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.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Jujuy and Salta
This past weekend, I was able to travel to Jujuy and Salta to meet up with Joseph and Victoria and see a very different side of Argentina (thank you, mom and dad for the birthday present...flying time was 4 hours round trip as opposed to 48 hours in buses round trip). These two provinces at the northwestern corner of the country are extremely indigenous in character and have some of the most beautiful scenery in the country.
My trip began in the underwhelming but conveniently located city of San Salvador de Jujuy, the capital of Jujuy province. So as not to confuse you, the city is often referred to only as Jujuy and not San Salvador de Jujuy even though that's also the name of the province. This city is not particularly beautiful, not particularly wealthy, and not particularly interesting (hence the lack of pictures), but it was a central location for us to begin the trip and rent a car, and I barely stayed there for more than 12 hours. When I refer to something beautiful and incredible in this post, I will generally be talking about the province and not the city. We left Jujuy (city) on Friday morning heading north through the Quebrada de Humahuaca (kay-BRAH-duh day hoo-muh-WAH-kuh). According to translate.google.com, the word quebrada translates as ravine, gully, or brook. Basically it's a cross between a valley, a canyon, and a gorge, although Joseph, Victoria, and I had trouble defining the differences between the three, that has some amazing scenery and rock formations and a few small towns. At the center of the quebrada, the low point in this valley, lies a two-lane highway, a set of abandoned railroad tracks, and a currently dry riverbed. There were bridges over the riverbed, so I assume that it fills with water during the 'rainy season' whenever that is.
We were able to hit 'the big 3' towns of Purmamarca, Tilcara, and Humahuaca (in that order...they are three but they are not big....I just made that term up...), which all featured tourist-catered artisan markets, dirt roads, and awesome mountains. We ended up driving back to Tilcara, the town with the most restaurant and nightlife options, and stayed there in the house of a family that we found through the local tourism office after (but not because) I accidentally overtipped them.
Saturday morning, we left Tilcara and headed west over the mountain ridge lining the quebrada towards las salinas grandes, the salt flats. These are basically gigantic open spaces with no vegetation that are completely white. We drove most of the day on a dirt road that when near but not into the salinas (whoops...), but the drive was still beautiful. This road left us at a pretty dismal looking town called San Antonio de los Cobres, which is connected to Salta by the tourist trap that is the Tren a las Nubes (train to the clouds), which costs $120 USD per person. Ridiculous. Part of our plan was to avoid paying for that ticket but still see the scenery by driving on the camino a las nubes (road) in our coche a las nubes (small rental car). We drove about an hour out of the way to see what was supposed to be a very impressive puente a las nubes (bridge...part of the train tracks), but it was underwhelming to say the least.
The drive to Salta was really beautiful and enjoyable, although the sun did end up going down, the paved road ended, and we wound up on some sort of construction detour through the bottom of a canyon/valley/ravine/quebrada on a makeshift road that ran next to and periodically across a stream. We did, however, make it to Salta without incident and spent a great two days exploring the city. As you can see from the pictures below, it was a really amazing trip!
If you don't believe anything I just told you and want a second account, check http://thesmallmarsupial.blogspot.com/ in a week or so when they have had time to update their blog.
Now, as my grandfather would say, I am visiting Buenos Aires before leaving for Mendoza (Andes Mountains + malbec wine/vineyards = good trip). My visit has already been long enough to witness the rebirth of a strike in Universidad de Buenos Aires (this was supposed to have ended for good last week...), a garbage strike which left the streets smelling oh so lovely, a murder resulting from a conflict between two train worker unions, and separate subway and bus strikes at different hours today.
Pictures of the trip are here on my facebook...I took too many and had to split it into two albums:
Album 1
Album 2
My trip began in the underwhelming but conveniently located city of San Salvador de Jujuy, the capital of Jujuy province. So as not to confuse you, the city is often referred to only as Jujuy and not San Salvador de Jujuy even though that's also the name of the province. This city is not particularly beautiful, not particularly wealthy, and not particularly interesting (hence the lack of pictures), but it was a central location for us to begin the trip and rent a car, and I barely stayed there for more than 12 hours. When I refer to something beautiful and incredible in this post, I will generally be talking about the province and not the city. We left Jujuy (city) on Friday morning heading north through the Quebrada de Humahuaca (kay-BRAH-duh day hoo-muh-WAH-kuh). According to translate.google.com, the word quebrada translates as ravine, gully, or brook. Basically it's a cross between a valley, a canyon, and a gorge, although Joseph, Victoria, and I had trouble defining the differences between the three, that has some amazing scenery and rock formations and a few small towns. At the center of the quebrada, the low point in this valley, lies a two-lane highway, a set of abandoned railroad tracks, and a currently dry riverbed. There were bridges over the riverbed, so I assume that it fills with water during the 'rainy season' whenever that is.
We were able to hit 'the big 3' towns of Purmamarca, Tilcara, and Humahuaca (in that order...they are three but they are not big....I just made that term up...), which all featured tourist-catered artisan markets, dirt roads, and awesome mountains. We ended up driving back to Tilcara, the town with the most restaurant and nightlife options, and stayed there in the house of a family that we found through the local tourism office after (but not because) I accidentally overtipped them.
Saturday morning, we left Tilcara and headed west over the mountain ridge lining the quebrada towards las salinas grandes, the salt flats. These are basically gigantic open spaces with no vegetation that are completely white. We drove most of the day on a dirt road that when near but not into the salinas (whoops...), but the drive was still beautiful. This road left us at a pretty dismal looking town called San Antonio de los Cobres, which is connected to Salta by the tourist trap that is the Tren a las Nubes (train to the clouds), which costs $120 USD per person. Ridiculous. Part of our plan was to avoid paying for that ticket but still see the scenery by driving on the camino a las nubes (road) in our coche a las nubes (small rental car). We drove about an hour out of the way to see what was supposed to be a very impressive puente a las nubes (bridge...part of the train tracks), but it was underwhelming to say the least.
The drive to Salta was really beautiful and enjoyable, although the sun did end up going down, the paved road ended, and we wound up on some sort of construction detour through the bottom of a canyon/valley/ravine/quebrada on a makeshift road that ran next to and periodically across a stream. We did, however, make it to Salta without incident and spent a great two days exploring the city. As you can see from the pictures below, it was a really amazing trip!
If you don't believe anything I just told you and want a second account, check http://thesmallmarsupial.blogspot.com/ in a week or so when they have had time to update their blog.
Now, as my grandfather would say, I am visiting Buenos Aires before leaving for Mendoza (Andes Mountains + malbec wine/vineyards = good trip). My visit has already been long enough to witness the rebirth of a strike in Universidad de Buenos Aires (this was supposed to have ended for good last week...), a garbage strike which left the streets smelling oh so lovely, a murder resulting from a conflict between two train worker unions, and separate subway and bus strikes at different hours today.
Pictures of the trip are here on my facebook...I took too many and had to split it into two albums:
Album 1
Album 2
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Who are the gente in your barrio/El Teatro Colón
This is also kind of a two-for-one deal post, since I am about a week behind here.
If Saturday Night Live ever decides to do a Mr. Rodgers parody set in Buenos Aires, they can use this post to write the lyrics to Señor Rodgers' new hit song "Who are the gente in your barrio?". In my daily walks through my neighborhood to class, the subte, the bus, or anywhere else I might be headed, I have come across three distinct professions that don't seem to exist in the United States.
1) THE DOG WALKER
To compensate for the amount of time lost in the beaurocratic disorganized mess that is Argentine society, many porteños choose to outsource their dog walking. The legal limit is 8 dogs per person, but this is rarely challenged and seems to be enforced about as strictly as the Sullivan's Island whistling ban (or at least I hope that isn't really enforced). It's very common to see a guy walking down the street with 10-20 dogs at a time and just about as common to see all of those dogs tied to a telephone pole while the walker is picking up/dropping off a customer or taking a cigarette break. Don't believe me? Check this out: http://www.tripfilms.com/Travel_Video-v113-Buenos_Aires-Dog_Walkers-Video.html
2) THE FLYER-ER
This is exactly what it sounds like. A walk down any commercial street here usually means being bombarded with leaflets advertising restaurants, clubs, English classes, legitimate churces, less legitimate looking religious-y things, POLITICAL PROTESTS, and just about everything else you have no desire to be bothered with. These guys (and girls) are everywhere, and they must be able to make some kind of money doing this despite the fact that no one cares about anything they hand out.
3) THE SIDEWALK CLEANER
Okay so I have to admit that this one is kind of made up since it's actually a part of another profession. Despite providing free healthcare and education, the goverment here is not in charge of maintaining the sidewalks. Instead, these generally tiled surfaces seem to be maintained by whatever building they happen to be in front of. On most blocks, the pattern/type of tile is different in front of every building. Just about every building has some type of super/land lord/maintenance person, all of whom stand outside for 23 minutes and 34 seconds hosing of their sidewalk territory beginning at 7:30 in the morning, so the morning commute means dodging hoses and artificial puddles. This way, the sidewalk is free of litter and presents left by those 23 dogs for at least 40 minutes.
The song would probably continue to describe the vegetable lady, the empenada stand guy, the husband-wife bakery team, and at least one person with a pretty bad plastic surgery battle wound. These are the people in my barrio, the people that I encontrar cada día (the song went something like that, no?).
And now on to bigger and better things:
It just so happens that Victoria's brother Gonzalo (that would be my brother's girlfriend's brother) is an incredible/really well known oboist and was recently on tour in South America. I was able to go hear him perform at the Teatro Colón, which is certainly an item on any Buenos Aires to-do list. There's no need for me to write what wikipedia can already say better (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teatro_Col%C3%B3n), but the important part is it's huge, well-known, old, beautiful, and was just restored last year. I do have a few pictures, though--enjoy:
This picture is from the building's incredibly grand lobby. I couldn't do it justice:
The front of the theater from my 5th floor seat:
The end of the concert:
I was able to hang around afterwars and introduce myself to Victoria's brother:
If Saturday Night Live ever decides to do a Mr. Rodgers parody set in Buenos Aires, they can use this post to write the lyrics to Señor Rodgers' new hit song "Who are the gente in your barrio?". In my daily walks through my neighborhood to class, the subte, the bus, or anywhere else I might be headed, I have come across three distinct professions that don't seem to exist in the United States.
1) THE DOG WALKER
To compensate for the amount of time lost in the beaurocratic disorganized mess that is Argentine society, many porteños choose to outsource their dog walking. The legal limit is 8 dogs per person, but this is rarely challenged and seems to be enforced about as strictly as the Sullivan's Island whistling ban (or at least I hope that isn't really enforced). It's very common to see a guy walking down the street with 10-20 dogs at a time and just about as common to see all of those dogs tied to a telephone pole while the walker is picking up/dropping off a customer or taking a cigarette break. Don't believe me? Check this out: http://www.tripfilms.com/Travel_Video-v113-Buenos_Aires-Dog_Walkers-Video.html
2) THE FLYER-ER
This is exactly what it sounds like. A walk down any commercial street here usually means being bombarded with leaflets advertising restaurants, clubs, English classes, legitimate churces, less legitimate looking religious-y things, POLITICAL PROTESTS, and just about everything else you have no desire to be bothered with. These guys (and girls) are everywhere, and they must be able to make some kind of money doing this despite the fact that no one cares about anything they hand out.
3) THE SIDEWALK CLEANER
Okay so I have to admit that this one is kind of made up since it's actually a part of another profession. Despite providing free healthcare and education, the goverment here is not in charge of maintaining the sidewalks. Instead, these generally tiled surfaces seem to be maintained by whatever building they happen to be in front of. On most blocks, the pattern/type of tile is different in front of every building. Just about every building has some type of super/land lord/maintenance person, all of whom stand outside for 23 minutes and 34 seconds hosing of their sidewalk territory beginning at 7:30 in the morning, so the morning commute means dodging hoses and artificial puddles. This way, the sidewalk is free of litter and presents left by those 23 dogs for at least 40 minutes.
The song would probably continue to describe the vegetable lady, the empenada stand guy, the husband-wife bakery team, and at least one person with a pretty bad plastic surgery battle wound. These are the people in my barrio, the people that I encontrar cada día (the song went something like that, no?).
And now on to bigger and better things:
It just so happens that Victoria's brother Gonzalo (that would be my brother's girlfriend's brother) is an incredible/really well known oboist and was recently on tour in South America. I was able to go hear him perform at the Teatro Colón, which is certainly an item on any Buenos Aires to-do list. There's no need for me to write what wikipedia can already say better (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teatro_Col%C3%B3n), but the important part is it's huge, well-known, old, beautiful, and was just restored last year. I do have a few pictures, though--enjoy:
This picture is from the building's incredibly grand lobby. I couldn't do it justice:
The front of the theater from my 5th floor seat:
The end of the concert:
I was able to hang around afterwars and introduce myself to Victoria's brother:
Friday, October 8, 2010
Rosario
So I am a bit behind on my blogging thanks to my midterms and the two-day trip to Rosario right in the middle of them, but I might be able to catch up this week.
The strike in UBA is still going on, and there is a chance that the students there may actually lose a semester. This is extremely rare even for Argentina, and hasn't happened in the past hundred years (we are talking through a military dictatorship here). Even if the semester does finish, it is possible that it might not happen on time, so our study abroad program has put a "plan B" into effect that will allow us to complete our UBA classes in the form of an independent study.
Anyway, on to Rosario...
The trip to Rosario was the first of two trips organized by our study abroad program. Rosario is the second largest city in Argentina (if you ask someone from Rosario, most other people will tell you that Córdoba is actually the second largest). The city is located on the Paraná river, which empties into the Río de la Plata (by Buenos Aires) and developed as a major port city. Goods would arrive by boat in Rosario, would be transferred to trains along the Rosario waterfront, and then be taken to all other parts of Argentina. This system, however, no longer exists. Today, the port areas, which are still active, are located upstream or downstream from the city, and the Rosario waterfront has been converted into public space with restaurants and entertainment facilities in former railroad buildings. It's a pretty cool place!
While Buenos Aires seems to still have the economic crisis of 2001 fresh in its mind, Rosario is growing and not really looking back. There is an incredible amount of new construction, and I have to agree that their slogan ("Rosario: el mejor lugar para vivir"...Rosario: the best place to live) might have some truth to it. The city has parks everywhere, a laid back atmosphere, and less-visible poverty than Buenos Aires. It seems to be a relatively wealthy city, but I couldn't tell how people make money. Virtually all of the buildings here seemed to be residential and not commercial...I guess it's possible that they business district is either nonexistant/very spread out or located away from the waterfront where I spent most of my time.
One of the most impressive/noteworthy things to see in Rosario is the Monumento de la Bandera Nacional (the monument of the national flag), which traces it's origin to Rosario. The monument itself looks like something that belongs in Washington, DC, but perhaps with a bit more "Third Reich" architectural influence. We were able to visit the observation deck, which gave a great view of the city and the riverfront.
I've uploaded my pictures onto facebook--enjoy:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060862&id=1495500074
Jacob
The strike in UBA is still going on, and there is a chance that the students there may actually lose a semester. This is extremely rare even for Argentina, and hasn't happened in the past hundred years (we are talking through a military dictatorship here). Even if the semester does finish, it is possible that it might not happen on time, so our study abroad program has put a "plan B" into effect that will allow us to complete our UBA classes in the form of an independent study.
Anyway, on to Rosario...
The trip to Rosario was the first of two trips organized by our study abroad program. Rosario is the second largest city in Argentina (if you ask someone from Rosario, most other people will tell you that Córdoba is actually the second largest). The city is located on the Paraná river, which empties into the Río de la Plata (by Buenos Aires) and developed as a major port city. Goods would arrive by boat in Rosario, would be transferred to trains along the Rosario waterfront, and then be taken to all other parts of Argentina. This system, however, no longer exists. Today, the port areas, which are still active, are located upstream or downstream from the city, and the Rosario waterfront has been converted into public space with restaurants and entertainment facilities in former railroad buildings. It's a pretty cool place!
While Buenos Aires seems to still have the economic crisis of 2001 fresh in its mind, Rosario is growing and not really looking back. There is an incredible amount of new construction, and I have to agree that their slogan ("Rosario: el mejor lugar para vivir"...Rosario: the best place to live) might have some truth to it. The city has parks everywhere, a laid back atmosphere, and less-visible poverty than Buenos Aires. It seems to be a relatively wealthy city, but I couldn't tell how people make money. Virtually all of the buildings here seemed to be residential and not commercial...I guess it's possible that they business district is either nonexistant/very spread out or located away from the waterfront where I spent most of my time.
One of the most impressive/noteworthy things to see in Rosario is the Monumento de la Bandera Nacional (the monument of the national flag), which traces it's origin to Rosario. The monument itself looks like something that belongs in Washington, DC, but perhaps with a bit more "Third Reich" architectural influence. We were able to visit the observation deck, which gave a great view of the city and the riverfront.
I've uploaded my pictures onto facebook--enjoy:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060862&id=1495500074
Jacob
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Buenos Aires is actually not in Europe
So I was actually planning to post something along these lines at the beginning of the week, and then this ended up being the topic of discussion in my class today (the class is called Buenos Aires, the City and its People). I feel like many of the posts on here (with the exception of the posts about trips, classes, and the Jewish community...so I guess the one remaining post...) are not completely accurate in that I have overrepresented the cosmopolitan side of the city and made it sound like a European city that happens to be in South America. It kind of is...but it certainly has South America problems as well.
People refer to the worst neighborhoods here as Villas de Miseria. These are essentially shantytowns, and, while most are located outside of the city, the most infamous is located a train yard from Recoleta, the city's most expensive neighborhood (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_31 Sorry...no English translation, but it does have pictures.). These areas have limited access to electicity, no access to natural gas (which the rest of the city is fairly dependent on), and limited if any running water.
The city also has a pretty significant homeless problem that makes this issue looks miniscule in New York and Philadelphia. In United States cities, the issue of homelessness seems to be limited mostly to older males (of course this is not a blanket statement, but they are the most visible in urban environments). Here, however, it is almost just as common to see families. Nearly every time I buy a subway pass, there is a homeless woman or man standing next to the counter holding a baby and asking for change. People here, however, seem much more willing to leave money with the homeless population. I'm not sure whether it's because people here are just more friendly than New Yorkers in general or whether it's because everyone understands how this could happen after the severe economic crisis in 2001.
There is also a very distinct style of subway entrepreneurship here. People of all ages (I have seen everyone from kids who couldn't be older than 7 or 8 to men in their 80s) sell pretty much whatever they can find to sell on the subway. Today alone I was offered stickers, childrens' books, gum, packages of tissues, matches, and sunglasses. The salesperson walks around the car and leaves one item on each person's lap for them to examine, usually gives some spiel about the quality in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, and walks around a second time to collect either the item itself or a few pesos in exchange. This only happens during the day and at night...never in the morning or evening when the subway is packed during rush hour.
In our class today, we discussed a reading in which the author contrasted the experience of tourists and residents here in Buenos Aires. The tourist is more likely to see the cosmopolitan, European looking Buenos Aires, and the resident is more likely to see the reality of the city. Over the past 2.5 months, I definitely feel like I have transitioned from tourist to resident. The author also stated that anyone who calls this the Paris of South America after getting to know the city has not spent much time in Paris. Even though I've never visited Paris, I can also agree that this does not seem like the most accurate description.
My goal here is certainly not to be a downer but instead to share a more realistic view of what life in this city is actually like.
This week also includes a few firsts for me...my first parcial (midterm), my first trip to Rosario (and almost certainly my only trip there...I am going this weekend with my study abroad program), and my first time being on the same contient as a violent coup attempting to overthrow a country's government (http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/09/30/ecuador.violence/index.html?hpt=T2).
Chau,
Jacob
People refer to the worst neighborhoods here as Villas de Miseria. These are essentially shantytowns, and, while most are located outside of the city, the most infamous is located a train yard from Recoleta, the city's most expensive neighborhood (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_31 Sorry...no English translation, but it does have pictures.). These areas have limited access to electicity, no access to natural gas (which the rest of the city is fairly dependent on), and limited if any running water.
The city also has a pretty significant homeless problem that makes this issue looks miniscule in New York and Philadelphia. In United States cities, the issue of homelessness seems to be limited mostly to older males (of course this is not a blanket statement, but they are the most visible in urban environments). Here, however, it is almost just as common to see families. Nearly every time I buy a subway pass, there is a homeless woman or man standing next to the counter holding a baby and asking for change. People here, however, seem much more willing to leave money with the homeless population. I'm not sure whether it's because people here are just more friendly than New Yorkers in general or whether it's because everyone understands how this could happen after the severe economic crisis in 2001.
There is also a very distinct style of subway entrepreneurship here. People of all ages (I have seen everyone from kids who couldn't be older than 7 or 8 to men in their 80s) sell pretty much whatever they can find to sell on the subway. Today alone I was offered stickers, childrens' books, gum, packages of tissues, matches, and sunglasses. The salesperson walks around the car and leaves one item on each person's lap for them to examine, usually gives some spiel about the quality in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, and walks around a second time to collect either the item itself or a few pesos in exchange. This only happens during the day and at night...never in the morning or evening when the subway is packed during rush hour.
In our class today, we discussed a reading in which the author contrasted the experience of tourists and residents here in Buenos Aires. The tourist is more likely to see the cosmopolitan, European looking Buenos Aires, and the resident is more likely to see the reality of the city. Over the past 2.5 months, I definitely feel like I have transitioned from tourist to resident. The author also stated that anyone who calls this the Paris of South America after getting to know the city has not spent much time in Paris. Even though I've never visited Paris, I can also agree that this does not seem like the most accurate description.
My goal here is certainly not to be a downer but instead to share a more realistic view of what life in this city is actually like.
This week also includes a few firsts for me...my first parcial (midterm), my first trip to Rosario (and almost certainly my only trip there...I am going this weekend with my study abroad program), and my first time being on the same contient as a violent coup attempting to overthrow a country's government (http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/09/30/ecuador.violence/index.html?hpt=T2).
Chau,
Jacob
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