Amusement Park Fun

Bryan took the day off on Friday so we could go to Parque de la Costa, an amusement park in the nearby suburb of Tigre.  It's not a particularly "cultural" thing to do, but so affordable we couldn't pass it up.  Since it's wintertime here they were running a special, so we got in for the equivalent of $4.25 per person!  And since it was on a school day in the off-season, there wasn't any wait time for rides.  One of the best experiences ever at an amusement park.  Especially since the kids haven't really been to one (that they can remember), so they were just delighted and thrilled with the whole thing.

See... pretty deserted, eh?

We took Sienna and Colby on their first big roller coaster: loop-de-loop, upside down, super fast drop, backwards and forwards, etc.  When I was on it with Colby and we were half way through the ride, going slowly up to the top for a big drop, I asked him if he was having fun.  With a death grip on the handles, eyes as wide as saucers, and fear in his voice he replied, "Yes..........  kind of."

After going on a much tamer roller coaster Ashley commented, "This is the best day ever in Argentina!"
It was an hour and half each way by bus and train.  So we had some sleepy, but very happy, kids at the end of the day.

Today we were invited to the home of one of Bryan's colleagues for an authentic Argentine Barbeque.  This IS a cultural thing.  They served us three different cuts of meat, grilled to tender perfection.  We ate around 1 or 1:30, and the fire for the grill was started at 10.  These people take their barbeque seriously.  It was delicious.  Dessert was flan with dulce de leche, another traditional food.  And I can see why they don't eat dinner until 9 at night... we were stuffed! 

So how do we repay our hosts for their kindness?

Why, by leaving our baby unattended by the container of dulce de leche, of course.

El Ateneo

Yesterday the kids and I went to a bookstore called El Ateneo.  It used to be an old theater, so it was very elegant, with a cafe on the stage part and bookshelves in the box seats.  Very fancy and fun to see, although not much to do there with the kids.  We shopped a little and left.  Still, I'm glad we went. 

 On the way home... yet another city park.

Paul recognizes the camera now and sticks his chin out with a cute "cheese" face.

 I told Sienna we should try and do her hair like in the picture behind Colby.

Colby got in some more pick-up soccer today.  He doesn't seem to have any fear of playing with strangers.  And he doesn't need to speak the same language, so that's a bonus.  He'll be playing like an Argentine in the fall!

Parks, pets, and people

Many people have dogs in Buenos Aires.  It was a curious thing at first to see paid dog walkers: people out with 5 or more dogs on leashes, trying to keep them untangled and share the sidewalk with others.  Unfortunately, not many people actually clean up after their dogs.  Which means we have to watch our step.  This seems especially important to me on our walk to church.  Who wants to show up dressed in their Sunday best, only to smell like....

The dogs are also frequent visitors to the parks.  One ran away with the tennis ball we were playing with.  His owner made him bring it back.  The playground area is fenced, so it seems to be "relatively" clean.  Good thing, because Paul's face is awfully close to the ground as he's crawling around, and he gets a lot of sand in his diet.

We visited a park on Monday that does not have the dog problem.  There were signs posted that said no animals allowed, and it looked like there was actually someone on guard to make sure the rules were observed.  I like dogs, and my kids like dogs, but it was nice to walk around and not have to watch our step.  This was a beautiful park with nice, flat grassy areas, big trees, curving pathways, many benches, etc.  The playground area wasn't anything fancy, and like all the others we've been to, the ground was sand.  I feel like we're at the beach, just without the water.  Every night we sweep up a pound of sand.  The kids don't mind, of course.

At the park I met another English speaking young woman... from Talkeetna, Alaska of all places.  How random to meet another Alaskan in Buenos Aires, Argentina?  After our discussion I realized that my Alaskan upbringing now makes up less than half of my lifetime.  Huh.

After leaving the park we witnessed our first, and hopefully last, big city apartment fire.  We heard the sirens first, then saw the huge flames shooting out the window of the 2nd or 3rd floor of a building, sending black smoke in the sky.  I hope the people were OK.  It makes me a little nervous, knowing that we have to light our stove, oven, and heaters by match.  I'm grateful we live on the ground floor.

To get to this nice fancy park we decided to take the bus.  This was our first attempt, and it was, as expected, a little cumbersome getting me and 5 kids and a backpack and a stroller onto a standing-room only bus.  But we did it, and were fine, and people are very friendly.  They often give up their seats for us, or offer to help.  A common question is the Spanish equivalent of "Are these all yours?"  I can tell generally by the raised eyebrows while pointing to the kids.  They usually follow with something like "beautiful family."
 
I'm amazed at how many people can squeeze onto a bus.  Even when I think it's too full and for sure the driver will say no room, more will get on.  And it's equally challenging to get me and 5 kids and a backpack and a stroller to maneuver through the aisle to get OFF the bus.  We didn't quite make it in time for the stop closest to our home, so we ended up a little further and had to find our way back.  This wouldn't be so bad if streets had names on them, so I could figure out where we were. Sometimes the intersections have labels nailed to the sides of buildings.  But if the buildings have glass windows or no good place for a sign, then they're just not labeled.  Makes it rather tricky.  But after wandering around for a bit we made it home.


In other exciting news... this cute kid took 5 steps yesterday, and 15 today.  Woohoo!

And Bryan's and Sienna's first attempt at homemade empanadas was successful.  They quickly disappeared.

Downtown Buenos Aires

We did a little sight-seeing of downtown Buenos Aires yesterday and today.  We managed to figure out the subway and get everyone on and off.  Dallin was super excited to ride a train. 

The Casa Rosada (the Pink House of Argentina, like the White House).  They give free 60 minute tours on the weekend, showing us the President's office, several reception rooms, the state dining room, etc.  The office of Eva Peron was kept intact.  She is highly revered.

Courtyard in the middle.

The "widest road in the world": Nueve de Julio.  July 9 is Argentina's independence day, which also happens to be Paul's birthday.  So it's Paul's birthday road.  There are about 11 lanes of traffic going each way, with an even wider median in between (the obelisk is in the median, the road was hard to photograph).

This tree makes the list of coolest trees I've ever seen.  You can't capture the whole tree in a picture.  The branches are huge and stretch out forever.

Yesterday while walking around we asked some Unicef people to recommend a good place to eat with kids.  They told us of a pizzeria a few blocks away that was reasonably priced.  So we we got the name and headed that way.  We found a restaurant whose name had several of the same consonant sounds and figured that must be it.  We walked in, saw linen napkins, wine glasses, a handful of quiet, sophisticated customers, and elegantly dressed waiters.  Uh.... not so sure about this.  We had a brief conversation with the host (which wasn't really much of a conversation, since we don't speak the same language) and let them seat us.  Then we looked at the menu.  Definitely not sure about this.  Our very generous and kind waiter wrote down the names (writing is much better than hearing) of three kid-friendly pizzerias in the area, and after many "muchas gracias", we made our hasty, yet obvious, exit.  A minute later we found the Unicef-and waiter-recommended restaurant, and it was perfect.  Noisy, crowded, cheap, and delicious.

When we first came out of the subway yesterday we noticed a small protest going on by Nueve de Julio.  By the time we headed back to the subway it had grown into quite a crowd and was blocking traffic.  As we walked on the sidewalk, a group of motorcycle police parked next to us.  They were all dressed in black, with cans on their chest (tear gas?), and the label "riot police".  The kids were impressed as they all revved their engines then parked in unison.  I don't think anything noteworthy came of it, but I was glad we were leaving then anyway.

Monkeying Around at the Zoo

Yesterday the kids and I went to the Buenos Aires Zoo.  I was impressed!  Bears, lion, tigers, rhinoceros, elephants, giraffes, camels, llamas,... the usual.  Plus quite a few animals I´ve never seen before.

Like the carpincho...

these nameless animals that were wandering free everywhere and looked like a cross between a rabbit and kangaroo...

and these ugly ducks that would steal your food if it was at their level.

This guy needed some serious dental work.  Talk about an underbite!

My favorite exhibit was the 4 baby white tigers. 

The zoo was a good 40 minute walk, which was fine on the way there, thanks to our borrowed double stroller.  After three hours of walking around the zoo, though, it was an exhausting walk home. 

On the way there, a friendly young woman saw me looking at my map and, in English, offered to help, telling me how to get on the bus because it would be way too far.  Little did she know how many hikes we've made our kids go on.  Without taking another step a friendly old woman stopped to tell me (through pointing and gesturing) that my kids were underdressed and needed their coats on.  I have noticed that we dress a little lighter than everyone else.  It got up to 75 (F) yesterday, for goodness sakes.  Colby was perfectly content in his short sleeves and I was too hot in my long sleeves.

Despite all the walking we do, none of it is very heart-pumping aerobic.  I rarely see people running on the sidewalks.  I did notice one gym on our walk yesterday, but surely it's not enough for the thousands of people that live around it.  When we visited our park at dusk two nights ago, we saw a few joggers out circling the park.  So this morning I headed out to join them.  It takes not two minutes to circle the park.  Makes for a rather tedious run, going around and around.  I ran the three blocks home as well, and realized why people don't run much in the city.  Too many people, too many stoplights.  Oh well, I got in my little bit of sweaty exercise, and felt a little better about going home to my daily breakfast of fresh croissants and pastries..  Mmmmmmm.....

After trying out the park lap myself I decided to make the kids do it.  We stayed close to home today after wearing out their little legs yesterday.  But by 3:00 they were ready to climb the walls.  So we went to the park and I timed them making the lap.  We'll repeat it throughout the summer.  It's exactly the kind of physical challenge Colby needs.  He immediately wanted to do it again after sprinting around it the first time, to see if he could do better.

This afternoon at the park I met a family (mom and two sons) from Texas.  She is a Spanish professor, here with some students for the summer.  It was great talking with her and we exchanged contact information.  She lives nearby, so I'm hoping for more playdates at the park (or elsewhere).  Her boys (6 and 10) played great with our kids.

On Our Own

Bryan headed to work on Monday which means... the kids and I are on our own during the day.  We can't stay around the apartment all day or we'll all go crazy.  But I'm still a little intimidated by exploring the city without Bryan, especially since his Spanish is better than mine.

Yesterday I decided to head for a "nearby" park, getting some lunch on the way since our kitchen was empty.  We found a café where we could get our first empanadas.  After I made my request I looked up in my pocket dictionary and learned that I ordered Creole Empanadas, which I was worried the kids wouldn´t like.  But they were hungry enough so the food disappeared quickly.  When the server realized I was visiting and didn´t speak or understand Spanish, he grabbed a magazine booklet with tango dancers on the front and tried telling me something over and over.  Asking me to a tango dance?  Trying to sign me up for lessons?  I never did figure it out and he gave up and went back behind his counter.

We stopped at a fancy mall that was supposed to have a big kids play area (according to the internet).  After wandering around a bit and feeling quite out of place, we found the play area, only to learn it was closed on Mondays.  A McDonalds ice cream cone was a nice substitute. 

After taking a few wrong turns we found the "park", only to learn it was a closed in soccer field practice area.  So in the end it was just a very long walk.  Today Bryan tells me that his co-workers showed him on a map the one area that is probably not great to walk around.  Yup, it was the exact area the kids and I were wandering through yesterday.

On Saturday we were invited by a stranger at a park to her home on Monday for her daughter's 15th birthday.  She called again Sunday night to confirm the invitation, so we accepted.  The friendliness of this family is unbelievable.  We spent the evening with this family of six and many of their relatives, eating snacks, chatting, and letting the kids play.  Thankfully, most of them spoke English.  Some of the teenagers sounded American, their English was so good.  Colby found more friends to play soccer with, and the girls created with clay.  They loaned us their double stroller, which will help with some of the long walks we go on.

One of my anxieties has been how to feed my family while we're here.  I'm a make-a-menu, follow-the-recipe kind of cook.  Heading to the grocery store with a VERY limited understanding of the language, not finding ingredients I'm used to and not knowing what to do with ingredients I see, not being able to read the labels to figure out what I'm buying, not knowing why the security guard is taking my backpack, or what the cashier is asking me... it is all QUITE overwhelming.

I don't like taking all five kids with me to the grocery store at home, and avoid it as much as I can.  But today, with no food in the apartment, off we all went.  So add 5 hungry kids to the above paragraph.  Picture it: two helpful daughters pushing a grocery cart and a double stroller, trying not to run into people.  The older son is bored and tormenting the middle son.  The middle son, in turn, taunts the youngest son with his monkey tail.  The youngest son is hungry and desperately wants the monkey tail that middle son keeps taking away, so he shrieks continuously.  All while the frantic mother is staring at the aisle of spices, reading through her pocket Spanish dictionary, trying to figure out if she can get chicken bouillon, or interrupting a worker and saying, "Donde está..." and pointing to the word for butter.  That was enough adventure on my own for today.

We headed to a closer park (that really was a park) when Bryan got home and shared a big tub of ice cream on a bench at twilight, with all the other city dwellers out and about.  And after dessert, we headed home for dinner.  :)

 (Bread and pastries are plentiful, cheap, and delicious.  That definitely helps with the whole feeding-the-family dilemma.)

A Friendly People

Yesterday our adventure of the day was pretty simple: a walk to a park.  It had a couple playground areas, a carousel/rides area, and several small soccer fields.  The playground equipment was a little old and "looked boring" according to Colby.  The playground area was all sand, and Dallin and Paul loved it, until it got in their mouths.

Colby and Bryan had more fun watching an ongoing soccer game, then joined us for tree climbing some very cool trees.

While monkeying around in the trees, some latino boys asked if Colby wanted to play soccer with them.  Bryan didn't want to be left out and asked if he could play, too. Sienna joined in also.  A couple more boys joined in later so in the end they had a nice 4 on 4 soccer game.  We were a little over dressed for the beautiful fall day.  I think next time we head to the park they'll be wearing their shorts... just in case.

While half the family were playing soccer and I was at the swings, a very nice woman who spoke English introduced herself to me.  She told me about several things to do in the area, answered some of my questions, offered to loan us her double stroller while we're here, and in the end invited us to her daughter's 15th birthday party tomorrow.  Her sister-in-law arrived after a while and was equally friendly.  This place makes Southern Hospitality look bad!

Today's outing was simply to church and back.  Again, super friendly people.  There were a few scattered throughout that spoke English, including a couple sets of missionaries.  Bryan spent the first two hours in the Sunbeam class with Dallin, learning how to say "Doy gracias por mis ojos, mis nariz, mi boca, mis manos...etc." I attended Relief Society then played with Paul and one other boy and two leaders in the Nursery.  

Sacrament Meeting was last and we walked in a little later than most people after gathering our kids.  So the only spot left to fit us all was in the very front row.  I only caught a few words of the Sacrament Meeting, but could sense the sincerity of their testimonies.  It was a small chapel, but very full.  Everyone seemed so reverent!  Thankfully our kids were fairly good today, and hopefully not many people understood Dallin's loud outbursts of "Is it time to go yet?!"

Dallin has continued to ask that question the rest of the afternoon.  "Go where?" I reply.
"To our house."
"This is our house.  It's our Argentina house."
"This is NOT OUR HOUSE!!"

Let's hope I don't have this conversation every day for the next 9 weeks.