Gross...my host dad says they are good to eat :/
Mary Andrews (another intern) invited me to go to the Buenos Aires zoo today with her and some co-workers. Marcelo and Vicky (a couple that works with MA) took me, her, and Kelly (anther intern that also works at the same place as MA.) We road the train to Buenos Aires. Train transportation is considered less than desirable here, it cost about $0.50 and we have been advised multiple times not to take it at night as it is not safe. However, Marcelo and Vicky said we should take it once during the day for the experience. We took a bus back to La Plata (larger travel size bus), which costs an outrageous $2 for the one hour ride! The zoo was fun, (though I am not necessarily a huge zoo person). I tried to take pictures, but the batteries in my camera died after the first 30 minutes or so. The most interesting thing I saw at the zoo were these huge rodent things that were wandering around everywhere (like ducks would at a US zoo.) They looked kind of like beaver but had long skinny tails like rats. I can’t remember what she called them, but Mary Andrews says that she thinks it is an animal native to Argentina, but it was somehow brought to the US and is now infesting the swamp areas of New Orleans and people are now hunting and eating them! Other than that I would say it was your average zoo – for all you KC people it was way less walking than the Kansas City zoo, which was nice, but also means animals were probably not given a very sufficient amount of space.
Unfortunately it started to rain by the end of the day so we got kind of soggy. We took the subway or subte (short for subterrano) back to the bus station. I mistakenly chose that we take the bus that does not take the highway but rather makes various stops and takes longer – because then MA could get off closer to her home….but unfortunately we had to wait an hour for that bus to even arrive despite the fact that three buses “por la autopist” (highway) arrived first. L oh, well my mistake, but I will not make it again. So my first trip to Buenos Aires was short. I didn’t really see much of the city as we took the subte straight to the zoo then straight to the train station. I am excited to go back and see more of the “big city”!
