Wednesday I spent at COPA working on my History of US paper, which my tutor read and told me was great. Then I had Borges class. Then I went to a café with Blythe…we discovered another internet café.
Thursday I had two classes and then came home and basically napped (I was supposed to be working on my art history paper….i can’t get into it….i would much rather write another history paper).
Friday, I woke up to the sound of rain hitting the porch roof of the apartment below us. I called COPA to see if we were still going to Tigre (about 45 min north). Daniel, my favorite COPA staffer, answered and in a very peppy voice (esp because it was 9 AM), told me of course you’re still going to Tigre! So I headed to the Torre de Los Ingleses/Retiro to meet up with our guides and pick up my bicycle. By the time my colectivo got there it had stopped raining. I bumped into another COPA girl on the colectivo and we talked about how we couldn’t remember the last time we were on a bike (this seemed to be very common even though we chose to go on this bicycle excursion). We took a train to La Lucila which is in the suburb of Vincente Lopez. From there we rode for about 2-3 hours (stopping and taking breaks). We rode through nice neighborhoods and slummy areas (which weren’t really that slummy). All of these suburbs are right along the river. It’s the widest river in the world (or so they claim, but as I’ve come to learn, Argentine’s will claim just about anything. Its also a very disgusting looking brown river which makes the Hudson look swimmable.
Sandra was the first to fall off her bike which was a very hilarious fall (she was perfectly fine). She was trying to turn onto this stone path thing on the side of a ditch. She went too slowly and turned to much, started heading down the ditch (on the bike), the bike came out from under her and she wound up with her (helmeted) head below her knees. She was perfectly fine…no scrapes or anything and is very mad that I did not take a picture of her. From there we went out to a lookout area where we could see the city. Then we went to another lookout area and had snacks and mate. Mate started in northern Argentina with the Guraní people. When the Jesuits came they found the Guaraní drinking herbs our of gourds and basically stole the tradition. What you do is, take herbs (special herbs from the mate plant) and put them in a gourd called a mate. You pour hot water (not boiling) in and drink it from a special straw what has a strainer on the bottom. The custom is that one person drinks a gourd full (this isn’t very much) and passes it on to the next person who drinks one and then passes it on. Yes, its somewhat germy, you basically share the same straw with up to 20 people (one of my friends was in a class where they passed around one mate for the whole class. Its not super common in Buenos Aires (actually its more common in Uruguay, but don’t tell the Argentines that because it started here). Also, in Paraguay and Brasil, they drink it cold and sometimes put juice in it. Its super bitter, but I kinda like it. There are all these rules that go along with how to politely drink mate and what to say to the server and stuff…its somewhat complicated.
We continued to ride along the river until we got to San Isidro where we saw the cathedral and where the rich people live (and the view they have of the lovely brown river). We kept riding through San Fernando until we got to Tigre (we left the train at about 11:30 and go to Tigre for lunch at 3ish). We went to the Puerto de Frutas (fruit port) where they used to bring in fruits to the city and ate sandwiches there. Then we rode through Tigre (saw the Parque de la Costa, the closest roller coasters to the city) and went on to our Kayak place.
So Sandra and I in a Kayak was rather hilarious...mostly cause we got the bum kayak…our steering mechanism was missing….which meant we had to steer with our oars…which the instructors neglected to teach us when we were on dry land. So now were in this river thing where all the tourist boats (big) and boys crew teams are. We’re trying desperately to not hit any boats (we hit the stone walls several times). I started saying things like, “we want to hit that boat on the left side, cause I can work us out of that…if we hit on the right, we’re stuck between the boat and the wall…ok, push left.” Then we almost hit one of the stone supports for the car bridge and we screamed, which made these guys on the bank crack up (we pretty much did the same thing on the way back, even though we tried really hard to miss the bridge). We make it out of the stone wall part and have to cross the bigger river…which of course starts to pull us down stream. We make it into the other small river (it was like crossing the street). We are clearly the last kayak and the instructors had to wait for us….which was somewhat embarrassing. We finally explain to one of them that we keep heading right (aka into the river bank) and she realizes that’s because our rudder is stuck in the position for turning right…so it wasn’t just us. We had to work against this, so we were super tired and couldn’t figure out how everyone else was finding this so much easier than us. So now, we get going and 5 feet later its time to turn around. Sandra started to really get the whole left right steering thing and I was the stupid one. We crashed into a lot of other kayaks (like the bike guides…and alex and brandon’s boat like 5 times).
We finally got back to the Kayak place (we were the first boat in the water and the last boat out). At least we weren’t Alex and Brandon, who had to pour the bathtub out of their boat (I really don’t know how they didn’t sink…they had so much water in their boat). The river was so gross. It smelled and was full of garbage. Thank god we didn’t fall in it…I had sort of prepared myself for falling in. I really though we would, but we didn’t. after that, we went to the bathroom/put shoes back on/drank some water and then….got back on the damn bicycles…which was very bad. Luckily we just had to ride to the bridge (about 5 blocks away) and cross to the train station. We got back on the train and headed to Buenos Aires. By the time I got home it was 8:30 PM and I was exhausted…my shoulders and crotch were also screaming at me in plain…a lot of pain. My host mom and I ate dinner and I went to bed.
Saturday I woke up and worked on my paper. Then I thought about going to the movies and went to Steve’s house where we decided to go back to my house and work on our papers/midterms…so practical. Saturday night I went to dinner with the girls. We went to TGI Fridays which was horribly tacky and expensive, but they did have pretty good fajitas (which is hard to come by here – considering most food here is exactly the same everywhere).
Sunday, I woke up and watched West Wing (thanks to Blythe for lending me all of her seasons 1 and 2). Then I went to the outdoor market at San Telmo, which is a sort of artsy barrio in the southern side of the city. Most of the fair is antiques (literally antiques, mostly junk), but there are some other stands which are jewelry and art stuff. It was absolutely packed with tourists and I think I heard more people speaking English than Spanish. Afterwards I walked to the theater Colón to try to get tickets to take a tour. I had actually got there too late so I’ll have to do it some other day. I went home to finish working on my midterm. Sunday was Mother’s Day here so we had the daughter and grandchildren over. They brought Lola, the yellow lab (yay!). getting Lola into the apartment was a challenge because they could only use the service elevator which stops ½ a floor away (in the stairwell). Getting the dog up the ½ flight of steps was nearly impossible…the dog is afraid of everything including changes in floor surfaces, electrical wires, and apparently stairs. My host mom had spent all week preparing this meat dish which was sliced cold meat (it needed days to cool properly) with a sauce of mayonnaise, mustard and egg with crumbled hardboiled egg on top. Honestly it wasn’t worth the weeks wait, but whatever. Then we had Chinese food, which was really just noodles with chicken and veggies…no rice (there was bread), no soup, no wings (I really miss wings, Chinese restaurants here don’t have wings). After that my host mom had prepared a scavenger hunt for the 8 year old grandson. Yes, this was mother’s day, but she hand whipped cream for her granddaughter (who didn’t really want it), made a dish she makes once a year, and designed a scavenger hunt all over the house for her grandson (and bought him this trading cards to be prizes). The dinner was fun and tiring.
Monday, I woke up to four messages from steve (steve my friend here, not the one from tufts) saying he was awake and wanted to go to a café to study or something…I put that off until noonish. We went to the café where I sat on the internet for three hours and had a fantastic salad (which is pretty much an oxymoron here). Then we went to steve’s house because my computer died (they don’t believe in outlets in cafes or pretty much anywhere here). Then I went to the movies and saw The Wind that Blew the Barley (I think that was what it was called)…it won the Cannes film festival. Its about Ireland in the 1920s and Irish and British fighting…it was really sad, but good. Then we went and had more Chinese food (twice in two days is amazing!!). next we went to burger king because amy wanted soft serve ice cream and then I walked home and watched more west wing before going to bed.
Tuesday was another working on the paper day for me. Spent most of the day at COPA, went to a café with Blythe. Watched some TV. Edited my paper some more. Slept…forgot about pilates…oops!
Wednesday was yet another day at COPA…starting to get sick of going there.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Noche de los museos
Wednesday I spent a lot of time at COPA using the internet. I talked to Rachel and Steve for a really long time, which was really nice considering the time differences. I was supposed to be working on my paper, but it all worked out…Then Maria, Alex and I went to Borges class together and almost lost/forgot Alex on the colectivo. She was at the front and Maria and I were at the back. I knew where to get off, but couldn’t see Alex anymore. I had to run to the middle door which was about to close…luckily the driver say me/Alex lunging to get out and re-opened the door. After class, I shocked Bryan by actually having a subte pass. He nearly fell over…usually I don’t have a pass and I waste time by buying one (or Glen spots me a ride). Maria’s cell phone was stolen at a concert over the weekend. There was this series of concerts that were free and a really big deal that I didn’t go to. She went to one and her bag was cut while she was dancing. I saw the bottom of it; it was a leather bag and had two gashes about 4 inches long each in it. When I told my host mom about it later she was like, oh yeah, there was a time when that would happen daily, no big deal. They don’t use a knife, they have rings with blades on them. It happened to us in Brasil. I was just like umm, sure, that’s perfectly normal….not. she told me that the blade can’t cut skin and I refrained from pointing out that leather is pretty damn thick and if a blade can cut through leather that it can sure as hell cut through skin.
Thursday I went to US history and art history and then went to Sierra’s house to study before our American History midterm/final/only grade in this class. The test was pretty much exactly what I wanted/planned on it being, which was fantastic. I think I wrote about 8 full sides of paper in response to three questions. My hand nearly fell off. It was a really interesting test because the Argentines are having their midterm next week (we take different tests because their classes are year-long, so we don’t know everything they do). They were having class and talking and stuff in the same room as us. We were also allowed to talk to each other somewhat during the test. We didn’t talk about the questions…just made comments about how we couldn’t wait to be done writing and stuff. We also had three hours to take the test (which is the duration of a class period). After class, Meagan, Steve and I went to Shannon’s so I could tell her happy birthday (and give her a Kinder Egg, Rachel you better know what these are…they have them in London also) and that I wasn’t going out to dinner with them. Then I got home at like 10ish…and had dinner with my host mom and basically fell over into bed.
Friday I woke up early and worked on my paper for US history and my midterm-thing for Borges class. I also went to the gym and ran 4km. I went to the fish store to buy some stuff for lunch and the woman there was like, “where are you from? Utah? Utah? Utah? I have a cousin’s niece’s friend’s uncle’s brother in Utah. Do you live near there? Do you know them?” I kindly explained that I live near NYC (saying New Jersey means absolutely nothing here) and that’s about a 4 hour plain ride from Utah. I’m pretty sure she said Utah at least 10 times. Then I went to tango class and then came straight home for work on my paper some more. My host mom and I were sitting around the table having tea and bread. She took out the middle of the bread (the soft part) and rolled it in a ball because she doesn’t like that part. She then told me that the poor kids in the campo (field/plains/area outside the city) use this part as an eraser for their schoolwork. So I went to my room, got paper and a pencil and guess what?? It actually sort of works (apparently my pencil was too high in quality…way to go Tufts bookstore!!). Her only comment was, “these are the ways of 3rd world countries.”
Saturday I woke up early again to work on my paper some more. I had the last tango class…really, I’m not that sad. Classes are ok. I actually like most of the COPA people in the class and we have fun, but I’m a rather practical person and I know that I’m never going to dance tango again and I’m ok with that. After tango I went to Plaza Congreso to take some pictures of it. Then I walked to Recoleta to meet Meagan. We went to Steve’s instrumental concert and I saw the big metal flower (not that interesting, supposedly it opens and closes with the sun, I think it might be a machine…). The concert was in Facultad de Derecho (the UBA law school), which is a really nice looking Greek building (with columns and all) from the outside, but very ugly inside. Then Meagan and I went to the Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum) to pick up material about the Noche de los Museos (Night of the Museums). We figured out a “game plan” and walked up through the Recoleta fair, where I got a giant empanada for dinner.
We went to the Centro Cultural Recoleta and saw the Borges travel photos and an exhibit about disappeared people that wasn’t really effective and mostly just weird. It wasn’t just about the disappeared people in Argentina; it included a bunch of other countries as well. We met up with Steve, Shannon, Sandra and Amy. We hung out at Meagan’s for a little while and then left for the museums (without Shannon).
We first went to La Boca where the colectivo didn’t go quite as far as it appeared on the map, which meant we were walking around La Boca at 11PM. On any other night this would have been a terrible thing to do, but because it was noche de los museos, there were people everywhere. We went to three art museums (Teatro Rivera, la Quinquela, y Fundación Próa), one outdoor museum that we had been through before and the Boca museum (literally a blue and yellow museum in the stadium dedicated to the fútbol team and with Nike logos everywhere. After the museum is the gift shop which is also plastered with Nike logos and blue and yellow everywhere. The prices are very American and clearly the whole thing is set up for tourists.
After La Boca we got on another colectivo and went to Puerto Madero (the trendy/hip/new area of the city). Noche de los museos was having a final party there. We never made it to the party because we went to another museum instead. This one was a boat, which was really cool to walk around on (we ignored the exhibit and explored the boat). It was a fun night, but there were way too many of us and we should have left earlier to start going to museums. We were especially amazed at how organized the entire night was….we’re talking people in T-shirts everywhere (to answer ?s) and all the museums had the booklets with info about the night….it was pretty amazing…considering we’re in Argentina.
Sunday I woke up and did some more homework. That was pretty much all. I went to a café and used the internet…for quite a while. Rachel sent me an article from the NYTimes online that had a picture from Tufts. That was cool.
Monday, more homework!! Went to the Lincoln Library at ICANA (North American Cultural Center) which was an interesting experience. The library is basically the size of three tufts doubles put together, but has higher ceilings. Its very American in that almost all of the books are in English and they are arranged by the dewy decimal system and you can touch them!! (this does not happen at the national library where you have to order them and watch a TV screen to find out when they are brought upstairs for you). I was the only person under 30 there and for a while, the only female. It was 2-3 business men reading the New York times. People come in and out. Phones ring. Everyone has to walk up to the desk when the enter and ask the guy working how is he and whats new and so on and so forth. They didn’t actually have half the books my teacher told to use there, which goes to show that even though the library is very American and the class is history of America, the teacher is still very Argentine. All in all, it was a fine experience; I got some sources for my paper. Then I went to COPA to use the internet and to actually finish my paper – the library didn’t have outlets and my computer does need power, occasionally- they don’t really believe in putting outlets everywhere here…its nearly impossible to find any in cafes that have wifi also. I had a tutor read my paper and it was like being 12 again with tons of little mistakes… then I went home and had dinner with my host mom. Apparently, the news paper said that Argentina is the country that eats the most beef (which is pretty much common knowledge around the world), but I can’t actually remember the last time I had beef. I think it was last Wednesday or Thursday. She’s telling me this as we eat our corn tort (corn, egg, pepper and onion inside a pastry shell). We rarely eat meat and the people I’ve talked to in my program said the same thing about their host families. Frankly, I think Argentines eat more ham than meat. They will put ham on everything, including hamburgers and pizza….and I’m not just talking about the occasional hamburger or pizza, its common to see ham on these items.
Tuesday was yet another day of homework…. This time for my art history take home midterm which is 10 pages long…I don’t really think this fits the category of midterm…but whatever. It is also our ONLY grade for this class. I got bored around mid-afternoon and went for a walk in the neighborhood. I went to the grocery store which is apparently under constructions and nightmarishly slippery (or slippy as the Aussies we met at Iguazú would say). Then I check my email and saw that my advisor had FINALLY emailed me telling me I could switch to Mendoza…she had been out of town for over a week. Then I returne home and realized I didn’t have the ganas (kind of like didn’t feel like it) to work….so I’m typing more of my blog….and now I’m going ot type some more….
This section is especially for Rachel and Steve (because they think they are Stacy and Clinton from what not to wear). This is a MAJOR what not to wear….it could actually encompass ½ of Buenos Aires because I have come to realize that Argentine fashion is an oxymoron. I don’t have to worry about spending money on clothing because I won’t be…. The Argentine “hip” girl look…as spotted yesterday: red high top converse (they are obsessed with the high top converse here…its kind of scary how obsessed), tied half way with the rest folded down. About four inches up the leg start the pants (the pants really are the entire badness of the look). Now, when these pants start they are skin tight for a good 6 inches (they’re basically yoga pant material). After those 6 inches they proceed to billow, yes billow, outward until they reach the waist where they are tight again. Now, you have to realize that Argentine girls don’t have thighs, but this look is still terrible. Most of the billowyness hangs around the knee (gravity comes into play on this one), which isn’t so terrible on the thigh part, however, it does make them look like pares with the round/wide part at their knees. [Rachel, I thought about buying you or me a pair (as a joke) and then realized you’d never speak to me again and that would just be sad]
Equally bad, but different Argentine look, as spotted on a colectivo (bus):
Somewhat orange (due to fake tanning) woman in her 60s. wearing all white…it is spring time here but still. The white was as follows: kitten heel mules (cute), nylons cut off mid calf (not cute), mini skirt with frills (very not cute) and lacoste polo (not objectionable). They are big on the nylons cut off mid calf and skirt here (I wear this in boston when I can’t handle wearing pants anymore during the winter). Its practically warm enough to not need this look, ever. Most of the time, I look at them and think, “oh sad honey, did you not look in the mirror before leaving the house today?”
Tuesday night I went out for ice cream at 10:30 and didn’t get home until after 1AM. Blythe and I just sat and talked about our schools and traveling and summer
Thursday I went to US history and art history and then went to Sierra’s house to study before our American History midterm/final/only grade in this class. The test was pretty much exactly what I wanted/planned on it being, which was fantastic. I think I wrote about 8 full sides of paper in response to three questions. My hand nearly fell off. It was a really interesting test because the Argentines are having their midterm next week (we take different tests because their classes are year-long, so we don’t know everything they do). They were having class and talking and stuff in the same room as us. We were also allowed to talk to each other somewhat during the test. We didn’t talk about the questions…just made comments about how we couldn’t wait to be done writing and stuff. We also had three hours to take the test (which is the duration of a class period). After class, Meagan, Steve and I went to Shannon’s so I could tell her happy birthday (and give her a Kinder Egg, Rachel you better know what these are…they have them in London also) and that I wasn’t going out to dinner with them. Then I got home at like 10ish…and had dinner with my host mom and basically fell over into bed.
Friday I woke up early and worked on my paper for US history and my midterm-thing for Borges class. I also went to the gym and ran 4km. I went to the fish store to buy some stuff for lunch and the woman there was like, “where are you from? Utah? Utah? Utah? I have a cousin’s niece’s friend’s uncle’s brother in Utah. Do you live near there? Do you know them?” I kindly explained that I live near NYC (saying New Jersey means absolutely nothing here) and that’s about a 4 hour plain ride from Utah. I’m pretty sure she said Utah at least 10 times. Then I went to tango class and then came straight home for work on my paper some more. My host mom and I were sitting around the table having tea and bread. She took out the middle of the bread (the soft part) and rolled it in a ball because she doesn’t like that part. She then told me that the poor kids in the campo (field/plains/area outside the city) use this part as an eraser for their schoolwork. So I went to my room, got paper and a pencil and guess what?? It actually sort of works (apparently my pencil was too high in quality…way to go Tufts bookstore!!). Her only comment was, “these are the ways of 3rd world countries.”
Saturday I woke up early again to work on my paper some more. I had the last tango class…really, I’m not that sad. Classes are ok. I actually like most of the COPA people in the class and we have fun, but I’m a rather practical person and I know that I’m never going to dance tango again and I’m ok with that. After tango I went to Plaza Congreso to take some pictures of it. Then I walked to Recoleta to meet Meagan. We went to Steve’s instrumental concert and I saw the big metal flower (not that interesting, supposedly it opens and closes with the sun, I think it might be a machine…). The concert was in Facultad de Derecho (the UBA law school), which is a really nice looking Greek building (with columns and all) from the outside, but very ugly inside. Then Meagan and I went to the Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum) to pick up material about the Noche de los Museos (Night of the Museums). We figured out a “game plan” and walked up through the Recoleta fair, where I got a giant empanada for dinner.
We went to the Centro Cultural Recoleta and saw the Borges travel photos and an exhibit about disappeared people that wasn’t really effective and mostly just weird. It wasn’t just about the disappeared people in Argentina; it included a bunch of other countries as well. We met up with Steve, Shannon, Sandra and Amy. We hung out at Meagan’s for a little while and then left for the museums (without Shannon).
We first went to La Boca where the colectivo didn’t go quite as far as it appeared on the map, which meant we were walking around La Boca at 11PM. On any other night this would have been a terrible thing to do, but because it was noche de los museos, there were people everywhere. We went to three art museums (Teatro Rivera, la Quinquela, y Fundación Próa), one outdoor museum that we had been through before and the Boca museum (literally a blue and yellow museum in the stadium dedicated to the fútbol team and with Nike logos everywhere. After the museum is the gift shop which is also plastered with Nike logos and blue and yellow everywhere. The prices are very American and clearly the whole thing is set up for tourists.
After La Boca we got on another colectivo and went to Puerto Madero (the trendy/hip/new area of the city). Noche de los museos was having a final party there. We never made it to the party because we went to another museum instead. This one was a boat, which was really cool to walk around on (we ignored the exhibit and explored the boat). It was a fun night, but there were way too many of us and we should have left earlier to start going to museums. We were especially amazed at how organized the entire night was….we’re talking people in T-shirts everywhere (to answer ?s) and all the museums had the booklets with info about the night….it was pretty amazing…considering we’re in Argentina.
Sunday I woke up and did some more homework. That was pretty much all. I went to a café and used the internet…for quite a while. Rachel sent me an article from the NYTimes online that had a picture from Tufts. That was cool.
Monday, more homework!! Went to the Lincoln Library at ICANA (North American Cultural Center) which was an interesting experience. The library is basically the size of three tufts doubles put together, but has higher ceilings. Its very American in that almost all of the books are in English and they are arranged by the dewy decimal system and you can touch them!! (this does not happen at the national library where you have to order them and watch a TV screen to find out when they are brought upstairs for you). I was the only person under 30 there and for a while, the only female. It was 2-3 business men reading the New York times. People come in and out. Phones ring. Everyone has to walk up to the desk when the enter and ask the guy working how is he and whats new and so on and so forth. They didn’t actually have half the books my teacher told to use there, which goes to show that even though the library is very American and the class is history of America, the teacher is still very Argentine. All in all, it was a fine experience; I got some sources for my paper. Then I went to COPA to use the internet and to actually finish my paper – the library didn’t have outlets and my computer does need power, occasionally- they don’t really believe in putting outlets everywhere here…its nearly impossible to find any in cafes that have wifi also. I had a tutor read my paper and it was like being 12 again with tons of little mistakes… then I went home and had dinner with my host mom. Apparently, the news paper said that Argentina is the country that eats the most beef (which is pretty much common knowledge around the world), but I can’t actually remember the last time I had beef. I think it was last Wednesday or Thursday. She’s telling me this as we eat our corn tort (corn, egg, pepper and onion inside a pastry shell). We rarely eat meat and the people I’ve talked to in my program said the same thing about their host families. Frankly, I think Argentines eat more ham than meat. They will put ham on everything, including hamburgers and pizza….and I’m not just talking about the occasional hamburger or pizza, its common to see ham on these items.
Tuesday was yet another day of homework…. This time for my art history take home midterm which is 10 pages long…I don’t really think this fits the category of midterm…but whatever. It is also our ONLY grade for this class. I got bored around mid-afternoon and went for a walk in the neighborhood. I went to the grocery store which is apparently under constructions and nightmarishly slippery (or slippy as the Aussies we met at Iguazú would say). Then I check my email and saw that my advisor had FINALLY emailed me telling me I could switch to Mendoza…she had been out of town for over a week. Then I returne home and realized I didn’t have the ganas (kind of like didn’t feel like it) to work….so I’m typing more of my blog….and now I’m going ot type some more….
This section is especially for Rachel and Steve (because they think they are Stacy and Clinton from what not to wear). This is a MAJOR what not to wear….it could actually encompass ½ of Buenos Aires because I have come to realize that Argentine fashion is an oxymoron. I don’t have to worry about spending money on clothing because I won’t be…. The Argentine “hip” girl look…as spotted yesterday: red high top converse (they are obsessed with the high top converse here…its kind of scary how obsessed), tied half way with the rest folded down. About four inches up the leg start the pants (the pants really are the entire badness of the look). Now, when these pants start they are skin tight for a good 6 inches (they’re basically yoga pant material). After those 6 inches they proceed to billow, yes billow, outward until they reach the waist where they are tight again. Now, you have to realize that Argentine girls don’t have thighs, but this look is still terrible. Most of the billowyness hangs around the knee (gravity comes into play on this one), which isn’t so terrible on the thigh part, however, it does make them look like pares with the round/wide part at their knees. [Rachel, I thought about buying you or me a pair (as a joke) and then realized you’d never speak to me again and that would just be sad]
Equally bad, but different Argentine look, as spotted on a colectivo (bus):
Somewhat orange (due to fake tanning) woman in her 60s. wearing all white…it is spring time here but still. The white was as follows: kitten heel mules (cute), nylons cut off mid calf (not cute), mini skirt with frills (very not cute) and lacoste polo (not objectionable). They are big on the nylons cut off mid calf and skirt here (I wear this in boston when I can’t handle wearing pants anymore during the winter). Its practically warm enough to not need this look, ever. Most of the time, I look at them and think, “oh sad honey, did you not look in the mirror before leaving the house today?”
Tuesday night I went out for ice cream at 10:30 and didn’t get home until after 1AM. Blythe and I just sat and talked about our schools and traveling and summer
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Opera Bay
Sunday night I cooked for Sierra and I. I made arroz a la cubana (Cuban rice) which involves fried eggs, rice, tomato sauce and fried banana (without oil…). Very simple, cheap and still very yummy. (Elegant, this is what you should try to cook in London).
I spent Monday writing my history of the US paper and studying for that midterm. My host mom still wasn’t home from the beach when I made dinner. I cooked chicken and pasta. She came home at 10ish and felt really badly that she didn’t have a phone so I couldn’t call her to tell her I was in the house. She would have wanted to come home early to cook dinner for me.
Tuesday, the COPA kids in my history of US class came over to study for the midterm, which I hadn’t really done much of because I was not worried about the test. Juan Cruz and Gilde came over for lunch.
Wednesday, I had classes and was at COPA for most of the day. I also met with my semi-useless tutor (more like an advisor).
On Thursday, my alarm did not work. I had set it to wake up at 6:45, but didn’t open my eyes until 7:31. My midterm started at 8 and I had to take the subte to get to class. I got ready super quickly and ran out the door. I was in the subte station by 7:42…thank goodness its right across the street. I made it to class by 7:59, 5 minutes before my teacher and the rest of the class arrived. The parcial was really easy; super broad questions…only three mini-essays. I also found out that one girl in the class (from COPA) is going back to the states this week because she can’t handle speaking Spanish and being in Buenos Aires. She is clearly one of the weakest speakers on COPA and missed her boyfriend a lot. She has a lot of mental health issues (insomnia and sees a psychiatrist) and just can’t handle being away from home. She never knows whats going on in class, even though the teacher is super easy to understand. So that’s it, she’s leaving. I don’t really like the city either. Its just another big city. There’s really no culture shock here. Its like I came, its kind of like New York except everyone speaks Spanish. Not really a big deal. The people who love Buenos Aires are people who are obsessed with partying or people who are from the Midwest or other places where they don’t really have big cities.
Then I had art history class and lunch with a girl from Tufts where we talked about how we don’t love BsAs and what our friends were doing at Tufts (ie- fall ball and bubs concerts). Later, I had history of America where we spent about 15 minutes comparing Boca/River (the two big football teams) to the Red Sox/Yanks. At 11:30ish I left my house to go to a locutorio (internet center) to use the computer. I sat down at my computer and noted that the guy next to me was clearly my age and a student (he had books and was working on a paper). I didn’t think much of it and signed on to gmail and facebook to do some stuff. A few minutes later he turned to me and said, in perfect English, “can I ask you a question?” I was more shocked by the fact that he spoke to me in perfect English than anything. He asked me if I was from Tufts and I said yes. He is here on another program studying for the semester. I never met him at Tufts because he has only taken 4 semesters of Spanish (which is the level I took when I entered), lived downhill and partied all the time. It was still super weird to run into another Tufts person here (so that makes 8 Tufts ppl in the city). He loves Buenos Aires because he parties all the time and people here party until 7AM. After that weird encounter I went to meet my friends at Plaza Italia and we went out to the bars in Plaza Serrano because it was Sandra’s birthday and she wanted to celebrate.
Friday afternoon I had my first of four two-hour tango lessons. I didn’t suck as much as I thought…which was a good thing. I also got to dance with one of the instructors at the end because we have very few guys in our group. Then I went out to lunch with Amy and Sandra. We were in a café until nearly 7PM just chatting and stuff. I got home and had dinner with my host mom. We ate left over chicken and she was somewhat horrified that I didn’t want mayo or ketchup with my chicken. She had hardboiled an egg to add to the chicken and mayo concoction. She also made me way too much food which is a battle everyone seems to be fighting with their host moms. The food here is always cooked in tons of oil and everybody seems to be ok with that…except us Americans. Friday night, I went to Opera Bay with Briana and Blythe. Opera Bay is one of BsAs’s trendiest night clubs and is full of internationals. We went because we had free passes from Blythe’s gym. They had sponsored the night in honor of 21 sept being the first day of spring (they celebrate that like crazy). Anyway, so Opera Bay kind of looks like an opera house and is right on the water in Puerto Madero (the new, trendy section of the city). Whats really nice about it is that you can take a colectivo to get there and back rather than paying for a taxi. Whats really bad about it is that it costs something ridiculous like $30 pesos to get in when you don’t have free passes. When we got there, there was a mass of people and we had to queue around this park area. Our passes said we had to enter by 2:30, but we didn’t get there until 2ish so we figured we were never going to make it in. I think we made it passed the bouncer by 2:29. Inside there were three rooms with different kinds of music. When we walked in, the first room was more hip-hop, the big glassed in room was 80s and the smallest room was techno, however this seemed to change as the night went on. We chose the biggest room which was also the nicest (it had a pool of water in it and glass walls overlooking the water). It was also really nice that we could go upstairs in this room by finding the staircase in the other room (usually upstairs is reserved for VIPs only). Briana and Blythe determined that I am the best at getting through crowds of people, which I attribute to my New-Jersey-shopping-mall-and-New-York-City-weekends upbringing. We didn’t stay too long because by 5ish they were starting to repeat the music. We headed back to the colectivo stop where we were joined by a swarm of younger Argentine girls. When the colectivo showed up, the driver didn’t really see us because there were other buses in the way. We all ran at the door and he turned to pull into the curb, so essentially almost hit all of us. It was somewhat hilarious that the Argentines and the Americans did the same thing. On the bus, the Argentine girls were teaching each other to sing some Brittany Spears/Jessica Simpson like song, while we (well I was) were singing Julieta Venegas “Que Lastima, Me Voy.” We went to Plaza del Carmen because we couldn’t find anything else open in the Col. Diaz/Santa Fe area (closer to Blythe’s apartment). We had medialunas in a booth and these Argentine guys asked us for 50 centavos so they could get the larger pizza on the menu. I gave it to them and then they took our picture…it was kinda sketchy. After that, I went home. It was 6.30 and the sun was coming up.
Saturday afternoon was more tango. We moved on to moves which look more like dancing….as opposed to the beginning steps we were doing before. Afterwards, Sandra, Amy and I went to Disco and bought food to prepare at Amy’s house for dinner. Meagan came over at 8ish and we made meatballs and steamed veggies. They were yummy, but we forgot to egg in the meatballs, so they kind of fell apart… we also made them with chimichuri, which is a mix of spices Argentines eat on their beef (its also the only spice they eat…its oregano, garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper – its somewhat spice). Amy’s host sister even tried our food and liked it. We were just excited to be eating veggies without sauce and oil. Apparently Amy’s mom likes to add alfredo sauce to her steamed veggies. Luckily I’ve gotten mine to the point where she knows I eat veggies plain. “No oil, thank you….really, I don’t like olive oil either. I know that argentines can’t handle eating strawberries without sugar, but I really do like them plain, grapefruit also.” These are the arguments we are constantly having with our host mom’s. They give us way too much food and try to make us eat things with oil, excessive amounts of salt, and unnecessary sugar. My host mom’s grandson’s “salads” involve lettuce, oil, salt, and vinegar. There are more condiments on the salad that actual salad. They are also obsessed with cooking everything in oil (see Sunday)
Sunday morning, I slept late. Then Meagan and Steve came over so we could study for history of America 1. Our test is on Thursday, but we know that we have one question for each of three readings, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Then, we went to Steve’s house to get some guide books and wound up talking for a while. My host mom made dinner, which consisted of beef (cooked in her warped grill pan, which is actually really good), fried eggs, steamed yam, and a salad. She fries eggs by pouring oil in the pan, cracking the egg and then scooping the hot oil on top of the egg to cook the yolk. Its incredibly disgusting (well, the whole egg and steak thing is pretty gross to begin with). I’ve tried explaining to her that I don’t use oil in my house and apparently the other girls before me have done the same. She told me that Americans don’t use oil, but instead our containers of food are so huge (apparently the girl before me had brought a humongous tub of peanut butter, which doesn’t exist here). She also asked me how I make French fries at home if I don’t use oil and I was like, I don’t eat French fries at home. Argentines are obsessed with oil and carbs. This isn’t a culture of meat, like the rest of the world thinks…it’s a culture of carbs. They can’t go a meal without bread of some form. Every night at dinner, my host mom had to eat some crackers with her meal, even if it involves scooping up rice with a cracker. I use the crackers for things like the fish stew she made. My friends and I have talked about our host families comparing this and they’re all the same in this aspect. We’re also having trouble controlling the portion size of our meals. My host mom served me two pieces of beef and I told her I was not going to be eating both. She swore they were small and I had to eat both. So I ate 1 ½ and left the other ½ for my lunch the following day. The other day, I didn’t finish all of my squash and she told me to eat it, so I got out a plastic container and put it in the fridge for the next day. My friends are having the same problems with their host families trying to feed them way too much food.
Monday, I woke up early to do some homework. Went to the gym and spent most of the day working on my US history paper. My host mom and I watched CNN en Español to find out about the school shooting in Amish country. Then we went to my host mom’s grandson’s 8th birthday party. It was kind of fun and kind of psychotic at the same time…it makes me never want to have kids because these children were off the wall. The party was at a bowling alley, which has a full staff to run children’s parties. There were at least two more in addition to Juan Cruz’s party. For birthdays here, the entire class (30 kids) is invited and each kid gives the mom money to buy her son/daughter a gift. The close friends also buy something for the birthday child. So there weren’t a million gifts floating around. At the party, the children were first fed hot dogs and hamburgers and chips and stuff. Then they moved on to the bowling lanes where they played for more than an hour (the whole party was supposed to only last 2 hours). It was basically an hour of kids screaming their heads off and throwing themselves on the ground. Then it was cake time (cause after kids act crazy, they need more sugar). Gilde (Juan Cruz’s mom, my host mom’s daughter) had made a cake. It was really good- layers of chocolate and dulce de leche. But the most incredible part was the top of the cake. Using marzipan she created a completely separate cake topper with Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean). It was amazing, he actually kind of looked like Johnny Depp; there was an island, palm trees and a treasure chest also. I took a lot of pictures which was a good thing because Gilde’s pictures didn’t come out (it was kind of dark and difficult to get in front of the children). Afterwards, my host mom and I returned home and ordered empanadas for our dinner.
Tuesday, I woke up and studied for my midterm. Juan Cruz and Gilde came over for lunch and I gave them my jump drive with the photos, which they both loved. Juan Cruz ate some more sugar…his grandmother can’t not buy him chocolate and candy. Then I studied some more and did more homework for my other classes. I had my pilates class. We had dinner and I worked on my history paper some more.
I spent Monday writing my history of the US paper and studying for that midterm. My host mom still wasn’t home from the beach when I made dinner. I cooked chicken and pasta. She came home at 10ish and felt really badly that she didn’t have a phone so I couldn’t call her to tell her I was in the house. She would have wanted to come home early to cook dinner for me.
Tuesday, the COPA kids in my history of US class came over to study for the midterm, which I hadn’t really done much of because I was not worried about the test. Juan Cruz and Gilde came over for lunch.
Wednesday, I had classes and was at COPA for most of the day. I also met with my semi-useless tutor (more like an advisor).
On Thursday, my alarm did not work. I had set it to wake up at 6:45, but didn’t open my eyes until 7:31. My midterm started at 8 and I had to take the subte to get to class. I got ready super quickly and ran out the door. I was in the subte station by 7:42…thank goodness its right across the street. I made it to class by 7:59, 5 minutes before my teacher and the rest of the class arrived. The parcial was really easy; super broad questions…only three mini-essays. I also found out that one girl in the class (from COPA) is going back to the states this week because she can’t handle speaking Spanish and being in Buenos Aires. She is clearly one of the weakest speakers on COPA and missed her boyfriend a lot. She has a lot of mental health issues (insomnia and sees a psychiatrist) and just can’t handle being away from home. She never knows whats going on in class, even though the teacher is super easy to understand. So that’s it, she’s leaving. I don’t really like the city either. Its just another big city. There’s really no culture shock here. Its like I came, its kind of like New York except everyone speaks Spanish. Not really a big deal. The people who love Buenos Aires are people who are obsessed with partying or people who are from the Midwest or other places where they don’t really have big cities.
Then I had art history class and lunch with a girl from Tufts where we talked about how we don’t love BsAs and what our friends were doing at Tufts (ie- fall ball and bubs concerts). Later, I had history of America where we spent about 15 minutes comparing Boca/River (the two big football teams) to the Red Sox/Yanks. At 11:30ish I left my house to go to a locutorio (internet center) to use the computer. I sat down at my computer and noted that the guy next to me was clearly my age and a student (he had books and was working on a paper). I didn’t think much of it and signed on to gmail and facebook to do some stuff. A few minutes later he turned to me and said, in perfect English, “can I ask you a question?” I was more shocked by the fact that he spoke to me in perfect English than anything. He asked me if I was from Tufts and I said yes. He is here on another program studying for the semester. I never met him at Tufts because he has only taken 4 semesters of Spanish (which is the level I took when I entered), lived downhill and partied all the time. It was still super weird to run into another Tufts person here (so that makes 8 Tufts ppl in the city). He loves Buenos Aires because he parties all the time and people here party until 7AM. After that weird encounter I went to meet my friends at Plaza Italia and we went out to the bars in Plaza Serrano because it was Sandra’s birthday and she wanted to celebrate.
Friday afternoon I had my first of four two-hour tango lessons. I didn’t suck as much as I thought…which was a good thing. I also got to dance with one of the instructors at the end because we have very few guys in our group. Then I went out to lunch with Amy and Sandra. We were in a café until nearly 7PM just chatting and stuff. I got home and had dinner with my host mom. We ate left over chicken and she was somewhat horrified that I didn’t want mayo or ketchup with my chicken. She had hardboiled an egg to add to the chicken and mayo concoction. She also made me way too much food which is a battle everyone seems to be fighting with their host moms. The food here is always cooked in tons of oil and everybody seems to be ok with that…except us Americans. Friday night, I went to Opera Bay with Briana and Blythe. Opera Bay is one of BsAs’s trendiest night clubs and is full of internationals. We went because we had free passes from Blythe’s gym. They had sponsored the night in honor of 21 sept being the first day of spring (they celebrate that like crazy). Anyway, so Opera Bay kind of looks like an opera house and is right on the water in Puerto Madero (the new, trendy section of the city). Whats really nice about it is that you can take a colectivo to get there and back rather than paying for a taxi. Whats really bad about it is that it costs something ridiculous like $30 pesos to get in when you don’t have free passes. When we got there, there was a mass of people and we had to queue around this park area. Our passes said we had to enter by 2:30, but we didn’t get there until 2ish so we figured we were never going to make it in. I think we made it passed the bouncer by 2:29. Inside there were three rooms with different kinds of music. When we walked in, the first room was more hip-hop, the big glassed in room was 80s and the smallest room was techno, however this seemed to change as the night went on. We chose the biggest room which was also the nicest (it had a pool of water in it and glass walls overlooking the water). It was also really nice that we could go upstairs in this room by finding the staircase in the other room (usually upstairs is reserved for VIPs only). Briana and Blythe determined that I am the best at getting through crowds of people, which I attribute to my New-Jersey-shopping-mall-and-New-York-City-weekends upbringing. We didn’t stay too long because by 5ish they were starting to repeat the music. We headed back to the colectivo stop where we were joined by a swarm of younger Argentine girls. When the colectivo showed up, the driver didn’t really see us because there were other buses in the way. We all ran at the door and he turned to pull into the curb, so essentially almost hit all of us. It was somewhat hilarious that the Argentines and the Americans did the same thing. On the bus, the Argentine girls were teaching each other to sing some Brittany Spears/Jessica Simpson like song, while we (well I was) were singing Julieta Venegas “Que Lastima, Me Voy.” We went to Plaza del Carmen because we couldn’t find anything else open in the Col. Diaz/Santa Fe area (closer to Blythe’s apartment). We had medialunas in a booth and these Argentine guys asked us for 50 centavos so they could get the larger pizza on the menu. I gave it to them and then they took our picture…it was kinda sketchy. After that, I went home. It was 6.30 and the sun was coming up.
Saturday afternoon was more tango. We moved on to moves which look more like dancing….as opposed to the beginning steps we were doing before. Afterwards, Sandra, Amy and I went to Disco and bought food to prepare at Amy’s house for dinner. Meagan came over at 8ish and we made meatballs and steamed veggies. They were yummy, but we forgot to egg in the meatballs, so they kind of fell apart… we also made them with chimichuri, which is a mix of spices Argentines eat on their beef (its also the only spice they eat…its oregano, garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper – its somewhat spice). Amy’s host sister even tried our food and liked it. We were just excited to be eating veggies without sauce and oil. Apparently Amy’s mom likes to add alfredo sauce to her steamed veggies. Luckily I’ve gotten mine to the point where she knows I eat veggies plain. “No oil, thank you….really, I don’t like olive oil either. I know that argentines can’t handle eating strawberries without sugar, but I really do like them plain, grapefruit also.” These are the arguments we are constantly having with our host mom’s. They give us way too much food and try to make us eat things with oil, excessive amounts of salt, and unnecessary sugar. My host mom’s grandson’s “salads” involve lettuce, oil, salt, and vinegar. There are more condiments on the salad that actual salad. They are also obsessed with cooking everything in oil (see Sunday)
Sunday morning, I slept late. Then Meagan and Steve came over so we could study for history of America 1. Our test is on Thursday, but we know that we have one question for each of three readings, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Then, we went to Steve’s house to get some guide books and wound up talking for a while. My host mom made dinner, which consisted of beef (cooked in her warped grill pan, which is actually really good), fried eggs, steamed yam, and a salad. She fries eggs by pouring oil in the pan, cracking the egg and then scooping the hot oil on top of the egg to cook the yolk. Its incredibly disgusting (well, the whole egg and steak thing is pretty gross to begin with). I’ve tried explaining to her that I don’t use oil in my house and apparently the other girls before me have done the same. She told me that Americans don’t use oil, but instead our containers of food are so huge (apparently the girl before me had brought a humongous tub of peanut butter, which doesn’t exist here). She also asked me how I make French fries at home if I don’t use oil and I was like, I don’t eat French fries at home. Argentines are obsessed with oil and carbs. This isn’t a culture of meat, like the rest of the world thinks…it’s a culture of carbs. They can’t go a meal without bread of some form. Every night at dinner, my host mom had to eat some crackers with her meal, even if it involves scooping up rice with a cracker. I use the crackers for things like the fish stew she made. My friends and I have talked about our host families comparing this and they’re all the same in this aspect. We’re also having trouble controlling the portion size of our meals. My host mom served me two pieces of beef and I told her I was not going to be eating both. She swore they were small and I had to eat both. So I ate 1 ½ and left the other ½ for my lunch the following day. The other day, I didn’t finish all of my squash and she told me to eat it, so I got out a plastic container and put it in the fridge for the next day. My friends are having the same problems with their host families trying to feed them way too much food.
Monday, I woke up early to do some homework. Went to the gym and spent most of the day working on my US history paper. My host mom and I watched CNN en Español to find out about the school shooting in Amish country. Then we went to my host mom’s grandson’s 8th birthday party. It was kind of fun and kind of psychotic at the same time…it makes me never want to have kids because these children were off the wall. The party was at a bowling alley, which has a full staff to run children’s parties. There were at least two more in addition to Juan Cruz’s party. For birthdays here, the entire class (30 kids) is invited and each kid gives the mom money to buy her son/daughter a gift. The close friends also buy something for the birthday child. So there weren’t a million gifts floating around. At the party, the children were first fed hot dogs and hamburgers and chips and stuff. Then they moved on to the bowling lanes where they played for more than an hour (the whole party was supposed to only last 2 hours). It was basically an hour of kids screaming their heads off and throwing themselves on the ground. Then it was cake time (cause after kids act crazy, they need more sugar). Gilde (Juan Cruz’s mom, my host mom’s daughter) had made a cake. It was really good- layers of chocolate and dulce de leche. But the most incredible part was the top of the cake. Using marzipan she created a completely separate cake topper with Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean). It was amazing, he actually kind of looked like Johnny Depp; there was an island, palm trees and a treasure chest also. I took a lot of pictures which was a good thing because Gilde’s pictures didn’t come out (it was kind of dark and difficult to get in front of the children). Afterwards, my host mom and I returned home and ordered empanadas for our dinner.
Tuesday, I woke up and studied for my midterm. Juan Cruz and Gilde came over for lunch and I gave them my jump drive with the photos, which they both loved. Juan Cruz ate some more sugar…his grandmother can’t not buy him chocolate and candy. Then I studied some more and did more homework for my other classes. I had my pilates class. We had dinner and I worked on my history paper some more.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Esteros de Ibera, Posadas, Resistencia
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent doing homework, running errands and getting ready to leave again Wednesday night. Monday night, I went to my program director’s house for a useless dinner about our progress in the program and life in general.
Sierra and I left Wednesday night at 9:15 to head to Esteros de Iberá (esteros are wetlands/swamps). We arrived in Mercedes, Corrientes, Argentina at 5:30 AM Thursday and tried to find a bus to Colonia Carlos Pelligrini (where the Esteros are located). We were told about the possibility of four different buses (we’re not really sure if any existed) at 7 AM, 11 AM, 12 PM, and 1 PM. We finally decided to share a 4x4 (small pick-up truck) with an older Argentine couple for the two hour, 120 km drive. The dirt road from Mercedes to the Esteros is not that bad of a drive and we were really tired, so I don’t really remember it to well. Once we got there, we realized it would not be that easy to get back or onward to Posadas so we wandered around town with our driver trying to figure out what we should do. We didn’t know if we should take a boat launch and then return to Mercedes or explore more or stay the night. We finally found a man who had a couple staying at his house who were also trying to get to Posadas. We went to the inn/house/ranch and met them and found out that it was possible to get to Posadas the next morning.
We spent Thursday walking around the nature reserve. We met the people who were going to drive us to Posadas; a couple who ran a safari/excursion company in Colonia Carlos Pelligrini. The wife, a 30-something Japanese woman named Akari, informed us that her English (after a few years of living in Canada) was better than her Spanish. We hung out with her and her 17-year old Argentine brother-in-law who didn’t speak English for some of the afternoon looking at monkey and caimen. She took us on a walk to the part of the jungle where the monkeys live. We saw four monkeys (two female adults and two babies). Caimen are like crocodiles and there was a family of them in the water right near the road (aka 20 feet away from where I was standing). We also saw some birds near the water. Then while Akari was in the ranger station, the brother-in-law, Sierra, and I went into the woods and saw a lizard thing. It was kinda scary because we weren’t on the path, but we only really saw its tail (it looked like a humongous gecko). Then, Sierra and I returned to the inn and met the British couple, Henry and Jo. We tried to find the boa constrictor they had seen the day before (it hangs out near the rocks on the side of the road in the afternoon sun). Henry spotted the tail end of the snake as it went back under the rocks, but none of us girls saw it. After that, the four of us walked around “town,” went to the central square and an artist’s house.
We ate dinner together at this family house/restaurant. Then we went on a night safari. This time, the husband, wife, and brother-in-law took us in their Land Rover. The husband, Gaston, an Argentine with a pony-tail and camouflage jacket, was a DJ in Spain when he and Akari met two years ago (she was there studying), which meant that his iPod video accompanied various parts of our safari. He took us back down the road towards Mercedes where we saw an armadillo, capybara (including babies), swamp deer, raccoons, fox, and even caught a glimpse of these little rodents that can only be found in this part of Argentina. The best part was when we stopped at one point to look at the stars. We were so far out in the middle of nowhere, with no light for at least 20-30 km, that the sky looked like we were inside a planetarium. It was practically a perfect bubble with stars literally all around us. The only other time I’d seen stars like this were on the ferry between Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. It was surreal to be standing in South America looking at this bubble of stars including shooting stars.
The next morning we woke up and had the standard Argentine breakfast: tea and toast, with marmalade or dulce de leche. However, it included veggie marmite (courtesy of the British), which I will never eat again. It was sort of this and somewhat/very disgusting, but I guess could grow on you….or not. Then, Gaston, his brother, and Akari arrived with the Land Rover. We put our backpacks on top and piled in for the 3 hour, 210km dirt road to Posadas. Henry and Jo were on their way to Iguazú and Sierra and I were going to see Jesuit ruins. This was the first week of Henry and Jo’s 9 month tour around the world (they’ve done several big trips and been to many incredible places before). They started in Buenos Aires, then went to the Esteros, then Iguazú, then are continuing down through Argentina to Patagonia and up Chile before they fly to Easter Island for a week, then Fiji (I think) and then New Zealand and Australia. (I think there might Thailand and something else in southeastern Asia in there also). They were super interesting and nice people with a lot of travel tips and ideas.
We finally got to Posadas, it was weird to be in a city again (not that Posadas is really a city). We went first to an ATM so we could pay for our ride (everything turned out to be more expensive than we thought and Sierra had forgotten her money in Recoleta (BsAs)). Then, the four of us found the colectivo to get to the bus terminal. Henry and Jo bought tickets while all of us rushed to find buses which were leaving in two minutes. We thought we were going on different buses because we were at different ticket windows so we said good-bye and ran (Sierra and I could buy tickets on the bus because we were getting off very soon). We wound up on the same bus, Sierra freaked a little because we got on without paying…I have a bit more bus experience to know that you can pay once on the bus and still get off at your stop. We ate a milanesa sandwich on the bus (milanesa is a piece of breaded and fried meat, eaten hot or cold, with lettuce and tomato….i would never eat this in the US, but it only costs a peso or two and is the quickest, most abundant food in the entire country…it also never contains anything I’m allergic to).
We arrived in San Ignacio and headed for the Jesuit ruins. We left our backpacks with the gate people for free, which would never happen in the US, because there you have to pay for everything and entered the ruins. We didn’t take a free tour because the groups were ridiculously large and our choices were teenagers or old people, neither of which excited us. We wandered around the living spaces, jail, school, church, cemetery, and government building in the ruins. Some parts were especially nice, but I decided that I am completely jaded by Macchu Picchu and no ruins will be able to compare. Then, we tried to find Horatio Quiroga’s house (Uruguayan born Argentine writer). We realized it was too far on foot and were way to tired to try to find the remise (taxi). While waiting for the colectivo, I talked to an Argentine girl who was about to finish colegio (meaning she was about 17 or so). She was completely impressed that Sierra and I had taken the time to come to her part of the world to see these ruins and that we were from the US and living in Buenos Aires (she had never been to the city, but hopes to go after graduation). It made me think how lucky we are to have the opportunity to travel and see the world.
Upon arrival in Posadas, Sierra and I determined that spending the night there was the best plan. We found a hotel in the center of the city for $35 pesos a night ($12 dollars US), which is a fantastic price. We left our stuff and walked around for a little while: saw the center with the church (standard south America). Then we went to find food for dinner. We found a few bar/restaurants with outdoor seating (Posadas is up north where its warmer). We had hamburgers and fries while people watching and chatting. I tried to order a martini which was $4.5 pesos on the menu (really cheap for a mixed drink), but it turned out to be a bottle of alcohol (we’re not really sure what it was, but I refused it when the waiter came). That price for a bottle of almost any kind (not Quilmes, the local beer), is really incredible and really shocked us. Then we went across the street for ice cream, which by the way is so much better than in the states because its more like gelato and all of the fruit flavors are made with water, not milk. Luckily they had my absolute favorite, grapefruit!!! We ate our ice cream while walking around the plaza, then returned to our hotel, showered, and went to bed.
Saturday morning we left Posadas for Resistencia (another city 5 hours away). We arrived in Resistencia at 2ish and left our bags at the bus terminal (this time we had to pay 2 pesos each…boooo). We walked around town trying to find as many sculptures as possible. Resistencia is a city which considers itself an open-air museum. There are more than 200 or so sculptures all over the city (they are more frequent than traffic lights). We got a map from the tourist booth (the woman was so happy to see us, I think we were some of the only tourists that day). We spent the day walking around. The city is really interesting. For some reason, there are immigrants there from all over the world. The plazas are named for the different countries, like Ukraine and Bulgaria. It’s really bizarre because Resistencia is the provincial capital of Chaco, which contains a region called chaco, which is a brutally hot, dry area. The locals told us we were lucky because we arrived on a day that wasn’t hot, it was about 80ºF. we had lunch at another outdoor café, while trying to plan our travels for this summer. We did a little shopping in the central plaza where stands were set up by local indigenous people. Very few indigenous people remain in Argentina, they were pushed out when the Spaniards settled the country. The remaining groups live in the north, near Posadas and Resistencia, and also in the northwestern provinces of Salta, Tucumán, and Jujuy.
Then, we headed for the bus station to get our 12 hour bus to Buenos Aires. Bus travel in Argentina is actually fantastic. It beats bus travel in the US, Britain, and the Balkans and plane travel anywhere. When your bus arrives, you check your bags and are given a claim ticket, which is really important because you must have the ticket to get your bag back. You get on the bus where the seats go back a lot more than in the US and you have a leg thing which supports your thighs and acts as a foot rest at the same time. There are movies (mostly American, with subtitles and sometimes sound in Spanish or in our case, Portuguese). The bus company provides you with unlimited coffee and hot water and they feed you. We had ham and cheese sandwiches, muffins and cookies at night, then biscuit/cookies for breakfast. The buses are comfortable and everyone sleeps.
We arrived in Buenos Aires Sunday morning and went home. My host mom wasn’t home because she had gone to her beach apartment for the weekend (when she heard I was going out of town, she decided to also). I was supposed to come back on Tuesday, but we decided we didn’t need a day in Posadas and we didn’t really want to go to Corrientes (city). I spent the day working on my History of the US paper, grocery shopping and organizing my laundry.
Sierra and I left Wednesday night at 9:15 to head to Esteros de Iberá (esteros are wetlands/swamps). We arrived in Mercedes, Corrientes, Argentina at 5:30 AM Thursday and tried to find a bus to Colonia Carlos Pelligrini (where the Esteros are located). We were told about the possibility of four different buses (we’re not really sure if any existed) at 7 AM, 11 AM, 12 PM, and 1 PM. We finally decided to share a 4x4 (small pick-up truck) with an older Argentine couple for the two hour, 120 km drive. The dirt road from Mercedes to the Esteros is not that bad of a drive and we were really tired, so I don’t really remember it to well. Once we got there, we realized it would not be that easy to get back or onward to Posadas so we wandered around town with our driver trying to figure out what we should do. We didn’t know if we should take a boat launch and then return to Mercedes or explore more or stay the night. We finally found a man who had a couple staying at his house who were also trying to get to Posadas. We went to the inn/house/ranch and met them and found out that it was possible to get to Posadas the next morning.
We spent Thursday walking around the nature reserve. We met the people who were going to drive us to Posadas; a couple who ran a safari/excursion company in Colonia Carlos Pelligrini. The wife, a 30-something Japanese woman named Akari, informed us that her English (after a few years of living in Canada) was better than her Spanish. We hung out with her and her 17-year old Argentine brother-in-law who didn’t speak English for some of the afternoon looking at monkey and caimen. She took us on a walk to the part of the jungle where the monkeys live. We saw four monkeys (two female adults and two babies). Caimen are like crocodiles and there was a family of them in the water right near the road (aka 20 feet away from where I was standing). We also saw some birds near the water. Then while Akari was in the ranger station, the brother-in-law, Sierra, and I went into the woods and saw a lizard thing. It was kinda scary because we weren’t on the path, but we only really saw its tail (it looked like a humongous gecko). Then, Sierra and I returned to the inn and met the British couple, Henry and Jo. We tried to find the boa constrictor they had seen the day before (it hangs out near the rocks on the side of the road in the afternoon sun). Henry spotted the tail end of the snake as it went back under the rocks, but none of us girls saw it. After that, the four of us walked around “town,” went to the central square and an artist’s house.
We ate dinner together at this family house/restaurant. Then we went on a night safari. This time, the husband, wife, and brother-in-law took us in their Land Rover. The husband, Gaston, an Argentine with a pony-tail and camouflage jacket, was a DJ in Spain when he and Akari met two years ago (she was there studying), which meant that his iPod video accompanied various parts of our safari. He took us back down the road towards Mercedes where we saw an armadillo, capybara (including babies), swamp deer, raccoons, fox, and even caught a glimpse of these little rodents that can only be found in this part of Argentina. The best part was when we stopped at one point to look at the stars. We were so far out in the middle of nowhere, with no light for at least 20-30 km, that the sky looked like we were inside a planetarium. It was practically a perfect bubble with stars literally all around us. The only other time I’d seen stars like this were on the ferry between Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. It was surreal to be standing in South America looking at this bubble of stars including shooting stars.
The next morning we woke up and had the standard Argentine breakfast: tea and toast, with marmalade or dulce de leche. However, it included veggie marmite (courtesy of the British), which I will never eat again. It was sort of this and somewhat/very disgusting, but I guess could grow on you….or not. Then, Gaston, his brother, and Akari arrived with the Land Rover. We put our backpacks on top and piled in for the 3 hour, 210km dirt road to Posadas. Henry and Jo were on their way to Iguazú and Sierra and I were going to see Jesuit ruins. This was the first week of Henry and Jo’s 9 month tour around the world (they’ve done several big trips and been to many incredible places before). They started in Buenos Aires, then went to the Esteros, then Iguazú, then are continuing down through Argentina to Patagonia and up Chile before they fly to Easter Island for a week, then Fiji (I think) and then New Zealand and Australia. (I think there might Thailand and something else in southeastern Asia in there also). They were super interesting and nice people with a lot of travel tips and ideas.
We finally got to Posadas, it was weird to be in a city again (not that Posadas is really a city). We went first to an ATM so we could pay for our ride (everything turned out to be more expensive than we thought and Sierra had forgotten her money in Recoleta (BsAs)). Then, the four of us found the colectivo to get to the bus terminal. Henry and Jo bought tickets while all of us rushed to find buses which were leaving in two minutes. We thought we were going on different buses because we were at different ticket windows so we said good-bye and ran (Sierra and I could buy tickets on the bus because we were getting off very soon). We wound up on the same bus, Sierra freaked a little because we got on without paying…I have a bit more bus experience to know that you can pay once on the bus and still get off at your stop. We ate a milanesa sandwich on the bus (milanesa is a piece of breaded and fried meat, eaten hot or cold, with lettuce and tomato….i would never eat this in the US, but it only costs a peso or two and is the quickest, most abundant food in the entire country…it also never contains anything I’m allergic to).
We arrived in San Ignacio and headed for the Jesuit ruins. We left our backpacks with the gate people for free, which would never happen in the US, because there you have to pay for everything and entered the ruins. We didn’t take a free tour because the groups were ridiculously large and our choices were teenagers or old people, neither of which excited us. We wandered around the living spaces, jail, school, church, cemetery, and government building in the ruins. Some parts were especially nice, but I decided that I am completely jaded by Macchu Picchu and no ruins will be able to compare. Then, we tried to find Horatio Quiroga’s house (Uruguayan born Argentine writer). We realized it was too far on foot and were way to tired to try to find the remise (taxi). While waiting for the colectivo, I talked to an Argentine girl who was about to finish colegio (meaning she was about 17 or so). She was completely impressed that Sierra and I had taken the time to come to her part of the world to see these ruins and that we were from the US and living in Buenos Aires (she had never been to the city, but hopes to go after graduation). It made me think how lucky we are to have the opportunity to travel and see the world.
Upon arrival in Posadas, Sierra and I determined that spending the night there was the best plan. We found a hotel in the center of the city for $35 pesos a night ($12 dollars US), which is a fantastic price. We left our stuff and walked around for a little while: saw the center with the church (standard south America). Then we went to find food for dinner. We found a few bar/restaurants with outdoor seating (Posadas is up north where its warmer). We had hamburgers and fries while people watching and chatting. I tried to order a martini which was $4.5 pesos on the menu (really cheap for a mixed drink), but it turned out to be a bottle of alcohol (we’re not really sure what it was, but I refused it when the waiter came). That price for a bottle of almost any kind (not Quilmes, the local beer), is really incredible and really shocked us. Then we went across the street for ice cream, which by the way is so much better than in the states because its more like gelato and all of the fruit flavors are made with water, not milk. Luckily they had my absolute favorite, grapefruit!!! We ate our ice cream while walking around the plaza, then returned to our hotel, showered, and went to bed.
Saturday morning we left Posadas for Resistencia (another city 5 hours away). We arrived in Resistencia at 2ish and left our bags at the bus terminal (this time we had to pay 2 pesos each…boooo). We walked around town trying to find as many sculptures as possible. Resistencia is a city which considers itself an open-air museum. There are more than 200 or so sculptures all over the city (they are more frequent than traffic lights). We got a map from the tourist booth (the woman was so happy to see us, I think we were some of the only tourists that day). We spent the day walking around. The city is really interesting. For some reason, there are immigrants there from all over the world. The plazas are named for the different countries, like Ukraine and Bulgaria. It’s really bizarre because Resistencia is the provincial capital of Chaco, which contains a region called chaco, which is a brutally hot, dry area. The locals told us we were lucky because we arrived on a day that wasn’t hot, it was about 80ºF. we had lunch at another outdoor café, while trying to plan our travels for this summer. We did a little shopping in the central plaza where stands were set up by local indigenous people. Very few indigenous people remain in Argentina, they were pushed out when the Spaniards settled the country. The remaining groups live in the north, near Posadas and Resistencia, and also in the northwestern provinces of Salta, Tucumán, and Jujuy.
Then, we headed for the bus station to get our 12 hour bus to Buenos Aires. Bus travel in Argentina is actually fantastic. It beats bus travel in the US, Britain, and the Balkans and plane travel anywhere. When your bus arrives, you check your bags and are given a claim ticket, which is really important because you must have the ticket to get your bag back. You get on the bus where the seats go back a lot more than in the US and you have a leg thing which supports your thighs and acts as a foot rest at the same time. There are movies (mostly American, with subtitles and sometimes sound in Spanish or in our case, Portuguese). The bus company provides you with unlimited coffee and hot water and they feed you. We had ham and cheese sandwiches, muffins and cookies at night, then biscuit/cookies for breakfast. The buses are comfortable and everyone sleeps.
We arrived in Buenos Aires Sunday morning and went home. My host mom wasn’t home because she had gone to her beach apartment for the weekend (when she heard I was going out of town, she decided to also). I was supposed to come back on Tuesday, but we decided we didn’t need a day in Posadas and we didn’t really want to go to Corrientes (city). I spent the day working on my History of the US paper, grocery shopping and organizing my laundry.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Paraná and Santa Fe
Wednesday, I had my horribly boring COPA class. It’s about grammar, but the teacher is terrible. We get nothing done. We spent two hours talking about two cases of the subjunctive (verb form that doesn’t exist in English). Then I went to Retiro bus station to buy bus tickets with Blythe to go to Paraná and Santa Fe (two cities in the Mesopotamia region up north). After that I walked to Borges class and tried to read in a park on the way (it was too cold).
Thursday I had History of the US in the morning. I really like that class, too bad I don’t need the credit from it. The Argentine students decided when they wanted to take the midterm (its next week). It’s a very democratic/adult system at times. The teacher says to the students we should discuss the midterm and the students respond, how about the 28th? Then the teacher says ok, but lets wait to see if more students come to class today to see if the date is ok with them. This would never happen in the US. The teacher picks the day and only changes it if enough students won’t be in class (which rarely happens unless you have something like Hilary Clinton speaking on campus). Then I had my Art History of Argentina/America class. It was hilarious, I was with this Argentine girl and we could not find the class. Most of the class was in our 5th floor classroom about 15 minutes early, so I went to the bathroom. When I came back, there was an Argentine girl talking to the director of the department and everyone else had left. So we went down to our 2nd floor classroom (one has a computer, the other slides...thats why we need two). There was another class in there, so we went back up to the 5th floor where we saw our professor talking to some other adult. We went into our classroom and were joined by a bunch of other students. We hung around for about 10 minutes and when we went out into the hall our prof wasn’t there anymore. So we asked the head of the department where we should go and she sent us down to the entrance floor to an auditorium-like room. We got to class 15 minutes and there was the prof sitting and waiting for the students. Typical Argentina.
Friday, I went to Retiro (another time) to buy tickets with Sierra for the upcoming weekend. They we ran some errands in microcentro and then went to lunch with Amy, Meagan, and Sandra. Another two hour lunch in their favorite restaurant. Then to Amy’s house so they could consume 1 kilo of ice cream while I ate an orange (they were actually pretty disgusting to watch). I went home a few hours later, showered, ate gnocci (yum) and left to find Blythe before going to Retiro another time. Our bus left at ½ past midnight. We slept as much as possible, which was difficult with the guy in front of us snoring and sounding like a horse.
We got to Paraná at 6:30 AM Saturday morning and walked around a little. We finally found a café that was open (Paraná doesn’t function on the same 24 hour all the time schedule as BsAs.) and had the most amazing breakfast in Argentina. They don’t really eat breakfast, so this was really incredible. For 10 pesos: omelet with ham, coffee, fresh squeezed orange juice, toast and marmalade. It was fantastic. We hung out there until 10 ish and then began to explore the town. We walked to the water and along the river’s edge. We tried to find a mate museum, which had moved to the center of town (we were pretty far our by the river). Instead, Blythe bought a mate and then we went to lunch where I had an empanada of river fish and fish meatballs (yum-yum). Then we went to find out if there were river excursions. We wound up going to this hotel which organized trips. We went in a group of 8 for a little more than an hour. It was great to be on the river and see the city. After that we went back to the center of town and saw the church. Then we left for Santa Fe (across the river, through a tunnel).
When we got to Santa Fe, we found a hotel for the night. We crashed for an hour and watched C-Span because we didn’t get BBC world. Then we went into the center of town, which was not as charming as Paraná. We ate at a sidewalk café which had incredibly cheap food (we’re used to BsAs prices). Then we got some ice cream and went back to the hotel to go to bed.
Sunday, I got up really early and stayed in bed doing nothing. We left the hotel at 11ish and went in search of breakfast. More omelets, this time not as good. We walked to the town plaza and tried to go to a museum and a convent, which were both closed. We just chilled in the plaza and then walked around a little bit before going to a zoo/experimental farm/family park thing. We saw a bunch of animals and sat at the park’s café enjoying the lack of dust/colectivo noise. Then we went back to town, walked around a little more. None of the store opened for the day every. Apparently in Santa Fe, everyone spends the day at home on Sundays. We picked up our stuff at the hotel and went to the bus station. We had hamburgers and sat around for two hours completely exhausted. Our bus left a little before 1AM.
Monday, we arrived at retiro at 6:35AM really tired, took the subte and went home and went to bed.
Thursday I had History of the US in the morning. I really like that class, too bad I don’t need the credit from it. The Argentine students decided when they wanted to take the midterm (its next week). It’s a very democratic/adult system at times. The teacher says to the students we should discuss the midterm and the students respond, how about the 28th? Then the teacher says ok, but lets wait to see if more students come to class today to see if the date is ok with them. This would never happen in the US. The teacher picks the day and only changes it if enough students won’t be in class (which rarely happens unless you have something like Hilary Clinton speaking on campus). Then I had my Art History of Argentina/America class. It was hilarious, I was with this Argentine girl and we could not find the class. Most of the class was in our 5th floor classroom about 15 minutes early, so I went to the bathroom. When I came back, there was an Argentine girl talking to the director of the department and everyone else had left. So we went down to our 2nd floor classroom (one has a computer, the other slides...thats why we need two). There was another class in there, so we went back up to the 5th floor where we saw our professor talking to some other adult. We went into our classroom and were joined by a bunch of other students. We hung around for about 10 minutes and when we went out into the hall our prof wasn’t there anymore. So we asked the head of the department where we should go and she sent us down to the entrance floor to an auditorium-like room. We got to class 15 minutes and there was the prof sitting and waiting for the students. Typical Argentina.
Friday, I went to Retiro (another time) to buy tickets with Sierra for the upcoming weekend. They we ran some errands in microcentro and then went to lunch with Amy, Meagan, and Sandra. Another two hour lunch in their favorite restaurant. Then to Amy’s house so they could consume 1 kilo of ice cream while I ate an orange (they were actually pretty disgusting to watch). I went home a few hours later, showered, ate gnocci (yum) and left to find Blythe before going to Retiro another time. Our bus left at ½ past midnight. We slept as much as possible, which was difficult with the guy in front of us snoring and sounding like a horse.
We got to Paraná at 6:30 AM Saturday morning and walked around a little. We finally found a café that was open (Paraná doesn’t function on the same 24 hour all the time schedule as BsAs.) and had the most amazing breakfast in Argentina. They don’t really eat breakfast, so this was really incredible. For 10 pesos: omelet with ham, coffee, fresh squeezed orange juice, toast and marmalade. It was fantastic. We hung out there until 10 ish and then began to explore the town. We walked to the water and along the river’s edge. We tried to find a mate museum, which had moved to the center of town (we were pretty far our by the river). Instead, Blythe bought a mate and then we went to lunch where I had an empanada of river fish and fish meatballs (yum-yum). Then we went to find out if there were river excursions. We wound up going to this hotel which organized trips. We went in a group of 8 for a little more than an hour. It was great to be on the river and see the city. After that we went back to the center of town and saw the church. Then we left for Santa Fe (across the river, through a tunnel).
When we got to Santa Fe, we found a hotel for the night. We crashed for an hour and watched C-Span because we didn’t get BBC world. Then we went into the center of town, which was not as charming as Paraná. We ate at a sidewalk café which had incredibly cheap food (we’re used to BsAs prices). Then we got some ice cream and went back to the hotel to go to bed.
Sunday, I got up really early and stayed in bed doing nothing. We left the hotel at 11ish and went in search of breakfast. More omelets, this time not as good. We walked to the town plaza and tried to go to a museum and a convent, which were both closed. We just chilled in the plaza and then walked around a little bit before going to a zoo/experimental farm/family park thing. We saw a bunch of animals and sat at the park’s café enjoying the lack of dust/colectivo noise. Then we went back to town, walked around a little more. None of the store opened for the day every. Apparently in Santa Fe, everyone spends the day at home on Sundays. We picked up our stuff at the hotel and went to the bus station. We had hamburgers and sat around for two hours completely exhausted. Our bus left a little before 1AM.
Monday, we arrived at retiro at 6:35AM really tired, took the subte and went home and went to bed.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Buenos Aires nights 12-9-06
Wednesday: nothing special happened. I went to grammar class. It was boring, although somewhat more helpful than the past few. I went home and ate meat loaf and read for my Borges class. Then, I went to Borges and found out I didn’t have to read and we were watching a movie. After class was the birthday dinner at Mario’s house (he’s the director of COPA). A bunch of us gathered to celebrate our birthdays but I left pretty early because I wanted to take the subte home with another girl because Mario lives in a sketchy area.
Thursday: more classes. I think I went home for lunch again…and don’t really remember what else I did. Nothing special.
Friday: I went to the “post office” to mail a card to the US (who knows when its going to arrive; hopefully before Christmas). The post office is a large room with a counter, a bunch of plastic chairs, some lockers (I’ve never seen them being used) and a ridiculous amount of unused space. It also serves many functions, for instance it’s a “rapipago,” a place where you can go to pay all of your utility bills at once (they’re all over the city). Something to keep in mind: never go Fridays at noon…ever. When I got there, I took a deli number (a lot of business function with deli numbers here, for instance the hardware store…). I was 3 and they were on 23. Forty, yes 40, minutes later it was finally my turn. My friend had come to find me because I was ridiculously late for lunch. While I was finally being helped, this really pushy woman (who arrived before me, but somehow neglected to get a deli number) started talking to her. She was actually really hysterical; she told my friend that Argentina isn’t a third world country. It’s a forth, fifth or sixth world country because all of the craziness at the post office. Basically, everything here is bureaucratic and unorganized.
So we went and had lunch with our friends. Then we walked around my neighborhood and bought some cakes/pastries. We went back to my apartment so they could eat them (this is their Friday tradition)…I had my leftover fruit salad.
We spent a bunch of time at my apartment. Then some of us headed over to the Rural (a large exposition center with multiple buildings; I went to an event of the same name in August). Friday was the last day of fashion week here in BsAs. We never actually made it inside the exposition because we got distracted by the see-saws outside. I don’t understand how little kids aren’t terrified of see-saws because I really was. I nearly fell off so many times, which might have had something to do with Blythe’s really long legs and attempts to propel me into the air.
Friday night, Blythe, Sandra and I decided to go out and have a “true” BsAs night, which I still hadn’t done. We met at midnight and went to Blythe’s “cousin’s” music show. His rock band was actually really good for a couple of university aged kids. Then we went to a bar called the Alamo to get tickets to a boliche (club). To get into the bar, we were supposed to pay or something but we told them we were Americans (one girl had to show a US college ID) and apparently that’s the free ticket in. that’s the first time anything has been free for Americans but porteños have to pay… we got the tickets, saw more COPA kids that I ever want to see in one place again and left. To get into the upstairs part of the bar, all I had to do was tell them that we had been downstairs (after I helped some really confused Americans get into the downstairs one with their college ids). I think we got to the club, called Mint, at about 3ish (which means we’re cool…because its unheard of to arrive before 2). We danced and hung out there until 6:15. It was insanely large with a ton of people, but also located on the river which was really cool because we went outside and down to the beach (which we weren’t really allowed to do because we weren’t supposed to be able to re-enter the club). When we left, Sandra and Blythe decided they wanted empanadas, which meant we had to find a place that was open at that hour. That wasn’t really as hard as you might think. We actually found a lot of people walking around BsAs. Finally we went to a rather crowded restaurant in Recoleta. There were people having breakfast (after spending a night out or because it was really early in the morning) and people having full meals (the guys next to us were having meal and veggies). When we left, it was 7:30 or so and my feet were hurting a bit, so Blythe and I decided to take the Subte (which we didn’t have to pay for because the ticket woman didn’t feel like selling us tickets…I’m not joking). I went home, said good morning to my host mom and went to bed.
Saturday: I woke up at 3:30 and had some cereal. I spent the rest of the day reading and went to pilates…it was the bad class again…the boring one- no peppy/yelling teacher; no hand weights – no work out :( I went out to dinner with Blythe, Meagan, and Briana at 10ish. We went to this cute little restaurant three blocks away from where I live. We actually closed the place; we stayed until 1AM. Then, Briana and I went to go meet up with her friend from her volleyball team. We were supposed to meet them at Plaza Serrano (this hang-out area near my house). They told us they were near there…which meant that they were a colectivo (bus) ride away (porteños have a very skewed definition of directions). We would up going to there apartment (we didn’t get there until 3ish) and playing an argentine card game, which I think I understand…sort of. Its kind of like poker in that cards have values, which don’t match the numbers (where in poker you have group cards in a fashion that forms values). Also, you sort of bet each round (and can raise/change the bet like in poker). Otherwise, I have no way of comparing it…I’ll learn it better so I can teach other people when I get home. We wound up staying there until 6:30ish and then taking the colectivo back to Santa Fe (my street) and going to the 24 hour café for tea and medialunas (croissants). Another day of getting home when my host mom was getting up…two Buenos Aires nights in a row!! Oh my!! Never again…
Sunday: I woke up at noon and spent some time in bed reading. Then Meagan texted me saying she and Steve wanted to get together to study for history of America 1. I said they could come over and we wound up spending 5 hours studying. We found rather helpful encyclopedias in my room.
Monday: I went out to the suburbs to volunteer. Amy, Meagan, and I went with a group called LIFE (in Spanish, the letters stand for fighting for education and happiness for all children) and group which teaches children English, visits sick children in the hospital, and organizes activities like games for them. We went to Esteban Echeverría, a southern suburb near the airport. The woman in charge is a 30 year old Brit who basically had a midlife crisis and decided to leave London to go to South America to volunteer. One problem, she doesn’t speak Spanish. There was another girl our age who was here to volunteer also and who also doesn’t speak Spanish. This meant that Amy, Meagan and I had to do most of the work. So we took an hour long sketchy train ride out into the suburbs. The room we were teaching in is basically a large shack-like structure with an attached fútbol field. Many kids weren’t there because Monday was Teacher’s day and primario (little kid school) was canceled. Many of those that arrived really only wanted to color, which was unfortunate because we couldn’t get them to do anything. I’m not even sure it was worth it because it takes more time to get there and back then the two hours we are there teaching. It was also kind of annoying to be in a group of 5 speaking English. Both British women have had trouble here with taxi cabs and stuff. They have been given fake bills and tricked into paying more than they have to. I’m really glad I speak the language and tell cabs where we are so they know not to mess with me (oh, of course we’re on saramiento and the next intersection is libertador near the monumento a los españoles).
Tuesday: Didn’t do much. Walked around microcentro. Went to awesome pilates!! (I spend most of the week waiting for Tuesday because I love this pilates class…its so painful).
Thursday: more classes. I think I went home for lunch again…and don’t really remember what else I did. Nothing special.
Friday: I went to the “post office” to mail a card to the US (who knows when its going to arrive; hopefully before Christmas). The post office is a large room with a counter, a bunch of plastic chairs, some lockers (I’ve never seen them being used) and a ridiculous amount of unused space. It also serves many functions, for instance it’s a “rapipago,” a place where you can go to pay all of your utility bills at once (they’re all over the city). Something to keep in mind: never go Fridays at noon…ever. When I got there, I took a deli number (a lot of business function with deli numbers here, for instance the hardware store…). I was 3 and they were on 23. Forty, yes 40, minutes later it was finally my turn. My friend had come to find me because I was ridiculously late for lunch. While I was finally being helped, this really pushy woman (who arrived before me, but somehow neglected to get a deli number) started talking to her. She was actually really hysterical; she told my friend that Argentina isn’t a third world country. It’s a forth, fifth or sixth world country because all of the craziness at the post office. Basically, everything here is bureaucratic and unorganized.
So we went and had lunch with our friends. Then we walked around my neighborhood and bought some cakes/pastries. We went back to my apartment so they could eat them (this is their Friday tradition)…I had my leftover fruit salad.
We spent a bunch of time at my apartment. Then some of us headed over to the Rural (a large exposition center with multiple buildings; I went to an event of the same name in August). Friday was the last day of fashion week here in BsAs. We never actually made it inside the exposition because we got distracted by the see-saws outside. I don’t understand how little kids aren’t terrified of see-saws because I really was. I nearly fell off so many times, which might have had something to do with Blythe’s really long legs and attempts to propel me into the air.
Friday night, Blythe, Sandra and I decided to go out and have a “true” BsAs night, which I still hadn’t done. We met at midnight and went to Blythe’s “cousin’s” music show. His rock band was actually really good for a couple of university aged kids. Then we went to a bar called the Alamo to get tickets to a boliche (club). To get into the bar, we were supposed to pay or something but we told them we were Americans (one girl had to show a US college ID) and apparently that’s the free ticket in. that’s the first time anything has been free for Americans but porteños have to pay… we got the tickets, saw more COPA kids that I ever want to see in one place again and left. To get into the upstairs part of the bar, all I had to do was tell them that we had been downstairs (after I helped some really confused Americans get into the downstairs one with their college ids). I think we got to the club, called Mint, at about 3ish (which means we’re cool…because its unheard of to arrive before 2). We danced and hung out there until 6:15. It was insanely large with a ton of people, but also located on the river which was really cool because we went outside and down to the beach (which we weren’t really allowed to do because we weren’t supposed to be able to re-enter the club). When we left, Sandra and Blythe decided they wanted empanadas, which meant we had to find a place that was open at that hour. That wasn’t really as hard as you might think. We actually found a lot of people walking around BsAs. Finally we went to a rather crowded restaurant in Recoleta. There were people having breakfast (after spending a night out or because it was really early in the morning) and people having full meals (the guys next to us were having meal and veggies). When we left, it was 7:30 or so and my feet were hurting a bit, so Blythe and I decided to take the Subte (which we didn’t have to pay for because the ticket woman didn’t feel like selling us tickets…I’m not joking). I went home, said good morning to my host mom and went to bed.
Saturday: I woke up at 3:30 and had some cereal. I spent the rest of the day reading and went to pilates…it was the bad class again…the boring one- no peppy/yelling teacher; no hand weights – no work out :( I went out to dinner with Blythe, Meagan, and Briana at 10ish. We went to this cute little restaurant three blocks away from where I live. We actually closed the place; we stayed until 1AM. Then, Briana and I went to go meet up with her friend from her volleyball team. We were supposed to meet them at Plaza Serrano (this hang-out area near my house). They told us they were near there…which meant that they were a colectivo (bus) ride away (porteños have a very skewed definition of directions). We would up going to there apartment (we didn’t get there until 3ish) and playing an argentine card game, which I think I understand…sort of. Its kind of like poker in that cards have values, which don’t match the numbers (where in poker you have group cards in a fashion that forms values). Also, you sort of bet each round (and can raise/change the bet like in poker). Otherwise, I have no way of comparing it…I’ll learn it better so I can teach other people when I get home. We wound up staying there until 6:30ish and then taking the colectivo back to Santa Fe (my street) and going to the 24 hour café for tea and medialunas (croissants). Another day of getting home when my host mom was getting up…two Buenos Aires nights in a row!! Oh my!! Never again…
Sunday: I woke up at noon and spent some time in bed reading. Then Meagan texted me saying she and Steve wanted to get together to study for history of America 1. I said they could come over and we wound up spending 5 hours studying. We found rather helpful encyclopedias in my room.
Monday: I went out to the suburbs to volunteer. Amy, Meagan, and I went with a group called LIFE (in Spanish, the letters stand for fighting for education and happiness for all children) and group which teaches children English, visits sick children in the hospital, and organizes activities like games for them. We went to Esteban Echeverría, a southern suburb near the airport. The woman in charge is a 30 year old Brit who basically had a midlife crisis and decided to leave London to go to South America to volunteer. One problem, she doesn’t speak Spanish. There was another girl our age who was here to volunteer also and who also doesn’t speak Spanish. This meant that Amy, Meagan and I had to do most of the work. So we took an hour long sketchy train ride out into the suburbs. The room we were teaching in is basically a large shack-like structure with an attached fútbol field. Many kids weren’t there because Monday was Teacher’s day and primario (little kid school) was canceled. Many of those that arrived really only wanted to color, which was unfortunate because we couldn’t get them to do anything. I’m not even sure it was worth it because it takes more time to get there and back then the two hours we are there teaching. It was also kind of annoying to be in a group of 5 speaking English. Both British women have had trouble here with taxi cabs and stuff. They have been given fake bills and tricked into paying more than they have to. I’m really glad I speak the language and tell cabs where we are so they know not to mess with me (oh, of course we’re on saramiento and the next intersection is libertador near the monumento a los españoles).
Tuesday: Didn’t do much. Walked around microcentro. Went to awesome pilates!! (I spend most of the week waiting for Tuesday because I love this pilates class…its so painful).
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
My first winter birthday
Wednesday I had class at COPA and USAL. During the day I went to the bus station with my friend and spend a lot of time at COPA using the internet (which is what I do every Wednesday and why you really only get emails from me on Wednesdays).
Thursday was my 20th birthday. It was also my first birthday with classes and my first birthday in “winter” (I still wore a skirt). My host mom took me out to dinner. We had some Argentine beef. Later, I went to my friend’s apartment where a bunch of people had gathered to throw me a party. We hung out and listened to music and stuff.
Friday, we went out to lunch. I also bought challah at a Jewish food store. It was really yummy. I also found marshmallows at that food store, imported of course. We walked around shopping/wandering for the rest of the day. Then I walked home in the rain and did nothing Friday night.
Saturday I went to San Antonio de Areco with a bunch of COPA people, Amy, Meagan, Sierra, Sandra, and Tony (the only guy!). We took a bus from Buenos Aires (its less than 2 hours away) and pretty soon were on a country route where there was nothing but trees and flat land. First, we walked around the town, with a stray dog which decided to attach itself to us (Meagan and Sierra made this very easy for the dog). We went to a chocolate shop that my host mom had recommended. The alfajores (sandwich cookies with dulce de leche) were fantastic. Then we found this huge tree thing (it was a cross between a tree and a bush) and everyone climbed it and took pictures. We ate lunch near the “river,” more like a stream. Amy bought a sausage to give to the dog, which had disappeared when we were in the restaurant, then reappeared, but didn’t want to follow us any more. We crossed the river and went to the museum Ricardo Güiraldes’s house. He was a writer from the same time as Borges, but he wrote about gauchos. After that, we went to the farm of a family friend of Amy’s Argentine family. We played with there dogs (a mutt, a cocker spaniel, a yellow lab, and a golden retriever). We went back to town because Sierra and Amy wanted to ride horses and we couldn’t use the family horses on Saturday (the daughter in charge of the horses was working). While they were riding, the rest of us explored the town some more and walked around a lot. We found some orange trees near the plaza and I tried, unsuccessfully, to climb them (or use my umbrella to pick the oranges). We went to a café so Meagan could try some mate, a tea-like drink. The rest of us had already tried it. Then we met up with Amy and Sierra, who had both fallen off their horses, had dinner and went back to the farm. At the farm we tried to meet the family, but only 2 or 3 of the 9 brothers and sisters were around and the parents had gone out also. We hung out with the youngest, Ignacio, age 11. We went to sleep early, like midnightish. Our rooms were adorable, but the heat didn’t really work and it was only 3 or 4 degrees out. We slept in pretty much all of our clothing and blankets and stuff. It was fine for one night.
Sunday, I woke up to the sound of my phone talking to me. Apparently my alarm clock talks. It was telling me to walk up and that it was 7:50 in the morning. We had breakfast in the main house next to a roaring fire. Then it was time for horses. I went first. Nearly cried it was so terrifying. Then Sandra road around a little. Then Tony, Sierra, and Amy went on a long ride with one of the daughters (and the 7-month old yellow lab and golden retriever). Sandra, Meagan and I went for a walk up the road with Inga (the cocker spaniel). We walked around the industrial area of town near the old, overgrown railroad tracks. We left for Buenos Aires around noon. Meagan and I met Steve at the Feria de Recoleta (big fair-like thing). Meagan and I bought mates (so we can make our own now) and shared a pastry-like thing. I left the fair at 4ish because I was exhausted. Came home, showered, and did nothing the rest of the day.
Monday, I went to the gym and then a cooking class. It was pretty boring. I don’t like cooking classes where you watch someone cook. I want to cook. The woman made whole wheat croissants, which I’m going to try with regular floor rather than whole wheat. Then Meagan came over for dinner because her family doesn’t eat dinner together, or talk to her and they’re never home. I made fajitas (which were not at all spicy, so I had to keep adding cayenne and stuff to them). They were really yummy. My host mom had never had them before. The spice packet was imported from the US. We walked our telenovela and went to bed.
Tuesday I went to the center of the city to buy some stuff for my camera and walk around. Then I went to pilates. My host my and I made another meat loaf; she really likes it.
Thursday was my 20th birthday. It was also my first birthday with classes and my first birthday in “winter” (I still wore a skirt). My host mom took me out to dinner. We had some Argentine beef. Later, I went to my friend’s apartment where a bunch of people had gathered to throw me a party. We hung out and listened to music and stuff.
Friday, we went out to lunch. I also bought challah at a Jewish food store. It was really yummy. I also found marshmallows at that food store, imported of course. We walked around shopping/wandering for the rest of the day. Then I walked home in the rain and did nothing Friday night.
Saturday I went to San Antonio de Areco with a bunch of COPA people, Amy, Meagan, Sierra, Sandra, and Tony (the only guy!). We took a bus from Buenos Aires (its less than 2 hours away) and pretty soon were on a country route where there was nothing but trees and flat land. First, we walked around the town, with a stray dog which decided to attach itself to us (Meagan and Sierra made this very easy for the dog). We went to a chocolate shop that my host mom had recommended. The alfajores (sandwich cookies with dulce de leche) were fantastic. Then we found this huge tree thing (it was a cross between a tree and a bush) and everyone climbed it and took pictures. We ate lunch near the “river,” more like a stream. Amy bought a sausage to give to the dog, which had disappeared when we were in the restaurant, then reappeared, but didn’t want to follow us any more. We crossed the river and went to the museum Ricardo Güiraldes’s house. He was a writer from the same time as Borges, but he wrote about gauchos. After that, we went to the farm of a family friend of Amy’s Argentine family. We played with there dogs (a mutt, a cocker spaniel, a yellow lab, and a golden retriever). We went back to town because Sierra and Amy wanted to ride horses and we couldn’t use the family horses on Saturday (the daughter in charge of the horses was working). While they were riding, the rest of us explored the town some more and walked around a lot. We found some orange trees near the plaza and I tried, unsuccessfully, to climb them (or use my umbrella to pick the oranges). We went to a café so Meagan could try some mate, a tea-like drink. The rest of us had already tried it. Then we met up with Amy and Sierra, who had both fallen off their horses, had dinner and went back to the farm. At the farm we tried to meet the family, but only 2 or 3 of the 9 brothers and sisters were around and the parents had gone out also. We hung out with the youngest, Ignacio, age 11. We went to sleep early, like midnightish. Our rooms were adorable, but the heat didn’t really work and it was only 3 or 4 degrees out. We slept in pretty much all of our clothing and blankets and stuff. It was fine for one night.
Sunday, I woke up to the sound of my phone talking to me. Apparently my alarm clock talks. It was telling me to walk up and that it was 7:50 in the morning. We had breakfast in the main house next to a roaring fire. Then it was time for horses. I went first. Nearly cried it was so terrifying. Then Sandra road around a little. Then Tony, Sierra, and Amy went on a long ride with one of the daughters (and the 7-month old yellow lab and golden retriever). Sandra, Meagan and I went for a walk up the road with Inga (the cocker spaniel). We walked around the industrial area of town near the old, overgrown railroad tracks. We left for Buenos Aires around noon. Meagan and I met Steve at the Feria de Recoleta (big fair-like thing). Meagan and I bought mates (so we can make our own now) and shared a pastry-like thing. I left the fair at 4ish because I was exhausted. Came home, showered, and did nothing the rest of the day.
Monday, I went to the gym and then a cooking class. It was pretty boring. I don’t like cooking classes where you watch someone cook. I want to cook. The woman made whole wheat croissants, which I’m going to try with regular floor rather than whole wheat. Then Meagan came over for dinner because her family doesn’t eat dinner together, or talk to her and they’re never home. I made fajitas (which were not at all spicy, so I had to keep adding cayenne and stuff to them). They were really yummy. My host mom had never had them before. The spice packet was imported from the US. We walked our telenovela and went to bed.
Tuesday I went to the center of the city to buy some stuff for my camera and walk around. Then I went to pilates. My host my and I made another meat loaf; she really likes it.
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