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We have been wanting to enroll the girls in some tennis lessons here as an alternative to the soccer and baseball that they miss back home. As a part of that, we checked out various tennis clubs in Buenos Aires.

One such tour was of the Vilas Club, as in Guillermo Vilas, as in the totally hot tennis player women thew themselves at many decades ago. (I thought he was cool in my preteen tennis fanatic days, but my heart belonged to John McEnroe.) Well, needless to say, the Vilas club is as slick and good looking as its namesake was in his heyday.

The staff very nicely shepherded us around the immaculate clay courts, beautiful restaurants, lovely gym, and gorgeous grounds. At the end, they hit us with the price. I credit my workout schedule with keeping me upright.

Let’s just say, for a family that only wants a few hours of tennis lessons a week for the kids, it was a bit steep.

The positive result of our Vilas Club meanderings is that we now have a whole new inflated metric against which we judge all expenses. We can happily commit ourselves to any and all activities by noting, “Hey, it’s much cheaper than the Vilas Club!”…like we were ever actually going to join in the first place.