Advertisement
Published: March 12th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Recoleta angel
A gorgeous day to explore the graves of Buenos Aires' rich and dead Hello everyone,
Well yes I know it has been a while since we posted anything on the blog, but as you can imagine, it has been pretty hectic here over the past couple of weeks. I have been given the duty of writing about: (as I´m sure you have all seen in the title) school, beer, and death.... random I know, but you´ll see how they all fit together well in the mosaic of Buenos Aires...
We went to the orientation for school on the 6th, and while it was exciting for me because I could understand what the people were saying... the infomation was quite dull and we didn´t really learn Anything new... They did however, have some AMAZING medialunas (like coissants) and we hit up the free stands a couple of times.. hehe. As well, the Tango teachers put on a little show for us and it was the best Tango we have seen so far for sure. After the information all the students got onto two buses and went off for a city tour. The guide was great and spoke very clearly and knew so much history and stories all about the city, and it was amazing to
¡Tequila!
Lindsay, the tequila, and the boys. realise actually how much history is packet into this city. We drove through Puerto Madero, Recoleta, Palermo, and San Telmo, Microcentro: some of the most important, central districts in BA. She told us some jokes about argentines such as: how does an argentine commit suicide?? Jumps off his/her ego... the Mexicans decended from the Aztecs, the Guatemalans decended from the Mayans, and the Argentines decended from the barges... (80% of the population are immigrants mostly from Italy and Spain) So an argentine dresses like a french person, talks like an italian, and thinks like an english person.
The city tour was also a mini history lesson, we learned that Tango was born in brothels of San Telmo, and went over to Europe where it was considered elegant, and when it re-entered Argentina, it became a dance for everyone, including the elite, and not just the poorer classes. We saw heaps of statues, but the one I remember the best was of people pulling a rope tied to a rock... it was supposed to mean that men have the strenght, women have the vision, and children have the future, and working all together progress can be achieved.
Then after the city
frightened or just fun?
lindsay and I dancing up a storm, actually reggae music is quite great for interpretive dancing, really! tour, we went back to the school and listened to the professors tell us how easy the classes are going to be. Apparently they think everyone has come here just to paryt and in realising this they are not going to ask for more then they can get... so we only have about 25 pages of reading per class to do, and only one class a week coming out to 12 hours of classes a week!
School actually starts tomorrow, and we´re getting pretty excited to go back to doing something and learning about the country we´re living in now. We´ll keep you posted.
BEER
So we have started having little parties in our appartment, so on friday we invited over some of the other exchange students: two basques, one spanish, two mexicans, and us. We ate empanadas, drank some bad bad beer, and swam in our pool, and then afterwards went out to a beer festival that was going on for 3 days here. It was all ¨homemade¨ beer, and there was also a reggie show. The thing is that Argentina doesn´t have any kind of capacity limits, and clubs, or shows just try to pack as
Baires Beer Festival 2006
Our current group of friends and party buddies. Mexico, Peru, England, Spain, Argentina and France. many people in as they can... so it can get a bit squishy with a couple of thousand people all bouncing around you. The beer was... interesting... but the music was pretty good, but definatly the best part of the night was just hanging out with the other exchange students. At the beer festival we met up with a lot of the other students and danced the night away, so it turned out great.
CREEPY TOMBS
Today we went out to Recoleta, and walked all around the fair that was going on there (every weekend) and then went to check out the cemetary... The Recoleta cemetary is the classiest cemetary in BA, they say that it is cheaper to live richly all your life then to be buried in Recoleta. There are rows upon rows of tombs that house very very very rich dead people, and the little ¨streets¨ are clean with grass and trees and cats... a great place to hang out if it weren´t for all the coffins. The tombs were so elaborate and HUGE and so fasinating... AND we had a bit of luck since one of them was open.... so we went in and
saturday night
out with marcelo and lindsay on saturday night checked it out. Most of the tombs are multi floored.. first level with some christian decorations, and flowers and marble everything, and then down in the bottom are all the caskets. We only had enough guts to go down one floor... after seeing all the coffins, and looking sown the vent to see dark, dusty third floor, we decided not to go any further and went back, looked around for a bit, and found Evitas tomb. She is buried in the Duarte family tomb, and there is usually a crowd and heaps of flowers out front. We found the site just in time to get a minute glimpse the Duarte tomb before it was swarmed by American tourists. There is a bit of controversy with Evita being buried there, since the Cemetary is a place for the richest of rich Argentine aristocrats to be buried, and since Evita dedicated more time to helping the lower classes, she isn´t the most welcomed corpse on the block.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.258s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 70; dbt: 0.1372s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
mom/ marg
non-member comment
saturday night
that looks like far too many drinks in the saturday night picture jenica.Don't forget water too.Enjoy your first day at the university.love mom/marg