November is springtime in Buenos Aires, the “Paris of South America”.  And that is why we traveled there with our friends Christa and Gordon earlier this month.

First, the bad news.  Six days into our trip, Christa and Peter had their cameras stolen from their pockets on the subway.  They didn’t feel a thing, but we lost all our photographs. And our cameras.

The good news—everything else was great.  Buenos Aires is huge and a bit overwhelming at first.  But it is manageable.  A few highlights:

• The parks of the Palermo section of Buenos Aires, including the Japanese Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Botanical Garden
• The wide boulevards with massive Paris-like buildings and towering trees, particularly the stately jacaranda tree with its purple flowers in full bloom
• Argentina’s grass-fed beef
• Dulce de leche ice cream from Freddo’s, a just reward for our hours of walking
• El Ateneo, a former grand theatre, now a well-stocked bookstore, where you can settle into a balcony box seat and read to your heart’s content or have a cup of coffee on the stage and watch the “audience.”
• The Recoleta Cemetary where Evita Peron was finally buried
• A day trip to the UNESCO Heritage Site of Colonia, Uruguay

And then there is the return to home.  Short days, leaf-less trees, winter jackets, work to catch up with.  But most of all, gratitude for what we are still able to do.