Plus One

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Today the focus was on cultural experiences for class. The bus took us to the city of San Isidro where we could see the river Rio de la Plata, the San Isidro cathedral, and the mall at the site of the old train line. On the way, the guide Gloria gave us all kinds of random information about Argentina. For example, the gaucho or'Argentina cowboy' didn't carry a gun but a big knife called a facon. Still today you can buy these knives-it is popular to bring your own to BBQs. Also the name for the city came from the Saint sailors brought with to keep them safe. The river near the city, Rio de la Plata, is the widest river in the world reaching 130 miles wide at its mouth. We also passed the President's house 'Quinta de Olivos' named for the olive trees on the property. It is a huge plantain with its own golf course and tennis courts.
After exploring the city, we headed to the mouth of the river or Titre Delta. There we road a boat to tour the houses built up on the deltas. There are no roads and everyone has a dock with either a boat to get around or they take the boat bus. They provided a little dolce de leche shortbread cookie as we saw the houses, including the President's cabin that was covered in a glass box. With the weather, I'm sure this helps preserve it, and is a bit of protection against the many angry people in the country.
Back in Buenos Aires, we all headed out for lunch. We ended up at this fantastic Italian restaurant. The food was amazing-we had brochette appetizers, pasta entrees, and a free sip of lemoncello. Kevin, Tara, James, and I walked down Calle Florida to find Tara's mom a purple purse. We didn't have much luck before we had to hear back to get ready for the tango.
The travel company set our class up with a Tango dinner show. First they gave us basic tango lessons. Jeeves was my partner and we were able to pick it up so well that by the third and trickiest version they had us framed more appropriately and dancing like pros. I was quite proud that they noticed I had some dancing experience! Then we had a fantastic dinner that unfortunately I was still so full from lunch that I couldn't finish. We were smart and split dessert around our table so we could all try the crepe with dolce de leche and the berry ice cream. Yummy! The night ended with an amazing tango show with some musical numbers mixed in.

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