Hello from Sunny Argentina

Hello Friends,

I’m writing to you today from sunny and warm Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Our NF Extreme Team is all here, healthy, and having a great time.   I think we are all a little sleep deprived at this point.  There is so much to do and see and not an abundance of time.  Yesterday, after flying all night, we arrived here at the hotel around 2:00 p.m. local time (we are two time changes east of the Eastern Time Zone).  Our flight out of Miami was delayed by about seven hours and the other half of the team flying from Atlanta beat us by several hours…not that there is anyone competitive enough on this trip to keep track of such things. We all went for a nice “leg stretcher” run in the 85 degree, 90 plus percent humidity at 4:00 p.m.,  before splitting up into smaller groups for various events in the evening.

Some quick introductions:
Dr. Jose Dominguez – a surgeon from Battlefield, Mo., who runs for his son Eric.  He is the informal head of the now infamous and international “Run for Eric” team.
Dr. Carl Price –Run for Eric Team; from Springfield, Mo., a plastic surgeon and a friend of Jose’s.
Kathy Price – Run for Eric Team; from Springfield, Mo., and by far, Carl’s better half; a pharmacist, motorcycle racer, and by all accounts awesome mom.
Dr. John Steinberg – Run for Eric Team from Springfield, Mo., a cardiothoracic surgeon.  Also a friend of Jose’s.  As you can see, we are in good hands medically on this trip.
Dr. Tim Billharz – Run for Eric Team; An OBGYN from Liberty, Mo., he is, like Jose, a human plumber, working in the same general region, but from a slightly different angle.
Coach George Haddad – Running for Gigi Kast. NF Endurance volunteer team coach, NASA Engineer, from Melbourne, Fla. – yup, a real live rocket scientist.
John McCarthy – Director Standard and Poors, from Holmdale, N.J.  John runs for his daughter and also serves on the Children Tumor Foundation’s Board of Directors.
George Franke – from the Holmdale, N.J. area and John’s father-in-law, and our team support person for the trip.
Chad Leathers – our 25-year-old mascot. Chad runs for his brother, Drew, and Chad is doing a wonderful job of documenting this excursion. Chad is presently from New York, N.Y., and he is a development officer for the Children’s Tumor Foundation.
Bill Hardy – from Harleysville, Pa.   Bill is the owner and president of Hardy Machine Company, two time Race Across America teammate, and part of the Ari’s Angels Team.
Bill Edmonds – from Erwinna, Pa.  Bill is the co-owner/president of B&G Manufacturing, two time Race Across America teammate and also part of the Ari’s Angel Team.
Steve Kendra – that’s me, from the bustling metropolis of Sellersville, Pa.  Running for my daughter Arianna.  I’m the director of the NF Endurance Team for the Children’s Tumor Foundation.

So, I don’t pretend to be an expert, or even knowledgeable on Buenos Aries by any stretch, but I’ll  mention a few highlights from my perspective so far about this beautiful city.  Buenos Aires has a population of about three million people within the city and about 12 million counting the suburbs.  It is a colorful, vibrant and proud city.  I went to a dinner/ Tango exhibition last evening at a local theater and it was spectacular.  As most will tell you, I’m not the type to go to see a dancing exhibition, but this was amazing.  The passion in these dancers, the dance, and in this city, is almost palpable.  This area is known for it’s wonderful red wine and delicious beef.  I had too much of both last night.

There are 18,000 buses and 30,000 taxis here in town.  Where we have the White House in DC, they have the Pink House where the President and other higher officials from the government  have their offices.  It’s only a few blocks from our hotel.   They seem to name things after important dates in their history here.  For instance, the “9th of July Avenue” is the widest in the world at 147 meters across, and I think I heard, 32 lanes of traffic.  We were stuck in that traffic for a while on the city tour this morning.  Argentina’s pesos are about 3.8 per American dollar and the best areas to go for dining are Puerto Madero and Recolta.  They don’t eat here at night until about 10 or 11; the restaurants aren’t even open until 8:00 pm.  Nightlife doesn’t start until midnight, and lasts through dawn. Smoking seems to be stylish and popular.  And, we noticed that there are many beautiful girls here who smoke.  So, we decided that perhaps like the melting ice caps, we should enjoy looking at both while they are still here to see.

Tomorrow, most of us are taking a day excursion to Uruguay (a 40 minute high speed ferry ride from here), which is supposed to be quite nice.  Uruguay installed a new president today and I believe Hillary Clinton is over there right now to honor the occasion.  This afternoon we have another run scheduled.  Tonight is the team banquet and informational session about the rest of our adventure.  There are a total of 99 of us running either the half or full marathon.  I think 85 are doing the full marathon and 14 doing the half marathon.  Marathon Tours has been excellent to work with so far, and bar none, everyone I’ve met has been friendly and fantastically interesting.  I had breakfast with Thom Gilligan, who owns Marathon Tours, this morning, and he filled me in on some of the almost unbelievable ropes he has had to jump through politically to make this event happen for us this year.  Oh, right I almost forgot, we’ll have a Norwegian Prince running with us too – more on that, and the other interesting teammates later.

I hope you are all healthy and happy at home.  We all truly appreciate the blessings in our lives that have enabled us to have this opportunity.

On behalf of the “End of the Earth for a Cure Expedition,”

Steve