Boliches, Colectivos, y Museos
Hey everyone! I realize it's been a while since I updated (like a week), but only because I haven't had much to write about. Post-Tigre I got back in the swing of my first full week of school, returning back to 5 hour class days and enjoying learning Spanish. I've finally (I think) caught up on sleep, so I'm now open to more adventures and walking around the city.
For two of the afternoons this week, I found a cafe called Cafe Martinez, which is basically the Starbucks chain of Argentina right next to the bus stop by my school. I brought my Harry Potter y Caliz del Fuego (4th HP book in Spanish) and just sat for two hours sipping on some 10 peso te and enjoying my environment. It's weird/really cool getting used to having so much down time here. We finish class at 2:30 in the afternoon and my only real obligation (if any) is to be home by around 9pm for dinner and be up the next day at 8am for school.
I finally mastered some of the buses between my apartment, school, and Recoleta (where there is an awesome Plaza for market shopping). In fact, Thursday was the first time I rode a fully packed bus, and it was PACKED. I had nothing to hold onto standing up, but since everyone was shoulder to shoulder/butt to butt I was held in place by the masses of people. Luckily, Berkeley's AC Transit and SF's BART has kind of acclimated me to public transportation.
On Wednesday, Jessica and I checked out the outlet shops of Av. Cordoba in Palermo, where we each got some Argentine piece of clothing. I bought a really cool striped shirt (kind of looks like the American flag- woohoo!) from JULIEN, that even has "hecho en Argentina" on the back of it. She got a tshirt and a crop top, and we both looked meticulously through 2 blocks worth of stores. Most of the stuff was surprisingly similarly priced to the states, if not more so.
I finally met my house brother, Ignacio (called "Nacho") and he is absolutely adorable. He looks like an actual 12 year old version of Justin Bieber. He's sixteen but that's beside the point. We also have a surprise guest in our house grandmother. She's 78 years old and looks to be about 60. I don't know what it is here but every elderly lady I've met looks about 15 years younger. Even my house mom looks to be in her 40s and instead is reaching her late 50s. For dinner, our house abuela taught Jess and I how to make empanadas, a signature cheap meal from Argentina. I hope I can find the right dough back in the states because it's super easy to cook and SO GOOD to eat. I have further surprise guests in my room. My ceiling holds about 100-200 of these little green critters that after research, are simple flying bugs that don't bite people (thank goodness.) It's been almost unbearably hot, but it's become a norm to sit around in my own sweat in the afternoons. At least it's the norm for everyone else here, too.
Last night, after taking a nap from 545-8pm and again from 1030-12am, my housemate and I decided to check out the boliches. I had to keep reminding myself that it was the culture here, but it was sure an experience to not head out from my apartment until 130am. We went to Crobar, a night club for young locals as well as tourists, meeting up with some of the other ISA students, and ended up staying until around 5am.
Surprisingly I woke up around 11, did some lounging around, and headed to the supermarket to get some goods for the week. I had my first chorizo today for lunch (DELICIOSO) coming back from the supermercado. My housemate and I agreed to cook on Sundays for lunches during the week in order to save pesos and work on our cooking skills. I got some ravioli with steak and spinach along with some sauce/spices, as well as vegetables to cook as a side.
After the market, we went to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, or the National Fine Art Museum, where luckily some of rooms were air conditioned. After studying works such as from Goya, Monet, and my favorite time period, the Renaissance, we found ourselves exhausted and satisfied with a great weekend (and it's only Saturday!!).
We wandered through Plaza Francia in Recoleta, where little markets flourish with tourists, locals, and arts and crafts (cue me buying everyone's souvenirs/bday presents soon). Jessica bought a pair of 10 peso earrings, but I merely looked everything over as to get a price gage for when we go next time. We both want to save a whole day for the market, and since tomorrow's the end of the Chinese New Year, we're going to go another day.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll have stuff to update about Chinatown- it's supposed to be a great festival here, and I'll be updating more frequent as I hopefully do more interesting stuff!!! Besos!
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