Comparative Statuary - General Jose de San Martin

San Martin - Washington, D.C.

My usual walking route to the Truman Building is from Foggy Bottom Metro stop. My return route walking to either the Whitten Building or Metro is straight south along 23rd Street towards the Lincoln Memorial Circle,  then over to the Vietnam Memorial, then to the World War II Memorial, and back to the center of the Capital Mall near the Washington Monument. My slight deviation turned up another new statue - the General Jose de San Martin Memorial on Virgina Avenue near the State Department, and the Full Count statues described in a previous blog. The statue is a replica of a statue of the General in Buenos Aires, and was presented as a gift to the United States from Argentina in 1925 - President Coolidge spoke at the dedication.

It popped into my mind when I saw the lone figure on Virginia Avenue this past week, that I had seen the original last October in Buenos Aires. After a dinner at a restaurant that specialized in beef - grass fed,

Cuts of beef roasting

off the Argentine pampas - another conference attendee from Germany I had just me and I did a little tourist site-seeing near our hotel. We came upon a large plaza with a beautiful statue in a grand setting - the city's skyline just beyond the treeline. The Plaza 
San Martin memorializing Argentina's "George Washington" is expansive, the statue very detailed - people and pigeons alike rest near it and leisurely walk by, and an old man shouted at us in Spanish - we just kept on walking admiring the statue and ignoring him, not knowing if he wanted to tell us about legendary accomplishments by the General, or that he had a dislike

Monument to Jose de San Martin - Buenos Aires

for people who looked like northern Europeans. Buenos Aires had the feeling of a European city - everyone spoke Spanish, and many seemed to smoke cigarettes. All of the boulevards were crowded with cars, but everyone seemed polite - yielding generously when needed. The city I saw, looks like the one I had seen on television - through the eyes of eager real estate seekers on House Hunters International. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in the city, even if for just a short time - I would have to learn more Spanish.