"Rosario, me mata"

Our first stop in our exploration of Argentina was the town (city?) of Rosario. It´s also known as the birthplace of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, though that´s not why we came here. We came just to kill a few days before we meet up with Laila, and we heard Rosario is beautiful. And it is! It´s relatively small and has an old feel to it, complete with several cobblestone streets and old colonial-style houses, and only a small cluster of skyscrapers. It´s best feature though is the riverfront, on which the town is situated. It runs about 15 kilometers, most of which is made up of green parks or sand beaches, and it seems like a lot of the residents of Rosario take full advantage of it. This weekend, we saw tons of people lounging about tanning or resting in the shade, kids playing on playgrounds, old men fishing, and boys playing soccer. Sarah and I decided that the people here seem happier than normal.
We haven´t done much per se, but I think we´ve gotten a lot out of the town. On our first day here we took a bus from the Buenos Aires airport to Rosario, and didn´t get in until 3. We settled into the hostel (Hostel La Comunidad) quickly and then headed straight for the river, to lie in the sun for a couple of hours. After being in Oberlin for the last few months, it felt awesome to sweat under blue skies. Also, night doesn´t come until after 9 pm here, so we have a lot of time to tan. Our second day, we rented bikes and rode all the way to the end of the riverfront, because the sand beaches are up north. These turned out to be not-great, mainly because the beaches were ridiculously crowded and the water was hot, but the bike ride was really beautiful, especially riding around in the neighborhoods in that area. Unfortunately we both got horribly burned so the third we tried to stay out of the sun as much as possible, and explored the town a bit more. It seems like a pretty awesome place to live. It´s pretty small, or at least a manageable size, but there are plenty of options as far as things to do, and the buses are great! What more could you ask for?

the smallest ambulance in the world