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.