Dearest Erin,
I hope this satisfies your vicarious travel needs.
Love,
Jenelle
I haven't posted in a while because I haven't really felt like I've had that much noteworthy to say. I mean, I read people's blogs from Africa and I feel like what I'm doing is tame by comparison. Yes, I'm in South America, but I feel like the city here is extremely European. A city is a city is a city. It's new and exciting, but sometimes I feel like I've been away from home so long I don't truly appreciate the differences.
Buenos Aires is cosmopolitan. It even looks like Europe--a lot of blondes, everybody's last name is Italian or Jewish. Apparently there were slaves in Argentina, but most of the African population died a century or two ago of yellow fever, so you don't even see a lot of black people. It's hard to pick out tourists. In France everybody had this chic air about them, here they're a lot more laid-back and their style is more colorful and unique. They all wear awesome sandals. Oh and all the girls are stick-thin. Like anorexically. Apparently they have a worse problem with eating disorders than the US. We were talking about it in my French class (I'm taking a conversation class through the Alliance Francaise to keep up my French) and apparently employers are really discriminatory and just want thin young women.
Where I live: I'm renting a room in the apartment of this wonderful old couple (94 and 90). They're chipper and love to hear about what I've been doing, and tell me about the time they went to Rome in 1936 or about Argentine history.
As for what I've been doing, I've not really been doing a whole lot of stuff--my normal day is to get up around 10, eat breakfast, mess around until like noon, make a sandwich, head to the subte, get off and walk the 15 minutes to school (I walk right by the Casa Rosada every day, don't even give it a second glance, it's ridiculous), have my 4 hour Spanish class, get out, hang out for a while, come home and make dinner, mess around for another couple of hours, and go to bed. Sometimes I go see touristy things, like we went to the Japanese Garden a while ago. But Buenos Aires is not full of really famous things you have to see like European cities are... I hope to be doing more touristing when classes start and I have a routine. Right now the fact that class is 2-6 makes it so that I sleep in and waste my morning (especially since nothing's open anyway), and you can't do anything afterwards.
On weekends we often go out, and as I mentioned before, the schedule is completely different, so I feel like I sleep the day away. In short, I can't wait to have a schedule. The intensive language class is over and we have orientation next week, a week of vacation, and then classes start the 9th of March.
During the week of vacation, I think we're going to go to Bariloche, a beautiful city in the lake country/mountains. There's a lot of outdoorsy stuff to do, and it'll be wonderful to get out of Buenos Aires, even if it is a 20-hour bus ride away. (Also, I will probably be spending the night of my birthday on a bus back to BA--no worries, though, we'll celebrate the night before).
I guess that's all for now. Sorry I'm having trouble coming up with things to talk about, leave me comments about things you want to know!
Oh one more thing: the buses. They have no maps. You just use the Guia T, a kind of map of the city booklet, and the grids tell you which buses are there. Then you look at the number and it lists what streets it goes down. But where the stop is? haha why would we tell you that. How much it's going to be? ask the driver when you get on (anywhere from 1.10 to 1.50 maybe? I always pay 1.20). Where to get off? see above. Oh and by the way, if you don't have change (monedas) don't even bother. Nevermind that there is a drastic change shortage because it's worth more as metal than as coins so people sell them on the black market... sometimes I love Argentina (but now it's just become more entertaining than annoying).
Final note: I updated my pictures. Link's in the previous post.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
La Reina de la Plata
([The queen of the River Plata] as it is apparently affectionately known )
So. Buenos Aires.
...Is huge. 48 officially recognized "barrios" (quartiers, or loosely neighborhoods), a huge percentage- like 1/3-of the country's population, 6 subte (metro) lines, a couple hundred bus lines, thousands of empanada stores and kioskos (little convenience-type stores), and a park every few blocks.
And they still can't fix the holes/broken spots in the sidewalk, give me a map of the buses I can actually understand, put air conditioning on the subte, or deal with the chronic shortage of change (the bus takes nothing but coins, so people hoard them. Hence the signs in every store saying they don't have them).
Despite all that, this capital city has a charm all its own.
We've been doing a lot of sightseeing and getting to know our way around the city for the first week. A couple of trips to the Casa Rosada, a nerve-wracking bus ride watching the streets for when to push the button, and countless empanadas and helados (ice cream cones) later, I'm starting to get a feel for it. I have a feeling I'm going to wake up one day and realize how much I love it.
Other than sightseeing, I've been keeping busy with my intensive Spanish class (4 hours a day...ughhh), a weekly conversation class at the Alliance Francaise to keep up my French, and spending hours and hours sunbathing in parks.
Some tidbits:
Argentines don't do the early morning thing. Business opens at 10. You eat dinner at 10pm. Then, if you're going out that night, you head to a bar around midnight, head to the club after 2, and stay out dancing all night. It gets a little fatiguing, I'd imagine.
The president (la Presidenta) Cristina Kirchner, is the first elected woman president. She works in the Casa Rosada (their version of the White House--the walls are pink, originally because they made the paint with animal blood against the humidity or something, and now due to tradition) where the security is apparently minimal. I saw very few armed guards, the fence is only a few feet from the wall, and there's a subte stop right next to said fence. That said, Ms. Kirchner does not in fact live there, she commutes to work by helicopter every day.
I love the dollar/peso exchange rate (US$1= approx Ar$3.50), especially after France.
Miss everybody, hopefully I'll be updating more regularly when I have exciting things to talk about!
Pictures can be seen here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2137857&id=7412579&l=27f7b
So. Buenos Aires.
...Is huge. 48 officially recognized "barrios" (quartiers, or loosely neighborhoods), a huge percentage- like 1/3-of the country's population, 6 subte (metro) lines, a couple hundred bus lines, thousands of empanada stores and kioskos (little convenience-type stores), and a park every few blocks.
And they still can't fix the holes/broken spots in the sidewalk, give me a map of the buses I can actually understand, put air conditioning on the subte, or deal with the chronic shortage of change (the bus takes nothing but coins, so people hoard them. Hence the signs in every store saying they don't have them).
Despite all that, this capital city has a charm all its own.
We've been doing a lot of sightseeing and getting to know our way around the city for the first week. A couple of trips to the Casa Rosada, a nerve-wracking bus ride watching the streets for when to push the button, and countless empanadas and helados (ice cream cones) later, I'm starting to get a feel for it. I have a feeling I'm going to wake up one day and realize how much I love it.
Other than sightseeing, I've been keeping busy with my intensive Spanish class (4 hours a day...ughhh), a weekly conversation class at the Alliance Francaise to keep up my French, and spending hours and hours sunbathing in parks.
Some tidbits:
Argentines don't do the early morning thing. Business opens at 10. You eat dinner at 10pm. Then, if you're going out that night, you head to a bar around midnight, head to the club after 2, and stay out dancing all night. It gets a little fatiguing, I'd imagine.
The president (la Presidenta) Cristina Kirchner, is the first elected woman president. She works in the Casa Rosada (their version of the White House--the walls are pink, originally because they made the paint with animal blood against the humidity or something, and now due to tradition) where the security is apparently minimal. I saw very few armed guards, the fence is only a few feet from the wall, and there's a subte stop right next to said fence. That said, Ms. Kirchner does not in fact live there, she commutes to work by helicopter every day.
I love the dollar/peso exchange rate (US$1= approx Ar$3.50), especially after France.
Miss everybody, hopefully I'll be updating more regularly when I have exciting things to talk about!
Pictures can be seen here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2137857&id=7412579&l=27f7b
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