When it Rains, It Pours

A cute saying that explains that when bad things happen, they tend to happen all at once.  Alternatively, it means that when it rains outside, the sky opens up and an ungodly amount of water falls to the earth all at the same time.  We have experienced the latter more times that we can count during the 3 years that we've been in Argentina.

Some sort of mixture of the incredible storms that happen in South America, and the horribly poor drainage infrastructure that BsAs has as a city, creates these Noah's Ark-style floods more often than I'm comfortable with in the summer. You know it's bad when people describe the flooding as, "Remember that time the city flooded really bad.  No, not that one, this was sometime in November.  No, not that one, this was on a Tuesday.  Oh yeah!  That flood was really bad, but not the one I was thinking of....", so yeah, the city floods here kind of frequently.

Yesterday was no exception, it rained all.day.long.  We had plans to have friends over in the afternoon to help release some little-people energy, but the rain was to heavy to even walk out the door.

This was the street in front of our apartment around 4:00pm in the afternoon.  This is also one of the main roads in Buenos Aires, and you can barely tell, but in the far side of the street there is a 2-lane access road that was completely covered with water.

Ironically, if you have to be outside in this kind of rain, the best place to be is on a bus, they are taller, more stable, and can generally cut through the standing water.  The downside is that you have to wait for the bus like these poor saps:

And though it is a nice city, the streets are infamous for being filthy.  I know I don't want to be knee deep in that street-soup.

Is that umbrella really helping??

As for us, we staying indoors and enjoyed some of Gretchen's favorite activities, like reading this book called "Words".  She loves it.  She climbed into this chair to read it on her own, then looked at me and said "Mama, no mas!" - she was tired of me taking pictures of the flood.

 Combining two of her favorite things, socks and "putting things in things", we spent time filling her rain boots with pairs of socks.

We did not take the open top bus tour of the city.  Apparently, no one did:

However, we did fill this cabinet with books:

She was a very busy girl...

No book was spared...

I love the tip-toes in this one, she was attempting to get a whole set of books in a the same time.  Notice the completely empty book shelf next to her, she was a dedicated little worker.

Spending time inside with my girl is a highlight for me.  She's fun, she's playful, she has creative ideas on what to do - and the rain is a good reminder that you don't have to be busy all the time. Filling boots and cabinets with items is a great way to spend the afternoon!

It sure beats being this lady: