bahia blanca, thursday dec. 27

we dressed for the eighty degree early afternoon weather and head out for a bit of lunch at a resaurant adjacent to the plaza rividavia. the food is amazingly good and the total with our cocktails fits the budget rather nicely. back to the room for siesta, then out into the evening where we find a nice bistro set in a second floor balcony overlooking the street. later, walking through the plaza we encounter a native (indigineous) band playing traditional instruments over a roy orbinson track blasting out of a gas powered p.a.

wander further, and we find a plaza filled with families and clans gathered for ice cream and conversation, a cafe to satisfy the carne (me) and the vegitariano (her), a nice cocktail made of very sweet limon juice, vodka, and 7up over ice.

back to the hotel and again sleep is calling our names. it is summer here, the windows are open, i am barefoot, and the market on the corner is selling fresh cherries. perhaps in the morning i will buy some. buenos noches.

dec. 28 friday

hell of a night of non-sleep and then finally comatose around 2am. snapped awake again at 7:30; shave, shower, and the walk around the nieghborhood to the internet cafe, to the produce shop on the corner to negotiate some cherries, before returning to find tam still asleep in the room.

i sit now on the veranda smoking and waiting. the morning triffic on the street getting into its full swing. most of the shops open between 8 and 10. a horse drawn trailer just went by mixed in with all the cars and scooters, collectiong scrap metal off of the sidewalks.

the pace of life here is not leisurely, but certainly lacking that sense of urgency that permeates the American Dream as we tend to understand it. something like: morning hours 10 to 2, siesta, afternoon hours 4 to 8, evening meal at about 10pm.

not a bad way to do it. at all.