Leaving the snow behind!

Off to a rocky start…….or should I say “a stormy start”. About two hours after we checked in on line last night I heard my ipad go ‘ding’ and there was a message informing us that our 6:20 pm flight to Toronto the following day had been cancelled. We immediately called AC and after a half hour on hold we managed to get on a flight leaving at 12:45 so needless to say I had a late night and poor sleep as I crossed those last minute things off my ‘to-do’ list. Woke up to a beautiful day, finished packing and off to the airport we go……thank you Roz! Because of the schedule change we now had a ten hour stopover in Toronto so Jim suggested we hop the train into Toronto, take a walk, visit the Royal Ontario Museum and then go out for supper. Great idea I thought but AC had another plan for us as our flight from Moncton continued to be delayed due to bad weather in Toronto. So we sat, had a cup of tea, took turns going for a walk and played with our ipads and finally took off. By the time we get to Toronto the sun is starting to set but we’re totally sick of airports so decided to take the train downtown anyway…..and so glad we did! Haven’t been to Toronto in years so it was fun seeing the CN tower at night, walking around the Royal York pretending we were staying there although I think the knapsack gave us away. Finally just walked to a pub, had a bite to each, then another walk and back to the airport to catch our flight. Took this picture of Jim in the snow and hope that we won’t be seeing any for a while!

Back to the airport to await Marilyn’s arrival only to find out she too is delayed and is stuck in Ottawa’s storm……..but within an hour or so she arrives and close to midnight we board.   Excited we are but also pretty tired and by the time we arrive in Argentina, via Santiago, we have been on the go for almost 30 hours and I remind myself once again that I am getting too old for this!   Arrive at our air bnb in the centre of the city, put a few things away, complain about the heat(already!) and go out for a quick bite and we luck out!   Just around the corner there’s a little hole in the wall and we were too tired to walk any further so we go in and because we can’t speak Spanish we order what the waiter recommends and end up with the best steak we’ve had in a long time.   As you probably know Argentina is very well known for it’s beef and wine but more recently land has been turned over to soy production.  It’s the eighth largest country in the world by area and has a population of  approximately 43 million, 97% are of European descent and not sure about that other 3%.  Anyway on our first night we’re all very happy with our steak and malbec  and we crash!

Our first day in “the most cosmopolitan city in South America”, ie. Buenos Aries, starts off with heavy rain, thunder and lightening and I am almost relieved as it slows down our start and we take our time getting ready for the day and hope it clears up…..which it did late morning.  Our tour guide, Jim, gets out his map and Marilyn and I blindly follow along as we have no set plans and the weather is a little shaky so we decide not to stray too far from our apartment and basically explore our neighborhood and area -picture below is the view from our deck.

Buenos Aries

First stop is the bank as we need to change money and are informed that because it is a long holiday weekend, Carnival, the bank is closed and won’t open again until Tuesday.   So we wander around and eventually find a ‘cambio’  with quite the line up so we do our business and go for coffee now that we can pay……and then I pinch myself to remind myself that we are now in Buenos Aries!   BA, the capital, has a population of about 3 million with the area around expanding to about 13 1/2 million.  It is best known for three things: football(soccer), tango and matte and I will tell you all about them as we move along.  After coffee we wander through Plaza de Mayo, the largest square in BA which has been there in some form or other since 1580 and is home to spectacular architecture which includes many government buildings and loads of history.  We start off with Casa Rosada, the Pink House often referred to as the Red House but definitely not to be confused with the White House although it is the government house and office of the President of Argentina, Mauricio Macri.  From there we’re off to Catedral Metropolitano in Monserrat which is the main Catholic Cathedral and is the Cathedral from which Pope Francis preached before he got his big promotion!  It has been rebuilt several times since the 16th century and is definitely one of the most important structures in this country where over 90% of the population are nominally Roman Catholic but less than 20% practice regularly.

Walking Buenos Ariea

The Pink House which some refer to as the Red House but not to be confused with White House

Marilyn at Cathedral Metropolitana – a magnificent Building and former Cathedral of Pope Francis

That’s it folks as I can no longer lift my feet and need to drag them home to rest…….but stay tuned as there’s lots more to come in this magnificent city!