March 13, 2006
Buenos AiresDue to such a late dinner, it was time to finally catch some sleep. As a result, we arrived late to the ferry terminal for the first ride to Colonia, Uruguay. After sorting it all out, we figured it would cost us about $60 US to visit Uruguay for about 5 hours. Not worth it. So we ended up doing a GIANT walking tour of B.A. in the 80+ degree heat. I loved it! Today was by far the warmest day yet, but at times it got pretty heavy due to all the humidity and street pollution. We visited 3 primary areas of the city--Puerto Madero (ports), Plaza de Mayo (governmental area), and Microcentro (business and shopping district). The highlight of the day was by far the visit to Teatro Colon, their world-famous theater. Built in 1908, the building is magnificent, inside and out. You'd expect a work like this to be in Italy, not in Argentina. The theater itself seats about 3,000 people and is in the shape of a horseshoe on the inside. Terri is most impressed with the curtains, which all still are original and nearly 100 years old. The main curtain was 1.5 tons, and there's a fire door curtain that weighs 3 tons. They say the room is acoustically perfect, and is in the top 3 in the world. People on stage to this day do not even use microphones or amplification for sound, as you can hear even talking from anywhere inside. The tour was actually great, as we visited a the balcony, orchestra rows, and then the underground maze of rehearsal rooms, prop rooms, and inner workings of the theater that went 4 stories deep. You'd have to see it to understand, but it seemed more a work of art than an actual functioning theater, all the way from gold trimmed rooms to painted mural ceilings. Unfortunately, the next performance is in a week...Grabbing a smoothie in an adjacent cafe, all of a sudden the opera music got really loud. HELLO, turn down the speakers! Then we realized that one of the waitresses was belting it out! She was awesome. We stayed for 2 songs, as I've never seen anyone sing that loud, so perfectly, and from about 2 feet away at times. Terri got a great video of it on her ultra-cool camera as well... After a bit more walking and cleaning up, we headed over to grab some Italian for dinner. It was amazing. Terri had some pasta in cream sauce. Myself, lasagna filled with filet mignon, ham, sausage, and spinach. We also tasted a few bottles of wine to attempt to bring back the right kind. A corner grocery store has some bottles priced at about 5 pesos (less than $2). Not that it has to be cheap, but things are ridiculous in the stores...Again, off to bed. Tomorrow is our last day...
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