15 million people and quiet. The Paris of South America, with boulevards 200+ feet across, thousands of cars, millions of pedestrians… yet quiet as cities go. No blaring horns, bustling people without shouts, just purposeful. Quiet strolls day or night in any of the many parks or along miles of crumbling sidewalks. Ice cream at midnite. Does the absence of trains and commuter trains result in a quieter or noisier city? More cars, to be sure. More buses… maybe not. We tour, we stroll, we return to Bunny’s haunts from years ago… remarkably, the restaurants are still there and are every bit as delicious as she promised. We stroll the pedestrian malls. It feels like a big city but not as big as its counterparts around the world. Perhaps its age, architecture—consciously trying to be Paris’ cousin from the beginning and now, thousands of small shops, etc., give it something of a small city feel unlike the megapolises of Singapore, Mexico, Bejing, Manila, even LA that grew so fast and greedily that whatever small city charm they might have had has been swallowed up in blah. We spent a week here and it seems like 2 days. Learned a lot about Eva and Juan Peron, why they were hated and loved at the same time. How Juan rose to power, let the Nazis be smuggled in during and after WW II while also accepting the largest number of Jewish immigrant-refugees than any other nation on the planet except Israel. Why the power structure felt threatened by each and both of them. How Eva rose from abject poverty to be a fairly successful actress by the time she met Juan as part of an effort to help the poor after a natural catastrophe…. Etc. Learned about her early death (32?) from cancer that today probably would have been cured. How she was embalmed using new techniques that preserved her looks so she was put on display for years until the new power base shipped her to Italy to be buried under a false name, only to be dug up again by Juan when he returned to power….. how he put her on display in a glass case in the dining room of his home (AYE!). Politics, power, money, social struggle…. Different time, different place, same issues. Same forms of struggle, and the power elite usually retains its power, albeit perhaps reshaped.