Thank you Paul Simon for providing the soundtrack to my day.

We got up this morning..er.. this afternoon and decided to wrap up our trip re-visiting some places that we really liked but did not get to spend much time in. We convinced a taxi driver to take us to La Flor, which is an art instillation and the pride of Buenos Aires, and wait while we hopped out. It's a giant metal flower that opens and closes with the sun and tracks it across the sky, just like a real flower. We only drove past it on our tour and Chris wanted to take some pictures so we ran around it in like 15 minutes and shot all the angles we could get. Here's one:



I don't think that picture does it justice. It's really magnificent. It' also really, really big.

After that detour, we headed over to La Cementerio de la Recoleta which is this really awesome cemetery that they have here in the posh section of town. At some point a couple hundred years ago, it became en vogue to do things like the French (the whole city is based on this principle), so they decided to do their places of the dead like them too. It is a beautiful and fascinating place. We managed to spend 3 hours walking around, taking pictures.

The whole place is above ground mausoleums, which vary from really obnoxiously ostentatious to "OMG that's just ridiculous". The whole time I was there, I was humming the Paul Simon song "You can call me Al":

A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!

Here's why:












If you check out the Buenos Aires set, updated just now, there's plenty more where that came from!

We ended our day out with some empenadas, which are pretty much really awesome hot pockets, at a place that the locals really seem to like, so I guess that means we got the good stuff. This dish is a national one, and is a must try if you come to Argentina. They are tasty, even by my standards, and I typically don't like meat that I cannot identify clearly. We have had them in 3 places and they have all been very tasty.

We're now packing up and getting ready to head out to Ushuaia, where it is 15 degrees (I have no idea what that is, but I am guessing 40's) and raining, for 2 days before we get on the boat on Friday. I'm hoping that there is internet there, but in case there is not, don't stress if you do not see updates for 2 weeks. We'll have a million pictures of Penguins wen we get back!

I totaly did it... I am such an embarassment to my country.

Today I stood where Evita stood and I simply could not help myself. I had to sing "Don't cry for me Argentina" out to the streets of Plaza de Mayo. I'm a total embarrassment, I know. Chris has pictures of me singing like Madonna like Evita, but until then, this is what the view looked like while I sang:


First, however, let me say that is is a mere 38 degrees here. I have no idea what that actually is, but it's EFFING HOT. Like Africa Hot. Crazy, not fun, wall of hot hot.

We got up and went to the San Talmo market which was muy bueno, except for the whole hot thing. It's a really huge street fair/antiques market where they sell pretty much everything you can think of. Some of you will get presents from here.


We had a tasty lunch in a cafe there and then headed to Teatro Colon, which is supposed to be one of the world's premier opera houses, only to find out that it is closed until March, so I guess we have a reason to come back to Buenos Aires. Honestly, I don't need a reason; this city is really neat - I'd come back any time.


So we packed it on over to Cafe Tortoni, which is a 150 year old cafe in Buenos Aires that looks pretty much the same as when it opened.


Then we went back to the national Cathedral so Chris could have some more time to take pictures (that's the church that looks like a museum).


We were walking around Plaza de mayo when we noted that they were having tours of the presidential palace, so we decided to go on one even though it was all in Spanish. They actually took us all the way into the office of the president (she was not in house today), which I thought was really cool.


After that we walked to the port to get tickets to go to Uruguay for the day tomorrow. We are headed to a preserved colonial town called, of all things, Colonia. Here's some info on that in case you are interested.

Tuesday we plan on picking up anything we missed - maybe going back to the cemetery to take more pictures - and packing before we head to Ushuaia on Wednesday. At that point, posting will get spotty depending on what happens there for 2 days and then not at all for 11 days while we are on the boat, but I will blog as /i go and then bulk post them all when I get back.

Hope you all have a good week!

As Reqested by Rachel:

More pictures of the zoo today posted in my Buenos Aires set.

Chris has MUCH better photos, but you will probably have to wait to see those until he has a proper machine to edit them. We'll see.

Just FYI, our hotel is on a street calle Maipu

YES! That *is* pronounced "my poo".

Buenos Aires Day 2

Today we slept in (surprise) and went on a mini-bus tour of Buenos Aires.

We went back to Plaza De Mayo and saw Casa Rosado,


a Museum that looks like a church,


and a church that looks like a museum.


We went to Boca, which is kind of a trip




saw the La Flor, which opens and closes with the sun,


and ended in the cemetery here, and saw Evita's Grave.


This evening, we had a great Argentinian steak dinner


and saw a Tango show in one of the oldest Tangarias there is.


Now, I have a slightly drunk husband who is teaching himself Spanish with a Nintendo DS. He's currently yelling at it and calling it names. *sigh*

I think we are going to go to the zoo tomorrow...prepare yourselves for some pictures of cute and fluffy south american animals.

First Day In Buenos Aires

Man, I'm beat. We had a fairly reasonable flight from LAX to Santiago (10.5 hours), although we were pretty tired by the end of it. Just a couple hours in the terminal and another 95 minute flight to Buenos Aires and we were ready to go. Well, after clearing customs (the $140 reciprocity fee actually got us through customs faster), getting a cab, and driving to the hotel. After roughly 24 hours on the move, we finally got our hotel room and crashed for a few hours.

BA is a pretty interesting city so far. My miniscule comprehension of Spanish and the locals ability to speak English has gotten me a lot farther than I had expected, so that was a relief. Noelle speaks Spanish, so that also helps. After our nap we went down Calle Florida, which has the most unbelievable number of street vendors I've ever seen. Block after block of them. We had dinner at a cafe and we saw the presidential palace and the 25 Julio Square. Some of the architecture is really beautiful, some appears to be people throwing apartments together with whatever building materials happened to be at hand. The downtown area is pretty nice, what we've seen of it so far.

Tomorrow we have a visit to Tango dinner show and a bus tour of the city on our agenda. Hopefully we will not have jet lag. Feel pretty good now (had a headache on the flight, that was moderately miserable), we'll see what tomorrow brings. Didn't take any pictures today. I just wanted to get a feel for what the city was like and unwind from the flight.

We have made it!

After like 24 hours of total travel, we have arrived in Buenos Aires. The flights (3) were all pretty good except that the last one left us stranded on the tarmac for 30 minutes with no gate assignment as the sun was rising. As I had only slept about 3 hours at that point, I was, predictably, slightly cranky about this delay. I can say though that LAN airlines does a good job, they have a nice video system for long-haul flights with a good selection of stuff to do. I didn't even freak out at all on the trip and got a little bit of sleep, which is a win for me.

To answer Nobuo's question, I watched "Eat. Pray. Love." on the way over, which made me cry. It kind of seemed like a good movie to watch to start out this trip. It was a really good movie. I tried to watch "the American" but got bored with it in like 15 minutes and turned it off in favor of my Kindle (<3). We arrives at the Sheraton Liberatador, which is a Starwood property, and is, as expected, deliciously appointed and the staff seems outstanding. We crashed out for what was supposed to be 2 hours, but ended up being 5, before dragging ourselves out of bed to go for a walk. We found a pedestrian walkway called Calle Florida which has street vendors and shops on it. All very touristy and probably a rip off, but we were not looking to buy, only to walk and look and have some gellato, which we did. It was packed, and the street is super long, flanked by a park on one side and the providential palace on the other.
Calle Florida




Presidential Palace

I must admit that when we were driving in from the airport, I was a bit concerned because we passed through a whole bunch of shanty towns, which had buildings that looked like kids built them out of mud and Popsicle sticks, but once near our hotel, I can see why people love it here. The buildings are old and beautiful mixed in with new and unique. Everyone seems to speak some English and we are working on our Spanish so we seem to get by ok.

We had a pretty good dinner down the street at a small cafe and then walked over for a stroll in the park before returning back to our hotel. Tomorrow we head out for a city bus tour and then a Tango show.

As you can tell, some pictures are up on my Flickr account, mostly of just interesting buildings from today, if you are interested. And now, I am off for a much needed shower and some reading before bed.