Dia 25, Tigre, 11 de junio

Well hello all my lovely readers. I hope you are all doing well!

I spent my Saturday in Tigre, which is a town about an hour outside of the center of Buenos Aires. Some say it’s a suburb, some say it’s not connected, I’m sure I don’t know, but there you go. We didn’t have to get up as early today, thank goodness! I met Thomas at the train station at eleven. We were waiting on Leo to show up, but sadly enough, we couldn’t get a hold of him, nor was he getting a hold of us. After waiting for about 25 minutes, Leo finally called Thomas to ask where he was. We then found out that Leo was, in fact, already on a train headed to Tigre. He was there by eleven (okay, so maybe I showed up at 11:05!) and thought we had left him.

So we got on our train (which I was really excited about because trains are always fun and much cooler than subways…this was just a subway above ground. It wasn’t exciting at all, sad moment for me and Thomas who had never even been on a train before!). About fifteen minutes into our ride, Bridget gets on at her train stop. Thomas had bought little word game booklets (like crossword puzzles and Sudoku) because a guy was selling them on the train, three for only 2 pesos! We saw a Sudoku book which is what made me think, “ooh, fun,” and Thomas got them…only to find out that the pack of three the guy gave us was all crosswords and word games, which would be way cool, except for of course, they were all in Spanish, which made it way hard for me! I think I tried two or three different puzzles, but of course, got flustered. Luckily, Thomas had his little electronic Spanish/English dictionary, so he had fun. =)

Moving along, we finally got to Tigre and got a small brunch (super pancho!), then started walking! It was a lot chillier than we had been expecting, but the longer we walked, the warmer it got. It was a great day with the sun shining and a slight breeze. I enjoyed the town a lot because it wasn’t a huge “city” town like B.A., and you could walk in the street without hundreds of cars driving at you and honking. However, there were many of the same elements: a lot of people, vendors everywhere, beggars, dogs, and super panchos. =)

So we walked down a random street (it looked like a downtown area) towards the Puerto de Frutas (literally: Fruit Port). It’s the biggest market I have seen while down here, there were outside vendors, inside vendors, vendors who were in garage-like spaces. I know we didn’t even see a third of the place while we were there. And they were selling almost anything you can think of: jewelry, magnets, furniture, flowers, incense, clocks, clothes, rocks, vases, lamps, etc. etc. etc. It was a lot of fun and I wish we could have walked around it some more, however we finally got a hold of Leo (who had randomly bumped into a few guys he met while traveling in Mendoza last weekend) and we met him at a Catamaran stop. We opted to try for a different, well cheaper, way of taking a boat tour around the Tigre islands, so we walked a couple blocks and found the Lanchas.

Lanchas are basically ferries…but smaller. One room, on a long boat. I don’t think you can sit outside anywhere, but I didn’t want to anyways, it was too cold. At first, I was pretty nervous, because the boat was rocking a lot before we got started. However, once we got going, it was pretty much smooth sailing (ha) with a few bumps. It was pretty fun, and I am definitely glad we opted for the cheaper choice. There were a lot of great photo opportunities while riding around. There are a lot of houses that just have the river as their back yard. Some people were out on their back decks by their boats, just drinking mate and relaxing. I think that would be a great way to spend the afternoon. There were also quite a few older looking buildings that could have been museums now, or just older houses. There was one house that was encased in a huge glass box. It was so strange (photo in Facebook album). We didn’t know if it was a museum or just a very well-protected house, but it was interesting all the same.

After the hour long boat ride, we decided to go to the art museum. Now, in my “Let’s Go Buenos Aires!” guide book, and in other guides I’ve seen, they describe the Art Museum as a must in Tigre. It’s one of the best in B.A. they say…it’s not true. I don’t know if they got museums confused or what, but I think we were all a little disappointed. The building itself was beautiful. I don’t even know how to describe it (there are photos of this as well), but I would have loved to make it my house! It was pretty funny that, before we could go into the museum, we had to wait for four people (since there were four of us) to leave. They were only allowed to have a certain number of people in the museum on account of the swine flu, and they told us to keep our hands clean and what not. Even inside the museum, a couple of exhibits would only allow so many people in the room at a time. They were definitely taking precautions. It was somewhat small inside (for a museum, not a house) and the lower floor was completely dedicated to a band called…well, I don’t even remember. It had a room with music where you could wear head phones and hear different types of their music, as well as awards they’ve won and albums they’ve made. I’ve never heard of them (obviously, they’re an Argentine band) and so it wasn’t so exciting to me. On the second floor, we finally got to the “art”: paintings and drawings. It was more interesting, but there really wasn’t that much. There was a room that is a huge mural on all the walls, ceiling, and floor, and that was pretty cool. It was still in process, so it was interesting to see that in between stage. The balcony outside was really beautiful. Again, if it were my house, we would have balls outside on the cool summer nights…sigh. Anyways…

We started walking back to the center of town, and man…it was a walk. One way was fine, and walking back I started getting pretty tired. Bridget decided she really wanted a picnic basket (we saw tons of them at the market) and so we would head back to it, even though it was getting dark and we weren’t sure if the market was still open. So we said goodbye to Leo and Alex (Alex had joined us while we were at the art museum) and headed back. By the time we were halfway there, I was so tired. I felt like I had been walking for years. It was quite a trek walking back and forth across this town. (For those of you in Shawnee, think Mall to downtown…twice.) Luckily, the place where all the wicker products were was still open. Bridget got her basket and was kind enough to put my purse in it. “I don’t wanna look lame walking around with an empty basket!” she said, so I thought, “Hey! Carry my purse!”

After all this walking, we were still a little hungry (we had had sandwiches not too long before this), but stopped at…. “Waffles Del Mundo”!!! I don’t know what it was, but there was something about getting a waffle that was so exciting to me. There were waffles covered in chocolate and dulce de leche and strawberries and…all kinds of things. They even had waffles with ham and cheese in the middle or other things like that. So, we go inside to order, and I am trying to say the type of waffle I want (there was a name for the waffles on a stick that you dip in chocolate, and a name for a regular waffle with stuff smeared on it) and as I was trying to find the right name she says, “un wah-flay”? I don’t know why, but when we finally had all of our food and were sitting at the table, the word wahflay was just the funniest thing. Waffle seems like one of those words they would have just kept in the normal phrasing. They still spell it the same way, so it was hilarious to us that they pronounce it differently. Plus, we were tired and had been walking for long amounts of time and the sugar rush was kicking in. It was a great dessert moment for us. =)

After our dessert, we headed back to the train station and went to our homes. It was a great day although I seriously can’t remember the last time I was so tired! I don’t have any plans for tomorrow, rest is definitely among them. I am going to try to go to church with my host mom if she’s going. We’ll see!

More from B.A. to come! Miss you all!