Early impressions of Buenos Aires

As we complete our first work-week, here are some photos and impressions of our new hometown. We're living in the Palermo area of Buenos Aires, which (we're told) is one of the nicest areas of town. So it may not be a very representative sample of the greater city. But it's our home for now, and we see mostly what we walk to within this area.

We love that the streets are all lined with these large, beautiful trees! They take up good sections of the sidewalk, and their roots tend to disrupt the smoothness of the paving tiles, but it's worth it. They add such a feeling of peace and loveliness to the "concrete jungle" that would otherwise dominate every view. Incidentally, since we're just moving from spring to summer here in the southern hemisphere, we're told they leaves have only recently returned. I'm sure it won't be quite as spectacular next winter when the branches are bare!

Speaking of the "concrete jungle," here's a typical view of one of the apartment buildings that predominate in this area. We're told that clothes dryers are still pretty unusual, and the alternative is to hang clothes up to dry. This is often done on apartment balconies when the day is not rainy. As an alternative, we know of one couple who used drying racks in a spare bedroom and turned up the "space heater" in that room to try to encourage evaporation. That doesn't work quite so well in a humid climate!

Incidentally, we feel very safe as we walk around the streets in this area, even later in the day and early evening. I'm getting the feeling that it's a relatively peaceful, "upscale" area. Nice to have our office and apartment here. But we do look forward to exploring more remote and diverse areas of Argentina in coming weeks.

Most of our grocery shopping is done at a large, supermarket-style store called "Jumbo" that is about a half-mile walk from our apartment. The "Easy" store is like a small Home Depot, and that's been useful too. However, the streets closer to home are filled with smaller "tienda" style grocery stores, pharmacies, fruit stands, flower shops, bakeries, butcher shops, electrical supplies, etc. We like shopping at them too, and have found some things there that we don't find at the big store. Note the pharmacy on the right is open 25 hours a day! Wish I could figure out how to get an extra hour in each rotation of the earth....

We were assigned to attend the Juncal Ward, which is about a half hour from our home by bus or subway. It's interesting to see the church buildings squeezed into limited real estate. This building has some parking area in the back, and has the chapel and small cultural hall on the second level. There were probably a little over a hundred members in attendance the first week or two. On our first Sunday, since it was Fast Sunday, we were introduced to the congregation and asked to come up and bear our testimonies. Always fun in a new language!

Also in our neighborhood is a very large Islamic Cultural Center. We look forward to visiting there in the future.

About a mile from our apartment is a beautiful Botanical Garden, filled with very diverse trees, bushes, and flowers. We look forward to many visits here as the seasons change!