I was sure I had already blogged about this, but apparently I am even more behind than I thought. I'm jumping back to October 29 here...
The morning after arriving from Mendoza with Joseph and Victoria, we set out to see some of Victoria's family in La Plata, about 1.5 hours south of Buenos Aires. This turned out to be a popular time to visit, as Victoria's brother was in from New York and her uncle was in from Paris as well. After surviving a "You speak English? I learned from watching tv, so let's practice!" conversation on the bus and brief ride in a subcompact car with 6 adults, we arrived at Victoria's mother's first cousin's house. Kind of like my family in Charleston, there seems to be less emphasis here on how you are related and more on simply being related, so I received an extremely warm welcome.
The asado, the Argentine equivalente of a barbeque, that followed was pretty darn impressive. As far as I can tell, the custom simply involves showing up at around 11 am and eating without pause for the rest of the day. Just about everything was cooked and eaten in the back yard of this house in an extremely picturesque setting. The highlight of the first round of food was certainly the scrambled Ñandú egg. For those of you in the same boat I was in, a Ñandú (pronounced nyahn-DOO) is a giant ostrich like bird that lays giant eggs, and you can read more about it HERE. Just two of these eggs were enough to feed our hosts, their 5 children and their families, and the 7 out-of-town guests (although I should say 6, since I didn't actually try this...).
The second round of food consisted of just about every part of a cow that could possibly be cooked (which I did not try) and salad (which I did try). There was lots of toasting, and I learned that the Argentine custom includes making eye contact with everyone else toasting with you. I thought this was a beautiful way to demonstrate sincerity (which it still is!), but apparently it's also a supersitious custom to avoid 7 years of bad luck in bed (not as beautiful a custom when thought of this way).
Then came the desserts. In Argentina, the word postre has two possible translations. The first, just like the English word, is simply dessert. The second is either an investigation into every possible excuse to eat dulce de leche. In this case, both translations applied.
You can take a look at the pictures from the asado HERE.
About a week later, we made the trip down to La Plata again to join Victoria's cousins for a fútbol game. There are two major teams in La Plata, but, as I learned, the one worthy of my support is Estudiantes de La Plata. All of Victoria's family members are die-hard fans and club members, which means they pay membership fees and can go to all of the games (there are no tickets). They all joke (I think?) that each time a baby is born in the family, they stop to sign them up as a club member on the way home from the hospital before even going home. I was very glad to have the opportunity to go to a fútbol game and not look like a completely out of place tourist (although I probably still did...), since they are notoriously dangerous environments.
I was pretty impressed by the amount of security to get into the game. Walking up to the stadium, we were stopped about every 30 feet by a series of police roadblocks to slow the flow of people. Two pat-down searches later, we were inside the stadium where the fans were already chanting, jumping up and down, and shooting off firecrackers. Everyone was pretty serious about these chants, which, to my amusement, sounded kind of like they were taken out of a Shlomo Carlebach album and had the words changed. When the 3-0 victory was final, the chant changed to "No tienen gas, no tienen luz, son los villeros de Lanus."..."You don't have gas, you don't have lights (electricity), you're the villeros of Lanus". Villeros doesn't really translate into a single word, but it's essentially the residents of a shantytown and something you probably don't want to be accused of being. Before leaving the stadium, police lined the field to make sure the visiting team (separated by lots of barbed wire) exited safely through the far side of the stadium before we were allowed to leave through our side.
This was a really fun experience and something that was a "must do" during my semester here, so check out the videos HERE and HERE as well as my pictures HERE.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Surviving my first robbery
So I realize that I am very behind on this blogging, but I think that it's worth while to do this a little bit out of order and share today's story with you.
To celebrate our last day of class, two of my friends and I decided to go share some mate in Parque Las Heras, which is about 3 x 3 blocks in between Palermo and Recoleta, arguable the two safest neighborhoods in the city. I think you can probably guess from the title what is about to happen, but, shockingly enough, this took place at 1:30 in the afternoon...broad daylight about 100 feet from a busy street. About 15 minutes into our mate, a man that I thought was selling newspapers walked by. I motioned that I wasn't interested in buying one, but he came and knelt down in front of us. He introduced himself and shook our hands (which was uncomfortable, but that's not unheard of for someone making a hard sell), and I was about to tell him again that I wasn't interested in buying a newspaper when it became clear that was not what he wanted. He opened a newspaper in front of us and told us to put all of our money inside it.
He talked very quickly and very quitely, so I didn't catch every word, but one of my friends grew up in Puerto Rico and I was able to more or less fill in the gaps afte the fact, but he said something along the lines of: "Do you understand me? Keep smiling and don't try to leave, everything is great...I am a man of the street and don't want to hurt you so do exactly as I say." He claimed to have a gun in his pocket (which was probably not the case, but I'm sure he had a knife at least...I wasn't going to find out) and asked for all of the cash out of our wallets. I was worried he was going to take my wallet with my drivers license, school IDs, and (most importantly) my debit card, which i keep hidden in the wallet. I kept it out to show him that it was only IDs and nothing of value to him, so that was lucky.
He pointed out his friend, who was keeping watch about 50 feet behind us to make sure we didn't try and leave, then he asked for our cell phones. (We were all pretty calm from the beginning, but at this point my first thought was "I only have a month left here, should I get another cell phone?") One of my friends claimed not to have his, at which point the guy threatened to "blow his fucking head off" (or something similar), but he eventually backed off. He asked for digital cameras and US dollars as well, but none of us had either of those. Then, right before leaving, he pointed to my watch and demanded that too (it looks nice, but it's metal painted gold and i got it at costco, so i hope he is very disappointed). Lastly, he told us to wait in the park and not try and leave immediately. Within about a minute, he and his friend were on a bus headed away from the park.
After sitting for a few minutes and letting everything sink in, we made our way back to my apartment (about 4 blocks away) to talk to my host mom and see if there was anything we should do. The police were obviously not going to be able to recover anything for us or catch this guy, and filing a police report would have meant spending the rest of the day at a police station and probably paying a fee, so we opted to finish the mate on my balcony instead.
I'm actually surprised it took 4 months for this to happen, and the fact that I was expecting something along these lines and that we had gone over how to handle this type of situation during our orientation kept me pretty calm. It was pretty obvious that all this guy wanted was our money and what he could sell. He didn't want to make a scene and didn't take our bags or push harder (which might be why one of my friends got away with his cell phone intact and the other had his ipod in his bag). As far as muggings go, I'd this wasn't too traumatic.
To celebrate our last day of class, two of my friends and I decided to go share some mate in Parque Las Heras, which is about 3 x 3 blocks in between Palermo and Recoleta, arguable the two safest neighborhoods in the city. I think you can probably guess from the title what is about to happen, but, shockingly enough, this took place at 1:30 in the afternoon...broad daylight about 100 feet from a busy street. About 15 minutes into our mate, a man that I thought was selling newspapers walked by. I motioned that I wasn't interested in buying one, but he came and knelt down in front of us. He introduced himself and shook our hands (which was uncomfortable, but that's not unheard of for someone making a hard sell), and I was about to tell him again that I wasn't interested in buying a newspaper when it became clear that was not what he wanted. He opened a newspaper in front of us and told us to put all of our money inside it.
He talked very quickly and very quitely, so I didn't catch every word, but one of my friends grew up in Puerto Rico and I was able to more or less fill in the gaps afte the fact, but he said something along the lines of: "Do you understand me? Keep smiling and don't try to leave, everything is great...I am a man of the street and don't want to hurt you so do exactly as I say." He claimed to have a gun in his pocket (which was probably not the case, but I'm sure he had a knife at least...I wasn't going to find out) and asked for all of the cash out of our wallets. I was worried he was going to take my wallet with my drivers license, school IDs, and (most importantly) my debit card, which i keep hidden in the wallet. I kept it out to show him that it was only IDs and nothing of value to him, so that was lucky.
He pointed out his friend, who was keeping watch about 50 feet behind us to make sure we didn't try and leave, then he asked for our cell phones. (We were all pretty calm from the beginning, but at this point my first thought was "I only have a month left here, should I get another cell phone?") One of my friends claimed not to have his, at which point the guy threatened to "blow his fucking head off" (or something similar), but he eventually backed off. He asked for digital cameras and US dollars as well, but none of us had either of those. Then, right before leaving, he pointed to my watch and demanded that too (it looks nice, but it's metal painted gold and i got it at costco, so i hope he is very disappointed). Lastly, he told us to wait in the park and not try and leave immediately. Within about a minute, he and his friend were on a bus headed away from the park.
After sitting for a few minutes and letting everything sink in, we made our way back to my apartment (about 4 blocks away) to talk to my host mom and see if there was anything we should do. The police were obviously not going to be able to recover anything for us or catch this guy, and filing a police report would have meant spending the rest of the day at a police station and probably paying a fee, so we opted to finish the mate on my balcony instead.
I'm actually surprised it took 4 months for this to happen, and the fact that I was expecting something along these lines and that we had gone over how to handle this type of situation during our orientation kept me pretty calm. It was pretty obvious that all this guy wanted was our money and what he could sell. He didn't want to make a scene and didn't take our bags or push harder (which might be why one of my friends got away with his cell phone intact and the other had his ipod in his bag). As far as muggings go, I'd this wasn't too traumatic.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
I'm sure you have all been sitting at your computers wondering "Where has Jacob been since October 21st?", so I apologize for being behind on my blogging. This has been a pretty eventful week or so, so I will try and sum it up:
Last week I left Buenos Aires to meet up with Joseph and Victoria a second time, this time in Mendoza. Located about 2/3 of the way between Buenos Aires and the border with Chile, Mendoza is right on the Andes foothills and is most famous for its wine production. The dry desert climate plus a very extensive irrigation system have proven to be perfect conditions for growing Malbec graps which make exxxxccceellleent red wine. My favorite, at least.
When we arrived in Mendoza on Wednesday morning, everything was closed for the census. Literally everything...grocery stores, drug stores, businesses, etc. Why, you might ask, does a census require everything to be closed? Because this country never misses an oportunity for any kind of nationalistic propaganda to take the attention away from the negative aspects of its corrupt leadership. Therefore the census is a national holiday. Nearly 600,000 census workers went around to every house in the country to ask the questions "¿Cuántos somos y cómo estamos?", how many are we and how are we? The result was a 97% response rate (allegedly...).
Wednesday October 27, 2010 will certainly be a date for Argentine history books, but probably not because of the census. Nestor Kirchner, the immediate past president and husband of current president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, died of a heart attack at his summer home in Califate (in Patagonia). The response here in Argentina was "impresionante" to say the least. 150,000+ people gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, the story did and continues to dominate the news, and nearly everyone seemed to focus on his accomplishments (leading the country out of a recesson) rather than the polarizing side (there are a lot of people who do not like the Peronist party). Great for a day of national pride, no? Is it a coincidence that Nestor Kirchner died in an isolated location on a day of national pride when everyone was required to be at home, a day that the government had been talking up by hiring people to create nationalist graffiti to advertise the census, and a day to forget the corruption and have pride in the country? We will never know...and we certainly won't be able to tell from Cristina's facial expressions, which, at this point in her life and in true Argentine fashion, don't necessarily look...well...natural...or unaltered. (Basically, la presidenta has that "work done" look.)
The rest of the world, however, didn't seem too concerned. Cnn.com, for example, posted their article on Nestor Kirchner's death not in the headlines but at the bottom of the page...the 4th article down under the Latin America section. The headline was "ARGENTINA'S KIRCHNER DIES", which is quite misleading since the current president is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. It also focused more on Hugo Chavez's tweet @CristinaFernandesdeKirchner offering his condolences than the actual implications of his death.
Anyway....the trip to Mendoza was a success. We attempted to make the census day into a hiking day, which kind of failed a little bit, but followed it with a day of renting bikes and riding to different vineyards. Not a bad way to spend time. Friday we walked around the city of Mendoza and explored what is without a doubt one of my favorite city parks ever.
I will finish catching up tomorrow, but in the mean time, enjoy the pictures from the trip here.
Last week I left Buenos Aires to meet up with Joseph and Victoria a second time, this time in Mendoza. Located about 2/3 of the way between Buenos Aires and the border with Chile, Mendoza is right on the Andes foothills and is most famous for its wine production. The dry desert climate plus a very extensive irrigation system have proven to be perfect conditions for growing Malbec graps which make exxxxccceellleent red wine. My favorite, at least.
When we arrived in Mendoza on Wednesday morning, everything was closed for the census. Literally everything...grocery stores, drug stores, businesses, etc. Why, you might ask, does a census require everything to be closed? Because this country never misses an oportunity for any kind of nationalistic propaganda to take the attention away from the negative aspects of its corrupt leadership. Therefore the census is a national holiday. Nearly 600,000 census workers went around to every house in the country to ask the questions "¿Cuántos somos y cómo estamos?", how many are we and how are we? The result was a 97% response rate (allegedly...).
Wednesday October 27, 2010 will certainly be a date for Argentine history books, but probably not because of the census. Nestor Kirchner, the immediate past president and husband of current president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, died of a heart attack at his summer home in Califate (in Patagonia). The response here in Argentina was "impresionante" to say the least. 150,000+ people gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, the story did and continues to dominate the news, and nearly everyone seemed to focus on his accomplishments (leading the country out of a recesson) rather than the polarizing side (there are a lot of people who do not like the Peronist party). Great for a day of national pride, no? Is it a coincidence that Nestor Kirchner died in an isolated location on a day of national pride when everyone was required to be at home, a day that the government had been talking up by hiring people to create nationalist graffiti to advertise the census, and a day to forget the corruption and have pride in the country? We will never know...and we certainly won't be able to tell from Cristina's facial expressions, which, at this point in her life and in true Argentine fashion, don't necessarily look...well...natural...or unaltered. (Basically, la presidenta has that "work done" look.)
The rest of the world, however, didn't seem too concerned. Cnn.com, for example, posted their article on Nestor Kirchner's death not in the headlines but at the bottom of the page...the 4th article down under the Latin America section. The headline was "ARGENTINA'S KIRCHNER DIES", which is quite misleading since the current president is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. It also focused more on Hugo Chavez's tweet @CristinaFernandesdeKirchner offering his condolences than the actual implications of his death.
Anyway....the trip to Mendoza was a success. We attempted to make the census day into a hiking day, which kind of failed a little bit, but followed it with a day of renting bikes and riding to different vineyards. Not a bad way to spend time. Friday we walked around the city of Mendoza and explored what is without a doubt one of my favorite city parks ever.
I will finish catching up tomorrow, but in the mean time, enjoy the pictures from the trip here.
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