This morning we walked to the city’s Japanese Garden. Bordered in the city by tall buildings, and short of space, the garden made the most of the space available. The plants were lovely in summer mode and the water features fun. There was lots of stopping for photos. Danelle even viewed some read headed bird that came quite close to her. Unfortunately, the garden was small and we were through it much faster than I hoped. The highlight was when Sonora, wearing a maroon Missouri State shirt, was stopped by a woman who asked if she went to MSU. It turns out that she has been a Spanish instructor at the university!
We walked a few blocks to get to the Galileo Planetarium. Coty had been particularly excited about visiting, but apparently they were closed for renovations. The building was pretty neat and had a couple of outdoor exhibits that amused us for a few minutes before we headed to our next stop.
We walked back past the Japanese garden to visit an art museum focused on the works of Latin American artists. I’m not much of an art museum kind of guy. There isn’t a lot of art that I appreciate. There were two main floors and a basement with stuff in them. We started on floor 1. Fun fact, in Argentina, first floor and ground level are not the same thing. You start on ground and go up to first floor (second in USA). The basement was labeled -1. So up on floor 1 were paintings and photographs. I zipped through it quickly with nothing catching my eyes. The rest took significantly longer (probably a reasonable amount of time for people that like art). Lucky for me, I had my phone to entertain me. I figured if there was an auction for any piece on that floor and everything was mega cheap, I wouldn’t bid on anything. Did I mention it’s just generally not my thing? Danelle took a bit longer and liked the b/w photography exhibit which was the work of one artist from the 1940s whose photos were used to tell stories, literally. The photos were arranged on a page and text was added to create the equivalent of a cartoon strip, but with photos of actors rather than drawings. There was also a small room relating a brief story of painters Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
The second floor was dedicated to a different artist doing more multi-media and industrial stuff. There was a huge screen playing a video from “Second Life” that looked like a slightly more realistic version of Minecraft. There was also a video about making CFL bulbs that was interesting but otherwise, well I probably shouldn’t share my opinion. Eventually we made it through the -1 floor and were able to move on.
For lunch, we found a place, Salvador, inside of a mall. It had a strange vibe, but we were all hungry after walking to the art museum. The food was probably the least memorable of our trip. Sonora got a milkshake that was likely milk shaken with some ice. The thing that pissed me off was a 1,400 per person charge just to sit at their table. So about $6 USD just to be there. The google reviews were 2.7 stars before I added my 1 star review after the meal.
We slowly walked back to our place after two full events and a gross lunch. While we decompressed from the day, Sonora and Coty started watching the last episodes of a show about some dude that becomes a horse during the day. I remember hearing is the girls cheering him on to kiss a girl. When their excitement reached its crescendo, I looked up to find the characters had indeed meet each others…
Coty got us to watch an Adam Sandler movie, Blended. We were about half way through it before stopping for dinner. It might be 10 years old, but it is hilarious and we plan to finish it tomorrow. Then it was off for the highlight of our night, dinner at the Venezuelan place we ate lunch at yesterday! We all left very food satisfied and ready to call it an evening.
