HappyDays – Week ThirtySeven
First week of vacation in Argentina - catching up with friends in Buenos Aires and family in Villa Gessel with incredible food all along the way.
Ahhh Argentina!! Come te extrañé! How I missed you!
We are so lucky to be able to visit friends and family here in a relaxed atmosphere. One of the things I tell people I miss about living in Argentina vs The Netherlands is the spontaneity of life.
But it turns out, I also miss the relaxed way people just meet up. You don’t have to be doing something to meet up. Just hang out together. In the Netherlands, I often find I am meeting up with friends to have coffee, go to a museum, go for a walk, etc etc. Here we have met up with friends and just hung out - a very different vibe which I love and miss and am very happy to be experiencing once more.
July 21 – Day 254
Walking around the neighborhood on our first day, we saw this memorial on the sidewalk. They are all over Buenos Aires and also all over Argentina. This particular one was the first memorial block of five in a row, one next to the other, listing the names of the people who were kidnapped and disappeared by the Military Dictatorship from 1976-1983. Like the bronze bricks in Amsterdam of Jews and others who were taken by the Nazis in WWII.
“Aqui estudiaron los militantes populares detenidos-desaparecidos o asesinados por el terrorismo de estado. Barrios por Memoria y Justicia. Comunidad Escuela Mariano Acosta”
“This is where the popular activists who were detained, disappeared, or murdered by state terrorism studied. Neighborhoods for Memory and Justice. Mariano Acosta Community School.”
I am grateful that people remember the violence and do their best to stop it from happening again in the future.
July 22 – Day 255
Tuesday Santi and I went for a check up at the Fundación Favaloro where we got a battery of tests to see how we are doing. That just isn’t really done in the Netherlands. You go with a specific complaint and they treat you. Prevention isn’t really in their bailiwick.
On the way back, we walked through Plaza de los dos Congresos and it was a beautiful morning and we could stop to take some photos.
The plaza is beautiful on a sunny day, and the Tipa trees brought a huge smile to my face. I fell in love with the trees of Buenos Aires while living here and seeing them again is like seeing old friends. In the second image, you can see the round nest of an Hornero bird in the upper branches of the Tipa trees.
And friends we saw. We went to Tigre to meet up with friends we originally met while living in San Telmo.
July 23 – Day 256
We all spent the preceding night in Tigre at our friend’s houses and then had an outing to Museo de Sarmiento in the Tigre Delta with all our boys - they had fun riding the boat and playing around in the forest and playground by the museum.
We got a bit of a tour of the museum and the curator asked us all about the political situation in the USA. He was extremely up-to-date with the going’s on. Even though he was living in the remote river delta, his internet connection was fast enough to send him the firehouse of news half-way across the world.
That evening back in Buenos Aires we went to “the best” pizzeria in Buenos Aires El Güerrín, followed by one of “the best” heladerias in the world: Cadore.
There was a whole room in the back of the restaurant that we had never known about “Patio napolitano” and it can hold 280 people - this is completely apart from the huge restaurant that you enter in on Avenida Corrientes. We had an “early” dinner at seven and when we left at around eight, the line for this back room alone had easily 30 people waiting.
After dinner, we wandered around a bit, peeking into some bookstores, stopping at Cadore for “the best ice cream”, and then meandering to “El Gato Negro” for incredible herbal teas. Avenida Corrientes is one of the most bustling streets in the city that never sleeps and it was fun to bop from “best place” to “best place”.
July 24 – Day 257
Early Thursday morning we made our way to Retiro bus station to make the trip to Villa Gessel with Tía Mecha and Abuela Ana and us three. Our goal was to spend time together as a family and to spread Abuelo Francisco’s ashes in the ocean.
We have spent many vacations at Abuela Ana’s cabin in Villa Gessel, but this was the first time with her.
We got to the house and as it was somewhat sunny we went to the beach to check out the ocean and view. Definitely winter but the in the sun ☀️ it wasn’t too cold.
July 25 – Day 258
Friday we had a slow morning enjoying relaxed family time together. In the late afternoon, we walked along the beach to “downtown” to have a fun evening. We got David a haircut and let him chose the style the wanted. He kept with the classic of short on the sides and a bit more length on top. The stylist offered more extreme versions with super short shaves and that was not his style. Glad he knows what he wants.
Then we went to a burger joint we discovered last year and were happy to see that not only was it still open, but that it was doing well. They had “zodiac” burgers ♓️ 🍔 with more than just 12 varieties and lots of great beers on tap.
After dinner we walked to an arcade and David and Tía Mecha enjoyed pretending to be pirates blasting Krakens and other monsters.
July 26 – Day 259
Saturday was incredibly windy - with gusts around 40km/hr coming off the ocean onto the beach.
We took the opportunity to stay “at home” and Santi cooked up an Asado for lunch. Before that we had to go shopping for vegetables and we found the cutest “radicheta” on sale.
We found a very adorable young “Radicheta” on sale in the fruit and veggie bodega in Argentina. Happy Caturday from the Atlantic Coast. #bodegacats #caturday
— Beatrice Murch ❌👑 (@murchstudio.com) 2025-07-26T15:11:28.510Z
Luckily the wind calmed down a bit in the afternoon, so we could scatter Abuelo Francisco’s ashes in the ocean as a family and honor his wishes to be forever on the Argentine Coast.
Santi braved cold cold cold waves in his swimming suit and jacket to get far enough into the ocean to compensate for the strong wind.
July 27 – Day 260
Sunday was a spotty rainy slow day and we played a lot of the dice game “10,000” which is like “Generala” or “Yahtzee” but just different enough to have different strategies. I just learned that it’s called “Farkle” and has many different scoring variations. We used the following rules:
In the afternoon we walked again along the coast to have afternoon tea/nibble at “La Holandesa” which was actually founded by Dutch people who immigrated years ago around World War II.
We wandered back to downtown after the afternoon pick-me-up and explored the offerings of the “Paseo de los Artisanos” and also played more games at the arcade, including more shoot-em-up video games and an hour of ping pong.
I read this piece on substack by Sammy-Jo and it resonated fully for a variety of reasons, but one is this concept of joy as resistance which I have been trying to live and give to others via this newsletter. Living this dichotomy of a pretty darned good life while ever more chaos swirls around and discombobulates us all. I appreciate so much people who try to make sense of it all with their writing.
In a recent episode of Code Switch, hosts Leah Donnella and B.A. Parker explore the phrase “joy is resistance.” Donnella, skeptical of its overuse, speaks with adrienne maree brown, who affirms that yes, joy can be part of resistance, but it cannot be the whole of it. Academic and author Kellie Carter Jackson adds crucial depth, sharing stories of enslaved Black women who risked punishment to dance in the forest at night: defiant, embodied expressions of joy amid terror. But as she states, joy cannot be divorced from struggle. Without resistance, it’s just happiness and happiness, she reminds us, is a resource unevenly distributed. The closer you are to privilege, the more of it you get.
That made me think that it’s often love that fuels the rage that powers the fight.
And this love: this guttural, furious, break-your-heart-open kind of love… it obviously isn’t soft. It’s not the kind of love that keeps things tidy or uses a certain kind of filter on its Insta feed. It’s the kind that stays up all night, wipes tears and shit, pays bills, books appointments, calls representatives, joins the protest, pulls cards, and keeps going. It carries the world on its back, unpaid and unthanked.
I have linked to Gustavo’s music before, but he just released this version of the title piece from “The Last of Us” (I have yet to watch Season 2) and I never tire of listening to this - Gustavo is a master. The creator of “The Last of Us” Neil Druckmann plays along as well. Wonderful when artists get to spread their wings and collaborate together in various mutations.
“Watch an original arrangement of The Last Of Us (Main Theme), performed by composer Gustavo Santaolalla, #TheLastOfUs Creator Neil Druckmann, Gabe Witcher, and Joey Waronker.
In the performance, Gustavo uses his “Guitarocko”: a modified electric guitar inspired by the Ronroco, a traditional stringed instrument of the Andes. This 1-of-1 model, dreamed up by Gustavo himself, features a mini Stratocaster body as the base, a custom bridge for the doubled up stringing arrangement, a custom nut and lipstick pickups.“
Lovely to read of this week. I can imagine so much of it - Going to Tigre to be with friends and then el Gato Negro. And fulfilling Francisco's wishes to be forever in the sea. So special all of this. BIg hugs to you all. MXM