Wednesday went to Borges class after spending most of the afternoon at the burrito place for lunch. The burrito place is rather expensive (lunch costs $4US, which is a lot here). its run by two guys from California who are 25 or 26ish. they basically didn’t know what to do with themselves after college, so they moved here and opened up a burrito place in microcentro (kind of a cross between wall street and midtown…the working area).
Thursday I had my last History of the US class (I got an A on my 15 page paper), then I went to a café with Megan for the last time. Then I went to art history which was so boring because we’ve basically stopped paying attention. then Diana and I went to COPA so I could fax the office in the US. she’s from Tufts, but not in the COPA program. we met up with Meagan (different one) and Sandra and went to the burrito place (yes, two days in a row). Sandra split off to go back to COPA and the three of us wound up in the middle of an unemployment protest. I was able to play it off like I was a journalist (small notebook and all). the protest was because the people were offered jobs a month ago on public cleaning projects (kind of like how our government had a lot of public works jobs during the great depression in the 30s). being that its Argentina they hadn’t seen any of these jobs and were mad…that’s sort of how politics works here. so they came from mostly within the city but some people came from the provinces to protest…they closed down ½ of one of the avenidas (big streets) for 5ish blocks and generally pissed the police off (but not enough to cause problems). When we got through the protest, we went to the Plaza de Mayo (main square). we went into the Cathedral and saw the tomb of General San Martín (he liberated Argentina and most of the southern part of South America….he is the major figure here…they are obsessed). We also walked through a smaller protest (not sure what this one was for) where the people seemed to be dancing…again, no idea why. We went to cabildo (the town hall) and walked through the craft fair, which was tiny and expensive…we then walked through cabildo and realized that it was not worth actually going to the museum. we crossed the street into the plaza de mayo where the mothers had began marching. every Thursday afternoon, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo march around in a circle. They are marching to remember their children who were killed during the dictatorship. what they represent though has become way more political than that. the head of their organization on 11 sept, went on the news saying that the US got what it deserved and she was happy about it. my host mom can’t stand them. most of the women wear white kerchiefs on their heads with their children’s name embroidered on it. So, we did the tourist thing and took some pictures of them and stuff, then sat for a while talking to some American students visiting BsAs, then left Diana so Meagan and I could go to History of America. We had the last hist of amer class, where again we didn’t pay much attention…granted it was basically story hour. The teacher basically read us personal accounts of the founders of Argentina for two hours. then we all went to this café thing where my class consumed about 10 bottles of beer (that’s basically a liter a person, except some did have more and others less). I had a liquado (which is water, ice, and fruit) because they were super cheap and I hadn’t had one yet. I finally got home at 10 PM completely exhausted.
Friday I woke up to terrible rain, but packed my computer up and went to aroma (british café chain, they only place with wifi and outlets; and efficiency…) to meet Sandra. we worked on our final paper for our grammar class and basically enjoyed having internet for a little while. Then we went to a restaurant to meet up with some other people for lunch. At lunch my friend Marc (from Tufts) called me to say that he and 7 other Tufts people who are doing Tufts-in-Chile had arrived (I knew they were coming). We agreed to meet at the Plaza de Mayo later. I finished my lunch and went home to get some stuff done. Then I went to meet them and we hung out downtown…went to catedral again and the museum of the casa rosada (the presidential office building; he doesn’t live within the city). During the time, Blythe called me about going to her host family’s cousin’s sister’s aunt’s dog’s friend’s gallery opening (really, I still don’t understand whose event this was). I left the Tufts group, who were heading off to take a nap anyway, and went to meet her at a different Aroma. We walked to the gallery which wound up being outside under the highway by this little strip of restaurants and cafes (that are all very trendy). the art was really pretty: glass vase, that were super interesting, sculptures with glass and paintings. There was also plenty of champagne and lots of trendy/arts porteños. We talked to her host mom and the family members who had art in the show and more people I don’t know. During this time we went to Havana (the Starbucks of BsAs) and sat outside, which meant we were basically in the middle of the gallery, to have coffee. Then we went to another part of the gallery night because we realized that there were a lot of galleries across the street also. we wandered around a little and then sat in this expensive hotel to chill for a little while. Then I took the bus home (got home at 11:15), ate dinner and changed because I was supposed to meet the Tufts people…We met up at plaza Italia, they were late and walked to Plaza Serrano. We hung out there for an hour, where they made fun of me for my accent and we talked about Santiago and BsAs and stuff. Then they wanted to go dancing so we went back to Plaza Italia and got a bus to another area of the city and went to Meluca Beleza, which is the Brasilian club which I had been dying to go to.
Saturday I went to Aroma (again) to meet Sandra and Meagan and “do some homework,” which never happened….oh well…I didn’t really have much anyway. Then we went out and got ice cream to bring back to Aroma (their ice cream is really expensive and not that good). After, I went to Sandra’s so she could drop off her stuff and then we went to Amy’s where we made pasta and sauce. Her family ate dinner with us and we sat around talking. When we left it was pouring out and we ran for the colectivo to go to the movies. When we got near the movie theater, Amy texted Meagan to say I had left my phone there. I had to go back for it because that was the only way the Tufties had of contacting me. So I managed to take three colectivos in half an hour. When I got to Amy’s she had left with her host brother and my phone. I sat and talked to her host sister until she got back. Then I ran back to the movies-luckily it had stopped raining. We saw a 1AM showing. It was an Argentine movie called Nacido y Criado (Born and Raised). The movie was about a man whose daughter dies in a car crash and he leaves he wife in BsAs and moves to Pategonia to work at a local airport and drink all day. It wasn’t that good and was way too long (2 hours) for what it should have been. Meagan and Shannon had to watch it for their class. Having only had four hours of sleep, I practically fell asleep during the movie and then after on the bench outside. Luckily Shannon was taking a cab anyway, so I jumped in and rode the five/six blocks to my house.
Sunday I woke up and did some homework. Then I went to San Telmo with Sandra where we realized how we could spend all of our money there…the stuff is really fun – its antiques, random Buenos Aires tourist junk and great earrings, shoes, and clothes which are all made by artists. Afterwards I went to the Boca Juniors game. I had been dying to go but my friends here were somewhat scared or just didn’t want to go at all. The games can get pretty rowdy, but I felt so safe where I was. We got the cheapest tickets, which meant we were sitting in the bleachers (if I equate this to baseball), but we couldn’t actually sit for the game because everyone stands and yells and stuff. Its lots of fun. It was just me and the guys (Marc and Ben) because the girls had to wait for Leah who was with another friend in BsAs before the game. We wound up in the middle of a bunch of Brits, which wasn’t that great…it would have been better to be in the middle of Argentines. Boca played terribly, but still beat the Argentina juniors 2-1. it was really pretty effortless to get into the stadium, we were pat down which was complete useless because both women missed the clutch I had with my medicine. I had put it inside my pants which caused this bulge in my thigh and was really obvious…but they missed it. After the game it was no big deal to get onto a colectivo that was convenient for the guys and me. We had been warned we might have to wait four or five buses, but the first one had plenty of space. I got home and had homemade gnocchi which my host mom had prepared for her friends who were over. Then we made plans to go to the beach in two weekends.
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