Monday, January 26, 2009
Day 17 - Buenos Aires, Argentina
http://www.geobeats.com/videoclips/argentina/buenos-aires/san-telmo-market
We bump into Al and Lori from San Francisco and walk with them for a while before saying goodbye.We walk a few blocks to catch a subway back to the hotel. Before going to the room we walk down the street and find a disco and go inside. This isn’t like the disco on the ship. This disco is actually a supermarket. We buy fruits, bread, lunch meat, water…etc. We go back to the hotel and take the scary ass elevator back up to the room. It jerks hard and heaves and groans wildly. Here is how it mismatches with our floor level. We enjoyed the rest of the evening alone until bedtime.
Day 18 - Recoleta District
Here we find Evita.
It is seriously hot here today. Scalding hot! We find this humongous 200 year old tree.
We decide to have some soda and a snack at this world famous restaurant: La Biela:
http://www.geobeats.com/videoclips/argentina/buenos-aires/la-biela
It is a little more expensive to order on the patio under the tree but it is gorgeous and peaceful here. You can’t quite see from any of the pictures but these branches are so enormous that each one requires a 8”X8” post to prop them up.
Because it is a national holiday, the Sunday fair at the Plaza Francia (the Recloeta Feria) is also going on today.
We walk along the path and peruse the vendor’s goods.
We end up buying
a necklace for Tim’s birthday before heading
back to the hotel. On the way back we take this photo through the gates of the Palacio San Martin. This is a national monument to the nation’s liberator. We stop at the disco for some dinner and bring it back to the room. We see our neighbors across the way enjoying a fireplace on their balcony. We enjoy our evening alone as we recoup from a long day of walking. What a beautiful city.
Day 19 - Palermo District
They sure love their men on horses
here!
We come to this major
intersection and find this “Monument of the Spaniards” in the middle of the roundabout. It was a gift from the Spanish and is made of marble and bronze. The street
shooting off of this intersection is an 11 lane one way street. We take the underground crosswalk…
This passage is filled with really cool skateboard art:
And end up at a beautiful park. This guy can’t believe we’re here!The plant life is gorgeous here.
We find this graveyard for broken monuments – much like the land of misfit toys.
Nobody wants to play with a Charlie in the box! We make our way to the Japanese Gardens and end up taking pictures there for quite a while. Here’s a sampling that you can click on to get larger views:
Backtracking now, we come to rest at a bench across from the city’s zoo and take this one: And then we find a butterfly. And then the final destination of the district, the “Buenos Aires International Artisan’s Fair”.This comes only once a year for 2 weeks before Christmas and we hit it just right. Of everything handmade we have seen thus far, this is the highest quality merchandise. Really nice stuff. We take our time here and really soak it in. With Todd having been laid off, we certainly are not in a position to take advantage of this place, but we pick up some nice gifts with Paul’s graduation, birthdays and Christmas in mind, we are actually able to pick up some very nice items with a little more meaning, and save quite a bit. Plus, there are some at Denise’s office who helped out with formal clothing and luggage to thank. Here are the brothers and sisters to the keepsake box Paul gets for graduation.
And for Sean and Paul, this man...
plays the pan flutes that will be theirs.
Outside the entrance to the convention center is the Opera Pampa. It served as the parade grounds for the Sociedad Rural Argentina, an association of wealthy landowners from all over the country founded in 1866. During their annual meetings in Buenos Aires, they would parade their most prized animals, along with their gaucho workers, and compete for awards.
The subway is packed as tight as a trailer park tube top. We just eke in, grab a pole and breathe. When we get out we notice that it has started raining. It’s still warm though. We head to the disco for dinner again and pick up some local beer. It is very tasty and we thoroughly enjoy our beer night together. Outside there is a loud lightning storm as we drift off to sleep.