Don't Worry Be Happy

Colonia was designated a World Heritage Site in 1995 and is an amazing blend of Spanish and Portugese influences. After a couple of weeks in the big city of Buenos Aires is was nice to see a different side of South America. The ferry across the Rio de la Plata to Uruguay took about 1.5 hrs and Colonia is very much a tourist destination although it didn't feel too 'touristy'. It's kind of like visiting Barkerville although it's not so much a display as it is a real place where people live. Most of the vehicles in town are very old and we were able to rent a golf cart to get around which was a really good idea except for the time Ross drove it into an area we couldn't get out of except by driving over a curb with a crowd watching and no doubt shaking their heads at the crazy driver. I pretended I didn't know him. Just as a side note - our dinner (nothing too fancy) cost $1107.00. Mind you that's Uruguayan pesos which are 1:7 to Argentinian pesos and...

It's now 1:00 am and the city is starting to come alive again. It was very strange but at about 11:30 the streets got very quiet, no couples strolling down them or cars roaring up them. Then about 11:40 the fireworks began. By midnight there were fireworks going off all across the city. An hour later and I can still hear the occasional loud bang right outside our apartment. Apparently, Christmas Eve is a huge celebration here with Christmas Day being just a minor holiday and a chance to recover from the night before. Although the main streets were quite busy until 6 or 7 pm the smaller stores were all closed up by about 4 or 5. We had our Hadfield traditional fondue (cheese followed by chocolate, not the usual meat) and managed to make do with the few things we had. The only thing missing was Mike! But we thought Sam made a worthwhile substitute :)

We're really enjoying having an apartment in Buenos Aires and having the time to explore the city. The apartment itself is quite small but has everything we need (except for the fondue pot we need for our Christmas Eve dinner). I don't think our first apartment in Vancouver was much bigger. Ross enjoying a cool one on the tiny deck. It's on the first floor which of course is the 2nd floor. Today we did a bunch of grocery shopping for the aforementioned fondue as well as Christmas dinner. Ross is going to cook up one of his specialties - Chicken Parmigina - for the 25th. I think Christmas Eve is more important than Christmas and someone told us the shops will close by mid afternoon tomorrow so we thought we'd get it done today. We also found incredibly cheap wine - about $3.00 (about $1 CDN) but we bought the better $10 bottle! We're doing a taste test against the more expensive $30.00 peso bottles (about $10). Buenos Aires has a huge metal flower sculpture tha...