Casa Rosada bicentennial museum

On Thursday we made it back into town and you will already know that we finally managed to find our sube!  But we had a new challenge as we had decided to have lunch in a cafe that we had seen in a little guide book.  It took us a while to work out that they had mixed up their numbers and we were looking for a cafe that was right at the other end of a very long road - so we tried the other one instead.  It was called the Palacio de Papas Fritas - or the Chip Palace; it is apparently famed for - you've guessed it - it's chips!  We therefore had to try some.  They were big puffy ones and were actually quite tasty.

This time we actually made it into a tourist sight - the museum behind the Casa Rosada.  It was opened last year to celebrate Argentina's bicentenary.  Coming from the UK, where there is such a long history, it seems strange to be in a city that in 1840 was only covered about 40x20 blocks.  The museum set out the history through the 200 years and we saw lots of overthrown regimes and dictatorships the like of which are long past in the UK. But this is such a comparatively young country, that it hasn't yet settled into the 'shades of grey' politics that we have. Whilst no doubt the UK can do without the violent uprisings, assassinations, and the radical policy changes that come with a change of government here, at a basic level there is something rather inviting about having political parties that genuinely have different policies and beliefs.  Would I want to see the UK have the kind of political instability that Argentina has had? Probably not, but a bit of true and honest differentiation wouldn't be a bad thing would it?

Casa Rosada - lit up in pink neon at night in case it wasn't pink enough!

We did feel quite pleased with ourselves by the end of the visit as the museum exhibits and films were all only in spanish and we were able to understand a lot of it.  Not all of the words of course, but we got a lot of them  and understood the gist of what we were reading or hearing.  We may not be ready to leap into conversation with strangers yet, but we do feel like we have got somewhere with the language now.