La Boca and a Youth Soccer Game

                              Pictures of La Boca ("The Mouth," being a port)

                              Gauchos (Cowboys) dancing in La Boca

     Diego Maradona (Famous soccer player), Eva Peron, and Carlos Gardel (Famous Tango Singer)...Statues, of course.

              The old and new bridge to La Boca.

Kristin and I on our walk along the coast.

          We woke up at 10 am and had breakfast with Horacio and Ruth.  We sat for an hour or so and chatted.  We got ready and Horacio, Paul and I went to La Boca, which is a very colorful part of town.  La Boca was the original port of Buenos Aires and many of the houses and building in this neighborhood are painted very bright colors.  Around the 1860´s and 1870´s, many italians immigrated to this part of town.  They ended up painting their houses the same colors as the boats they arrived on because it was the only paint they had and could afford.  The neighborhood nowadays is a tourist haven.  It looks like something you might see at Disney´s epcot center where they have little “neighborhoods” from different parts of the world.  It can be hard to look past all the “touristy-ness” of it all, but the actual history of the place was very interesting.  We were lucky to have Horacio with us to explain it.  We bought some posters for Paul’s classroom and a photo of tango dancers for our house.  I also got a scarf because it is so chilly here.  Then we drove for a bit and had lunch at the side of the road at a parrilla (grille).  There are tons of these that line the road.  Paul had a pork sandwich called a biondola.  I had a hamburger with cheese.  It was really cheap and very tasty.  We continued driving and came to a park along the coast.  When we got home, we went to Milton’s indoor soccer game, which was very intense and made for a great cultural experience.  Unlike our youth soccer leagues where you see a bunch of kids awkwardly crowding around the ball, these little kids played a pretty fierce and more planned-out game.  We had empanadas for dinner tonight….but earlier then other nights…I think because of church tomorrow morning.  The empanadas were very good.  Empanadas would be labeled by the way they closed the empanada.  There were tons of different kinds of fillings.  Paul ate 6.  They order empanadas every Saturday night.  It´s their tradition because Ruth does not want to cook because it’s the end of the week.  We watched Ocean’s 13 while we ate dinner.