June 10-11
We´re about to leave the hotel and therefore our opportunity to blog so let me quickly reprise the last two days in La Plata.
Tuesday morning we started our foray by going to the Natural Science Museum (after getting the right directions from people at the hotel). The museum is the pride and joy of La Plata, and we couldn´t leave without seeing it. As with everything else, I found it much smaller than I remembered it. They had some new, cool exhibits downstairs, but much of it was old and drab, which has quite an appeal for me.
After the museum we came back to the hotel for a nap (for Mike & Mika, I read), and then it was off to a quick lunch at the Munich cerveceria in front of the hotel and then to visit my aunt Cuqui who is living at my grandparent´s home.
My grandparent´s home is a huge house in front of the Estudiantes club, with tons of rooms and places for little children to play. We loved going there when we were children and the house still has an enormous appeal to me. Still, it hasn´t been taken care of since my grandfather died in the mid 70´s, and I had already seen how drab it looked from the outside. The inside was worse, though the floors and marble still looked good, and it was nice seeing the house one last time. It´s finally being sold, I hope the family that buys it will bring it back to its old glory.
Seeing my aunt Cuqui was nice, as was meeting my cousin Daiana. When we were leaving, I got to see my cousing Luisito for a while, he was a bit younger than us but still a playmate when we were kids.
We then went off to Gladys´ house for a bit before going to my aunt Stella´s. She had organized a get together with other relatives I hadn´t seen, including my aunt Pipi and my uncle Anibal. It was very nice seeing them all after so many years and we stayed until very late.
Back at the hotel I blogged for a while and then it took me forever to go back to sleep. I was really tired when Mika woke me up the next day and I skipped breakfast.
Finally I got up and we all headed to Gladys´ house. From there we went shopping for Argentine handicrafts (didn´t find any we wanted) and then for some cups and glasses for Gladys. We finished off with a quick lunch at Confitería Paris (it´s non-smoking!) and then we were off back home.
We hang out at her house for a while, and later Mike, Mika and I went shopping downtown. Again we didn´t find anything we wanted, though we did find the Havanna store and got enough Alfajores and habanets to last us for a couple of weeks when we return. Then it was back for tea at Gladys´ with some of the great masas finas (pastries) we´d gotten at the Paris, and finally it was time to go back to the hotel, rest for a bit, blog and then go to sleep.
And so it´s now. We just checked out, and now we are headed to Gladys´. I imagine we´ll hang out there, maybe get some lunch, go to the supermarket and buy the vegetable stock my mom wants, and finally leave for Ezeiza this afternoon.
It´s been a great trip, but we are read to go home.
Posted by mike at June 12, 2003 06:47 AM