliers. One of whom, Richard, I kept asking if he was excited about Christmas, and had he any plans for it. To which he always politely informed me he was Jewish. Took me about half an hour to forget and ask again.
So the eveniing of the 24th we all got our party clothes on and headed up to the terrace on the roof of our hotel, next to the 5×2 metre swimming pool. As is traditional in Argentina, dinner was not served until 10pm. And annoyingly enough, the lamb everyone had been talking and getting excited about didn’t make an appearance until an hour later, when everyone was finishing up. We’d a very international Christmas dinner, with contingents from Brazil, England and the USA, one Swede, one Irish and a few we never quite figured out.
As the night rolled on BA turned into a bit of a war zone. Firecrackers and mini explosives went off at 1.5 second intervals. Some of them being set off by kids on the street below us, and some of the explosions happened feet from our faces.
This went on until all the little children had run out of life-endangering material. When we realised there would be no more entertainment, we ventured off into the night, to see how the Argentinians were spending Christmas morning. We were informed a nightclub called ‘Sasha’ was the place to be seen. After what seemed like a very long taxi ride we changed our minds about hitting the dancefloor, the food had been a bit too plentiful for us, and sheepishly asked the driver to take us home again.
Christmas Day itself was a much lower key affair. The afternoon was spent chilling out until Ylva and I decided it was time to go in search of food. The only place we could find open on the 25th was a pizza place, so my Chritsmas dinner of 2007 was a Napolitiana pizza, with a Coke, eaten whilst watching The OC. Strange Christmas, but certainly fun. I think just about eveyone had moments of wishing they weren’t there, but everyone I spoke to said if they couldn’t be at home for Christmas, it was a fine good alternative.
There wasn`t much of a Christmassy feel to Beunos Aires, but we made the most of it!
One of the few trees we found.
We tried to make the room feel at little more like December-time.
I think she was qute proud of our work.
At Christmas time, theft can be a real annoyance. So do what this guy did and build a boz around your home!
Christmas is the time to be cheesy. Us running through a meadow:
Also a time for loving our neighbour….
The dinner table
Tags: 10 - Argentina, Argentina, Buenos Aires, christmas, Travel
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