Buenos Aires at random

To finally finish off my posts on the supremely photogenic Buenos Aires, here is a pile of pictures of cool things that didn't get their own blog entries.

The malbec. Oooohh, the malbec. Even in a plastic cup from the hostel
kitchen it is hands-down my favorite wine (sorry, Chilean carmenere. You're
pretty, too). Malbec is available absolutely every place that sells wine in
Argentina, yet it's a bit hard to find in Chile. Border battle?

The west end of Plaza de Mayo

El Pensador– one of several casts made from Rodin's original mold.
A few years ago, creative vandals turned him into the Pink Thinker.

Oro! Oro! Oro! Cambio! Cambio! Cambio!
Sure signs of their shaky economy were the solid city blocks of
gold buyers, as well as street hawkers offering to exchange
foreign currency at better-than-official rates.

An obelisk. And a Pepsi ball.

Books at last! Whereas Chile has few bookstores and everything is crazy
expensive, BA has stacks of new and used options every way you turn.

One of our coolest tours was El Zanjón, a rediscovered historical site
with literally layers of history going down almost 500 years. This Roman-
style cistern is from the 1830 mansion on the site.

A quiet street, a city worker, and a whole bunch of...something.

Cool reflection

Sobering remains of the Israeli embassy that was bombed in 1992,
outlined on the neighboring building.

Big, cool tree. It's a gomero, or ficus macrophylla– I had no idea any kind of ficus got this huge!

Random plastic bottle art or effigy? In this city, flip a coin.

It's hard to capture from street level, but Avenida 9 de Junio is really, really wide.
You're lucky to cross in two light cycles.

Casa Rosada (the Pink House) and the balcony where Evita did her thing.

We didn't cry for her. She asked us not to, and we didn't.

The family crypt where Eva Perón is buried. Her body
went through almost as much tribulation at Haydn's did
(that's another story) before finally resting here,
in a theft-proof fallout-proof underground bunker.

Crypt of a teenage girl who died twice: once when her
family thought she was dead and buried her, again when
she actually died inside the coffin. *shudder*

Casa Minima: the narrowest house in BA. Legend has it that this was originally
part of a larger house and was given to a freed slave by his former owner.
I'm torn between "Wow, that was generous for the time," and "Wow, way to
visually represent racial inequity."

Avenida Florida by night.