Cumparsa

We've just got back from Uruguay. Montevideo is alot slower, and friendlier, than BsAs. Near the port, there's almost literally a policeman on every corner, and you only have to stand there looking mildly bemused for them to come over and offer help.

It's also on a peninsula, so there's water on three sides. It was nice to see the sea again, which you never really can in Buenos Aires (well, strictly speaking it's the river, but it's basically the Atlantic Ocean). The place is full of dilapidated Art Deco architecture, which is pretty cool. And some really reallyugly buildings too. We were staying near the Palais de something or other, which was, according to hour host, built on the site of the confiteria where Firpo adapted Rodriguez's La Cumparsita from a march to a tango.

Interestingly, we also came near to having an opportunity to see the 'Carnival Callings' in Montevideo - this is a parade of carnival teams down a main street, all extremely flamboyant, dressed in team colours, and accompanied by booming Candombe. It turns out that the word for one of these teams is cumparsa, and so a small one would be una cumparsita. (the reason we only came close to seeing this instead of actually seeing it is that unbeknownst to us, and it seems, our host, you had to buy a ticket to be allowed in to the streets they'd closed off).

Our hotel room cost $1040 Uruguayan Pesos for two nights, which I was quite alarmed about. Until I discovered that this was about $50NZ. It took a little while to get used to seeing 3-digit prices on menus! The hotel we stayed stayed in was originally built by some president or other who built it for his mistress.

There's less tango in Montevideo, but we still managed to dance the night away for both the nights we were there. One of the milongas we went to (Lo de Margot) is just somebody's house. But almost every night, she has tango music playing until dawn and people just come over and dance. It was a nice intimate atmosphere, and dancing was generally very elegant, although a very open embrace - looking very Chichoish at times. Alot of music I'd never heard before, which was nice too.

We went to an outdoor milonga, where they just basically dance in the plaza. Pretty cool.

We also went to a terrible 'pick up' joint where they play tango in between sets of cumbia ('pick up' is the same in spanish - levantarse - strange what idioms are cross-linguistic). It was a live band, who were far too loud, but what made the whole experience seem far worse was that we'd gotten up at 6:30 that morning to catch the ferry (some 4 hours earlier than normal!), and had only one meal the entire day. I had low blood sugar before we even left the hotel, so I was losing it by the time we got to this dodgy pickup joint at midnight. I was desperately hungry, couldn't hear anything because of the noise, and couldn't understand what I could hear, so I looked completely dazed and confused, to the great and constant amusement of D who was showing us around.

With more space on daancefloors, and without the 'attitude' of being the world's 'heart' of tango that ou can encounter in BsAs, it was actually quite a pleasant place to dance.

Correo

We weren't at home when Correo Argentino came to deliver a package on Friday, so I had to go collect it from the international post office. They like beaurocracy here. I've noticed that most things you do involve an unneccesary number of people. Buying a book, for example, always means someone to put it in a bag for you, and someone else to take your money. I knew this, but I didn't really know it until now.

When I got to the post office I had to take a numbered ticket and wait for about 20 minutes to get to the front desk (fortunately in the meantime I figured out that I was meant to fill out some details on the card they had left, and with the help of the nice man next to me, I figured out what those details actually were).

When I got to the desk, they gave me another ticket with a different (much bigger) number on it, and I had to go into a different room and wait for that number to be called. When I got there, there were about 40 people there, looking as if they'd been waiting all their lives in that room. After half an hour I began to wish I'd brought a book, like the guy next to me had. But I couldn't have read a book, because every time they read out a number over the PA system I had to strain to bring all of my synapses to bear on the task of decoding the crackly, extremely rapid spanish number, to see if it was mine. After an hour A started sending me text messages to find out where the hell I was (which I couldn't reply to because I was concentrating so hard on figuring out numbers).

After an hour and a half, they finally said a number that sounded like "blahblahblahblahblah y ocho". Seeing as 'ocho' is 'eight' and my number ended in an 8, I showed my ticket to the book guy next to me, and he nodded that it was my number. So then I had to go through the turnstile and go into another room, where I gave my ticket to a man who told me to go to booth 4.

I went to booth 4, where another man said something that sounded like "blahblahblahblahblah comida?". Comida means 'food', and I couldn't figure out why he was talking about food. Had I misheard him, and he was really asking me to put my hands on my head and face the wall? Was he asking me what was in the package that I hadn't received yet? How would I know what was in it? But yes, he wanted to know if it was food. In response to my puzzled look, he produced the package and opened it in front of me. And we agreed with many 'si's that yes, it was food - my sister had sent me a food parcel of NZ goodies, things I couldn't dream of finding here. He pointed to the exit and I thought it was finally over.

But no, I had to then see the lady at the exit, where I had to sign something for some reason.

At last I got home, and A inhaled one of the Whitaker's Peanut Slabs practically before I'd shut the door behind me.