In our last few days in Buenos Aires, we decided to visit two museums – one honoring a national hero, Evita Peron, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MALBA) rated as the best museum in the city with a large collection of South American art.  The Evita museum chronicles her life, through films, photographs & a collection of personal items, as a performer and as an advocate of the workers & the poor when her husband was the Argentinean president. The museum was somewhat interesting but with limited English information, it was not as impactful for us as it could have been.  Interestingly, the fabulous outfits Evita wore on tours of Europe in the 1940’s looked quite up-to-date and very chic-especially her beautiful shoes.  Evita Peron is still idolized by many Argentenians as we experienced the other day a parade in her honor in front of the pink presidential palace.  The MALBA museum was quite interesting but we don’t have the same appreciation of the genre as others may. Sometimes the paragraph describing the artist’s concepts were almost incomprehensible.   The mission of the museum is to collect, preserve, research and promote Latin American art from the onset of the 20th century to the present.  An interesting fact is that the contemporary and unique design of the museum was made through an “open call” contest with 450 proposals from 45 countries.  The selection was left to an international jury who awarded 1st prize to three young (you guessed it) Argentinian architects!  We had lunch at the museum cafe which was top notch.

We also went to the Sunday market in the “communa” of San Telmo, one of the 44 neighborhoods in BA.  The market, which sells mainly cutsie artisans and antiques, was very large and stretched for blocks.  We had little interest in 99% of the products that were available; however, it was fun to experience the live music and hustle and bustle of this popular event.  It was a very crowded market and the travel sites all extensively discuss the dangers of pick pocketers.  It really didn’t appear to be an issue. In our walking, the police (both federal & city) are highly visible

It has been very intriguing to experience the Christmas season in Buenos Aires.  There are few holiday decorations throughout the city and one can hardly tell that Christmas is only a week away.  We found this very surprising since the country is predominately Catholic and the churches in the city have lines out the door on Sundays.  We were at a lovely mall right in the city on Sunday and it was very quiet.  Perhaps, the Portenos stay home on Sundays or the economy is in such disarray that the Argentinians can’t afford purchasing gifts.

The  first part of the “40th Anniversary World Tour” has been the most awesome experience of our life so far.  We have learned so much and have truly experienced many cultures as we tried to take our time and truly “live” in each country.  We head back to the states on Tuesday for ski season and restart our trip back here in Buenos Aires and the Argentinian part of Patagonia  in mid-March.  It’s time to sign-off and say “until next time”.

D & L