Thursday, July 31, 2008 – Buenos Aires

I finally went to Buenos Aires to actually see the city.  Florencia, my host sister went with me.  We saw the “Casa Rosada” or the pink house, equivalent to the White House.  However, the President actually lives there but is rather executive offices and a place for meetings.  In front is the “Plaza de Mayo” named commemorating the month in which they declared independence.  The Plaza de Mayo has also been come to be a traditional location for protests.  Every Thursday, the “Madres de la Plaza de Mayo” march on the plaza.  The organization formed to protest the torture and disappearances occurring during the “Dirty War” in the 70’s, which frankly takes much more explanation than I care to go into, however, there are plenty of books than can more thoroughly explain.  Anyways, they were there on Thursday, as well as another group of protesters whose cause I couldn’t quite figure out.  Until a couple weeks ago, the “campo” or collaborative “countryside” were regular protestors in Buenos Aires and the Plaza de Mayo regarding extravagant export taxes (I believe this gained international news attention – another interesting topic to look into J ).  The problem has since been “solved” and export taxes have been lowered to 35% as opposed to the proposed 48% (for soy only, other products have lower percentages.)

 

We walked down Avenida Florida which was a large pedestrian street with tons of stores of all types.  We were there around mid-day and frankly there were too many people there for my taste.  I tried to enter a few stores to look for a leather purse and shoes, (Argentina is well known for its leather products) but became exhausted by the over helpful employees and soon gave up.  We also walked up to the obelisco a huge monument similar to the Washington Monument (I think, is that the one that is a tall tower that comes to a point at the top? – I know it is bad I do not know….)  I asked my family here what it was a monument for, they said something about the Foundation of Buenos Aires and it was for an anniversary of some sort, but that is all the could come up with, so I will assume it is not that important.  However, it is a fairly prominent marker in the city.  It is located in the Avenids 9 de Julio (named for Argentina’s independence day.)  My host sister told me it might be the widest street in the world…maybe 20 lanes?  She didn’t tell me until afterwards, so I didn’t count while I was there….the two directions were split by a large median/plaza so its width didn’t occur to me while we were there. 

 

While in Buenos Aires we went to Puerto Madero which is kind of like a boardwalk type place with lots of fancy/American restaurants along the river.  They also had a museum in an old navy boat.  I toured it with Florencia which was actually probably the highlight, mainly because I had lots of questions and since she is in the military school she could answer most of them – it definitely helped facilitate the conversation.  We had a long lunch at a fairly expensive place – lunch cost almost $25 which is a lot here…it should have been like $5 each L  oh well we survived, we returned home tired.  I am glad I went and glad Florencia took me, I am not sure if she actually enjoyed it or was just doing it because here parent made her, but I appreciate all the same.  

Thursday, July 17, 2008 – Tango

Tango Cena-Show

 

The show was really fun, it was a very dramatic series of dancing and singing.  There was probably a story line, but I didn’t quite catch it.  Very entertaining overall.  I even had my picture taken with one of the dancers – not really by choice its one of those things where they walk around and take pictures with everyone….I felt bad because no one at my table would take the picture.  I even got suckered into purchasing the photo, not really a great depiction of me – but a fun memory nonetheless.

 

*Funny side note:  I have to share (I am sorry Samiron.)  So Samiron is the one lonely guy in our intern group (the group that came before us had no guys.)  He is a good sport about everything and fun to hang out with – though I think he is missing fellow male company.  Anyway, the majority of our families here overfeed us and are constantly concerned we are not eating enough – except Samiron’s family.  He lives with a young couple that works all the time and are rarely around and so he is not quite getting his full share of food.  One weekend when his “host parents” were out of town he was hungry and couldn’t find anything to eat in the house so ended up eating two containers (probably pint size) of dulce de leche straight from the jar with a spoon.  We all found the story so funny most of us shared it with our host families.  Mary Andrews host fathers now refers to him by name and constantly asks when he is coming to her house to eat.  It is just ironic  that the one guy in our group gets the only family that isn’t constantly trying to shove food down them!  Now every time my host primo (cousin – who lives with me) sees him he points and asks if that’s they guy who ate all the dulce de leche. 

Sunday, July 6, 2008 – Buenos Aires Zoo

Gross...my host dad says they are good to eat :/

Mary Andrews (another intern) invited me to go to the Buenos Aires zoo today with her and some co-workers.  Marcelo and Vicky (a couple that works with MA) took me, her, and Kelly (anther intern that also works at the same place as MA.)  We road the train to Buenos Aires.  Train transportation is considered less than desirable here, it cost about $0.50 and we have been advised multiple times not to take it at night as it is not safe.  However, Marcelo and Vicky said we should take it once during the day for the experience.  We took a bus back to La Plata (larger travel size bus), which costs an outrageous $2 for the one hour ride!  The zoo was fun, (though I am not necessarily a huge zoo person).  I tried to take pictures, but the batteries in my camera died after the first 30 minutes or so.  The most interesting thing I saw at the zoo were these huge rodent things that were wandering around everywhere (like ducks would at a US zoo.)  They looked kind of like beaver but had long skinny tails like rats.  I can’t remember what she called them, but Mary Andrews says that she thinks it is an animal native to Argentina, but it was somehow brought to the US and is now infesting the swamp areas of New Orleans and people are now hunting and eating them!  Other than that I would say it was your average zoo – for all you KC people it was way less walking than the Kansas City zoo, which was nice, but also means animals were probably not given a very sufficient amount of space.

 

 

 

Unfortunately it started to rain by the end of the day so we got kind of soggy.  We took the subway or subte (short for subterrano) back to the bus station.  I mistakenly chose that we take the bus that does not take the highway but rather makes various stops and takes longer – because then MA could get off closer to her home….but unfortunately we had to wait an hour for that bus to even arrive despite the fact that three buses “por la autopist” (highway) arrived first. L  oh, well my mistake, but I will not make it again.  So my first trip to Buenos Aires was short.  I didn’t really see much of the city as we took the subte straight to the zoo then straight to the train station.  I am excited to go back and see more of the “big city”!