Statue in Buenos Aires
It was a very long trip here. We were at the Saskatoon airport at 4 am to catch our first plane to Minneapolis, then a second plane to Atlanta, a several hour wait and then an overnight flight arriving in Buenos Aires at 8 am local time this morning. Since there is a three hour time difference between here and Saskatchewan, it took a total of 25 hours to get here. As we flew over the Pampas I said to Enid how much it looked like flying over Saskatchewan, with the large square farm plots, and very flat land below.
We were met at the airport, after another hour to clear immigration and customs, by our representative from Say Hueque. We got clear instructions from her about the rest of our trip as we drove in a taxi to our hotel. She outined some of the tourist attractions we might want to visit in Buenos Aires, explained what subway lines woud get us there, and then dropped us at our hotel. We were able to check in immediately, which was really nice as we were exhasted from the long travel.
The Gran Hotel Argentino is a small, clean, older hotel just a few blocks from the core of downtown Buenos Aires. We showered, slept for about half an hour and then were about to leave. As I sat up on the edge of the bed my nose gushed blood, a nosebleed, all over the blanket. I think it was the long dehydrating trip in the plane that did it Once it stopped bleeding we walked towards the central obelisk, and found a place to eat lunch.
We sat at a table next to three people, a younger male and female couple, and an older woman. They were switching back and forth rapidly between Spanish and English. After they had finished and were about to pay the bill, the man in the group asked me if I spoke English. I replied “yes” and was very surprised when he asked me “Is there a culture of tipping in restaurants?”
I told him that I had no idea as I’d been in the country for about four hours! We then had a conversation about where we were from. He was from Ireland. We guessed that he and the younger (Argentinian?) woman were married, and the older woman was the Argentinian mother-in-law.
Avenida del Liberatador
After lunch we figured out the subway. It is very confusing at the 9th of July station, as the lines all meet there. We couldn’t see any line D, though the signs all said that A, B and C all met here and combined into D. We must have looked very confused as one of the men working at the ticket machine asked if we needed help. It turned out that we were at the right place, and the only line that runs on the tracks we were at was D, the green line. I’m not sure, but I think that this is a central station and you can walk from one line to another.
El Rosdal
Once on the right subway train it was easy to get to our destination, the Plaza Italia station. We were planning to go to the Botanical Gardens here, but it was closed. So instead we walked for about two kilometers eventually ending up along the Av. de Liberatador. This is a very wide street, which must be at least eight or ten lanes wide. There was a large statue in the middle of a roundabout at the end of this street. We continued on to the rose garden in the public park. The park is very well manicured with many roses. There were still some roses blooming, though they are past their prime. However it is quite a change to go from -30C to +30C in one day, from snow and skiing to strolling in the high heat and humidity so that I was soaked with perspiration when we got back to our hotel room about 4 pm.