Buenos Aires - Day 1

Originally composed on January 21, 2008

Greetings from sunny Argentina! It is 80 degrees and gorgeous down here.

I landed yesterday a little after noon Argentina time and took a car service to the hotel. On thing that was cool - all along the highway, people were pulled over and having picnics or just laying out. It seemed like every tree had a car parked next to it and people sitting below it...very cool.

I checked into the hotel and took a shower...slathered on some SPF-45 and hit the town! I'm staying right across the street from Plaza San Martin...they have a clock tower there that resembles Big Ben and was a gift from (appropriately) the British. It's one of the only things remaining from Britain, as the Argentines are very bitter about them ever since the Falkland Island War (Or, as it's called here, Las Minevas). There is also a monument to those who died in that war, resembling the Vietnam Memorial with the names on a wall.

This was the view outside my hotel window of the British Clock Tower.

I also took a walk to the Recoleta Cemetery. That's where Evita is buried. The cemetery is very different - it is all cement, with cobblestone roads and mausoleums everywhere. It actually looks like a little town. Most have doors with glass on them. When you peer inside, it looks like an altar containing usually one or two coffins...then, most of them have a little stairwell to an underground chamber that contains more coffins...family plots. Evita is buried there under her family plot - with little fanfare. I guess they didn't see the Madonna movie. There are a ton of very impressive building in that cemetery. I took a couple of pictures - most people there were, but it felt a little odd, so I didn't take many.

Recoleta Cemetary - it looks like a little town.

The Duarte Family Plot (Evita's maiden name)

This is the gate to the tomb

Public displays of affection are very common in Buenos Aires - even in a cemetary.

Right next to the cemetery is a church from the 1700's. I took a small tour of that. I remember reading something about it in Frommer's, but I don't remember much. I have to go back and research what I toured. They did have a little music room in the back with a giant chant book. The book used a very old style of music writing that I remember learning about in college. That was kinda cool to see.

This is the view of the cemetary from the church. You'll notice that the window is open. That is not glass, but a very thin sheet of marble - not see-through but it lets light through.

Notice that the "notes" are blocks, not circles, and there are no stems or clefs. These are called "numes" and it deals with relative pitch - mapping the interval from your current pitch.

On the way to the cemetery I passed through a crafts fair. That was fun - I wanted to buy tons of stuff but I didn't know how I'd get it all home! It was a lot of pottery and glass stuff.

On the walk back to the hotel I stopped in a bakery to get some local pastries. It boiled down to me point at the cookies and saying "dos por favor, y uno por favor". Ahh, high school Spanish - finally paying off!

I got back to the hotel and took a nap while watching the Patriots game dubbed in Spanish. After that I went down the hotel bar to grab a quick bite (I was so exhausted) and wound up watching the whole Giants game there. There were a few Americans - one from Green Bay and a couple from Jersey, so we watched the game - again dubbed in Spanish.

This morning I got up and found my way to the office here. It wasn't too far and was a nice walk - right by the park in Plaza San Martin. I felt like I was in NYC with the park, and the lights, and the traffic, and the people speaking Spanish....

Well, that's all for now - I just figured I'd give a little update!

I'll write more if anything cool happens.