gnocci pictures

My host mother and I making gnocci. My host sister took the picture and was the speediest gnocci maker of all.

July 31, 2008

Today was pretty uneventful, as days have gone. Yesterday I got back from the cemetery and took a nap due to the extreme lack of energy that was overtaking me. (I rarely take naps—unlike my father). We had a nice dinner with a guest of my host dad’s. Then we all watched this show that supposedly is one of the more popular programs on. It was a lot better than the dancing show. I headed to bed after we had finished the show and dessert (mandarin oranges). This morning at FLACSO (our home school) we had small group consultations about our classes. I am just going to let my classes organically select themselves. At this point I have done all I need to do, and with the random lottery and the other parts of the process some will get selected for me.

Right now I have a range of subjects I am looking into:

Some of the titles include:

Education and diversity

The state and the church

Intro to international relations

Personality psychology

Urban Young Groups in Buenos Aires

Those are a few of the 15 or so classes I have selected. As you can tell by the diversity of the subjects, it will be an interesting term. I went out to lunch with a couple girls from the program and then we headed to Florida, a pedestrian street lined with shops. This street is pretty intense. It is packed with people…all the time. I was relieved to get out of there and make it back to my little room in my 10^th floor apartment. Tomorrow I am taking the bus for the first time, which is a bit nerve racking, but hopefully all will go well. Then I am meeting up with a girl from high school who is finishing up her trip in Argentina. Then I will be pre-registering for my classes. Busy day tomorrow.

July 30, 2008

The gnocci (sp) was delicious and fun. I got to help make it. (I will include pictures a bit later). It is basically potatoes and flour, and supposedly the 21^st of each month is gnocci day. The tradition is that if you put plata (slang for money here) under the plate you will have a lot of it in the future. I am still wrestling with my class schedule. They told us to pre register for many and then we have a week or two to test them out. Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. So we register and then have to make it to all the classes in the first couple weeks to select which ones would be best for us. The campuses are all around the city and I have yet to brave the colectivos (buses). The subte (subway) experience was enough people for a very long time.

I went to the recoleta cemetery today. I didn’t bring my camera but I will make it back there and post some pictures. It was very strange. It is like a small town of tombs that are like little houses. Although today was cold and a pretty dreary day there were people milling around looking in the windows at the coffins or other trinkets in the tombs. It was impressive, and historically interesting (Evita’s tomb was overflowing with flowers and gifts).

On the way back I think I found a specialty food place that sells brie. :)

Sister/Registration/Food

July 29, 2008

Yesterday I met one of my host sisters for the first time. The apartment was much more lively with her in the mix. She is a tango dancer. I asked her about it and shared my tango experience but i couldn't quite tell if she said that anyone can dance tango around here...or that if you don't know what you are doing get off of the floor..? I guess I will have to ask again or test it out. But they speak much faster… We watched a show similar to dancing with the stars. But it is bailando por un sueno. Dancing for a dream. Partners compete for a cause…or at least that’s what I gathered. I didn’t understand a lot, but was surprised at the skimpiness of the women’s outfits. I went to bed late again only to wake up early to attend the first orientation for classes in the filosofía y letras facultad de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). This is the public university that has a lot more prestige than the private ones. This university has something like 300,000 students, and it is free to attend. I am having trouble figuring out/narrowing down/ or wading through all the classes we can take. We have a lot of different options, UBA, UCA, FLASCO, and a Spanish lab. Hopefully all will work out, I will get where I need to be when I need to be there. There is a colectivo (bus) strike which luckily isn’t affecting me (since I am in walking distance of the school), but one of the bus drivers was killed by a drunk passenger and now they are protesting. Some friends from my program and I stopped at an ice cream place on the way home…if you all are lucky I may start switching over to food blog mode.

So far the food here has been good. My host mother buys ingredients each day and spends a couple hours preparing dinner. I have just been informed that today we will be having gnoniocci (sp.) which my host dad tried to explain but I still am unclear.
Yesterday we had meatballs with veggies and a delicious savory tart thing. The only thing that has been hard for me to adapt to is the eating schedule. My family eats dinner around 11pm. by that time I am ready to go to bed...not shove more food in my mouth. Hopefully this will begin to get better as I shift my schedule back.

July 28, 2008

My internet disappeared so theses may be fewer and far between. I just returned home from a long day of orientation. I arrived at the school to take an oral placement test. This test went okay. It was just a conversation with a teacher. We had a couple hours to kills and so I and a friend went for a walk…a very long walk. We found this pedestrian street that was packed with people. The streets are pretty hazardous here…if I am not walking in a hole, tripping on a loose cobble stone, I am stepping in doggie land mines (as a fellow student who studied here called them), not to mention the hordes of people. A bit overwhelming to say the least. An argentine lady asked me for direction when I was waiting outside a store…I must be beginning to blend in. After the test my friend and I walked around probably for about 3 hours and ended up at this tenedor libre (directly translated free fork but means all you can eat buffet) vegetarian place. It was pretty good and either of us wanted to get up again due to the excessive amounts of walking. We managed to haul ourselves back to the school only to enjoy 4 or so hours of lecture on the normas or rules of the program and begin the explanation on the registration process. It is mind boggling. The university system is almost the opposite of our system, in many respects. I have arrived home, exhausted, hungry and a bit miffed that the internet I was borrowing decided to disappear. Until tomorrow.

My first couple days: In photos

This is a very pretty church that we saw on our walking tour of the city. I was focusing on taking the picture without anyone taking my camera...and therefore I missed the significance.





This is the largest street I think in south america. And here is me in the middle of it.

first entry!

I have arrived. Well actually I arrived a couple days ago. And here’s a quick run down of the events that have transpired since I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. About 8 of us were on the flight from Dulles to Buenos Aires, and we arrived a bit late for our pick up (so we got the whole bus to ourselves). The bus trip from the airport was uneventful until we heard a huge shattering of glass, and I looked out the window to see a pedestrian’s face cringe! Our bus got in an accident with a couple other cars while getting off the freeway. Bienvenidos a South America! Our group of 8 checked into our rooms and showered (I didn’t have any roommates yet) then went on an adventure to find them cell phones, and eat lunch. We ate at an empanada place and I skipped out on the cell phone adventure (which was more like a fiasco I heard later). We had a welcome dinner at a very nice Argentinean restaurant. It was a buffet with all sorts of pasta, meat, cheese and all else you could desire. The dinner was great except for the raucous English rugby team who were signing and chanting things.

The next day my roommate from Orange county and I ate breakfast at the hotel (cornflakes/runny yogurt and croissants) and we ventured on over to FLASCO our host school for orientations. The first orientation had to do with the transportation around the city, we got subte maps and guiaTs for the buses. I am close enough to walk FLASCO from my host family’s house—and I think I am pretty close to a great ice cream shop. Yum yum. In the afternoon we had to take a Spanish “placement” test which was not a fun activity. I guessed on a lot of them. I came backed and chatted with a fellow northwestern. We ventured out to the largest street I think in South America. It is called 9 de Julio and has 20 lanes. Supposedly, you cannot cross it in one light without running. We returned home from our walk to venture out for dinner—at a place suggested by my guide book. It had only Argentineans in it, and was a bit intimidating. It is funny (and frustrating) not knowing simple things like what to do when entering a restaurant. Do you sit down? Do you wait for someone to seat you? I returned home only to chat with the other roomies that had arrived and do some journaling and reading.

Today, we meet our homestay families. We all got a couple more hours to sleep in and we took advantage of that. We hurried to the cathedral metropolitana for a walking tour led by a local student. She took us all around the centro and we wandered a bit through San Telmo. We went to a neat market that I hope I will get to return too. We saw the plaza de mayo. (Pronounced “majo”). This plaza is in front of the casa rosada (the argentine equivalent to the white house but pink). The plaza de mayo has also been significant in many historical senses. It was there that the madres de la plaza de mayo protested during the dirty war, and demanded their loved ones (the disaparcidos or the disappeared) to reappear. I think it was there that Peronismo took hold. And also where people have been massacred. It is interesting to stand there and wonder how many other people from all different walks of life and all different circumstances have stood there before you. We ate lunch in San telmo—and my salami and cheese sandwich hit the spot. We meandered back and met some other people from our program and decided to take the subte. Overall I haven’t been speaking much Spanish. Due to the fact I am surrounded by Americans. I am excited for that to change once I meet my homestay family. I am also excited to give them their gifts that have been taking up a lot of room in my suitcase! J