January 19
Buenos Aires

We arrived yesterday morning, about an hour late, and made our way to the hotel, which, of course, did not have a room ready for us. I suppose we got our revenge when we sat in the very elegant lobby cafe and had a very leisurely lunch. I don t imagine two slightly smelly, very rumpled Americans added much to the ambience.

We did get a nice upgrade to the Club Floor, seeing as how my company builds and manages Sheraton hotels in the US, and our window looks out on all the chaos of Buenos Aires. We watched three large dogs playing with a turtle on a nearby rooftop. Looked like the dogs were deathly afraid of the turtle.

Ajo and her parents picked us up for dinner last night, and Julia and her boyfriend joined us at the restaurant. The name of the restaurant translates to Follow the Cow, and that says it all. In addition to a cold buffet that contained things I have never seen before, there was a grill that went on forever, loaded with every part of the cow you can imagine, and a few you can't. It was all very good, except maybe for the tripe.

Its a delight to see Ajo again. She is working on a doctorate in economics, teaching at the University, and living away from home. Her sister Julia is studying to be a mechanical engineer, just like her father. Ricardo commutes about 100 km each way to a nuclear power plant under construction. Ajo's mother teaches fourth grade, and doesn't speak a word of english, but has a face that is so expressive she doesn't need to. We had a wonderful evening, and even did pretty well at staying out late, at least by American standards.

In about an hour, Ceci is coming by the hotel to pick us up for lunch. Later today we expect to go to Peggy and Enrique's home for assado, the traditional style of Argentine barbecue.

That's it for now.