Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Blog - Tuesday May 31st 2011
Location: ABH Hostel, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Todays blog will be short and sweat as I have a boat to catch to Uruguay. Yesterday I visited the La Recolata cemetery and saw the tomb of Eva Peron (Evita), indeed I and half the tourists in Buenos Aires were there yesterday or so it seemed! Many of course only see her tomb and nothing else, but for me it was only secondary to real reason I wanted to visit what has to be the worlds eeriest cemetery as its not like the coffins are buried.... no no no they are placed under alters in lavishly built mini churches and thus visable for everyone to see. Anyway I was there to see a much less visited tomb than that of Eva Peron's, I would even go as far as to say that most people visiting her tomb would never have even heard of the guy whose resting place was of far more interest to me and I could almost guarantee that they had never heard of his home town either - Foxford Co. Mayo! I was here to see the resting place of an Irish man with more balls than most who left "Penal law" Ireland to set out on an adventure and ended up founding the the Argentinean navy...... and all because he essentially hated the English! His name - Admiral William Brown. He really was a remarkable man and his history is well worth reading. Here is brief passage from Wikipedia - After the fall of the Rosas regime many naval officers found themselves discharged, but not the Commander of the Navy. Brown remained honoured for his long and loyal service to the nation. Retiring to his villa, Casa Amarilla at Barracas, Brown was visited by Grenfell, his opponent in the Brazilian war, who remarked how ungrateful the Republic was to its good servants; the old Admiral replied: "Mr Grenfell, it does not burden me to have been useful to the mother country of my children; I consider the honours and the wealth superfluous when six feet of earth are enough to rest so many difficulties and pains." In my opinion he has to be one of the greatest Irish historical figures and if he had been around during the Falklands war in the early 1980s Maggie Tatcher would have had a lot more to deal with than what ultimately transpired.
Lastly I have to comment on the latest "Irish Bar" I have come across! Its called the..... wait for it... "Classic Irish Bar" yes indeed... this place has jumped to the top of the list of so called Irish Bars abroad that need a match set to them! This place is a whore house! I kid you not - complete with leprechaun sized pimp outside the door who makes no secret of the services offered inside.... "you speaka de english" he says to me as I walk by... "I do" I say, "you wanta chicichitas??"" $100 all night... anything you want".......... "Really" I say "anything I want" I reply...... "yesh" he says and his eyes light up at the prospect of a customer! "well what I want is a pint of Guinness - do you serve that in your 'Classic Irish bar'??"" he hesitates.... "eh no senior" but the girls the girls"....... "Not much good to me so mate" I replied, ..... "sure theres many a bar in Ireland where women are free and Guinness is on-tap amigo..... change your bars name - it aint very Classic"......I could only laugh as I walked away.
Today im off to Uraguay... until tomorrow.