Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Friends & Family: the falooging is coming to an end.
Today we head home on the 11pm flight out of Uruguay, going through customs in Miami at around 5:30am ...should arrive in LAX at around Noon tomorrow (Thursday).
SOOOO this morning we hopped out of bed (remember we are still in Buenos Aires)and got a hotel driver to take us to the neighborhood of La Boca. My tour book says the pedestrian street that starts the whole area off, Caminito, is "the most famous postcard of Buenos Aires". It is what used to be an old Italian neighborhood, and you can tell as there are many restaurants and bars wherever you go. The whole area with it's "highly colorful corrugated sheetcoated houses" are a photographer's dream. Unfortunately it was a little early to get the "perfect shot" as there were still shadows, but I did my best and took lots of shots with my ever co-ooperative model Billy. (Lulu is actually much more co-operative, but she was in Boston).
After taking the ever popular BUQUEBUS back to Old Colonia, Uruguay, we walked around
that lovely old town. The streets were all cobblestone, and no traffic but the occasional mule. Many small shops and many many restaurants and little hotels. Very pretty and really good food! We bought some hand made scarves and lots of postcards.
NOW ladies, the highlight of the trip was just approaching and I didn't even know it. We were caught totally by surprise, but on the drive back to Montevideo, we stopped in the middle of no-where-land to this man's home and adjacent building which was his MUSEUM. This little museum is surrounded by pastures full of cattle and not another house to be seen for miles & miles. The museum displays his collections of...stuff! He has been awarded several GUINESS Book of WORLD RECORDS - you would not believe it.
He showed us his two rooms of 10,530 PENCILS - that's the amount "as of today". In the next room, his collection of 29,000 keychains, 300 pencil sharpners, and hundreds of phone calling cards, and matchboxes....all displayed nicely behind glass cases. He said he just started collecting the pencils in 1955 (ie the year I was born). I asked him "why pencils?" and he said "why not?" Indeed! He says people mail him these items every day and have for years! I mean, who knew? He is COVETING pencils of any presidential election AFTER Jimmy Carter, and would die for an Obama pencil. Honestly, all the rest of the day and into the evening I could think of nothing else but "how am I going to get this man those pencils ???" Thoughts Ladies? ps: he mentioned his two closest pencil competitors live in Washington DC and Germany.
MORE LATER - have to go to dinner . See photo of CINDY at La Boca
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