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Day #2 In Buenos Aires

 

The municipality of Buenos Aires wishes everybody a Happy Jewish New Year!  This city definitely has more of a New York City feel than Santiago complete with the greeting and grit.

 

We started the morning off going to a book store that is in a converted theatre - El Ateneo Splendid Palace.   The stage was a cafe and the books were located on the main floor, basement and on the balconies.  It is located on one of the major commercial streets.  What a great example of adaptive re-use!  Jonathan noted that it was a lot more interesting than Barnes and Noble ;-)

We continued onto the first cafe of the day where Rob finally got his "cafe con leche con media lunas" a typical argentine cafe breakfast.  He was in heaven and Elisa couldn't get enough media lunas.

We decided to torture our children by bringing them on a tour of Teatro Colon.  We found out that they had tours in English a few times a day and headed for one of them on the subway or the Subte (subterraneo).  It is apparently the oldest subway system in Latin America and by the looks of things it hasn't changed that much since it was first built!  There is even one line that still has the old wooden (on the inside) cars.  It turned out that there was no room in the English tours so we further tortured them by taking a tour in Spanish.  Hopefully, one day they will think back on how neat it was to see the theatre.  Unfortunately, they did not allow us to take photos on most of the tour so here is a link.

Teatro Colon (where we could take photos)

We headed home and bought some empanadas to have with our apples and honey :-)  After Rob and I went out for a coffee together while the kids watched Nickelodean (all in the interest of Spanish acquisition) and a rest (or a read on the balcony) we headed out to a parillada (Argentine grill restaurant) and had some good beef and a salad.  Off to sleep..

Rosh HaShanah in Buenos Aires

The kids have off of school for Rosh Hashanah from Wednesday afternoon through Friday and they've gotten more than their typical dose of Jewish New Year themed lessons this year so we decided to take advantage of a long weekend and go to Buenos Aires.  We figures that the 5772nd Jewish Year could start out with the sweetness of dulce de leche in addition to honey this year and that we'd take a break from the traditional services and seek out something else on the banks of el Rio de la Plata (tashlich?).  What we didn't plan on was that our kids are not real city walkers and we have had a day of kvetching...I kept threatening that the alternative to walking was finding a local synagogue ;-)

Since we had so much "success" with short-term apartment rentals in Santiago we found one in Buenos Aires for four nights in La Recoleta.  It look nicer in the photos but is in a great location and is twice the size as a hotel room and has a kitchen (and is much less expensive)  http://www.bytargentina.com/re/propview.php?view=4394

We got to the apartment earlier than expected so went to a little cafe on the corner and had some lunch.

Lunch - Renee is drinking a submarino (steamed milk with a chocolate bar dunked in)

Once we settled into the apartment, we set off for a walk to visit one of the two buildings where Rob studied Civil Engineering at the University of Buenos Aires.  Although it resembles a gothic cathedral, it apparently was originally built as a law school but is now the engineering school.  It had not changed in the 20 years since he went there (or for probably 50 years before that).  We all agreed that it was kind of a creepy place but it had its charm.

The creepy classroom

To continue on the creepy theme, we walked over to the Recoleta Cemetery where many famous Argentines are buried.   If you have never seen it or pictures it is laid out like city blocks with the "houses" actually elaborate mausoleums.  Many are really architecturally interesting but many others are in disrepair and have broken glass or cobwebs everywhere.  After the initial interest, the kids got a bit freaked out by "too many dead people."  Perhaps it may have captured their attention better with an interesting tour guide.  Ah well.

La Recoleta

Tomorrow I work on getting pictures of the dog walkers!  We saw people walking 11 dogs (and not tiny ones) at once today.  One of the best parts of returning home next summer is that we will finally get a dog.  I realized that I was not "freaked out" in the cemetery because we used to take walked with our family dog through a local cemetery.  What was that about Mom and Dad????

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