Bubamara

It's kinda been a while since my last post, but day to day life is becoming more routine, so I generally feel like nothing new is really going on... but here are some of the highlights of mi vida in the past couple of weeks. I promise I'm still doing cool stuff.

Last week I got sick of being lazy, so I joined the volleyball intramural team for the University of Belgrano. We practice twice a week and then have games on Fridays. Practices are interesting, because its mostly girls from the US who are studying abroad that show up. So far there are two Argentine girls who are 'regulars.' There are also these two Argentine guys that show up, which is cool because they help us deal with stronger serves/hits/whatevers. We had our first actual game last night against the University of Palermo... and WE WON!! Additionally, yours truly (all 5ft 2 inches of me) got two kills, awwwwyaaaaa.

Last night I also had a brief tango performance in front of all the other international students (and locals too) as a part of my tango class. It wasn't fantastic because we were soooo limited on space, and us newbies have a lot of trouble if we can't rely on enough room to do our basic steps. Regardless, my partner and I killed it! haha Another funny side note is that we may or may not have had a couple of pre-performance drinks (just to calm the nerves, of course)... and then maaaaybe a few more post-performance drinks (only to celebrate how awesome we were) which resulted in me being sufficiently tipsy for the volleyball game. Not necessarily a bad thing, seeing as we won and played pretty well in general :)

Some other things I've done (to prove that I am still experiencing the Argentine culture, and not just the bars) are:

• Tango Festival: the world tango competition is being held in Argentina currently, and as a result, Buenos Aires has put on a huge tango festival with free music and dancing events and shows, as well as some historical displays of Carlos Gardel (the king of tango). When I went it was to hear a tango musical group perform, but also there was an open dance floor with some pretty impressive veterans getting their groove on. The dance floor was literally jam-packed with people, but they all somehow managed to still look amazing. It makes me realize how much more I have to/want to learn about the dance. Its this fantastic mixture of being intimate and sexy while also being light and fun. Next personal goal: to go hit up a milonga (tango club) or two... maybe after a few more classes.
• MALBA: (el Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) here there was a lot of modern artwork, not only from our time period, but from a number of decades back as well. I personally liked the more recent stuff better, and I'm not going to lie... some of the "art" was a little questionable to me haha. Can a bunch of outlet adapters hooked up to each other really be considered art??? Well at MALBA they sure are. Some other cool stuff was an original self portrait by Frida Kahlo and a room dedicated to Ricardo Garabito, who I'm proud to say I somehow recognized as being famous... I guess I shouldn't give myself too much credit since I didn't know who he was, I only recognized his paintings as being notable. There was also this pretty cool bench that starts on the top floor and then unravels into swirls of wood to the next floor down where it re-forms into another bench, and so on down the building.
• National Library: I went here yesterday to do some research for an upcoming project, even though we weren't too successful, I'm glad I made it over there just to see it. They system was soo weird. There was tons of security throughout the building, with guards that had to check an ID card at each floor. Also you don't search for your own books/resources. You have to know exactly what you're looking for and then you put in a request with a librarian and they go retrieve it for you while you wait. It was a bit complicated.
• Evita Museum: Just kidding!!!! I was supposed to go (and still really want to go) but I lost track of time at the library and then missed the group tour I signed up for as a result. I still plan on going eventually though!!

Now for some nightlife! I recently made friends with this girl who has been living here for a while now and she invited myself and Kaylen out to a huuuuuge club (Pancha) with her and some of her friends. I was super excited to a) go out to a legit Argentine club, and b) go with a bunch of Argentines! Even though her friends ended up not going, we still had a fun/crazy night. We didn't even get to the club until around 3!!! We paid a ridiculous cover to get in, and then were immediately swarmed by Argentine guys... After making our escape (not an easy task) we just did our own thing and danced. When we left, we ran into some British guys, and an Irish one and split a cab with them... lucky for them because they couldn't speak a word of Spanish. Also found out that my name is indeed very Irish... I can honestly say I have an authentic source to site. We didn't get home until around 6, so needless to say it was a true Buenos Aires experience. However, I'm still waiting to stay out all night and end with breakfast :)

Are you wondering what the title of the blog post means??? Welllll Bubamara is this my new favorite thing to do in Buenos Aires! It is this music party/event that is put on once a month at various venues. It is described as a "Balkan, Gypsy, music festival." When I went it was held at this old building that was once (and maybe still is) used as a theatre. All the music was live and folksy and perfect for dancing! The crowd was super high energy too, everyone was jumping around and cheering. The other cool thing was that besides the person I went with, I felt like I was the only Yankee there (a rarity). I cannot wait for the next one!

Thats about it for now... until next time,

Chau!

Never Take Bus 111

Before getting into the meaning of the title of this post, I'll share what I did this week:

Mon-Thurs = classes!! On Wednesday night I got to hang out with a new friend, Adriana, we met only once before and it was about a year ago, we have a mutual friend back in Florida, so that's how we connected. Through Adriana, I met 6 other Argentine girls and we hung out at one of their (Augustine's) apartment. We drank beer, ate empanadas, chatted (in my case mainly listened to others chatting), and looked at a bunch of underwear. Yes underwear. A couple of the girls sell it as a job so they just pulled out a duffle bag filled with undies, pretty amusing.

To stay with Thursday tradition, I went out to Pub Crawl, and we can just say that it was a pretty crazy night and leave it at that.

Friday was recuperation/lay around and do nothing day.

Saturday I got my culture fix and took a tour of the Casa Rosada, the Argentine government building. It's painted pink as a symbol of the harmony of the two primary political parties (federals which are Red, and the unitarians which are White). I now fully support the US's adoption of a Purple house, how sick would that be??? After our nice little history lesson we headed over to the famous Café Tortoni (the oldest café in Argentina) to have some coffee and dulces. I got a torta (cake) called Bonbon Suiza, it was amazing. Afterwards we strolled down Calle Florida where there are a lot of touristy and cheap vendors. Here I bought a Boca fútbol team soccer ball :)

Today, we went to the park, where I got to try out said soccer ball and laze around in the sun for the afternoon. Just a teensy bit warmer and it would've been perfect, but regardless, it was a beautiful day and it felt great to be outside and mess around with a soccer ball.

Think I forgot about last night??? WRONG I absolutely did not, just saving the entertaining story for last. So last night I was going to meet some friends at a park to drink a little and hang out (it was yet another election day eve, hence no bars/clubs were serving alcohol). We've been to this park before, I know exactly where it is, and so I look up in my Guia (guide book with all the bus routes that ISA gave us) which buses traveled from my part of town to this park, wrote about five options down on my hand, and head off. The first bus from my list that showed up was the 111, so I hop right on. Very shortly afterwards it turns to the left, which I knew was in the opposite direction of where this park is. So I pull out my Guia and double check to make sure the bus in fact does end up at the park, it said it did, so I figured I'd be patient. After about 20 minutes of patiently sitting on the bus, I really regretted not getting off and turning around, but the area the bus was in was too sketchy to turn back now, so I continued to go along for the ride. My friends call me to make sure I'm still coming, and I explain my bad choice of bus and let them know I'll be a little late. Maybe about 20 more minutes later I'm getting really nervous, so I start following the bus route street for street in my Guia. Even though I have no idea where I am, the streets are matching up, so I figure it will end fine. Then the bus takes a couple of streets that are not listed in the Guia, I figure I better address this situation head on. I ask the bus driver when we are going to get to the park, "Park off of Maria de Campos?? We don't go there, thats in a completely different province!!" (in Spanish). I proceed to have a mini mind freak out and try to talk with him about how to fix this. Apparently the all-knowing Guia is capable of making errors. I'm at a bus stop, in a different province, I'm having a really hard time understanding the nice bus drivers, and all I could gather was that I need to take the 140 back and I'd have to wait 40 minutes for the next one. I may or may not have shed a tear or two at this point... I was pretty freaked out. The nice old bus driver saw this, and graciously escorted me to a different bus stop, spoke to the driver of that bus, explained my sitch, and got me going in the right direction. (I LOVE this man). Then I sit on this bus for 20-30 minutes, endure some creepy guy saying "wow" to me, the 8 screaming babies/children/terrors that rode with us for a good 15 minutes, and the cute, yet rather loud gum-smacking old man. Finally bus driver number 2 tells me to get off here, and to take bus 114. Here I wait with a drunk man leaning on the telephone wire for 10 min, then hop on 114. Luckily, this was a short and easy bus ride and within 10 minutes I FINALLY met up with my friends. Such an incredibly stressful night, but everything worked out, and I really enjoyed just hanging in the park. I thought I was done getting THAT lost, but I now know to not assume such things. Lessons learned:

1. ALWAYS ask the bus driver if they in fact are going to your destination, or say where you want to go as you enter.
2. NEVER, EVER TAKE COLECTIVO 111!!!!!

Off to other things,

Chau!

Classes and Such

So just when I get settled in, have a week off of just wandering around and going out, its back to reality where I'm reminded 'oh yeah, this is a study abroad program, isn't it?' Last week was my first week of classes, and going on week numero dos I'm still not in "school mode." In fact, I'm using this blog post as another method of procrastinating my homework... some things never change I guess. Overall, I'm very pleased with my class choices and I'm looking forward to the semester. Here's a rough look at my schedule:

• Grammar: Advanced B to be precise... it sounds great and all, but my grammatical knowledge does not correspond with my speaking knowledge. The real kicker is when I mess up when telling someone I'm in "advanzado b," its such an oxymoron haha. But thats why I'm taking....
• Oral Production! It only meets once a week, but its sole purpose is to become more comfortable talking and enhance the fluidity of speech. Its also cool because we have a guy from Denmark, a guy from Italy, a girl from Turkey, and a girl from Japan in the class as well. Kind of depressing when you know they have three languages down (they all know English as well as Spanish) and I'm still struggling with the second, but its still cool to have different cultures represented... plus we get some pretty funny cross-cultural discussions going in class too.
• Latin American Film: I love movies! So I'm obviously looking forward to the rest of this class. We've watched two Argentine films so far: El Tiempo de los Valientes, and Los Paranoicos. They were both funny and entertaining, but Los Paranoicos appealed to me the most, it was quirky, humorous, and had a great ending, I definitely plan on re-watching it. Its so refreshing to watch quality films that don't come from the US, it makes you realize how many great films we Yankees miss out on... entertainment actually exists outside of Hollywood!!! I'm also looking forward to El Secreto de Tus Ojos, which won best foreign film at the Oscars in 2010, and one of my favorite movies, Cidade de Deus (City of God).
• Argentina: An Open Society: I chose this class as a personal goal to be more well rounded... I thought it would be important/valuable to learn about the history and politics of Argentina and their social effects on the nation. It will probably be my most challenging class, but also potentially the most interesting. I'm excited to branch out from literature/grammar classes. And last, but not least...
• Tango!!! This is my favorite so far, pretty much because one out of the two days of classes is devoted to learning the dance! I'm sure it will be at least semi-intersting to learn about the history of the dance, it has such a huge meaning for Argentina after all, but the dancing is fun! However, I also found out that my class will be doing a group performance at International Student night... This means that I have to dance a dance that I do not yet know in front of all the foreign exchange students (including all my friends I've made).... should be interesting, and by that I mean hysterical.

All of my classes are taught in Spanish, so hopefully I'll just keep on slowly (but surely) improving my Spanish skillz. Also, classes are only Mondays-Thursdays so I'll be able to keep up my perfect attendance at the free Pub Crawls on Thursdays :)

Other noteworthy things I did last week:

- Went to this really awesome drumming performance by a group called La Bomba. They had about 15 different people working percussion instruments and it was soooo good!! They would just make up songs right there through hand motions and just keep building up the beats. I went with a bunch of my girl friends and we all ended up jumping around in this ridiculous mosh pit... good times. Definitely plan on going back.

- Managed to lose my phone, I think/want to think that it was pick-pocketed. Its actually pretty likely that it was since I heard about five other girls that got pick-pocketed at the same place on the same night.

- Went to Chinatown again, ordered what I thought would be a delicious bowl of vegetables with shrimp, but turns out vegetables just means a shit ton of boiled cabbage sprinkled with shrimp haha. Next time I'll just stick to fried rice...

I guess thats all for now, maybe I'll actually start studying seeing as I literally have no more excuses to procrastinate...

Chau!