Blogs from Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America - page 13

We had the opportunity today to visit the Museo de Arte Latinoamerico de Buenos Aires (MALBA). Although not particularly huge, it did have a handful of famous artists, including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, one of whose famous self-portraits is part of the permanent exhibit. Most of the museum was sculptures and modern art, though, which was both unexpected and really cool. It's not usually my style - abstract has never really caught my eye, and so many modern pieces are overtly simplistic, like one today that was just 6 small, thin slanted lines on a white background - but I appreciated the presence of color here. We had a brief tour before having time to explore by ourselves, when we found a lot of acrylic and glass works, usually with curvatures and designs to create ... read more

It's a bit like being in classes here. Perhaps because, you know, I'm in classes. Unfortunately, that means that there's not much to tell you about half the day. I practiced talking? We practiced tenses? Including the subjunctive...which I suppose is a bit interesting, because there's not really a true equivalent in English. While English does have its own subjunctive mood, its use is limited and usually not noticed, because, as with most conjugations of any given English verb, it's the same as the infinitive. It's usually used to express suggestions or unrealities, but often sounds unnecessarily formal in English, whereas it's common in Spanish. As an example, "I hope you study" translates to "Ojalá que estudies." Both of these are in the subjunctive mood, but most English speakers will neither recognize nor know that it ... read more

As you may be able to tell, we've been busy, and as a result, tired. Now when you're tired, the logical thing to do is sleep. So of course we went out clubbing until 6:00 am again. Luckily, with the weekend and all, we were able to sleep and relax for quite a bit of time. I pretty much hung around home until about 1:30, at which point I went out to meet a friend. We were trying to change dollars, which is very interesting here. There are basically 4 exchange rates: the official one, which is currently around A$9.15 to $1.00 (they use the same sign for their pesos, so I'm adding an "A" to avoid confusion), but can fluctuate a dozen centavos (A$ cents) a day. Then there's the "middle man" one, which we ... read more

As we all know, Independence Day in the USA is a pretty big deal. Days off, hamburgers, beer, fireworks, and of course always the couple idiots that do something stupid and make the news. In Argentina, it's not quite as big a deal, so they make up for it by essentially having two: May 25 and July 9. May 25th corresponds to the May Revolution, when the people revolted against the Viceroy and instituted their own local government. This day is huge in the Buenos Aires Province, since the revolutions were in BA. July 9th is the day of the independence declaration, which took place in Tucumán, in west Argentina. It's less important in BA but huge over there. As we went out last night (and some of us may have possibly gotten home around 6:15), ... read more

Practice makes perfect. Or permanent, depending on who you ask. Regardless, 3 hours of practice a day for 3 weeks should do the trick. We added a fifth member to our class today. We'll see how he's there; although he's very nice, I feel like he may be able to learn and thrive better a level down. But at the same time, I like having another classmate. I feel like four is just that tiny bit too small but five is good. Of course, when one of the other four doesn't show up because he drank away all his money the night before, having a replacement is also good. Not that that's necessarily something that happened, I'm just saying that I'm glad I didn't go to the club last night, and I'll leave it there. After ... read more