Argentina Day 1

Allegedly wrapping up a busy day of sightseeing in Buenos Aires. It is currently 9:30 at night, which means that Argentina will start eating dinner in about half an hour. Last night, we went out in search of dinner at around 8:30, and everything was deserted. Too late? Hell no. Too early.

I want to write about all the amazing, historic, thought-provoking and/or ridiculous things I've seen today, but I'm actually too overwhelmed by all of it to reduce things to something that makes sense. We saw the Casa Rosada, which is the presidential seat of Argentina-a flamboyant, gorgeous, ornate, sprawling pink building with angels and vines carved into the facade. The Cathedral was equally impressive, down to the thousands of tiles used to mosaic the floor in a flower motif. After all that lavish prettiness, Teatro Colon was a bit of a letdown, but there's still plenty of the good stuff to see tomorrow.

Lunch was a huge plate of house-made ravioli: pasta is serious business here, which is a relief as it allows me to leave the beef alone. After lunch, I dragged Andrea to a truly ludicrous destination, Tierra Santa--allegedly the "world's first religious theme park", and also billed as a chance to "enjoy Jerusalem all yearlong in Buenos Aires". Basically, it's Dollywood for Spanish-speaking Bible thumpers: you go in through a sounds n'lights Nativity scene, move back a bit to the creation of the world, zoom straight to the Last Supper, promenade down the life-sized Stations of the Cross, and conclude with a giant Jesus statue that resurrects itself every hour. Many of the models are 1970s semi-animatronic figures that seem like they were retired from the Pirates of the Caribbean: Jesus typically misses the bread when he lifts his hands to bless it. All in all, good wacky fun: I don't know why, but I'm absolutely fascinated by pop-culture´s attempts to make sense of Christianity, and this was definitely a...unique incarnation.

And now, dinner.