Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires, Argentina (2007)

A tour book in our hostel remarked that Argentines are really Italians who speak Spanish, think they're French, and act British. Another book included this joke: "An Argentine asks his Spanish friend what country he thinks is closest to Heaven. The Spanish friend, annoyed, said, 'You're just going to say that it's Argentina.' The Argentine replied, 'No. It's Chile. Because Chile is closest to Argentina."

The Argentina we experienced was punctuated not by haughtiness, but by art and culture. Sure, Buenos Aires was pretty European looking, but emanating from the city were the sights and sounds of tango, art, fashion, and architecture. We walked around most of the city, ate good Argentine beef, saw Evita's tomb, took in a tango show, and hung out with old ex-pat friends Courtney and Mike and a couple family friends.

Flying in to Buenos Aires was exciting because we flew at night in the clear skies below the moon, but above a very active lightning storm. You can kind of see it as I tried to take a picture out of the window. Oh, and it turned out that it was more exciting than we realized: Argentina doesn't have radar. So the planes fly blind. There was a near collision the day before we got there and the president of Argentina stated that he would not fly until the radar was fixed (it had been destroyed by lightning).

This giant mechanical flower opens and shuts throughout the course of the day. It's beautiful because, as Courtney puts it, "You can see yourself in the reflection."