【Argentina】Happy together in BA!

Here comes the C4 speech which I delivered in Toastermasters Legacy Club in 2012. It's a summary of Buenos Aries memory, with my true feelings toward the city.

For years, my husband had been dreaming to visit Argentina. After watching a love story movie “Happy Together” 春光乍洩 which was shot in Argentina, directed by Kai-wai, Wang. My husband seemed determined to have honeymoon trip in this romantic country and visit the shot locations. The truth is we did it.

We started exploring Argentina from Buenos Aires and ended up the trip there too. This is the fascinating city which I really want to share with you how special it is.

BA is an abbreviation of Buenos Aires which origins from Spanish, meaning “fresh air or good atmosphere”.  With fan-shape windows, carving designs, and sculptures, from neoclassical, colonial period, to 19th century, European style architectures might confuse tourists where they exactly were. Sunday markets attracted lots of tourists packed in the fairs just like in London. The smell of street coffee and croissant was floating in the air. Was I in Paris?

In Buenos Aires, You could always find a good steakhouse. A steak dish cost you not too much, about five hundreds NT dollars. Medium is the perfect selection. Hot in middle, pinky color surrounds the center of the savory roasted meat. You can taste meat itself without seasoning any sauce, fresh and tender, melt-in-mouth and juicy. A perfect steak dish with a small bottle wine, can you tell I was in heaven? 

                 Steak in Restaurant El Desnivel

Well, heaven is wonderful but it’s inappropriate for long-stay or you will get too much weight. So we decided to discover what happened outsides. Surprisingly, we found Argentineans love one special activity similar to Taiwanese, parade.  

Do you think your people like to do this? After a rally finished, the garbage and flyers were everywhere found in BA streets. Is it common in Taiwan? Can you say it’s because we are more passionate? So we make garbage?

My husband and I did join their parades twice, and one is a very big event which caused Sunday football match cancelled and made my husband a little bit sad.

But it provided an unprecedented opportunity to witness history.

In 23rd/October, cars, coaches, and buses bumper-to-bumper moved to the city center. Well-dressed in Carnival, uniforms, or in new fashion designs, people jumped off the transportation and lined up in a parade by a parade.

With the thunders of drums and waving flyers, the crowds were dancing and marching toward the square in front of president office, for celebrating 2012 president election which Christina won her second term campaign with over 50% of vote nationwide. You could hear their yells of “Christina, Christina, Christina”. Oh mine. I hope being renamed to Christina at the moment to embrace the cheers.   

People were cheering for Christina who won the president election!

Buenos Aries is a city of freedom, street artist improvised music during daytime. At night it’s the show time for tango. We visited Bar Sur where the movie “Happy Together” shot. A small bar setting with 10 tables around where the musicians, the singers and a pair of dancers performed in turn or together.  

While they finished one small show you might not notice it’s over because you were too drunk. The air was covered by tango, you breathe in tango and your eyes, ears, heart were drunk. The female dancer with S curve, tried to tease and temper desires. The sparking between dancers made all the audiences being in love. In this ever-bright city, the never-ending tango would keep you head-over-heals. It’s a perfect ending in our honeymoon.

With its female characteristics, unpredictable, beautiful and sexy, Buenos Aries revealing her charms welcomes tourists all over the world. I am sure that the city will keep her diversity whenever I meet her next time. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you BA, Buenos Aires!