walkabout in recoleta

"Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails

Across the sea of years

With no provision but an open face

Along the strait of fears. . ."

-Led Zeppelin, Kashmir

Well, for whatever reason, I might be moving on from Buenos Aires before too long, so I thought it might be a good idea to make sure I see everything in this town that you're supposed to see. I set out to visit Recoleta on Monday, walking the entire way.

What's so great about Recoleta? Well, it's pretty much adjacent to my district (but walking through it can still take a looooooooooong time), so it's one of the places the richies moved to during that silly yellow fever epidemic back in the day, because it's on higher ground, meaning there's less standing water, meaning there are fewer mosquitoes, which in turn means a lower likelihood of yellow fever. Anyway.

After the rich people settled in Palermo and Recoleta and the surrounding areas, they started burying their wealthy, dead family members (who hadn't died of yellow fever, at least) in Recoleta Cemetery. As you may recall, I've already visited this cemetery with Dave, and we saw Evita's tomb and lots of other beautiful things.

But there's more to Recoleta than the famous cemetery. There's the university's law department, which is housed in one massive building with beautiful steps and columns out front. It really is pretty amazing to behold.

There's also the building that houses the engineering department, which coincidentally used to be the law building. It's a masterpiece of architecture-- actually, it looks like a church to the untrained eye. And the trained eyes too.

And then there's the giant metal flower. It's kind of a must-see here in BA. Basically, it's this huge sculpture of a flower which moves to follow the sun all day long. It was donated by its sculptor (I think? It was donated by someone), and it's just really pretty and awesome.

So I took pictures of or with all of these things, because I realized recently that I have barely any proof that I've been in this amazing place with all of these beautiful things. It reminded me of a friend of mine who is fantastic at setting up and exectuting photo shoots: JaNae. We used to get crazy with the cameras on swing sets, around statues, in her backyard, with memorable results. If she were here, I know I could call her any time and just be like, "Rose garden in an hour. Bring your camera," and we'd have a full-scale model sesh like that. It made me miss her.

But then I remembered that Kaela's here for another week or so, and she has the same appreciation for photo shoots that JaNae and I do. Plus she's awesome and hilarious. So we've set something up for this weekend, and I can't wait. There are going to be flowers, some graffiti, sweet outfits, and big hair, if I have anything to say about it.