Making a home in BA

Hi everyone! We are starting our second week in the beautiful city of Buenos Aires. Last week had some ups and downs, capped off with a weekend trip to Uruguay, and our first international birthday celebration! Let's start with the ups.

We are staying in a lovely old apartment in the Recoleta neighborhood. We live directly above the tastiest cafe that serves up an incredible lunch for about $30 for the five of us...like a dream! And there is so much to do. We all took the double-decker hop on/hop off bus around the city, which was a lot of fun.

We visited the kids' science museum and the incredible El Ateneo bookstore. But the highlight of my week was that I, alone, figured out how to catch the city bus to the Japanese Garden. As many of you know, I have tried for years (decades!!) to learn to read maps and understand directions, and I still look at a map and just see nonsense. So I studied the bus lines, verified the route with Ryan, and set off with equal amounts determination and terror. Did we find the correct bus stop? Of course not. Did we chase our bus down the street? You know we did. But WE MADE IT.

The gardens were nice too! All kids love those koi fish, so we spent a lot of time watching them slowly meander through the ponds.

There is a Japanese restaurant inside the gardens, so we got sushi and noodles. Then, we took the bus home like four absolute bosses.

I usually think of challenges in terms of miles run or elevation climbed, but this trip reminds me nearly every day of other ways for me to grow and learn. And it reminds me to keep trying, even when I just want to give up. The following day, I read Google maps wrong and marched the kids eight blocks in the wrong direction, in the pouring rain, carrying a miserable four year old. All of my worries, guilt, and frustrations from the last three months collapsed into that singular moment. I wanted to go home. I wanted our kids to be at their school, with their friends, living in our beloved neighborhood. I wanted Ryan to be in an office that he doesn't have to break down and reassemble every time we move. I wanted to hug my friends, to go to my book group, to run outside without getting lost. I stewed in my overwhelm until a taxi delivered us back to our apartment. Then I turned my focus to our upcoming trip to Uruguay, and Ryan's big birthday.

On Friday morning, we caught the early ferry from Buenos Aires across the Rió de la Plata to Colonia, Uruguay. I was immediately smitten with this adorable town.

This UNESCO site is rich with both Spanish and Portuguese history, has cobblestone streets built during the Portuguese colonization, and is teeming with giant plátano trees that create a canopy over the streets during the spring and summer. And, to the kids' immense delight, we got to explore town with a golf cart.

After checking out the sights, we turned the kids loose on the beach. It was winter and cold, but they were so happy. We ate leftovers for dinner while watching the US Open in our hotel room and trying to explain the tennis scoring system to the kids.

The next morning we drove to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. It is not as charming as Colonia, but it has a lot of nice beaches (even in the winter!). We played until it genuinely was too cold, and then we packed it in.

The next morning was Ryan's birthday! Ryan's incredible sister Leah somehow sent us a cake (vegan, of course) to our hotel (I told you she's incredible), and it felt like a piece of home.

Then we grabbed some bikes and went for a ride along the beach. (We've yet to find a bike in South America that fits Ryan.) Baker just loved chasing the waves on the shore.

We spent the rest of day lounging on the beach, eating amazing pasta, and generally showering Ryan with love. It was a great day honoring a great human!

We arrived back in Buenos Aires very late last night and are happy to be back in our apartment! We'll have a week of touring the city, lunching downstairs, and struggling through mom school, and then we're off to Iguazú Falls for the weekend. We hope everyone is settling into their fall routines back home! We miss you!!!

All my love,

Madeline