Leaving South America

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Well...

The time has come to conclude our travel adventures in Argentina!! We are leaving for the US tomorrow, and are both excited to be home, and sad to be leaving such a wonderful city. The week or so since our last posting has been a wild ride, complete with political demonstrations, road closures and blockades, and my birthday!!

This city has a lot of political stuff going on, that is partially caused by the economic in-stability of the country. One of the many things involved the soy farmers... and so the farmers have recently been blockading some of the roads out of the city of Buenos Aires (BS.AS.). not letting any meat into the city! (which as it turns out is not a real big deal to me... but it to these locals!!) Well... We had planned to spend our last few days with Maitreyi on an island in the Uruguay River, a few hrs north of the city... but we weren't sure if we could get thru the blockade. As it turns out we decided to not risk it, and the day we would have been coming back we heard of a great back log of vehicles coming back to the city, since that day they figured out a solution to the dispute, and the blockades were lifted. So not only would the tiny 2 lane road have been crowded, but that day it was very foggy, and there were 2 deaths on the road!! long story short... good thing we didn't go!!

So instead we spent the last days with Maitreyi hanging out in the city. We cruzed around some of the local open air fairs, and explored a few of the neighborhoods, went shopping, and even hosted a birthday party for Linda (Maya's Dad's girlfriend...) and I. And surprisingly I knew most of the folks who came!! some people we met down here, as well as some of our friends who were here at the same time as us!

Among the other things that we did were...
1. go to the very top of the first skyscraper ever built in South America. Which is a really cool 17 floor building (not the tallest anymore!!), that represents Heaven, Purgatory and Hell (in that order from the top down). The architecture was awesome, even if a little eerie.
2. We went shopping!! oh boy. well... actually there are a lot of really cool little shops here, so that was fun. and searching through the fairs for interesting things was also fun. But I'm totally shopped out. I don't think I can handle any more shopping for a while.
3. we saw the tomb of Eva Perón (Evita) in the Cementario de Recolletta. Which is much less impressive than you'd think. It's off on the side someplace, and she's buried with her maiden family. But the cemetery is incredible, since almost none of the crypts/tombs are under ground. you can walk by the front of a tomb, and see the coffins right there!! And a lot of time there are people who've broken into some of the tombs. It's a crazy thing to see so many above ground tombs when we are so used to burying people 6 feet under!
4. lots more dance classes! We practiced a bunch, and went out to a few milongas (that's what they call the social dances here). This is always fun but we still feel a bit intimidated by so many of the amazing dancers down here! We'll just have to practice a bunch when we get home.
5. All of these things we did with Maitreyi!! and she had a blast. Just hanging out with her was awesome since I hadn't seen my little sister for what seemed like forever! She looked good, like the south american life style and weather were doing her some good. she kept talking about wanting to move to BS.AS. so maybe next time we take a trip down here, we'll be able to see her living in this big city!
6. After Maitreyi left on Saturday we have tried to get our fix of the big city by trekking around to some more of the local weekend fairs, and eating at some of the fabulous restaurants.

Now we're ready for our home, our doggies that we miss terribly, and our own bed. I can hardly wait to be cooking in our own kitchen, and playing in the garden, and call me crazy... but also working!! I'm sure that there is a boat load of work waiting for me when I arrive back home, so I won't be disappointed!

Well... this is all for now. The next post will include some pictures, and I'll also add some to this posting as well. So be sure to check back in some time this weekend!

A giant THANK YOU to Steve for letting us stay in his beautiful Argentinean home, and for being such a great host. you can check out some pix of the house on his web site http://casitarosa.com ...oh, and you can visit the house in person if you book some time!! ok... there's the plug.

cheers to you all, and we look forward to seeing you all soon!!

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