Descanso

My friend Brad arrived from San Francisco this morning, and will be visiting until Wednesday evening. So there might not be too much time for updating the blog over the next several days. I will do the best I can - for instance, my reading of El País has reminded me that there is much important information about European royalty that I owe my readers (marital discord - a problem which is apparently not confined to the house of Windsor - plagues some of the royal offspring; not to mention the tragic accident which has befallen the royal family of Bulgaria).

Brad has - wisely - expressed a lack of interest in the combined dinner 'n tango show recommended by the school; we may go to Uruguay on Sunday instead.

Yesterday, we went on a class outing to the Museo de Bellas Artes. Which merits a second visit (and its own blog entry, in due course).

In other news, I was very pleased with my performance on what many people consider to be the ultimate test of Spanish ability - my 40-minute conversation with the taxi-driver on the way to the airport this morning. All these classes appear to be paying off.

Sadly, there is no progress to report in the perplexing case of "las manos de Perón". Police - indeed, the country as a whole - remain baffled.

Pavement update: for the past week, city "workers" spent enormous amounts of time, and made enormous amounts of noise, repaving the sidewalk on the corner where the school is located. They finally departed yesterday. But here's the thing. Not only has the unevenness of the pavement not been ameliorated - it is noticeably worse than it was prior to the "improvements". Personally, I'm beginning to suspect some kind of hideous plot, involving the city's orthopaedic surgeons and chiropractors.

The plain people of Ireland: Here, this is very choppy today. All disjointed like.
The management: Indeed it is. Sometimes life fails to arrange itself into little neat thematic packages.
The plain people of Ireland: Is this the best you can do?
The management: The idea that I should take seriously the criticism of an entity capable of writing "phrases" such as "All disjointed like" is frankly ludicrous. Back to your caves, troglodytes!