This is a photo of La Mansion at the Four Seasons hotel, where we had the reception the first night. When Madonna was here filming Evita she rented out La Mansion for a month.
Below is the French Embassy. Veronica told us that the first secret and universal vote (like we have at home, as opposed to the High Society just deciding who would be president) was in the 1940's and women first voted in 1951.
Dog walking has turned into a job, Veronica was our tour guide today and she said that a dog walker can make $700USD a month walking dogs just for the morning and that the average worker makes $1,000USD a month for a full time job so a lot of people have quit their jobs and become dog walkers, which also is a cash business.
This tree they call The Grandfather, it is over 216 years old. Its a Fig/Rubber/Banyan tree, depending on where you are from will depend on what you'll call it.
The cemetery is made up of 5000 mausoleums, the richest in Buenos Aires wanted this Cemetery to be exclusive so you had to pay for a lot and then build your mausoleum and depending on where your lot was located the more or less expensive it was.
The one below is a new family she said - "What happened to the old family?" I asked, she said that you can buy the mausoleum and they expect to receive it vacant, so you have to move your ancestors out and to a different cemetery. The mausoleums can sell for up to $200,000USD, which is more than an apartment. What you see on top is just for show and extends another 10 to 15 meters below the earth.
Below is the mausoleum for Eva Peron, Evita (The Lady) she wasn't buried with her husband because he had remarried after her death but when her body was brought back from Italy, where it had been taken in order to try to make the people forget her, it was placed with her family under her family name, Duarte. Evita was loved by the people because they taxed the richest people and created programs for children and families who could not afford food and shelter. It was also during her husbands time as President that women were given the right to vote. After her death from cervical cancer at age 33 President Peron commissioned many books and artwork to commemorate Evita's life and for the people to remember her and all the good she did. Shortly after her death there was an attempt on the President's life because he and Evita were still so popular for the people, so he went into hiding in Europe and the new President had all of the books burned in a big bonfire that was broadcast on TV and if any reporter or journalist wrote Evita's name they were imprisoned.
After our walk we came back to the hotel and I went down to the pool and did some work while Jay stayed in the room and watched his iPad. He's getting a cold, and has a sinus headache and a chesty cough.
We are getting ready for our polo event and Manulife had these shirts made for everyone.
Leaving the hotel, within 5 minutes you hit the slums. There are 50-60,000 people living in the slums, mostly immigrants who cross the border illegally and then have a child. Once you have a child in Argentina the parents both become Argentinian and then are entitled to free education and health care as well as the child.
It was about an hour and a half on the bus to get to the Polo ranch. They had a little reception for us with some appetizers and drinks and then we went out to a polo pitch in order to learn how to hit the ball with the mallet.
Once we had practiced with a short mallet on the ground they had us stand on haybales to see how high off the ground you would be if you were on a horse and hit it with the actual length mallet the players use.
Then we went over to another pitch for more drinks and more food and watched a Polo match that was a training exercise for the players. Apparently these are national level professional players, so it would be kind of like watching the leafs train and play a game against each other. Every 6 minutes a bell is wrung and the play is stopped and the riders change horses. Each player has 6 horses ready and they have 3 minutes to go off the field, change horses and come back to be ready to play again.
I really enjoyed watching the Polo - when the game was over we went in for dinner (yes more food and drinking, its a problem) and after dinner we all hopped on the buses and went back to the hotel - it was a really fun event! Louise said to me, I can see why its such a rich sport - I said well first you need 6 horses...and then a small Argentinian man! Everyone really had a good time today even though it was a long event, from 2pm to almost 10pm arriving back at the hotel.
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