We began in the neighborhoods of Retiro and then headed southward toward the waterfront.
There we saw the bridge, which is supposedly shaped like a tango dancer dipping his partner, but which is also derided by portenos for lacking the spirit of the tango.
As usual, my favorite part of the day was the people we encountered, particularly this fantastic group of extremely overly tanned and overtly confident older Argentinians rocking it out in their bathing suits. You should have seen the guy the were shouting to across the way!
The tour then took us to the colorful neighborhood of Boca, home of the world-famous Boca Juniors futbol team.
Although residences dominate Boca, the main strip serves of as the main tourist hub of the entire city, with kitschy restaurants, stalls, and stores everywhere.
As we moved on through one of Buenos Aires's parks, it occurred to me that we had seen far fewer stray dogs than in other cities in South America... and then we saw this. Absolutely made my day.
Finally we arrived back at the Piramida de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada, which once again decorated for Christmas. When we'd been there the previous day, all that remained of the Christmas tree had been smoking embers, as anarchists had burned it down only an hour before we'd arrived.
Protests and other civil demonstrations are quite common in BA, and even more so during our time there, as the tenth anniversary of the economic crash approached. Huge photographic boards commemorated the march and upheaval that had followed the crash.
At the conclusion of the tour, James and I walked back, stopping by the Congressional building only two blocks from our hostel.
That night we joined the majority of our hostel mates for the Christmas Eve dinner on the roof. The staff served up a tasty meal of more courses than I can remember, and James and I split a bottle of champagne.
Just after we finished our meal, the fireworks began in each neighborhood in Buenos Aires. From our perch on the roof, we were able to view 7 different pyrotechnic shows, the closest taking place just down the street at the plaza in front of the Congressional building.
The dancing began on the roof, in anticipation of moving the party onward to the dance clubs of Palermo, but when I went to check on James who had returned to the room to change, I found him under the covers and shivering with a fever. I let him rest for an hour while I danced upstairs, but when I returned again, his fever had worsened and he was borderline delirious. Knowing that he would chide me for it in the morning but not caring one bit, I changed out of my party dress and heels, gave him a fever reducer, and applied and reapplied wet cloths to his head and neck to cool him off. At some point, I fell asleep cloth in hand.
James's fever broke in the night, returned in the morning and subsided again. After sleeping in as long a possible, we packed up our things, since James had decided to extend his stay after I left and split the room with a friend flying in from England, and in order to accommodate the extension, we needed to change rooms.
I Skyped each member of my family, as I had the night previous, but it didn't feel like Christmas being away from them. Besides which, the gorgeous 80-degree weather felt decidedly un-Christmasy, and James and I had already exchanged gifts rather comically the previous day, when I was forced to reveal mine when he almost bought the same thing for himself.
That night, the two of us went out for a sumptuous dinner at La Cabrera, where James's lomo (filet mignon) ranked as the best steak either of us had ever tasted, and then we met Lisa, Tarl, Nacho, and Consue for a drink around the corner. And that, friends, was my Christmas in Buenos Aires.
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