Ramblings

I have been living in Buenos Aires for about 3 months now and I can say that now I truely feel at home. I know how to get to my classes, which Collectivo to take, my favorite place to get a cafe con leche and tres medialunas, who I regularly hang out with on a regular basis. Recently, I just discovered a new favorite place to get chinese food and I don´t even have to go all the way to Belgrano to do so! I´ve started taking tango lessons, with a little help from my host mom. I look forward to dinner every night with my host mom as we chat about world events, funny personals on the radio, my castellano classes at IFSA, and whethere it is appropriate to say "estoy llena" at the dinner table. (It's more lower class and there are more acceptable alternatives, such as "es suficiente")...The smell of burning wood as the old trains on Line A shudder to a stop. I am definently going to miss living in this city and I really want to come back to live here.

random Photos

Cemetario Recoleta


A strange truck parked on the street near Museo de Bellas Artes in Recoleta


A park sign also in Recoleta near the Museo de Bellas Artes

Just little things in Buenos Aires that one can see on the street.

What I learned in Class Today

Today I had my Castellano Class at the IFSA office. We were suppose to be discussing this book called La Cuidad Vista de Beatriz Sarlo. She mainly writes about Buenos Aires, and the chapter today was on el Shopping y vendedores ambulantes (street vendors).

Its funny because "Shopping" has crept into the Argentine lexicon, capitalised and all. It is used to describe shopping at the mall, so one would say "Where are you going? Shopping in Abasto."

My castellano teacher is v. funny and v. dramatic, which is hilarious in spanish. ( i think it's because she's of italian descent). She likes to act out certain words or grammar that we don't understand. The phone impressions are the best.

I learned today that:

Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish and think like the French.

Apparently pipi cucu means a elegant person from uruguay but I don't have proof. What I did find is that Pipi Cucu is the name of a chi-chi restaurant in Belgrano..

And Quilombo is slang for big disorder. This is a very informal word, and to those higher up the intellectual food chain, it is considered a bad word only because they most likely don't know the history behind it. The history behind the word is from Brazil, where Quilombo signified a place where escaped Africans lived. It was literally jam packed with all the people who escaped, mothers, daughters, children, men, women, abuelas, you name it. Thus, because of all the people living in one place, which can be a bit noisy, you have the word Quilombo. But you shouldn't take this as the gospel truth from me. Go google quilombo/africa/ meaning and you'll get a whole bunch of factual texts.

Fire on a Train

So I was looking at the news this morning on BBC and what do I see?

THIS: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13263367

http://www.thejournal.ie/train-delays-in-argentina-drive-angry-mobs-to-burn-out-carriages-130230-May2011/

I can't embed the video bc I don't know how, but you have to watch it. The people on the delayed train got soo MAD that they actually set the train ALIGHT/ON FIRE!!!!!

I mean, I know Argentines are fond of their right to huelga aka one usually happens every day somewhere in Buenos Aires and more power to the obreros, but this was no worker strike here. This is pure rage/frustration! So glad I don't have to commute into the city.

To add insult to injury, when the brave bomberos came to put out the fire, some people threw ROCKS at them simply because they were trying to do their job. Because of this incedent, the rest of the communter trains were shut down, causing headaches for everyone else. Way to go, angry mobbers.

End Result: