Hola chicos y chicas… We are off to Punta del Este as in “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” If it were not for a little stop on the way I would have skipped this little excursion. Shopping and sand are not my strong suits and looking at the mansions of very rich people just depresses me. They got and I not. But I did mention the little stop and that was at Casapueblo inspired by Carlo Paez Vilaro. Remember the restaurant we ate at a couple days ago in Colonia? Well the more famous relative hangs out here and we [View Full Entry]

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After a wonderfully quiet night we awake to the standard European continental breakfast as like Argentina most of the folks here came from Spain and Italy. We are off to Montevideo, as my granddaughter Hana knows, the capital of Uruguay. The word Uruguay comes from the old Indian term meaning “river of the painted birds.” While the birds may be colorful, unlike BA the painting has stayed off the walls and neatness abounds. And it is the first country to allow women to vote. As a matter of fact all must vote. The guide's connection was lost in translation. Perhaps you [View Full Entry]

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Remember my passport, remember my passport, remember my passport. Instead of counting sheep I chanted myself to sleep with that mantra. We are off to a foreign country today and I won’t get very far without it. For some ungodly reason we have to be at the ferry boat dock at 7:30 in the AM. I am getting used to sleeping in til 9 or later so setting my alarm for 6 is an unnatural experience. We decide to take a taxi today and forego our normal subte experience. There are tons of taxis around except when it rains. Then they [View Full Entry]

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We are going to check out the gauchos in the Eastern Pampas today. These guys were like the cowboys of our western folklore as there is quite a bit of romanticism surrounding their life and culture. In actuality it was a rather brutal existence for these ronan (a Japanese cowboy word) as they had a non conformist attitude in the first place. Made up of the runaway Spanish conquistador rank and file, they hooked up with indigenous women and produced offspring that were pretty independent. Their survival techniques were kinda crude but later when civilization moved east with their hoofed ani [View Full Entry]

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Today we are off to Tigre…the New Orleans of Argentina. Well maybe not quite that sophisticated but it is a delta town about an hour outta town. Our class meets up at the Belgrano train station. This is the same train system that we didn’t take to La Plata because of its decrepit status. I have to agree it’s not the Ritz but it gets you there. What do you want for 80 centavos. We had to stand most of the way looking out at some of the northern burbs that the affluenzer BA’ers are moving to in droves to get [View Full Entry]

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Today is the day for our civic duty. We are off to mail in our absentee ballots. Heard that the US embassy will accept our ballots and make sure they will get to the US of A in a timely manner, something the Argentine post is not known for. Besides we don’t have to pay two bucks each for postage as the embassy will sneek them into their diplomatic pouch along with state secrets and recipes for beef empanadas. Heard that you need your passport to prove you are a good guy and fortunately we remembered them. We usually just carry [View Full Entry]

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Remember I mentioned several days ago that my ear was stopped up? Well it didn’t get better and I was getting tired of walking lopsided to keep my balance. I was torn by the thought of going back to my girlfriend at the national hospital and putting a trumpet in my ear. I think that’s what they called those flower like objects that old folks used to put in their deaf ear but they were more popular in old record players. As much as the thought of this eccentricity appealed to me I asked Kevin the Fixer for another hospital [View Full Entry]

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We are off to San Telmo today. This is the barrio where you find used junk…better known as antiques. We are so good at the subte we can make the change from linea D to C and ignore the fact that each platform is called something different. You get off at Nuevo de Julio station and walk underground to Diagonal Norte station. Pretty good for a guy who thought our subte stop was called Salida for the first two weeks here. This barrio is one of the oldest in BA but it has seen better times. A yellow fever epidemic in [View Full Entry]

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Let's go tango! Today we have a tango lesson. We hop on the subte for a station not too far from ours called Callao. I think I mentioned the pronunciation of Spanish words is a little different down here. The double l and y are pronounced as zh. So it is not Caiyao like in Mexico but Caizhao. Actually everytime I say something to an Argentine in my broken Spanish they look at me like I am from another planet so I then ask if they understand English and fortunately about half the time they do. So don’t rely on my [View Full Entry]

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We are off on a city tour today. Still pretty cold out so I layer on the clothes but by the end of the day I am defiantly ready for the freezer. We hop on the subte change at Nuevo de Julio and walk over to Plaza San Martin. Who needs a stinking tour…we are experts at this ville already. The city has allowed graffiti to grow to an overwhelming art form. Like the dog poop on the sidewalk they have apparently given up trying to clean it up. Speaking of sidewalks, BA has given them new meaning. Rock quarries would [View Full Entry]

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