Operation Do Something Awesome Every Day, Week One
When I got back from Iguazú, I took a look at the calendar and thought, "I have one month left in Argentina! When did THAT happen?" So I came up with a list of Things I Can't Leave Without Seeing/Doing. Several of us have similar bucket lists, and I am going about attacking mine with an initiative I call "Do Something Awesome Every Day." I started this last Tuesday.
Tuesday, I went to the Museo de la Deuda Externa-- Museum of Foreign Debt. It is an oddly specific museum, but if you'd just had a huge financial crisis that resulted in riots and deaths galore and caused four presidents to take and leave office in the course of eight days, you'd have a Museum of Foreign Debt too. It was one room in the Universidad de Buenos Aires Facultad de Economía-- their Econ building, which is GORGEOUS and seriously kicks Lemberg's ass, and is even more beautiful now that I've seen it from the inside. They have fountains, and pavilion-type things! The museum itself was jam-packed with information I almost had the vocabulary to understand; they also gave me some informational booklets in the form of comic books about the history of Argentine foreign debt. I am now in possession of a comic book with Perón kissing Uncle Sam on the mouth on the cover.
Wednesday after class I went to the Museo Xul Solar. Xul Solar was a friend of Borges', a painter and an inventor of a language nobody speaks and a game nobody plays. His artwork really reminded me of a less sex-obsessed Dalí; he used a lot of nebulous imagery corresponding to I-don't-quite-know-what; his work is very geometric but also very surrealist; he's very influenced by ancient Egypt and also, I think, by Hindu/Buddhist/other Asian art. His message is more or less a great big hippie love-fest-- he just wants us all to get along and love our fellow man. I can get on that bandwagon, no problem. Also: the girl at the front desk of the museum was reading Game of Thrones. We had a lovely conversation about it, and it made me really happy. Apparently A Feast for Crows has yet to come out in Argentina.
Thursday night I went to hear a band play in a Jewish cultural center in Abasto-- an Argentine band singing in English, called Happiness. It was kind of a weird show, but they had a great sound and I really enjoyed it.
Friday during the day Sara and I had a study lunch and then went to a riding school; we watched the lessons for a little while, and pet the horses, and life was grand.
Yesterday I went to a AR$1 concert in the Museo del Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco-- one person playing trumpet, the other playing piano, in this beautiful museum filled with beautiful old Spanish/Criollo art. I intend to go back there; it has a beautiful garden as well as what looks to be a spectacular collection.
Then today, my friend Zoe and I went to the San Telmo fair, and to this place called the Zanjón de Granados, which is an old mansion that was bought cheap in the 1980s, and then the owner had the place excavated, because he'd discovered that the present house was built upon underground tunnels and a creek that used to mark the southernmost bound of the city. It is a beautifully preserved building, and the tour takes you right down into the tunnels. They have a sort of museum showcasing artifacts they found there-- the house dates back to 1580, and they have all kinds of interesting maps and pottery fragments and things. They have the original cistern intact with French tiles on the bottom of it; the guide was explaining to us that, back in the day, you'd have these cisterns gathering rainwater, and you'd use the rainwater to drink because the river water was often polluted. In order to purify the water in the cistern, they would put several turtles inside, and the turtles would eat any bacteria or impurities in the water. I thought that was a delightfully weird fun fact.
So that's Week One of Operation Do Something Awesome Every Day. More to come!
Tuesday, I went to the Museo de la Deuda Externa-- Museum of Foreign Debt. It is an oddly specific museum, but if you'd just had a huge financial crisis that resulted in riots and deaths galore and caused four presidents to take and leave office in the course of eight days, you'd have a Museum of Foreign Debt too. It was one room in the Universidad de Buenos Aires Facultad de Economía-- their Econ building, which is GORGEOUS and seriously kicks Lemberg's ass, and is even more beautiful now that I've seen it from the inside. They have fountains, and pavilion-type things! The museum itself was jam-packed with information I almost had the vocabulary to understand; they also gave me some informational booklets in the form of comic books about the history of Argentine foreign debt. I am now in possession of a comic book with Perón kissing Uncle Sam on the mouth on the cover.
Wednesday after class I went to the Museo Xul Solar. Xul Solar was a friend of Borges', a painter and an inventor of a language nobody speaks and a game nobody plays. His artwork really reminded me of a less sex-obsessed Dalí; he used a lot of nebulous imagery corresponding to I-don't-quite-know-what; his work is very geometric but also very surrealist; he's very influenced by ancient Egypt and also, I think, by Hindu/Buddhist/other Asian art. His message is more or less a great big hippie love-fest-- he just wants us all to get along and love our fellow man. I can get on that bandwagon, no problem. Also: the girl at the front desk of the museum was reading Game of Thrones. We had a lovely conversation about it, and it made me really happy. Apparently A Feast for Crows has yet to come out in Argentina.
Thursday night I went to hear a band play in a Jewish cultural center in Abasto-- an Argentine band singing in English, called Happiness. It was kind of a weird show, but they had a great sound and I really enjoyed it.
Friday during the day Sara and I had a study lunch and then went to a riding school; we watched the lessons for a little while, and pet the horses, and life was grand.
Yesterday I went to a AR$1 concert in the Museo del Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco-- one person playing trumpet, the other playing piano, in this beautiful museum filled with beautiful old Spanish/Criollo art. I intend to go back there; it has a beautiful garden as well as what looks to be a spectacular collection.
Then today, my friend Zoe and I went to the San Telmo fair, and to this place called the Zanjón de Granados, which is an old mansion that was bought cheap in the 1980s, and then the owner had the place excavated, because he'd discovered that the present house was built upon underground tunnels and a creek that used to mark the southernmost bound of the city. It is a beautifully preserved building, and the tour takes you right down into the tunnels. They have a sort of museum showcasing artifacts they found there-- the house dates back to 1580, and they have all kinds of interesting maps and pottery fragments and things. They have the original cistern intact with French tiles on the bottom of it; the guide was explaining to us that, back in the day, you'd have these cisterns gathering rainwater, and you'd use the rainwater to drink because the river water was often polluted. In order to purify the water in the cistern, they would put several turtles inside, and the turtles would eat any bacteria or impurities in the water. I thought that was a delightfully weird fun fact.
So that's Week One of Operation Do Something Awesome Every Day. More to come!