Snippets of Home in Argentina

I went to see a movie this evening, mostly to kill a few more of the 13 hours I had at my disposal between checking out of the hostel at 11 am and leaving on the bus at 12 am. The movie was The Invisible (known in Spanish as Invisi). I picked it because it was in English and it started at the right time. The movie was about a boy whose invisible spirit tries to lead the people who love him to his beaten, comatose body in the woods. It was pretty dreadful but I felt it was worth every penny of my 3$ ticket because the first shot of the movie was a pan from the seawall, over Stanley Park, to the skyline of downtown Vancouver complete with the white sails of Canada Place. The grin on my face was as wide as the Cheshire Cat´s: It was home. The film was supposedly set somewhere in Washington State, in the fictional town of Burnaby, but the only set dressing they did was running up a few Washington flags and screwing on some Washington license plates. I recognised almost every location and vista in the film. It was a little piece of home. Strangely, I had been encountering things from home all day: Diana Krall on the television, a store with a maple leaf logo, lentils imported from Canada, and article about the Toronto film festival in the newspaper and Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice in the ethnic food aisle. I had quite a time convincing myself that a few sips of home was not worth 8$ and returned to the aisle just to look at the bottles 3 times before I left the store. I am not homesick but there is nostalgia associated with Canadiana. A maple leaf in the street will make me stop in my tracks and anything from home will make me smile.

I spent most of my day running around the city comparison shopping for cameras. I find Rosario to be an extremely pleasant city to walk around. It is comparatively quite clean and well maintained and it feels much safer than the other cities I have visited. Even in the areas around the docks and the bus station which are traditionally shady areas in a city, there was no menacing atmosphere. Still, if I had not had to purchase a camera I think I would have had difficulty occupying my time here. There are several interesting pieces of architecture and monuments (particularly the convention centre designed as a large stair case which appears to be a particular favourite of Rocky connosieurs and sadistic local soccer coaches) but they can all be visited in a short period of time. I would not suggest that anybody go out of their way to visit Rosario but if it is on your path it is a nice place to spend a few hours.