Tuesday, September 21, 2010
I can’t even believe how bad I am at updating this blog, I’m so sorry!!!! Today is El Dia del Estudiante also called Dia de la Primavera which means the day of the students/day of spring. Like I said earlier, they have a day for everyone! Yesterday was the day of perfumista, the people who sell perfume. As my Norma said Argentina sometimes is una joda which means a joke haha. So today none of the students had class and had the day to celebrate. I went to the 3 de Febrero Park in Palermo Park with a couple of friends and the park was absolutely filled with students. There were thousands of what seemed to be high school students hanging out, playing soccer, watching performances that were going on and most of all getting drunk. Although it was exciting to see so many young people together it was a little overwhelming. It was also the only time since I’ve been here that I felt like I really stood out (on that note someone thought I was Brazilian the other day woot woot). Maybe it was because I didn’t have a crazy haircut. It seemed like every guy had a mullet, dreads, frosted tips or a combination of all. My favorite that a lot of guys had was the bottom half of their head shaven and the top half longer with white tips. I swear guys with that haircut traveled in packs haha. Afterwards I caught the bus to go to the place where I will be volunteering in a neighborhood called Flores. I am working with an organization called Mensajeros de la Paz that runs numerous programs around the city but the one that I will be working with is a house where children that are not able to live with their families (due to drug, abuse and other related problems) come to live. Because today was Dia del Estudiante all the kids were at a nearby plaza but I was able to meet the director and talk about what kind of work I would be doing. I’m going to be just helping out, picking up the kids from school, doing activities etc. The director told me that there is also a German guy living there who will be helping out too and another American girl but besides us we’re the only foreigner volunteers but that over the years they’ve had numerous foreigners volunteer with them. I’m really excited for next week when I get to meet all the kids!
All my classes are going pretty well meaning I have very little homework. Right now I have a two week break from my film class at Di Tella in order to study for midterms. At UBA things have been a little bit crazy. The social sciences students have decided to stage a strike demanding that the government remodels one of the buildings and gives more money to the university. The whole thing was set off by an incident in which a huge window pane feel and almost fell on a group of students and injured one student. They are protesting by blockading the classrooms so no one can enter and refusing to attend class. Some classes such as mine, have continued to meet however we’re forced to have class outside of the class room. Two weeks ago I had class outside and last week we blockaded the street and had class in the street. As I said, the COMPLETE opposite of Whitman haha. I have a friend who only has UBA classes and has not had class for almost a month now! I’m not sure if I agree or understand the students’ tactics but apparently they’ve done it before. I guess we’ll see how productive it turns out to be.
Last Friday I woke up nice and early to go on a trip organized by IFSA going kayaking in Tigre. Tigre is a smaller, much calmer city about an hour from BA by train. It is famous for the canals that run through the city (only maybe one or two) and for the Puerta de Frutas which is an old trading port. We went kayaking through a canal through the city and then crossed a channel into an area of the countryside. Along the canals were houses built on stilts. Although we passed numerous boats it was extremely calm and quiet. We ate an adorable little restaurant along the canal and soaked up in the rays. I was in a triple with two other girls and on the way back we really struggled to get there. Our guide Juan kept encouraging us but we just kept complaining about how tired we were and how it was the longest canal ever hah. Saturday I went to a rugby game in San Isidro, a northern part of BA. My neighborhood team Belgrano was playing San Isidro’s team and even though we lost it was really fun watching the game.
The past couple weeks I’ve been eating some really great food. I’ve had a couple great choripans (sausage sandwiches), found a great empanada place and organic place by my house, an actually pretty good Indian place we went for Lauren’s birthday and a place I’m most excited about is a place called Marfa delivery that’s about ten minutes from my house that my blogger friend recommended. It was really cute, had great, cheap soups, sandwiches, salads etc and was playing great hipster music. Definitely my new fav place! Also, I’ve discovered these great drinks that all the hip restaurants serve is a lemonade or grapefruit juice with ginger and mint. Sometimes it’s juice but it also sometimes is kind a slushy texture and it’s always amazing!!! Anyways, I really love writing about food so sorry if this turns into more of a food blog. I’ll write more soon I promise!! Tell me if there’s anything that I don’t talk about that you’d like to hear more about!!
Oh and here's some pictures I stole from someone's facebook!
All my classes are going pretty well meaning I have very little homework. Right now I have a two week break from my film class at Di Tella in order to study for midterms. At UBA things have been a little bit crazy. The social sciences students have decided to stage a strike demanding that the government remodels one of the buildings and gives more money to the university. The whole thing was set off by an incident in which a huge window pane feel and almost fell on a group of students and injured one student. They are protesting by blockading the classrooms so no one can enter and refusing to attend class. Some classes such as mine, have continued to meet however we’re forced to have class outside of the class room. Two weeks ago I had class outside and last week we blockaded the street and had class in the street. As I said, the COMPLETE opposite of Whitman haha. I have a friend who only has UBA classes and has not had class for almost a month now! I’m not sure if I agree or understand the students’ tactics but apparently they’ve done it before. I guess we’ll see how productive it turns out to be.
Last Friday I woke up nice and early to go on a trip organized by IFSA going kayaking in Tigre. Tigre is a smaller, much calmer city about an hour from BA by train. It is famous for the canals that run through the city (only maybe one or two) and for the Puerta de Frutas which is an old trading port. We went kayaking through a canal through the city and then crossed a channel into an area of the countryside. Along the canals were houses built on stilts. Although we passed numerous boats it was extremely calm and quiet. We ate an adorable little restaurant along the canal and soaked up in the rays. I was in a triple with two other girls and on the way back we really struggled to get there. Our guide Juan kept encouraging us but we just kept complaining about how tired we were and how it was the longest canal ever hah. Saturday I went to a rugby game in San Isidro, a northern part of BA. My neighborhood team Belgrano was playing San Isidro’s team and even though we lost it was really fun watching the game.
The past couple weeks I’ve been eating some really great food. I’ve had a couple great choripans (sausage sandwiches), found a great empanada place and organic place by my house, an actually pretty good Indian place we went for Lauren’s birthday and a place I’m most excited about is a place called Marfa delivery that’s about ten minutes from my house that my blogger friend recommended. It was really cute, had great, cheap soups, sandwiches, salads etc and was playing great hipster music. Definitely my new fav place! Also, I’ve discovered these great drinks that all the hip restaurants serve is a lemonade or grapefruit juice with ginger and mint. Sometimes it’s juice but it also sometimes is kind a slushy texture and it’s always amazing!!! Anyways, I really love writing about food so sorry if this turns into more of a food blog. I’ll write more soon I promise!! Tell me if there’s anything that I don’t talk about that you’d like to hear more about!!
Oh and here's some pictures I stole from someone's facebook!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Seattle Days and Crazy Classes
I’m having a very Seattlite day today. These past couple of days have been extremely gray and rainy apparently because of La Tormenta de Santa Rosa. August 30th is the day of Santa Rosa, the saint of Buenos Aires. As Norma explained to me, every year on Dia de Santa Rosa it becomes cold and rainy. (Sound familiar, 4th of July in Seattle?). I am also currently in Starbucks. Kind of a very Yanqui thing to do, but where else in BA can you get a soy vanilla latte? However, today I did a very un-Seattlite thing—I actually used an umbrella. Absolutely everyone uses umbrellas here which can prove to be difficult when you’re on a busy street running to catch the bus. As I have told some of you already I am really starting to miss the numerous international options of the States. While I absolutely love Argentine food I’m not exactly accustomed to eating a steak every time I go out to eat. As a result, I’ve taken to trying to find the best international restaurants in BA and reading food blogs. Lauren recently found a BA food blog by a young American woman living here and I feel like this girl is reading my mind! Through her blog I’ve found some great places nearby my house and an organic market! On Saturday night a few of my friends and I went to an Armenian restaurant called Sarkis. We went around 8:30 which is considered extremely early to eat dinner in BA to beat the crowd. We had a great meal consisting of hummus, sun dried tomatoes with parmesan and shared all of our entrees such as mousaka, falafels, some type of meat pie and meat wrapped in cabbage leaves. We also got a HUGE desert of ice cream, walnuts and a chocolate-coffee liquor sauce. AMAZING. I also went to an organic grocer/café called Natural Deli and had french toast with bananas and berries and a smoothie. Also soo amazing. Sorry if my blog seems to have become more a food blog, it’s just something I’ve gotten into since getting here!! But I promise I will of course talk about other things.
So even though I’ve told you what classes I’m taking I have yet to really talk about what it’s really like to take classes here. In general, taking classes here is the COMPLETE opposite of Whitman. One of the biggest differences is none of the universities have campus’, they all just consist of one building. Sometimes it can extremely frustrating, for example when your class gets canceled and somehow all the Argentine students know this and the foreigners have no idea.
My popular music Spanish class is through my program so an hour of it is grammar, another hour we talk about a book we all have to read and then the last hour we talk about music. My class is taught by a sassy, nonstop talker named Dario Steimberg (yes Steimberg) who loves classic bands like Radiohead and the Cure. When a girl in my class said she loved Enrique Inglasis I thought he was going to die. He’s extremely entertaining and is not afraid to give his opinion about anything, especially politics. For this music part of the class I have to listen to all this classic Argentine rock. Right now we’re in the 1960s-70s era and I must say that I can’t stand listening to a majority of the music. Hopefully it will get better as we get to more modern music. My Argentine film class is taught in Universidad Torcuato Di Tella which is a small, private university in my neighborhood of Belgrano. Because it is private the majority of students tend to be more upper-middle class and tend to keep to themselves more. The class is about half foreigners and half Argentines. While the class can be a little boring at times I’ve really been enjoying the movies we’ve watched and I feel like I’m learning a lot about the culture and history from this class. My experiences taking a class at Universidad de Buenos Aires is definitely extremely different than any other experience I’ve ever had. I take class at the social work building in the Constitucion neighborhood (one of the more rundown neighborhoods in BA). Although I technically have class from 6 to 10 I am never actually in class from 4 whole hours. Usually class starts around 6:25 or whenever the professor feels like it. Apparently the professors at UBA get paid close to nothing but it’s considered an honor to be a professor there so many professors have another job to support themselves. The atmosphere is extremely relaxed with people come in and out, arriving an hour late and leaving two hours early. At UBA all the students are extremely friendly, helpful and warm. In the main hall and the hallways everyone is constantly smoking, drinking mate and painting posters protesting anything from the law against abortion to Macri, the governor of BA. For example, last night there was an assembly organized by the students to talk about the need for more money for the social sciences part of UBA. There are two other buildings for the social sciences in other part of the city that desperately need remodels. While the social work building is new, the other two are extremely old—they are covered in graffiti, lack heating, and apparently flood when it rains. Basically even worse than Garfield before the remodel. So we went to check it out during our break at 8. While I thought we would stay for about 20 minutes and then go back to class apparently that was not the plan. I realized that no one from my class was going back so basically the second half of my class was canceled because no one went back. These are the types of things that happen that I’m still adjusting to. Even though it can be frustrating sometimes I’m really glad I’m taking class there and feel like it’s going to be a very interesting experience.
Just a little bit of bad news, the other day Norma fell and unfortunately broke a bone in her shoulder and has to have surgery! But she’s going to be totally fine, she’s just had to go to a lot of doctor’s appointments and has been very stubborn about not letting me help her with anything! I think she’s having surgery possibly this weekend or next week and then it should be totally fine! Anyways, I’ll write more after the weekend!!!
So even though I’ve told you what classes I’m taking I have yet to really talk about what it’s really like to take classes here. In general, taking classes here is the COMPLETE opposite of Whitman. One of the biggest differences is none of the universities have campus’, they all just consist of one building. Sometimes it can extremely frustrating, for example when your class gets canceled and somehow all the Argentine students know this and the foreigners have no idea.
My popular music Spanish class is through my program so an hour of it is grammar, another hour we talk about a book we all have to read and then the last hour we talk about music. My class is taught by a sassy, nonstop talker named Dario Steimberg (yes Steimberg) who loves classic bands like Radiohead and the Cure. When a girl in my class said she loved Enrique Inglasis I thought he was going to die. He’s extremely entertaining and is not afraid to give his opinion about anything, especially politics. For this music part of the class I have to listen to all this classic Argentine rock. Right now we’re in the 1960s-70s era and I must say that I can’t stand listening to a majority of the music. Hopefully it will get better as we get to more modern music. My Argentine film class is taught in Universidad Torcuato Di Tella which is a small, private university in my neighborhood of Belgrano. Because it is private the majority of students tend to be more upper-middle class and tend to keep to themselves more. The class is about half foreigners and half Argentines. While the class can be a little boring at times I’ve really been enjoying the movies we’ve watched and I feel like I’m learning a lot about the culture and history from this class. My experiences taking a class at Universidad de Buenos Aires is definitely extremely different than any other experience I’ve ever had. I take class at the social work building in the Constitucion neighborhood (one of the more rundown neighborhoods in BA). Although I technically have class from 6 to 10 I am never actually in class from 4 whole hours. Usually class starts around 6:25 or whenever the professor feels like it. Apparently the professors at UBA get paid close to nothing but it’s considered an honor to be a professor there so many professors have another job to support themselves. The atmosphere is extremely relaxed with people come in and out, arriving an hour late and leaving two hours early. At UBA all the students are extremely friendly, helpful and warm. In the main hall and the hallways everyone is constantly smoking, drinking mate and painting posters protesting anything from the law against abortion to Macri, the governor of BA. For example, last night there was an assembly organized by the students to talk about the need for more money for the social sciences part of UBA. There are two other buildings for the social sciences in other part of the city that desperately need remodels. While the social work building is new, the other two are extremely old—they are covered in graffiti, lack heating, and apparently flood when it rains. Basically even worse than Garfield before the remodel. So we went to check it out during our break at 8. While I thought we would stay for about 20 minutes and then go back to class apparently that was not the plan. I realized that no one from my class was going back so basically the second half of my class was canceled because no one went back. These are the types of things that happen that I’m still adjusting to. Even though it can be frustrating sometimes I’m really glad I’m taking class there and feel like it’s going to be a very interesting experience.
Just a little bit of bad news, the other day Norma fell and unfortunately broke a bone in her shoulder and has to have surgery! But she’s going to be totally fine, she’s just had to go to a lot of doctor’s appointments and has been very stubborn about not letting me help her with anything! I think she’s having surgery possibly this weekend or next week and then it should be totally fine! Anyways, I’ll write more after the weekend!!!
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