Diary Part 2
Weird Diary-Competition Thingy
Part 2 - Days 6 to 8
Day 6
Friday, 18th July 1997
Today was the longest day of my life so far - I mean, you can't get much longer than 37 hours. Well, you can actually, but it would be stupid.
Norm woke me up at 8:50 and I panicked because I hadn't packed yet! (Thomas and Step woke up earlier for breakfast, so they'd already packed.) Step helped me pack, and we eventually got all ready. We left International House at 10am.
At the airport, we got to stay in the Ansett Golden Wing lounge, which was so cool! And we all got to open the duty free stuff we'd bought. I got to use my camera! But not for long (said in an evil foreboding voice).
We boarded at around 1pm. On the way to New Zealand where we had to change planes, I watched Vegas Vacation which I thought was really funny! Oh yeah, and one of the waitresses spilt tomato juice all over Thomas's pants. We arrived in New Zealand after three hours (6pm NZ time). We kept on laughing at the woman making the announcements because of her NZ accent! I'd never heard a proper New Zealand accent before and thought it was hilarious! Then, when I was informed that ALL the New Zealanders talked like that, it was even more hilarious. And when we met the New Zealand IMO team the ultimate heights of hilarity were reached. We played Bartok and Sixty Seconds at the airport. While I went to the toilet they made a really stupid rule where you had to include a word beginning with S in every phrase you said. After getting heaps of penalty cards (we were playing with two packs and I had at least one of them!) and not being able to work out the rule, I decided to keep my mouth shut.
Then we were finally on our way to Argentina! We began the flight by learning Spanish, and soon we were all trying to learn to roll our R's. Infuriatingly, Angelo and Jon could do it! (Norman later revealed how annoying my hours of repeating, "Para. Farrar. Perro. Cerrar. Herrarasaur." over and over without success was. In retrospect perhaps my time could have been better spent.) Then they showed Dante's Peak and the Phantom. Norm and I didn't watch them, we just talked. I remember this stupid bit in the film with all these lights flashing which really hurt our eyes because we were sitting right in front of the screen. Thomas and Angelo watched them I think, and the rest just slept. Oh yeah, and Angelo spilt tomato juice on Angelo's pants. When we were again all awake, we played Big 2, with god/master/slave/stupid idiot rules. There was much cheating. Then Norman and Thomas played War, an extremely complicated card game whose many intricacies I could not comprehend. I think it has something to do with convex hulls.
Finally we arrived in Buenos Aires. There were propellerhatmen there to greet us at the airport. Then the Men in Black came and took us away in their secret government van to their secret government building called the Waldorf Hotel. We got double rooms which were really small - I shared with Step, Norm shared with Thomas and Dan was with Jon. It was really funny, because we had to check in as couples. I was Step's wife. And a rather lovely wife I was too.
We went to McDonalds for dinner, as we were so eager to sample the Argentine cuisine. I tried to impress the girl serving us by ordering in Spanish: "¡Neuve McNuggets!" I said smugly, but she rudely rebuffed my first attempt at Spanish by retorting, "Nine? Okay." What embarrassment and ineptitude I felt! We all decided to avoid the tomato juice. Not that there was any on the menu. I wanted to take a photo of the Spanish menu, but as I was about to shoot, crazed employees threw their bodies in front of the menu, saving it from extortion. However, I remember they had banana pies instead of apples pies, which, according to Dan and Norm, weren't very nice. (Norman has a thesaurus which informs him that, in New Zealand, they have banana pies instead of cherry pies. If you don't live in Australia you probably won't find that amusing. But if you do, then, um, you probably won't find that amusing.)
Professor Hunt took US$20 from me. How mean. Then, before I had the chance to ask for my money back, Peter and he left us, not to be seen again until the opening ceremony in many days time, and even then from a safe distance.
We stayed up in Thomas and Norman's room with Angelo and did nothing much. We couldn't sleep because we'd all slept on the plane. So, not believing in jetlag and naively sure that we would feel perfectly fine the next day, we got to bed very late. Only later did we realise the extent of our folly.
Which is the lie?
Thomas and Angelo both got tomato juice on their pants.
I couldn't work out how to play War.
The McDonalds employees prevented me from taking a photo of the menu.
Professor Hunt took US$20 from me then ran off.
Day 7
Saturday, 19th July 1997
We started off the day with a beautiful breakfast downstairs in the hotel - yummy coffee and bread and croissants! Then we went for a walk around Buenos Aires. First we went to a music shop, where Angelo bought some CDs I think. Then we had a look around a toy shop, and just as we were leaving, we saw a game called
Olimpiada Matematica
!! Of course, we had to buy it. While we were looking at it, a woman came up to us and started speaking to us. Of course, we couldn't understand her Spanish and she couldn't understand our English, but we discovered that we could communicate in French! I'm not quite sure about everything she said, but I think she had competed (or at least been in some way involved) in the IMO years ago and was going to Mar del Plata to do something at this year's. Desperate to redeem myself after the embarrasment encounter with the McDonalds waitress, I boldly Spanished, "¿Compramos?" She promptly told me in French that she would kill me. How rude. (Perhaps I got the pronounciation wrong and said something not very nice.) Anyway, we got some hints on Spanish pronounciation, and also got some Argentine money off her. And we got a 5 peso discount on the board game!
We went to some cafe for lunch, where all the food was delicious except for the dish which Step and I ordered, the Ñoqui à 3 Quesos. The cheese really hurt my throat! (Reminding me of Thomas's toxic cordial.) Angelo really hit it off with the woman who owned the shop. They talked for quite a while over the counter - knowing Angelo, no doubt they were speaking about Spanish pronounciation. She came and talked to us, and we assured her that, yes, we did find Argentine girls very sexy. Angelo promised he'd be back someday...
In the afternoon we went on a tour of Buenos Aires, which would've been fun if I hadn't lost my camera. Waaa! Angelo bought a guitar-like instrument, and had a lot of trouble looking after it for the rest of the trip. We all just knew that he'd be really careful with it and it'd be fine until the last moment, when he'd break it disembarking the plane at Melbourne or something.
After dinner I rang home,
then
I found out it was costing me US$8 (about AUS$11) per minute!! I quickly went down to check how much my two phone calls had cost me. The total was US$88. I just couldn't believe it!
We had a sort of problem session in Norman and Thomas's room. Stephen fell asleep, and it soon became clear that falling asleep in other people's rooms, especially during problem sessions, was a hobby of his. We
really
missed Nibbles, so we started playing it with pen and paper. It was soooooooo stupid!! Then we started playing Worms on paper, which was even stupider! We eventually ceased our foolish actions and went to sleep. We left Step on Norman's bed and Norman came down to sleep in our room. Then, in the middle of the night, Step came down and knocked on our door and woke us up, not realising how late it was! So much for having a good night's sleep and getting over our jetlag.
Which is the lie?
We bought a Spanish game called Olimpiada Matematica.
The toy shop woman threatened to kill me.
I spent US$88 on phone calls.
Step woke us up in the middle of the night.
Day 8
Sunday, 20th July 1997
LA DIA DEL AMIGO!
FELIZ DIA DEL AMIGO!!!!!!
Today was the
Dia del Amigo
, or Friend's Day, in Argentina, when you're supposed to buy cards and presents for friends. I wish we had a Friend's Day in Australia! But I guess I'd need some friends to celebrate with first.
We woke up and did maths for some reason which I can't remember. We had lunch at McDonalds, then we wandered around aimlessly for hours. We stopped at a playground, where Norman and I seesawed while everyone else walked off, forcing us to leave the playground which we loved so. I guess some people just don't appreciate the joys of playgrounds.
Soon we stopped to take photos and stuff, then we started playing with Norman's hacky sack. There were heaps of dogs around, and we were all scared of being raped by them. (Especially Step.) Then one of the dogs stole the hacky sack! It took it in its mouth and ran away, until its owner coaxed it to spit it out. It was so disgusting! We had to wrap it up with paper and put it in Angelo's trusty schoolbag.
After walking even more around, we finally went into a shopping centre where we looked at lots of stuff - we went to a bookshop and tried to understand all the Spanish, we went to a toyshop where I was chastised for playing with the ladder, to a music shop which had computers (but we didn't have time to write Nibbles) and to many other exciting places, as you can no doubt imagine. We bought "Feliz Dia del Amigo" bookmarks which were really cool. On the way back, Norman bought a Asterix comic in Spanish.
Finally we got back and we had another problem session. Step fell asleep.
We wanted have dinner at that place where we had the yummy lunch yesterday, but it was closed. So we went to some other place which wasn't very nice. I think everyone had pizza except for me - we ordered four big ones, and I think Jon ate more than everyone else put together! When we got back, we packed again. I was really proud because last time Step had to help me pack, but this time Step had to beg me to take some of his clothes because he couldn't fit them in! HAHA!! We had an early sleep, all ready to fly to Mar del Plata the next day...
Which is the lie?
A dog tried to eat Norman's hacky sack.
Step fell asleep during the problem session again.
Jon ate more than everyone else put together.
I had to take Step's clothes because he was a BAD packer!
Here's where you submit your entry for Part 2!
What's your name?
And what about your e-mail address?
Would you like to go
home
now?
Or would you rather go back to the main page of this
weird diary-competition thingy
?
Or perhaps to the
Mathscamp Memories
page?
E-mail
ME
or you'll be disqualified from this weird diary-competition thingy.
