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As others have written before me, the Argentines are serious about their hygiene. There are bidets besprinkled pretty much everywhere throughout the country.

Personally, I’ve never really been a fan, they seem more trouble than they are worth. The bidet in our apartment is never used, except to store toilet paper rolls over the knobs. (There’s literally no extra space in our bathroom.)

Anyway, my transition to bidetophile came about as a result of an extreme case of gastrointestinal distress that led to massive amounts of vomiting and diarrhea. Residing at the Posada de la Laguna during this illness, sipping my lovely deliveries of green tea and toast from the kitchen staff, caused me to feel as if I were staying at some sort of twisted, bulimic weight loss spa!

I digress…again, sorry.

So, one day, while my poor body was purging itself of toxins, my keen family was on the water attempting to canoe amongst the spectacular flora and fauna in gale force winds. This meant I didn’t have anyone to fetch me new toilet paper, causing me to eyeball the bidet, reluctantly realizing it was going to act as savior with my low supply of tissue.

I held off for as long as I could, but finally, I succumbed to the siren song of warm moisture (as opposed to the razor sharp papel higiénico squares I was using). It took me about an hour to figure out all of the knobs and settings, but once I gave it a test run, I thought it was so damn great, I insisted Tom give it a try! (The poor man, it must be hell being married to me.)

I was reminded at Zelda’s school production celebrating Cristobal Colón‘s discovery of the Americas that we folks from the U.S. are very impatient and direct.

We don’t have long flowery hellos and goodbyes. Instead of taking the time for a nice chat over coffee at a cafe, we choose to order huge caffeinated drinks to go so that we can inhale them in our car while rushing somewhere. And, our national anthem launches into the singing immediately without prelude or conclusion.

Not so the Argentinian anthem, which begins with what seems to be its own symphonic movement prior to anyone actually lending voice. Every time I find myself lulled into self reflection by the Argentine national song’s instrumental introduction, I am subsequently jarred out of my reverie when the vocal portion begins.

We weren’t sure what to expect when we went to Zelda’s celebration of Chris Colon, which featured 1st and 2nd graders as well as some 2 & 3 year old jardín children. To say we were dazzled is an understatement. The older kids (including Zoe) painted the backdrop in art class. All of the costumes and props were great. The wee thespians spoke clearly and no one forgot their lines.

This theater piece had it all: drama, narrators, musical numbers, and charming toddlers. Below are some pictures that show: 1) Christopher contemplating travel; 2) The monarchy of Spain with the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting (Zelda’s part) discussing funding for an expedition; 3) The sailors crossing the Atlantic; 4) The impossibly cute Pre-K kids in a musical sailor number; 5) The Indians and the Europeans meeting; and 6) A musical flag extravaganza honoring all of the countries in the Americas.

I have to say, they take their drama seriously here, and it shows. This exceeded any similar in-school productions we attended at the elementary level in the US. (I confess, I am one of those parents that enjoys seeing my own children perform, but generally, I find these events to be rather boring. So for me, this was certainly a pleasant surprise.) Bravo!

A while back, we were desperately searching for an English-language film at the cinema that was suitable for the whole family. At the time, there were only adult options in English available and they had a minimum rating of PG-13 back in the States. (Here in Buenos Aires, most foreign fare aimed at the junior set is dubbed, but adult films are subtitled.) Since we didn’t know anything about the movies in question, we began searching online for information about content for the Zs, who are not horribly media savvy.

As we were doing our pelicula fact finding, Tom stumbled upon the site Kids in Mind.

Wow — we had no idea that there were people who sat down and watched a movie and literally cataloged every female hard nipple covered by a shirt, every mention of the Lord’s name in vain (check out the profanity glossary), substance abuse references, and of course, moments of actual nudity and graphic violence.

Tom and I quickly abandoned our original reason for being on the site and randomly began entering in recent summer films. What was our favorite discovery? Well, if you should happen to take a family outing to the cinema for a viewing of “The Hangover”, you might want to take advantage of their list of suggested “discussion topics“:

Bachelor parties, marriage, dating, relationships, trust, love, counting cards, spousal abuse, lying, Ruffelin, the Holocaust, Holocaust survivors, sexually transmitted diseases, recklessness, drug dealing, gambling.

In the end, their unique reviews were somewhat useful, but good Lord, I really did feel like a prude!

Thanks once again to Candace and Gil, without whom we would do nothing interesting. Today, it was a trek outside of Capital Federal (the name for the inner barrios of Buenos Aires) so that we could attend some sort of joint British/American outdoor fair at the posh Hurlinghame Club.

The club itself is a bit of a throwback to colonial times, it has an 18-hole golf course, polo fields and stables, tennis courts, cricket, swimming, blah blah blah. It is quite a huge piece of property and was indeed a nice setting for a beautiful spring day. I learned today that the club is supposed to be where polo was first introduced to Argentina.

There were food booths with the standard parilla fare, sweetened popcorn, games for the kids, lots of grass to play around on, loads of vendors (we bought a llama wool blanket to bring home), a marching bagpipe and percussion band as well as Scottish Highland dancers. (A big thank you to Gilson Pereira for remembering to bring his camera and for taking the photo here!)

On a side note, as we trekked back to the R. Dario stop, we saw the train fly by before we made it to the platform — it was actually a few minutes early. I didn’t know that was possible with a train system!

Electrical systems are often overloaded and somewhat finicky here in Buenos Aires, as evidenced by our recent candle-lit birthday party for Zelda!

We had another such incident today. While dining at a new Panadería/Confitería, I went upstairs to use the restroom. Unfortunately, said baño was not stocked with paper towels for the drying of the manos. Luckily (or so I thought at the time), there was an air drying unit, which was unplugged. Being the enterprising person that I am, I restored its connection to mother electricity and…well, let’s just say it was a bad idea.

The bathroom light went out, the dryer didn’t work, and I had to fumble around in the pitch black with wet hands to get out of there. When I repaired back downstairs, rejoining my darling husband, he jokingly asked, “Hey, it just went dark down here. Did you make the lights go out?” I winced and said, “Yah, I think I did.” He didn’t believe me at first, unable to come up with a connection between plumbing and electricity!

Needless to say, I felt horrible for blacking out the illumination in the main dining area! I suppose they still have a few “opening day” type kinks to mitigate at La Argentina.

Our second party this last Friday was Zelda and Sofia’s joint celebration of birth, commemorated with the Hello Kitty and Pucca cakes that are pictured here.

Zelda’s portion of Party Friday began with a race across town from the wedding reception to a panadería to pick up the crustless (and tasteless, truth be told) miga sandwiches and the masa seca (shortbread cookies with chocolate, dulce de leche and fruit fillings). In the same cab, we left the bakery and drove toward the apartment, where the Zs and I disembarked. Tom continued on from there to the party room, where he dropped off the food and ran to the nearest Chino to get ten, 2 liter bottles of various sodas.

Meanwhile, at the apartment, I was having the girls change (Zelda into her Chinese dress, and Zoe into her more casual clothes), gathering together gift bags, gifts, receipts, money to pay for the festivities, and extras in case I needed to build more gift bags while I was at the party. We had to solve the crisis of Zelda’s underwear showing through her tights as the slits on the side of the dress ran a little high…apparently they don’t make them with sitting “criss cross apple sauce” in mind!

So, with a zillion tons of crap, the Zs and I tromped downstairs and headed for the salon de fiestas in a taxi during rush hour.

The salon was divided into two major rooms — one ostensibly for adults, and one for kids, the latter being the location for the birthday emcees, who had set up with their audio/visual equipment by the time I had arrived.

You can see the kids’ area in the first photo below, when it was still neat and the children were snorfing snacks while waiting for things to get going. By the time all of the munchkins arrived, it was a booming room with a master of ceremonies, multimedia quizzes, and dancing — the birthday entertainment industry is big business here and these guys occupy the little ones for about 2 1/2 hours.

You can see how rapt some of the attendees were in the 2nd photo below. The third shot captures Zelda’s momentary pause to pop something in her mouth!

The second row of images below are some of the party shots the birthday entertainers provided from the event. Both Zelda and Sofia were delighted with these cheesy visuals!

Lest you think everything went well, we did have a few mishaps. Something blew the circuit breaker and there was no lighting for much of the party (making photography difficult). Strangely (thank God, really), there was still enough juice to power the audio/visual though. The other monkey wrench was a student still waiting for their parents thirty minutes after the scheduled end of the party, and we had no way to reach said parents. It all ended happily; however, the mother arrived after some last minute gift shopping, and picked up her daughter!

And lastly, I have to make a small mention about our gift bags. I must say, they were awesome! We went to Chinatown and bought a bunch of crap. Why is that so awesome? Because we purchased different crap than the usual party bag goodies that everyone buys from the usual stores.

Of course, I couldn’t stop myself from negotiating. I always asked the Chinese vendors for a discount since we were buying 16 items at a whack. I figured they let me get away with it because I was speaking my rather rusty Mandarin. At one point, after a small purchase, Tom asked me, “you know you were negotiating over .60 cents there honey?”

I didn’t really get his question!

Our first party this last Friday was the multi-cultural wedding reception for our friends Leah and Pablo!

Pablo’s family was in attendance from Chile, some of whom we sat by during lunch. It was fun talking to his cousin, who was a young woman who studied civil engineering…you know we had to have the female, engineering, girl power moment. His uncle, Ricardo, was very patient sitting across from the two blond Zs, believing they were cute even though Zoe managed to look like a lynx tearing out the throat of a fox while she ate her carne empanadas! (We’ve really got to work on table manners. *sigh*)

Leah’s mother and one brother made it from the States. Her mother is a fabulous woman who worked her fingers to the bone to elect Obama (in North Carolina, no less) and is now concerned about health care and finance reform getting passed. We bored all of the locals in attendance with our spirited political discussion.

The restaurant where the reception was held was called Almacén Secreto, and they weren’t kidding about the secreto part. When the cab pulled up to the sparsely populated, dead-end street in the Villa Crespo neighborhood, the driver looked at his American charges with an expression that said: “Really…?”

We left the cab and nervously shuttled across the street to ring the bell that corresponded to the address (there is no sign indicating that you are in the right place). We were let in and found ourselves entering a magical environment that two artists converted from a home into a restaurant. Needless to say, it has the coolest atmosphere.

Oh yah, and Leah says dinner on TH includes free wine, so check it out! Pictured here is some of the art housed within and without the space.

There are times when you are living in Buenos Aires that you are reminded of the fact that labor is cheap…well, at least compared to the US. We experienced one such happening today at the tennis club where the girls take lessons.

It seems that they are refurbishing the surface of the courts, one by one, and in order to do it, they have to break up the clay, which they accomplish by hand with the work of 2 or 3 men pounding away with the tools pictured above.

There is a strange sort of beauty to the pattern that emerges in the clay; the newer wounds bleed a darker red. (Click on the photo to really see the richness.)

This process takes several days, and since I’m not the one out in the baking sun beating on the ground, I find the pace appealing in a contemplative sort of way. I know in the States there is probably a machine that can accomplish this task in a mere whisper of time, but not so handsomely, and not so I appreciate the labors of those doing it.

Yesterday, we spent a beautiful day at the ecological reserve located between Puerto Madero and the Río de la Plata, smack dab in the middle of Buenos Aires.

When you hear the words “ecological” and “reserve” you picture a pristine wilderness preserved for its unique ecostystem. This one has a bit more of a checkered past than its name would imply as it is essentially landfill from the castoffs on a road construction project that built up over time and became a haven for wild guinea pigs and a wide variety of birds along the brown shores of the River Plate. Born from heavy construction trash…

The reserve is apparently being threatened by people who feel it is very valuable for real estate development and believe it to be a waste to leave it as it is, which leads me to my mixed feelings about Puerto Madero, as a whole. In my opinion, the redeveloped port is a well-conceived and executed port reclamation project in terms of design. However, whenever I go there, it feels like a playground built by the oligarchy, for the oligarchy. One of the only redeeming characteristics of the area for me is the reserve, which allows ordinary Porteño citizens to interact with and enjoy their river front, instead of securing it for the exclusive enjoyment of the rich and the powerful.

It was very crowded yesterday because it was a beautiful spring day, but I hear it is nearly empty during the week. People from all walks of life and all ages were enjoying the many km of paths. A note, if you are going to rent a bike, they don’t have any attachments/trailers for kids who don’t ride.

Photo by jmpznz’s photostream, under this creative commons license

Let’s see, I broke my vertebrae nearly three months ago on June 16th…you guessed it, that means it’s time for another update.

I am fully healed in the sense that I can bend over and pick up stuff off the floor and/or flip around in bed without the pain waking me up. (I still have twinges when I sneeze, or twist funny, but it’s all manageable.)

The big issue at present is rehab, rehab, rehab. Not being able to activate most of the muscles in my torso without pain for the first few months after I cracked the spine resulted in terrible atrophy that I’m having to try and reverse now. Yes, that means I am ridiculously sore at the moment. After doing a solid couple of weeks of light CrossFit and some casual hitting of tennis balls with the hubby, my upper body is wracked with lactic acid. I had to have Tom take off my sweatshirt today because I couldn’t lift my arms over my head!

My back injury also set my knee recuperation back a bit as well, so my legs are crazy painful too.

Essentially, I waddle around the house waving my useless flipper arms asking everyone to help me. Recovering has made me almost as useless as when the injury first occurred!

Spinal Fracture Recovery Posts: Day 1 | Day 5 | Day 14 | Month 3 |