So, it’s November…and I’m officially freaking out. My program officially ends in 22 days and I am boarding a plane home in 29. Cold, harsh reality is slowly coming back. What I thought would be an incredibly long time to be abroad has absolutely flown by. Thus, these next 4 weeks will be my effort to soak up the last days in sunny Buenos Aires and to visit the many places that are still on my list.
Since I last wrote, life has been great, per usual. Going back to the week of October 18th, classes went normally as usual, starting the weekend on Wednesday evening, as usual.
Wednesday afternoon our urban history professor took us on a tour of Palermo Viejo, a neighborhood farther west. Palermo actually has 4 different areas because it is so huge: Palermo Viejo, Palermo Hollywood, Palermo Soho, and Palermo Chico. If you’re young and hip, you live here. The variety of restaurants, especially in Palermo Viejo, is incredible, along with great shopping in Palermo Hollywood/Palermo Soho. Palermo Chico is mostly a residential area with extremely nice houses. Possible retirement destination? During our tour we were able to see the first residence of famous Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges, who spent most of his childhood reading books in his father’s massive library in Palermo until he began writing on his own. I know this because I learned it in my Argentine poetry class- proof that, regardless of what you think, I am using my brain here. Palermo is also really interesting because of its large amount of street art. It’s essentially graffiti, but it’s not illegal here and very much accepted as a form of expression. Many use it for political expression as well. In fact, many well-known graffiti artists from all over the world periodically come to Buenos Aires to make creations on the walls of restaurants or certain buildings for different occasions, or for no occasion at all. There are daily walking tours of the many areas in Palermo that have interesting street art. I’ve added a few pictures for your convenience.
Our tango professor, whom I’ve somehow forgot to mention before, has assigned us a final project that requires us to create a 5-7 minute choreography including tango, milonga (a faster Argentine dance, similar to tango in some ways), and waltz. Thus, Thursday morning our group met for our first practice. As much as I’ve come to love tango, our professor really puts a damper on it, because he’s a terrible teacher. It’s remarkable that I’ve found this one, recurring type of professor in so many of my classes in the past: one who is undoubtedly good at what he does, yet is unable to affectively teach the basics of it to beginner students, because he is too far advanced to dumb it down. And on top of that, though he has been teaching college kids for over 20 years, his dislike for them is blatantly obvious. This is something I will never understand. But nevertheless, we have been making progress, and considering I have a wonderful group with 2 friends from IES and 3 very fun porteños, I really can’t complain.
I spent the afternoon eating lunch with some girlfriends at a great restaurant in Palermo that had quesadillas and guacamole, 2 things that I’ve been DYING without here. Mexican restaurants here are limited, so when you find one, it’s a great day. After lunch we walked around to burn off our food in order to have more food. We found a bakery that sold cupcakes. Mine was cheesecake with peanut butter. Need I say more?
On Friday I had the pleasure of meeting a lietuvaite, Agata, my first contact with Lithuanians in South America. We met at the main square, Plaza de Mayo, and from there we walked through the streets, until we reached a café and sat down for a long conversation. It was a very strange dialogue, because it wasn’t Spanglish, nor was it a mix of Lithuanian and English which I do when I get lazy at home (which I know my mother loves), but instead a mix of Lithuanian and Spanish. It was the most bizarre conversation I have ever had, but it was great. I had gotten in contact with her through friends that had met her in South America this past December for Jaunimo Kongresas, a.k.a. Lithuanian Youth Conference. I found that we had much in common, and we spent much of our time telling each other about our lives, what we plan to do in the future, and how much we love being Lithuanian. She is incredibly sweet and very interesting, and being able to speak lietuviskai was a little dose of home that I had really needed and missed. Before we knew it, we had been talking for over 4 hours, and the sun had already set. We decided that another hang out session was necessary, so I look forward to seeing her in the coming weeks before I leave.
Saturday morning was an early start, as we had a day trip to another “estancia” named La Candelaria in Lobos, a small city outside of Buenos Aires. The weather here has been getting more beautiful by the day, and this day was no exception- sunny and mid 70’s. Like any other estancia, we didn’t do much. With so much noise and smog in the city, it’s nice to get away and enjoy some fresh air and Argentine countryside. We were greeted with empanadas, quite possibly the best welcome ever, and from there we could wander around as we pleased. There was a pool, soccer field, and volleyball net if you wanted to be active, or you could be like me and simply lounge around on the many cushioned lawn chairs and sip coffee. Polo practice was also taking place, so many of us went to watch the players and to hang out with the ponies. Before lunch, we headed through the forest to see the main attraction of the estancia, the castle. This beautiful, French-inspired castle was built in 1894 and sits on a 245 hectare plot of land. Unfortunately we were only allowed to see part of the castle, because the upstairs was roped off, but nevertheless, it was very pretty.
After the tour of the castle, we sat down for a big lunch, and as we ate we watched a traditional, Argentine gaucho performance. Certain dances were with couples, however others consisted of either swinging swords or just fancy footwork. Some of our friends were lucky enough to be pulled up from their tables to dance in front of everyone with the gauchos. After lunch we wandered around some more, drank wine, ate dessert, and in the evening headed home.
The next week was rather pointless, because by Wednesday night we were out of BA and on our way to Mendoza, Argentine wine country. However, we did do some things before leaving. Monday I bought my ticket for Mendoza at the bus ticket counter and made friends with the man working there. Though he was very entertaining, I realized that we had been standing in that store for over 35 minutes while he continued attempting to crack strange jokes in English and guessing my nationality (which he guessed was Greek because of my last name, surprise). I have to say, one thing I will NOT miss about Argentina, is the unbelievably slow service. This ordeal should have taken 6 minutes, tops. Luckily I got a giant alfajor (one of Argentina’s delicacies- a dessert consisting of a thick layer of dulce de leche in between 2 cookies), or else I could have gotten sassy with him. Before leaving, my friend realized her name was misspelled on her ticket and asked if he could reprint it for her. He responded with, “I really wouldn’t worry about it. The people who drive those buses can’t read.” Whether or not this was actually true, I couldn’t help but feel slightly anxious as I handed the driver my bus ticket to Mendoza two days later, hoping we wouldn’t find ourselves somewhere in the middle of Patagonia the next morning.
Tuesday morning we had a mandatory tour of Jewish sites in the city instead of grammar class, which I thought would be really interesting, considering there’s an entire barrio/neighborhood known for its flourishing Jewish community, called Once (as in the Spanish number). Unfortunately we had a painfully dull tour guide who, though was a really sweet, old man, had an extremely dry presentation. Even our Spanish professor who had come along on the trip was struggling. Instead of seeing more of the area, he pointed out obscure buildings as we drove by and made us get out for several, very anti-climactic sites. So anyway, that was too bad. But we did get to see a very pretty Jewish temple at the end, which I enjoyed. Needless to say, I could have visited more and more interesting places on my own time instead of killing half the day. Oh well.
October 27th was the national census. Did you know that literally EVERY, single establishment is closed? That was a fun surprise. Even the kioscos were closed. I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned them before, but there is at least one kiosco (kiosks), sometimes 2, on every block. They are God’s gift to Argentina. They have everything you may possibly need during the day. They are the one place you can buy a beer, a granola bar, more minutes for your cell phone, a sandwich, and glue in one place…I needed glue for my tango shoes…
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