September 21 is the first day of Spring!!! The trees are leafing out and the flowers are blooming. Everybody here has been complaining about the long winter, the cool weather and the rain. They´re ready for Spring. So are we. We had made a date to get together with our friend Silvana at 3:30 in the afternoon, so we had almost all day for phun and phreedom. We met Silvana back in 1996, when she was Monica´s Spanish teacher. It´s been wonderful to reconnect with her here. We started the day by strolling down Puerto Madero, which is a picturesque part of town along the water. There were hundreds of school-age kids there also. Group after group after group. Boys with boys, girls with girls, and mixed. Groups of ten, groups of five, groups of six, all laughing and talking and cheerful. We wondered what they were all doing there, then later we found out that since it´s the first day of Spring, the high schools are closed for the day. What a good idea. It´s a tradition now for the kids to get together and go out to parks, for picnics, whatever. And in Argentina, they really do groups well. Way better than they do them in the US. We see groups of people everywhere. Some large groups, some small, but groups. We strolled with the kids in the beautiful sunshine, and crossed the water on El Puente de la Mujer.  Finally we made our way to Silvana´s apartment and stayed there for five hours, talking about everything. Politics, education, jokes, life. We returned home by subway, and we are looking forward to getting together again with Silvana and Fabian, to go out to their quinta, which is kind of a country home.