back in BA

since i've been back in BA...

a few noteables...

thursday my future roomate nancy and i went over to our realators office and placed a reservation on our apt. that we're going to rent for the month of may. it was really exciting to finally get the apt finalized. i am really looking forward to having my own space again with my own kitchen, my own bathroom, and tv...its really difficult to go from living on my own for 2 1/2 back into living with a family again, especially a family of 7 people. (i cant upload the pictures from the website, so here is a link, im moving in this monday, so i will be sure to upload some then too! http://www.tucasargentina.com/deptos.asp?id=80&action=rent%20a%20flat%20in%20Buenos%20Aires&area=Recoleta

friday i went to MALBA (Museo de america latina en buenos aires). the measeum was built in a beutiful new building. unlike other museums which can be dark and sometimes dank and stuffy, this one had HUGE skylights and windows, the interior was painted in white and lime green.

they were showing a david Lachapelle exhibit, a photographer and music video director. he takes really interesting pictures of popculture icons.

here is a link to the exhibit http://www.davidlachapelle.com/exhibitions.php

this weekend was pretty busy, as this week is our last week of classes, its pretty much the same as finals week--between the fact that it was raining for most of the weekend and all the work that we had coming up i didnt get out too much.

Iguazu falls

Because our trip to paraguay was canceled, we were allowed to spend a few more days in Iguazu falls. We took another overnight busride (this was my 4th in a week) up to Iguazu falls. Iguazu is located in what is known as the tri border zone, in between argentina, paraguay and brazil. we got to the falls on saturday morning and did tours and hikes through the falls all day saturday and sunday.

saturday we went to itaipu, which is the hydroelectric plant by the falls--one of the 7(manmade )wonders of the world...

Brasil

I pretty much had a 2 hr layover in Buenos Aires before i left with the rest of my trip for Brazil.

As i mentioned i took an overnight busride from Mendoza back to Buenos Aires, and then at 12, i reunited with rest of my group for our trip to Brazil. It was really great to see everyone again, being away for just a few days helped me realize how much i appreciated everyone on may trip.

when we got to brazil the next morning we visited an organic farm. the farm was beautiful, our guide spoke to us in portuguese so we really didnt understand very much. organic food doesnt seem to be as much of a trend as it is in the United States-i am still not exactly sure why. i think because organic food in the united states seems to be a response to the era of processed foods like spam and hamburger helper. i dont imagine that argentina or brazil ever really went through this phase, and maybe that is why they dont see a need to produce/purchase organic food. after our visiit through the farm, they had a beautiful spread of all types of snacks for us.

it was strange being in a country where i really had no comprehension of the language (portuguese). we had a few classes of portuguese, but really barely enough to even get around the city. the portuguese accent is incredibly difficult to master. it seems like spanish spoken with a russian/chinese accent--bizarre.

the other great thing about brazil is GUARANA, its basically their coke, as in it seems to be the most common (non alcoholic ) beverage in brazil. Its great, kind of fruity but not overly sweet. im sure they sell it in specialty stores in teh states...or at least at wegmans.

Mendoza

we had a short vacation from school for easter (we didnt have class thurs and fri). My friend nancy and I decided to go on a little trip to the northeast province of mendoza--right on the border of chile. mendoza is famous for their wine and chocolate, but mostly wine. it is a hot vacation spot for both argentines and chileans.

it is about a 12 hr busride from BA to mendoza, but well worth it. nancy and i got on a bus right after class on wednesday, and arrived in mendoza on thursday morning. we checked into our hostel and met up with some friends from another program who were also in mendoza (they were leaving later that day). our friend told us about a great hike that they went on, so we decided to sign up and go the next day (friday).

The hike was a 4 hr bus ride away--we woke up at 6am to get to the bus station by 7am. the hike was at a place called puente de inca, and led us to the area around the summit of mt aconcagua, the highest peak in the americas. we hiked around the area for a bit, ate a picnic lunch and enjoyed the sights.

sometimes its hard to realize how busy city life is until you can really get away from it and enjoy the nature.

we left saturday afternoon, so we didnt have as much time as we wanted to do a full tour of the wine country, but we took a bus, and gave ourselves a little tour of the vineyards.

afterwards, we got back on our overnight bus, and arrived back in BA a few hours ago!

(Sorry about the lack of pictures in this entry...i temporarily lost my camera, or as they say in spanish mi camera, se perdio--my camera lost itself, i like that better i think...)

im off to porto alegre brazil and then iguazu falls for the next week and a half--comments are welcome, sometimes blogging gets lonely.
xoxo


ciao!

de donde veneis? mitzriyim. y adonde vas? yerushalyim.

"where did you come from? Egypt. and where are you going? Jerusalem"

(this is how they started the first seder, i thought it sounded really cool)

Passover in Buenos Aires


buenos aires is said to have the 3rd largest jewish population second to israel, and ny (i know this statistic is kind of off because israel is a state and ny and ba are cities...but you get the point...)

anyways, so knew there were a lot of jews here, i just didnt know where to find them! well, on passover they started coming out of the wooidwork! it inspired me to start looking more into the jewish community here, which i will definatly start doing when we come back from brazil next wednesday.

i was lucky enough to have a contact in the jewish community here--a girl around my age who lives a short train ride out of the city. i spent the first seder with her at her moms house, and the second with her dad's side of the family.

before the first seder, we went to shul, just for the usual evening service. it was exactly the same as what i am used to (except for a few melodies here and there, but nothing that i couldnt figure out). it was really comforting to be in an environment that i knew so well.

both of the seders were very nice, different than what we do at home, but interesting and fun.

cultural experiences

when i got back to buenos aires i realized that for the most part the extent of my cultural experiences in buenos aires was limited to boliches (big dance clubs...) i decided to change that this past weekend.

on saturday, my friend nancy and i went to the fine arts museum in my neighborhood. they had a special exhibit on portraits. the interesting part was that a lot of portraits were not that in the stereotypical sense, they included many other more abstract works too.

sunday lauren and i went to the san telmo fair. it was a glorified lilac festival, and lord knows how much i love the lilac festival! there were tons of cute antiques and other jewelry and housewares to buy.

monday, it was a national holiday so i went to the zoo. it was a beautiful day outside and the zoo was great.

stay posted for more cultural experiences....

mediocre montevideo

sorry its been a while since i've updated, i accidentally left my adaptor in the hotel in montevideo, and havent turned on my computer for the last week--but its been busy so there's a lot to say...

we spent a last week (actually 2 weeks ago at this point) in montevideo. although i know we didnt get to see the best of the city, i still wasnt very impressed.

before i start bemoaing montevideo, ill first note that i was surprised how culturally different montevideo was from buenos aires. i figured being so close to each other geographically, i assumed they would be more similar. the culture in montevideo was much more relaxed, slower paced, and casual than buenos aires, it was a nice change.

while we were in montevideo the weather was mostly gray and rainy (that might be part of the reason why i was not super impressed with it...) anyways some noteable things that we did while we were there....

we learned about housing cooperatives that are fairly popular in montevideo. we first visted the housing cooperative central office, which provides framework for all the cooperertives that are starting up. then the next day we got to actually visit a housing cooperative. the housing cooperative seemed very similar to habitat for humanity but more of a bottom up initiative. a group of people get together and create a the criteria for membership, it is typically a committement of both time and money. for example the cooperative we visited required an amount of money (i dont remember exactly, it was also confusing because it was in peso uruguayos, which i still dont quite understand. and then 20 hrs of work per family unit each week, most adults in the cooperatives have other jobs). ideally everyone puts in equal time into the houses, and they all come out of equal value.

we also got to visit a beautiful old theatre called teatro solis, it was very close to our hotel, so we went on a short tour in the morning.

we visited the mercosur building for an info session about mercosur. on the mercosur front...first of all venezuela has just been added as the fifth member of mercosure, their oil capabilities will be in interesting addition to the previous mercosure lineup. the other big issue on the mercosur front currently is the disequality in between the member countries. brazil is biggest bread winner, followed by argentina--and then paraguay and uruguay trail far behind. here is a picture of the mercosur building--it was beautiful. it was far more impressive than the partliament building (which we also visited). it made me wonder if the buildings were a symbol that it was more important for uruguay to connect with other latin america countries, than to focus on their internal affairs.

while we were in montevideo, we also had some short lectures on basic historical and political info