Buenos Dias Argentina

Ah, finally a chance to rejoin the blogging world. I was feeling a touch of withdrawal. Well, as I write, I am sitting in an internet cafe in Santiago de Chile. But Christine and I didn´t come here directly - we made a three day trip to San Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina. I must admit it was one of the most amazing and beautiful places on earth. Bariloche is a little tourist honky tonk town with a chalet theme, and is famous for chocolate making (and let me say, the chocolates are nothing to shake a stick at - they are VERY good). The truly amazing part is the setting, high in the Andes nestled between several¨"alpine" lakes. Think Lake Tahoe, except several more lakes, a lot of mountains, and snowy peaks as far as the eyes can see. The hotel was equally amazing, as we had a balcony overlooking the lakes and several snow capped mountains. I spent several hours enjoying the view, although somewhat unwillingly. I caught some nasty cold in Buenos Aires which effectivel...

Well, today was officially the last full day in Buenos Aires (and as I type, I am taking my mid-day blogging break before heading out to dinner). Antother very interesting day amongst the portenos. It all started with a visit to MALBA, the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires. It was defintely enlightening, but I have come to the conclusion that modern art, no matter from what continent, is just not my cup of tea. I just don't see the value in a few pieces of jaggedly cut out blue construction paper pasted to white backgrounds and then, voila!, modern art. Even in the little Spanish I know, I could still hear people struggling to explain the pieces. For me, there's nothing to explain - you either like it or you don't. Then we hit of Carrefour, the French version of WalMart in the heart of BA, to pick up wine and other goodies. I picked the wines that were sporting security tags - anything that's worthy of theft has to be of good vintage, right? And then ...

So, it's about 11:30 pm local time and we've just returned from dinner. When I get home, my whole eating schedule is going to be thrown off! Today, we spent the morning -- shopping, the afternoon -- shopping and the evening -- shopping . . . so you can say that today was our shopping day. Argentina, as you may know, is known for its wonderful beef but what else comes from cows? Yes, amazingly soft and supple leather . . . and that's what I bought. Four leather bags and two pairs of boots all under $400 . . . YAY! It also helps that August is Buenos Aires's biggest sale month . . . so I got 50% off my leather, brown, knee-high boots which were 398 pesos originally and were marked down to 199 pesos -- about $67. Oh how I love boots. In addition to the leather and the beef, we've taken it upon ourselves to sample a couple of other cuisines while here. The other night we stood in line to eat . . . at a Mexican restaurant. Yes, there was a line to get in, appar...