Well, friends and family members, we’re sitting at the Buenos Aires airport now, which probably means one thing: we’re leaving Argentina. This was a magical vacation and if you checked in on this blog from time to time, we thank you for joining us on the journey!

Today, we have no photos to share. We didn’t take any. We some final memories to share, though …

We weren’t sure what to expect when coming to this country. We read a lot, talked to others that had been here, and we both had our own somewhat pre-conceived notions of what Argentina and specifically, Buenos Aires, would be like … but we still weren’t really sure “what” to expect.

What we found, first and foremost, is a country full of warm and friendly people. Are they overly friendly and fake? No. Do they acknowledge you when you pass on the street? No. But when you engage them in conversation, they come alive and are extremely helpful, kind, and patient as a people. We experienced this without exception, really, so we believe the generalization to be (generally) true.  When Ryan was a church-going lad, he was often told that the church building was not the church, but the people were the church. The people in this city are, what we found, to be the city.

But the city itself is also quite breathtaking. We heard it so many times before our trip that it almost became cliche, but this city is very European. The language spoken has a definite Italian flair. The buildings look  like they’re right out of Rome or Paris. Public squares remind us of European villages. There is abject poverty here, though. There’s no doubt about it. The other day on the train to Tigre, we passed a very, very big shanty town, literally and figuratively on the other side of the tracks from what most tourists see in Buenos Aires. We saw people sleeping in subway stations with their rolled up blankets, we witnessed people collecting treasures from the mounds of trash that line the streets, and we witnessed begging, often times by very young children too young to know what their lot in life seems to be. Buenos Aires is a big city, of course, and with that comes many of the perils and tragedies with large city life, but this is also a city in a very poor country.

Yet the magic of the city transcended those issues. Or perhaps, it was due in part to those issues. We can’t explain it and have it make sense: the city is beautiful and the poverty is striking and extremely sad. But there’s something about how this city continues to move on, how it continues to function, how it remains so beautiful with such pain all around that made it such an interesting place to be.

We’ve discussed our own views with each other. One of us (Ryan) is probably more in love with this place and can envision himself here. Clint, is probably more reserved … more thoughtful. Once, in counseling, we were told that one us (Ryan) is the tiger and one of us (Clint) is the owl. The tiger wants to jump and grab everything around him. The owl looks carefully at the situation, asks questions (and how!), and makes decisions based on wisdom. So expect the owl to hold the tiger in North America for now. But the tiger intends to hold his memories of this place very close to his heart, as I’m sure the owl will, too.