With our last concert behind us, we had day 10 to
explore Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires is the most European-like city in
South America. Despite Argentina being a Spanish colony, most of the
architecture in Buenos Aires is taken from the French. Many of early Argentinian
aristocracy had homes in both Argentina and France. They brought much of the
culture from France back to Argentina.
Argentina is derived form the Latin "argentum" meaning silver. The original settlers believed like Peru,
there would be much silver in the mountains of this country, which was not the case at all. Buenos Aires of course means good
air, which was quite a good omen, as the city does not have the air pollution like other
large cities.
In
driving around Buenos Aires, one will notice an
massive system of roads. The main avenue that dissects the city, called
de Avenue 9 de Julio, the date that
Argentina proclaimed their independence, has as many as sixteen lanes!
In addition to eight lanes in each direction,
there are four more lanes for mass transit vehicles to make a complete
thruway as wide as 20 lanes. Even the highway entering Buenos Aires at
one point had as many as nine lanes going each way! Again, I challenge
anyone to find a highway system like this one in the United States,
which suggests the large number of cars on the road in this city. How
we could use a couple of extra lanes on the Baltimore beltway! It was once said that
much can be learned about a civilization in looking their roads.
On day 10, we travelled to San Isidro, one of the
most affluent regions in Argentina. The
area is an historic area with cobbled streets and old single-story houses. While there, we visited the famous neo-gothic
San Isidro Cathedral. The region is
adjacent to the Rio de la Plata, which borders the east boundary of Buenos
Aires. The Rio de la Plata is the widest
river in the world, with Uruguay on the opposite side. Many large houses are found in this San Isidro region.
We then went to Tigre, a section of the Buenos
Aires that lies on the Paraná delta.
Tigre is an island surrounded by several small streams and rivers. To get a sense of this region, we took a
cruise (boat ride) around the Paraná delta for approximately one hour.
After
a return to the hotel, many of us toured the Buenos Aries Opera House,
Teatro Colón.
Twelve of us paid for a personal guided tour of the most expensive
building in all of Argentinian. Every material in the opera
house was imported from Europe. Some consider this the house made of
gold. This Argentinian opera
house is considered to have some of the best acoustics of any opera
house in the world. As most were music majors, this was an educational
lecture about architecture, acoustics, and overall history for all who
attended.
During
the evening, we enjoyed a farewell dinner at
one of the few buffets in all of Argentina.
Finally, everyone could choose what to eat based on personal
preference. The food was
much higher quality and variety than in the states, including stations
to personally
cook the "catch of the day" before your eyes, carving station with at
least eight different types of meet, and a dessert bar that had
something for
everyone. I believe that we all can
confirm that the people of Argentina definitely consumes more meat than
any other country in the world. In twenty-four hours, we would be on a
plane
back to the United States.
EC
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