A beautiful flag and an interesting Cemetery..

The previous post on our visit to Argentina is here..

The second morning in BA, we started with some pictures in the hotel room (the attention to detail and the decor in our hotel was lovely!), had a nice breakfast at our hotel (they had really good yoghurt.. katti thachchi.. as it is known in our house) and were picked up on time by our private tour guide in his car.

We drove first to the Plaza de Mayo, the historic square. We got a history lesson, saw a really beautiful flag with the sun in the flag masking the real sun behind it. Then our guide gave us 20 minutes to go inside the cathedral and come back. 

The place was not crowded at all given it was a week day and a busy end of the year working day. This cathedral is beautiful!

Took a good 10-15 mintues to try and get the real sun to overlap the sun in the flag.. also my eyes started watering after staring at it through the lens.. our guide and the family was getting upset with this obsession to get a picture.. had to walk off.. sometimes time constraints and photography conflict.. went with the flow and moved on.

This was followed by a drive through the city to the Recoleta area. This place had a unique one of a kind cemetery where all the rich and famous were buried or entombed. It was like a collection of miniature Taj Mahal's in one place.. No simpler way to describe it. We did have to wait a few minutes to get entry tickets for the Cemetery (it was not included in the tour price and the ticket was pricey!)

War heroes to miliary generals to popular businessmen and their families.. you can find them all here in row after row of tombs!

The highlight was a Chemistry Nobel winners tomb and Eva Peron's tomb which came with a long story. I was impressed that both Jr. and the little one knew who she was! My tour guide was impressed with my knowledge but once I mentioned the movie Evita, he was not impressed..maybe I should have said "I learned that in history class!"

Apparently these tied up toilet papers were a sign of luck.. as was touching the nose of a dog statue.. the nose of the dog was shining because of all the folks who had rubbed it! (you can see it in the video)

After that we walked across the Cemetery to a 200 year old rubber tree and the "Before-After" picture collection that was in front of the tree. Watch out for dogs not on leash in this area. San had a tough time running all over the place and hiding behind me at the sight of every loose dog. 

A short video of the places covered in this post..

We were off to our next stop on the private tour which was also interesting.. will cover that in the next post. 

The Indian Flag

In middle school we were taught that the three colors in the Indian flag stood for courage, peace and prosperity...

Recently watched "Chak De India" on DVD and maybe I misinterpreted a song or misread the subtitles but there I was thinking that somehow the green had to do with the green so favoured by Muslims and the mind wandered..the Saffron for the Kar Sevaks and the Sangh Parivar? and the white for the Christian brotherhood?

A sign of religious unity perhaps put together by the wise men of the late 1940's to sow a subconscious sense of secularism?

Have been sick and the meds could be playing tricks on my mind, but then again, it is no coincidence no?

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The Pledge of Allegiance

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all."

this is the pledge that kids learn in school when they salute the US Flag.

Adults learn it either when their kids go to school here or when they study for the Citizenship test. In our case Jr. had already taught us the pledge and we were off to a good start on the Citizenship test knowing all about the Flag, the pledge, etc. etc. when she was still in pre-school.

The little one has been at school for four exact weeks (considering she missed the first few weeks because of the trip to India) and this week she was saying the pledge to herself while playing with stuffed animals.

She was trying to memorize it better! Initially we thought she was blabbering something but when we asked her to say it, she put her hand on her heart and did it..

except for one mistake..

she said ".......indivisible, With Little bit of Justice for all."

instead of Liberty and Justice for all.

Jr. pounced on her school teacher style and said "Liberty! Its Liberty! Not Litle bit!!!" and has now fixed the small techicality..

This whole episode had me in spilts.. maybe we do have only a "little bit of justice for all"?!

Is my sarcasm rubbing off on the little one, a tad too early?

We are now aligned with Liberty folks.

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Where are you Visitor....

Used to visit the-visitor.blogspot.com frequently.

I know that the visitor has been busy recently and stopped posting.

But what is interesting is that the link on my sidebar goes to the same URL, but it is now a new site maintained by someone else since May 2007 ???

How is that possible? I have been to the same URL as late as last month and there was a new post!

A blogger bug? I do not know "the Visitor"s real identity! If you read this blog and know the visitor, do let the visitor know. I do go back to old comments from the visitor and it shows a profile for Christy who has been on blogger since mid 2006.
The new visitor has a profile since April 2007..

Another funny thing with blogger. Ever notice the "next blog" button on the top of the blogger page? Sometimes I click it to see who else posted just after I did a post. This happens when I have checked out every link in my sidebar and am bored.

Last week, I was at home and clicked this link. The third time I clicked it, it went to a porn site! And when it opened that page there was no bar on the top with the "next blog" or "flag blog" button!

Right now, Jr. knows how to turn on the computer, double click the "e", type "uptoten" in the google home page and then go see her Boowa and Kwala animated clips! Sometimes, she sees my blog, when I have left it open. Guess I have to be more careful, now that blogger has an accidental way of delivering porn to your doorstep!

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