Beautiful Colonia

I enjoyed spending that next weekend in Buenos Aires and even watched the Red Socks game at an American bar near my house. It was my first baseball game and I still didn’t really watch it. Oh well, but go Rockies for making it as far as they did!! Not too much else super exciting happened except I had a fantastic, relaxing Sunday after going to church and eating dinner out with a friend. Buenos Aires has warmed up quite a bit and the humidity is coming on too, which also means lots of mosquitoes…but beautiful flowers and trees too (which add a lot of color to the concrete jungle).
This past weekend on Friday night my friend Susanne and I went to ¨Gallery Nights¨ which is the last Friday of every month when many of the galleries around my area of town have an open house and serve wine and champagne. It was a romantic evening of viewing art and we even saw a bride getting her pictures taken as we headed into a gallery in a beautiful, 5 star hotel. There was even a lovely orchestra playing Mozart in the street as we sipped on our champagne and chatted about that art.
On Saturday I went on an IES sponsored trip to Colonia, Uruguay which was absolutely beautiful and the whole city smelled like Jasmine. Colonia is a World Heritage site so everything is really old, even the cars, and incredibly beautiful. My friend Susanne and I stayed in a cute little hotel with other students in our program which had a pool and everything was colored light yellow and blue. It was really nice to be treated to a hotel after staying in so many hostels--having our own bathroom was a real treat! We explored the town a little the first day we were there and then headed to the beach to soak up some rays and play in the sand. We watched a beautiful sunset by the docks which turned the whole sky orange (probably from the pollution in Buenos Aires—its just across the river delta). That night we ate dinner with the other students in our program and our entrée was pretty much a heart attack on a plate—red meat topped with ham and a fried egg over a bed of french fries, olives, and pickled somethings with mayo on top, and wine. And, for desert, a dulce de leche filled crêpe with vanilla ice cream. I didn’t even finish it but I didn’t think I would eat for another week. We walked around for a bit to get a look at the southern hemisphere stars but it got too chilly to stay out for too long. The next day we had a relaxing breakfast, despite our dinner, and then headed to another beach about 20 min away with beautiful white sand to catch some more sun. Before heading home on the ferry to Buenos Aires we stopped for a quick lunch, and or course ice cream, and then sat out by the pool before going home. I recommend Colonia to anyone who gets this far south, its beautiful and smells amazing, the people are friendly, and the hotels are adorable!

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