Red Lobster

For all those concerned, your pasty friend is no more. Enter the primary stage of bronzedom--a good old fashioned sun burn. No, I´m not at the level of hospitalization but the Argentine dinner table conversation probably went from "who´s that pasty boy" to "did you see that giant lobster crawl out of the sea today!"
Update on the previous night: Our "hotel" has turned out quite nice. We enjoyed our dinner last night in the "dining" room with other Argentine family vacationers. I am pretty sure they routinely made fun of our lack of spanish skills, but at least they pretended to appreciate that we were there. After dinner and our usual routine of two-man poker and drinks (scary side note: A bottle of vodka here is only $2 USD) we cruised the scene. What we stumbled upon is something to be greatly feared as a budget conscious backerpacker: a casino. Suffering from a hereditary weakness for games of chance that normally include losing vast sums of money while chasing fortunes, we decided not to even discuss what we could do with a quick win at the blackjack table. That moratorium on gambling talk was quickly forgotten and we were soon listening to the devil´s whisper (yeah Tiehens, you know what I mean by that) . "Lets just go and watch", we said, hopeing to do just that. It was by far the quietest casino I have ever been in and ever care to be in. Either no one was winning or Argentines have a unique approach to excitement because Petro and I could have had a conversation with each other from opposite sides of the room, which you can barely do shouting next to each other in U.S casinos. Our "watching" committment was quickly shattering when Petro impulsively threw down a 20 peso note (7 USD) on the roulette table. The dealer told us (in sign language) that you cannot just throw money down on a table, you need chips. We took that occurence as a sign that we should just leave the casino quickly, for if we somehow figured out the system of gambling in Argentine casinos, we would surely be doomed. We can´t even seem to win playing in casinos where the spoken language is english, so who knows what we were even thinking stepping into that place. But then again, a big blackjack win would do wonders for our trip...........

In a brief CNN.com perusual I noticed the actor Health Ledger died yesterday. With a presidential election coming up and the financial market crumbling, I have deemed celebrity news to be my number one priority--it keeps my cynicism from flaring up, which I think makes Petro want to smother me with a pillow at times.

Heading south tomorrow, not sure where but the sign on the bus we get on should indicate that for us.

Burnt is the new Tan,
Q