I can’t believe its already been one month. I mean, I guess I can believe it since it feels like I know the city so well. But still! Me and my friend were actually talking about this the other day, how if someone asked us now where a street is, pretty good chance we could tell them where it is and if not could find it easily on a map. Its just weird to think about the first day of orientation which really wasn’t very long ago and our first afternoon when we all left the hotel together and went wandering aimlessly with our maps. ha.
So this has been a bit of a rollercoaster week, emotions-wise. Monday something really unfortunate happened to me. In the back of my head, I figured it eventually would but not like this. I got robbed. I was out at La Bomba which is supposed to be this awesome drumming circle where everyone dances around while listening to the drumming band perform. I took out my phone from my bag for 2 seconds because Eliana had texted me that she had gotten there so I was going to go to the entrance and meet her. Right after we met up, we decided to get in line for a drink. We realized that there were actually 2 lines, one to buy a ticket for a drink, and one to get the drink. Since we were already in the 2nd line I told her I would just get in the other line quickly and buy the ticket. Anyway I opened up my purse to get my money out....this whole thing from the time I split up with my friends at the concert to now maybe had been 5 minutes, and then I realized my phone was gone. Those damn robbers. At least I had my money zipped up in a smaller pocket and my camera was in a case that didn’t really look like a camera case so they didn’t take any of that stuff. Honestly though I have no idea how they managed to open up my purse with out me feeling it. But I guess they are experts because later that night they robbed Eliana’s friend’s camera. Big downer on the night.
So Monday night I got home with no phone, and of course the internet was down in the apartment all week. The claro (cell phone company) systems apparently were also down for a day so it didn’t end up being until thursday that I got a sim card for a spare phone that I happened to have brought to Argentina. So for a few days I was in a little bubble kind of like the bubble Oren and I were in this summer when we were in Canada and couldn’t really use our phones or have time for internet. But then it was cool because we had each other and were on vacation anyway. But this time I was in the bubble alone, and after a little while when you don’t really have a way to get in touch with anyone, its kind of a really big problem.
On wednesday however (as many of you know, I’m not the most content with my host family) I went to visit another host fam that I absolutely loved. Well, its not exactly a family. It’s a 28 year old girl who is jewish and lives on her own. She seems great though and I think we will get along just fine. Her apartment, which is very nice, is probably also only a 10 minute walk from my school! Couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Thursday was my final in Espanol, which went pretty well. And that night we celebrated at our friend Jenny’s apartment. Her roommate is from Brazil so he had a bunch of his friends over as well. I don’t think I had ever heard portugese spoken in person before but after listening to some conversation it sounded just like a mix between Spanish and Dutch. On Friday, the 5 of 6 new students in our program arrived in Buenos Aires. In the evening the people in our group who hadn’t left yet for the week and traveled somewhere (because its our spring break) all joined them for dinner at the place where we had gone to on our first night. Dinner was fantastic, as expected. This time I got what my friend had ordered last time, the spinach raviolis in rosa sauce with dulce de leche ice cream for dessert. I was pretty exhausted after dinner and so were most of the other kids who had just flown in so I had an early night for once and actually caught up on sleep. On saturday it was beautiful out so I decided to hit up Florida street which is probably the most touristy street here but definitely cool to see. There were literally leather shops everywhere on this street so I decided to do some searching for a leather bag, and finally right before I was about to leave I walked into one more store and found the perfect leather bag. Its great when that kind of stuff happens, its like its meant to be.
So I’m glad whoever is reading this that you’ve been enjoying hearing about my eventful days but here’s something you might like even more. Its the start to my list of most interesting things about Buenos Aires. I’ve been making this list mostly in my head for the past month but I’m going to try and name some of it now and will continue with it through out my blog entries.
1) Dog wallkers: Everyday I see at least 3 or 4 of these. They usually have anywhere between 5-12 dogs, who are so well behaved and walk in such an orderly fashion. It amazes me.
2) Jobs and the gap between the rich and the poor: As I’ve been told by many people who live here the gap between the 2 is really big. Therefore, there are all these jobs for poorer people that you probably wouldn’t see in the states. Too name a few, a door man whos job consists of opening the door for you when you walk into the apartment and says hola. Then there are the people whos jobs are literally to sort the trash. I’m not really sure why they’re sorting it because from what I’ve heard there is no recycling here, but eitherway, don’t mistaken them for homeless people.
Besos a todos,
Karen
Monday, March 1, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
LLuvia, lluvia, y mas lluvia (lluvia=rain)
(Written this past weekend about last week, but my apartment lost internet again a few days ago therefore I’m posting it now at the internet cafe down the street...)
This week has been pretty relaxing. Aside from last saturday night when all my friends and I went out to probably the biggest club I’ve ever seen...(may be tied with lechet-for all the ycers reading this) and stayed out dancing to latino music till 7am...which I believe is a new record. When we left it was completely light out (which puts you into this weird daze where you feel so overtired but don’t exactly feel like going to sleep) so instead of going home we went out to breakfast and I finally ate scrambled eggs in Argentina! Then of course we all went back and crashed. The next day was valentines day which I realized Argentines actually celebrate because literally in every street corner there were roses being sold. Eventually when I woke up that day I met Meghan and we went venturing for some place to eat. We found a cute cafe, that we were a little skeptical of at first but then we noticed all of their homemade jams on the wall so we figured it had to be good, and it was. We then treated ourselves to some Freddo icecream- arguably, the best ice cream in all of Buenos Aires.
On Monday I signed up for a pilates class down the street from me. Its definitely a lot harder than those do it at home videos or maybe I’m just really out of shape...either way my abs were in pain for the rest of the week. Tuesday I went to the movies and saw Valentines Day, and on Wednesday I went and met some more family after school. This is my grandfather’s other cousin, Elisa..who is really also an in law but still exciting nonetheless. I went over to her apartment which is in the same part of the city that my school is at. She is super nice and we chatted for a little while before her grand-daughter who is 18 came over. Then another grandson who was 23 happened to call and he came over as well. By the end another grandchild and Elisa’s sister’s 2 grandchildren who were all my age had come over to meet me! We all sat around at the dining room table talking while Elisa put out coffee and a bunch of different desserts out for all of us. It was such a cool afternoon meeting all this family that I never knew I had. Later that night Eliana and I went to dinner at a kosher steak house that we heard was really good. This place was hoppin and everyone around us was very friendly. We talked to these 2 Israelis sitting behind us who were club promoters (good contacts to have) and they told us about some big purim party they were planning. Then we talked to a couple who sat right near us who was from Colombia and had lived in the U.S. but were now living here. We finally left the restaurant at a quarter to midnight.
Thursday we had empanada making night at Carmen’s house which was awesome. We made 68 empanadas for 12 people and ate them all followed by a really good fruit pie that is made from the jelly of a fruit called quince in english which I have never heard of.
Later that night Meghan, Thereasa and I went out for a bit of a girls night and got drinks up on some rooftop bar...followed by going to the club Lost, the one we went to last week, however not as fun this time. Friday me and Eliana had a bit of a different Shabbat than what we had been doing in Buenos thus far, at my cousins from the states’ family friends in Buenos Aires. It was quite the trek there though because again it was raining, and again the city was flooding. Its crazy. My friends told me that last week when it rained, they were actually walking in water that was waist high in the part of the city that they were stuck in. It wasn’t as bad this time because the heavy rain only lasted for half a day, but it still meant that the subway stopped running, and there was no electricity in some stores in part of the city that I was in, which was a problem because I had just run out of minutes on my phone and the locutorios (kiosks with phone booths) all said that they were closed because of the rain. And the one day I happened to not bring my umbrella! Luckily the family called me 10 minutes after I had gotten there to see where I was because there is no buzzer or any other way to get into the apartment. From there on though, everything was great. I sat down and talked to the mother and her girls for a while until Eliana came and we hung out for another hour or so with everyone. The family has 6 children, 5 girls and 1 boy who is the youngest, all of who either speak hebrew fluently or are learning. This made it really easy because again we would have run into the same problem of us not knowing enough spanish or them not knowing enough english to have a conversation. We did try to speak to them in spanish a few times..because we really are trying to learn, but, subconsciously you just go back to the language you know you can communicate in. Shabbat dinner was amazing, soo much good food I couldn’t even believe it. And the most amazing parve fruit cake for dessert. It would be great to get that recipe, especially for UMass shabbat dinners. I decided to sleepover there with Eliana because I figured my trip to Uruguay the next day was going to be cancelled because of the rain. I found out later that night that it had been postponed so luckily I didn’t have to wake up at 7am and start making calls.
The next day, Meghan, her friend Adrienne and I did our own little walking tour of the city with the intention of ending up at MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires).When we got there though, the line was out to the waazoo so we decided to keep going and came across another museum of impressionate art that we went into instead. That night a bunch of kids from my program and I all went to this really cool looking restaurant that is directly in between my friend lauren and my apartments that we always pass and say we’ll eventually go there. Well, we finally went and it was awesome. They had really good and still pretty cheap pizza, and wine, lots of it! From there we continued on to the area that I’ve previously spoken about, Palermo Soho with bars and clubs and all that jazz. We went to one bar, and then out to a dance club that played such good music again. Why aren’t there any places in the states that play remixed-oldies? One theory of mine is that Buenos Aires is stuck in the year 1990. Or maybe they just know good music. Anyway, fue muy divertido (it was very fun). Sunday was another rainy day. This time we spent our afternoon at a super nice mall not far from our apartments called Palermo Alto. You’d be suprised but they have a pretty legit food court. I got a salmon stir fry with a bunch of different vegetables (yes parents, if you are reading this be proud I ate some new veggies).
More blogging to come soon. By soon I mean as soon as I get internet back, or am back at this cafe.
Chao chicos.
This week has been pretty relaxing. Aside from last saturday night when all my friends and I went out to probably the biggest club I’ve ever seen...(may be tied with lechet-for all the ycers reading this) and stayed out dancing to latino music till 7am...which I believe is a new record. When we left it was completely light out (which puts you into this weird daze where you feel so overtired but don’t exactly feel like going to sleep) so instead of going home we went out to breakfast and I finally ate scrambled eggs in Argentina! Then of course we all went back and crashed. The next day was valentines day which I realized Argentines actually celebrate because literally in every street corner there were roses being sold. Eventually when I woke up that day I met Meghan and we went venturing for some place to eat. We found a cute cafe, that we were a little skeptical of at first but then we noticed all of their homemade jams on the wall so we figured it had to be good, and it was. We then treated ourselves to some Freddo icecream- arguably, the best ice cream in all of Buenos Aires.
On Monday I signed up for a pilates class down the street from me. Its definitely a lot harder than those do it at home videos or maybe I’m just really out of shape...either way my abs were in pain for the rest of the week. Tuesday I went to the movies and saw Valentines Day, and on Wednesday I went and met some more family after school. This is my grandfather’s other cousin, Elisa..who is really also an in law but still exciting nonetheless. I went over to her apartment which is in the same part of the city that my school is at. She is super nice and we chatted for a little while before her grand-daughter who is 18 came over. Then another grandson who was 23 happened to call and he came over as well. By the end another grandchild and Elisa’s sister’s 2 grandchildren who were all my age had come over to meet me! We all sat around at the dining room table talking while Elisa put out coffee and a bunch of different desserts out for all of us. It was such a cool afternoon meeting all this family that I never knew I had. Later that night Eliana and I went to dinner at a kosher steak house that we heard was really good. This place was hoppin and everyone around us was very friendly. We talked to these 2 Israelis sitting behind us who were club promoters (good contacts to have) and they told us about some big purim party they were planning. Then we talked to a couple who sat right near us who was from Colombia and had lived in the U.S. but were now living here. We finally left the restaurant at a quarter to midnight.
Thursday we had empanada making night at Carmen’s house which was awesome. We made 68 empanadas for 12 people and ate them all followed by a really good fruit pie that is made from the jelly of a fruit called quince in english which I have never heard of.
Later that night Meghan, Thereasa and I went out for a bit of a girls night and got drinks up on some rooftop bar...followed by going to the club Lost, the one we went to last week, however not as fun this time. Friday me and Eliana had a bit of a different Shabbat than what we had been doing in Buenos thus far, at my cousins from the states’ family friends in Buenos Aires. It was quite the trek there though because again it was raining, and again the city was flooding. Its crazy. My friends told me that last week when it rained, they were actually walking in water that was waist high in the part of the city that they were stuck in. It wasn’t as bad this time because the heavy rain only lasted for half a day, but it still meant that the subway stopped running, and there was no electricity in some stores in part of the city that I was in, which was a problem because I had just run out of minutes on my phone and the locutorios (kiosks with phone booths) all said that they were closed because of the rain. And the one day I happened to not bring my umbrella! Luckily the family called me 10 minutes after I had gotten there to see where I was because there is no buzzer or any other way to get into the apartment. From there on though, everything was great. I sat down and talked to the mother and her girls for a while until Eliana came and we hung out for another hour or so with everyone. The family has 6 children, 5 girls and 1 boy who is the youngest, all of who either speak hebrew fluently or are learning. This made it really easy because again we would have run into the same problem of us not knowing enough spanish or them not knowing enough english to have a conversation. We did try to speak to them in spanish a few times..because we really are trying to learn, but, subconsciously you just go back to the language you know you can communicate in. Shabbat dinner was amazing, soo much good food I couldn’t even believe it. And the most amazing parve fruit cake for dessert. It would be great to get that recipe, especially for UMass shabbat dinners. I decided to sleepover there with Eliana because I figured my trip to Uruguay the next day was going to be cancelled because of the rain. I found out later that night that it had been postponed so luckily I didn’t have to wake up at 7am and start making calls.
The next day, Meghan, her friend Adrienne and I did our own little walking tour of the city with the intention of ending up at MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires).When we got there though, the line was out to the waazoo so we decided to keep going and came across another museum of impressionate art that we went into instead. That night a bunch of kids from my program and I all went to this really cool looking restaurant that is directly in between my friend lauren and my apartments that we always pass and say we’ll eventually go there. Well, we finally went and it was awesome. They had really good and still pretty cheap pizza, and wine, lots of it! From there we continued on to the area that I’ve previously spoken about, Palermo Soho with bars and clubs and all that jazz. We went to one bar, and then out to a dance club that played such good music again. Why aren’t there any places in the states that play remixed-oldies? One theory of mine is that Buenos Aires is stuck in the year 1990. Or maybe they just know good music. Anyway, fue muy divertido (it was very fun). Sunday was another rainy day. This time we spent our afternoon at a super nice mall not far from our apartments called Palermo Alto. You’d be suprised but they have a pretty legit food court. I got a salmon stir fry with a bunch of different vegetables (yes parents, if you are reading this be proud I ate some new veggies).
More blogging to come soon. By soon I mean as soon as I get internet back, or am back at this cafe.
Chao chicos.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Optimismo es la llave de la vida
Friday.
(Feb. 5)
Class got out at 3 as usual, and not that I don’t love learning spanish or anything...but after 1 week of intensive, I was very excited for some weekend adventures.
That afternoon Eliana and I decided that we would try out the Chabad (spelled and pronounced Jabad here) of Olleros that evening which is in Belgrano, right next to both of our universities. Of course, we went there with the hope that some nice family would see some American students and invite us over for Shabbat dinner at their home. Well, we got there and to our surprise we were the only 2 girls there. We then realized that the services hadn’t yet started and it was only mincha. When they finally did, maybe 6 more girls had walked in, 3 of whom were Israelis our age traveling in South America. We talked to them a little bit throughout the service and they told us they were staying at some youth hostel near the chabad with a bunch of other Israeli travelers. But then they said goodbye to us and that was that. We came out to the main area, but in a few minutes almost everyone had left. At this point we were just gonna go home because 1) it was pouring out and 2) where else were we going to go? We started talking to a group of boys though who hadn’t run away just yet and low and behold one of them happend to work at this hostel. He told us that every Friday night they have a big Shabbat dinner there for all of the guests and that we were welcome to come tonight. Score! At dinner we sat at a table with 30 Israelis all traveling in South America, next to our new friends from the service and another non-jewish worker and his girlfriend. Conversing was the biggest challenge of the night because you have 6 people that speak 3 different languages. We basically kept switching from Hebrew, to English, to Spanish. It was cool but extremely confusing. I think I’m getting better at not speaking Hebrew words when I’m trying to speak spanish or vise versa.
Saturday my friend Meghan and I met in Palermo, an area 10 minutes away from where I live and we had planned to walk around the area and maybe do some shopping. When I had left my apartment it looked like it was going to rain again and of course when we met up it started to. We pretty much just walked into the first place that we found to eat that looked pretty good and not too expensive. When I ordered the sweet potato and cheese ravioli, the waiter asked me what sauce I wanted and points to a list of sauces that you have to pay for separately. So this cheap restaurant wasn’t as cheap as we thought but we still decided to stay. However after our meal, we noticed a few more extra charges on our check. One was for butter and the other, a 10 peso fee for table service(not to be confused with tip). You’re probably thinking the same thing as me... what the heck is table service?! Well we asked the waiter and he said something in spanish that we couldn't understand and points to the table cloth. Next lesson learned: Don’t be fooled by these kinds of restaurants and overpay for a meal that definitely wasn’t worth the price.
Luckily after lunch the weather had cleared up and we still had a little time to walk around before I was going to meet my actual family from here. We walked around Soho in Palermo, a really cute new hip area with boutiques and cafes and cobblestone roads, and relatively cheap as well. At 4 I hopped on a bus to go back to my apartment, where I was going to meet Roberto (my grandfather’s 2nd cousin in law) his daughter, and her son. I walked up to my apartment and there they were waiting for me! The 3 of them only speak Spanish so it was definitely a few hours of good practice. We went to a cafe down the street and Roberto brought with him a photo album with pictures from when he and his wife had come to visit us when I was 6 years old! We talked about everything, family, school, etc. He also told me his wife’s sister who is actually my grandfather’s blood related cousin lives here as well in Belgrano where my university is. And apparently she has grandkids that go to my school! I’m hoping to meet them this coming week. Later that night my friends and I went out to a bar and made some new argentine friends who we hung out with for the night!
Sunday Eliana and I met for lunch, followed by a bike tour with my program around Buenos Aires. They almost cancelled it because it was raining, but luckily they didn’t because it was a fantastic tour of the city and the gardens, and it only rained on us lightly for about 5 minutes in the middle of the bike ride. Actually by the end it got pretty sunny. In the evening my friends Meghan, Lauren, and I went to a bar called Sullivans (pretty American eh?) to watch the Superbowl. Except the volume on the tv was off for most of the time so we couldn’t even listen to the commercials.
This week was also very fun. Spanish class has grown on me immensely and the 5 hours go by pretty quickly now, probably because we’ve been playing more games. Our teacher Julieta, I must say, comes up with pretty creative ones. One game we played was basically truth or dare, minus the dare part, where you pick a question out of a hat and ask it to anyone in the class. It was very hilarious. Another highlight of the week was our movie night at our director, Carmen’s house. Her husband first gave us a Socioeconomic history lesson of Argentina, which was very interesting and then we had pizza and watched a new amazing Argentine film called The Secret In Their Eyes, which has been nominated for the best foreign film Oscar. I believe it should be out in something theaters in the states if anyone is interested. Anyway, later that evening Meghan and I went to a club called Lost that everyone at school has been talking about that plays American hip hop every Thursday night. They played everything from Jlo and 50cent to Kanye and random 90’s stuff too. However, probably the sweatiest night of my entire life. The place was packed and no air conditioning. When we left it probably looked like we had just taken a shower in our clothes. No joke. Oh and did I mention we got back at 5:30 am?
Last night Eliana and I went back to the chabad in Olleros . This week there were so many more people and specifically a lot more women there than last week. We also met the new Israeli travelers who were staying at the hostel and again after services had dinner there. We felt bad not paying again but our friend that works there said its fine and that if we wanted we could come by after shabbat and donate some.
Today I’m going to Recoleta park with some friends. Its a park down the street from me and on the weekends they have vendors and live music, etc. Should be fun. Catch yall later.
besos,
Karen
(Feb. 5)
Class got out at 3 as usual, and not that I don’t love learning spanish or anything...but after 1 week of intensive, I was very excited for some weekend adventures.
That afternoon Eliana and I decided that we would try out the Chabad (spelled and pronounced Jabad here) of Olleros that evening which is in Belgrano, right next to both of our universities. Of course, we went there with the hope that some nice family would see some American students and invite us over for Shabbat dinner at their home. Well, we got there and to our surprise we were the only 2 girls there. We then realized that the services hadn’t yet started and it was only mincha. When they finally did, maybe 6 more girls had walked in, 3 of whom were Israelis our age traveling in South America. We talked to them a little bit throughout the service and they told us they were staying at some youth hostel near the chabad with a bunch of other Israeli travelers. But then they said goodbye to us and that was that. We came out to the main area, but in a few minutes almost everyone had left. At this point we were just gonna go home because 1) it was pouring out and 2) where else were we going to go? We started talking to a group of boys though who hadn’t run away just yet and low and behold one of them happend to work at this hostel. He told us that every Friday night they have a big Shabbat dinner there for all of the guests and that we were welcome to come tonight. Score! At dinner we sat at a table with 30 Israelis all traveling in South America, next to our new friends from the service and another non-jewish worker and his girlfriend. Conversing was the biggest challenge of the night because you have 6 people that speak 3 different languages. We basically kept switching from Hebrew, to English, to Spanish. It was cool but extremely confusing. I think I’m getting better at not speaking Hebrew words when I’m trying to speak spanish or vise versa.
Saturday my friend Meghan and I met in Palermo, an area 10 minutes away from where I live and we had planned to walk around the area and maybe do some shopping. When I had left my apartment it looked like it was going to rain again and of course when we met up it started to. We pretty much just walked into the first place that we found to eat that looked pretty good and not too expensive. When I ordered the sweet potato and cheese ravioli, the waiter asked me what sauce I wanted and points to a list of sauces that you have to pay for separately. So this cheap restaurant wasn’t as cheap as we thought but we still decided to stay. However after our meal, we noticed a few more extra charges on our check. One was for butter and the other, a 10 peso fee for table service(not to be confused with tip). You’re probably thinking the same thing as me... what the heck is table service?! Well we asked the waiter and he said something in spanish that we couldn't understand and points to the table cloth. Next lesson learned: Don’t be fooled by these kinds of restaurants and overpay for a meal that definitely wasn’t worth the price.
Luckily after lunch the weather had cleared up and we still had a little time to walk around before I was going to meet my actual family from here. We walked around Soho in Palermo, a really cute new hip area with boutiques and cafes and cobblestone roads, and relatively cheap as well. At 4 I hopped on a bus to go back to my apartment, where I was going to meet Roberto (my grandfather’s 2nd cousin in law) his daughter, and her son. I walked up to my apartment and there they were waiting for me! The 3 of them only speak Spanish so it was definitely a few hours of good practice. We went to a cafe down the street and Roberto brought with him a photo album with pictures from when he and his wife had come to visit us when I was 6 years old! We talked about everything, family, school, etc. He also told me his wife’s sister who is actually my grandfather’s blood related cousin lives here as well in Belgrano where my university is. And apparently she has grandkids that go to my school! I’m hoping to meet them this coming week. Later that night my friends and I went out to a bar and made some new argentine friends who we hung out with for the night!
Sunday Eliana and I met for lunch, followed by a bike tour with my program around Buenos Aires. They almost cancelled it because it was raining, but luckily they didn’t because it was a fantastic tour of the city and the gardens, and it only rained on us lightly for about 5 minutes in the middle of the bike ride. Actually by the end it got pretty sunny. In the evening my friends Meghan, Lauren, and I went to a bar called Sullivans (pretty American eh?) to watch the Superbowl. Except the volume on the tv was off for most of the time so we couldn’t even listen to the commercials.
This week was also very fun. Spanish class has grown on me immensely and the 5 hours go by pretty quickly now, probably because we’ve been playing more games. Our teacher Julieta, I must say, comes up with pretty creative ones. One game we played was basically truth or dare, minus the dare part, where you pick a question out of a hat and ask it to anyone in the class. It was very hilarious. Another highlight of the week was our movie night at our director, Carmen’s house. Her husband first gave us a Socioeconomic history lesson of Argentina, which was very interesting and then we had pizza and watched a new amazing Argentine film called The Secret In Their Eyes, which has been nominated for the best foreign film Oscar. I believe it should be out in something theaters in the states if anyone is interested. Anyway, later that evening Meghan and I went to a club called Lost that everyone at school has been talking about that plays American hip hop every Thursday night. They played everything from Jlo and 50cent to Kanye and random 90’s stuff too. However, probably the sweatiest night of my entire life. The place was packed and no air conditioning. When we left it probably looked like we had just taken a shower in our clothes. No joke. Oh and did I mention we got back at 5:30 am?
Last night Eliana and I went back to the chabad in Olleros . This week there were so many more people and specifically a lot more women there than last week. We also met the new Israeli travelers who were staying at the hostel and again after services had dinner there. We felt bad not paying again but our friend that works there said its fine and that if we wanted we could come by after shabbat and donate some.
Today I’m going to Recoleta park with some friends. Its a park down the street from me and on the weekends they have vendors and live music, etc. Should be fun. Catch yall later.
besos,
Karen
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Una semana y se siente como un mes!
I am so excited right now! I just spoke with my family in Buenos Aires (they are my third or possibly fourth cousins) and we made plans to meet this afternoon!!! :)
So now It has now officially been a week since I’ve landed here and of course if feels as though I’ve been here for a month. Luckily though it is the weekend and I finally have time to catch up on my blogging. I really don’t want to forget any detail from my time here so I will have to get better at making some room in my weekly schedule.
Again, picking up where I left off-
Saturday night we ended up coming back at the peak of the night, for the Argentines at least, which was 4am because we were continuing orientation early the next morning and then meeting our host families. My host mother turned out to be an older woman, maybe in her late 50’s, early 60’s and she has a 26 year old son who lives at home who is away in New York for the week. (just fyi- it is very typical here for children even in their 20’s to live at home with their families until they get married). We got to the apartment and she made me lunch and we sat and chatted for some time. She’s a very nice and proper woman, religious catholic, goes to church almost everyday. So far its going alright with her. She doesn’t feed me the best food but thats one thing that I guess I knew was a risk with living at a homestay. We also eat so late here! Around 9:30 every night, and Argentine breakfast is typically only toast with butter and coffee.
The next day (monday) we had our placement tests for our Spanish Intensive month. I landed in one of the intermediate classes. I guess my Spanish isn’t that bad after all, even though its still so hard for me to speak. Oh by the way at the university there are probably 250 other international students mostly from the U.S. just with different study abroad programs. Class started on Tuesday and so far its been really good. Its 5 hours a day 10-3 but is very interactive so it goes by pretty quickly. In the afternoons after class me and my friends have been exploring the streets around where we live, doing some shopping and going to cafes. We’re probably going to start exploring other places next week but this city is just so big and there’s so much to see. On Wednesday after class I met up with Eliana because we realized our schools are a 5 minute walk from one another other. It was so great to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar city. We only had an hour because she had her tango lesson at 4, so we decided to also meet up the next day after class for that hour. Thursday night we had our next API program. We were going to Gaby’s house for a history of Tango lesson and then out to a Tango club! Again it was one of those things that I had no idea what to expect. The club was in the basement of what seemed like a community center in the middle of the city. It was a restaurant with tables and chairs all around the sides of the room and big dance floor in the middle. The floor was split up into 2. Half for experienced tango-ers and half for the beginners. Between each course of our again, absolutely delicious meal, we would get up and learn some dance moves and then actually get to dance. There were probably 70 people in the class of all ages. It was cool we got to dance with different people and have conversations with everyone whom we danced with. I danced with a few people from my program and then 2 argentine men maybe in their mid 20’s and one guy who was probably 50...kinda weird, but its all about new experiences right?
I have a great friday night to tell about as well which will be coming soon!
So now It has now officially been a week since I’ve landed here and of course if feels as though I’ve been here for a month. Luckily though it is the weekend and I finally have time to catch up on my blogging. I really don’t want to forget any detail from my time here so I will have to get better at making some room in my weekly schedule.
Again, picking up where I left off-
Saturday night we ended up coming back at the peak of the night, for the Argentines at least, which was 4am because we were continuing orientation early the next morning and then meeting our host families. My host mother turned out to be an older woman, maybe in her late 50’s, early 60’s and she has a 26 year old son who lives at home who is away in New York for the week. (just fyi- it is very typical here for children even in their 20’s to live at home with their families until they get married). We got to the apartment and she made me lunch and we sat and chatted for some time. She’s a very nice and proper woman, religious catholic, goes to church almost everyday. So far its going alright with her. She doesn’t feed me the best food but thats one thing that I guess I knew was a risk with living at a homestay. We also eat so late here! Around 9:30 every night, and Argentine breakfast is typically only toast with butter and coffee.
The next day (monday) we had our placement tests for our Spanish Intensive month. I landed in one of the intermediate classes. I guess my Spanish isn’t that bad after all, even though its still so hard for me to speak. Oh by the way at the university there are probably 250 other international students mostly from the U.S. just with different study abroad programs. Class started on Tuesday and so far its been really good. Its 5 hours a day 10-3 but is very interactive so it goes by pretty quickly. In the afternoons after class me and my friends have been exploring the streets around where we live, doing some shopping and going to cafes. We’re probably going to start exploring other places next week but this city is just so big and there’s so much to see. On Wednesday after class I met up with Eliana because we realized our schools are a 5 minute walk from one another other. It was so great to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar city. We only had an hour because she had her tango lesson at 4, so we decided to also meet up the next day after class for that hour. Thursday night we had our next API program. We were going to Gaby’s house for a history of Tango lesson and then out to a Tango club! Again it was one of those things that I had no idea what to expect. The club was in the basement of what seemed like a community center in the middle of the city. It was a restaurant with tables and chairs all around the sides of the room and big dance floor in the middle. The floor was split up into 2. Half for experienced tango-ers and half for the beginners. Between each course of our again, absolutely delicious meal, we would get up and learn some dance moves and then actually get to dance. There were probably 70 people in the class of all ages. It was cool we got to dance with different people and have conversations with everyone whom we danced with. I danced with a few people from my program and then 2 argentine men maybe in their mid 20’s and one guy who was probably 50...kinda weird, but its all about new experiences right?
I have a great friday night to tell about as well which will be coming soon!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
And my life continues...
Hola chicos y chicas.
Lo siento para mi tardanza (sorry for my tardiness). Lets see..where did we leave off? Day #2 I believe. So that Saturday morning we woke up for our next day of orientation. We had breakfast at the hotel and then we were off for a tour of the city with Gaby, our tour guide. Our first stop was in the center of Buenos Aires where we visited La Casa Roja (The red house, which was actually pink) comparable to our White House. We didn't get a tour of the full house but we did get to go inside which was pretty cool. Apparently Madonna performed from the balcony of this Casa Roja many years ago with a song called "Don't cry for me Argentina. Here are some lyrics from the song for your enjoyment. Feel free to search the song on you tube!
Don't cry for me Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don't keep your distance
Anyway. We continued on our tour and visited a very famous cathedral, also in the center of the city. Before this happened our group had to walk through some ridiculous number of pigeons who didn't fly away from us but rather flew up and landed on us. Like if we had food. What an experience that was. I managed to catch a picture of 2 of my friends with the pigeons all around them. So Cathedral. My pictures can describe it better than I probably can but literally every inch of space was decorated beautifully with work which must have taken so long. Of course there were statues of Jesus and Mary, etc.. but one thing that I found that surprised me were texts saved mostly from the holocaust such as a passover seder, talmud tales, and other things written in hebrew and yiddish. I asked why this was in a church and the answer I got was that this was a way the Jewish and Catholic relgions can come together and support one another. After this part of the tour we head to La Boca, a supercolorful part of the city. There were many artists there selling their paintings which were beautiful, also tons of little tourist shops, and cafes. Very different place, and since we only had about 15 minutes there, it is somewhere I will definitely be visting again. We passed many other monuments and landmarks that Gaby pointed out to us. All in all, great tour. We then had some free time in Recoleta, the part of the city we are living in. The 12 of us sat down at a restaurant outside and had a delicious lunch. After we continued the orientation at Carmen's house (she also lives in Recoletta). We then came back to the hotel, had dinner, and enjoyed our first free night consisting of cervezas(beer) on the balcony of one of our friends room followed by a night out at a club. Culture shock=> We got there at 1am and there were maybe 10 people there, .and it probably didn't fill up until 3! I will never understand why people wait so long until they go out.
(to be continued)
Lo siento para mi tardanza (sorry for my tardiness). Lets see..where did we leave off? Day #2 I believe. So that Saturday morning we woke up for our next day of orientation. We had breakfast at the hotel and then we were off for a tour of the city with Gaby, our tour guide. Our first stop was in the center of Buenos Aires where we visited La Casa Roja (The red house, which was actually pink) comparable to our White House. We didn't get a tour of the full house but we did get to go inside which was pretty cool. Apparently Madonna performed from the balcony of this Casa Roja many years ago with a song called "Don't cry for me Argentina. Here are some lyrics from the song for your enjoyment. Feel free to search the song on you tube!
Don't cry for me Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don't keep your distance
Anyway. We continued on our tour and visited a very famous cathedral, also in the center of the city. Before this happened our group had to walk through some ridiculous number of pigeons who didn't fly away from us but rather flew up and landed on us. Like if we had food. What an experience that was. I managed to catch a picture of 2 of my friends with the pigeons all around them. So Cathedral. My pictures can describe it better than I probably can but literally every inch of space was decorated beautifully with work which must have taken so long. Of course there were statues of Jesus and Mary, etc.. but one thing that I found that surprised me were texts saved mostly from the holocaust such as a passover seder, talmud tales, and other things written in hebrew and yiddish. I asked why this was in a church and the answer I got was that this was a way the Jewish and Catholic relgions can come together and support one another. After this part of the tour we head to La Boca, a supercolorful part of the city. There were many artists there selling their paintings which were beautiful, also tons of little tourist shops, and cafes. Very different place, and since we only had about 15 minutes there, it is somewhere I will definitely be visting again. We passed many other monuments and landmarks that Gaby pointed out to us. All in all, great tour. We then had some free time in Recoleta, the part of the city we are living in. The 12 of us sat down at a restaurant outside and had a delicious lunch. After we continued the orientation at Carmen's house (she also lives in Recoletta). We then came back to the hotel, had dinner, and enjoyed our first free night consisting of cervezas(beer) on the balcony of one of our friends room followed by a night out at a club. Culture shock=> We got there at 1am and there were maybe 10 people there, .and it probably didn't fill up until 3! I will never understand why people wait so long until they go out.
(to be continued)
Saturday, January 30, 2010
El primer dia! (The first day)
I really had no idea what to expect of Buenos Aires. I mean you hear about it from people or see pictures but its nothing like being here and experiencing it for yourself first hand.
I jotted this down yesterday when I was waiting at the airport for a couple of hours before meeting up with the rest of my group.
After about a 20 hour journey I finally arrived! I walked out of security and was bombarded with signs for different tour groups, then I remembered that it was only 9am and my group wasn’t meeting until 12. So I continued on. A minute later I spoke my first words of spanish in this county. “Donde esta el bano?” I asked one of the workers in the airport. It felt so cool/weird speaking spanish for real. All the times before it had just been practice at school or with eliana in preparation for the trip but here I was actually having to rely on my knowledge of the language (which isn’t very much) to get around. So now I have about 2 more hours to hang out at the airport and people watch. A few things I observed already is that people seem so laid back and happy here, granted it is summer time. And the majority of the people at the airport are big families, almost no business men in suits like in the states. Everyone is just kind of standing around, taking pictures, hugging one another, in no rush at all. How great. I’m glad I’m here :)
It is now the evening of my second night and I already feel like I've been here for a week. After we met up with part of the group and our coordinator we took a mini bus to the hotel we are staying at in downtown Buenos Aires. There we met up with the rest of our group (we are only 12 people for now, and 19 once the actual semester starts in march) and had lunch. After lunch we were so eager to get out and explore the city so we decided that before our orientation started at 4 we would do just that. We walked for a while, some of the kids in our group holding maps trying to direct us around. Eventually we just found a really cool bar where we decided to stop at and most people got their first beer. Pictures of the bar can be found on facebook. Anyway we then headed back for a 3 hour long orientation mostly about safety in the city. It was actually really helpful because even though Buenos Aires is generally pretty safe there are still a lot of pickpocketters (sp?) and people who will rob you at anytime. Lesson learned: If you're planning to go out only travel around with some cash, a cell phone, and a photocopy of your passport. And only take Radio Taxi which is a taxi service that you call right before you want to be picked up. I guess that also means that I won't be wearing my Israeli Magnolia watch for the semester.
Orientation finally ended and it was time to go to an API sponsored dinner! I could probably write an essay about this restaurant but I will hold myself back. In short 5 course meal, different kinds of breads and a cheese spread, a salad bar consisting of every vegetable, bean, lentil, salad mixture you can imagine, followed by epanadas, then our main course I got a delicious white fish that I still do not know the name of because they didn't know how to say it english, with fries. And then dessert! There were 3 choices: Dulce de Leche icecream, Dulce del Leche pancake (this is just a crepe with the dulce de leche inside), or a fruit salad. 2 of my friends and I decided we would each get a different one and share them all. Great decision, they were all amazing especially the icecream that blew us away. The restaurant was really awesome too. It was underground, still pretty fancy with pop art paintings all around. Again check fb for pics (they'll be coming soon).
Day #2 I will hopefully get to writing about tomorrow. Its now time for dinner and then our first free night in the city!
I jotted this down yesterday when I was waiting at the airport for a couple of hours before meeting up with the rest of my group.
After about a 20 hour journey I finally arrived! I walked out of security and was bombarded with signs for different tour groups, then I remembered that it was only 9am and my group wasn’t meeting until 12. So I continued on. A minute later I spoke my first words of spanish in this county. “Donde esta el bano?” I asked one of the workers in the airport. It felt so cool/weird speaking spanish for real. All the times before it had just been practice at school or with eliana in preparation for the trip but here I was actually having to rely on my knowledge of the language (which isn’t very much) to get around. So now I have about 2 more hours to hang out at the airport and people watch. A few things I observed already is that people seem so laid back and happy here, granted it is summer time. And the majority of the people at the airport are big families, almost no business men in suits like in the states. Everyone is just kind of standing around, taking pictures, hugging one another, in no rush at all. How great. I’m glad I’m here :)
It is now the evening of my second night and I already feel like I've been here for a week. After we met up with part of the group and our coordinator we took a mini bus to the hotel we are staying at in downtown Buenos Aires. There we met up with the rest of our group (we are only 12 people for now, and 19 once the actual semester starts in march) and had lunch. After lunch we were so eager to get out and explore the city so we decided that before our orientation started at 4 we would do just that. We walked for a while, some of the kids in our group holding maps trying to direct us around. Eventually we just found a really cool bar where we decided to stop at and most people got their first beer. Pictures of the bar can be found on facebook. Anyway we then headed back for a 3 hour long orientation mostly about safety in the city. It was actually really helpful because even though Buenos Aires is generally pretty safe there are still a lot of pickpocketters (sp?) and people who will rob you at anytime. Lesson learned: If you're planning to go out only travel around with some cash, a cell phone, and a photocopy of your passport. And only take Radio Taxi which is a taxi service that you call right before you want to be picked up. I guess that also means that I won't be wearing my Israeli Magnolia watch for the semester.
Orientation finally ended and it was time to go to an API sponsored dinner! I could probably write an essay about this restaurant but I will hold myself back. In short 5 course meal, different kinds of breads and a cheese spread, a salad bar consisting of every vegetable, bean, lentil, salad mixture you can imagine, followed by epanadas, then our main course I got a delicious white fish that I still do not know the name of because they didn't know how to say it english, with fries. And then dessert! There were 3 choices: Dulce de Leche icecream, Dulce del Leche pancake (this is just a crepe with the dulce de leche inside), or a fruit salad. 2 of my friends and I decided we would each get a different one and share them all. Great decision, they were all amazing especially the icecream that blew us away. The restaurant was really awesome too. It was underground, still pretty fancy with pop art paintings all around. Again check fb for pics (they'll be coming soon).
Day #2 I will hopefully get to writing about tomorrow. Its now time for dinner and then our first free night in the city!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
4 hours to departure
Hey everyone!
This is my first of hopefully many posts to come about my semester abroad in Buenos Aires. Right now I'm sitting in my kitchen for the last time this morning, eating a whole wheat egg and cheese sandwich probably for the last time (it doesn't strike me as an argentine breakfast staple), and just putting together last minute things. I can't say that I'm soo excited as of yet but I know that this feeling will probably hit me once I walk off the plane. It actually kind of hit me yesterday when me and my mom were out for lunch at a kosher little chinese restaurant in Brookline and there was this group of 4 spanish speaking kids maybe a little older than me sitting right across from us. It was so nice and different to hear another language other than English being spoken. Eventually we did ask them where they were from and they told us Chile! Cool, hopefully I'll get a chance to travel there as well! Well this entry is going to be cut short now because I have an hourish left and I have to go finish packing. Yes I know very typical of me.
Anyway, I will miss you all very much and I wish you all a great semester. I promise I will try to update me as much as I can...I just haven't done one of these things since Xanga in 10th grade of highschool (woah flashback).
Adios for now,
Karen
This is my first of hopefully many posts to come about my semester abroad in Buenos Aires. Right now I'm sitting in my kitchen for the last time this morning, eating a whole wheat egg and cheese sandwich probably for the last time (it doesn't strike me as an argentine breakfast staple), and just putting together last minute things. I can't say that I'm soo excited as of yet but I know that this feeling will probably hit me once I walk off the plane. It actually kind of hit me yesterday when me and my mom were out for lunch at a kosher little chinese restaurant in Brookline and there was this group of 4 spanish speaking kids maybe a little older than me sitting right across from us. It was so nice and different to hear another language other than English being spoken. Eventually we did ask them where they were from and they told us Chile! Cool, hopefully I'll get a chance to travel there as well! Well this entry is going to be cut short now because I have an hourish left and I have to go finish packing. Yes I know very typical of me.
Anyway, I will miss you all very much and I wish you all a great semester. I promise I will try to update me as much as I can...I just haven't done one of these things since Xanga in 10th grade of highschool (woah flashback).
Adios for now,
Karen
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