Spanish teachers in South America: Leg 1 - Buenos Aires, Argentina

Buenos Aires - a capital city that surprised me in terms of how green it was. Buenos, Aires - our introduction to Argentinian beef (oh, the steak sandwiches complete with egg, ham, lettuce, tomato, and a slab of steak that hung halfway off either side of the bread), vos instead of tú, the sing-song accent and intonation, the Argentinian zha instead of the austere y and doble ll, the mate social tea-toting and -sipping culture, and TANGO. While far, far, far from capable, I was dazzled by the music played by the tango orchestra of strings, piano, bandonians, and singer, and how others "walked" across the old wooden floorboards so gracefully in the milonga, or tango dance hall.

Kudos to Juan, our guide for our bike tour of southern part of the city the day after our 30+hours of travel.

Kudos also to Buenos Aires and all other Spanish-speaking countries for drawing a line between family time and work; thanks to their commitment to observing Christmas Eve traditions of family dinners, we enjoyed our Christmas Eve dinner of soggy pre-packaged sandwiches, water, and Oreo cookies in a convenience store, the only public establishment open within probably 20 blocks or so of our hostel, except for the cathedral, where we went after our feast.

Kudos to those persistent pigeons who managed to shat on Kirstin's shoulder while we were resting for lunch at an outdoor Italian restaurant (I strongly dislike pigeons).

Kudos to the theater-turned-bookstore, El Ateneo, for holding the attention of these three Spanish teachers for 3.5 hours and being a magnet for our Visa cards, requiring us to buy a small carry-on suitcase to cart our purchased resources for the remaining 2 weeks of our trip. (Teachers love books, movies and music!)

For more pictures, please visit my Flickr site. (Yes, I managed to pare down my pics to a mere 41 favorites... for Buenos Aires. More to come!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23065175@N02/sets/72157623102347841/