criplomats

We had our holiday get together at work this week – pizza lunch, bingo, cookie decorating, and fun glasses! It was a nice way to end the week!

John and I pulled out our bikes yesterday and went for rides yesterday and today. We had so much fun and need to do it more often – we just get lazy! I also had lunch with Lea and Rachel at a really good vegetarian restaurant, Chui, yesterday.

John and I are watching “The Agency” and finished the second season of “Shrinking.” Last night we watched the fun (but tense) “Carry On” on Netflix. I finished reading “The Blue Light.”

Here’s most of the consular section at our holiday party:

John was in Mexico City all week for a conference (where he got to see some old friends, including Jimmi). He arrived home late last night full of stories and news.

Today I went to my first polo match – Lea got us tickets for the finals. It was an interesting cultural experience – we were in the VIP tent, and everyone seemed much more intent on chatting and visiting than watching the match! But I saw enough to see how incredible the horses and riders are – it’s fast and looks dangerous! Very beautiful and the weather was outstanding!

Yesterday I walked to an arts and crafts fair nearby, then wandered around the neighborhood a bit – I bought some watermelon and cherries at a local market – I’ve been eating watermelon a lot for dinner with some blue cheese and prosciutto – delish! The strawberries also look gorgeous and I could literally smell them as I walked by a fruit stand. I also checked out the rotating exhibition at the Fine Arts Museum and saw these wonderful pieces by Joaquin Torres Garcia.

Thursday night I hosted book club – we had a big time eating delivery Thai food and discussing “Wanted: Toddler’s Assistant” by Stephanie Kiser.

The weather was perfect for a walkabout and the city was really showing off!

While John was away, I started Season Two of “Bad Sisters” and think it’s really better than Season One. I also re-watched “Primal Fear” from 1996 or so – Laura Linney, Richard Gere, and the really incredible Edward Norton. John and I caught up on “Shrinking” and “Man on the Inside” tonight. I finished “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” by Ocean Vuong yesterday and started Paula Hawkins’ “The Blue Hour.”

We had a lovely Thanksgiving lunch at the Sofitel – Lea arranged a delicious lunch in a private dining room for a few of us. The food was outrageously good and there was so much of it!

Lea, Rachel and I took advantage of an early closing at the embassy the day before Thanksgiving to go shopping at some of our favorite stores in Palermo, followed by a stop for coffee and dessert. Lea and I had lunch last Sunday at Saenz and again today at Marti, our favorite vegetarian restaurant.

John and I started watching “Man on the Inside” with Ted Danson, and I’m indulging in “Martha.” I have been absorbed in reading about the race to the South Pole in “The Last Place on Earth,” and finished it this morning. John is off to Mexico City for a conference this week, so Flavie and I are on our own! I had a video chat with Pamela, Ann, and Jackie this afternoon.

I don’t know what these flowers are, but lots are blooming all over town – a beautiful accompaniment to the jacarandas!

This month was John’s turn to host his counterparts from other missions for a luncheon, and he really did it in style! Everyone enjoyed the traditional Thanksgiving lunch at the breathtaking Bosch Palace – many of his fellow management officers from Spain, France, Belgium, England, Ireland, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Italy, the European Union, Germany, Norway, Austria, and Sweden said they had never had traditional Thanksgiving food before and really got a kick out of it! And John got special kudos for hand-carrying cranberry sauce back with him from our last trip to Arkansas!

We were also happy to see our old friends Becky and Suzette this week – John and Suzette were at Hendrix together. They came for dinner at our apartment on Thursday and we met them at La Paroloccia last night – they’ve been on a Chile-Argentina vacation and we were delighted they made time to see us!

I walked through Recoleta Cemetery last Monday after lunch out with John at La Dorita — I went in 1996 when John and I were here, but hadn’t been back since then, despite it being a 10-minute walk from our apartment. It’s so pretty, although these days it’s chock full of tourists (like me!) – even so, it’s so big that I was able to find spaces with no one around. While many of the mausoleums are well-maintained, many of them are in a state of disrepair. The cemetery itself could use better maintenance. They’re charging tourists around $15 to enter – and there were probably 100 there when I went – yet the walkways are in disrepair, there was trash on the ground, etc. Regardless, it’s a beautiful, haunting place.

The weather was perfect this week – I sat outside with girlfriends one day to eat lunch, and the next day we walked across the street to take a stroll around a small lake in the park and walk through the beautiful rose garden.

John and I finished watching “Ripley” and it was so good. The best thing about it was the photography – it was shot in black and white and every frame was just gorgeous. Great acting, too. We also enjoyed this week’s episode of “Shrinking” and we watched “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” – so cute! I’m reading “The Last Place on Earth,” about the race to the South Pole between Amundsen and Scott and it’s fascinating!

The jacarandas continue to show off this week – they’re fragrant, too!

One of the best things about working in an embassy overseas is double-dipping holidays — we get both the local holidays and U.S. holidays. This month, it happened to give us two three-day weekends in a row! We have stuck close to home and just enjoyed having a lot of down time for a change. Bonus is that it rained today and cooled off the already summer-like temperatures. I popped out for a good visit with Lea over a delicious lunch today at Cafe Saenz. John and I attended a Veteran’s Day ceremony Friday afternoon at the embassy.

Last Sunday night we went out to dinner with Dr. Gina, who was a temporary doctor at the embassy in Monrovia when we were there during COVID. She was in South America and made it a point to come to Buenos Aires for a day and have dinner with us! When we picked her up at her hotel, John and I donned surgical masks — a nod to the fact that she had never seen us without a mask nor we, her since we worked together at the height of COVID in 2020! It made her laugh and we all enjoyed actually seeing each other’s faces for the first time! She is absolutely incredible. After traveling with the Secretary of State and the U.S. UN Ambassador for several years as their doctor, she ultimately left State and is now working with the medical clinics in Kabul, Doha, and Islamabad where the special Afghan refugees are being processed. She’s really inspirational and we were delighted to visit with her and hear about her life.

This photo doesn’t do justice to the gorgeous jacarandas that are in bloom right now – this was a quick photo from the car on my way to work one day.