Fotos

Don't feeling like writing much now, but I haven't updated in a while so I decided to make a picture post. Everything is going really well and I would like to think I'm fully adjusted to living in the city. Next week I start my volunteer job an hour and a half outside the city at La Casa del Nino. I'm so excited to get a regular opportunity to a) get out of the city, just because it is so different than the rest of Argentina, and b)work with kids! I will start off every week by taking the subway to FLACSO during the most intense time of morning rush hour (between 7.45-8.30) where people are actually packed like sardines with not a square inch to spare! Then i'll take a taxi to the town where Casa del Nino is and Annie and I will get spend several hours teaching kids how to make puppets/reading stories/playing outside/eating lunch! I'm so excited, I definitely think it's going to be a highlight of my time here. Besides that my routine is solid, I rarely finish any of my readings, but I see new and exciting things everyday and I got complemented by a porteno that I spoke faster spanish than him! Not only is my grammar getting better (I hope..) but my confidence/intonation is too... maybe? Hopefully!

Anyways, ciao for now!

thats my window all the way to the left, taken from the balcony off of the living room

the dinning room/door to the apartment

view from my bedroom window!

natural history museum

there were so so many stray cats hanging out by the natural history museum

annie at the park 10 minutes away from my house. see that carousel in the background? i can't ride it because im too old.

chillin at the park

thats the floralis generica in the distance and the UBA Law School to the right

tree being taken over by vines in the botanical garden

tree that has braided itself back together, also in the botanical gardens

typical tree-lined street in Recoleta/Palermo Viejo

Un mes...

Hello Everyone!

I know its been a while and I'm sorry about that. I've been here for almost a month now! Three weeks for sure...

The 5th-6th of August we went to San Antonio de Areco with the program which is a little down in the provence of Buenos Aires (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_de_Areco) and it was great to get out of the city for a little bit! The landscape was much like Iowa's so I found myself being really nostalgic and maybe realizing I'm not the city girl I thought I was? I'm not sure I just happen to miss Iowa a lot. Anyways, it was nice to experience a bit of 'real Argentina' because any porteno can tell you that Buenos Aires and Argentina have few similarities. So the little FLACSO trip was pretty eventful for such a short little trip. I rode a horse for the first time, took a lovely bikeride at sunset around the town, ate lots and lots of food (especially meat oh my god the meat toooo much) accidently broke a window with Mando the night they brought us to a restaurant in the woods and basically forced us to party, witnessed a man give a solo performance with his horse which included him straddling the horse on it's back, spooning it on the ground, and all other kinds of weird intimate things........ all in all a great little trip!

Classes began at the start of last week. I've figured my schedule out so that I don't have classes on Fridays which will make traveling on the weekends more convenient. I want to go to Uruguay, the Mendoza region (gotta try dat wine), and maybeeee Santiago, Chile to visit Anna Armstrong but she is coming here during September which is really exciting!

Anyways so I'm taking several classes at FLACSO - International Relations of Latin America, Seminar on Volunteerism and Service Learning, and New Cinema of Argentina, along with my my grammer/oral skills classes. This past Thursday I shopped two classes at UBA - one at Ciencias Sociales and another at Filosofia y Letras. It was probably one of the scariest/most intimidating school experiences of my life but reallllyyyy exciting. I was unusually one of the first people to my morning class and people kept coming in throughout the entire first hour without the professor even flinching! Oh forgot to mention that all of the UBA buildings are the craziest places I have ever tried to learn in. Graffiti all over the walls, posters upon posters about protests and socialists groups, everybody smoking cigarettes in the hallways, no toilet paper in the bathrooms..... Anyways so my first UBA class went alright but my professor is this really old man (who turns out is really famous socialist sociologist ... so we'lll see how that goes! His name is Emilio de Ipola - google him! He has 5 books for sale on amazon.com) who was half asleep when he started his lecture so it was really hard to understand but as time when he got more and more lively and made everyone in class giggle. I got an Argentine girls email address after class so I already have one new friend in that class! I think its going to be interesting topic just way more sociology-based than im used to. The second class I went to ended up being just about Plato/Aristotle but I understood everything that was going on so thank you Professor Meehan for teaching me enough to survive the first day of a philosophy seminar! But it was really cool to be in the Filosofia y Letras building. because I got to see the famous che guevara classroom.

not my picture but just to give you an idea of UBA buildings - thats an entrance to the one where i will take a class!

okay enough about school! what else have I been up to..... hmmmmmmm well right now the city is in the midst of the International Tango Festival so last night a bunch of us went to a free performance. Great music, it just always weirds me out how traditionally male dominated the performances are. Of course the dance was created for a man and a woman but the music is rarely performed by women. But the dance is really sexy you guys. The partners hold their faces really close together and the woman has to do some many slinky moves with her legs sometimes it looks like she is trying to tie a knot between her leg and her partners.

Anyways my host parents are gone for the weekend again! This past week was my host mom's birthday (she turned 61 and my host dad is turning 70 in a week) so they are celebrating their birthdays together in the countryside. Earlier in the week her daughter came over with her boyfriend and we all had mate. Mate is a delicious earthy tea that is really popular in Argentine. The way its served and shared is really specific because its a traditional drink. But it was really nice sitting around, sipping mate, and chatting with my host family.

I have so much reading to do! All of its in spanish obviously oy vey. Anyways I should probably get back to that. We didnt have classes today (monday) because its some holiday so obviously i left all my homework until today.

HASTA LUEGO! i'll try to update more regularly, perhaps with shorter entries/lil stories + more pictures. But just know that i'm settling in everyone! One month in, four to go....!!!!

old fashioned grocery store in san antonio de areco

a cafe in san antonio de areco

sunset on the river

1st time riding a horse!

just a man and his horse.....

Una Semana

So I'm one week in! I'm still in the middle of orientation but I had the past three days free and I managed to get some touristy things in!

I blatantly lied to my parents (SORRY GUYS I DIDNT WANT YOU TO WORRY) but my host parents have been gone since Thursday morning. They own a marble/stone factory like half an hour outside the city and so they have been delivering marble throughout the countryside to clients. They took Kaia the dog and their granddaughter, Julianne, with them. They are coming back tomorrow at noon. It wasnt too lonely though because I went out and did stuff and also because friends came over and we ordered delivery dinner two nights in a row and Annie and Jacob both slept over Friday. They also left me a huge tarta and lots of empanadas so I haven't really had a problem feeding myself at all. I am excited for them to get back though. Also them being gone has led me to discover a channel on the TV which shows live footage from the security camera that is pointed at the main door to the street, which is really creepy to watch but actually quite useful!

So I've registered for one class in the Filosofia y Letras department of UBA and tomorrow I will register for a lot more in the Ciencias Sociales. We are gonna have a two week shopping period where we get to sit in as many classes as we want (only ones that we are registered in though) and then drop the ones we dont like. That means after this week of orientation, my next two weeks after that are gonna be way crazier than any other time on the program. But I'm really anxious to have my schedule normalized. I am just going to have to figure out a place to do homework because my broom closet is really not ideal and my host parents always watch TV in the main room so that would be distracting. Annnyyywaysss

What to update you guys on next? Tourist things! Sorry the First Wive's Club on TV is pretty distracting. On Saturday I went to the Cemetery in Recoleta with Tessa, Casey, and Molly. I didn't get to spend that much time in the cemetery because it closed once it started to get dark but it was beautiful. I got to see Eva Peron's tomb (see below) and its kind of like a mini city of tombs. Lots of stray cats too! There were lots of old tombs made of crumbling brick and with vines and plants starting to grow in random spots. There were also musicians outside of the cemetery, since its such a tourist spot, and it reminded me how great live music is! There was one group with a banjo, guitar, and clarinet and they were totally rocking and further down the street there was an amazing classical ensemble. There was also a fair with lots of hippies selling "crafts" and wool things and randomly lots of baby clothes.

Then Saturday night I went over to Mando's apartment and it was tan bueno! Sat around talking with his fairy gay-parents (his host brother and his boyfriend who looks JUST LIKE JEFF OTIS!) and his other host brother who is a professional chef and kind of a condescending asshole (he just keep making fun of our accents so that wasnt so encouraging) and drank beer and ate lots of snacks and ended up playing beer pong when at least 5 more argentine friends showed up. I guess it is a universal sport? It was really fun regardless of two glasses breaking because they were using bottle caps instead of ping pong balls. Mando seriously has a great host family though!

Today I met up with Annie, Casey, and Tessa at the fair in San Telmo! It's a weekly fair in one of the older neighborhoods and basically has tons of useless kitschy shit but it was great to see a bit of that part of the city. There were also two processionals that went around the fair - one was religious (catholic i think?) that started after fireworks blasted from a nearby church steeple (v. dramatic) and the other was a huge group of drummers that clogged up the streets but could be heard for miles. Then we went to a cafe to warm up and just sat and charlar-ed for a while. We split two yummy deserts, one of which came with a shot of Fernet which is this really popular argentine liquor that is supposedly to be minty buts it smells like licorice and I really don't like that stuff.

This Thursday to Friday we are leaving the city for the first time which should be refreshing! I am excited to see more of Argentina than just Buenos Aires. I was kind of feeling earlier this past week that if this place feels so much like NYC and other places I've experienced before, what's the point of being so far away.... so that's why I'm excited to see more legitimate argentine places and start classes, because I know that classes here especially at UBA will be WAY different than Grinnell.

Anyways I guess that is all for now! It's nice to hear that people are reading this. I'll try to make this a weekly thing and keep up with pictures. Missin' everybody constantly!

PICTURES:

The scene at the fair outside of the Recoleta Cemetery.

Eva Peron's tomb in the Recoleta Cemetery!

Ferret on a leash!

Kaia sitting at the entrance to my room (thats the kitchen behind her)

Estoy Aca!

So Buenos Aires has been treating me well so far.

All I have to say about the weather is QUE PINCHE FRIO!

Coming from 100 degree weather to 40-60 degree weather is definitely an adjustment.

The food so far has been amazing - pizza con las chicas (Tessa, Annie, and newfriend Molly from JHU/NYC who knows peeps i do from Mountain School) en Recoleta after El MALBA (Museum of Contemporary Latin American Art in BsAs). EL MALBA was a perfect cold rainy Sunday activity. It's all one guys collection and I saw some amazing stuff. There was also a Mapplethorpe exihibit which had just opened up the day before which was filled with shocking and beautiful pictures of famous people, flowers, and penises/boobs.

Favorite works:

imagine this only spanning two floors connecting two benches ... Pablo Reinoso

this, only in white? i guess she has done more than one or other people have copies of it .... Maria Martins

don't know who this picture is by but thats andy warhol and marta minujin (who i didnt know before but she is an awesome portena artist)

anyways i guess i should get back to talking about food? haha of course the empanadas all over the city are the best things in the whole world. for all the russians reading this they are just like larger perogi. for everyone else, they are pastries filled with anything from beef and onions to tomatoes and mozarella and they are usually so cheap and so full of flavor. i also am really glad that my host mom cooks such yummy food! tartas (kind of like quiche) y sopa de verduras y pollo!

on saturday after my oral exam, Mando, Molly, her friend Jacob, and I explored Plazo de Mayo. If you dont know what that is plz just look on wikipedia because its only the most important place in the city. We got lunch in Monserrat which is Annie's neighborhood and has cobblestone streets, not to mention narrow. It's really nice that we can order wine with lunch here. Then we explored Palermo Soho (further north) along with Casey to get celphones and see what all the fuss is about. That is actually where I thought I was living but I live on the boarder of Villa Crespo and Palermo. So like 10 blocks away from the hip/bohemian neighborhood.

getting to my homestay situation, its pretty great! My host mom is ukrainian jewish argentine! her grandparents were from Kiev, so thats awesome. My host dad is so porteno its not even funny. He is of italian and spanish decent and has super italian mannerisms. and on to the third member of the family, Kaia the dog. SHE IS ALMOST UP TO MY WAIST. she is so smart and nice and calm. i dont think ive heard her bark once. she loves to play and to sit on my feet during dinner which seriously warms them up.

okay here comes the real kicker, if youve made it this far in my entry this is a treat: I LIVE ON THE CORNER OF AVENIDA ESTADO DEL ISRAEL AND CALLE PALESTINA! LOLZZZZZZ so while there is incredibly hilarious irony in my address, i kind of wish i didnt live on such a huge avenue because its kind of scary of night and there are lots of cars and not so many little shops and there isnt really a neighborhood feel. but eeezzz okay because today i walked all the way home from FLACSO and if i go down side streets there are plenty of shops and panaderias and verdurarias y todo eso!

but in terms of my room ....... its quite small. and has no heating. and there is a window right by my feet so they are always cold when im in bed. also my bed is four feet off the ground and is about three feet wide and takes up most of the room. also all of my storage space is underneath, aka i have no closet just makeshift cupboards with exposed pipes behind them. then i have some shelves above my bed. but i guess i also have a toilet/sink just to myself in my 11 ft by 6ft room with a lil door that separates them in to a 4ft by 4ft minibathroom.

FLACSO is great. i love all the advisers there. they are so chill and beautiful, like the rest of the argentines. I also found out that I am in the advanced spanish level II so that means I have to take 1 class at UBA and 3 at FLACSO. but i was worried I wasnt going to be able to take any clases at UBA at all so here i come 400person class!

also today is the anniversary of eva peron's death so i just saw on the tv while my host dad was watching the news that the city is going crazy right now! might go and join the fesitivites or might spend all night waiting for dinner and looking at classes online.

IN SUM/feelingstime: everything is great. lots of adjusting. extremely overwhelming and tiring. cant believe i still have so much time left. miss everyone and everything familiar so much.

ok CIAO for now! (ppl say ciao here)

BESOS!

PS. i guess this blog is gonna be all over the place because my thoughts are still completely scrambled all the time.

I'm Still In Connecticut

Hey everybody! 

So I'm really bad at keeping in touch so I figured keeping a blog would be a great way to keep people updated on my adventures in Buenos Aires, Argentina this semester! And also it could be a nice place to write down funny things that happen to me so I don't forget.

So I'm leaving for Buenos Aires on Wednesday night and I will arrive Thursday morning.

I already know that I will meet my host family, who live in the Palermo Viejo Soho area, by Friday. I got an email from my host family and they sound pretty sweet! Norma and Juan are in their mid-50s I would guess from the pictures. My mom said that their last name sounds Jewish, so that's good I guess. Norma is an architect and Juan runs their marble/stone store (marmoleria). I'm going to have my own bedroom and bathroom so that means I will most likely still get alone time which I'm sure will be nice in a city of 13 million. Palermo Soho is a great location I think (wiki description - "It is a newly fashionable area for fashion, design, restaurants, bars and street culture. The atmosphere in many cafés and restaurants strives to be "alternative", which makes this area of the city especially popular with young, upper-middle class Argentines as well as foreign tourists. The traditional low houses have been adapted into boutiques and bars, creating a bohemian feel." Lolin' @ 'bohemian feel'. 

Okay and here is the best part of my whole homestay - they have an Airedale Terrier named Kaia! Yesssss, a doggie to snuggle and play with!

So I just wanted to get that basic info down. I guess the next time I update will be from Buenos Aires. I'm about halfway done packing... Gosh I can't believe I am about to spend six months in the southern hemisphere, in South America, in Argentina, in a huge city, speaking Spanish all the time, taking classes at UBA with 360,000 other students, and that I won't see some of my favorite people's faces until December or January. 

Oy vey! or should I say ay dios mio!