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:

Semana Salta Part 1

Last weekend for Semana Santa (Easter) I went to Salta. The province of Salta is located in the north of Argentina; a 22 hours bus ride! It basically takes a day to get there but it is so worth it. We left on Wednesday afternoon at 5. The omnibus was suppose to leave at 4 but, as usual, the bus was delayed in arriving to the station. I, traveling with 5 of my friends from IFSA boarded the bus with trepidation and excitement. How glad we were to arrive at our hostel, 7 Duendes, after that 20 odd hour bus ride. The rest of the day was spent figuring out what to do/walking around.

The next day, we went to San Lorenzo, which was 15 mins away, where there was hiking and zip-lining in the mountains. It was an amazing day to hike. The views were gorgeous and the hike was perfect, although I was a little out of breath during one or two parts. I blame the thin mountain air. ;)







The view at the top was totally worth it. We could see the whole of Salta from the top.

Stained Glass Windows at Recoleta Cemetery

Empanadas

How could I not mention empanadas, the snack food of argentina???? ridiculously cheap and on the go food, it is the preferred choice of everyone for a snack. at first i didn't like them bc a lot of them had hardboiled egg in it and they were cold.

(The flavors are usually chicken, meat, veggie, mozarella). Empanadas can be baked (Salta style) or fried (Tucuman style). They may also contain ham, fish, humita (sweetcorn with white sauce) or spinach; a fruit filling is used to create a dessert empanada. Actually, just go read the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empanada. I didn't even know there was a dessert empanada. i know what my next quest will be: find that dessert empanada!

I got the chicken empanadas below from a italian place next to the ifsa office. warm, they are the empanadas i like the most so far.




This is a potato tortilla that my host mom has made a couple of times before. it is really yummy, kind of like the spanish tortilla.