Tango!

Another walking day in beautiful Buenos Aires. Cloudy and a little cooler, so wandering was much les sweaty. Today we headed in the opposite direction to see the Obelisk, a very tall, 67 metres, cement pointy thing that was erected to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city. It is quite impressive. Continuing on, we stopped at Tango Porteno and booked a dinner show complete with a pick up from our hotel and a lesson. Our objective was the Gallerias Pacifica, where we decided only the rich folks could afford to shop. I did manage to find a sale and a gorgeous black handbag is now mine! I did find that leather is a good buy here and pretty reasonably priced.....just saying! And handbags are always a useful souvenir. There are pedestrian only streets where the real people shop, lots of interesting things, we looked at a craft market where one vendor was actually making enamel on copper jewellery. Very pretty. Back to the hotel for a rest and a spruce up and on to our adventure of the day! We had so much fun and did learn some basic Tango steps. The amazing part of this evening was meeting 2 couples from home. An older couple from Lorette, who are spending 2 months wandering around South America, and a couple from White Ridge leaving today for a two week cruise on an ice breaker to Antactica. We had dinner and watched the show with them, exchanged emails, so hope to keep in touch. They are very big travellers and have lots of stories. It is truly a small world. Dinner was delicious, empanadas, steak, and three yummy desserts. Plus all the wine you could drink. And we did! The show was lovely, lots of moody music and amazing dancing. The taxi home took 5 minutes and we got to Skype with Dena and Jessica to say Happy Birthday. We are having a wonderful holiday here and have found the Argentines to be very nice and helpful to tourists. The architecture is so interesting, with lots of wrought iron balconies, gargoyles, carvings and parks everywhere.

Beautiful Buenos Aires

A big walking day here in downtown BA. According to the GPS we walked 8 kms this morning from our hotel to the Mercado San Telmo. Lots of fruit and vegetables with antiques and various shops. We bought a souvenir, a painted Spanish sign for the kitchen "La Cocina". By this time we were exhausted because of the time change so back to our place for a nap. This city is great for wandering, except for the crumbled sidewalks. I had to buy a walking stick to hold me up! In the afternoon we walked to see the National Congress, a very beautiful building. Everywhere along the streets are sidewalk cafes, we stopped for lunch and a giant beer in a one litre bottle, and we drank it all! So far we plan to stay in tonight and seek out Tango tomorrow.

Buenos Aires

We are safely in our hotel,nice place, has Wifi, close to shops and food. It is hot and busy, very fast, crazy traffic. We are totally exhausted so plan to seek out some wine and snacks then sleep for many hours!

São Paulo, Brazil

We are sitting in the airport with 4 lovely Francophones from Winnipeg who are on the cruise with us! It is such a small world....Our journey has been a bit stressful, the flight was late leaving Winnipeg due to a small malfunction. This put us in late to Chicago, so we raced through the airport and just made the flight! We hope our luggage will get there. It is HOT here and humid. More news later when we get to Buenos Aires.

On the Road Again! South America

This morning we are getting ready to leave for another Grand Adventure! This is what Princess calls an extra special cruise like the one we are taking from Buenos Aires around the Horn. It is going to be an excellent adventure, with side trips to Antarctica and Macchu Pichu. We are booked into the lowest, cheapest cabin, right down in steerage! But we will be very close to the best coffee on the ship and not too far from the dining room. Our adventure begins in the Riva Urban Lofts Hotel in Buenos Aires after a 24 hour flying marathon. We leave Winnipeg and stop in Chicago and São Paulo, Brazil. Probably we will just collapse the first night. We will be seeking Tango demonstrations and Mike has agreed to try a lesson!!! We will see.... We board our ship the Star Princess on Monday Feb 25, so anyone wanting to see where we are can follow on the bridge cam, accessed on the Princess site, princess.com. I will try to Blog when there is something interesting to report. Laurel

Bath, Devon and Grand Princess.....Ship Ahoy

Leaving Wales was a little sad, we had such a wonderful time with Elinor and Paul. They live in such a beautiful place and are so hospitable. Our drive through the little lanes and sheep fields was so fun and a little scary. We had a good trip on the train to Bath, and once there we got a great central hotel courtesy of the tourist info centre. We saw the Roman Baths, what an interesting annd huge structure. Those Romans really lived a good life. Dinner in a pub and a walk around the most unique crescents in England. VERY expensive real estate. Next day another wander and then a bus tour to Stonehenge, where I found that the Stones had shrunk since 1970. Still very impressive and worth a visit.

We decided to spend our last three days in Devon so we booked into a nice B&B in Torquay, where we relaxed and visited Dawlish, where Nikki and went to see her grandma in 1979, what a beautiful little village.

Boarded our ship after a short train trip and an overnight in Southampton. So far, we have met some nice people and some serious jerks...takes all kinds to make a world, I guess.

More later......

Wales

We think Wales may be paradise! Our accommodation in Carmarthen was located in the centre of the town, surrounded by pubs and shopping. We rented a tiny little car and drove out to see Nant Llwyd, where Elinor and Paul and Dennis (German long haired pointer, awesome deaf dog) live. It is so peaceful and beautiful, they are lucky. Their rental barn is nicer than most people's houses, with a view that looks over the hills and fields. The neighboring sheep are plentiful and the rescue chickens were sadly decimated by the local fox. They went from a flock of six down to three. Elinor supplies eggs to the guests of the barn and treats the chickens almost as pets. Paul works in a job where he travels hundreds of miles every week so he is happy to end up in such a peaceful place. We had a wonderful chatty dinner out on Friday night and enjoyed every minute, even the drive through the Welsh countryside at night!

After a little shopping we took a local bus out to the Welsh National Botanical Garden, where it turned out to be kids day. Fun! It is a very interesting place, has a huge greenhouse where they replicate a dry habitat that has Australian and African plants.

Our trip to Bath by two trains was easy and the tourist office found us a nice place to stay near all the sights. We toured the Roman Baths yesterday, so interesting, then a pub dinner before collapsing exhausted.

Today we are off to Stonehenge and tomorrow to Torquay, Devon for three days of rest and relaxation before boarding the ship.