On Monday we went on a tour of parts of the city, and I did remember to take pictures. Let’s look at them now.
We began in the Plaza de Mayo, where the city was founded. This is the old city hall, which is still standing:
And this is the Casa Rosada, where the executive branch of the government is housed. Evita spoke from that balcony. There are different legends which pertain to its color that I don’t quite remember completely. One has something to do with opposing forces being represented by red and by white, and the pink being a blend of the two. The other, more practical explanation is that they mixed the paint with cows’ blood to make it more permanent. The legislative and judicial branches are located just down the other streets that lead to the Plaza de Mayo, to symbolize communication and things of that nature. There are protesters at the bottom, I think, or maybe they're just homeless? Or homeless protesters. There were all of the above in the square.
During the dictatorship of the ’80s (I think), thousands of people “disappeared.” Their mothers walked in circles around the plaza as a form of protest. They are now represented by these white scarves.
Our tour guide.
The thinnest house in South America, I think:
The building on one side of the street.
The building on the other. The city has no sense of architectural unity. I mean, that's not a bad thing. I don't really remember it all, but the tour guide was explaining how well, this building was built at this time, when they were kind of upset with the French and British, so they used a Greek style architecture...and, I mean, stuff like that. Like, there's actually history behind it. It's neat.
And we end with … Colbert! Or at least, his name. And a matching cologne…this excites me more than it should.
(The rest of Monday involved buying a hair dryer so my host mother would no longer complain about my leaving the house with wet hair.)
1 comment:
Nice pix!
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