Returning to Buenos Aires felt like coming home!

I experienced a very interesting feeling upon my return to Buenos Aires yesterday. It felt like I was back home. I don't mean Miami, but that I had returned to a very familiar place. On the taxi ride from the bus terminal to the apartment I recognized streets, sights, and just the feel of the city was very familiar. It was a much different feeling than the one I had six weeks ago when I landed at the airport and rode into the city in a taxi. That day I was a foreigner in a strange land. I was overwhelmed by the large city, by the strangeness of it all. This time, I was a traveler returning to a very familiar place, a place I knew (at least to some extent.) It was surprising to feel this way, but it was also very nice, very comfortable.

In the afternoon I walked around my Palermo neighborhood and found the very large park system (I say system, because it is not really one park, but several very closely situated, but divided by busy streets, some extremely wide (one street must have had a dozen lanes, most headed into the city.) The parks include a large botanical garden, a zoo, a Japanese garden, a park around a lake with pedal boats and row boats for rent, a park around a planetarium, a tennis complex, a golf course, a huge rose garden (currently under rehabilitation), and two or three other parks that were just primarily green spaces with trees, statues, paths, etc. I discovered that this is the place all the people in Palermo must go on nice weekends. The parks were PACKED with people, especially families, playing, enjoying picnics on blankets, walking dogs, enjoying the boats on the lake, visiting the zoo and the other gardens (the Japanese Garden was completely filled with people. I view a Japanese Garden as a place to go for a quiet experience that is reflective and meditative: not possible in this garden yesterday! It looked from the outside more like a Disney World experience! I will go back on a weekday for my visit.

I also stumbled upon the US embassy. After six weeks in the country I finally found it. Actually, I stumbled upon the Ambassador's residence. I was coming out of the northern half of the large park complex when I noticed this very ornate, building in a Parisian style of architecture with a US flag at half-mast. I assumed it had to be the Embassy and I walked over to inquire of the guard "who died?" since we usually only fly the flag that way when someone of significance to our nation dies. Turned out not to be the Embassy, but the Ambassador's residence. The Embassy was three blocks further south. So, I headed there just to check it out. I must say, the Ambassador's residence is much nicer looking than the Embassy, which looks like a concrete structure primarily built for security. (I learned the flags were at half-mast for 9/11.)

The bus ride from Bariloche was uneventful. It was a very full bus this time, with several groups of people returning to Buenos Aires from holidays in Bariloche. The landscape looked totally different from two weeks before when we drove through it entering Bariloche in a heavy snowstorm. The sun was out, the sky was a bright blue with no clouds, and it was gorgeous. There are very few trees, mostly low growing scrub type vegetation. The mountains have some amazing rock formations. And the water in the river and large lakes was a glorious turquoise shade with, at times, a touch of green color. The pictures above are from the bus ride. If you would like to see more photos, follow this Kodak Gallery link to the album: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6d2p4u6.40vjvpva&x=0&y=q5w079&localeid=en_US