On the Road Again!

Well, I just deposited Elsbeth in the taxi headed to the airport and back to California. Which is also why I haven't been maintaining this blog. It was kind of a whirlwind 8 days. We spent about half the time in bustiling Buenos Aires and the other half in the quiet hamlet of Colonia, Uruguay, which Bush will be visiting starting tonight. A good time for us to leave! There goes the neighborhood.

What a HUGE difference between the Colonia of a week ago and the Colonia of this week. Last week the students in Uruguay and Buenos Aires were still on summer vacation, so the vacation town of Colonia was filled with vacationers. This week the schools in both countries were back in session and the little town was almost empty! In a sense it was kind of sad, because half the restaurants were empty and shopkeepers were sitting on their hands. But the famously tranquil town of Colonia was indeed tranquil. It was fun to see the school kids. They wear white shirts and big, as in BIG, black bow ties.

We rented a motorbike for going back and forth to the beach, which Elsbeth got on the back of with the greatest reluctance. But it worked great and I think by the end of our stay she was (almost) used to it. We went about 15 mph on the far right of the wide streets with little or no traffic. For Colonia, just perfect!

One thing was incredibly consistent during her visit. Whenever Elsbeth picked out a restaurant, the food was great! I tried to analyze her selection methods. The first place she selected because she liked the windows(!?). The second place she picked because she liked the odors coming from the place when we were downwind of it.

Today, her last day, we returned to Buenos Aires. I picked out a restaurant with nice windows and a nice odor. We had a wonderful table on the large sidewalk in front of the restaurant and could people watch as well as eat. Our food was no sooner delivered than a big truck pulled up, two men with long rubber gloves got out, opened up a hole in the sidwalk right in front of us, and started working on the sewer. Needless to say, the odor would have knocked over a horse. Elsbeth turned green and we fled to the back of the inside of the restaurant and gobbled down our food until the "good airs" of Benos Aires started blowing through the front door. The poor restaurant people were fit to be tied.

There's probably some big moral here. I'll think about it later. Well, while Elsbeth is jetting off overnight to New York, I will be bussing off overnight to Cordoba. I'll keep you posted.