December 8-9
We had a 20 hour layover in Córdoba, Argentina. A few facts about Córdoba: It is the second largest city in Argentina, even though I had never heard of it before, with 1.4 million people as of 2010. Another fact I know is that it has an incredible park in the center of the city. We stayed in an AirBNB just three blocks from the park and took full advantage of it during our very short stay in the city.
I went for a run in the park when we arrived and Michael went for a run along the river. I definitely won that decision. My run was spent exploring a super cool park. There was a zoo and a slightly creepy small amusement park. Also there were a handful of restaurants and beer gardens throughout the park. Also, they were setting up a stage for some sort of Friday night show. Most importantly, there were a ton of people around. As any female knows, lots of people around equals safety in a huge park when running by yourself. And any person knows that lots of people in a huge park make it tons of fun and encourages more people to show up and have more fun.
After our runs, we showered and then headed right back to the park to hang out with the locals. We popped into a beer garden to hangout, drink beers and play cards for a few hours. This is the only picture I have. It’s not that cool and doesn’t do the park justice, but it does show green space and more importantly people hanging out. Lots of families and young people playing around, lounging, eating, drinking, running, rollerblading… tons of rollerbladers.
We then walked through the park a bit. It was probably 10 or 10:30pm but the park was still filled with people. We wandered down to that stage I had mentioned and found a really horrible 90’s rock cover band. Proof that you can get bad cover bands in every part of the world.
Here is some art in the park. Córdoba is considered the cultural capital of the Americas. We didn’t get to see any museums, but they did display art around the park and through the city center.
After that we headed to the city center just to see what we could see and ended up in the Patagonia brewpub for a beer. This was when I was reminded how horrible the women’s shoes in Argentina are and that something needs to be said. The women are, in general, so cute every where we go, but their shoes are SO BAD. Now you can ask my sister who is the reason for any fashionable item in the wardrobe. Or you can ask my old roommate right out of college who use to mock me and refuse to let me leave the house on weekends until I changed out of corporate casual. I am not a terribly fashionable person. BUT something has to be said. The shoes. THE SHOES!!! Some of the women wore kicks, which were great. But mostly they wore these huge platform wedges that make me think of those platform flip flops that women work in the late 90s(?). Also a bunch of people wore crocs, out for the night, with otherwise trendy/fancy clothes. But I’m focusing on the platforms. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Sorry for my shallowness in this post. I just hate them. To try to make up for my shallowness, here is a picture of the super beautiful church in the center of town. We weren’t able to go inside the church, but I’m not sure it could be more beautiful than it looked all lit up at night.
The next morning, we had an 8am flight, so we were out of the apartment by 5:30. The streets were FILLED with people who hadn’t gone home yet. It was incredible. Some seemed drunk, but most of them were just hanging out, still enjoying their Friday night. It was amazing. Michael and I are not suited for this kind of “typical” Friday night. So, it’s off to Cusco!