Tigre, Recoleta Cemetery, MALBA, and the Plaza de Mayo; or, I've been busy!
Well, hello there. I haven't written about my exploits in awhile, so here I go. Sorry for the excessive length!
We've had a long weekend for Carnaval, which is not a big deal here like it is in Rio de Janeiro, but they have a national holiday for it anyway. So on Saturday, I went with an intrepid band of friends (yay friends! I have friends, I like them and you would too) to Tigre, which is an hour north of Buenos Aires on their equivalent of the commuter rail. It cost about 50 cents USD to transport us there and back. Yay heavily government-subsidized public transportation! Tigre is at the mouth of the Paraná river delta, where the Paraná (which flows down from Brazil) joins the Río de la Plata. A chunk of the town is on the mainland, but the rest is spread out over the islands of the river delta. Our plan was to get on a boat and get off on one of the islands, spend the day there, and take the boat back. It took awhile for us to find the boat in question, because for the most part the touristy thing to do is to get on a catamaran and see the whole delta, but that's boring because you spend the whole time on a boat and don't get to get off until you're back in port. So we bought our tickets for the correct boat-- una lancha colectiva, a bus boat-- and then spent some time at the Mercado de Frutos, or fruit market, where for the most part they don't sell fruit. Instead they sell meat, leather, and handicrafts. Which is great, because I love meat, leather, and handicrafts. They had other things there too, of course, other kinds of food and all manner of touristy things for sale. It was really great; very touristy, but the good kind of touristy, I think.
So after the fruit market we got on the boat and went to a beach/campground called Galeón de Oro. The beach part was pretty small but it was really nice to go in the water, which is brown but not because it's dirty, rather because the river carries clay particles down from the Amazon. The campground part has a soccer field and a volleyball field and a place to grill cow parts, and it was a really great place to spend the day relaxing and away from the hustle and innate stress of city life. Unsurprisingly, I'm discovering that I am not quite an urban creature; I feel more comfortable just outside a big city than actually in it 24/7.
At the end of the day, we got back on the train, back to Buenos Aires, and went out for dinner in Belgrano. Here was a fine example of dollar-to-Argentine-peso sticker shock. It is possible to eat very cheaply in Buenos Aires, for example, if you only eat empanadas. This is not as unhealthy as it may sound at first, because they sell them filled with all kinds of stuff, from beef to corn to chicken to ham and cheese. They sell anywhere from AR$3.50-AR$9 apiece-- anywhere from just under $1 USD to just over $2 USD. Super cheap; probably the cheapest meal you can get. However, sometimes a person wants to eat other things, too. Blasphemy, I know. Other things cost more, and when you look at a menu, it can be kind of shocking to see the prices comparative to a super cheap meal like empanadas. But once you convert the prices into USD, it's actually not bad at all. So my (absolutely delicious) pasta was AR$38, but that's not even $10 USD. That's pretty good for pasta at a nice restaurant. I just need to remember to breathe and avoid sticker shock. Sometimes it's worse than culture shock.
We turned in for the night, and then the next morning I met up with my friend Sara to walk to Recoleta Cemetery, where we went kind of trigger-happy with our cameras. Recoleta is a walled cemetery with a big grand entrance and several main avenues inside, all lined with the most gorgeously decorated family crypts. There's a lot of green things growing inside for a place that is otherwise practically all marble. Also, there are dozens of cats who live there. They're really well fed and cared for, it being such a touristy place and all. We explored lots of really beautiful crypts, and hunted down Eva Perón's resting place, which is pretty out-of-the-way, not on a main avenue or anything, but it's the only one that always has fresh flowers. I was particularly excited to see it after having written my magnum opus on her corpse last semester; so I'm really glad we found it. Afterwards, we wandered around the artisans' fair for awhile before meeting up with our other friends in the botanical gardens (where more cats live!) to plan the rest of our weekend. Later on, my friend Molly and I went to go see the Black Swan, which is still in theaters here. They play lots of American movies, all subtitled, and the subtitles are for the most part very good.
Monday was a lot of walking around parks and sitting in cafés; Buenos Aires is very much a café culture. They're never empty, at any time, any day; people here don't do breakfast much, but when they do it's at a café. Cafés serve lunch, merienda, drinks, and dinner. They are awesome and their coffee kicks American coffee's ass. Also on Monday, we went to the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires), which was really great-- they had one of Frida Kahlo's self-portraits, and also this gorgeous painting by Roberto Matta whose English title is The Disasters of Mysticism (Spanish title isn't a direct translation, and I don't quite remember it). Afterwards, we were all going to go out dancing but were too exhausted to actually follow through on that plan.
Today, Sara and I met up for lunch and ended up walking down Calle Florida, which is a pedestrian street with lots of shops and also street vendors, all the way to the Plaza de Mayo, which was awesome. It has such an incredible history, and it was pretty surreal to actually be there. Pictures forthcoming soon!
In the meantime, I'm exhausted. I walk miles and miles every day, which is great for my health and for toning my legs, but at the end of the day my legs and feet ache and I get blisters. All in all, it's not so bad, though; it's definitely a walking city, although I am getting very familiar with the city buses that go along Avenida Santa Fe.
Tomorrow I have to run some errands-- faxing in my course report form, buying some notebooks for class, and going to the grocery store, so I can make my own lunches, which is a meal the program doesn't provide. Thursday is my first class, on the history and politics of Peronism, which I'm taking because hey, I'm in Argentina, and nobody has ever been able to give me a satisfactory explanation of exactly what Peronism is or how and why it's changed over the years. That class is at the Universidad Católica Argentina, and I'm very excited to get back in a classroom setting.
Hm, I think that'll probably do it for now... a lengthy entry, I know. :P
We've had a long weekend for Carnaval, which is not a big deal here like it is in Rio de Janeiro, but they have a national holiday for it anyway. So on Saturday, I went with an intrepid band of friends (yay friends! I have friends, I like them and you would too) to Tigre, which is an hour north of Buenos Aires on their equivalent of the commuter rail. It cost about 50 cents USD to transport us there and back. Yay heavily government-subsidized public transportation! Tigre is at the mouth of the Paraná river delta, where the Paraná (which flows down from Brazil) joins the Río de la Plata. A chunk of the town is on the mainland, but the rest is spread out over the islands of the river delta. Our plan was to get on a boat and get off on one of the islands, spend the day there, and take the boat back. It took awhile for us to find the boat in question, because for the most part the touristy thing to do is to get on a catamaran and see the whole delta, but that's boring because you spend the whole time on a boat and don't get to get off until you're back in port. So we bought our tickets for the correct boat-- una lancha colectiva, a bus boat-- and then spent some time at the Mercado de Frutos, or fruit market, where for the most part they don't sell fruit. Instead they sell meat, leather, and handicrafts. Which is great, because I love meat, leather, and handicrafts. They had other things there too, of course, other kinds of food and all manner of touristy things for sale. It was really great; very touristy, but the good kind of touristy, I think.
So after the fruit market we got on the boat and went to a beach/campground called Galeón de Oro. The beach part was pretty small but it was really nice to go in the water, which is brown but not because it's dirty, rather because the river carries clay particles down from the Amazon. The campground part has a soccer field and a volleyball field and a place to grill cow parts, and it was a really great place to spend the day relaxing and away from the hustle and innate stress of city life. Unsurprisingly, I'm discovering that I am not quite an urban creature; I feel more comfortable just outside a big city than actually in it 24/7.
At the end of the day, we got back on the train, back to Buenos Aires, and went out for dinner in Belgrano. Here was a fine example of dollar-to-Argentine-peso sticker shock. It is possible to eat very cheaply in Buenos Aires, for example, if you only eat empanadas. This is not as unhealthy as it may sound at first, because they sell them filled with all kinds of stuff, from beef to corn to chicken to ham and cheese. They sell anywhere from AR$3.50-AR$9 apiece-- anywhere from just under $1 USD to just over $2 USD. Super cheap; probably the cheapest meal you can get. However, sometimes a person wants to eat other things, too. Blasphemy, I know. Other things cost more, and when you look at a menu, it can be kind of shocking to see the prices comparative to a super cheap meal like empanadas. But once you convert the prices into USD, it's actually not bad at all. So my (absolutely delicious) pasta was AR$38, but that's not even $10 USD. That's pretty good for pasta at a nice restaurant. I just need to remember to breathe and avoid sticker shock. Sometimes it's worse than culture shock.
We turned in for the night, and then the next morning I met up with my friend Sara to walk to Recoleta Cemetery, where we went kind of trigger-happy with our cameras. Recoleta is a walled cemetery with a big grand entrance and several main avenues inside, all lined with the most gorgeously decorated family crypts. There's a lot of green things growing inside for a place that is otherwise practically all marble. Also, there are dozens of cats who live there. They're really well fed and cared for, it being such a touristy place and all. We explored lots of really beautiful crypts, and hunted down Eva Perón's resting place, which is pretty out-of-the-way, not on a main avenue or anything, but it's the only one that always has fresh flowers. I was particularly excited to see it after having written my magnum opus on her corpse last semester; so I'm really glad we found it. Afterwards, we wandered around the artisans' fair for awhile before meeting up with our other friends in the botanical gardens (where more cats live!) to plan the rest of our weekend. Later on, my friend Molly and I went to go see the Black Swan, which is still in theaters here. They play lots of American movies, all subtitled, and the subtitles are for the most part very good.
Monday was a lot of walking around parks and sitting in cafés; Buenos Aires is very much a café culture. They're never empty, at any time, any day; people here don't do breakfast much, but when they do it's at a café. Cafés serve lunch, merienda, drinks, and dinner. They are awesome and their coffee kicks American coffee's ass. Also on Monday, we went to the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires), which was really great-- they had one of Frida Kahlo's self-portraits, and also this gorgeous painting by Roberto Matta whose English title is The Disasters of Mysticism (Spanish title isn't a direct translation, and I don't quite remember it). Afterwards, we were all going to go out dancing but were too exhausted to actually follow through on that plan.
Today, Sara and I met up for lunch and ended up walking down Calle Florida, which is a pedestrian street with lots of shops and also street vendors, all the way to the Plaza de Mayo, which was awesome. It has such an incredible history, and it was pretty surreal to actually be there. Pictures forthcoming soon!
In the meantime, I'm exhausted. I walk miles and miles every day, which is great for my health and for toning my legs, but at the end of the day my legs and feet ache and I get blisters. All in all, it's not so bad, though; it's definitely a walking city, although I am getting very familiar with the city buses that go along Avenida Santa Fe.
Tomorrow I have to run some errands-- faxing in my course report form, buying some notebooks for class, and going to the grocery store, so I can make my own lunches, which is a meal the program doesn't provide. Thursday is my first class, on the history and politics of Peronism, which I'm taking because hey, I'm in Argentina, and nobody has ever been able to give me a satisfactory explanation of exactly what Peronism is or how and why it's changed over the years. That class is at the Universidad Católica Argentina, and I'm very excited to get back in a classroom setting.
Hm, I think that'll probably do it for now... a lengthy entry, I know. :P