more walking, a dinner party, and two easy cab rides

Yesterday I walked. And walked some more. And walked yet more. Buenos Aires is a very walkable city. The subte to Pueyrredon, and then walked into the posh neighborhood to the cemetery at Recoleta. Like all cemeteries it is interesting to walk around. There are crowds of people around the Duarte mausoleum housing Eva Peron (though I am not quite sure what affection people like me, and others with no real relation to Argentina have for her). There are many many tombs of various generals that have a clear importance in Argentine history, but I am embarassed to say I recognize the names by the fact they also name streets. There are some interesting contrasts. My favorite was that between a traditional mausoleum, with an angel hovering over it, classical architecture, and the modernist aesthetic with clean concrete lines, and glass walls. Apparently, architecture makes a statement even in death.

From there I followed the Av. de Liberador to the Museo del Bellas Artes. Some impressive holdings in the european collection, though I did not spend enough time with the Argentine art. Upstairs there was a special exhibition of photography and an interesting multi-media artist. The most interesting piece was a series of cabinets with back walls of 3x5 architectural photos and then in front of them miniatures in marble of other buildings. Wended my way back to Palermo Viejo.

Napped.
Then went to the dinner-party-that-you-pay-for. The concept is a great one. Practice your cooking and menu design by offering to host a bunch of people for dinner in your home. Some people you´ll know. Some people you won´t. They will talk amongst themselves. Problems: you don´t get to do much talking with your guests. So even though I didn´t get to chat with the host (Dan Perlman -- you can find him at www.saltshaker.net), I did get to eat his food. Nice pre-dinner chatting with some Aussies, and shared a table with two Spaniards, and the porteno girlfriend of one. They were very kind to speak in English some of the time. One of the Spaniards did a lot of translating, for his friend, whose english is about as good as my spanish. Really interesting conversation though -- about how the spanish speaking countries actually understand themselves to speak different languages, about university life in Argentina, anthropology, the differences between Spain and Argentina (apparently, the spanish find the Argentines very friendly, and even a little too much in contexts of shops, etc, much more so than Spaniards.) It was a success.
And the biggest achievement was the two cab rides I managed to take with no event whatsoever.

Did a lot today too, but that will have to wait for later.