Our First Trip Downtown

As most of you already know, we live in a suburb just north of Buenos Aires near the International School which also affords us the benefit of a large home and a yard. Although this is definetly the best choice for us, we are missing out on the beauty, culture and nightlife that the downtown of Buenos Aires has to offer. Of course, most of you are thinking that I have children and no need to fret about the nightlife anyway. In theory, this is right, however there is not a single non-North American restaurant in this town that opens before 8pm... and if we go when the doors open, we are either the only people in the entire place or we share it with another couple over 65. They say that the only people who eat dinner before 9pm are North Americans and old people. As a resident of the city, I can attest that this is true.

The fact that we live in a suburb is to point out the fact that there is not a lot of reason for us to go downtown quite yet. The city is NOT handicap accessible which means that pushing two children in a double stroller on cobblestone sidewalks keep us more sedintary than I would like. However, we did try to go downtown once on the second Monday after we arrived.

I decided that the best way to get there with the kids was to take the same route Steve does everyday to work. We had planned on going to the Zoo which is located across the street from the Embassy. We would spend a couple of hours there in the morning, meet Steve for lunch and then go to the Embassy to sign a few papers and check out the Commissary.


I walked 15 blocks to the train station, and then rode the train for 35 minutes. Now when Steve gets off the train in his suit, he spends the 7 pesos (roughly a little more than $2) for a taxi to the Embassy. However, we didn't have much else to do for the day and so I thought that the 25 blocks would make a nice walk for the kids and a chance to see more of downtown. What I did not realize at the time was that there were absolutely NO ramps on the curb of the street and there is the worst smell I have ever experienced in my life on this route. I can only speculate that this smell is from the hundreds of dogs that walk this stretch everyday like those that you see in the picture above with their dog-walkers. The interesting trek was not such a big deal. Simply a Latin American wake-up call.

Now to put this into context, we had promised Abe the zoo on the Friday before (he was and still is rather bored around the house without his toys) but rain had cancelled our trip. He has been looking forward to this outing for almost a week. When we finally arrive at the entrance to the zoo, there are no signs, no posted hours, no indication that it would ever be open, but the chains across the gate made it clear that the zoo was definetly closed. And as it turns out, a lot of things are closed on Mondays (we made the same mistake again today in Chinatown). Abe was bawling and completely upset. I studied the map and found a Japonese Botanical Garden on the next block. I figured that this was a good way to kill some time until we caught up with Steve around noon.

The botanical garden was nice and the kids had a good time running around and checking out the various statues made of recycled metals. It really was interesting and we could have spent more time in the park. Until Peyton took a swim...


Above is the scene, moments after I had cleaned her up. As you might be able to tell, from first glance it looks like solid grass to walk on. To Peyton's dimay, the water is deeper than the cement edge and when she fell in, the water line came to just below her eyes. The man in the picture quickly helped me pull her out and I managed to get her stripped down and her diaper changed fairly quickly. This incident would not have been a big deal. Normally, I would have turned around and gone home right then, but Steve had scheduled a time for me to sign papers at the Embassy in the afternoon. I relentlessly tried to phone Steve, but he was slammed on the Visa line until 2pm without a chance to call. I walked the main street looking for new clothes for Peyton, trying them on my half-naked child in the store because sizes run differently. I should mention that no one I came in contact with spoke English. I really looked like a crazy tourist. We finally met Steve at the Embassy to learn that my appointment had been cancelled. So there it is. My first experience downtown. You win some and you lose some.