CASA HOLDEN

Here are a few pictures of the Casa - a view from the street, and the interior passageway that leads to the front entryway and to the back of the Casa. I will post some more pictures when I figure out if it is possible to upload more than four pictures at a time! See the white booth? There is 24 hour security for the neighborhood. We have noted that the Belgrano neighborhood has many police and security personnel, some of which are no doubt related to the numerous embassies located in this part of town.

The weather has been very nice, with mostly sunny skies and daytime highs between 60 and 70 - Rhonda's kind of weather!!

For today's outing, we caught the subte at our local stop at Olleros and rode a couple of stops to Juramento. Along Calbildo in this part of town there are many, many, many shops. So we looked, but no doubt Rhonda will return to do much more serious "looking." One thing that we did buy was a pass card for the subte.

CASA HOLDEN ADDRESS

For those of you who may be interested, here is our contact information:

Casa Holden
Pepperdine University
11 de Septiembre 955
(1426) Capital Federal
Buenos Aires
Argentina

The phone number for the Casa is 011-54-11-4772-5969, and our extension is 235. We also have a cell phone that can be reached at 011-54-911-5705-3386. We have turned off our USA cell phone, 310.460.8377, and will not use that number again until May, 2007. Of course you can always email us at dswartze@pepperdine.edu and rswartze@pepperdine.edu

Today we walked on some new streets in the neighborhood, and are learning the street names and the locations of the train stations and subway (subte) stops. Rhonda found a yarn shop and bought a nice skein of yarn, and is getting started on knitting a scarf. Dago and I took the subte on a search for a chip for our cell phone, but it will be easier to use the local cell phone and calling cards.

FIRST ATTEMPT TO PUBLISH PICTURES

This is my first attempt to publish a picture to the blog - so, no, this is not Buenos Aires! Shortly before we left the USA, we were on a walk in Boulder with Silas, Jaime and Nick, and these "young bucks" appeared in a driveway in our neighborhood.
We are getting settled into the casa and the Argentine pace of life. We have walked many of the streets around the casa, and as some of you know, there is no shortage of great places to eat nearby....like right across the street. Maru Botana is a wonderful sandwich/pastry/coffee shop that will present a daily temptation! After our dinner last evening, we stopped there for a cup of coffee and an apple dessert - and we will no doubt be making many stops at Maru. Rhonda says that this will be the first place that we will take those of you who come to visit us. Another close-by restaurant is the Belgrano Plaza Pizza Cafe that offers a lot more than pizza. We have been there more than once thus far, including lunch today with Alejandro and Rafael (Rafa) Martinez de Sanzo, the program director. Rafa just returned from Cuba where he was vacationing and gathering information for an article that he will be writing for La Nacion, a major newspaper here. Rhonda is just about done reading Evita - First Lady by John Barnes, and I am about midway through The Language of God - A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis Collins, physician, geneticist and leader of the Human Genome Project. One of the classes I will be teaching here is Biology and Genetics for non-majors, and the second class is Science and Religion - so this book will provide interesting material for both classes.

OUR FIRST DAY - FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2006

We arrived at about 7:15 in the morning. The flight from LA to Lima was about 8 hours and the flight from Lima to BA was a bit less than 4 hours. Each leg uses a 767, and thus it was quite nice - good food also! Alejandro Bialy and a driver met us at the airport, and the drive to the casa took longer than usual because of morning rush hour. Alejandro told us that the asado would be at 1:30, so Rhonda caught a nap and I unpacked and tried to get my laptop hooked up - no success, so I am using the Pepp computers in the student computer room. The asado was great - Dago Ayunes cooked, and we were joined by Alberto Curutchet, the architect for the casa, and Maria Susana Battisti, one of the local staff. We had some sliced meats, cheese and olives as the prelude to the meat and salad. There were at least four different types of grilled meat - chicken, pork, and a couple of types of beef and sausages. We ate outside on the back deck [I will post some pictures sometime] and after the main meal, Alejandro went across the street and brought back 5 types of desserts :-) We finished up around 3; Rhonda went to Coto, a large store that sells most everything from food to housewares, and I caught a few winks, because we were scheduled to be picked up at 7:30 for the opera and dinner afterward. The opera was at the Teatro Colon - spectacular builing in el centro - and the performance was interesting; Jonny Spielt Auf, a not so well known German opera from the time of WW2 centerd on Jonny, a negrito who caused all kinds of rukus. The opera started at about 8:30, had one intermission, and ended at about 11:30. It was interesting hearing the opera in German, and seeing the Spanish translation above the stage!! We hit Clo Clo, a very-nice Italian restaurant around midnight, had a wonderful dinner, and got to bed at about 2:00am, which is rather typical for Argentinos :-) We were with Alejandro, the program accountant, and his wife Alicia, Alberto, and another Alejandro, Barandella, an accountant who consults with Pepperdine on tax matters, etc. As you can imagine, we slept very well :-) Saturday morning we got up, had some coffee as we lounged around on the back deck, and then we worked a bit on the two balconies that are off of our living area.