Traveling in Argentina

I've been sorting through photos, and thought I'd just post in sequence.

Traveling with my buddy (and best traveling companion) didn't leave much time to fuss with Blogsy postings on the iPad, nor downloading photos, either. 

And dinner after 9 pm!  Hmm, that seems like hours and hours after normal dinner time, and afterwards, time to go to bed, for sure.

We flew to Buenos Aires from Atlanta -- a fairly easy overnight flight, connecting in Miami.  Buenos Aires is a perfectly nice South American megacity; fortunately, we were there when it was unusually cool!

A main interest were the dogwalkers in Recoleta, one of Buenos Aires' upscale neighborhoods.

Professional dog walkers often have even more dogs in tow.

The food in Buenos Aires was also remarkable, being a cosmopolitan city. This salad was notable.

A delicious salad -- I only had one other good one in Argentina!

We trooped around visiting lots of city sights, but were ready to escape to the Argentinian Lake District and the mountains.

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Christmas lights

I was reminded, thinking about Christmas, and traveling to come, and various places that we've been over the holidays - of the wonderful lights in Lecce, in Southern Italy some years back.

They were magical, above the streets of the old town's (now) pedestrian walkways.
 

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Traveling over winter break

Holidays are interesting times. We're heading off on Friday for three weeks of traveling, and I've been making sure everything is "battened down" here at home, etc. with house-sitters, mail and newspapers held, plant care instructions, and bills paid in advance, etc. etc.

It's a familiar dance, but is always a bit stressful (an understatement) to make sure everything is taken care of! I'm blessed to be able to travel, for sure.

We're headed to mountains, forests, and streams, with long summer days this time of the year (in Argentina). We'll be in Buenos Aires for a bit, but then mostly in the Argentinian Lake District (Northern Patagonia).

It's always interesting to see how Christmas and New Year's are celebrated in wherever we are; I expect a combination of restrained celebration with over-the-top commercial stuff, too. We'll see.

But most importantly, it'll be fascinating to explore the drier side of the Andes, too.  We visited the Chilean side (the wetter side) 12 years ago on a wonderful trip, which included a much farther south trek through Torres del Paine and Punta Arenas.

Lake Pehoe refugio at Torres del Paine National Park

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Looking forward to garden visiting

In just about a month, I'll be visiting gardens in Germany and the Netherlands for a couple of weeks on a self-guided garden study tour.

I've been wanting to do this for several years, after I started learning more about the 'new wave' gardening trends practiced by Dutch, German, and English garden designers, creating naturalistic gardens, and often using many of our North American natives.

It should be quite interesting.  I'll be visiting Piet and Anna Oudolf's private garden during their open days, as well as Mien Rhys' garden, now open to the public.  There are a number of other destinations on the itinerary, too, Hermannshof and Weihenstephan. The latter requires dealing with Oktoberfest visitors, so I may not make it there.  We'll see. But there are lots of other gardens, natural areas, and cultural sites to visit, too, so I'm totally looking forward to the traveling.

I spent a year in Germany as a post-doc almost three decades ago, so it will be interesting to return.  My gardening companion and I went to an International Botanical Congress in Berlin back in 1987, and spent 3 weeks traveling in Germany, Austria, and Northern Italy, but we haven't visited Germany since, choosing more far flung places to travel to (the exception have been trips to Northern Italy in 2001 and Southern Italy in 2008).

I'm currently immersing myself in reading and listening to German (it's amazing how much that I still comprehend), and enjoying reading gardening blogs in German, too!  It's great fun to be able to listen to podcasts, read magazines online, etc.

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