DAVIDSON FAMILY VACATION 2008 -part 1

Hello

Well again, it´s been quite awhile since I´ve written anything. Somehow this always seems to slip to the backburner when I am online. Usually I consider it but find the keyboards here too damn annoying to bother typing anything. It always seems that one of the most important buttons does not work. Either it is missing, too sticky or magically transforms itself into something that I don´t want it to be in the process of me touching it to getting on the screen. Excuse? Maybe, but also annoying for me trying to do aaaanything at all.

So we have had an exciting past 2 weeks. First, a friend of mine, Hernan that I met in Vietnam, asked us to come visit him on the coast with his family for a few days. When we got there after a marvellous bus trip on the ¨heaven bus¨as Jocelyn called it, thanks to the super wide seats, free food and water, and decent movies with at least English subtitles (no champagne on this particular one, but that is an option here), we met Hernan and headed to Club RCT. This was like a club med type place, with an Argentinian twist. They had a great little apartment which we shared with his brother, a friend and a from Spain.

The long nights were spent playing Spanglish drinking games of Kings, which resulted in a lot of laughs due to the language barriers. We spent the days at the beach which reminded me of a scene from highschool musical or Greese. Organized musical bingo and competitions, people dancing all over the place, families playing cards and doing canga lines , etc, etc. It was quite the sight actually. The swimming and water was a definite second to the games, singing and dancing that everyone was enjoying. Speaking of the water... When I think of South American beaches I think beautiful warm clear water and palm trees. Not the case. I might as well have been doing a polar swim on new years day in Toronto it was so y cold. We could only manage to get our toes in on the first day. The second day I forced myself to go in, just to say I had been swimming in Argentine waters, but it was awful. I mean truely awful. Our last night at Club RCT there was the annual carnaval with tons of people singing and dancing, much like the beach, but this time add little children with can of foam spray. Needless to say we were soaked by the end of it, with a little help from our friends telling the kids we were from Canada and had never experienced a Carnaval before.

We took an overnight bus home from Mar del Plata and arrived in BA at 5am homeless since we were going to be staying in a hotel with our parents and sister that night. We bummed around the bus station for awhile, with the rest of the bums, until it got light out. We headed to our hotel and by some stroke of luck our room was empty so we were able to crash for a couple hours before heading to the airport to pick up the rest of the fam, when DAVIDSON FAMILY VACATION 2008 would finally begin. We were all excited for this as our last family vacation was probably when we went to Montreal when I was 12, mostly due to us having soccer tournaments or some other form of soccer event every weekend since then.

Our first day we spent at the beautiful square of San Telmo in an antique fair. Sounds lame, but it is really so much more than that. There are street vendors aplenty including bands and tango dancers, there are also an abundance of outdoor cafes and handicrafts to keep you busy for hours. This area was originally the rich area of the city but soon enough turned into one of the immigrant areas. But most notably was what they did when the British tried to invade. Someone saw them coming so all of the inhabitants down the main street were warned. As the British approached they dumped boiling water and oil on them to drive them back to the sea.

That night we headed to the famous stadium of La era where Argentinas most famous soccer team, La Boca, plays. This also happens to be in the worst neighbourhood of the city. As I was there buying tickets beforehand I saw my first, and only attempted mugging of the trip so far. The cab driver who was dropping me off at the stadium alone was very worried for my safety as he told me that liking their rival River Plate (in a very nice neighbourhood) was like the day, and liking Boca was the night. When I asked him if he like La Boca he said that in Argentina everyone either loves them or s them, there is no in between.

We also quickly realized this as we were sitting under the fans of the opposing team, everytime La Boca did anyuthing well they threw bottles, or spit over the balcony at us. Not fun but I guess part of the atmosphere. Karen was particularly unlucky and got more spit than the rest of us. We started taking turns watching for it once the sky turned dark enough to see the contrast. We were in the semi hooligan section as you have to buy special tickets and show up hours early to be in the really rough sections. But we were straight across from them and I think we spent the same amount of time watching the fans as we did the game. They didnt for one second stop jumping, cheering or singing. Some fans are even a marching band that play all of the cheers on trumpets, trumbones and drums. La Boca won 4-0 which was lucky for us as I wouldnt want to be in that neighbourhood after dark if they had lost.

The next day we took a ferry over to Punta del Este, Uruguay. As the name sounds it is one of the most eastern points of Uruguay. It was a fairly posh beach resort town but we enjoyed ourselves. We spent hours down on the peer watching sea lions swim around and collect fish that the venders were throwing into the water. The name ¨sea lions¨ suits them much better than I had originally thought. The discovery channel doesnt do a great job of showing the massive manes that the males actually have. They really do resemble the mane of a lion. My dad and I took a boat trip out to an island that is only inhabited by sea lions, and there were thousands of them. I mean SOOO many. If i ever get my pictures off of Karens computer I will post some.

Uruguay was spent shopping and on the beach which I think was perfect for Karen and Joc. But much to the dismay of my dad who strongly dislikes them both. And my mom generally enjoys anything as long as she is ¨not at work¨.

We spent a few days there before coming back to BA. The trip seemed to take much much longer than it should have as the 3 of us were tooo hung over.

On Friday we headed to an Estancia, a ranch, for some typical Argentinian BBQ and music. We went horseback riding where Karen and I feared for our lives. My horse always had to be in the lead, no matter how fast he had to go to get there, and Karens was a little follower so she was always right behind me. Thats right Karen, I said it BEHIND me. haha. Moms was antisocial so she spent the whole time riding by herself. We listened to some traditional folk music and saw some dancing while we tried the famous BBQ. Really this one wasnt that great but at least it gave us a taste of the different kinds of meats here. My mom was the only one brave enough to try the ¨blood sausage¨. Guh.

Oh yeah, I may be engaged, SURPRISE! Well, there is a famous ¨gaucho¨game (the name for their types of cowboys, kind of) where they hang a small ring from a string and the gauchos have to ride full speed and get the ring on a stick. It was very impressive as they have to do it standing up to reach the ring. If he gets it and gives it to a woman, they are then engaged. There was a cute one who gave his ring to me. And he didnt have a unibrow, we have photographic evidence!!!!

Ok, enough for now. I will leave you in suspence as to how the family vacation ended and who made it back alive and who didnt. Hope you enjoyed!

Ps. I have no plans as of next wednesday. Any suggestions?

pps. i think blogger has started editing content and it wont let me post words like - - - , etc. so if there are blanks missing try to fill them in. like the stadium name is - - - -e-r-a. im probably being investigated by the CIA and interpol right now...