el sur

Nosotros hemos soñado el mundo.

2008-08-23T18:58:00.007-03:00

The title of this post is a quote from "Avatares de la Tortuga," one of the texts by Borges that I read while I was in Buenos Aires, and it was a line that really resonated with me. It has been almost two months since I posted and almost a month since I left Argentina, and lately I've been feeling like it was all a dream. Being back has felt so natural that sometimes it seems like I never left. It's a great feeling to just pick everything back up and fit right in again, and it has been great to see all my friends and family and return to the two places I like to call home - Denver and New York. But it has also been strange to feel so far away from my life in Buenos Aires, like it was ages ago. I think about going back, and I'm sure that upon the first opportunity I have to visit, I will be on that plane in the blink of an eye. In the meantime I am enjoying getting back into the swing of things in my life here. I'm back at school and preparing for my last year, and also for my job as a Resident Advisor. New York is everything is has always been to me and yet I think I have gained a new perspective on just about everything and so it looks a bit different.

I won't bore you with tons of talking about what I have been up to the last two months, including my last weeks in Argentina, but I will say that it was absolutely fantastic to have my family come visit. I showed them all around the city and really trying to give them the total experience and I think I succeeded in giving them at least a little bit of a feel for the city. Here are some photos from those last three weeks, and I wanted to say thanks to everyone for keeping up with me while I was so far away. It was great to share my crazy adventures and I hope that at least the pictures were entertaining enough to sustain you through my extensive ramblings. Without further ado, a sampling of those last days of wintertime.

My final drawings for the art class I took - waiting to be evaluated by the professors

A water taxi that ferried Tess, Lucía and me from Tigre to Tres Bocas (on the outskirts of Buenos Aires)

Tess and me waiting for the water taxi to come back

We waited forever and by the time it got there, it was sunset for our ride home.

A rare moment: Tess on the colectivo (the bus)? She's really much more of a taxi girl

Have you ever even seen a Hearts of Palm that big?

Lots of deliciousness from La Cabrera

Tess and me outside of our (almost) namesake restaurant

Dad by the river and Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer in the background

Fanciest restroom ever - from Faena Hotel in Puerto Madero

We had to find the Harley Store!

Dad and Me at Recoleta Cemetery

Me outside of FLACSO - the university that hosted my program

The resting place of Carlos Gardel, the famous tango singer, in the enormous Chacarita Cemetery

A gaucho at the Feria de Mataderos

Dad's favorite restaurant - vegetarian, artsy, yummy

En el Nombre de Postre (In the Name of Dessert)

My host family - Soledad and Leo

A final brunch with Stephanie, Me, Lara, and Steph's brother Ben

Gauchos at La Rural - basically the Argentine stock show

There were lots of cows, horses, pigs, and birds. This guy was pretty adorable.

And finally - I will leave you with one of the last moments of my summer. After returning home to Denver for a week, I headed back out to the east coast to nanny in Sea Bright, New Jersey for one of my babysitting families from New York. It was great to get back into my old routine and sunsets like this didn't hurt either. So for now, that's it. Hopefully I'll have more adventures in the very near future and I can keep up with this travel blogging. Un beso grande. (A big kiss!)

Avant Garde Appreciation Week

2008-06-26T21:34:00.005-03:00

Sunday I went to my favorite circus again and was very sad to find out that they are taking a winter hiatus and I won't be able to share the wonderful experience with any of my guests that are coming to visit. I am however glad that I got to see it at least twice. This past week's show was just as innovative as the last one, and perhaps a little bit more off the wall. There were some technical difficulties which always proves interesting for an audience, especially when it is a show like this. By "like this" I mean, a group or performers who may or may not have met each other before and almost surely haven't done a run-through of the show. But it was inspiring nonetheless. There was an amazing fabric act - the variety of tricks down here in Argentina is very different from what I was familiar with back home. There are many more tricks that, in my opinion, depend more on the strength and/or flexibility of the performer, rather than a specific knowledge of the particular wraps. Hard to explain really, but quite beautiful to watch. Below you can also see pictures of the girl who did a really great handbalance/contortion act. I've seen acts like hers before, and probably some that were "better" in the sense that they were longer or included more tricks, but I've never been so close and you could feel how powerful and strong she was which was a new experience. Very glad I went and I even ran into a girl from my program who went on my recommendation!

Since one theatrical activity for the week didn't seem to be quite enough, Monday night I joined a friend at a theater in the Abasto neighborhood. We went knowing the place had a good vibe - or buena onda, as they would say here - but not knowing exactly what the show was going to be. It turned out to be a Brazilian puppet troupe and they put on an absolutely brilliant puppet show. It got me thinking. Last semester I took a class at Columbia called "Theatricality and Spectacle in the History of Russian Culture" during which, as you can imagine, we discussed topics and disciplines of all sorts, but a major part of the last unit we discussed a sort of puppet renaissance that happened in the early 20th century. Renaissance might not be the right way to phrase it because I'm not sure if there was ever a puppet golden age to begin with, but I'm just going to go with it. Anyway, the point is that one of the ideas of my final paper was that at this point in Russian history puppets really become something more than a way to tell a story to children ( I tried - and the key word here really is tried - to connect this to how the anime genre of films today) and that puppetry should be viewed as such even today. And to get back to where I began this slight tangent, I don't think I really believed my own thesis until I saw this Brazilian show. The puppets were simple: just hands draped in fabric. A love story about two old ladies (gender was actually debatable). There were no words, just a gibberish language and gestures and some hum-singing. But in the span of about thirty minutes I laughed really hard, smiled like crazy, and at the end, my heart broke a little bit. It was so spectacular that I went back last night to see them perform their other show, which they billed as being aimed more at children. It was also really great. Maybe not as great as the old lady love story, but still great. And until this week I don't think I really appreciated puppetry for the real art form that it is. I've always appreciated that it can be funny and inventive but now I really think that there should be more puppeteers out there bringing puppetry to the masses.

Circus and puppetry are definitely two art forms that are definitely on the fringe. Circus is less so with Cirque du Soleil's popularity in the last few years, but I still usually get an eyebrow raise when I tell people that I would run away with the circus in a heartbeat. No eyebrow raise when I tell them I'm a Visual Arts major. Well, okay, sometimes there is an eyebrow raise - being an artist is still kinda fringe, but maybe this is because they expect me to say Econ/PoliSci since I go to Columbia... who knows. Anyway, it seems like people really do consider not only puppetry but also circus as activities best suited for children's birthday parties. Both art forms have so much more potential and it was great to see that Buenos Aires, and Brazil apparently, seem to be embracing that. The circus shows and the puppet shows were filled with adults. Of course there were a few children there too, partly probably because children seem to go everywhere at all times of the night here. (Seriously, I would be out of a job if I lived here. I don't think anyone ever hires a babysitter, they just haul the kids along. And for the record, they are all super well behaved and never tired. They must nap all afternoon. But I will expound further on my child-rearing theories in regards to Argentina some other time.) The clowns, the stories, the imagery, the puppets - all of it was aimed at a mature audience. Slightly curious and more than just entertaining. This city has really put forth a strong showing in the arts and culture department. New York has its work cut out for it when I get back.

A serious amendment...

2008-06-18T18:16:00.007-03:00

After looking into it a little more, apparently my statement that the Argentine team is "very good" might be a bit of an understatement. They happen to be rated number 1 in the world (theworld!) on the FIFA website, and Ecuador comes in at less than inspiring 59. In light of this new knowledge, Argentina hardly lived up to their reputation. They should have completely dominated the game. Nonetheless, the game was good. I just didn't want you all to go around thinking the soccer here is Argentina is anything less that the best in the world. Below I will enlighten you a bit more, and share with you everything I know about the Argentine team.

Pictured above is Lionel Messi. His number is 18 and he is only 20 years old. He plays for FC Barcelona and has probably accomplished more that I ever will. He is arguably the best player on the team, and it seemed like the only way that Ecuador knew how to deal with him was to put at least two defenders, as can be noted in the above photo, between him and the goal, or the ball. This only worked sometimes. He is really quite amazing to watch play.

Pictured above is Sergio Agüero. He is also good, and also a baby - 19 years old. He plays for Atlético Madrid and seems to be equally famous for his soccer playing talents as for dating Diego Maradona's daughter. (In case you're not up on your soccer history, Maradona scored both of the goals that led Argentina to victory on England in the 1986 World Cup. One of those goals was actually a handball - yes, this legend scored a goal in the World Cup with his hand. Totally illegal!)

Pictured above is Rodrigo Palacio. He's the guy who finally scored the goal in the last few seconds of the game. He was subbed in during the second half of the game and I bet someone is super happy that decision was made.

Winding Down

2008-06-17T20:20:00.003-03:00

It has been a while since I've really even thought about documenting about Buenos Aires and I think it is because I have settled into life here as just a normal life, and not something to be marveled at every moment. That doesn't mean that those marvelous moments have stopped occurring, instead it is that, as humans are so often inclined to do, I have begun to take my life here for granted. It is comforting in a way as well, that I feel so comfortable here, and I think a lot of this has to do with the group of friends I have made while I've been here. Unfortunately they are American and we normally speak English with each other, but I couldn't have asked for a better group of friends. We go out dancing together, visit new restaurants, and have recently started a weekly Sunday brunch tradition. I was trying to explain to my host mom that studying abroad fosters fast and strong friendships because you are experiencing so many new and challenging things together that form a natural bond. I really think this is true and I will be sad when we all have to return to our separate universities in the US. I hope that the bonds we have formed don't disappear with distance and time, but at the very least I am sure we will keep in touch and who knows, maybe eventually all end up in similar places a few years down the line. Enough with the philosophical musings, which I sometimes think I share too frequently with you all.

I'll share a bit about the tangible activities that I have been up to, and perhaps even try to organize them chronologically.

Two Weeks Ago: I challenged myself academically (shocking, yes, something academic in this long vacation) by giving a presentation in my Jorge Luis Borges class at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Each class students give short presentations to the class on the stories for the day and then the professor expands on points that he feels are important. It was not required to give a presentation, after all there are many more students than stories on which to present, but it was recommended, mostly as a way to distinguish yourself in the eyes of the professor and show your participation. So I signed myself up and presented on a short story called "La Busca de Averroes" with another girl - an Argentine - from the class. It was not the best presentation I have ever given; Marilina (my partner) probably spoke 75% of the time, but I frankly feel lucky I managed to squeak out anything in front of the class I was so nervous. And hopefully what I did say was intelligible and at least sort of intellectual.

One Week Ago: I went to a circus show called Aires de Circo. It was on the hollowed out bottom floor of an old house, and had the feeling of an arts collective. Every two weeks different acts are presented during a show on Sunday night. The night I went there were a number of clown acts, one stand up comic, two trapeze artists, one hoop act, an all male improv dance group with fabric incorporated, and a really spectacular clown/mime/contact juggling act. The performers were young and you could feel the creative energy overflowing from their limbs and into the equally young crowd who was sitting on old couches, wooden benches and chairs made of tires and empty plastic soda bottles. The performers joined the audience when they weren't on the stage and helped out with technical aspects as well. I love seeing shows like this because the energy and drive and ideas that were so evident in every moment of the show is really inspiring. Among other places, I was raised in theaters and art galleries. But I was also raised in a competitive environment where should's abound and success is defined very narrowly. Occasionally I lose track of my creative upbringing, and get caught up in striving for a life that I'm not sure I even want. Seeing this circus reminded me I need to keep that crazy artist's spirit alive in me.

Saturday: I moved! My host family here bought a new apartment and it was ready before they were expecting, and so we packed up the apartment and moved. Before I was living in Palermo/Recoleta/Barrio Norte neighborhood which is very young and hip, as well as central. We moved to a new building in Caballito which is a bit further from the center of the city and definitely has a different feel as far as the people I see walking the streets. I will admit that it is slightly inconvenient having to a neighborhood that is farther away. Compared to an average commute of 15-20 minutes to most places, I now average 30-40 minutes. But I am getting to know a new neighborhood, new bus routes, and will be that much more comfortable in Buenos Aires by the time I leave. I was joking with my friends that it seems like I have to move at least every four months, so it was about time! I've gotten fairly good at putting my life into a couple of bags and moving on. The new apartment is brand new which is very fun for me, my host mom and my host dad. It is a bit smaller than our last place, but we fit just fine. The only true bummer is that the internet has not been installed yet and so I have to walk to a coffee store a couple blocks away just to check my email. Let me tell you I had no idea how dependent I was on the internet until this happened. Still, if this is the worst thing - it's clear that life is good here.

Sunday: I went to my very first soccer game! It was really quite fun. I went with a friend from another program, and his Argentine friend and we were in la popular where all the Argentines stand and yell obscene remarks at the other team and sing patriotic songs. This particular game was filled with lots of patriotism because it was the Argentine national team versus Ecuador. Alejandro, the Argentine we went with, was telling us that the game was actually very calm in comparison to a game between two Argentine club teams. At those games everyone gets very riled up and it probably would not have even been a good idea to be a foreigner standing in the section we were in. Luckily, it was a pretty calm game, and I had a great time. I have always liked watching soccer and this was no exception. We were a little far from the field but the aerial view meant we could see the whole field and watch the game with a little more distance. Now, I like watching soccer but I do not actually know that much about it. Apparently the Argentine national team is very good, with a number of players who play for club teams in Europe, but that they were not putting up a good fight on Sunday. Ecuador scored a very nice goal in the first part of the second half and finally, in the last twenty or so seconds Argentine finally tapped one it to tie it up right before the game ended. I myself was a bit shocked when the game did end. There is no clock anywhere showing the time, so if you want to know how much of the game is left you must keep the time on your own watch, and with those extra minutes they sometimes end at the end of the half, who knows how much could be left. I am glad that I finally got to see a soccer game while I was here because everyone is so soccer crazed here, much like the rest of the world, excepting the US of course. If I get the chance to go to another one, I would go in a heartbeat.

Today: I finally gave into my American consumerism and visited Argentina's first Starbucks which opened about three weeks ago in the Alto Palermo shopping mall. And my Triple Grande Sugar Free Vanilla Skim Latte, or Grande Vainilla Latte con Tres Shots, Syrup sin Azucar y Leche Descremada, was absolutely delicious! I've been sitting here using their internet for the past couple of hours and the line has not been less that twenty people the whole time. It is actually creepy how much I feel like I am sitting in any Starbucks in New York. The same jazzy music, the same displays selling ceramic Starbucks cups and Tazo tea, the same chairs and tables. It has made me appreciate the corner cafés with all their unique character even more, but I'm not sure that their Café con Leche's would ever win a taste test against that tongue twister of an order that Starbucks has perfected for me. I will actually be interested to see how much Starbucks catches on here. The Argentine café culture is about sitting down over an espresso and lingering, enjoying - not running out the door with a two foot tall confection hardly resembling coffee that cost an arm and a leg, as we are so inclined back home. It will succeed if only because Argentine's seem to be endlessly covetous of American culture. They'll put their own spin on it of course. As I look at the menu, I can see that they already seem to have done so, adding a Dulce de Leche Latte to the menu and Migo sandwiches to their sandwich cooler. In the mean time, I hope I have satisfied my craving for my own countries "specialties" and won't feel the need to wait in a ridiculously long line for something that is so common back in New York and Colorado - but equally overpriced no matter what currency.

Upcoming Weeks: Visitors from home, final papers and projects, chilly weather, and my attempt to make the most of my last few weeks in this brilliant country.

Sensory Overload at the Art Fair

2008-06-01T18:47:00.006-03:00

Buenos Aires is, according to more than a few articles in the New York Times, home to a "buzzing art scene" that is drawing the attention of the international art community. After attending arteBA this weekend, the annual contemporary art fair, I can agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. I haven't been as dutiful of an art seeker as I usually am in New York, but going to fair I felt like I got a good feeling for what the art scene is like down here. The fair had more than seventy-five exhibitors, the majority of whom were Argentine art galleries, but other South American countries were represented as well. All the big players were there (Ruth Benzacar, Braga Menendez Arte Contemporáneo, and Appetite were the three I had heard of previously) but there was also a section called Barrio Joven where smaller, less established galleries were showing lots of young artists' work. While the bigger galleries favored clean white walls to display one or two works by a select few artists, the Barrio Joven galleries (as you can see in the above picture) absolutely covered their walls with as much art as possible, even letting it spill onto the floor and into the space usually reserved for walking around. The booths themselves had more personality as well: in one faux grass covered the concrete and in another sitting pillows were surrounded by potted plants and an old coat hanger. I was glad to see that it wasn't only the established art community that was being represented, but they were making room for the younger generation as well.

The fair itself might be considered part of the younger generation in the larger scheme of the world art community, but I was very impressed by what I saw, and at times couldn't help but feel that I had somehow wandered into The Armory Show, "The International Fair of New Art", that happens every year in New York. Whether or not this is a good thing, as I know many people who bemoan the commercialized and overpriced art market of today, I'm not sure. I do know that like all good art shows, I saw pieces I loved immediately, some that disturbed me, ones I did not understand, or didn't like. There were lots of paintings, a good number of drawings, not as many sculptures and few pieces of video art. It is interesting to really get a feel of what is "in" in the art market just by walking around for a couple hours. After all, everything at the fair was also for sale and the galleries are motivated to actually sell what they hang on their walls. After too much thinking about these sorts of things, I just tried to enjoy the art. Below I've included some pictures of some of the art that most interested me as I walked around. I hope you like it too!

Jungles and Salt Deserts

2008-05-16T18:06:00.014-03:00

Next week is the three month mark of my stay here in Buenos Aires, which shockingly means that I only have two more months here. I can't believe how fast everything has gone and while I do miss my family and friends in the US and can't wait to return, it is definitely going to be an adjustment going back to New York and Columbia. I have gotten used to the pace of life here and I know there are going to be a lot of things that I miss when I get back. But in the meantime, I'm going to try and not dwell on the future, and really make the most of the time that I do have left here. And now that my extensive travels have come to an end, I am going to keep working on exploring the city, and believe it or not, do some school work. As one of friends put it: even though you might have come to the conclusion that my life here is just one long vacation made up of smaller vacations strung together, and even though you might be right, I am actually taking classes, reading texts, writing papers and generally engaging my brain intellectually. Which is not to say that traveling around doesn't inspire deep thoughts. In fact, on my two most recent trips I found myself contemplating infinity as I stared at the rushing water in Iguazú and again as the hexagonal salt flats unfolded before the mountains in Jujuy. Borges would have been proud. And to be honest, I'm not sure even where to begin to talk about all the wonderful things I saw. I'll be brief and try to let the photos speak for themselves.

The first trip, two weeks ago, was to Iguazú, up north near the border of Paraguay and Brazil. Another long, but fairly comfortable eighteen-hour bus ride delivered my friends and I to this major tourist destination. The city is tiny and quiet and clearly only a place that people pass through on their way to and from the waterfalls. We stayed at an enormous hostel, filled with young travelers from all over the world, all there for the same purpose: taking millions of photos of the falls to show to their friends and family. I must admit that I took a spectacular number of photos myself, and through a cruel twist of fate at the end of the day "formated" my memory card, and thereby erased all of the photos. Who knew? The following photos you see are my friend Lara's. Lesson I learned? Don't press "Format Memory Card." Also, take time to look at what is around you, without the help of a camera lens. You might not always have the photos, and your memories are more precious anyway. Luckily I did spend a good deal of time just staring at the water as it rushed over the rocks, plunging into the mist, and I don't think I will be forgetting it anytime soon. Even though it was cloudy most of the day and even rained a bit, it was a spectacular sight. There are multiple different systems of waterfalls, all easily accessible through walkways that traverse the forests. We even took a crazy boat ride that zoomed us right up close to the waterfalls. Said boat also went dangerously fast, careening around at 45 degree angles, which was exhilarating even without the crashing water. We watched enormous, red, armored ants carry leaves. We wore expensive, glorified plastic bags. We saw the same people all day long as we walked from place to place. We got our shoes muddy. I'm not sure if this place is considered a wonder of the world or anything, but it sure is in my books. I experienced for the first time the truly furious power of a crashing waterfall and the lush depth of a jungle, and it was beautiful.

Garganta del Diablo

Dos Hermanas

The next weekend we flew by plane to the province of Jujuy. The idea of this trip, which was organized by our program, was to give us an idea about other regions of Argentina, outside of the central provinces, that are very much influenced by indigenous cultures and have a distinct history that shares elements with neighboring countries and geographical regions, such as the Andes. We visited an Anthropology and Archeology museum in the city of Tilcara where we got to see old tools and even some skulls and bones. I realized that while I quite like the idea of human bones, and even artistic renditions (pictures, drawings, etc.) I am quite unsettled by real human bones right in front of my eyes. But thankfully that was only one activity of the trip.

We stayed in cabañas near the mountains in the city of Tilcara. At night when the sun set, it was amazing to see the moon and stars, but almost more magical was to see the tiny lights of the houses dotting the mountainside, shining as if they themselves were stars. In Tilcara, we visited the pucará which in the indigenous language (forgive me for forgetting its name) means fortaleza which in turn means fort. It was an old settlement that at its height might have been home to 1500 people, quite a lot for this tiny village on a hill in the middle of the valley. There were a number of reconstructed houses to show how cactus wood and other natural materials were used to construct the houses. I did not know that cacti had wood. I also did not know there were so many cacti in the world, or that they could be so huge! My favorite parts of the Tilcara pucará were probably the garden (one which hilariously only contained cacti) and the llamas. I have a fondness in my heart for these animals, mainly thanks to the acclaimed (among my friends) film The Emperor's New Groove, which is actually an Disney cartoon, and on my list of top Disney films.

But, Disney films aside, while in the province of Jujuy we also visited the towns of Humahuaca and Purmamarcas as well as the stunning Salinas Grandes. Each place had its own very distinct terrain and a feria in the center of town, selling llama sweaters, multicolored bags and tablecloths, mate cups and many other fun items. As I think back about the trip, I am so glad that I got to experience this other Argentina that is so different from the Argentina that I have come to know and love living in Buenos Aires. Everything there has a different flavor, from the language, the style of dress, the terrain, and of course, the food. The Spanish spoken in the North has a very different accent and there are words still in use today that are from Quechua (the indigenous language I could not remember earlier). The religion today is of course mostly Catholic, from the Spanish Conquistadores, but there are remnants of the pre-Incan "religious cosmology" shared by many peoples of the Andean region everywhere. Many of the older women have a style of dress that I quite envy; they wear all of their brightest, most patterned clothing at once, topped off literally with a wide-brimmed hat (You can see such a lady in my first photo. While you can't see the way she mixed her colors, you can see the shape of her clothes and her hat!). I found the regional cuisine super delicious: rotund tamales, rich goat cheese, and a desert that tasted just like mincemeat. The whole trip made me wish I was exploring this region of South American, going to Peru and Bolivia as well. I am glad that I at least made it as far as I did.

Sunset in Tilcara

Dusk by the cabañas

Garden at the pucará

So many cacti!

Sadly I saw more llamas on sweaters than actual llamas

On our last full day in Jujuy we took a long bus ride up an enormous mountain (almost a fourteener) and back down the other side to get to the Salinas Grandes. What you see below, though it may look like a regular sand desert, or perhaps hard-packed snow, is neither. It is salt! Here they make salt, or rather, natural processes make salt and they collect it. I guess you could call it salt farming. From what I understand, this used to be a lake, but clearly all the water evaporated leaving behind all the minerals and such, which was mosty salt. To get this salt from the ground (because it is a very firm ground) and the make sure that it is clean, during the summer when it rains a lot they dig a bunch of rectangular holes in the ground that are maybe a foot deep. The water seeps up from the ground, filling the hole with water. Here is where I got confused, so please forgive me. As the year passes, the water and sun together (I'm sure there are some other forces too) crystallizes and purify the salt and evaporate the water, leaving a clean salt rectangle before the next rainy season during summer. That might not be correct. What I know for sure is that the process is completely natural, we humans have to do nearly nothing and coolest of all, the actual flat part of the salts is patterned. As the water evaporated the salt forms big hexagons in the sand, all interconnecting, all exactly six sides. I was truly amazed. Not remembering much from chemistry class in tenth grade, I think this must have something to do with the structure of the chemical compound, but again, I'm not sure. Clearly this whole trip to Jujuy was quite the learning experience, and not just the learning about myself and the world, but actually thinking about tangible knowledge like Pre-Incan history and the formation of salt. In the pictures below you can see the super cool hexagons as well as the rectangular holes that make the salt (and the piles of dirty, unusable salt next to them). Since salt actually is its own food group down here (mayonnaise is too), I was happy to learn where it is actually coming from. I looked at our boxes (yes, plural, boxes) of salt when I got home and sure enough, they are from Las Salinas Grandes. Now I'm off to eat some homemade empanadas and then prepare for a presentation on Borges. One activity will be delicious, but I'll let you decide which one.

I'm learning to sleep on buses.

2008-04-30T13:04:00.016-03:00

If you are uninterested in panoramic shots of various different landforms, please, skip my next few postings. I am in the middle of a travel extravaganza, and so I probably won't be able to refrain from posting lots of pictures with sky, clouds, trees, rocks and bits of Mother Earth. Just Monday morning I arrived back to Buenos Aires from a weekend trip to San Rafael, Mendoza and this evening I am headed out for another long bus ride to Iguazú Falls to the north in the province of Misiones which shares a border with Brazil. The following weekend I will finally get to travel somewhere in less than twelve hours, and I will be going by plane to Salta and Jujuy, also in the north of the country, but more west as well. It's gonna be a crazy few weeks, and I hope to have a few good stories and a million good pictures and memories by the end.

The province of Mendoza, where I was this past weekend, is almost directly to the west of Buenos Aires, and shares a border with Chile. It is also known as wine country of Argentina. I was on a trip through my program, CIEE, which had its pros and cons. It was definitely to have everything taken care of by other people. Our lodging, food, activities, transportation - everything. All I had to do was really show up at the bus station with enough clothes to stay warm during the weekend and the rest would be provided. What was not so nice about traveling with the program was the fact that I was traveling with about 60 other American college students. I won't even explain why this is an issue, because I'm sure you can imagine everything that goes along with such a situation. In the end it turned out to be a very fun, relaxing trip, but I don't know if I really felt like I got to know Mendoza because we were such an insular little group.

What I can say is that Mendoza is absolutely beautiful. While I can't say there were many things I liked about the twelve hour bus ride we took to get there (you can see the shadow of our enormous micro in the first photo below) it is a great way to see the land. If I had flown there I definitely wouldn't have gotten to see all the beautiful trees, plains and mountains along the way. Once we were out of the plains and into the valleys it actually reminded me a bit of Colorado. And then I saw all the tourist attractions offering horseback riding and white-water rafting and it reminded me even more of Colorado. We stayed in a very nice hotel with small cabañas on the banks of the river. We slept a lot, ate a lot, and of course got out to see the scenery around us. The first day there we took a hike through a small valley/canyon and saw the system that transports the mineral water from the mountains down to the town for bottling and then distribution. I must say that these trails didn't feel quite as safe as the trails I'm used to that are maintained by some sort of mountaineering crew. Nope, these trails were full of loose rocks, branches blocking the path, and lots of other potentially hazardous elements. Nobody got hurt though and it made me think a little bit more about the American way of doing things in comparison with life down here. Are we too cautious, too organized, too structured? These are the types of questions that you study abroad for!

So after a bit of outdoorsiness (which is definitely not a word, I know) on the first day, the next day we visited two vineyards. The first was my favorite. It was a small family operated vineyard called Rubio. We also visited a larger, also family owned, but more commercial vineyard called Bianchi. We went on a tour where they explained the fermentation process of red wine, white wine, and champage, and showed us the facilities. It was very interesting but I preferred the smaller, dirtier, homier Rubio vineyard. In addition to being a vineyard, Rubio also specialize in dried fruits, jams, olives and olive oil, and other such delicacies. I took some pictures of the fruit drying in its special wooden drying trays, jars of mermelada de zapallo freshly made that morning, and jamón hanging from the ceiling. My favorite part were the farm animals. Enormous pigs, baby pigs, chickens and roosters, dogs and llamas. And all of the animals basically had free reign of the farm. Except for the llama, he (or she) had to stay in her cage. Also, check out all of the leaves on the ground! It is finally feeling, and looking, like Autumn around here. The temperature has definitely dropped, leaves are dropping as well, and I actually don't mind, but probably only because I know that we aren't heading towards temperatures in the teens in addition to a nasty windchill. This is indeed comforting.

Our final day in Mendoza we went outdoors some more. Some kids went rappelling down rocks and others flew across rivers on zip lines . I chose to do zip line and it was pretty fun. The best part was the group of older couples that was hanging out on the bank of the river. They were very entertained by our antics, taking photos and asking us if we were having fun, which in fact, we were. Rounding out the trip was an evening bonfire, complete with the Argentine version of smores, and skits that mocked American and Argentina stereotypes. There were a few soccer games on the basketball court. And there also was a small kitten we found roaming around the grounds of the hotel. We named her Medialuna after the popular Argentine croissant because she liked to curl up just like one. She hung around with us for a while and then scampered back into the bushes.

It was a long ride back to the city, but I was glad to be back. Like any trip, while you are gone, you miss things that you never thought you would. You realize a million things in your everyday life you take for granted, and you promise to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities in the city as soon as you get back. I'm excited to go to Iguazu and Salta in these next couple of weeks, but I also can't wait to be back in Buenos Aires for more than three days and make good on my promise to the city.

Malos Aires

2008-04-18T10:35:00.007-03:00

A running joke here is that Buenos Aires (literally translated as "Good Airs") is a real misnomer and that the city should be called Malos Aires ("Bad Airs") instead. Between the cars, the buses, the smokers, and the rest of the polluting entities that go hand in hand with any large city, it's true - the air really isn't that great. However in the past few days it has gotten nearly unbearable. A smog has settled on the city and it does not seem to be going anywhere. It is stinky and makes my eyes slightly irritated and I imagine if I had particularly bad allergies or asthma, I would be in even worse shape. I thought that I would get used to the smell after a while, because that's usually what happens with noxious odors, but unfortunately such has not been that case. It's now the fourth day (for me anyway) of living in the smoggy air and I have yet to adjust. I am blowing my nose and rubbing my eyes as we speak, trying to avoid breathing through my nose and having to smell the odor.

I am getting ahead of myself though. Let me explain what is actually going on and where all this smog, or humo, is coming from. Apparently at the delta of the Rio Paraná, located in the interior of the province of Buenos Aires, the farmers decided to burn the livestock pastures to renew them. Other reports say that the pastures were being burned to renew and prepare for new crops of soybeans. In either case, these are fires that were started deliberately, but carelessly and without the right technique, equipment, etc. and now the fires are out of control (so the government admitted publicly yesterday). Anyway, newspapers say that the smog itself is really more of an annoyance than an actual health concern. However the smog is causing larger problems as far as travelers are concerned. More than a few major highways have been shut down because the low visibility accompanying the smog has led to large car accidents. Additionally, many of the bus lines that go to the outer provinces are not running, and flights from the domestic airport are limited. Of course the government and farmers are throwing the blame every which way, firefighters have been photographed hilariously carrying a single bucket of water, and the porteños complain that the smog wakes them up with its stink in the middle of the night. The Secretary of the Environment and Sustainable Development of Argentina says that only a climate change (wind, rain, etc.) will extinguish the fires. I personally will be my crossing my fingers for something, anything to chase away the smog. And after this, I will not be complaining a bit about a few smokers and some car emissions.

Meat and Movies

2008-04-11T14:51:00.001-03:00

One of the first things that most people told me when I would tell them that I was going to be studying abroad in Buenos Aires was that I had better prepare myself to eat a ton of delicious steak. And up until a few weeks ago, I was eating lots of delicious carne. My host mom would make meat for dinner at least three times a week and ordering a steak at a restaurant, a delicious steak, would really only run you about 5 dollars. No such luck anymore. The President, Cristina, who is also the former First Lady (her husband Nestor Kirchner, was President before her), has run into big problems in her first 100 days in office. I’m not very good at all of this economy, importing, exporting, etc. stuff, but I will try my best to explain what is going on. Argentina has a huge export economy, supplying soybeans and other crops to many countries around the world. To protect the economy, supposedly, Cristina raised the export tax to 45%, which significantly cuts into the profits of the farmers. Clearly, they are not happy about this. And so, they decided to stop delivering meat and some other food items, but mostly meat, to Buenos Aires. Since this was probably a less than satisfactory explanation, I will direct you to some more reputable news sources in case you want to learn more. Check out the New York Times and the BBC.

Within days the meat counters at grocery stores and carnicerias were empty save for some chicken, restaurants posted signs that informing customers that certain items were unavailable, due to the situation that everyone is aware of, and what meat could be found was much more expensive than usual. Cristina refused to negotiate with the farmers under such conditions. There were huge demonstrations at the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada, the Argentina White House, and for the first time in what have been many years, the people took to the streets in cazerolazas, a particular type of protest where everyone bangs pots and pans from the balconies, in their cars, out the window, etc. I really wasn’t sure what was going on that first night, but it was crazy.

One of the most interesting things about this particular issue was that that middle class of the urban areas was siding with the agrarian, working class of the interior. Everyone I spoke to was definitely against Cristina’s crazy idea. However, after a few weeks, even though the Economist predicted it could be two months, the farmers agreed to stop the paro of carne for thirty days to negotiate with the President and see if they couldn’t come up with a better agreement. The meat counters are slowly filling up again, but people are also stocking up, worried that Cristina and the farmers won’t come to any agreement and there won’t be meat again soon. It's a very interesting time to be here!

In other news, I told my mom on the phone yesterday that I’m afraid Buenos Aires is making me soft. I used to be able to just go and go and go. A normal day in New York usually included babysitting and/or interning, going to one or two classes, going to the gym, and then of course doing a few hours of homework. As I’m sure you have been gathering just one of those activities would probably be enough to fill up a day here in BsAs, and I am afraid that when I get back to New York I will have been spoiled by this leisurely schedule and not be able to do all the things I used to. For example, just so you truly understand how lazy it has become, yesterday I went to one class in the morning, my afternoon class was canceled, and so I took a three-hour nap. I know, I hate me too. You aren’t alone. It’s actually sort of driving me crazy. I am trying to get myself to relax and tell myself that I deserve a break, but I definitely wish I had more to do sometimes. Maybe once I have been in classes longer I will have more to do. In the meantime I am trying to find other activities to fill the days so I can at least say I made the most of my free time and didn’t just sit in the apartment watching reruns of old Hugh Grant movies… which to be honest is sometimes fairly tempting.

Luckily, starting today, I can sit around and watch movies and still consider myself to be culturally active. It is the first day of BAFICI, the Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente. I think that is what the acronym stands for anyway. We are going to see a movie at the festival for my Nuevo Cine Argentino class. When I’m in New York, I never have the time or energy (I guess because my schedule is so busy) to find out when and where the movies are at the festivals and then actually go get tickets, and then actually go see them. I am taking advantage of the fact that I can while I am here, and so between now and April 20^th, I will be seeing 12 movies! Now some of you might say that is a bit overboard, but I am very excited. I love movies and I am super excited about the ones I am going to see. Some of them have already come out in the US and I just never got around to seeing them, and then some of them I have never heard of, but have been recommended via some well-directed Google searches. I will be going to see:

Mister Lonely

Glastonbury

Cao Sem Dono

Le Voyage de Ballon Rouge

El Cielo, La Tierra, y La Lluvia

Night and Day

Paranoid Park

Una Semana Solos

Boarding Gate

I’m Not There

Historias Extraordinarias

Go Go Tales

It is going to be BAFICI madness here in Buenos Aires. I’ve never done the film festival thing, so I’m not even sure what to expect. I am guessing it will just be like going to see a regular film, but with that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes with being in the know and part of a hip, cultural event. A little like Sundance with a whole lot less snow, schwag, and famous people. All of which frankly, I can do without. My first film is tonight, right after my Borges class at UBA. I am preparing myself already for the craziness.

I am actually fairly excited for this class, because I’ve read all the material and feel like I know what is going on material-wise a bit more than last time. Which I guess isn’t that hard because I hadn’t read anything before the last class. This time, I have read all the stories at least once, and then even done a little extra online research, just to make sure I understand all the ideas Borges throws in there, assuming the reader already knows what he is talking about. This weekend I even went to go see a theatrical production of one of the stories, “La Biblioteca de Babel.” I wasn’t really sure how they were going to stage it, because it is really just a description of a Library, which “some also call the Universe.” It was a short, staged reading, with three actors. One gave a brief biographical introduction on Borges, the other recited the descriptive parts of the story, while a third actor spoke the parts of the story that are more personal, the parts where Borges’ voice and opinions seem to seep into the writing. It was very good show, taking a lighter approach to the text, and as a girl who I went with noted, this made the canonical text (as far as Borges goes) a bit more approachable.

Afterwards my theatergoing companions and I had to good fortune to have found the information of a little Cuban restaurant called Paladar Doña Fela. I use the term restaurant a bit loosely, and mainly because it was a building, where we ate dinner. That’s about where the similarities end however. It is actually what is called a puerta cerrada, or closed door. They are small “restaurants” hosted at the chef’s house for a small ground of reservation-only guests, usually on Friday and Saturday nights. It’s a bit strange, in some ways more formal that a restaurant, and in many ways less formal. We were welcomed into the chef’s house, and sat in the living room, eating some fresh plantain chips, chatting with the other guests of the evening while we watched fresh mojito’s made right in front of us, mint courtesy of their own plants. We were then showed around the house, onto the patio, and the gorgeous rooftop. Afterwards we all sat down for salad and bread, and then afterwards our dinner of Chicken and Moros Cristianos (black beans and rice). It was really great, but the night was only beginning! One of the waitresses turned out to also be the entertainment for the night. So in between dinner and dessert, we were treated to singing and dancing, with everyone joining in after a few songs. Very fun if you ask me, it should be a required part of all meals, if you ask me. The dessert was a delicious combination of flan and tiramisu and followed by a champagne toast. The meal, which began at 10:00, was not over until 1:30 and cost a whopping 30 dollars, including a nicely paired bottle of white wine, shared between my two dinner companions and me. It was really a “dining experience” more than anything else. I can’t wait to try the other ones around the city.

One of these days I promise I am going to have something to write about that doesn’t make it sound like I am on the world’s longest vacation. I promise. Until then, estoy disfrutando de todo, or, I’m just enjoying it all.

School Begins... Sort Of.

2008-03-30T20:40:00.014-03:00

Classes finally began in Argentina last week. However, the whole country then promptly began Semana Santa vacation on Thursday, and so it wasn't really the beginning. This past week was really the first full week of classes, which for me, is still not a full week as I only have classes from Tuesday through Thursday, quite a brilliant schedule if you ask me. But I will get around to classes in a bit.

Semana Santa is a huge vacation time here. Almost everyone leaves the city for the last big hurrah of summer. I couldn’t miss this opportunity to do more traveling so a friend of mine from Columbia, Stephanie, and I went to Uruguay. Yes, again. I can’t believe that I have been in Argentina for just over a month and already visited Uruguay twice. This time however we went to a small beach town called La Paloma. It is about a four-hour bus ride from the capital, Montevideo. We left early Wednesday morning, deciding to take an extra day off of school and really make the most of the holiday. Lat Wednesday night after many transfers from bus to ferry to bus to other bus, we finally arrived at our hostel which was a convenient five minute walk from the bus station. After dropping off our stuff and chatting with the owner at the front desk, she recommended that we walk down the block, around the corner and to the main street to find a restaurant. We found an adorable restaurant that was in a brightly colored, thatch-roof house and had one of the best meals of the whole trip.

The next day we slept in a little bit and moseyed to the beach around ten o’clock after coffee and biscuits at the hostel. Being a super tiny town, we realized that everything was within twenty minutes maximum walking distance, and this particular beach was a super short five minute jaunt. I am pleased to say that the rest of the day involved laying in the sun, reading in the sun, eating a leisurely lunch, savoring sumptuous ice cream, more laying in the sun and a delicious dinner courteous of chef Stephanie. I could give you a play by play of every day, but the rest of the days followed much the same pattern with slight variations. One day we walked to a nearby town, Costa Azul, which had more of surf vibe to check out their beach. Sometimes we ate ice cream after dinner and not lunch (But no, there was not a day we did not eat ice cream. Not even the day that it was cloudy and chilly and we didn't lay on the beach. Even that day we ate ice cream.) On Easter Sunday we ate a chocolate huevo de Pascuas and made pancakes. The cold and windy day we visited the faro, which means lighthouse and were nearly blow away by the wind. The whole time was very relaxing and exactly what I think beach vacations should be. I feel so lucky to have been able to travel like that while I am down here, because when I return to the US and then frighteningly, graduate shortly thereafter, who knows when I will have the time or money to relax in a beach town in South America for five days.

Classes resumed again on Tuesday and while they are not quite in full swing yet, are getting there. As of right now I am taking four classes, all at different schools, which has made figuring out of schedule a bit trying. But I think I finally have it all in order and am quite pleased with how everything seems to be settling into place. On Tuesdays I have two three hour classes. The first is called El Nuevo Cine Argentino en el Contexto Latinoamericano, or The New Argentine Cinema in the Latin American Context. It is a class through the program I am on, CIEE and at our host university, FLACSO. It is with all other American students and so, not terribly difficult. The teacher is really nice, very smart, but approaches the material knowing that we are foreigners, without being patronizing, which is also nice. In the afternoon on Tuesdays I go to my Taller de Oralidad, which is a required Spanish language course. The particular one I chose focuses on improving speaking in formal contexts. So far it is not very demanding, and hopefully will help me improve my speaking ability, which is not quite as good as my comprehension, reading or auditory. It is at a school associated with the public university, UBA, or la Universidad de Buenos Aires, but being a Spanish class, all the students are foreigners.

On Wednesdays I have my most difficult class. Before even considering the topic, one must consider that the course is at UBA, the aforementioned public university. Classes at UBA are a universe away from Columbia and further, if that's possible (perhaps I will learn if Borges thinks so in my class!) from Colorado Academy. To understand UBA a bit, one first has to understand the Argentine university system. When people go to college here they enroll in a carrera, which is a specialized track and then only take classes within that track. So there's Philosophy and Literature, Political Science, Psychology, Art History, etc. Which means that everyone is really specialized and knows a lot about a little. Also, UBA is also an entirely public university. Any Argentine can take classes totally for free. So there are tons of students, not a lot of funds, and everything is unorganized, crowded, and rundown. After coming from schools that have so much available for their students it is interesting to go somewhere basically all the school gives you is knowledge. Granted that is a lot, but there's no other means of supporting that knowledge. No computer labs, no libraries, sometimes not even enough chairs for all the students. Puán, the name of the building where all of the Philosophy and Literature classes are (called Filo y Letras for short), is plastered with banners and flyers and graffiti. There are stands, inside and outside of the building, selling school supplies, books, jewelry, coffee, and empanadas, just to name a few. Classes are sometimes interrupted (professor permitting) by strangers making announcements for their own particular causes, people smoke in the hallways, and there's more legitimate support for Socialism than I have ever seen. It's a bit of what the Argentines would call a quilombo, a disaster or chaos.

It is really interesting and puts everything is perspective. UBA can't claim the best athletics department or housing or library. All they can offer are classes, and a room, sometimes adequate, in which to learn. If the students haven't been lured there by all the extras and perks that University life has in the US, they are really just there for the knowledge. To be in a room full of students who are all there because they want to learn is actually a new experience for me. Perhaps I am romanticizing the whole thing a bit much. Of course having a college degree is an asset when it comes to finding a job, and not everyone can afford to go to a private university, but there is definitely a different level of engagement in classes that I don't think I have really seen in most of my previous classes. I could probably muse on UBA for many more paragraphs, and I'm sure there will be many more experiences to come, so I will move on.

Getting back to what began this whole digression, my Wednesday class. The class is about the role of philosophy in the literature of Jorge Luis Borges, probably Argentina's most famous writer ever. The class is exactly how everyone told me classes would be at UBA. I visited a few other UBA classes during the shopping period to try them out and they were smaller and less chaotic. In the art history class there was even a screen and a functioning slide projector. But Juegos Filosóficos y Enigmas Cientificas en la Literatura de Borges is a whole different ball game. Class started thirty minutes late. There were too many people to fit into the room and so people sat on the ground, stood in the hallway, listening wherever they could. Two groups of students tried to make announcements in the middle of class. We had a twenty minute break. The list goes on. I was joking with a friend after class that if you start with 100% comprehension in a class, I lost 25% automatically because the teacher was speaking a foreign language, but then lost another 25% because it was a philosophy class I probably wouldn't have been able to follow what he was saying even were he to have been speaking English. I'm sure that comprehension will go up as the semester continues, but is definitely going to be a challenge in so many ways.

My final class has, surprise surprise, actually not started yet. I am taking a six hour studio Drawing class on Thursdays at IUNA, Instituto Universitario Nacional de Arte. It is a higher level class, more of a project based, personal approach and pace type class. That's what I am expecting anyway, so we will see. I did visit the building where it will be however to sign up for the class and it bears more than one resemblance to Prentis Hall, Columbia's building on 125th dedicated to Sculpture and studios for grad students. I actually felt sort of at home already. The building is in La Boca which is unfortunately a bit of a trek from my apartment. But I will have more to say about this class when it begins next week!

While classes beginning and vacationing in Uruguay were the biggest adventures in my life of late, every day is punctuated by tiny happenings as well. On Friday I tried mate, the popular tea, for the first time while waiting at Immigrations to finalize the visa process. Buying school supplies was more exciting than usual because everything the options are so different and because the man in the store clearly found it unexplainable that we wouldn't know exactly what we wanted. And then I bought a fountain pen at the grocery store! I laid in the park and read about Borges and Harold Blooms ideas on the idea of the precursor. I sat at a restaurant near Puán, the UBA building, and was pleasantly surprised to receive a small glass of fresh orange juice, a glass of water with a pitcher to refill, and three small cookies that came with the café con leche that I ordered, and all for only 6 pesos, or about 2 dollars. I bought the complete works of Borges in four anthologies for under 100 US dollars. So you don't get too jealous, I also pass the time like a normal person - doing laundry, going to the gym, riding on public transportation, getting lost, and waiting in lines.

On a final note though, here are some pictures from La Paloma.

Town sign on the walk back from Costa Azul

Bahía Grande, closest to the hostel

Near the faro, great for afternoon napping

Costa Azul

The faro

View from the faro of Bahía Grande in foreground and Costa Azul in the background

One night after ice cream

Last morning at Bahía Grande

Stephanie and Me

What There Is (and Isn't)

2008-03-12T20:16:00.008-02:00

Well to be sure, as evidenced above, there is lots of foliage, and of all types. It is so wonderful to be walking down the street and see vines and bushes and trees and flowers. I especially love seeing the balconies of apartment buildings just filled with plants. It's quite different from New York. There, nobody can keep twenty plants on their balcony because 1) they don't have a balcony (but almost everyone here has some sort of balcony and 2) the plants would never make it through the frigid winter. Which brings me to my point. While I absolutely love it here, I am beginning to miss things from New York. This was to be expected, and honestly it's not a problem, it's just that the things I am missing are sort of weird. So here it goes.

These are some of the things that I am missing:

The Subway. The buses here are crazy, and the subte is limited.
Gummi candy. As many of you know, I could probably live off of Haribo gummi bears, but they don't really have gummi candy here. It's mostly chocolate and dulce de leche things, and the gummi candy they do have is no good, no good at all.
Coffee. Just a regular cup of drip coffee. You can really only get espresso, or espresso with milk, and heaven forbid you should want an iced coffee. I hear that there are two places to go in town. Two, and that's it.
American Apparel. I know it's silly, but I love their clothing, and while there are places similar here, nothing is quite the same.
Lettuce. The lettuce here is really sub par in my opinion, and it's really hard to get just a "normal" salad here. Salad means tomatoes, carrots, sometimes lettuce and that's it.
Spicy food. Yep, you have heard true about the lack of comida picante acá. No hay. There's good flavor, but sometimes it all blends together. I mean, you don't even get pepper at your table, heaven forbid some Cholula or Tabasco.

These are some of the things that I am not missing (because they are here too!):

Art Museums. This weekend I went to MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano Buenos Aires) and really enjoyed it. It's a beautiful new, modern building in a posh part of Buenos Aires that felt exactly like the Upper West Side. Their current exhibition called Autopsia de lo invisble featured a couple of new artists and some great thought-provoking art, including some flashy bling-bling bracelets made of gold, diamonds and shards of glass "from the car of homes of the victims or agressors of violent deaths related to illegal drug trafficking." Needless to say, this stuff was pretty heavy. Then we checked out the permanent collection, saw a Frida (!! very exciting, she was surrounded), as well as a number of switch activated light pieces, which were pretty cool. I also saw a few pieces by an Argentine artist named Léon Ferrari. I had seen a few of his pieces and the MoMA before I left at a show called New Perspectives on Latin American Art. It was really cool to go to right before I left and get a sense of some of the art history down here. I had discovered this guy who I really liked and then to see some more of his work, some pieces that were definitely more experimental and controversial (in my opinion), really expanded and complicated my understanding of his work on a whole. Anyway, below is the facade and the main hall of MALBA. It's a tiny museum, but I really liked it.

Circus. Yep, I am not missing circus here in the BsAs (as they like to abbreviate Buenos Aires here), even though I did miss it in New York. There it was a chichi activity that I really couldn't afford to do very often, if at all. But here, while it is still a chichi activity, the exchange rate is totally in my favor and I can go to classes! I found a place in the Palermo neighborhood and I am going to classes for an hour and a half, twice a week. It is sort of like circus camp at Colorado Academy jammed into one day. We do calisthenics, tumbling, juggling, rolling globe, rola-bola, fabric, trapeze, hoop, and so much more! It really is so fun. I am learning a bunch of new, and mostly useless, Spanish circus vocabulary and doing things that I have never done, even at CA. It is great to see how other people approach circus, their different tricks, and routines. I have been taking notes in case I even return to teaching circus. One of the coolest parts for me though is interacting with the teachers and all the other students in Spanish. Most of the time, so far anyway, I am surrounded by other Americans, and unfortunately we speak English. But there are no other Americans in my circus class, and while I clearly am the foreigner, struggling to communicate, everyone is very nice and patient with me. Maybe I will even make some friends for outside of the classroom. Who knows.

Cultural Activities. Buenos Aires is just like New York in that there is something to do, all the time. My best, and most recent, example of this was my Monday evening activity. There is a cultural center here called Konex (what an idea! go to a cultural center for cultural activities!) where they seem to host many different events. It is a couple of industrial buildings, hollowed out, and also with a big open space, much like a yard, but with less grass and more concrete. Some of the cultural events must be circus ones because I saw a triple trapeze and a flying trapeze rig as well, which of course excited me. They also seem to be putting on a Spanish language version of Rent at the end of this month, which I am definitely going to try to go to. This Monday evening however I was at a concert for a band called La Bomba del Tiempo, a percussion group whose performances are basically entirely improvisational. There are probably fifteen men in the group and it was really neat to see how they all worked together. The concert was quite the place to be, absolutely jam packed with all of the cool, young people in Buenos Aires, who apparently spilled out and congregated in the street when they were no longer allowed in. For a while I thought I missed hipsters and the Brooklyn vibe, but I totally found it here at Konex. It's a different hipster, because after all the New York hipster is a world apart from other hipsters, but these BsAs kids were definitely hipsters. Konex also reminded me of what the vibe might have been like at the McCarren Park Pool Parties this summer. I personally did not attend, but I can imagine, and I imagine that it would have been like La Bomba del Tiempo at Konex. Also, this is a regular event, every Monday evening, so I hope to return, and have another young, cool, cultural evening.

"I see a hill!"

2008-03-03T12:15:00.019-02:00

I have returned to Argentina. From where you say? That nearby country, Uruguay! I feel like I am becoming quite the world traveler, receiving oodles of salida and entrada stamps in my previously barren passport. This past weekend I took a trip to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. Legend has it that when Magellan's ship happened upon this new land, someone shouted "Monte vide eu" which in Portuguese translates to, "I see a hill." Another story involves the Spaniards, roman numerals and latin which I didn't quite follow as my traveling companion read aloud from the guide book. Whatever the actually story of how the town got its name, I am so glad I went to visit this city, that apparently has the highest quality of life of all the cities in Latin America. I found it quiet, laid-back and slightly crumbling.

To get to Uruguay from Buenos Aires is actually quite easy. There are many ferries across the Río del la Plata each day. The Buquebus ferry was very nice, very speedy, and overly air-conditioned. It was spitting rain when we arrived in Montevideo but luckily it cleared up later that afternoon. We dropped off our bags at the hostel, that was filled with many international youths as all hostels across the world are, and then headed out to explore the streets of Montevideo. We spent most of our time in the ciudad vieja, so my impressions of the city are probably a bit different than had I spent a week getting to know all the different neighborhoods.

Walking around, one can still feel the European influence in the architecture, but the buildings have not been maintained as well as in Buenos Aires. There are many statues on many corners, commemorating past war heroes, political leaders, and the such. One of my traveling companions told me this interesting tidbit of information, that I have to confirm, but thought I would share anyway: if the horse in a statue has one hoof off the ground, the man received wounds in battle; if the horse has two hoofs off the ground, the man actually died in battle; and if all four hoofs are on the ground, then the man died of natural causes. We don't know what it means if three hoofs are off the ground, and we didn't see any statues like that, but I did have fun the rest of the weekend checking out the hoof position of all the statues we saw. Apparently José Gervasio Artigas, the Uruguayan liberator pictured below, received wounds in battle, but did not die from them. After a quick Google check, José does not seem to have died in battle, but the connection between raised hoofs in statues and battle wounds seems to be a myth.

We wandered through the old city passing mostly tourists on the streets. The city felt very deserted. We had read in the guide books that Montevideo feels like a ghost town, but being the capital of Uruguay, and with a population over a million, I wasn't ready to believe it till I saw it. The books were right this time though. Perhaps because it was a weekend, perhaps because we were in a certain neighborhood, but whatever the cause, more often than not, we would turn down a street and see only two or three other people around. It was very peaceful, but also, sometimes a bit eerie.

Strolling along the coastline on Saturday afternoon, we watched the people fish, chat, relax, and of course, drink the ever present maté. This is an herbal drink that is very popular in Argentina as well. Everyone drinks it out a very particular cup, and a metal spoon. It is a social activity sometimes, with people sitting around, passing around the maté cup. While I have yet to try any maté, it seems to popular with people of ages, and walks of life. While maté is surely popular in Buenos Aires, it really is ubiquitous in Uruguay. They all have their little thermos of maté tucked in the nook of their elbow, and a cup in the other hand, sipping as they go about their day.

Sunday we went to Playa Ramírez, a twenty minute walk from our hostel, and pictured below. Unfortunately, the sky did indeed look like this all day. Nonetheless, we got burned anyway, tricked into thinking cloud=no sun damage. I never seem to learn this lesson no matter how many times it has happened to me. It was still a nice day, and I felt so lucky to just be able to sit on the beach all day, with literally, not a care in the world.

We took the last buquebus back to Buenos Aires late on Sunday night. I still can't believe that I was actually in Uruguay this weekend, but it happened and I have some great memories from the small time I was there. I ate some good food, soaked up the sun, and even learned a little military history (almost)!

La Primera Semana

2008-02-27T20:45:00.018-02:00

Hoy es miércoles, and tomorrow will be the end of my first week in Buenos Aires. I really can't believe that I get to spend another five months in this beautiful city. I have to keep reminding myself that I don't have to see everything immediately; there will be time to see the city and enjoy it quietly.

After a lazy last day in New York and the most expensive taxi of my life to get to Newark Airport, I flew to Houston, where the plane picked up the other lucky travelers on their way to Buenos Aires. There were a number of other American students from my program (CIEE-FLACSO) on the plane and we all awkwardly stood around, discussing whether or not we over packed. On the flight I sat next to a guy who had recently finished his mandatory conscription in the Israeli army and was headed to South America to travel with his friends for six months. We chatted about his travel plans, and my study plans. After an uneventful flight, we landed at Ezeiza International Airport. A charter bus took a large group of CIEE students, or Flacsitos as we are called, to the hotel were we stayed for two nights until everyone moved into their respective housing. That evening the entire group went to eat at a very nice restaurant in the Puerto Madero neighborhood. I felt bad for the other patrons, having to share the restaurant with a group of 120 American students, but the food was quite good and accompanied by, of course, local Argentine wine.

The next day we began our orientation by meeting the staff, taking a test to gauge our proficiency in Spanish, and learning how to use the colectivos. In Buenos Aires there are a few subway lines (it is called the subte) but the main mode of public transportation are the buses. There are over 500 different bus lines! The stops are not always clearly marked, sometimes distinguished by "that tree over there," and the buses only take correct change, which I am learning, is hard to come by in Buenos Aires. Everyone wants to keep theircentavos for themselves. The orientation activities were for the most part helpful and sometimes redundant - like most orientation activities. That evening I ventured out with some newly made friends to a Greek restaurant in the Palermo neighborhood, where we watched heel slapping dancers and broke plates on the ground. It was a true tourist experience. After the waiter tried to give us menus in English and I spied two other tables of Americans, I decided to try and avoid restaurants recommended by the guide book.

The next day everyone split into small groups and we took walking tours of a small area in Buenos Aires. My group visited Puerto Madero, the newest, and some say most expensive, area of town. The neighborhood has only recently become a restoration project for the city, beginning in 1989. The area was the original location of a new canal, at the end of the 19th century. Madero's design however was obsolete by the time the project was finished and Buenos Aires had to build another port, this time by Huergo. Madero's canal is now recognizable because of Santiago Calatrava's Puente de Mujer, built in 2001.

Later we visited the ecological reserve on the edge of the water. During the last regime of military dictators in the late 1970's and early 1980's the land was created to expand the city, but when nothing was immediately done with it, flora and fauna began moving in, and in 1986 a group of ecologists convinced the government to turn it into a reserve. While it might not be considered a spectacularly beautiful destination (my host family says they haven't been there in six years) I found it charming in its simplicity. There were no enormous tropical plants, and the river is brown from the sediment, but seeing modern glassy skyscrapers rising from behind the slightly rundown Costanera Sur, was spectacular in its own right.

That afternoon I moved in with my host family, a young married couple, in the Recoleta neighborhood. Leo, the husband owns his own business, and Soledad, the wife, is studying Marketing. I am their fifth student, so they know the drill, which I think really helps. We eat dinner together most nights, and watch Argentine talk shows. The shows are like US Weekly, but every night, and on TV - I can't wait until I know all of the local personalities enough to enjoy the gossip. Soledad tries to explain all of the slang to me, but they all talk so fast, it's usually pretty hard to keep up. I think if one day I can understand RSM (that's the TV show), I will be very proud of my Spanish abilities. Anyway, my room at the apartment is really nice. I have a window facing the street with lots of light and a little desk where I can sit and study or use the computer, like I am right now. It is great to be living with two people who know the city so well, because they are so eager to help and answer all my questions. At the same time, we all have our separate lives and routines and they respect that. I have plenty of personal space, but I am not completely isolated. I feel really lucky to have such a great living situation.

But back to my Argentine adventures! On Sunday, the day after our caminata por Puerto Madero I wandered around Buenos Aires by myself for a good four or five hours. I walked in a few circles since my internal compass hasn't adjusted to this new city yet, but I think I am getting better. I took the subway a few times and ran into the famous Recolta Cemetary where many famous Argentines are buried, including Evita herself. Even though it was a Sunday and the entrance was crowded with tourists, it was easy to get lost and wander in solitude. Each tomb has its own personality and I think I could go a hundred times and find a new corner to explore.

I can only hope that every weekend here I am so good about getting out and exploring the city! There is so much to see, I know that no matter how much I see, when it is time to leave in July, there will still be places that I didn't get around to visiting. I just hope those places are few and far between.

This week so far has been filled with more orientation sessions reviewing program rules, the housing system, and other such information. We have just begun to learn about the registration process at the different universities where we can enroll and will begin registering at the beginning of next week. Most classes will begin the following week, and some even after that, so we all still have lots of free time on our hands. I have plans to go to Uruguay this weekend, which is just across the river and see Montevideo and Colonia. Hopefully the next post will involve lots of pictures of the beach!