Argentina Travel

First Day in Mar del Plata

June 6, 2003

Once again it´s me, Marga, blogging. I always say this because Mike has become the de facto blogger for the trip, mostly because I´m too lazy or tired to go and blog. We´re staying at the hotel in La Plata that has internet, so I can make an exception.

These last days of our trip are, I think, more boring because they are mostly about meeting relatives rather than seeing exciting things. Not that my relatives are not exciting, far from it.

Anyway, though our room in the 2-star hotel in Mardel was lacking, we managed to have a good night. We doubted we could at first, given that the bed was the smallest double bed we´d ever encountered, but perhaps because of the lack of space Mika didn´t move too much at night and she didn´t wake Mike up. The room was also cooler than most rooms, which means that we could snuggle underneath the blankets. Usually hotel rooms in Argentina are so heated, that all we can bear have on us is a thin sheet.

We woke up a bit late and after the usual morning routines (cleaning up, putting on contacts, getting dressed, getting Mika changed, etc. etc.) we headed downstairs for breakfast. We heard that my aunt had stopped by the hotel and got directions from the hotel owner on how to get to her office. Breakfast was quite good for that type of hotel. Coffee is almost universally good in Argentina, but there is often quite a variance on OJ. The cheaper hotels often have Tang or another bottled OJ, while the more expensive ones usually have freshly squeezed OJ, often served in the tiniest of glasses. This one not only had freshly squeezed OJ, but they brought us a little jar of it. It was probably no more than 8 to 10 oz. but still more than what we usually get. Breakfast included little cookies, facturas (pastries) and bread. We really liked the medialunas (croissants) filled with crema pastelera, and when the owner noticed that, he brought us some more! All in all it was a good breakfast.

We returned to our room to get ready to leave (which involves preparing the bottles, the diaper bag, etc.) and were in the process of getting everything together when someone knocked to tell me that my cousin was there. I went down with Michaela and saw my cousin Marina for the first time in 20 years!

Marina was the youngest of my generation of cousins. You see, my mother has 7 brothers and sisters, all but one of whom have had children, so I have a plethora of cousins. I divide them in two generations, those who were children when I was a child, and those who were born when I was already a pre-teen. In other words, those who were close enough to my age to play with and those who were not. Marina is about 6 years younger than I, but we still played together when we were little. I remember always looking forward to when my cousins Marito and Marina would come from Mar del Plata, as would inevitably happen around holidays and school vacations.

I had seen pictures of Marina grown up, but it was still hard to reconcile this tallish woman with a coarse voice, with the little, soft kid I remembered. It was great seeing her and we talked for a while before she had to go to work. She also got to see Mika, and see how well she was walking. Mika has been making great progress walking in the last week and by Friday she was walking alone on command. She also got to meet Mike for a few minutes.

We then got the stroller and went off to my aunt´s office. I didn´t have the exact address but the hotel owner had given me what I thought were fool proof directions. Little did I know. The directions were right (go left at the shoe store, it´s a little office with a sign saying ¨Fiscalia¨), but the sign was so small that we missed it both while going and returning on the street. We had to go back to the hotel to get the exact address, and only then I saw the door with the stairway going up one floor. Mike stayed downstairs with the stroller while I went up to look for my aunt.

I found her in an office off the reception area and we recognized each other right away. She was blonder than last time I saw her (though she died her hair the next day to her usual light brown), and a little bit older, but mostly she looked the same. Like all of my aunts and cousins (but not my mom or siblings) she is terribly thin. That seems to be the fashion in Argentina. Why I couldn´t inherit those genes, I´ll never know.

We talked for a while and made plans for meeting that evening. Then I asked her to come downstairs where she met Mika, whom of course she thought was beautiful. After a short time she went back to work and Mike and I headed down Avenida San Martin towards the beach.

We went by the plaza and saw the calendar which I remembered from my childhood, and then on to the pedestrian mall. Mike stopped to look at some music and I went to a book outlet store where I found two books for A$5 each that interested me. One is a book of testimonies of wives of the disappeared and another a history of the SIDE (the main Argentine intelligence agency).

We made it to the beach and pushed the stroller all the way towards the seashore. Mike had fun looking at some dogs that were playing, and playing with the sand. We stayed for quite a bit doing that, until we all started to get too cold. We made our way back to the hotel, stopping at a confiteria (cafe) for a bite and some drinks. Mika had a great time playing with the stairs, us a less great time trying to control her. Finally her whininess won over and it was time to leave.

On the way back we stopped at a children´s store to buy her some warmer clothing. It was pretty cold in Mar del Plata and we had left all her really warm clothing in La Plata. I got her a beautiful red coat for A$22 and a warm sweatshirt for around A$15. Good deals in US money. They are both big enough that she should be able to wear them next winter.

We went back to the hotel where Mike and Mika had a great nap. I can´t quite remember if I slept with them as well, or read or watched TV. Not that important anyway. After the nap we went out again, we visited the Los Gallegos shopping mall (not too different from any regular galería), but I did remember how Los Gallegos used to be this big department store we always used to go to when we came to Mardel. We walked down Rivadavia, found a supermarket and got some milk for Mika. I wanted to get her some bananas, but didn´t realize I had to have them weighed, so I abandoned them at the check out stand. I then had a little spat with Mike about feeding Mika (who hadn´t eaten much all day and I was convinced was hungry) and we went off to a confiteria/snack bar where I had a tasteless chicken sandwich and Mike had a couple of empanadas. I´m not sure how much, if any, Mika ate.

We walked some more and talked about going into a play center, but decided instead to look for a hair salon where Mike could have his hair cut and died. They weren´t as easy to find in downtown Mardel as we would have imagined. Finally we found a hole in the wall where they could cut his hair but not die it, so he had that done. Mika was impatient so I spent most of the time he was having his hair cut going around the block again and again, and stopping by the pet store so Mika could look at the very cute puppies. Finally he was done and we went off again... for a couple of blocks. We then found a place were he could get his hair died and after talking with the girls to make sure they knew what he wanted I returned to the hotel.

I´m not sure if Mika went to sleep or almost went to sleep, but I basically just read and watched TV and tried to put Mika to sleep until Mike returned with his golden tresses. He looked so funny, the hair was much more fake looking than I thought it would look, but I thought that was probably good. We didn´t have time to talk about it much, though, because it was already past 8 PM, the time we were supposed to be at my aunt´s appartment.

So off we went. I didn´t think my aunt would necessarily notice Mike´s hair color, given that she´d only seen him that morning for a little bit, but it was almost the first thing she mentioned. It seems she had been describing him as this dark-haired man, which he no longer was. Anyway, we went up and I saw my cousin and god-daughter Betiana and her boyfriend Chulo. I was afraid for a second that Chulo could be my cousin Marito, he didn´t look at all like what I remembered, but indeed he was not. I also saw my uncle Mario, who all in all looked quite good. My cousins Marito and Marina came back later, we talked for a while and then went off to a tenedor libre for dinner to celebrate Betiana´s recent 23rd birthday.

Dinner and being with family recalling old times and getting to know each other again was very good. My cousin Marito reminded me of several things we´ve done as children, such as holding a seanse to invoke the spirit of my departed step-grandfather, and it was bittersweet thinking back of those times. I had such a great childhood, all in all, with so many cousins and places to play with. I´m so afraid that I won´t have the same to offer my daughter. And it´s so sad that we weren´t able to share the rest of our lives as teenagers and adults with my cousins. I wish I had more to give them. I do hope my coming here will help to re-start these relationships. Anyway, obviously basking in family love was great.

After dinner we returned to the hotel and we watched some TV before going to sleep. Nighty night.

Posted by mike at June 10, 2003 08:14 PM