La Hora de Despedida

First of all, I want to apologize for neglecting my blog the past 1.5 months. They were crazy, hectic, and incredibly fun - I finished up my classes (including some adventures with oral finals), spent a week in Uruguay on the beach with 8 friends, toured my parents around the city for a week, and spent 5 days in the national park Torres del Paine in Chile (Patagonia).

I figured that I needed to close out the blog on my last afternoon here in Buenos Aires, not just for you guys, but also as something to look back on when I get back to the states and further on down the road. I am about to head out for the airport, and tomorrow afternoon I will be in baggage claim at SFO (if nothing goes wrong, knock on wood). And even though my flight's only 4 hours away, it hasn't quite sunk in yet that I'll be leaving my house here, my family, my friends, and the entire routine that I've created in this city.

Recently, my friends here have been reflecting a lot on our time here, how we've changed, and what a roller coaster ride its been. And yet every time I try to put the experience into words it just sounds cliché and incomplete, so I'll leave just one last, short note, appropriately in Spanish:


Buenos Aires, me has presentado desafíos enormes estos últimos cinco meses, pero en conquestarlos he aprendido mucho sobre mi mismo y he tenido experiencias lindas, divertidas e inolvidables. La gente y los lugares que conocí acá van a tener un lugar especial en mi corazón por lo largo de mi vida. Buenos Aires, seguro que nos vemos pronto.

22. Buffets. You know that pesky health-code regulation that doesn't let you reuse your plates in buffets - well that doesn't exist in Argentina! This was a pleasant discovery since I'm generally annoyed at having to keep using different plates; however, it also meant that even if you wanted a clean plate for a second helping you couldn't really get one...

23. 8.5 x 11. Now here's one that has continually surprised me - paper is a different size in Argentina. Its taller than our paper, and I have no idea why. It makes it slightly frustrating when you're printing an essay from Word and the margins just don't quite work right when printed on the taller paper.

24. "Your midterm is a public document". One of my professors reminded me of that today - I haven't gotten a good explanation on this, but I've been told that any test or paper written in the public university is considered a public document. This parallels the idea of public grades...

25. How'd you do?! We all know those pesky kids in class who ask you how you did on a paper or a test just to see if they did better. Well here you don't even need to ask! In some classes grades are emailed out to the class, posted on the wall, or the best yet, read out-loud as if it was roll-call (which is what happened in one of my classes). I always took for granted how secretive we are about grades in the states, and how private we generally like to keep that information. Its very normal here for people to ask what you got on an assignment - don't think I'll ever get used to that one.

Springtime in Buenos Aires

Too much time has passed to give a more in depth entry of the past few weeks, but I'll summarize some of the high points.

Last Sunday was Mother's Day in Argentina (during their spring) so 17 family members came over for lunch (read: an entire afternoon spent eating). I think I've met every possible family member, and have all of their names down, so family gatherings are much more enjoyable now. They're all extremely nice and understanding when I'm not always super talkative (like at a lunch table of 18 relatives). We ate delicious paella and choripan and I tried blood sausage for the first time ever (not as horrible as I was expecting, but not my favorite food ever...). I even finally got a picture of my host family (only 2 of the 4 kids live with us in the house).

Its finally springtime here in Buenos Aires!! (sorry for all for all of you suffering through the snow up north). I forgot to write about Dia de la Primavera, but it coincided with Dia del Estudiantes (now there's a good holiday!) so we spent the day picnicking in the park and soaking up one of the first days of sunshine. I had been eagerly awaiting springtime since the best way to see Buenos Aires is just to wander around the streets, which will be so much more pleasant now!

We took advantage of our particularly warm day to travel a little bit up north of the city. Originally we planned on going back up to Tigre for the afternoon (I posted about Tigre before), but we got off a couple of stations early on the train to go to a lunch place my friend had read about. Its famous for its nachos, and it was incredible. Then, our waitress told us about a place called "Peru Beach" so we decided to skip out on Tigre and just stay where we were (a barrio called San Isidro) and walk over to the beach.

The beach was really just a beach bar, a lawn and a deck overlooking the edge of the river. But it was such a nice day out and there were lots of people sunbathing and others kite-surfing and wind-surfing so we decided to stay and enjoy daquiris overlooking the water.

This past Wednesday was also a beautiful, sunny day so my friend and I decided to go to the rose gardens in Palermo, which are in the middle of an entire section of Buenos Aires dedicated to parks and lakes. This might be my favorite area of Buenos Aires just because its so much more relaxing than in the middle of all of the buildings and there's a different type of garden for any interest. The rose garden has been my favorite so far, but there are still a few I haven't ventured to yet.

I've also spent a few more Saturdays outside of the city with Un Techo para mi Pais, and I'd say that now I know the barrio pretty well and even know some families that live there. This past Saturday we spent all day with one family, eating lunch and playing games in their brand-new house. I even taught them all how to play ninja! (They wanted to learn a game from the states and I couldn't think of anything else...). They were the sweetest - its incredible how willing they are to invite you into their homes and to spend the day with their family.

Aside from wandering the city in my free-time, spending time with my host family and friends, and classes, I've unfortunately been studying more recently since we're in the last 3 weeks of the semester, which is always hectic with final papers and projects. Last night I finished up a one-week take-home midterm essay that was 6 pages, single-spaced, 11 point font on the rise of Juan Peron to the presidency. It was the hardest assignment I've had here so far, but overall I think it went well and I'm just glad to have it over with! Just 2 more papers, 1 oral defense, 1 oral midterm, and 1 final left until the end of the semester and I can enjoy the rest of the time here without schoolwork!

This weekend my friend from high school is coming into town (she's studying in Santiago, Chile) and its a good friend's 22nd birthday, so I'm sure I'll have a lot to share next week!

Mendoza - The Napa of Argentina

First of all, sorry about becoming worse and worse about keeping up with the blogging! Its a lazy Sunday (election day, so everything's closed) so I'll be catching up with a string of posts this afternoon.

I'll start off with my weekend trip to Mendoza (the Napa Valley of Argentina, right along the Chilean border at the base of the Andes)!! We had a Monday off for Columbus day at the beginning of October so we decided to take the extra time to do a 4-day trip. Side Note: For the longest time we couldn't figure out what our holiday Monday was for, until someone's professor pointed out to them that Columbus discovered all of the Americas - sometimes you don't realize how US centered you are until you leave...

After another lovely 14 hour overnight bus ride (although with worse movies this time!) we arrived in the city of Mendoza, the capital of the province of Mendoza. Our first full day in the city was overcast and rainy, which my host mom tells me never happens in Mendoza (such seems to be our luck on trips) so we spent it in the Termas (hot springs) nestled a little ways up into the Andes. The series of pools ranged from 65 degrees up to 110 degrees (we spent as much time as possible in the 110 pool). The springs were also complete with 2 waterslides, only one of which was warm enough to go on that day.

We kicked off the second day with paragliding!!! I had never even thought about going paragliding before coming to Argentina, but then I was talking to an Argentine friend who said that paragliding was on his bucket list and I realized it might be kind of fun. Turns out Mendoza is a really popular spot to go paragliding because of the Andes, so we decided to give it a shot! I have to say, it was one of the most incredible experiences - everyone should go!!!

It was a tandem paraglide, so I had an instructor sitting right behind me who did all the steering - I just sat back and relaxed in my comfy chair. Leading up to the flight I was terrified at the prospect of running off of a cliff, but you'd be surprised, it wasn't too bad! Once the instructor pulls your parachute up above you, he tells you to slowly start walking towards the edge of the cliff and then begin to run until before you know it you're just kicking the air.

It was a 30 minute flight circling above the mountains, looking at the snow-caps on the Chilean side and seeing an aerial view of the city of Mendoza on the other side. Since I didn't have any air-sickness (which apparently is very common) we even did some acrobatic figure 8's at the end of the flight! My instructor took a video of our flight too.

Then we spent the afternoon horseback riding at the base of the Andes along a river. Now, I realize that I've already mentioned my fear of horses once in this blog, so it doesn't need to be restated, but I'll just say that I think I might be done with horses forever after this experience...

I agreed to go because a friend of mine really really wanted to do it, and its a very common activity in Mendoza. After the first hour or so I was finally feeling comfortable on a horse again! Trotting through waist high rivers, weaving alongside vineyards, and looking up at the snow-capped mountains - I was glad I had agreed to go. We stopped for a brief photo-op and I was so content that I was finally enjoying horseback riding again!

Our guide put my friend and I's horses next to each other to take a picture of the two of us. I don't really remember what happened, but the next thing I know her horse snapped at mine and they started to fight. My horse bolted forward while hers bucked up, throwing her off the end. Then her horse proceeded to chase mine into a barbed wire fence of the vineyard. I grabbed on to a wooden post to make sure not to fall off either. I couldn't look behind me to see what was going on, but all I could hear was the 10 year old girl in our group screaming and everyone asking if my friend as alright.

After a few minutes of our guide calming down my friend's horse, she got back on it (!!! - later she told me that she really did it because she didn't want the little girl with us to be scared). At this point I was really shaken as well and dying to get off of my horse, but everything went smoothly for another hour or so. Then before a river crossing my friend's horse goes down onto its knees and as soon as she jumped off he began to roll around on his back. At this point the guide switched horses with my friend and I counted down the minutes until we got back to the camp...Fortunately, no one was hurt at all and I managed to stay on my horse for all 3 hours. It turned out that my friend's horse had a parasite in its stomach and thats why it was acting up. I'm not thoroughly convinced that I'm just not meant to ride horses...

The next day was our typical wine country day - a biking tour of the vineyards! We had heard of Mr. Hugo from some Georgetown students who studied abroad in BA last year so we headed out. Mr. Hugo himself greets you at his home with a glass of wine, a map with recommendations of good wineries, and a bike. Trust me, there is no better way to do winery tours than biking (I know some of you had concerns about the safety - but no one was hurt in the process)!

Our first winery was only a few years old - very large and very modern. We had a brief tour and then a personal tasting in a very shwanky underground tasting room. Then we biked on over to the oldest vineyard in the area that is run by an Italian family. There we had a delicious lunch, another tour of the winery, and yet another tasting (and I picked up a bottle of dessert wine to bring home for Christmas). To take a break from the wine, we biked up to an olive oil and liquor tasting where we all picked up a few more gifts. Then we had one last wine tasting and a tour of a wine-making museum before biking back to Mr. Hugos, where we were of course greeted with more wine...

It was a perfectly balanced weekend of relaxation and adventure, with just a "little" bit of wine thrown in. All of the photos are in an album on facebook!

Jujuyyyy

Two weekends ago we traveled up to the northern-most province of Argentina (Jujuy) for a trip with our program. We went with UBA (the public university) so we spent part of the time learning about the history of the indigenous populations living there.

Driving from the capital out to the tiny towns where we stayed was a lot like driving through central California - rolling, golden hills. As we moved farther north the mountains turned to shades of green, red, and brown and made for some gorgeous hikes.

Our second day there we drove a few hours out to the Salinas Grandes - or the giant salt flats. I can't really describe the flats and the pictures dont do them justice, but try imagining as far as you can see in every direction as simply flat and white. Spotted along the flats are also little, bright-blue pools of water used to better remove the salt for sale.

We also spent a lot of time in the various towns at their ferias picking up some Christmas gifts - get excited! The food was also a highlight of the trip with empanadas, tamales (!), and a delicious asado. One night we even ate llama, a delicacy in the province! I can see the disgusted look on all of your faces, but it was surprisingly good!

Our last night there we went to a local bar for a night of music and dancing. 30 gringos filled up the place pretty quickly, but the 10 or so locals who stayed despite our presence taught us some traditional dances which quickly broke down into a massive congo line - great way to finish up the trip!

Its been over a month since I've updated you on some of the cultural norms of Buenos Aires! Its definitely getting harder to pick them out since everything is becoming more normal now, but there are still a couple...

19. Stand to the right, stand to the left. I guess I've gotten used to DC where everyone is on their way to work and hustling up the escalators, or the airport where there are millions of signs noting that the right is for standing and the left for walking. Here, there is no such general norm, you can stand wherever you like, and in fact its really rare to see people walking up the escalators.

20. Coats and sweaters. At first I thought the Argentines were just a little wimpy when it came to the winter months, bundling up like it was 0 degrees out. But no, I think maybe there's a problem with weather.com here? For example, today the high was 75 degrees and sunny - a perfect spring day! The woman next to me on the bus was wearing a turtleneck sweater and her wool peacoat over that. I'm really curious at what temperature the portenos will start to take off their coats.

21. Dog walking - don't try this at home. Sure, in the US anyone can be a dog walker, in Buenos Aires it takes real talent and practice! A typical dog walker will have 10-15 full-size dogs going down the sidewalk. Even 2 and a half months in I'm shocked every time I see a dog walker (which is usually about once a day). Just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

Catch-Up

Well I've been absolutely horrible at updating for the past 2 weeks! Now that I'm just in the rhythm of school and life here I keep forgetting to let you guys know whats going on. So I'll give you a quick recap and then I'll write more in depth about some of the more interesting things I've done.

I took my first parcial (midterm) at the public university! In my section of the class I'm the only foreign student, so needless to say I was a little terrified. It was 3 short in-class essays on Argentine history from 1810 until 1930. I was a little shaky on the facts (of course) and didn't write nearly as much as all of the Argentine students, but my professor told me on Monday that I passed! I haven't gotten my actual number grade yet, which you wouldn't think would matter since I'm pass/fail, but it actually affects how many tests I have to take, etc. But I'm getting my grade tomorrow so a whole other round of nervousness will begin!

I also went to my first Madres de la Plaza de Mayo protest - only took me 2 months to finally go. Every Thursday afternoon a group of about fifty members of Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, the human rights organization founded by the mothers of the disappeared youth during the military dictatorship at the end of the 70s, walk around the plaza with signs. Also, all the names of the 30,000 disappeared are read out loud (not each one every single week, but in rotation over a span of a couple of weeks). For anyone that has any interest in history or human rights I really recommend reading a book or even some articles about Argentina in the past few decades - its really fascinating. I'm absolutely in love with Argentine history and its incredible because you can talk to so many people here who lived through it. For example, my host mom had just started university when the military dictatorship started.

I also got to experience 9/11 in a foreign country, which was really interesting. The news stations covered all of the memorial services and I felt like I could have been back in the states the amount of times old footage was played. My host family and Argentine friends would ask questions about what happened and what it means to us, but I was always surprised by the one question they would always ask. Everyone wanted to know what I thought of conspiracy theories. According to my host mom, a lot of the movies shown here about 9/11 and the news stories have to do with conspiracy theories, and it seems to be the general consensus in Argentina that it was a conspiracy. At dinner my host mom even told me that she had read that it wasn't a plane that crashed by the Pentagon but instead a missile because they never found the remains from the plane. It took quite a few tries, but I think I convinced her that what she had heard was in fact wrong.

Thats all I can think of for right now - but I will be writing a blog post about my trip this past weekend to Jujuy, the northernmost province of Argentina (bordering Bolivia) and look out for a blog post next week about my trip this coming weekend to Mendoza (the Napa of Argentina).

Livin' La Vida Loca

Yes, last night I was "livin' la vida loca" with Ricky Martin himself, and 40,000 screaming Argentines. About a month ago a group of friends and I decided to buy tickets to see Ricky Martin in Buenos Aires because we really wanted to experience an Argentine stadium concert (we've heard they're amazing), tickets are cheap down here, and what better place to see our former idol than in South America.

It was my first outdoor stadium concert (they hold concerts in the 3 main futbol canchas - stadiums) and probably one of the largest concerts I've been too. It was absolutely incredible, so much fun! The Argentine crowd is so enthusiastic - just as they are with about everything, with everyone screaming the lyrics and dancing the whole night. It even rained for most of the concert, but no one seemed to mind and they just kept dancing along.

Overall a great night! Now I just have to find another good concert to go to...

Cancion Dos

In honor of the fact that I'll be at the Ricky Martin concert tonight (my 10 year old self would be jealous right now), thought I'd share with you one of Ricky's new hits of his latest albums: Musica, Alma Sexo. I know what you're thinking, yes, Ricky Martin is in fact still making new music. Enjoy!

Fútbol

I've officially experienced my first South American soccer game and all the craziness that goes with it! Last sunday evening I went with a group of about 20 other students from my program to a local game -- the team that is the current Argentine cup champion, in fact.

Before the game we got a tour of the stadium which included sitting in the press conference room, the president's office, and holding their trophy from the Argentine cup. Then we headed down to our seats for the game. Unfortunately, we weren't in the home team's section, just along the sidelines, although that might have been for the best because we weren't sporting jerseys and are clearly Americans.

Almost all of the stereotypes you've heard about South Americans and their soccer seemed to hold true throughout the night. There was much screaming, booing, and singing. When the visiting team scored a goal everyone in the stands were holding their heads and many fans started pacing the aisles. Small children were even crying!!

Then, just to complete the soccer game experience, a fight broke out 4 rows behind us! A (probably drunk) man was trying to get at another man behind him, but his daughter was holding him back and squealing at the top of her lungs. Then the drunk man shoved an elderly man off of his chair for no apparent reason and the security police arrived. I assumed that the police would escort the man out of the stadium (isn't that how it works at home?), but instead the drunk man punched the security guard and didn't have to leave! The other man he was trying to fight with moved to a different part of the stadium and the other man sat down right behind us for the rest of the game! The security even left...

Now we just have to move up to a Boca Juniors game!

As always, the rest of the photos are in my photo albums on Facebook.

Tigre

This past Saturday some friends and I took advantage of one of the first real days of spring to head out to a city just outside of Buenos Aires (but still in the province) called Tigre.

Tigre isn't really a normal city, its a series of islands connected by extensive rivers and deltas. You can "island hop," or take water taxis through the rivers from island to island, where there are cafes, places to rent kayaks, hotels and hostels, and other attractions like the house of former president Sarmiento (which is enclosed in glass for preservation!).

We spent the day on the island of "Tres Bocas" (or three mouths) for lunch on the river and a nice stroll around the neighborhood. It was quite warm enough to go swimming or jet skiing, but don't worry, we'll be back in the summer for the water sports!

Un Techo Para Mi País

This is a bit late, but I really wanted to write a post about my day on Saturday with the organization Un Techo Para Mi País (I've mentioned that I'll be working with them for the semester).

I'm not really one for gushing about transformative experiences - but I can say that Saturday was incredibly powerful. I went back to the barrio I had traveled to for the Dia del Nino festival with a small group (some of whom I'm befriending now!), but this time to do what they call "asignacion" or assignment.

Essentially, the organization travels through these barrios talking to as many families as possible. They meet with each family 2-4 times, asking about the family structure, employment, income and checking the status of the house. They have to assess which families are in the absolute highest need of a new home for each round of constructions. In October they'll be building roughly 20 homes in each barrio, so out of the dozens that they've been visiting in the past few months they have to narrow down the families. I set off with one of the coordinators to meet with some of the families they had chosen to receive homes. We were to make sure that their situation hadn't changed in the past month, and to have them sign a contract agreeing to paying for a portion of the home.

My first reaction when walking around the barrio was shock - even though I've seen extreme poverty in the states and even traveled to villages in Zambia, this was my first time ever going inside these people's homes and talking to them about their living situation. For example, one family we visited was 6 people living in a 3 meter by 4 meter home constructed of wood and used billboard signs. However, we had the job of telling them that they'd be receiving a new home in just under a month and watching as they told the rest of their family the good news.

The hardest part of the afternoon though was visiting with one of the families that hadn't been assigned a house in this round. We talked to the mother for a while about her situation, and she interrupted telling us how badly she needed the help with a new house. The two of us then had to explain the process to her and assure her that she would be considered in the next round of houses.

Overall it was an overwhelming process because the coordinator considered us a team, meaning that the two of us had to agree on any decision we made. Sometimes we would step outside in the middle of a meeting so that he could ask me if I felt that it was right to choose the family. For one family he asked me what I thought we should rank their "need-level" in relation to the other families. This was the most daunting part of the day - I've never been put in the position to make a decision like that before.

I absolutely cannot wait to go back to the barrio to meet with more of the families and hopefully get to give out some more good news.

Canción Uno

I realized that I'll I've been doing so far is sharing stories and pictures, but another obviously important part of the culture here is the music. So I'm going to try to share with you guys some popular songs every once in awhile.

Reggaeton is very popular here, and one on of the most popular songs (as of now) is La Señal by Daddy Yankee. Now just pretend you're in an Argentine boliche, and enjoy!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbHMBwjqLAI&feature=related

The Birds

So those of you who know me well know my, at times irrational, fear of birds. Well, I was a bit concerned coming here because I know city pigeons tend to be the worst. But never in my life have I experience birds like this! They absolutely do not care about humans at all, never move when you walk next to them, and fly extremely close to you.

Just the other day I was casually walking down the street, enjoying the nice weather out, when a pigeon took off next to me - and hit my head with its wing!!! It was flying over my head and flew so close that it flapped its wing on my head! I never thought that happened!

Lets just say...this city is not helping my fear.

Classes Update

Sorry that I've been so bad about updating for the past week! I'm going to try to update more frequently with shorter posts and see how that works out.

For now, I figured I would update you all on how classes are going - yes, I know, I still have to go to classes when abroad.

My UBA classes are moving right along and we're coming up on our first midterms (yikes - in class essays in Spanish?). Now that we're moving along with the material I'm starting to notice the overwhelming factor. The readings are piling up and my lack of background knowledge is become much more apparent. But this week I also started my tutoring sessions - we get 10, 2-hour sessions with a tutor for as many classes as we want through our program. Essentially, the tutor goes over any readings you want and clears up any background information that we're lacking. Now that I've started meeting with them I'm feeling a lot better about my classes!

UBA is just as entertaining as always - you never know what you're going to get on a given day. I've started showing up to class 10 minutes late regularly, and I'm often one of the first students there. This makes a 2 hour class so much more bearable when it starts so late! The other day we had the added delay of an argument between my professor and two students who came into class to present for their group. I'm not sure I've explained this, but periodically throughout classes small groups of students will stop in for 5 minutes to talk about some issue their involved with and pass out flyers - always a nice breather from lectures. These two students were talking about their proposal for changes to the Political Science major, and since my professor was one of the first students enrolled in the major (it wasn't added to the University until 1983!) she had a lot of opinions on the subject and appeared to disagree with the students, from what I could gather, that is.

Also, there are some sort of student elections coming up next week, so the Facultad (what they call the school building) is even more plastered in posters (I still wish I could discreetly take a photo of it all to show you guys - its incredible) and even more students barge into classes. I've been meaning to ask my sister about how the elections work, but it seems that whichever group of students lead their student government has a large amount of say in the actual structure of the majors and the branch of the University in general.

In my Argentine History recitation section I also have the added bonus of being the only exchange student - and everyone in the class is well aware of this fact. Since its a history class, the United States tends to come up every once in awhile, and my professor always nods to me and asks for my input. Meanwhile the whole class turns their heads to look at me. In one class she even described our Civil War and made sure after each sentence that I agreed with her evaluation. Its actually really interesting to hear US history told from an Argentine perspective.

Then I have my literature class through my program which counts as my Spanish language class. Its a class of about 6 kids and our professor is an adorably sweet old man. He only ever assigns us about 10 pages of reading, so its a really easy class and we talk a lot about Argentine history (good addition to my other history class!).

My service learning class isn't really much of a class - only an hour and a half a week, and mostly a check-in to see how our projects are going. Don't worry, I'll have another post about that!

Overall, its nice to have rhythm with classes going and feel like I know what to do at the University. The other students and professors are all really nice and my comprehension of lectures is improving so much.

An Anniversary and a Bicentennial

Well, another week has passed, and even though it wasn't quite as exciting as the trip to Iguazu Falls, its worth a post.

Just as I was settling back into my house, unpacking, catching up on my blog and pictures, my host mother knocked on my door and whisked me away to our "aunt's" house. Last Sunday, while I was in Iguazu, was "Dia del Nino" (Children's Day). Yes father, they celebrate children's day here too! Since it was in the middle of the long weekend my family decided to celebrate Monday evening with another large family dinner.

I'm not quite sure what "Dia del Nino" normally consists of, other than giving presents to the children in your family and discounts at every pastry shop across the city, but for us it just meant a relaxing evening of dinner and board games. My 10 year old cousin had decorated her house with signs proclaiming it "Dia del Nino" and since she's the youngest she was allowed to pick the games for the night. We started off nice and easy with Jenga -- not going to lie, playing a 10 year old in Jenga is not all that challenging. But then after dinner we moved on to Trivial Pursuit. As if Trivial Pursuit wouldn't be challenging enough in Spanish, it was also the South America edition. At least I provided a lot of amusement for my family as I lost, finishing way behind the 10 year old.

After a nice close to an amazing weekend I was back in school-mode for a short, 3 day week (wouldn't want me to be working too hard).

On Wednesday afternoon a friend and I decided to check out the Cemetery de Chacarita (similar to Recoleta in design, but its filled with all Argentines, not only the rich and famous). It was built following a great flu epidemic to house the victims, but its now famous for housing the tango singer Carlos Gardel.

After finishing up another week of school, I tried to take full opportunity of my 3-day weekend. On Friday I had some administrative things to get done - like spending 2 hours at the migrations office to get my official residency forms! (Turns out before I just had temporary residency, but now I'm official) Then a friend and I headed downtown to check out the events for the 190 year anniversary of our university, Universidad de Buenos Aires.

The events were housed in a state-run high school that served as the original building for the university (if only the current building was as nice!). The building had been converted into essentially a museum of the history and founding of the university, with classrooms housing free lectures open to the public on a variety of topics. I was particularly proud when I was able to have a conversation with two women wandering around the exhibits about the difference between American Universities and UBA - they even complimented my Spanish :).

Then on Saturday I broke out of the Buenos Aires bubble by traveling to a barrio outside of the "capital federal," or the city proper. For my service learning class I'll be working with an organization called "Un Techo Para Mi Pais" which is very similar to Habitat for Humanity. Saturday was my first real introduction to the organization - I traveled with a group of about 15 Argentines to a barrio where they have constructed houses to throw a "Dia del Nino" party for the kids in the barrio. We spent the afternoon dancing to reggae, handing out candies and presents, and playing tag with about 60 kids. It was nice to get outside of the city and spend the day with Argentines. I'll be spending many more Saturdays over the semester going out to these barrios learning about the families and helping assign houses to families.

Sunday closed off another great, although more relaxing, weekend. We started the day off right by making the trek up to Palermo for some real, American brunch! The standard breakfast here is crackers with cheese spread and marmelade, or if you need a big breakfast a croissant glazed with sugar (called a "medialuna," or half-moon). I'm one of the lucky few who's host family buys me Frosted Flakes to eat in the morning, but a real breakfast was still desperately needed. The restaurant mainly serves as a popular bar, but its owner is from Vancouver, so he also does brunch on the weekends. We partaked in dulce de leche filled Belgian Waffles and a "Cali Coast" omelette with home fries - absolutely divine!

Then we headed back down to the main part of the city to do some of the more touristy things on our list of must-see things in the city. First stop was the Casa Rosada (the principal government office where the President works), which is completely open to the public on the weekends - if only the White House were the same. We got a tour of the building, which included going out onto the balcony where Eva Peron delivered her most famous speech.

Directly behind the Casa Rosada is the museum for the bicentennial which was this past year. It is underground and built in what was previously a Spanish fort, so they maintained some of the original brick floor which you can walk over on glass platforms. The museum is a general overview of Argentine history (conveniently sensationalized on television screens for us gringas) and has other historical artifacts like one of Eva Peron's gowns.

And now I'm settled back into a week of classes, but I will update again soon!

Iguazu Falls!

Sorry that its been over a week since my last post, but thats because I was off for four days in the incredible Iguazu Falls!! So here goes a long recap of the weekend:

Iguazu Falls is located in one of the most northern points in Argentina, bordering Brazil and Paraguay, and is said to rival Victoria and Niagra Falls as one of the greatest waterfalls in the world. So naturally, when we had our first "feriado" (holiday) this Monday we decided to make the 18 hour journey northward. I traveled up with 3 other girls from our program and we squeezed in everything we could in our weekend.

I know some of you were shocked when I told you that it would be a 18-hour overnight bus ride up to the falls - 18 hours stuck on a bus sounds like some form of torture. But in reality, I would take an overnight bus over a long plane flight any day! We were greeted with comfy seats that reclined almost 180 degrees, 3 movies throughout the ride (all in English), dinner, breakfast, and free wine.

We arrived in Puerto Iguazu (the little town 30 minutes outside of the national park) on Friday afternoon and decided to spend the day exploring the town and its surroundings.

I don't quite remember the process of picking out a hostel last week - I typed in "Hostel Iguazu Falls" in google and the first one to pop up was, of course, "Hostel Iguazu Falls". Somehow I decided that it would be fine to choose this one without figuring out where it was or if there better ones in town. It must have been fate, because we ended up in what appeared to be the nicest hostel in town! 1 block from the bus terminal, neighboring an ice cream shop, and in the middle of the little town. We even ended up having our own room for the 4 of us overlooking the courtyard and pool area, which played American pop and hip hop music 24 hours.

We took the opportunity to meet other students and travelers from around the world. We even befriended an Austrian working in Brazil who might come down to visit us in Buenos Aires before he heads back home!

Later in the day we took a short trek over to "Tres Fronteras" (three borders) which is a spot in the river where the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil all touch. Each country has its own obelisk painted in the colors of its flag right along the river.

Saturday morning we took a short bus ride over to the national park right at 8 am when it opened so we could have a full day in the park. After a short snafoo in which we tried convince two park rangers to let us in for the resident price (they wouldn't let us because we didn't have our residency paperwork with us), we headed into the park. The morning was greeted with a little bit of disappointment - the area called "Garganta del Diablo" (the Devil's Throat), was closed because of a high river level. Also, this meant that the boat rides that take you underneath the falls were also closed because it was impossible to navigate them up the river.

But all was not lost, as the "Garganta" is just one small part of the falls. Our first stop was a walk along the upper circuit. Here the pedestrian walkways go right alone the very edge of the top of each waterfalls. Probably not the best for someone afraid of heights because you can lean over the edge and look all the way down. This is the classic view of the falls - a span of about 10 monstrous waterfalls in a half-circle pouring into a barely visible river below.

From there we journeyed down to the lower circuit, which takes you about halfway down the waterfalls and allows you to walk right next to them, causing you to get drenched. I should note here that we thought we were clever by wearing shorts into the park, despite the 60 degree weather out. We didn't want our jeans to get soaking wet and then be freezing all day long! But this did also mean we experienced a rather high number of confused and concerned looks all day long. This wasn't helped at all when we decided to go as far out as the walkway would take us (the remainder was blocked off because of the unusually large amount of water) - right up against one of the waterfalls. No one else wanted to go out that far because it meant getting soaked, and I'm not going to lie, it was freezing outside. But we ran out and came back looking like wet rats. There were definitely quite a few mothers in the park concerned for us.

Dripping wet we decided to head back to the central part of the park to enjoy lunch. On our way we stumbled upon the Sheraton, the one hotel located inside the park. They also have a pool area looking out on the mist from "Garganta del Diablo" that was empty because of the weather. We decided to take advantage of the abundant chaise lounges to dry off under the sun. After warming up a bit we headed off for our final activity of the day.

All the crowds swarm to the huge waterfalls, so in the late afternoon we headed out on a 3.6 mile hike to a much smaller, secluded waterfall where you can swim in the warmer months. From above the waterfall there was also a beautiful panoramic view of the Brazilian border.

Feeling as though we had literally stepped foot on every inch of the park we could, we headed out Saturday evening back to Puerto Iguazu and to our hostel for a relaxing evening. We treated ourselves to Argentinian steaks and called it an early night.

Sunday we took off our our second adventure - rappelling and zip lining! We drove out to another part of the forest that is protected by the Argentine military. First up was a repel down a 20 foot cliff. Then was a brief walk through the forest to our first zip lining platform. From there we zip lined 800 meters across the forest! There was only a little bit of screaming from my travel companions (one had to assure the guide that she had sky dove before as she looked petrified while rappelling). It was a perfect close to an exhilarating weekend.

The drive back from the forest took us through some of the more rural towns, where we got to stop to look at a small artisan fair and a local cemetery. It was nice to be out of the city and see another face of Argentina. We even befriended our tour guide who shared his mate with us on the ride back! (Note: sharing your mate with someone implies trust, so we get extremely excited when any Argentine offers us their mate -- seems like I might need a post about mate).

After an exhausting two and a half days we said goodbye to Puerto Iguazu and loaded up for another 18 hour trip back home.

Sunday: Presidential Primary Edition

Today was a balmy 62 and sunny - the perfect day for a presidential primary! And not just any primary, the first ever presidential primary!

My host mom took me with her to the polls this afternoon to vote. Polling locations are divided by house and by last name, so different members of the family can vote in different locations (as is the case in my house). Everyone has a specific table within the school they go to where their ID booklet is stamped to make sure they voted (voting is obligatory) and then one at a time they go into a classroom to do their voting. There are pieces of paper, by party, where one side is the presidential candidate and the other is all their nominees for the remaining positions. With your own envelope, you either put in the paper for one party, or you can tear off one half of the paper and combine it with the other half from a different party.

Then we took a walk through the park where she told me a bit more about the election. I always forget how recent much of Argentine history is - for example, my host mom voted for the first time when she was 29, because before that was the military dictatorship and the "Dirty War" (but its never called the "Dirty War" here, but rather state terrorism, which does make more sense). She told me stories about the first election, how people celebrated throughout the streets. Its nice to be in a place where people appreciate democracy and their right to vote.

Tonight was another family dinner, but was special because we were watching the election results. Before dinner each member of the family put down their predictions for vote percentages for the 6 major presidential candidates. Note: Any candidate that doesn't receive 400,000 vote in this round will not participate in the October general election, so its more of a run-off system. Then we watched the results roll in over pastries.

The last I checked Cristina Kirchner (the current president) had 48 percent of the vote, with the next closest having only 13 percent. I'm still trying to figure out why this primary system is beneficial as there are still 6 candidates left for October and Kirchner looks like she has a pretty solid lead...Oh well, we'll see what happens in the next two months.

Tomorrow marks the start of the second week of school. Wish me luck!

Clearly it was a busy week for cultural differences!

16. Leash laws. Maybe its just that the United States is rather berserk about their leash laws for dogs, but I've been surprised by the number of dogs that I've seen running around on the sidewalks (with an owner) without their leashes.

17. And the downside to relaxed dog laws. There is no law in the books in Buenos Aires that you have to clean up after your dog in public places. This means that you must be vigilant while walking down a sidewalk to avoid any pleasant surprises.

18. Psychiatrists. The number of psychiatrists in Buenos Aires is often the subject of jokes, but here its very common for nearly everyone to regularly go to a psychiatrist. Having dinner with my host sister and 5 of her friends, the conversation quickly turned to them talking about each of their psychiatrists - they all had one, and they all go regularly.

Another addition to the list: back to school edition. While I knew about the major differences in the education system (or somewhat) before getting here, like grading scales, there are obviously so many minor differences that I was unaware of until Monday.

11. Smoking. Only recently Argentina banned smoking in public buildings (a change that I'm quite a fan of), but this apparently does not apply to school buildings. Smoking appears to be completely acceptable through the "Facultad" (the shorthand for the building housing my falcultad of political science). Some even smoke within classrooms, although I've fortunately not seen this yet.

13. No silence. Now this was certainly one that I took for granted before coming to Argentina. We all have those kids in our class who whisper obnoxiously during class, or in big lecture halls we've all been guilty of talking to our friends sitting next to us. But there seems to be a different norm here - talking, quite audibly, among your friends in a class of 20 doesn't appear to raise any eyebrows. On the first day I was absolutely shocked! Girls were giggling and chattering away and the professor didn't even look their way. I'd also like to add that this doesn't help out the awkward exchange student straining for every word the professor mumbles.

14. Same goes for cell phones. I've sent texts during large lectures, of course, but never during a 30 person class, and always discreetly. As with the talking, there doesn't seem to be quite as strong of a norm here about texting. It appears to be perfectly acceptable to hold your cell phone out in front of you and compose long messages.

15. No textbooks! This is my favorite cultural difference in terms of school. Books in Argentina are considered very expensive (where aren't they?), so instead, each professor develops a sort of reading packet that they then send off to a specific photocopy kiosk. You simply walk up, tell them your professors name, and there they have all your readings conveniently compiled (with a syllabus and reading guide in front) for roughly 5 US dollars! Now this I could get used to.

Sisters and Sunshine

Well, I've officially finished up my first week of classes here in Buenos Aires! And so far, so good.

I think I'm pretty well settled on taking Argentine History and Latin American Politics at UBA. I got to talk to our lecture professor for Argentine History Thursday morning and she was just as nice as my recitation professor. The other student in the class we had talked to on Tuesday agreed to help us out if we ever have any questions and then he and the professors proceeded to have a conversation about Baywatch once I told them I was from California (this is the go-to reference to California down here, sigh).

I had a day off from classes on Wednesday, so I spent a relaxing day with some friends. First we went to the cultural center associated with UBA where we can take one class for free (paid for by our program). There is such an impressive variety of classes open to anyone and everyone in Buenos Aires - from graphic design, literature, dance, yoga, and acrobatics! We went to sign up for an introductory painting and drawing class (I know that some of you are now probably laughing to yourselves - but why not try out something completely different!?). Well, unfortunately, none of you are going to be able to see my masterpieces since the class was full!

We decided to drown our sorrow in a movie and ice cream. Wednesdays are known for having the cheapest movie tickets in the city, not that they aren't already much cheaper than in the States, so we went to see Midnight in Paris (the new Woody Allen movie) and then hit up Volta, which is a local ice cream chain that has been voted the best ice cream in the world.

Friday was a bit of a slow start to the weekend (every weekend is a 3-day weekend here! I feel like I'm in the Business School). There was a severe weather warning, with hail, thunder and lightening, and buckets of rain. But it was a good time to get some errands done, so not all was lost.

Friday night I did finally get to meet my host sister though! She arrived late that evening, which led to a stream of family members and friends pouring into the house to give her a warm welcome. She is very welcoming and friendly and we finally got to have a brief conversation this morning. Its going to be great to have her as a sister since she's in the same "carrera" in UBA that my classes are in (Ciencia Politica), so she's taken similar courses in the past.

Today was one of the first nice days - starting to look a bit more like spring - so we decided to go to the Japanese Gardens. They're located in Plaza Italia which is one of the nicest parts of the city, in my opinion - lots of open green space, plus the zoo and the gardens. We started out with some Japanese food (sushi, yum!) and then spent the afternoon wandering around the gardens.

Tomorrow is election day and I think my family is going to take me with them to vote! I'll be sure to keep you updated on how the elections go, or what I understand about them.

Back to School

Classes! Monday was our first official day of school (although some people had classes at UCA, the private University last week). Despite an unhealthy amount of anxiety, I would say that so far its going really well!

Monday went about as smoothly as possible.

On Sunday a friend and I mapped out how to get to our UBA classes and walked over to the building so that we were ready Monday morning (the same routine as freshman year at Georgetown). The day before classes started the building looked eerily deserted, but is much better now that its filled with people.

Each specific department of UBA has its own building (all spread throughout the city), so all of my classes are in one of the two Social Science buildings. Since the Political Science classes are all held in the building it is PACKED with campaign posters and volunteers. I wanted to take a picture of the stairwell and halls because its amazing, but thought that might look a little weird...maybe later in the semester. The main floor has tables set up with every political party and volunteers there to answer your questions. There isn't any white space in the stairwell or halls but instead huge, colorful posters. This is accompanied by students who briefly interrupt classes every 20 minutes or so to pass out pamphlets and talk about their candidates. What I would give to live in a country that is so politically engaged!

Despite every thing else about UBA being difficult, they make it very easy to find your classes the first day with giant bulletin boards of classroom numbers on the ground floor. I had no trouble finding my two Monday classes: Argentine History and Latin American Politics.

First us was Argentine History. It was the "practica" which is the equivalent of a recitation for us. I was pleasantly surprised when I met another exchange student from Minnesota outside of the classroom - made me much less nervous for my first Argentine class! The professor was extremely nice and very easy to understand. She had us introduce ourselves to the class since we were exchange students and after class she said that we could email her if we ever have a problem understanding something.

I even talked to one student in my class! (Our program staff really wanted us to talk to an Argentine in our classes...). He had studied in Minnesota for a year and was really friendly. Then while waiting for my second class I had a long conversation about the upcoming election with a girl going into a different class. Maybe I can make porteno friends after all!

After class I headed over to the "fotocopieria" (photocopy store). Instead of buying textbooks or even downloading articles from online, classes here develop reading packets that they then give to local photocopy stores (or in the case of UBA, there's a store run by students). You just have to tell them your professor's name and they give you a packet of readings! Its also a lot cheaper than buying a book or even printing it yourself. All of my readings for the first 4 weeks of class were 5 US dollars!

Then in the evening I had Latin American Politics. This class is about half exchange students, which I'm not wild about, but at least their from the US, Denmark, and Germany, so there's a bit of variety. The professor was also easy to understand and the class seems like it will be interesting.

Even though Monday was a complete success, Tuesday had a few more bumps in the road.

I knew that it was going to be a somewhat rough day when while walking to my bus stop a woman dumped water off of her balcony onto my head.

My first class was with my program and went very well. It was my Seminar on Service Learning. We're visiting the organizations that we might want to work with for the semester this week and next and then will decide by the end of next week. The classroom aspect of the course also seems interesting since we'll be learning a bit about social policy and social history of Buenos Aires.

After that class I headed back to UBA. I gave myself a little bit of time to find the classrooms for my two classes today. After scouring the bulletin board I absolutely could not find my first class. I asked a student there for help and when he couldn't find it either he motioned to the computer and the student portal, but I had no idea what I was doing (much to his surprise). So he sent me off to the Department of Students which then sent me off to the Department of Profesors, who told me that the class was in the Sociology department, which is housed in a different building (even though the other sections of the same class were in the Political Science department). Fortunately for me, all sociology courses have been postponed to next week so I didn't have to sprint across the city to get there.

I used my newly free 2 hours to check out the student-run cafe in the building, which boasts 75 cent coffee!

Then I had my Social Policy course. I got to class 5 minutes early. The rest of the 30-ish person class rolled in 15 minutes late and all sat on the other side of the classroom since they all knew each other. The course is a part of the "Trabajo Social" or Social Work major, that I'm guessing is really small and so all the students in the major know each other. This meant that there was a lot of chit-chat during lecture, making it very difficult to understand the professor. Oh, and the fact that he mumbled and had his hand covering his mouth the whole time didn't help. Basically, I only got about half of what he said and received odd looks by the whole clique of the class the entire time. Needless to say, probably not staying in that course.

Tomorrow I don't have any classes so I'll be going to meet with two of the organizations that I might do projects with for my service learning seminar!

The Official End of Summer Vacation

I know you've all been dyyying to hear how my first 2 days of classes went, but you'll have to hold on for a few minutes because I have to discuss the weekend.

Saturday was a relaxing day - we took the trek up to Belgrano, another barrio on the northern side of the city for the day. All together, it took 50 minutes on the bus to get up to the neighborhood, a distance that portenos consider relatively short. I'm still getting used to the idea that you have to leave an hour to get from one point in downtown to another. And this is only within the eastern part of the city - getting to the western edge would take over an hour!

We were headed up to Belgrano for Chinatown (Barrio de China), but more importantly, peanut butter. We stopped first for some chinese food, a welcome change from the daily routine of ham and cheese sandwiches. Belgrano's Chinatown consists of 3 blocks of grocery stores with 2 chinese restaurants - the one we chose was the "Dragon Porteno" because who could resist a name like that? Afterwards we headed out to one of the famous chines grocery stores, always packed because they are the only ones in the city that sell peanut butter. Most downtown grocery stores stick to a variety of crackers, one of the main food groups in Argentina. I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon dried fruit and nuts (I think everyone knows my obsession).

Afterwards we wandered around the outdoor Feria de Belgrano before heading home. That night we celebrated the birthday of a girl in the program by hitting up our first boliche (club). It was very similar to a club in the US...except the key difference that when we left at 4:30 am it was still packed with hundreds of people. Yes, hundreds.

Sunday morning I woke up forgetting that Sunday is the day for family, as in many countries. So we headed out for my host grandparent's house for a marathon family lunch. I guess this would be a good time to tell you a bit more about my family.

I have a host grandmother and grandfather, both of whom are from Spain, which means that their relatively difficult to understand. But my grandfather still insists on the "rule of 2" for food. I also have 2 host aunts and 3 host cousins. Two of my cousins are 10 and 13 years old, and absolutely adorable. They love to chatter away and ask a million different questions. The 10 year old was rocking a Miley Cyrus pin (or Miley Cyroos here) and explaining to me the subtle differences between Miley and Hannah Montana. She also explained to me that she used to have a lot of boyfriends, but now she doesn't have any because boys are annoying. Wise child.

Then I have two older host sisters, 27 and 29, who don't live in the house but come over about once a week for meals. At home I live with my mom, whom I've already told many stories about, my 24 year old brother and my 19 year old sister. My host sister gets back from a trip to Spain and London on Friday and I'm excited to meet her since we both (now) go to the same University and are studying the same thing! My host brother is extremely nice and helpful, and an excellent cook. Its nice to have more people and noise around the house and he's always playing his guitar and singing.

After a relaxing weekend I was ready to start school Monday morning...

San Antonio de Areco

As a final activity before the start of courses, our program took us out to San Antonio de Areca, which is a ranch in the countryside 2 hours outside of Buenos Aires. They're known for their gauchos, or Argentine cowboys.

After 2 weeks of figuring out subways and buses it was nice to escape the city for some fresh air and quiet. The ranch was complete with giant slabs of carne cooking on an open firepit, corrals with dozens of horses, and newborn puppies running around.

We started out the day by riding horses, which I enjoyed despite my fear of horseback riding (which originated when I was thrown off my horse while learning how to cantor when I was about 10 years old).

Then began the feast of empanadas, choripan (chorizo sandwiches), carne and pollo served by gauchos (of course), and dulce de leche crepes. Argentines know how to eat.

After lunch we had a demonstration of traditional folk dancing (the same style as at the Ballet Folklorico) and then our gaucho show!

Gaucho is the name for traditional cowboys in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. You'd recognize them by their pants and ponchos -- waiters at steak restaurants will often dress up as gauchos. Well, we watched a demonstration of actual gauchos on their horses. The first test was to spear a tiny wooden stick through a metal loop, while galloping at full speed. Then they threw spears at a strawman and several of them performed gymnastics-esque tricks on their horses. The show ended with what seemed to be a traditional routine to show the closeness of the gaucho and his horse (I can't even begin to describe it!). For example, after the horse had flipped over on its back, the gaucho did a handstand on the horse's belly!

And now after a day of fresh air and good food, its back to the city. This is our last free weekend before classes start on Monday, so I'll be sure to keep you updated before then!

Besos!

Week 2

Sorry for the delay between posts! Its been a busy week...

It finally happened: I caught my first cold here. I was surprised that I hadn't already been sick, given the sudden change to cold winter, the new surroundings, and the stress of moving to a foreign country. I've been stocking up on vitamin c (which everyone knows is my favorite anyway) and I'm slowly but surely recovering.

But on a more exciting note, I finished up all of my appointments with migrations and I'm officially a temporary resident with a student visa!

I've also registered for all of my classes, and shopping period begins on Monday. Kind of terrified for the start of classes, but excited as well. I'm enrolled in lotsss of different classes, but my tentative schedule of what I think I'll end up taking is:

Workshop on Argentine Fiction (my mandatory Spanish class through our program - this one is set in stone.)

Seminar on Service Learning (also through the program, this is a 1 hour class each week on social policy in Argentina and then 3-4 hours a week working with an organization on a specific project. Next week we get to begin to visit the organizations to decide which ones we want to work with.)

Latin American Politics (at UBA, the public school)

Argentine History (also at UBA)

I'll be sure to keep you updated on how each one goes and what I end up settling on.

I also had my first laundromat experience here in Buenos Aires, and let me tell you, I might immigrate just for this! 10 meters directly in front of my door is our laundromat, and for 12 pesos (3 dollars) you drop off all your laundry in the morning and pick it up in the evening clean and folded. I could get used to that after years of dragging laundry bags down to sketchy basements and waiting for laundry machines.

We also spent an afternoon in La Boca, the neighborhood famous for the creation of the tango. I think its safe to say that La Boca is what most people think of when they hear Buenos Aires - the colorful houses, the sidewalk cafes overflowing with carne, and the street tango. It is also, however, the poorest barrio in Buenos Aires, and can be very dangerous for tourists (good thing we're now residents who speak Spanish and know what we're doing).

When we were there we had the added bonus of watching the filming of a Portuguese Telenovela! The main street was partially closed to film one scene, which was sufficiently over-dramatic.

On Thursday our program staff decided it would be a good idea for us to prove to them how good we are at navigating the city, so they sent us off on a scavenger hunt. The only problem was that the 3 stops we had were on opposite sides of the center of the city. It took us 3 hours to make it to only the first two!

But this was somewhat made up for because we saw two landmarks I had yet to visit in the city. The first was the Cementario Chacarita, where many stars of the tango are buried. Its similar to Recoleta (which I mentioned in a previous post), but is much larger and not quite as ornate. There we visited the tomb of Carlos Gardel, the most famous tango singer. Then we headed out for what my host sister calls the "asno de arte" (the ass of art) - a giant metal flower which opens up during the day and closes at night.

Today, Friday, was our first excursion with our program, and I think I'll devote an entire post to the day since it will get too long!

Elections and Evita

Well I have some down time because its a Sunday, and since its election day everything is closed across the city. Voting here is obligatory, and people take it very seriously! For example, since everyone votes in their local schools, all schools that served as polling places will be closed down tomorrow morning to be disinfected. I'd like to see that happen in the US!

I'm also excited because I'll be here for the entirety of the presidential elections. For the first time ever, Argentina is having a primary - it will be an open primary and any candidate who receives more than 400,000 votes will be allowed to run in the general election. The primary will be on August 14th and the general in October. I told my host mom that it will be exciting to watch, and she said thats only because I get to leave after its over and they'll all be stuck here with whoever wins. Oh how I'm loving Argentine politics!

Our main project for the past few days has been picking out our classes from our 4 possible universities. I've registered for a Spanish class and a seminar at FLACSO (part of our program), and still have to register for my 2 classes at UBA (the public university here). I know I had originally said that I wanted to take one class from UCA, the private university, and one from UBA to see the differences, but UCA restricts exchange students from taking most of its courses, so there were no interesting courses that I really wanted to take. Instead I'll take two classes from UBA and just hear stories from other students in the program about UCA.

I did, however, get to at least go to UCA's campus for an orientation. The fact that it has a campus is a massive difference from UBA to begin with. UBA has each department in separate buildings spread all throughout the city. UCA has 4 classroom buildings all in a row, and all along the water. They even have a department full of advisers for exchange students, certainly not something I'll have at UBA, and a dress code for classes and final exams. Oh well, going to UBA will be truer to an Argentinean University experience.

We did escape from the course registration process one afternoon to visit the Museo de Eva Peron. I think I speak for most Americans when I say that much of my knowledge of Eva Peron comes from the musical Evita (yes, I just admitted it), so it was nice to learn more about the woman that every porteño loves. In just 35 years she was a famous actress, first lady, helped secure the women's vote, wrote declarations of worker's and children's rights, and started countless programs for children's education and women's health. Shortly before her death there was a call for her to be named Vice-President of Argentina, which she turned down, explaining that none of her actions had been done to win political fame.

Her funeral procession through Plaza de Mayo. The wake lasted one week.

Tomorrow I'm finishing up my visa process (and officially becoming a resident of Argentina!) and registering for classes. Wish me luck!