Hanging out in Buenos Aires

Well I have to say that I was a wee bit disappointed with Buenos Aires though I can imagine lovin´it in different circumstances. I had notions that I was going to stay there at some point in my travels and teach English but yeh, the Buenos Airians seemed to have a problem with my marvellous Spanish. Now I know pronounciation isn´t my forte, but seriously, they weren´t even trying to understand me, the rude feckers. I´m sure there´s some lovely ones, but on the whole, they´d walk over you in the street and look blankly at you when you attempted conversation with them. Admittedly, Buenos Aires wasn´t that much fun from the start as it consisted of visits to the hospitals and angry phonecalls with the hugely incompetent insurance company, so maybe I wasn´t in the right frame of mind. But there was an awful lot of rude feckers.

Once Emma was released from hospital (after running up a hefty 500 euro phone bill in a week), we moved into a hotel nearby while Emma convalesced. She convalesced quite quickly and was out shopping the next day and most days after that. I must say, Emma and Sarah are the best shoppers I´ve ever met - they could shop for Ireland. Though there´s only so much shopping I can do before I get grumpy and require tea.

The last week before heading home was much better fun though. We decided to have a few outings to sample the Argentinian food. There was an excellent place called Olsen which had an super 4 course brunch served by the rudest staff ever, but it was marvellous, as was afternoon tea in the hyatt. Little did the Hyatt know that any McDonnell can eat their bodyweight in dessert in a single sitting, when they showed us to the dessert buffet. We also caused a few epileptic fits due to the amount of photos we took. It´s safe to say that I´m the most unphotogenic person in the world.

Anyway, the insurance company after arsing us around, finally agreed to fly Emma, Sarah and I home with a medical escort(to ensure that Emma didn´t explode on the flight) after some gentle persuasion from Dad. I was pretty damn glad to be getting on the plane even if it was the day before Christmas though Sarah and I were relegated to peasant class while Emma and the sunburnt doctor enjoyed the luxury of a space bed. Two space beds, that is, not just the one.

Emma´s stay in the Suizo Argentinian

So poor wee Emma got herself one of the more glamourous traveller diseases, a deep vein thrombosis, from doin´ too many long haul bus journeys. After falling over a couple of times, being misdiagnosed several times, spending time in a unequipped hospital in the back o´beyond, she got airlifted to Buenos Aires. I flew down from Quito the day after I heard, to find her all wired up in intensive care. She was in grand form though but not loving the fact that she was attached to the wall with tubes and had to holler for the nurse when in need of the loo. But after a week in intensive care, she was moved upstairs to a regular room - and when I mean regular, I mean with a little living room, a monster bathroom, a bedroom with couch and tv and of course room service. Anyway, she lived it up there, while Sarah and I hung out in a hostal nearby.

Emma has made me update this to take out a reference to a bed pan which I did and to correct her illness. Apologies, she actually had a dvt and a pulmonary embolism too.