Parque Centenario.  On Sunday morning we walked from my apartment in Caballito to Parque Centenario, which is about a mile away. The Centro Cultural de Recoleta, which is next to the Recoleta Cemetery where Eva Peron is entombed, publishes a little newspaper listing all of the cultural stuff happening in the city every week during the summer. Most of which are free, as the city sponsors them. On saturday evening we hung out with Rosana's cousin in Palermo and then walked to Palermo Park to watch a outdoor drive-in movie. Well, it was half drive-in and half walk-in and sit on the lawn. I'd read about it in the paper. The movie was crappy, but it was fun. The same publication also has a list of all of the street fairs in the city, and we decided to walk over to Parque Centenario because it's close. The fair wasn't nearly as good as the weekend fairs in Plaza Serrano in Palermo Viejo, Plaza Francia in Recoleta or Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo. But the park itself and the scene of families and people passing a sunday afternoon was great. And the walk to the park along shaded cobblestone streets and over train tracks and by beautiful old houses with bouganvilla taking over the walks was even better.  The more time I spend in the porteno neighborhoods like Caballito, Flores, Parque Chacabuco or Villa Crespo outside of the tourist draws of Recoleta, San Telmo and Palermo the more I like Buenos Aires and the more sad I am that the slice of the city that tourists see when they come here is so limited and not representative of the city or its life. I understand it ... most tourists who come here have only a few days to a week because they are also going to Patagonia or Iguazu or other neighboring countries. But still, its a shame. It's like going to SF and only seeing Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf and the GG Bridge... and not seeing the Mission, the parks, Berkeley or Mount Tam. You can go to a park here and literally be entertained for hours just watching families having picnics, kids running around feeding pigeons or ducks, eating candy-coated peanuts and popcorn, couples drinking mate or making out, old folks sitting around in beach chairs talking, kids playing soccer or volleyball. I run in Parque Chacabuco, and its packed in the early evening (partly because it's summer and kids are out of school). It's fun just to run in circles and watch everything that's going on.

This is a picture of some young girls that Rosana was talking with. They were trying to feed bread to a Karp fish in the pond, but the duck kept on getting to the bread first. This led to the Karp swimming directly underneath the duck in order to catch the crumbs that the duck missed. Every now and then you'd see the Karp pop up and then disappear again under the duck. The girls were getting frustrated with the duck, and the duck was getting fat. This is a bronze sculpture also in Parque Centenario that I liked.