Getting to Know Palermo

Outside the Museo Evita.  Mike took all these great pictures, FYI, so he's not in any of them.  I will remedy that shortly! 

We've had a great first couple of weeks.  Last weekend we took a city bus tour and got to know the different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires.  This weekend we've been exploring Palermo -- the neighborhood we live in.  Museo Evita is in Palermo, and it has a great cafe with crepes!

Our church building in Palermo.  We definitely are city dwellers now, it's stuck right in there with all the high rises.  Our grocery store is also definitely an urban grocery store -- small, packed right in with the rest of the buildings, but the best part is: everyone brings their own little carts to wheel home!  Which is great, because we've got a cart coming on its way with the rest of our stuff.  Living across the street from Costco in the US will teach you the necessity of your own little shopping cart.

Speaking of grocery stores.......this leads me to courteous-encounter-#1 of the week.  Let me say that neither Mike nor I expected outpourings of warm friendliness here, for a variety of reasons, but we have been proven wrong.  Sure, there was the little old lady who pushed Mike out of the way when we were in line at the museum, but on the whole everyone here has been very nice!

We were looking for bacon at the grocery store and couldn't find it, so I asked a young man who was stocking shelves: "Tienen tocineta?"  And he had no idea what tocineta was.  I was racking my brain, trying to rewind back to high school Spanish in case there was another word for bacon, but when I turned to Mike to ask and said the word "bacon" in English, the boy shouted out "Ah, panceta!" and then in English, "Come here!  Come here!"  He ran across the store to show me where the panceta was.  So nice!  And he knew a little English!

 The view from our balcony.  Can you see the Rio de la Plata in the distance?  It's great, except that every time I see it, the line from the musical Evita jumps into my head, where she calls out "Rio, de la Plata!"  And then the entire musical gets stuck in my head again.  "Hello, Buenos Aires!  You wanna know whatcha gonna get in me?  Just a little touch of star quality.  And, if ever I go to far, it's because of the things you are, beautiful town, I love you."    It's very difficult to get those songs out of your head when you live in Buenos Aires, let me tell you.

And here's a photo from our city bus tour.  It was actually pretty chilly sitting on top of the bus, with the wind and all.  It was probably upper 40's, low 50's when we went.  My brain refuses to accept that it can be cold in South America for some reason, especially in June, but it definitely is.

Ah, courteous-encounter-#2:  We were walking to a co-worker's house on Friday night, hadn't been there before, and I wouldn't say we were lost, but we couldn't find the building (no street signs or building numbers in sight).  A girl came up to us, and said "Are you lost?  I've been walking behind you for two blocks, and it looks like you need some help."  And she helped us find the building!  No laughing comments like "Ha, you guys aren't from around here," which would have been easy for her to say, since we were also carrying a plate full of treats and probably looked ridiculous.  I was so shocked that she stopped and kindly helped us find where to go, and didn't point out the fact that we were foreigners. 

Anyway, we are settling in here pretty well, more updates soon!