Sunday, August 27, 2006

Week 4! Tomorrow starts week 5... LOCO

Another week of FUN classes.... well as fun as classes can be. We had our first arte en español class, which is SO cool. Each week, we go to an art museum and learn about a few artists, then we have to describe a peice of art in Spanish to the rest of the group. It's a great way to practice and learn more artistic terms, and a great way to learn about all the amazing art in this city. That was Friday afternoon. Friday night, we went to this awesome monthly exhibity opening called Gallery Nights. It's an entire street of new galleries opening with free champagne and interesting people. ¡Que divertido! Then of course, we went out around the town to a few bars. Saturday night we went to the coolest show de Tango. It's a tango orchestra of young men who play the piano, violin, cello, bass, and accordians. It was this dark underground club and it was amazing! I can't even explain it, but enjoy the clip! Sunday morning, Lauren and I went to a Presbyterian church. We didn't know what time it would start so we went 2 hours early (haha) and sat and had cafe. Then, we sat through a service which we tried so hard to understand; at least we could sing the hymns... Afterwards, this woman came up to us and in English, invited us to have lunch with the "young adults." I guess anyone under 50 is a young adult. But we went and had ravioli with about 8 of the church members, and met the pastor and his wife. It was very fun and we had a little Bible study. I'll be back next week for sure! We were there from 11am-3pm just talking and getting to know these sweet sweet people. Today, I'm going to homework....

Monday, August 21, 2006

Córdoba

We had a four day weekend! We left on Thursday night at 11:59pm on a 10 hour bus ride to Córdoba. We arrived, walked through the town and arrived at the Córdoba Backpacker's hostel where we spent Friday night. We rested ate lunch and walked around the city center. Cordoba is much older than Buenos Aires and a lot of the buildings have been around for hundreds of years. There are beautiful cathedrals and churches on every corner it seems and a university that students have attended for centuries. Friday night, the girls and I went out to a Parilla and ate some meat, and some more meat after that, and when we thought there couldn't possibly be anymore meat... there was more meat! Sausages, steak, pork, and chicken up the wazoo. And wonderful wine from Mendoza, their wine making province. All that for about $10 USD. We then went back to our hostel, and hung out with all the other travelers. We taught a couple Argentines how to play "bullshit" (a card game) which was extremely funny trying to teach them in Spanish. We woke up Saturday morning for free breakfast at the hostel and headed off to our next adventure. Nicola, Amanda, and I went hiking at Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito (a national park with condors). What a day! After finally getting bus tickets and sitting through a windy bumpy road on a little tour bus, we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere. The bus driver got out of his seat and stood up to tell us that was our stop. We got off the bus and looked around; at nothing. There was a small road and some hills on either side of us. No sign that said, "Welcome to Parque Nacional, you stupid Americans, follow these signs," no nothing like that. But there were 3 backpackers that got off the same time we did and when we started walking the wrong direction, they hollered at us and led the way. Gracias a Dios. We then proceeded to hop a fence to get into the park, wondering if this was even at all legal. But the backpackers did it and we followed. Before I go on, let me tell you about our attire. haha. the backpackers each had a GIANT back pack with huge water bottles and a tent. They were wearing warm jackets and shoes suitable for hiking. I was wearing bright red pants and a tshirt and carrying a pretty floral purse. Nicola was wearing cut off sweats and flip flops and Amanda was hiking in jeans with her purse and professional camera. The backpackers kept telling us it was going to get cold and we weren't going to make it and basically told us we were crazy. The people at the info booth pretty much said the same thing but we didn't care. The hike was supposed to be 2.5 hours to this huge gorge, "Balcon Norte" and we had exactly 4 hours to hike there and back. But we didn't care. We just said, "well we won't go all the way to the top and pfff, what's cold anyways?!" So we hiked and this is what we saw...
When we got back to the hostel for that night, the Morada hostel (still in Cordoba) we went shopping for groceries and Amanda cooked a gourmet meal for us, with a little help from everyone. We had pasta with homemade vodka sauce, a HUGE salad, garlic bread, grilled vegetables, the same Mendoza wine, and some Colaciones (a yummy dulce de leche dessert from our amigo, Mark). We sat in the kitchen of the hostel and laughed and ate and ate and laughed for hours. Sunday, we had breakfast at the hostel and then went to Alta Gracia to visit Che Guevara's childhood home. Alta Gracia was a cute small town with a lake and really cute old homes. There's an ancient Jesuit chuch there and other historical museums. I didn't go inside Che's house, but there were artifacts there from his childhood and family photos all over. It was so crowded; it was really amazing to walk up to this house in the middle of no where and be in the middle of a huge crowd, all people coming to learn about and honor Che. Later, we went back to our hostel, ate our leftovers from the night before and headed back to BA. Another long bus ride, and we'd be home, or our version of home for the next 3 months.

All in all, it was an adventure in and of itself; filled with good company, great stories, and a LOT of laughs!

P.S. USPS Mail actually only takes a little over a week. UPS, FedEx, and DHL will never get to me because customs opens stuff and doesn't let much pass. My address is:
Rebecca Borough
c/o IES Buenos Aires
Carlos Pelegrini 1069, Piso 13
C1009ABU Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Las Clases

I started classes on Monday, and they all seem to be decent. I'm taking:
Spanish 4
Cultural Icons of Argentina
International Relations
History of the Environment
Tango - which doesn't start for 2 weeks
The Spanish class, we're all hoping will be more challenging because we looked at the syllabus, and we've pretty much learned everything on it twice. But of course. I've been taking Spanish every year since 9th grade, so the last 3 classes of Spanish have just been a review for me. And that's ok, because we're always learning new words and practicing speaking, and it will be an easy A. The other classes, I don't really know yet, because we've only had the first intro day, but everything seems interesting.

What else? I really like my madre more every day. She's crazy busy and super smart. She talks a lot, which is good because I can't. She's a good cook and I get to taste typical Argentine foods all the time. The steak here is amazing, the rumors were true. The other night, Juan took me to a famous cafe called the Tortoni. It's huge and the interior is all historic. He took me around Buenos Aires more and showed me some neat things that might not be in every tourist book. I'm spending too much time speaking English so that little night out with Juan was great and inspired me to go meet Argentinos so I can actually speak Spanish. This weekend we're going to Cordoba, which is the 2nd largest city in Argentina, and one of the oldest. It has a huge university and it basically a college town, so I think us college students will enjoy it. That's all for now!

Saturday, August 12, 2006

San Pedro

So I guess they thought we needed a break from the city because they took us to this small cute little town on the river (Rio del Plata) a couple hours north of BA. It was a fun trip but it was funny to be with all Americans and be speaking English for 24 straight hours. We ate dinner on the river in an old boat house. It was a huge Parilla (barbeque) with every type of meat you could imagine. After dinner we all went back to the hotel and danced and played cards in the hotel lobby all night. Crazy Americans! Friday, we woke up and ate medialunas and drank fresh squeezed orange juice, walked through the town, ate again, and went on a boat tour of the river. It was all in all a very peaceful and relaxing little trip.

Friday night, we went out... well tried to go out to a bar near where I live. We proceeded to walk all around our neighborhoods looking for a bar that wasn't packed or didn't have an age limit. We ended up just eating dinner at a random restaurant. Who knows what'll happen tonight!

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

I found Peanut Butter!

This week has been mostly about making this place home to me. I am very accustomed to coming home (to my dorm) from classes and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but here, they don't even know what peanut butter is. I went on a journey to find peanut butter and after vigorous searching in 2 stores, my host mom took me to find some. When I found the holy peanut butter, it was dusty because no one that even works in the store knows it's there and when I went to pay for it, the cashier asked me what I was going to do with it.

Other things I did to make myself feel at home were I bought a Cosmo in Spanish and made myself dinner one night. All in all, I feel pretty much at home except in a much more exciting place with much more to do, and a bigger challenge to communicate.

And we're already traveling. Tomorrow, we go to San Pedro, a little town by the river. And we'll spend the night there and tour the area. Bueno!


P.S. to answer some questions:
When do they have dinner? around 9. (It's a good thing I walk a lot)

Are people generally friendly (not just to good looking young girls?) yes, very friendly and helpful and when they hear my gringa accent, they want to speak English

How is the cost of living - hotels, restaurants etc? the cost of living is pretty good here, but mostly because we have the American dollar. But in comparison, it's about the same as in the states with the peso.

What are the nice hotels in the city like? They are very nice and ritzy. I live pretty much in the city center and I pass super luxurious hotels on the way to class every day (but that might just be the lobby)

Any golf course near by? yes, but I don't know where

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Do they ever sleep in Buenos Aires?

You might as well just pack up all my stuff and send it to me now, because the Porteños know how to live and I don´t know if I can come back after this. (They´re Porteños because they live on a port - duh) We went to a club called Che on Friday night and it was sooo fun. The clubs don´t usually open until 2am so we went for coffee first at a local cafe. We went to the club and danced for 2 or 3 hours with our little group and plenty Argentinos. Practicing Spanish in a place you can´t even understand English because of the noise was ... interesting. We probably got home around 530/6am to sleep for a few hours and then wake up and tour the city. The tour was really cool. We got to see the Casa Rosada (pink house), their version of the White House and we saw a bunch of other important buildings and neighborhoods. Last night, we went out for Kate´s birthday to a little plaza that had a bunch of restaurants and bars. We´re all having fun just being with new people and getting to know each other. There´s so much more to say, but I´ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Look at my pictures HERE!

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

It's Wednesday, my 3rd day here. (the post before says aug. 1, but it's wrong). I will be putting pictures up maybe next week after we take a tour of the city. As of right now, I am feeling good with my Spanish and about getting around the city. I miss home and am not quite as excited as everyone else here, but I do like it. My madre is very nice and tries hard to help me out when I don't understand things. She has taken me around the city and helped me to get oriented. The past 2 days, we have had orientation and we will for the next 2 weeks. We are learning about cultural "norms" and things about Buenos Aires. Intro Spanish lessons started today, but the real ones will start after the orientation ends. The dialect here is different than anywhere in the world and they have different forms than we ever learned in school, so that will take some getting used to, but I'm glad that they taught us early on. I live in the center of city in an apartment and I live very close to the IES center so everything is convenient for me (so far). I feel like I should be typing in Spanish, I'm already starting to think en español. Bueno, hasta luego