Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic...

 (Lee este post en español aquí)

Three months have gone by since the last time I wrote here on my blog. In the meantime, I have been travelling, working and enjoying the company of  friends and family and I cannot think of a better way to spend my days. 

This year I have been very lucky - I have been on short holidays three times: to beautiful Andalusia in Spain, to the Ardennes in neighbouring Belgium and to the Argo Saronic Islands in Greece. I fell in love with all of these places and I feel it would be a dream come true to go back to each one of them some time in the future.
In late August, my parents came all the way from Argentina to spend two months with me in The Netherlands.  It was the first time my father visited Holland, so we made sure that he got to see as much as possible and we also spent two weekends abroad in Germany and in Belgium. 

My parents during our visit at the Southern Sea Museum in the NL.

Finally, the time came to pay our annual visit to my home country, Argentina. Right when a quite unusually beautiful autumn was beginning to set in in Holland, the four of us -my parents, my husband and I-  flew together across half of Europe and over the Atlantic to land here in the southern hemisphere some 25 hours after leaving home. Here in the south Nature´s cycle is just beginning and trees are not losing their leaves but rather filling up. The usual brown and earthy colours that are so common in Córdoba, are slowly changing into green again and it is warm and sunny most of the time.


I usually feel sorry to miss the beauty of the autumn in The Netherlands, especially this year when it has been such an unusually fantastic season, judging by what I´ve seen in my friend Alison´s blog -A Flamingo in Utrecht- lately. Here are some of the shots she took around the city of Utrecht:

Autumn along the Oudegracht. ©Alison Netsel

Mist in a street in Utrecht. ©Alison Netsel.

 

Autumn Domtoren (Church bell tower) ©Alison Netsel

But the beauty of the spring in Argentina makes up for all that I am missing in the northern hemisphere. It is during this time of the year when the beautiful jacarandá, a typical tree of these lands, get covered in gorgeous purple flowers. I recently admired them in the photos my friend Diego -from the blog in Spanish, Contacto con lo Divino- took in Buenos Aires. Here are some of his pictures:

Jacarandas in bloom in Buenos Aires. ©Diego Bianchi

Beautiful light trhough the jacarandas. ©Diego Bianchi

View of 9 de Julio Av. in Buenos Aires. ©Diego Bianchi

I still have three more weeks to enjoy my holiday here in Argentina, during which I hope to see more of my friends and family and enjoy visiting all the familiar places that mean so much to me ...

Hasta la próxima...!

Imagining Argentina*

As those of you that usually follow my blog probably already know, I am currently spending my holidays in my country, in Argentina.

It is my intention to show you the places I visit during my stay and also other places that I have been to in previous years. But before I start doing that, I thought it might be a good idea to run a sort of survey to see how much you already know about Argentina. I am sure you have at least once in your life before heard about my country? You don't need to start googling now or looking desperately for your World Atlas - we are not going back to school, people!

Let us see how much you've heard or know about my part of the world, shall we?

• First of all - have you ever been there? I know that some of you have! You are disqualified!! (just joking)

• Do you know where it is located? If I were to show you a map of the world, would you know where to point?

• Do you know what is the official language spoken there?

• Have you heard the names of any cities in Argentina? Do you, by any chance, know the name of the capital city?

• Do you know any particular food or dish that is typically Argentinean? (you can cheat by scrolling down my older posts....)

• Have you heard of any geographic landmarks or any popular tourist region in the country, like mountains, lakes, forests, waterfalls, etc.?

• Have you heard of any typical Argentinean music or Argentinean musician, band, composer?

• Have you heard of any political or historical figure,writer, scientist, footballer(!) or celebrity that you know was born in Argentina? (that excluding myself, of course! hehe)

• Do you remember hearing about Argentina on the news in your country? And do you remember what it was you heard?

And finally,

• Is there anything in particular you would like to know about the country or the place where I come from?

Remember, this is not school so you don't need to answer all the questions! And now a little help from your friend Aledys:

Do you know any of these Argentinean figures?

This is a famous "house" in Buenos Aires, does it look familiar at all to you?
Don't Cry, for me, if it doesn't!

These are photos of the province/city where I come from.
Do you the name of that province/city?



Have you ever seen photos or heard about any of these places?

Buenos Aires, Puerto Madero ©Maximiliano Buono


Iguazú National Park, Misiones


El Calafate National Park, Santa Cruz ©Ramón Tello



Have you ever heard of or experienced any of these things?

My father is drinking the national drink: mate

home-made dulce de leche


Tango, Buenos Aires ©Ramón Tello

Improvised asado (barbecue), Argentinean style.

empanadas, a typical filled pastry dish.

I hope you enjoyed this thread about Argentina. In future posts I will be showing you more places and things about the country, its people and its habits.


Ackowledgments:

I would like to thank Maximiliano Buono (from Buenos Aires, Argentina) and Ramón Tello (from Cariñena, Spain) for allowing me to show their pictures in this blog. Thanks guys, for your generosity.

*Imagining Argentina is the name of a film featuring Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson and it deals with the desaparitions of people during the military government in Argentina during the ditatorship between 1976 and 1983.