P is for Papyrus

A few days ago... actually I guess it was more like 2 weeks ago but I'm just now getting around to updating this... we had fun and relaxing Saturday which started with a trip to the local nursery. I am highly motivated/jealous of Emy and Drew's amazing yard, so I figured we could at least spruce up our 8' x 8' patio... Mario swears I drug him from plant to plant for over 3 hours but the truth is that we visited 4 different places, purchased plants, pots, compot and bark, went out to eat lunch and were home in 2.5 hours. And let the record stand that I offered to go alone, but he wasn't quite comfortable with that either!

At any rate, we ended up with two Papyrus trees that are very fun and have a certain Dr. Seuss quality that I love. When I told the woman working there I was looking for something tall and kind of thin she looked at Mario and then smiled at me - I think she detected a pattern in my life - and then showed us the few options that fit the bill.

I still have some arranging to do - get bigger pots and some kid of stand for my herb plants and not sure what to do with the table, but you see the beginnings.


After our outing to the nursery, we went with our friends Leandro and Jasmin to visit the monument to the Argentine flag that is in Rosario. I've been around the bottom of the monument often (we even took wedding fotos there) but had never been to the top or to the museum. It was a bit cold but we had fun all the same. Here are some pics of the city from the top as well as one truly terrible one of all three of us. Mario might get fired as photographer...

"This kind of storm doesn't have a name..."

That's what our neighbor told me yesterday afternoon after we were pelted with hail the size of golf balls for 45 minutes. It was really pretty amazing. I can say that because we were incredibly lucky (and live in a ground floor abode with someone above us and no south facing windows and our car safely in the garage) and we had no damage. But most of the city has broken windows on houses, building and cars. Mario's parents have an aluminum roof over their patio and it has HOLES in it from the hail flying through! That is some serious hail. The streets are also littered with branches, leaves, and one block over an entire tree blew over- roots lifted out of the gound and everything.

I just realized I'm a dork and forgot the cable to down load the pictures from my camera so will do that later so you can appreciate our stormy city.

I decided that white stuff falling from the sky was as close to my typical Christmas weather as I'm gong to get so went home and turned on the Christmas music...

The sidewalk in front of our house.

Mario uses his mouth to demonstrate the size of the hail. This is an hour or so after it had fallen, and that mouth is not small!

Our neighbor Pancho's house. The hail broke his wooden shutters and the windows behind them!

Our friend Marcelo got out of his car to take pictures and got nailed by one...