“Please be a traveler, not a tourist. Try new things, meet new people, and look beyond what’s right in front of you. Those are the keys to understanding this amazing world we live in.” – Andrew Zimmern.
I am not going to pretend Nathan and I have transformed from tourist to traveller over night but the last few days has been about taking time to stop and appreciate Buenos Aires! It has meant taking time to sit and read blogs and many other forums online to find out what this city has to offer past the lonely planet guide! Wow did we hit the jack pot!
We firstly found the concert hall in Belgrano, (the neighbourhood next to us) was hosting the National Symphony Orchestra on Friday evening and that they were playing pieces by Luis Gianneo, Robert Schumann and Nathan's favourite composer Dimitri Shostakovich. I know very little about classical music but I know Nathan's favourite composer as he was the reason behind me taking Nathan to Moscow as his Christmas present in Feb 2012 as that is where he is from! Anyway this concert was free but we had to go and line up to get a ticket. So at 4pm on Friday we left to walk to the concert hall. Upon arrival we saw a slow moving line of locals going into the hall being issued with a ticket and leaving, we joined the line and sure enough we were handed our free concert ticket for 8pm. Free! Free! Free! So downtown there were thousands of tourists, Americans & Europeans alike who were paying £200 a ticket to watch a tango show (which i am sure would also be amazing but we cannot afford) and here we were with two free tickets in our hand for what was going to be a pretty spectacular evening.
The concert was really amazing, the music was excellent and I was absolutely fascinated by the conductor! Throughout the performance I made a mental note of all the questions I wanted to ask Nathan afterwards, one of which I found particularly funny to imagine. When conductors sit their grade exams do they conduct in a room with just them and the examiner. The thought entered my head of the tiny practice rooms I would have my grade exams in for the oboe and the thought of the conductor in there with one examiner and waving his hands around was rather amusing! Probably to any of you reading this that have an ounce of musical knowledge you probably think this sounds ridiculous!
Another thought which lasted rather a while was the size of the instruments and how some of the orchestra could pop theirs into their backpack and pop to the pub after but the lady playing the harp and the double bass players could no way do that! I am sure choosing an instrument that they could carry to the pub after wasn't a deal bracker when they started at aged 5 but I bet it is a right pain now! Anyway I spent about 1 hour and 50 mins appreciating the music and being truly amazed with how talented the musicians were but also with many thoughts like this running through my mind. I am sure if Nathan was writing about the performance he would be able to give you a lot more details about the music itself but for now all I can say is that we both left full of it and talking about it all the way home.
Saturday I posted some photos on Facebook with the tag line 'A day at the Palermo Races' to which my brother Peter replied 'Travelling they said, not a holiday. At the races... I've seen it all!' Which like many of Pete's comments, texts and status' made me laugh especially as again it was FREE!! So the second event in less than 24 hours that due to a little research on our behalf turned out to be another great free event.
So from 1pm - 10pm the horses race every 30 minutes on a beautiful track in our neighbourhood of Palermo. The building is stunning and lots of little pop up stalls line the sidewalks selling cheese (expensive as I mentioned in my last blog post), olives, olive oil etc and food vans selling paella and fried calamari smelling delicious however being the travellers on a daily budget we had our apples an water in our backpacks so I cannot comment on whether they smelt as good as they tasted.
Nathan and I sat on the steps and each race chose a horse and cheered it on, no actually bets were made we just played against each other. It was a great atmosphere watching all the families, couples, friends and businessman making their bets, chatting away and cheering when they won. We stayed until the sun started to disappear and the winter breeze took over and then headed back. Another great free day!
Ok so the final piece of research led us to spending Sunday at what we have been referring to as 'Jesus Park' but is actually called Tierra Santa'. This is not a free activity and cost £6 each to get in but as soon as I read about it I had to go and as soon as I saw a Sunny day I was there! The place was insane, it is a reconstruction of Jerusalem in Jesus' time (not a historically accurate one). It gives you a sense you are walking around a little village and you go in and out of little caves and houses.
Even though this sounds like a tourist park it really was not, it is not in any guide books and there are no signs for it anywhere. It is tucked away at the north of the city and is pretty difficult to find unless you are actually looking for it. Nathan and I appeared to be the only foreigners there! We had a fun day and enjoyed looking around, although it was rather strange and like nothing I had even seen before!