Wednesday, August 15, 2007
After going to bed at almost 8:30 am, I amazingly woke up at 11:15 ready to take on the day. I managed to drag Calli up around 12 and we were finally ready to head out at 1 pm. We stopped by to tell our new American friends that we were heading out. They were all dead asleep but within 10 minutes they were all showered and ready to grab lunch with us. They took us to a great parillada or steak house called La Cholita (I don’t know what it means!). I ate Bife de lomo which is basically filet mignon and fries for 6 bucks. I’m telling you, if you like steak, fly to Argentina, stay in a hostel, and eat out the whole time you are there. By the time you leave, the amount of money you saved on food will pay for the ticket down there!
After lunch we helped the boys do their last minute gift shopping that they had put of their entire 5 weeks then we parted ways. It was like saying goodbye to lifelong friends, but luckily they are on Facebook! Around 4 pm, we finally started playing tourist (which I had planned to start around 11 am!) But since the entire Argentinean biological clock is pushed back about 5 hours, it worked out quite well!
We first went to the Basilica Nuestra Señora de Pilar, a famous old church and convent in Recoleta right next to the Recoleta cemetery, which we visited next. We were sitting in the cemetery when a beautiful woman approached us and in English asked us if we spoke English. We said yes and she went on to tell us that her husband works for the cemetery restoring the monuments and when he is done for the day he is allowed to give tours. So the woman and her husband work together to give tours and all they ask for is a donation to raise money for a daycare center that they help fund for lower income families. Calli and I looked at each other, quickly judging whether or not this was a major scam, but decided that the cemetery was full of other tourists and she seemed very sincere and a tour would be really interesting. We agreed and ended up having a great tour of the incredible old cemetery.
Her husband explained to us how the families bury their dead, keep up the graves, pass them on through the generations or leave them abandoned. They showed us the graves of 1) the saddest story: an 18 year old girl went into a coma and her family, taking her for dead, buried her in the tomb. Then next day people walking through the cemetery heard pounding from inside a tomb. By the time they figured out where it was coming from and opened it up, the girl had suffocated, 2) the most expensive monument: 47 MILLION US DOLLARS! The family of a noble prize winning physician and scientist that developed vaccines etc. 3) the most romantic monument: a Christian and a Jew loved each other but their families refused to let them marry. When the parents got old and passed them the family businesses, the secret couple built a monument in the cemetery with both a menorah and a cross, representing the universality of love. Right before their parents died, they told them that they would all be buried there together. I’m sure this didn’t help, but now all the parents and the couple are buried together in one of the only monuments in all of Argentina where Jews and Christians are buried together. Finally, they took us to Evita Peron’s tomb. There were tons of plaques, flowers, and people taking photos. The amazing thing is that if you weren’t paying attention and there weren’t tons of people, you wouldn’t even notice the humble monument.
After the cemetery and the tour, we went to the Centro Cultural right next door. Right now they have an incredible Modern Art exhibit with a huge Video art exhibition. We spent about hour wandering through the galleries constantly asking ourselves, “What the crap does that mean?” When we couldn’t take anymore beauty/abstraction, we went to mass at the basilica for the Assumption of Mary. The mass was totally packed and it was a good think we arrived 15 minutes early or we would have been staying, smashed in the back. Unfortunately we were pretty far back, it was warm, and we were finally sitting down and Calli and I had a hard time staying awake for the whole mass. Moral of the story, get more sleep and sit in the front so you can pay attention!
For dinner we went to a Spanish tapas restaurant. The deal was that the kitchen picked the 6 tapas and Calli and I were in for an adventure. It turned out pretty good except for the Sweet Bread (pancreas of a cow) tapa. After dinner, we waited at the hostel for our friends Niki and Sam to get in. Once they arrived and settled, they went to find dinner and Calli and I took a cab to visit Andy, a friend of mine from Tulane. Andy is studying here with the same program as me, CIEE and was having some people over to hang out. We met 5 other girls with CIEE and it was great hearing their perspective on their study abroad experience. The CIEE program in BA is over 100 students and they can take all their classes with foreigners if they want. (In Santiago, we only have 45 ish students and we can only take 1 class with the program). Also, they have fewer options for volunteering and seemed to be really spread out all over the city. But they all love BA and seem to be having a great time. We headed home a little before 2 am since both of us were going off about 4 hours of sleep.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007: Welcome to Buenos Aires!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
I was supposed to wake up at 7:30 to finish packing and get to the bus stop by 8:45. Unfortunately I accidentally turned off my alarm instead of hitting snooze and didn’t wake up till 8:30!! I frantically threw clothes into my backpack and stuffed breakfast down my throat and ran out the door. I was late to meet Calli, but luckily we got on the bus to the airport no problem. We arrived at the airport about an hour and a half before our flight and we were worried we won’t make it. Amazingly we flew through check in and security in about 30 minutes and made it to our gate with plenty of time!! While we were waiting, one of Buenos Aires’ professional soccer team came through. They were all beautiful and had huge calves.
The flight to BA was quick and really pretty. We flew over the Andes Mountains, which was a sight to see. We landed and got through customs pretty. When we walked out of the airport, we came to the quick realization that we were 2 foreigners in a new country! Our first mission was to figure out a way to get from the airport to the hostel. We took a bus with a well respected company Manual Tienda Leon to their bus terminal then they took us in a van to our hostel, 3 hours after our flight landed. We stayed in a great hostel called The Recoleta. Check it out: http://www.trhostel.com.ar/location.htm.
As we were settling in, we met 3 American guys (Jeff, Patrick, and Josh –can’t get much more American than that right?) who had been traveling around Argentina for the past 5 weeks. Two were high school teachers and one just graduated college. They were all really nice guys and two of them were strong Christians. None of them spoke Spanish and they were thrilled that we could help translate for them. They had hung out with a lot of the other people staying in the hostel but hadn’t really been able to talk to them! It was their last night in Argentina and Calli and I didn’t really know what to do the first night, so we decided to all meet up after Calli and I had dinner.
Calli and I first went and walked around a park and memorial called Plaza San Martin near by the hostel, and then we found a place to have dinner called Il Immortales (The Immortales in Italian). We went at 8 pm because we knew Argentineans don’t usually eat dinner till really late, but we were the only ones in the restaurant for about an hour! We shared a bottle of wine, salad, and pizza (huge Italian influence). Then we finished off with an amazing crepe dessert (called pancaques) and coffee. We were almost done when the waiter came by with two glasses of champagne “on the house”. We finally left after paying our $35 bill! (That’s right, $35 for both of us!)
Back at the hostel a bunch Americans and Brazilians hung out in the kitchen and somehow communicated in English, Spanish and Portuguese. It was incredible to watch everyone interacting and having a great time! Eventually the Brazilians left and it was only the Americans. I told everyone I didn’t want to stay out too late because I wanted to be able to wake up early and play tourist all day Wednesday. But we were having such great conversations and everyone was having a ton of fun, so I pulled out the usually reserved for finals week, “you can sleep when you’re dead” phrase, and around 2 we went to an Irish Pub across the street called Jack the Ripper. We discussed Harry Potter, our significant others (two of the guys had girlfriends and I told them all about Trevor), Jesus, being radical, politics, traveling, America, everything, until they kicked us out at 4:30. We then migrated to a 24 hour restaurant called 1234 and had empanadas and ice cream. Finally, we followed the sunrise to another 24 bar called The Alamo, which is owned and operated by a man from the US. At 7:30 we decided to head back to the hostel and we crashed.
I was supposed to wake up at 7:30 to finish packing and get to the bus stop by 8:45. Unfortunately I accidentally turned off my alarm instead of hitting snooze and didn’t wake up till 8:30!! I frantically threw clothes into my backpack and stuffed breakfast down my throat and ran out the door. I was late to meet Calli, but luckily we got on the bus to the airport no problem. We arrived at the airport about an hour and a half before our flight and we were worried we won’t make it. Amazingly we flew through check in and security in about 30 minutes and made it to our gate with plenty of time!! While we were waiting, one of Buenos Aires’ professional soccer team came through. They were all beautiful and had huge calves.
The flight to BA was quick and really pretty. We flew over the Andes Mountains, which was a sight to see. We landed and got through customs pretty. When we walked out of the airport, we came to the quick realization that we were 2 foreigners in a new country! Our first mission was to figure out a way to get from the airport to the hostel. We took a bus with a well respected company Manual Tienda Leon to their bus terminal then they took us in a van to our hostel, 3 hours after our flight landed. We stayed in a great hostel called The Recoleta. Check it out: http://www.trhostel.com.ar/location.htm.
As we were settling in, we met 3 American guys (Jeff, Patrick, and Josh –can’t get much more American than that right?) who had been traveling around Argentina for the past 5 weeks. Two were high school teachers and one just graduated college. They were all really nice guys and two of them were strong Christians. None of them spoke Spanish and they were thrilled that we could help translate for them. They had hung out with a lot of the other people staying in the hostel but hadn’t really been able to talk to them! It was their last night in Argentina and Calli and I didn’t really know what to do the first night, so we decided to all meet up after Calli and I had dinner.
Calli and I first went and walked around a park and memorial called Plaza San Martin near by the hostel, and then we found a place to have dinner called Il Immortales (The Immortales in Italian). We went at 8 pm because we knew Argentineans don’t usually eat dinner till really late, but we were the only ones in the restaurant for about an hour! We shared a bottle of wine, salad, and pizza (huge Italian influence). Then we finished off with an amazing crepe dessert (called pancaques) and coffee. We were almost done when the waiter came by with two glasses of champagne “on the house”. We finally left after paying our $35 bill! (That’s right, $35 for both of us!)
Back at the hostel a bunch Americans and Brazilians hung out in the kitchen and somehow communicated in English, Spanish and Portuguese. It was incredible to watch everyone interacting and having a great time! Eventually the Brazilians left and it was only the Americans. I told everyone I didn’t want to stay out too late because I wanted to be able to wake up early and play tourist all day Wednesday. But we were having such great conversations and everyone was having a ton of fun, so I pulled out the usually reserved for finals week, “you can sleep when you’re dead” phrase, and around 2 we went to an Irish Pub across the street called Jack the Ripper. We discussed Harry Potter, our significant others (two of the guys had girlfriends and I told them all about Trevor), Jesus, being radical, politics, traveling, America, everything, until they kicked us out at 4:30. We then migrated to a 24 hour restaurant called 1234 and had empanadas and ice cream. Finally, we followed the sunrise to another 24 bar called The Alamo, which is owned and operated by a man from the US. At 7:30 we decided to head back to the hostel and we crashed.
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