San Miguel, Tango, Tierra Santa

Thursday, I went to some classes at USAL: History of the US, History of Art/Culture of America/Argentina, History of America. I think I might take all of them. I spent the day figuring out how to work my new cell phone and realizing that the 24 hours I had to wait, was for the battery to charge (that took about 6 hours). I had to wait an additional 24 hours for the line to actually be set up. That was the info I encountered after going to three Movistars (cell phone company).

Friday, I haven’t got the slightest idea what I did during the morning. I walked to COPA (it took over an hour), passing through a Jewish neighborhood, where I went to a Kosher foodstore and bough imported Israeli pretzels (they don’t make pretzels in Argentina). I later discovered that in the supermarket near my house they have the same pretzels (more expensive), which is nice to know. The foodstore near my house has an imported food section, 1/3 of which is beer (Heineken, Stella, Corona), 1/3 is tea, and 1/3 is a random mix of pickles, pretzels and Pringles. I had the last Argentine history class at COPA in the afternoon and spent the rest of the evening at my friend’s apartment just hanging out.

Saturday, a bunch of us tried to go to Luján, which is this town about 1.5 hours away with a huge basilica and museum. The legend is that a Brazilian was trying to move a statue of the virgin mary in the 1600s (I think), but his cart got stuck in the mud. He took this as a sign from god that the virgin was to remain in this town and built a basilica for her. Every year, porteños walk to Luján to celebrate the statue (we were not planning on walking). Saturday morning we gathered at my friend’s apartment to go to Luján. We had a porteño with us (who arrived 2.5 hours late). My guide books said that to get to Luján, you can take colectivo 57 from plaza Italia (near my house) or two trains from once. The porteño said you could take a train from retiro. However, this was not the case. Some nice/helpful policemen told us to take the train to Nogués (Malvinas) and take a colectivo from there to Luján. So we paid our 30 cents, took an hour long train ride and wound up in this tiny town, which was actually kind of cute in a run-down-this-feels-like-a-third-world-country kinda way. It looked a lot like Kosovo (yes I have pictures). We found out that the colectivo to Luján only runs on Sunday (we’re not really sure if this is true or not, it’s the consensus after asking 5 other colectivo drivers and a bunch of locals). So, we took a colectivo to San Miguel (apparently there is a colectivo for Luján from San Miguel). When we got to San Miguel, we found out that the collective was the same one from Buenos Aires (the 57) and cost a lot (you have to pay with coins/moneda which is hard to do when you need 4 pesos worth). Also, Luján was anywhere between 1-1.5 hours away, no one could really give us a straight answer. So, we spent the day in San Miguel. We were clearly the only tourists there. It was a really cute town, we went to the main plaza and the cathedral (which like every single other town in South America, was on the main plaza – yay Spanish city planners). We ate outside because it was warm enough. I bought two rings for one peso (yes that 15 cents each) which are going to break before I get home, but for 15 cents, who cares? When it was time to leave we found out that San Miguel has a fabulous 30 cent train to get back to Buenos Aires (which actually stops right near my house). We went to Recoleta and had ice cream outside, by this time, it was pretty cold. Then we watched Down with Love (Rachel you might like this movie) in Spanish with Spanish subtitles…which didn’t actually match up. Then we had dinner at like 11 PM (yay Argentine time!). When I finally got home and told my mom about my day her only remark was San Miguel?, What an ugly town.

Sunday, we went to the World Championship of Tango exhibition. It was great. Wow, tango is really hard to dance and there were about a million people there watch (because its free!). after that, we walked around the botánico and then came back to my apartment for tea. Then, I made meatloaf for dinner. It was great, we still have left overs. I figured out the entire recipe, remembered it all and converted quantities in my head. It wasn’t really like the meatloaf at home because we didn’t have the same soup mix, so we used real onions….and we had actually argentine beef…and I mean really, you can’t beat that. And, on my 45 minute tour of the supermarket, I found fajita mix (imported from the US)! So, I’m gonna make fajitas!! I also found salsa (the “Mexican” kind, imported from the US) and tortilla chips. Every time I go to the supermarket, its always a huge test. Like breadcrums, which would logically be with the other carbs such as mashed potato mix and rice and instant polenta, are actually in the meat section. Hello, what are these people thinking!!! I have to ask a million people where the heck I can find certain things and its sooo complicated.

Monday was feriado!!! Which means no work or school and most businesses aren’t open. We went to Tierra Santa (literally, the Holy Land), a religious theme park in western Buenos Aires. It was really hysterical, like 40’ tall plastic Jesus rises every ½ hour to the tune of Hallelulah (spelling?). the whole place was supposed to be Jerusalem (the sign outside says you can go to Jerusalem every day of the year without having to leave Bs.As.), which included plastic palm trees, mountains and lots of dusty gravel. There were animatronic shows of creation, the birth of jesus, and the last supper. In addition, there were statue/figures of many religious icons, like ghandi and martin luther side by side. Needless to say, we have many very comical pictures of ourselves and these statues. Really, words cannot do Tierra Santa justice; it is just too funny. The theme park is actually right on the river, so we went and looked out on the brown water. After, we went to Chinatown (all very calm two blocks of it) and ate yummy Chinese food. The porteño we were with had never had Chinese food and could not figure out why we didn’t have bread. The only thing he really liked were the meat spring rolls (hello Chinese empanadas!!).

Tuesday, I finally did my laundry and went to the gym to run and went to pilates. The first song was Madonna, hung up (yes steve, I thought of you and your tdc-obsessiveness with music). My mom and I went to pick up her grandson from school for lunch and we had gnocchi which she spent all morning making. And, the maid came, which meant we spent half the morning quizzing the maid as to where our stuff was…like the bra I left on my closet door to wear... I had dinner at the program director’s house which was a lot of fun because he and his boyfriend are awesome and really really funny. It was also really good to see some of the people from COPA that I hadn’t seen in a while.