March in the Midwest

As most people were heading south for Spring Break, Chris and I headed north for a trip to Kansas City to visit family and enjoy the fresh weather.

We stayed at the Brunner "House of Fun" and discovered our love of family fooseball. The weather was great and we were able to catch up with KC friends, Chris's parents, Grandma Ruth, and Chris's sister Katherine and her husband Craig. We spent an afternoon in the NElson Atkins Art Museum, and if you haven't eaten in the restarant then you are missing out.

Summers and Mae interactive art piece.

Family Peek - a - Boo

Little miss no teeth with aunt Katherine & Summers.

Summers and Mae both spent more time than they would have liked practicing for their upcoming cello recital with Chris serving as the conductor/drill sargent.

A great week increasing our feelings of longing to return home. 6 plus months down and only a few more to go...

Don't cry for me.....

I had no idea Buenos Aires was SOOOOO far away. I mean it’s still in America, albeit South America, but still on our side right? Well, now I know there are four sides: left, right, up and down, not just two.

It all started with a trip back to Lincoln for a couple of days in late February and then down south with two good friends, Dr. Sandy and Dr James Gallentine. (perfect for my favorite Fletch line, Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr.) I do not check bags. I am a carry on only passenger, you pack it you carry it. Packing for this adventure was a little tricky, Lincoln and BA in Feb, hummm? I love a challenge and I take a little too much pride in being a ‘smart’ packer. At liftoff in Lincoln the temperature was -22 degrees F wind chill, upon touchdown in in BA the local temp was 93 degrees F. I’m no expert, but that is close to a 100 degree differential. See my dilemma…
After the grueling 11 hour gratis flight in coach I arrived in the land of tango in search of Sandy and James. Our airport reunion went smoothly and we headed into the city. Sandy is a trip planner extraordinaire, guide books, blog print outs and hand written notes on the back of scratch paper fueled our trip. James and I were pretty much on cruise.

We stayed in the BELMONT neighborhood, the Dr.’s at the Four Seasons, the third wheel at the One Season around the corner. Since I was traveling by myself I didn’t want to spend much time in, or money on, my room (after all I am Mrs. Thrifty). Now looking back on it, I definitely, absolutely, without a doubt, did not spend TOO much. It was a small economy room, on the 6th floor, street side, on a very popular street for clubbing. Which is good...because I club.

Buenos Aires is four hours ahead of central time. We had some grandiose plans of waking up early and running, unfortunately I kept waking up around 10 or 11 in the morning. The city was beautiful, in my mind it was most similar to Paris. Beautiful buildings, beautiful people, great food tons of history and an air of elitism.

We visited a few of the ‘touristy’ spots but mostly just walked the streets and soaked it all in. On the first day we walked down to the central square in front of the Pink House (also known as the “don’t cry for me Argentina” house) to observe a group called the mothers of the unknown. Around 20 years ago many people who were in opposition to the government disappeared in the middle of the night never to be heard from again. These mothers have been marching in front of the Pink House – their white house, said to be pink because they would mix the white paint with blood – in protest of their missing sons every Thursday for over 20 years.

Our only firm plans revolved around our dinners. Sandy had a list of the MUST GO restaurants obtained from blogs and personal recommendations. An early dinner seating would be around 8 or 9, so when our body clocks hit 6pm it was 10pm in Argentina. We felt very cool to eat with the trendy, hot locals that dinned until 1:30am on a Thursday night. No biggie…one night we even stayed up until 3am. And even then there were people on the street, having a coffee or ice cream. And not the creepy late night crowd,they were normal looking couples in their 50s and clean, well coiffed teenagers. It was the exact opposite of El Salvador where everything closes down, and boards up when the sun goes down, a virtual ghost town.

On Saturday morning we met up at the crack of 10:30 to make our way to a clay court Professional Tennis tournament. The tennis was great, we didn’t know the players, but the atmosphere was something else. Our seats were up in the bleachers, and I can’t even tell you who won. I can tell you that sandy was a little shocked when the crowd started cheering for a guy who won the fan raffle and was chose to go down on the court. They were chanting GORDO! GORDO! GORDO! Which she thought was a little offensive, but not here. The same in El Sal, gordita is a term of endearment and not used as an insult. Flaca is considered an insult, it means you are not healthy. And what did he care, he was the winner!

Sandy and I managed to return from a shopping trip with the two worst souveniars possible for “carry on” only passengers. Sandy found a lampshade that she couldn’t live with out and I bought three 1-gallon leaded glass antique spritzer water bottles. The Iowaian in me couldn’t resist all those cool glass bottles with the Argentine bottler pressed into the glass. I knew that Chris would say NO, so I decided to only buy three.

On our last night together we attended a midnight Tango show. Oh yes…tango. All the hype, spot on. James coined the name for their future boat, Tango Off Spring. After the show the dancers came out into the crowd, and Sandy was one of the lucky ones to be chosen to dance. While James and I were practically crawling under the table to avoid being “picked”, Sandy popped right up and became so engrossed that she lost one of her shoes. It is a beautiful dance, especially when the dancers are dark, mysterious, and foreign.

I spent my last day walking thru the antiques neighborhood, browsing in store fronts, watching street performers and drinking freshly squeezed orange juice. The people of Buenos Aires are mostly decendents of native argentine indians, Spainards, Italians and French. During the late 1990’s their economny crashed and many of the families sold off their possessions to antique dealers. I’m not an antiquer, most of it just looked old and guilded to me. Overall a great trip that I would recommend to anyone looking for a 11 hour flight.