I have a pile of fresh, clean clothes; which is more exciting than you might think!
20:20 And... this is more like it. After failing to eat dinner last night through sheer frustration, and anything for lunch today due to having unhappy guts, this evening I am having a steak.
Since I left the hotel, I have spoken only Spanish and nobody has looked at me like I'm an idiot, asked me to repeat myself, or spoken back at me at fifteen million miles an hour. I have got myself a table, ordered dinner and am waiting for it to arrive. OK, I was asked if I wanted an English menu, but got an approving, paternal smile from my wrinkled waiter when I politely declined, then ordered from the Spanish menu neither by pointing nor even having it open at the time. And I've asked for my steak to be 'really raw please'.
I'm sitting in Florida Garden; not quite what I expected from the guide book as it is really a cafe that seems to have a _huge_ selection of cakes and coffees, and they just happen to serve hot dinners as well. It's bright inside, like a cafe would be, and because it is only 20:30 or thereabouts, everyone around me is sipping coffee and possibly eating cake; it's just too early for dinner around here. So, apart from the English book I'm reading and the funny accent, I really stick out as a foreigner because I'm having dinner at this hour. I'm surrounded by riveted copper-covered columns and there's a wonderful copper-covered staircase cutting through the middle of the ground floor, going up to the first floor. I've just noticed that the bar is pretty lively with people sipping aperitifs, so it isn't just coffee drinkers at this hour, and in a city that doesn't have a drinking culture anything like the Europeans do, it must be the hard core who are at it at this time on a Monday.
20:50 now and food should arrive soon...
21:20 *burp* food eaten. The place is still full of really old people, but I am no longer the youngest person in the place as a young couple have showed up. I'm contemplating dessert, but I'm sure that will blemish the evening's almost satisfactory record on the communication front. However, I think I'm feeling brave. *deep breath*
OK, so I managed it. And while I waited for the dessert menu, I watched the barman a little bit behind me, serving a cognac to a customer. Legal measures? In this country? Apparently not. It looks like if they like you, you get a bit more. I have _no_ idea what I just ordered for dessert, but... let's see what arrives.
It appears to be an iced coffee. Bah. I was hoping for something me exciting and, well, dessert-like. Oh well. Better luck next time (or I should bring a local, or go point at the cake counter). Not sure I like this iced coffee. Nope, it's quite vile. And now I'm stuck drinking it otherwise it will be difficult to get attention for the bill. Eh. You live and learn.
Home time. And an evening of moderate success... tomorrow, I'll pick up my new leather jacket from the shop I was in earlier - yeah I managed 'with buttons', 'too big' and 'too small' earlier in a shop where South Africans and Americans were being pounced on, in English. I think my accent confuses the locals here, they ask where I'm from every time. Soy Inglesa! Dammit! ;o). Actually, I'm glad they ask as I really don't want to be thought of as American (North, of course, with my pale skin and lack of Spanish).
Now to ask for a reciept so I can claim it back later, and I'm off back to the hotel, via a 24h shop to get water.
22:00 and I return to the hotel; victorious! I'm told, by the girl in the shop where I was trying on jackets earlier, that I should get an Argentinian boyfriend so I can stay here. Aha ha ha! So funny! (Actually, I have musings on the Argentinian culture, but later. Not now.) Aaaanyway. Fed and mostly happy. Let's see if my jacket is OK tomorrow.
...if the lift would actually come to the 10th so I can get to the 11th. Stairs, you say? Just try it: They're alarmed.
22:20 - where's the sodding lift? *sigh* This is what you get for a cheap room around here.
22:35 - Bed and Boston Legal time... Denny Crane!
