Equipo Williams

Buenos Aires was really fun and I hope we go back sometime. There were a lot of museums, parks, and other places where you could learn about the history of the city, as well as the history of the country.

The first full day we were there we went to the Sunday street market to see what that was all about. It was just a big long street of stands, like in Austria, and each were selling different things. There were stands selling stuffed animals, stands selling art, t-shirts, bracelets, all sorts of stuff, and it was very fun to walk through the streets and see all of this happening. I bought an Argentinian flag bracelet to add to my collection of country themed clothing and accessories.

After the outdoor street market, we went to the permanent indoors one to see what that was. There were a lot of food stands, but we were very crowded there, so we decided to come back for lunch the next day. The next day, Monday, we came back, but it was still very crowded so we went to a cafe instead. At this cafe I had a delicious, but very sweet mocha cake, and was happy sweets wise the rest of the day. 

We also went to a lot of museums or museum type places. We went to a Japanese garden and walked around there for an hour. The one cherry blossom tree there had all of two flowers, which was slightly disappointing. The main attraction of the garden was a Koi pond with many bridges and walkways above as well as around it. The Koi were all beautiful except for one white one whose eyes were so bulged I thought they were going to fall out of its head. 

We went to multiple animal/nature-y zoo things, which was very fun. The first one was a zoo where they freed the animals, sort of, or at least didn’t work them for rides and other things of that sort. There were giraffes, capybara-like things, a puma, and an elephant, but my favorite was the camel. The poor thing must have been 50 years old and could barely walk. It looked like it just wanted to take a long relaxing sleep, but of course there were a bunch of little kids screaming every second. I felt really bad for it and it was therefore my favorite. 

The second zoo we went to was less like a zoo, more like a nature park. I think they let all the animals roam free, so we didn’t see any. We did see the massive river called Rio De La Plata, as well as the boat we were to take to Colonia in a few days. The walk was beautiful and the shade of the trees made it not unbearably hot. 

We also went to the Latin American art museum, which was very pretty and had amazing pieces of art. My favorite was a piece that looked like the pueblos we saw in Mesa Verde. It was a hunk of marble with the miniature pueblos cut into it. It was just one of the many beautiful pieces though. For example, there was another piece that looked like a city filled with . . . things. Half of the painting was in darkness, I’m guessing to symbolize death. There were also other random things like a waterfall and a person standing in a dark hallway in front of a wall of fire. There was a great Frida Kahlo presence, her art, people’s art of her, her writing, artifacts, things like that that made the section of the museum fun.

Speaking of important feminine figures, while we were in Buenos Aires, my parents decided to give us a fun history lesson and let us watch the Evita movie. For anyone who doesn’t know, Evita was president Juan Peron’s wife, but was treated as if she were a saint. She was born a poor child who lost her father at an early age, but slowly she moved up until she was one of the most well known people in Argentina. We didn’t finish the movie, so I don’t know much, but I do know that Argentinians call her Santo Evita or Saint Evita and treat her as such. She had a funeral similar to the Queen’s, with a procession and a line of people coming to give her their blessings. After being moved all around the world, including to Italy, her coffin was placed in the Recoleta cemetery, where hundreds of people come to see her and give their blessings every day.

I’m saying all of this because we visited Recoleta Cemetery, to see her as well as the at least one thousand people buried there. Even though we only saw her grave for ten to twenty seconds, we still had to wait in a line to see her. Her grave, which is shared with her family, was covered in flowers that people had bought for her, and also plaques about her. Although her grave wasn’t huge or too central, everyone was there.

One of my favorite things I did was go shopping with Mama. We visited at least eight stores and I bought a total of two shirts, one sweater, one dress, four pairs of socks, and one pair of shoes. We were going to the opera the next day and had to get nice enough clothes for them to let us in. We went to a thrift store and rooted around in huge piles of dresses for maybe an hour and a half, to come out with each one or one half (in mama’s case) outfits, for the opera. I got a plain black dress, because I didn’t want to look too formal or informal, and mama got a dress that was too cheap to try on, a pretty black blouse, and a nice beaded necklace to wear. We went to maybe five more thrift stores where I bought a tan sweater to go with my dress and my mom bought a green skirt to go with her black top. My favorite store that we visited was a boutique called B. Young Moda, which had clothes that very much suited me. I got a red tank top and a black and white striped t-shirt there, which suited me very well. 

We had to get shoes for the opera too, because ours were dirty and gross, but I didn’t know this, so I wore crocs and no socks. This meant we had to walk an extra half mile to a socks store. We ended up going to a small shoe store where mama bought black sandals and I bought black Vans!!!!!!! I got the tall bottomed ones, because I am short, and they didn’t have black high tops in my size. They are so cute and I love them so much and I am very thankful that my mom took me there. 

The next night we tested out our new clothes at the Opera. We went to the Teatro Colon to watch “Opera em Zapatillos,” meaning opera in slippers. We saw a bunch of classics as well as some orchestra pieces. These were directed by student conductors who had never conducted in front of an audience before, which was another cool aspect of the performance. The theater was beautiful and looked like it had not changed since the late 1800s when it was built.

All in all, Buenos Aires was very fun and I hope Mama and Baba retire there so I have an excuse to go back, although I might go again anyways.