The Finale

Like I said, Wednesday was my last day in South America, and my birthday, which meant I called the shots. First off, Maribeth and I headed to the Latin American Museum of Art, since it was a free day. We had stopped in on Monday, but didn't feel like paying 15 pesos ($5) to tour, which turned out to be a really good decision. First of all, the museum didn't have all that much in it. Second, what was there was mostly modern art, a genre that neither of us care for. As Maribeth says, art should be something that not everybody can do. I can paint a canvas solid red if I wanted to, but why would I? This exhibit was particularly bad. The artist seemed to be a sugar addict who can't clean up after himself. In one corner was a pile of lollipops. Genius. An entire room was devoted to pieces of candy lying on the floor in a rectangle shape. We both managed to take pictures (which I swear I'll get around to putting up) before a man came over and told us that pictures were strictly forbidden. I'm pretty sure the whole thing is one big joke.

Afterwards, we went to a much more interesting museum devoted to Eva Peron. Everything I knew about Evita prior to this I learned from Madonna, so it was good to get a bit more background information. Then, of course, I had to go back and eat The World's Greatest Pizza for the third time during my stay.

In the evening, Maribeth and I went out for a steak dinner, courtesy of Maribeth as a birthday gift, accompanied by a few people from our hostel. We split a steak, since they serve you practically half a cow, but boy was it tasty. Following dinner, I finally got to go to my tango show. The show was fantastic. The dancers make everything look so easy, but after taking a few lessons, I know just how hard it is. The show also included more traditional song and dance. Towards the end, the stage darkened, and a spotlight went up over a balcony off to the side. On the balcony, a woman who looked and sounded an awful lot like Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle, began belting out a rousing rendition of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" in Spanish. Pure camp. It was great. Maribeth kept hitting me, due to the fact that I couldn't stop giggling. When we got back to the hostel, Fredrick from Sweden made everyone sing Happy Birthday to me, in Spanish. I don't like being sung to. It's really just awkward for everyone involved, but I survived.

The show ended at 11:30, which meant I had 4 hours until it was time to leave for the airport. I certainly wasn't going to bother with sleep, since I would be so paranoid about oversleeping that I would never actually fall asleep, so Maribeth, Marc from Wales, and I played several rounds of UNO before heading to a pub for a late night snack. When we returned, it was time for me to finish packing up all my stuff.