Buenos Aires

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I´m splitting Buenos Aires up because I´ve done a lot in the last few days, and also because its raining and I have nowhere to be for a few hours. As I mentioned, I arrived on Saturday via an awesome bus ride that erased all my memories of the buses in Bolivia (although we did get in a few hours late, can´t ask for too much). I visited Boca (the poorest barrio in Buenos Aires, which is all relative... after spending time in other South American cities I thought that Boca was rather nice) and saw el Estadio de Club Boca Juniors and a couple of small but unique museums, including the Proa, Bellas Artes de Boca and el Caminato, a colorful but overtouristy area. I went over to the apt of a friend and fellow Bruin Alum to try to find the UCLA football game -- which, of course, woud have been cool because I haven´t seen football let alone tv during my entire time here. Despite being nationally televised, there was no stream, so we enjoyed watching USC get destroyed by Stanford. On my way back, in an effort to atone for missing La Noche del Museo in Sucre, Bolivia, I decided to enjoy the Portenian equivalent (also called Noche del Museo. Creativity´s at a premium). Over 150 museums participate by opening for free from 9-2am. Rather than visit the popular museums I used it is an opportunity to see the smaller museums I normally wouldn´t even know about. The Anatomy & Physiology Museum and the Pathology museum, associated with the univeristy medical school, exhibited a variety of tissues, organs and diagrams from a number of conditions. It was pretty cool to see real examples of what I learned about in school (holoprosencephaly, parasites, etc). Afterwards I visited the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum, which featured a video and speech from a Holocaust survivor, but the exhibits were mostly writing and I was too tired to translate. Briefly stopped at the Tango Museum, which had live music but no dancing. Finally made it back around 2am, a bit sick of museums

On Sunday I explored the famous San Telmo antiques fair, which also boasted street performers, dancers, etc. I met up with two Canadian girls from Iguazu and we went to el Estadio de River Plate (Buenos Aires´other futbol club) -- something that I really wanted to do on the trip. Unfortunately the tickets I purchased were for the visiting section (no one thought to tell me), and they don´t permit you to change for security reasons. Since we had no interest in either team it didn´t matter, but the fans and the police were a bit confused as to why we were there. It´s the first time I´ve ever watched a sporting event from behind a barbed wire fence. Regardless, it was an awesome experience, with Athletico Tucaman going ahead in the first 10 minutes but River Plate scoring three goals in the second half for the victory. The futbol was subpar but the chants, dancing and overall atmosphere was unforgettable. If I have a chance I´d love to go to another match.

Yesterday I did a walking tour of the city, beginning in San Telmo and ending in Palermo. I saw the Recoleta Cemetery, which boasts amazing mausoleums for Buenos Aires´elite, as well as the site of Evita´s grave. I saw the flora metalica, a really cool sculpture that uses solar energy to open and close according to the sunlight. Of course, it being Monday, a lot of the museums were closed. However, I was still able to get into Malba, which featured a latin-American exhibit as well as a decent Andy Warhol exhibit. Afterwards I found a park in Palermo to read and take a brief nap before dinner (and my first Argentinian steak, which was delectable, and about $5). Today I was planning on visiting the eco-reserve, but the rain is making that doubtful. Booked a flight to Ushuaia for Thursday morning, so I´ll have about 3 weeks to work my way from Tierra del Fuego to Lima, Peru. Quite a long distance, but if the buses are half as nice as the one from Iguazu, I really don´t mind.

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