Blah

Today was the ultimate in blah. I got up early for a work-related trip to Tigre, the island north of the city where I had a picnic with my European friends my first weekend here. I was sent to do an "adventure tour" (which includes activities like horseback riding and mountain biking) in order to write a review for the website. But when I got there, I found out that the tour office was closed today. Still don't know why, but I've come to expect this sort of thing from Argentina.

My boss told me to explore Tigre on my own instead. Here's what I came up with for the article:

Things to Do in Tigre:

• Not much.
• Purchase a cafe con leche for 18 pesos.
• Be clicked at like a dog.
• Be whistled at like a stripper.
• Be the recipient of under-the-breath sexual comments from passerby on the sidewalk.
• Wait for a boat tour that is two hours late.
• Take an hour-long boat tour where you can't understand the Spanish narration through the loudspeaker. 
• Be sprayed with crumbs by an obnoxious child as he eats a cookie in front of the open window on the boat.
• Watch said child throw the plastic wrapper from his cookie out the window into the river. Cry on the inside from seeing this happen.
• Stare dismally at the blank gray sky.
• Choke on exhaust fumes from the ferries/ swamp smells from the river.
• Shoot annoyed glances at the obnoxious child squirming on the bench in front of you.
• Wonder, are there any tigers in Tigre?
• Walk to a maté (Argentine tea) museum that is closed.
• Take the train home.

My impression of Tigre today

Have I sold you on it yet?

But then I came home and Skyped my brother and my grandparents, and then I went for a run, and then I made dinner (rice with peas and apple with brie), and then I went to Mundo Lingo, a language exchange program at a bar near my house. So the evening redeemed the day, on the whole.