Buenos Aires

Two days after Christmas we got in the Suburban and drove to Buenos Aires. Kevin has a friend and collegue who lives there and offered his house to us while he was spending the holidays in the United States. It was very generous, we really wanted to visit, and so we took advantage of his offer, hoping that we (or he) didn't live to regret it.

We were happy that the roads were good, and the countryside was pretty. It looked like the Midwest: flat, fields, farms. There were fields full of sunflowers that were beautiful. Acres and acres of golden yellow happiness. If I ever become a farmer, I will grow sunflowers. I'll tell my friends, "I grow sunflowers, rainbows, and happiness, right here next to my unicorn ranch." How awesome would that be?

Anyway, we drove from Asunción to Rosario, Argentina, where we spent the night in a Holiday Inn, ate at McDonald's, and heard a rumor of a Subway. We also left Noah's blankey in the hotel, "my favorite blankey, with frogs, that cost four hundred dollars!" It didn't cost quite that much, but it does have some sentimental value. I didn't discover it missing until we were a half an hour outside Buenos Aires and Kevin was not going to turn around to go and get it. Fortunately, when we called, the hotel had the blanket, and we were able to retrieve it on the drive home. Noah rode with it over his head the whole drive home, he was so happy to get it back.

Buenos Aires was fun, it is a beautiful city, with plazas, and green space, and statues, and cool old buildings. We visited the Casa Rosada, where I really wanted to go and sing from the balcony, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina." The boys told me that I couldn't and shouldn't. We also saw Eva Peron's grave in the cemetary at La Recoleta. It was an old cool cemetary, with vaults made of marble, granite, and a colony of wild looking cats. I could have wandered in that cemetary for hours. We visited La Boca, a colorful, fun place, with street tango dancers, cool arts and crafts, and painted buildings. We drove on the the widest street in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio, past the Boca Juniors soccer stadium, and alongside the Rio de la Plata. We took a trip to a zoo, swam in the pool at the house, and had a relaxing time. It was a good trip, and traveling to Buenos Aires from Asunción is like taking a time machine from the past to the present. The internet was fast, the people (mostly) obeyed the traffice rules, and the streets were mostly smooth, wide, and nice. One thing I have noticed while visiting South American cities is that the painted traffice lanes seem to be a guideline at best. Where there are four lanes in the road, the drivers make five or six. I asked Kevin if maybe I was approaching the whole painted lanes issue completely wrong, and that instead of assuming that we were supposed to be between the lines, we should be straddling them.