After the gruelling plane trip over the Atlantic Ocean we finally touched down in Buenos Aires after spending a night over in Madrid, Spain. Our apartment in Buenos Aires has never been lived in before and everything looks new. The purpose for going to Buenos Aires was to take Spanish lessons. We start on Monday. Today we visited a market in Downtown Buenos Aires (BA). There was not a “Made in China” sticker in sight. Everything was hand made and Alannah bought a poncho. As it turned out there is a large supermarket close to our place so we often by groceries. What a treat! We will be here for about a month. Today I finally got to swim at the local sports club. Getting to use the pool is not as easy as one might think. First, before you even get to be in the building you have to buy a monthly pass. You then have to give that pass to the “boy” or the security guard who lets you through the turnstile. You then walk up a flight of stairs to the changing rooms. Most of the lockers are already locked and you are quite sure that there cannot be that many people already there before you. Anyway you find a locker and get changed. You look around for an entrance for the pool. There is no obvious way in. As it turned out the door masquerades as a fire exit. Joy! Once down at the deck I was asked for my ID, in Spanish. “Habla solomente Inglese!” I say with gusto. He says it again in broken English. I go get my card and I come back. I am then told to by a man in a grey lab coat to put my feet on a stool. He then proceeded to check my feet for some alien life-forms. Next he looked at my underarms. He did not find what he was looking for whether that was a good thing or not. The next thing he looked at was not surprising, my hair. After the O.K for the doc I then proceeded to the pool thinking that my ordeal was finished, it was not. Since I clearly was a gringo and did not speak a peep of Spanish the pool staff had called over probably the only person in the building who spoke English. She tried to explain that I could swim either in a class or by myself. I chose the second option. The swim itself was uneventful compared to the preparation!
1 week ago