Globetrotting Around the World

Maha Beach, Sint Maarten

Two more ferries back and fro from St. Martin International Airport, and we had our bags and more importantly, our bathing suits.

One thing really sticks out about Anguilla, it's not built up like St. Martin. There is one two-lane street that crosses the tiny island while bushes and trees hug the edges of the street. Also there are no sidewalks, so walking from one point to another requires that you walk on the street and dodge two types of passing cars, ones speeding by with young drivers, or ones mellowing along with older drivers.

A cupholder for your regular beverage and one for your coconut

Once Nadine and I decided to explore a part of the island that was not attached to the glorious combination of beach and sea, we walked. For snacks, we walked south along the winding road past barking dogs on fat chains to the small convenience store. To the north, was a collection of handicraft stores. When we entered the Devonish Art Gallery, we were gently greeted by one of the nicest people you will ever meet, Carrolle. Over the next 30 minutes, she taught us a little about the island, Carrolle's departure from Seattle and subsequent move to the Caribbean, and of course, how her children are doing. No need to worry, they are fine and not living in New Mexico. After our talk, she kindly drove us back to our hotel.

Unlike the majority of our trips, our goal was simple, sit on a beach and nap, read, or just stare into the distance looking for other islands. We got pretty good at that on Mead's Bay. Every once in awhile, we would swim out to a trampoline, and like Cypress HIll suggested, jump around, and then finally jump back into the water where we would eventually find ourselves back on the beach back at step one, napping, reading, or staring into the distance.

What Anguilla doesn't have as far as infrastructure, they do have in beautiful, secluded beaches. That's why really famous people visit this island. Plus, the laid back folks of Anguilla don't harass people, much less famous people. No one bothered us. Not sure if they didn't bother us since they thought we were famous or our skin was so white that it scared people away. Over along picturesque Maunday Bay beach on the southern tip of the island, we thought we had found the world's top beach with it's soft, powdery white sand and calm, blue water (sound like a travel magazine description?), but the next day, we found that top beach at unassuming Shoal Bay East (insert same adjectives about this beach). Too bad I forgot my bathing suit and just had to watch everyone enjoy the world's best beach. I can't say that my bathing suit and I had the best vacation, we were never together.

East Shoal Bay, worth the visit, even without a bathing suit

Our vacation to Anguilla was bracketed by days in St. Martin. Watching large airplanes land and takeoff just feet away from a public beach was without a doubt the highlight of St. Martin (you probably thought the missing bag was the highlight or having to pay twice for a hotel). What's unique is that the runway leads up to the edge of the water with just enough area for a spit of beach. So when planes takeoff, folks will take "advantage" of this by running up to the chain link fence and endure the pure blast of joy of a mouthful of sand, dirt, trash, fumes and/or jet fuel spewing out of the back of the plane as it thrusts itself forward. When they land, people sit and take photos and videos of planes landing intimately right over head. We chose the alternative viewing point, up on the terrace of a restaurant with a burger, fries, and beer in hand to get more of the panoramic view.

It's never a good sign when your first flight to the Caribbean is late because the pilot has overslept.

Well, that is how we started our one-week summer vacation to the Caribbean. What could have kept him from getting to work on time? A really good movie was on the night before on cable? He met one of the flight attendants for drinks? He spent all night working on a really tough Sudoku. Ok, I guess there could be several reasons. I just won't reveal the name of the airline, because maybe it was an honest mistake. Our flight departed late for Chicago, but maybe that was a good thing. That just left us less time waiting for our next delayed flight to Miami.

These delays did give us enough time to watch the filming of an American Airlines commercial (oops, now you know the airline), cancel our room reservation in St. Martin for the night, because there was no way in hell we would make it to St. Martin this evening, and explore the hidden corners of the Chicago O'Hare airport.

We arrived to Miami that sunny afternoon with little hope of catching our final flight to St. Martin, but figured we would give it a try. Upon our exit the monitors revealed that the gate to St. Martin was across the aisle. Surprisingly enough, the flight had not left, it was late as well. Are y'all noticing a trend here? Amazingly, we caught our flight.

Our French flight attendant with an Australian accent working for American Airlines made life a bit better and was the highlight of our day. She spent the entire flight giving us little travel nuggets of knowledge about hidden gems in the Caribbean and some of our common challenges to raising bilingual kids. To make the final flight a bit sweeter, she slipped us two Heinkens to ease the pain of a treacherous day of travel.

We arrived to St. Martin, but our bags extended their stay in Miami for a night. With our room now having been canceled hours earlier, we were up shit creek without a paddle and reservation. With a little finagling, we showed our original receipt from the escargot speed internet at Hotel Beach Plaza and gained entrance to a room after a long day.

The next morning, we enjoyed the beauty of St. Martin over a nice, French breakfast looking over the calm waters, leaving the stress of the previous day behind us. Or so we thought. We had to pay for the hotel room a second time. We were ready to get to Anguilla.

We jumped on the next ferry heading across Canal D'Anguilla to the relaxing island of Anguilla. Once we set foot on Anguilla, life was better. Our very jovial taxi driver, Frank, gave us a quick downlow on the history of Anguilla as our van passed a flat island devoid of over construction. Checking into Anaconda Hotel, we were greeted by two Bostonites that raved about the island of Anguilla.

Alright, things were looking up.

I was the first to step off the jet bridge in Chicago, corralling all 24 of my students into an open space to complete an obligatory student check. A elegantly dressed, little ol' white haired women held up a sign for Westside High School and greeted me with a gentle smile. Unbeknownst to me, Trudi was our very own VIP consultant provided by our tour company. Her responsibility was to meet us at our gate, walk our herd through the busy Chicago airport, and drop us off at our connecting flight for NYC. Honestly, do people need chaperones to get them from one gate to another in an airport? Maybe if you are rich and famous.

"I was going to meet David Beckham this afternoon from Europe, but he cancelled at the last minute." And she had the pleasure of 24 adolescents and myself instead.

So yes, her responsibility is to direct famous people, David Beckham, Ben Stiller, Tim McGraw, and the like from one gate in an airport to another gate without getting lost, being spotted by paparazzi, or having to eat ungodly airport food at McDonalds. Our group was going to be spotted alright and I was pretty sure not many would take notice, unless in a moment of spasticity, one of our adolescents tripped and fell into a trashcan. Not likely, but they do like to walk and stare at their cellphones.

And so started our educational adventure to Spain.

The last time I visited the home of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, I was a recent graduate of college backpacking across Europe. I learned then and on this trip that the construction of Sagrada Familia relies solely upon donations, so you can imagine my surprise in seeing the impressive progress that had been made in eleven years. Fours days after our visit, an arsonist set fire to the sacristy in the basilica. I promise that none of my students were responsible.

Our guide mentioned that Gaudi's Parque Güell served as the background for Pepper's favorite show, America's Next Top Model, several years ago. We didn't see any models running around, but we did see that Irish dude playing drums on the underside of plastic buckets in the middle of the park.

North of the hustle and bustle of Barcelona lies a Benedictine abbey up on a mountain named Montserrat. The Monastery of Montserrat houses the Black Virgin and a world renowned boy's choir.

Don't get me wrong here, but I love traveling. I jump on a plane any chance I get. Even if I am traveling with two soccer teams worth of people, I love to share the joys of travel and newness and learn and laugh. But I also enjoy moments that take me back to when I backpacked with friends through Europe or around the world with Nadine. With a couple of hours to spare, Casey, another chaperone, and I left the rambling masses of Las Ramblas, and made our way to the one place you find in any decent tourist spot, an Irish pub. There inside sat one Englishman, Michael, with his German girlfriend Casey, on a short weekend trip to Barcelona. (I swear that the English have more disposable income for drink than anyone else in the world.) So like any good midafternoon spent in an Irish pub in Spain, we sat and chatted and watched English soccer/football with an annoying American, bringing all of us good Americans, not either one of us, yelling and screaming in an empty bar about random shit.

Switching gears and geography, in Valencia, our students stayed with host students and attended classes at our sister school Sagrado Corazon during holy week. Sagrado Corazon and my host, Juanjo, put together a series of sports tournaments one day for their Día Deportivo. This is where every student selects a sport, basketball, soccer, or a rather odd version of baseball, and pays one euro. That one euro is collected with all the other euros, and is sent to a school in Nigeria for school supplies or to help build an addition to the school in Africa. Talk about a noble gesture.

Architecturally speaking, one of the more unique structures in Spain is Valencia's Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. It is often referred to as the "Eye", and serves as part museum and cultural complex. It served as a photo op and the chance to boogie with some older Italian women.

Towards the end of our stay in Valencia, we made our way to Malvarrosa Beach past the throngs of flag waving Barça and Real Madrid fans in town for the Champions League match. Once on the beach, Nivea sunscreen folks walked up and down the beach searching for people to rub their hands all over. Being the good sport I am, I offered my white, pasty body to science and challenged the quality of their sun reflecting cream. It smelled good and kept my chest a bright white. So it worked.

I am goal oriented. My only two real goals, outside of the kids having a great trip, were seeing the "Eye" in Valencia, and eating some churros and chocolate. The day before leaving Madrid back to the States, I split from our "I really don't like to be on time" guide, and conducted a frantic search for a restaurant specializing in churros. Just imagine a reformed, wide-eyed New Mexican looking for green chile and not having any luck. That was me and my pastries. As this photo indicates, I found them, and they were delicious.

Here are some remaining photos from my time in Spain. Enjoy.

Next up for Nadine and I is a trip to the Caribbean.

JW

Barcelona

Valencia

Madrid

Classes completed and a quick weekend getaway to Cordoba, we were left with a few days before we made the dreaded long haul flight back to the States. What to do? What to do? As the starting topic of every previous entry, we went with our stomach and to a nice dinner at Puerto Madero.

The day leading to our final night had been dreary, cold, wet, and blah, but the moment we entered the expensive restaurant of Cabaña Las Lilas, it all melted away. As we sat there at our table, we had that odd feeling that there were absolutely too many tourists, and that the wait staff was constantly occupied with removing every dish from your table that even thought about being dirty. It was quite possibly the swankiest restaurant we had ever set foot in. Minutes later of aimlessly searching through the wine list, which was literally 100 pages long, we decided on a nice, and the cheapest, Cabernet Sauvignon available. The wine actually turned out to be very good wine with bold flavor and with a notable hint of vanilla and chocolate undertones (that is what the wine list said).

As the last night in Argentina, we both agreed that the only item we could order from the menu without being extradited would be some variation of steak. So steak it was. No Panchos (hot dogs), just pure Argentine beef. What landed on our table was unconditionally the best steak that either one of us has ever tried. Succulent, tender, flavorful. Any adjective you could possibly think to describe steak or a Texan, it would also describe our dinner. We did with this steak what we should all be doing everyday in life, enjoy every drop of it.

So this trip has ended, like many others before, but this one separated itself in a few major ways. Primarily, it was our first international trip with a 11 month old daughter. And most likely, it's the first and last we will do with a child that is under 3 years of age, which is the new cutoff age for international travel.

We found that traveling with an infant proved to be a constant challenge of balancing the desire to visit sites and finding that perfect moment when diapers were clean, a little belly was full, and eyes that weren't too tired. Thus, the amount of sightseeing on our part was very limited.

In addition to the excellent food that I apparently didn't notice my two previous visits to Argentina, we were super impressed with Argentine's cariño for babies and children. It wasn't only the females, but also the males that were crazy for babies. We'd enter the subway, people felt honored to give up their seat to us since we had a baby. They didn't hesitate to do the same for elderly people. Who knows, they might even given up their seat for a New Mexican, because they would have felt sorry that he didn't receive a proper education. Within seconds of stepping on a bus, a group of teenagers let go of their cool image, and played peek-a-boo with our daughter. Argentines taught us a great lesson in their treatment of the little and frail ones, and reminded me of a quote from a former Argentine president that I had heard, "the only privileged people in Argentina are the children."

Our return flight to the USA was a breeze compared to our initial flight into Argentina, Sophie slept 4 out of the 8 hour flight. We still returned home tired, but not completely exhausted. We now sit with a week to rest before returning to our jobs in education.

Hope all are well and we'll see where the next adventure takes us.

John, Nadine, and Sophie

Inside the Museo de la Ciudad

One man presided over the ritual. He filled the hot brown gourds and the green liquid frothed to the neck. The men fondled the gourds and sucked at the bitter drink, talking about mate the way other men talked about women.
- Bruce Chatwin 'In Patagonia'

There is always meaning lost in translation, or shall we say, a lack of looking at the minor details on packaging at times. This time it happened to be on my part.

Every morning I would attempt to enrich my diet and breakfast experience with some tasty 'frutilla' yogurt inside that purple packaging. This had been my regular morning routine for 4 weeks. Then surprisingly one day, Jimena asked me how I was feeling. Was the food bothering my stomach? Was my body not used to the Argentine food? Quite the opposite. I loved the food and I felt fine, like a regular guy. She then asked me why I eat that Activia yogurt (if you click on this link, I suggest that you watch a few commercials to fully understand how great I felt in Argentina). I told her that I liked strawberry yogurt. Softly, she said that Activia yogurt is for people with irregular bowel movements to help them become more "regular." You can imagine my relief and surprise to have been eating a yogurt that's been helping "regulate my digestive system by helping reduce long intestinal transit time." Maybe that is the reason I have felt like a 'regular' guy here in Argentina.

Cultural misunderstandings happen all the time. I've committed quite a few in my travel life, but I'm not the only one. Companies also are responsible for a few. Mitsubishi came out with a line of vehicles called the Pajero, the Pajero Mini (obviously named after a New Mexican), the Pajero Junior, and the Pajero mini SUV. This is where you have to increase your Spanish vocabulary. If you can not find out why this is so funny, please feel free to email me at jwhit003@gmail.com.

Tango. The vertical dance of the horizontal desire. Your mind thinks of a guy in a black zoot suit dancing with a girl who's red dress has a slit up to the hip as they glide across the dance floor. We decided to see this dance that originated from Argentina at the famous Café Tortoni.

Upon our arrival to Café Tortoni, the bouncer of the café (yes, a bouncer for a café), told us to go down the stairs and follow the winding staircase to the dark room at the bottom. In the staircase we found a room split in half with pillars and 2 dozen tables facing a single stage. The waiter led us to our table that we would share with two other people.

After ordering our dinner and wine, the Tango show began. Three guys walked in with their slicked back hair and watched as three girls sitting at tables on stage waited for a slight nod, the invitation to dance. But like any good show, to increase the crowd's anticipation, they played out a few hypothetical Tango situations before the actual dancing. Thus, Guy A flirted with Guy B's girl. The fake fight between A and B while Guy C walks up and dances with Girl A. Guy A and B are now surprised about the turn of events. Somewhere in between all that, they all start dancing and sliding across the stage.

Over the next hour and a half, they danced the tango, the band played, guys played an ancient weapon, a rope with rocks attached at their ends, as musical instruments, and the MC sang. After we left Café Tortoni strolling among the lights of Avenida 9 de Julio, Nadine felt that this was by far the best experience of the trip. Even better than the yogurt!

While traveling through South Africa during our Around the World trip, we met this Argentine while he made his first trip abroad. During a bus ride, we chatted it up in Spanish so Nadine and Melissa wouldn't be able to understand us, and he offered to meet up with us if we ever made it back to Argentina in the future. Well we did make it back to Argentina, and we both kept our word from South Africa by making the weekend trip to the city of Córdoba. A rare thing happened, when Carlos met us early in the morning at the bus station, two travellers from different parts of the world actually met up again.

Our international hiking group

Over the next 36 hours, he showed us the historic center of town, La Manzana Jesuítica, and for the first time, a glimpse of life outside of the city. Carlos rounded up a few of his friends and all 7 of us set out for the town of Rio Cebollas. Over the morning and afternoon, we enjoyed the silence and absence of tall buildings, filled only by the bad jokes shared between friends as we hiked through the hills.

Our time left in Argentina is limited to a couple of days enjoying a little more asado, empanadas, and helado.

Enjoying some of life's simple pleasures

A classmate asked me if I had tried any Argentina helado. Empanadas, absolutely. Pizza, no doubt. But Argentine ice cream, not yet. I hadn't actually seen any ice cream stores. Then the girls in my class deemed it their responsibility, no, their duty as a classmate to introduce to me Argentine helado. Once I had that first taste of Freddo's dulce de leche ice cream, it was over. Since that point we've consistently visited our local ice cream store every couple of days. Now that we know what we are looking for, there happens to be two ice cream shops within a block of our apartment.

Nadine reading the Omaha World Herald on Avenida 9 de Julio

As we pass through life, it's easy to notice the bad events (high gas prices) and habits of people and places (the entire state of New Mexico). But I have to say that in our time here in Argentina, it's been quite easy to observe lots of good qualities about the country, especially the general friendliness of people here in Buenos Aires, a very large city. In addition, upon entering the metro when it was crowded, partly crowded, or even sparsely crowded, someone has always eagerly offered up their seat so that either Nadine or myself can sit down with Sophie. At this point, one of us sits down with her, and Sophie earns her seat privileges by smiling, waving, and cooing at everyone around her.

Traveling wears Sophie out

With a window of free time on the weekend in which Sophie was fed, not tired, not carrying a load in her pants, we searched for the widest road in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio and the Recoleta. Fortunately we found Avenida 9 de Julio with ease, as it is a block wide. We didn't have much trouble finding the neighborhood of Recoleta either with its famous cemetery. As it was a warm sunny day, everyone was outside selling trinkets, souvenirs, and soaking up the sun in front of the famous Recoleta cemetery.

Views of the Recoleta

After several hours of strolling among Avenida 9 de Julio and Recoleta, Sophie deciced to drop her pacifier on the ground out in front of the Recoleta Cemetery. As I was carrying Sophie in the backpack, Nadine promptly grabbed the pacifier, went to rinse it off over by the grass. During that time, I began to chat with this Argentine lady about our baby backpack. Without thinking, Nadine walked up and rapidly tried to put the pacifier back in a mouth. The mouth just happened not to be Sophie's, but mine. You can imagine her surprise as this foreigner's wife tried to put a pacifier in her husband's mouth. We all had a good laugh with that one, except the little lady riding on my back wondering why her dad had the pacifier and not her.

A favorite to do well in the upcoming Olympics is the Argentina basketball team who won the Gold medal in the previous Olympics. In preparation they have been playing games against other countries (Mexico, Poland, Uruguay) in various parts of Argentina. Saturday night, they played a game against Mexico that I made a point to attend. The atmosphere was truly Latin American. They had 60's American music blaring between current Argentine hits while a DJ was yelling into a microphone between every pause in the game. In the end, Argentina, with a few of their NBA players, easily beat México.

Empanadas, Yes we will talk about food again

Two weeks of constant supervision and care of little Sophie and her emerging personality left us needing some time off. So, Thursday night was as good of night to go out for a few hours to enjoy another side of traditional Argentine gastronomy, parilla and asado. Basically, parilla is a piece of meat that has been grilled over an open fire to just the right flavor. Our juicy parilla and asado full of flavor didn't leave us disillusioned.

Just as I had started classes at the university, Nadine started hers as well. Unfortunately for her, that class wasn't a block and a half away from our apartment; it's located all the way downtown. To make it more challenging, her school prefers to be hidden, so that they don't have too many people attending their classes. So that little sign hanging outside their office directing prospective students to their Spanish school was missing. Her first class was scheduled to start at 2:00, but the fact that it took her an hour and a half to find the entrance, caused her class to be pushed back a few minutes until 3:30. Since that day, her only two obstacles have been using public transport to arrive on time and successfully conjugating her verbs.

Signs of protest in front of Congress

While Nadine navigated the Buenos Aires metro, my class took to the streets surrounding Congress to interview farmers, Socialist representatives, and supporters of the government. Let me give you a little background to what is currently happening in Buenos Aires. At I write, Argentine farmers are participating in a national paro while 'diptados' fight about a tax in Congress as different factions fill the streets around the Congress building. They are discussing the large tax increase that was unexpectedly levied by the government against farmers' exports of soy, meat, corn, and wheat. This began a little over a 100 days ago.

The Argentine is on the left, the gringo on the right

My presence in front of Congress leading up to the showdown was not to:

A) be the unforeseen mediator of peace between farmers and government officials, but you could imagine the conversation in my imperfect Spanish.

Me: What would you like me tell her, I mean him, no I mean the government official Mr. Farmer?

Farmer: First, a sudden increase in the export tax of agricultural products is unacceptable and will we continue striking until every cows' udder are painfully full with milk.

Me: First, Cristina, Mr. Farmer here wants you to put in the trash, (as I flip through my dictionary for the word taxes, but accidentally find another word) all tax evaders from foreign lands. Then, the farmers might find this acceptable to painfully kick all cows in the udder.

Cristina (Argentine President): That is the worst and most illiterate demand I have ever heard. These farmers are idiots.

Me: She says y'all are dumb and farm like idiots.

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. - Walt Streightiff

After much planning and anticipation, the day to begin our 5 week study abroad trip to Argentina arrived.

The idea of this trip left us a little anxious with nervous energy. It wasn't the fact that we were traveling internationally to a Latin America country or spending such an extended amount of time in one place, but the fact that we were going to be traveling internationally with a 10 month baby for the first time. Our first obstacle was an 11 hour flight from Chicago down to Buenos Aires.

I bet one of these guys would be willing to walk your dog

What put us more on edge was the fact that Sophie had been sick the days leading up to our departure with a slight fever and an itchy rash. As fate would have it on the day of our departure, she still had the rash. A nurse pracitioner suggested, mind you, 35 minutes before we had to be at the airport, that we might want to buy some Benadryl. We promptly gave her a single dose at the grocery store. Come to find out later, Benadryl causes the majority of babies to sleep like a baby. Another very small percentage suffer another side effect, it causes them to be wired and unable to sleep at all. In our case, we happened to fall in that very small percentage.

Prior to June 17th, our worst travel experience had been an overnight bus ride in Perú from the coastal town of Chimbote to the depths of the Andes in Huaráz. For comparison's sake, during that trip, we were trapped in a crowded bus battling Peruvian's cultural fear that the sensation of a single draft of cold wind would cause them to catch a major cold and die on the spot. Any drink with ice cubes causes this as well. The ensuing bus ride was a odorous mix of sweat and heat trapped within a metal inferno, and the exasperation of wanting to open a single little window just a millimeter to relieve the all night sauna session. Our flight from Chicago to Buenos Aires beat this.

Fortunately our flight was sparingly occupied. As soon as our flight took off, the true fun began. As little Sophie was wired up with a dose of Benadryl, she promptly began her crying in our ascent. As they night progressed, her tired eyes never relented to give into dreaming about sheep or bottles of milk or prunes. Her cry changed to steady crying interspersed with high pitched screaming. We did everything we could imagine to help relieve her pain. Halfway through our trip, I asked the stewardess how long we had left, thinking that we had less than two hours left, "we have about 6 hours left." NO!!! The pilot even felt obliged to help out by letting her fly the plane over Cuba. Unfortunately, all attempts to sooth were worthless other than for a couple of minutes of repose. For 9 of the 11 hours of the flight, Sophie was awake and crying and screaming. When we touched down in Buenos Aires, all three of us were beyond exhausted.

This entire story isn't uncomfortable. We soon found one form of relief from the fatigue through one Argentine's national dishes and a surrogate national dish directly across the street from our hostel, empanadas and pizza. During our recouping period, instead of actually making lunch or dinner, I would simply throw on some shoes and socks, and dart across the street and purchase several slices of baked dough with a slathering of cheese, ham, chicken, and plenty of cheese. Each piece of bread in the shape of half moons or triangles provided instant relief. The Argentines know how to put together some tasty food.

My Spanish studies at the Universidad de Belgrano and Nadine's desire to learn Spanish were both of our raisons d'être in Buenos Aires. But even before classes started, we had to find two things of great importance, a niñera (babysitter) and a place to live. Even though our Extremo Sur Hostel was nice, we'd probably want a little own space for our offspring to wobble around for 5 weeks.

Fortunately we did have a leg up on our search for a niñera before our arrival. Jimena was her name. All we had to do was make sure that Jimena didn't have any intentions of shaving Sophie's head while we were away. Jimena turned out to be very child friendly and energetic without a humpback that might scare Sophie. Our next goal, find a suitable apartment.

Trying to find an apartment in a big city like Buenos Aires at a fair price is trying to find a New Mexican who hasn't fallen drunk into an arroyo at one time or another. Needless to say, you have to look far and wide. Nadine and I visited a half dozen places. Either it would be the perfect spot, perfect apartment, perfect neighborhood, or the perfect price, but none of those perfects all ran together with one apartment. As one wise Simpsons episode once stated, it's all about location, location, location. Eventually we chose an apartment that is literally a block and a half from the university.

Between downing empanadas, Quilmes, making sure our niñera was of an acceptable mental state, and finding an apartment, we actually did experience a little bit of Buenos Aires flavor, by accident. As we were walking the streets of the neighborhood of San Telmo Sunday late morning, we walked directly into the massive Feria de San Telmo full of Tango dancing, antiques, black and white photos, and yes, your choice of jamon and queso, chicken, or meat empanadas. This feria was a nice surprise to stroll through stalls and stalls of old crap until our middle of the night alarm clock decided to go off. She was ready for a diaper change and a fresh bottle of milk.

A stressful international flight, days of apartment hunting, tons of empanadas, and a surprise antiques fair behind us, the only thing left was to safely complete my first day of class. I finally had a chance to sit down in peace and quiet and think. I only had to take my placement exam. Believing that I had appropriately demonstrated my competency in the Spanish language, I steadily stood up, began gradually walking down a slight slope of steps towards the front of the classroom reviewing in the quiet of the classroom when, BAM, my head ran smack into an overhanging bookcase. As I scratched the knot on the side of my head, I thought to myself, "Yep, I am ready for 5 weeks in Argentina."

This apartment only costs a dozen empanadas a day

"Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings." - Hodding Carter

Nadine walked into the bedroom with Sophie in her arms and sat on the bed, and greeted me in Spanish, "¡Feliz Cumpleaños!" With a look of concern on her face, Sophie first glanced at Nadine, and then at me, and calmly uttered, "Uh-Oh!" The wisdom of children.

In celebration of my 31st, my heart was set on dinner at a sushi restaurant. In Argentina, Saturday night also happens to be a fashionable night to go out for dinner, or for that fact, anywhere else in the world. It's also common to eat dinner around 10 o'clock at night.

As we nonchalantly walked up the stairs to this hidden sushi restaurant, I mentioned in jest to Nadine that I hoped we didn't need reservations to eat there. As any reader can see coming, we walked into the nearly vacant room, the host asked in a heavy accent if we had reservations. Doh! With a look of horror, I responded that we didn't, but I did state that it was my birthday. She very politely responded that the place was fully reserved for the night, birthday or no birthday. Dang my inability to plan ahead. I asked again, this time with a slight wink and flash of a 5 peso bill, if there was any possible way we could eat. She glanced us, stepped back, poked her head around the corner, and cooly asked the owner if it was possible to let these "two-no-reservation-making-gringos" indulge in a little raw fish. Our ultimatum arrived. If we were able to finish our dinner by 10, we could stay. At this time, it was only 8:30. We could absolutely finish by that time. That's more than enough time for me to consume my weight in rice, seaweed, and salmon.

The sushi was sumptuous.

Depending on where you are from, this statement is either very strong, or somewhat strong. Either way, don't fart around with people's food. Great sign to intro the next paragraph

Continuing with the theme of food in Argentina, Nadine and I have obviously found empanadas, pizza, and asado to be quite tasty. We've also found that in between every parilla or empanada outfit, there is a panadería offering a varied assortment of pastries, cookies, sweets, and breads. And it equally seems that every single panadería has been above average. I mean 'above average' when I reference U.S. standards for breads, possibly just average for Argentine standards, and probably subpar for the French. In my eyes, it's all good. Yet, there has been one common ingredient between all that flaky goodness, gooey brown sweetness ofdulce de leche. Good ol' sweet dulce de leche.

Sophie here in La Boca with her hand in her "boca"

Italian immigrants arrived to Buenos Aires and the work they often found was repairing and painting boats. It wasn't a lucrative living. Thus, when it came time to paint the house or feed the 11 bambinos, food took priority, and there wasn't money left for paint. To compensate for the crappy looking exteriors of their homes, and at no cost to the homeowner, they would take the extra paint left from a hard day's work, carry it home, and paint their house with it. If you have been to Italy, you realize that no Italian is going to settle for bland when you can have spectacular. So there on the Buenos Aires' docks, Totto's boat was going to outdo Giovanni's yellow boat, his would be neon pink. As one can imagine, every house, in the neighborhood known as La Boca, is a smorgasbord of colors, making it one of the most colorful (pun is intended) parts of Bs.As.

Is that story actually true? Not sure, since I was told 3 different stories by locals about the origins of the various colored houses, before I decided I liked a photographer's story the best.

A neighborhood even more colorful than Nadine's shirt

Travel for Nadine and I has now changed, reached a new stage. We can't just decide to go somewhere anymore without considering whether or not little Sophie has been fed, is fully rested, and free of the contents of a dirty diaper. So initially we assumed we would go over to Colonia, Uruguay with the energizer bunny in tow. Yet after a few weeks of answering to her every whim, picking up the pacifier for the fifth consecutive time, contorting our faces to prevent her crying in a public place, we were ready for a break. We left Sophie in the expert hands of her more than capable niñera Jimena, and crossed the River Platte delta.

Historic Colonia

In the early morning, with high anticipations we jumped on a high speed boat. Soon as we sat down and Nadine positioned her head into that contorted state that allows her to sleep on any form of public transportation and prevent embarrassing drooling, we were navigating the historic streets of this World Heritage Site.

To pay for breakfast, we sat calculating the best exchange rate between Argentine pesos to U.S dollars, U.S. dollars to Uruguayan pesos, Uruguayan pesos to Malaysian ringgits to Indian rupees to New Mexican green chilis (the weakest of all mentioned currencies) and finally back to Uruguayan pesos. Finally we strolled the city. The sites and our high anticipations were slightly dashed by the rain and cold wind blowing up my shorts. Fortunately a quality lunch and heater prevented the weather from making a completely crappy day.

Most photographed corner of Colonia

We have another 2 weeks before we must make our return to teaching knuckleheads, so we still have time to experience more of Argentina.

A little grandparent fix

Challenge of the Week - Insert best comment to accompany this photo Nadine insisted we add to this blog entry

We left the Cote d'Azur minus three people from our original group. Yet, we still remained a small village roaming the streets of France.

As our time in Nice came to an end, the next morning, we jumped on a bus that lead us away from the beaches and sea, and towards the Alps and the home of the 68' Winter Olympics, Grenoble.

Even before our arrival, we made a slight detour to the town of Hauterives and the "Palais du Facteur Cheval." As the story goes, this French postman, Ferdinand Cheval, was walking along the streets of Hauterives one day when he noticed a few smooth pebbles along the road. He decided to pick them up and they gave him a great idea. From that day foward for 34 years, as he would collect pebbles, he would then place and plaster these pebbles in unique designs in what would become his 'ideal palace.' His ideal palace, I must admit, was pretty darn odd, but admirable in his desire to construct his own little palace. At least he didn't have to pay much for materials. We were allotted an hour to roam the palace, but a solid 19 minutes would have been more appropriate.

For our first night in Grenoble, our plan for dinner was to enjoy a typical dish of Grenoble, white wine fondue. From our hotel, the amoeba we called our group began a trek of a dozen blocks through town past store fronts with the gaze of other French teenagers and adults upon us and trains passing us by. As all 41 of us snaked around Grenoble, we finally arrived to the restaurant.

Grenoble as a little wind and rain roll in

Now we should clarify that the actual act of going from Point A to Point B while passing Points C, D, E, F, G, and H that undoubtedly distracts teenagers in a new country who are there for the first time always requires that a certain protocol be followed. As we headed anywhere, our guide and one French teacher would lead the group. A few chaperones would sit in the middle keeping students on task of walking as they talked with their friends. I myself was always the last person in line yelling, "Barbara! Stop! You might want to look to your right as there is a train coming directly at you." "Yes, some people do actually use public transport." So when a student would be staring at the sky, a building, a really unique looking French pigeon, or basically being oblivious to their surroundings, I would gently, but firmly grab their left ear and pull them back to the correct route.

That night of white wine fondue provided a delicious pot of cheese rich with white wine which might have been the reason that the volume in the restaurant steadily reached a crescendo. We followed our night of cheese with a trip up the "Télépherique au Fort de la Bastille" to walk off all of our curds with stunning views of Grenoble sitting below us. La Bastille was the sight of a fortress built in the 19th century to protect the city as well as a commemoration to the 1968 Winter Olympics. The most astounding aspect of the entire area wasn't the impressive caves built into the mountain or the fact that not a single New Mexican participated in the Games, but the stylish ski outfits that everyone wore to the Games themselves.

Final Stop of Spring Break 2008: Paris