This afternoon sees the arrival of La Famille Senac.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday, which greatly increased stress levels at the already tense estancia, was that Jean-Luc (Fabrice's brother) received a call that morning to say that the apartment that we had booked for the Christmas week was no longer available due to illness. Not great news the day before everyone was due to arrive, a couple of days before Christmas. After a little to-ing and fro-ing, the solution was for Fabrice and I to stay in Pete's apartment and for a couple of hotel rooms to be booked for Fabrice's parents and his brother & Rose. This scuppered plans for a home cooked family Christmas together in one apartment, but more on this later. Major disaster averted.

That morning Fabrice and I embarked on a walking tour of the key sights of the city. It started well as we were called "rats" by a charity mugger in the Plaza San Martin, but improved with the Galerías Pacífico, Teatro Cervantes, Teatro Colón and the Casa Rosada (Presidential Palace) among many other sights in this impressive city. The latter is where Evita sang "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" from, or so Lloyd Webber and Rice would have us believe. The Plaza de Mayo in front of the palace is playing host to a sizeable protest camp about the Falklands. A significant proportion of Argentines quite strongly dispute the British ownership of the islands, goaded on by the current president who is apparently far more concerned about this than the much bigger economic problems faced by the country.

Early afternoon we received the call saying that the Senacs had arrived and so we headed over to meet up with them at their hotel. It was good to catch up and begin to share some of the stories of our travels. The remainder of the afternoon was spent at a mall near their hotel successfully finalising the minimalist Christmas shopping.

That evening they came over to Pete's apartment for pre-dinner drinks and to be wowed by the views over the city, after which we headed out for an Argentine steak at a nearby restaurant. Tasty.