A Day in Buenos Aires

The kids won't sleep. They've started living Buenos Aires-style: Two-hour siestas, nonexistent bed-times, and groggy mornings at 9. The problem is, late nights for them mean late nights for me. I wouldn't mind it so much if it weren't for Kipper.

Here are the last few days in images.

The Subway Hustlers

Riding the Subte in Buenos Aires you meet a rotating cast of characters who makes pleas and presentations to a trapped audience. Not sure if it is their custom or not, but we found that the first ones up were the homeless. He'd give a loud, wailing, two-minute speech about how he had no food, or work, or family. People would give him money and he'd move on. Next up are the charity groups selling baked goods. Then come the street hustlers pushing random items like maps and guidebooks. One scheme I thought was rather clever was to give everyone on the subway colourful pages of stickers. They were high quality with only a 3 peso price tag. After handing them all out, he returns a few minutes later to either collect the stickers back or his money. If you have kids, that's long enough for them to fall in love with the blue and pink princesses and shiny robots.

Dancing In The Streets

We saw some tango downtown. It's one hell of a sexy dance. But not without a touch of sadness. A grey-haired man with a great voice and a black scarf around his neck danced with this fiery young thing in a fine black hat and fishnet stockings and a slit up her skirt, which in retrospect may have been his daughter. He slipped on the slick street stones one minute in, but he bounded back to his feet. I was thinking hip replacement, but he was drawing cheers. The way these dancers could hustle a crowd was impressive.

Street Art

Lots of terrible and idiotic graffiti here. But you can find the odd pocket of cool street art.

Painting At The Park

This is another good idea they have for kids here. They set up a row of easels and paints for kids to unleash their inner Van Gogh.

The Round

My kids are always pulling on my pant legs and saying, "The Round, The Round." It's 2speak for 'Merry-Go-Round'. They have these excellent and bizarre mini-amusement parks for kids everywhere in Buenos Aires.

You think after all the insistence that they'd actually enjoy going in circles on the dilapidated old wooden merry-go-round, but they don't. Olive grimaces the whole time she circumnavigates in her plane. Holden kicks and screams when I try to put him in the tank, or cars or, god forbid, on a horse. Instead he sinks token after token into the unsafe-by-all-North-American-standards helicopter and slams the controls with his fists and feet, jarring radically from left to right, up and down, with a wild smile on his face. But he won't go near the carousel.

Despite their fear of The Round, they make a scene every time they're asked to leave, and run towards the place every chance they get. And all I ever hear is "The Round. The Round." Crazy pookas.

The Ants, They Tickles

My kids are obsessed with ants. I hope this will one day reflect in their work ethic. Olive likes to pick up the frantic little guys and have them crawl on her arms and legs. They're crazy about the beetles here too. They have that Hruschak bug-loving gene.

We do this thing where we go over our day in Buenos Aires before we put them to sleep. We all lay down in their bedroom with the lights out and recap our day. Olive always talks about the round, and the ants, they tickles and the bears fighting. (That was from the zoo, two weeks ago, but it is amazing what sticks in their heads.) Holden talks about how he liked hanging out with Shaun and Niki and Aaron. And ice cream.

Usually this gets them to fall asleep. But some nights, no dice.