I am far from home.
I am even farther from South America.
My apologies to all of you for the lack of posting since I left Sao Paulo. We were at this nice hotel in Buenos Aires for the completion of the trip, and despite paying about $10 a day for internet access, it didn’t work worth a bleep.
Incidentally, this will likely be my last post to this Latin America blog, since I am no longer actually in Latin America.
Buenos Aires was by far my favorite city of this entire trip. Argentina is a close 2nd in the “Erin Carrasco award for best country she has visited thus far in her life,” not far behind Spain. The other cities visited on this trip, although completely worthwhile and I am very fortunate to have seen what I did, do not hold a candle to Buenos Aires. I think I have a new found love for “Don’t Cry for me Argentina.” (Which I actually tried to locate the “Evita” soundtrack on my iPod last night on the flight, but was unable to find it. It might be one of the 1,000 other cd’s I have yet to upload to my iPod. Maybe I could hire someone to do that for me. Oh yeah, that’s right – I have bills to pay.)
It took forever & a half to get to the hotel from the airport, but we were right on Avenida 9 de Julio which happens to be the widest street in the whole wide world. I think Talia and I ended up counting the lanes yesterday and there were at least 16. Anyway, it’s like the center of the city which was awesome. The hotel was nice – I got checked in right away & went up to my room to eat (I was starving) and to get settled in. And for those of you who are wondering – it was a club sandwich – and yes, it had eggs. After eating, I could even unpack a little as I would be staying a whole 3 days at the Hotel Panamericano. During the time in which I was stuffing my face and unstuffing my suitcase, Kathy the Lindener’s leader, got her carry-on bag stolen. Apparently, she stepped away from it for all of like 30 seconds to help someone, and some old man walked right off with it. This would be an unimportant fact of the trip, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Kathy’s laptop, projector & all her jewelry were in this bag: including new pieces obtained from the D.R. She was a trooper about it though, I think it had to do with the fact that the hotel apologized by giving her an umbrella that was about my size and that she could in no possible way take back to D.C. with her.
I digress.
Anyway, 4 of us went to a graduate workshop at Fulbright the afternoon of our arrival with this wonderful woman named Norma Gonzalez who was actually a Fulbright student in the US herself. The meeting was pretty much pointless, other than the fact that the building she was housed in was gorgeous and had like 20 foot ceilings. I was also amused by her top lip as I swear part of it stuck to her teeth when she talked. I couldn’t quite figure it out, but it was intriguing, none the less.
Upon my return to the hotel, Audra told me that they had made reservations at the tango joint that evening for 6. For $85, you got a ride to and from the hotel, dinner, wine & a show. Now, this was a bit of a dilemma. My p-card will pay $50 for dinner: but absolutely no alcohol. Not to mention, I wasn’t very sure of the repercussions of putting more than $50 for a meal on that card (although I will likely find out soon from the dinner in Sao Paulo). So that left putting it on my debit card. I wasn’t sure how I could justify spending my own money on this…but on the other hand, when would I ever be in Argentina again and see a tango?As you can see below, the tango won.
It was a great experience, we had a wonderful time.
The next day was a relatively pointless school visit. I say this because the main counselor who puts on the college fairs was away at NACAC, so someone else was in charge. I likely talked to 5 students. Not very worthwhile.
After the school visit, I went to the grocery store and bought a few things, then took a nap. At 7:30 the group met in the lobby for our “farewell dinner.” It wasn’t a delicious dinner, but it was a nice one with the remainder of the group, one last time. We said our goodbyes in the lobby that evening and went to bed.
On Saturday, I woke up to a beautiful, warm sunny day. But I wouldn’t really know this when getting dressed, since my 2nd floor room looked out at another building, and some type of heating & cooling system. It was beneficial to me in that I didn't wake up with the sun, but it was terrible not being able to see what the day looked like.
I set out at 11 am with Kathy, Nicole & Talia to head to Recoleta. Recoleta is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires - there are a number of high end stores (Cartier, Louis Vuitton, etc) and also an amazing plaza & cemetary. You're probably thinking, who calls a cemetary amazing? Look at this:
These tombs are huge - altars, fireplaces, stained glass, doors, basements, staircases, marble, etc. We even saw the grave of Evita Peron. Please check out my pictures on my Facebook or My Space...I am trying to get them uploaded elsewhere too.
Afterwards, we had lunch, did some shopping and saw "La Casa Rosada" which is the equivalent of our White House.
I concluded the beautiful afternoon with a bottle of wine & a filet mignon with Reesa at an outdoor restaurant down the street. It was the perfect last night in Buenos Aires.
The next day, I did a bit more shopping, ate a burger @ the hotel with Talia (yes, they offered me an egg on it...and ham too!) and headed to the airport. Our flight sat on the runway for TWO hours in Buenos Aires, but we were eventually on our way and I obviously made it home safely.
All in all, it was the trip of a lifetime. The experience of a lifetime. And I would do it all over again, no doubt.
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