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.