My first day I walked around the city for no less than six hours. We wandered through the city to the Plaza de Mayo and saw the Casa Rosada, where "Evita" gave her famous speach. Some people think that people elected her because they wanted her husband, and on the same line of reasoning elected Kirschner because they wanted her husband. Similarly, people may feel kindly toward Hillary Clinton because they want her husband in office again. It makes sense, that is, if you think women follow after their husbands. Evita was from a poor family. She married Juan Peron who became President two years later. In 1951, Evita became Vice President. However, she died just a short time later in 1952, but not before being named "Spiritual Leader of the Nation." She died at 33 and held office for a very short time, yet is probably one of the most remembered political figures ever, especially since Madonna's portrayal of her in the movie Evita.
We wandered from funky San Telmo and the Sunday street fair to Palermo to Puerto Madero and upscale Recoleta and its design mall and its famous cemetery (I saw Eva Peron's grave there), to the Microcentro where most business is conducted, to Congreso where the congress building is, not necessarily in that order. The San Telmo street fair was really fun, full of antique goods sold at many stalls, trios playing tango music and partners performing tango in the streets, carmelized peanut and almond stands (delicious sweet nutty crunchy protein!!!) and street artists posing as statues. The Recoleta cemetery is the most unique, impressive cemetery I've ever seen. New Orleans was impressive with its above-ground graves, but Buenos Aires' Recoleta graves go above and below ground! All of the Recoleta graves are outfitted with ornate decorations and larger than life statues of the deceased. The memorials obviously cost a lot of money to erect, but now that the country has gone through some financial ups and downs (more downs), many of the memorials are looking uncared for. There is broken glass, broken locks, even entirely exposed caskets. If you look through the doors of most tombs, you can see a staircase that leads down underground and sometimes see several caskets. Since it was Sunday and Father's Day, we did see a few people visit to unlock the gates to their family's tomb to say "hi" and leave flowers, but it looked like the majority of tombs hadn't been visited in a while - except for Eva Peron's which had several fresh flowers in it. As if the aging, decrepit, cracked open tombs couldn't get any creepier, gangs of stray cats prowl around the narrow walkways between graves.
We wandered from funky San Telmo and the Sunday street fair to Palermo to Puerto Madero and upscale Recoleta and its design mall and its famous cemetery (I saw Eva Peron's grave there), to the Microcentro where most business is conducted, to Congreso where the congress building is, not necessarily in that order. The San Telmo street fair was really fun, full of antique goods sold at many stalls, trios playing tango music and partners performing tango in the streets, carmelized peanut and almond stands (delicious sweet nutty crunchy protein!!!) and street artists posing as statues. The Recoleta cemetery is the most unique, impressive cemetery I've ever seen. New Orleans was impressive with its above-ground graves, but Buenos Aires' Recoleta graves go above and below ground! All of the Recoleta graves are outfitted with ornate decorations and larger than life statues of the deceased. The memorials obviously cost a lot of money to erect, but now that the country has gone through some financial ups and downs (more downs), many of the memorials are looking uncared for. There is broken glass, broken locks, even entirely exposed caskets. If you look through the doors of most tombs, you can see a staircase that leads down underground and sometimes see several caskets. Since it was Sunday and Father's Day, we did see a few people visit to unlock the gates to their family's tomb to say "hi" and leave flowers, but it looked like the majority of tombs hadn't been visited in a while - except for Eva Peron's which had several fresh flowers in it. As if the aging, decrepit, cracked open tombs couldn't get any creepier, gangs of stray cats prowl around the narrow walkways between graves.