Advertisement
Published: February 6th 2010
I had a great first week of exploring the city (mostly at night) and my first tutoring session. I was teaching english to a 15 year old girl Lucia, who was really sweet but timid, probably kind of like me at her age. Unfortunately, all I had to go on was the notes she took in class last year, no book, no exercises. To make matters worse, the notes were completely in english because they are not allowed to write in spanish, and she did not know the majority of what it said! So we spent some time going through a couple pages of notes with me translating to make sure she understood and then I gave her some sentences along the same lines we had just gone over. Hopefully it was helpful, I wish I had taken spanish more recently so I remembered how some of the grammar differences were explained to me. I think I am going to be with Lucia again on Monday, but there was also some talk about switching to law and accounting with someone else, so we shall see. After tutoring for an hour and a half I played some math games with the little guys, probably about 8 years old, then I ¨made eggs¨with a 5 year old 😊 The neighborhood where the center is seems rundown, but not as bad as the mud road shanty towns, but they still tell you to go straight to the bus stop and not speak any english, although I am sure they can peg us for tourists anyway. The first day we forgot the english rule and a woman actually heard us talking and came out to make sure that we were not going to be walking around, so I guess things can be bad.
I am starting to get adjusted to the late nights, mostly by sleeping until 10:30 and sometimes taking a nap as well. On Wednesday I set out on the bus to get to the Museo del arte Latinoamericano, but after speaking with someone who obviously didn´t know her museums (not that I woud have in DC either!), I got off early and ended up at the Museo Nacional del Bellas Artes (The National Museum of Beautiful Arts, love the name). It had everything from ceremonial pottery from before christ, a neat 17th century series of tablets depicting the spanish conquest of Mexico, and recent art from all over, though very few artists I had heard of.
Thursday afternoon Stacey, Suzie, Sarah and I setout to St. Martin Square to meet a bicycle tour of the Reserve, Puerta Modera and L a Boca. However, there was a little confusion and Stacey had thought the price was 30 pesos, but it was 30 USD, which many did not have and did not want to spend. So, we set out on foot to do as much of the tour ourselves, visiting the Port and the edge of the reserve because it was closed because of too much rain. After some delicious ice cream, we headed to the main square, with beautiful colonial style buildings running down all four sides. We then borded the oldest Subte (subway) system, which is mainly wooden and the cars are from the early early 1900s (1909 I believe), for a fun, but HOT ride home. Thursday night took us to a secret restaurant, which was in the courtyard and one room of a house, surrounded by high walls, and in a neighborhood. The atmosphere was great, and other people´s food was good, but I decided to try something traditional and while the flavor was good, I ended up with unidentified meet products, which Stacey (from Trinidad) said were pigs tails or something, so I ate mostly beans with a tasty sauce.
Friday night was Suzie´s (from England) 19th Birthday, so we started out the night with some Caipirinhas made by Martina, who is from Brazil. Before heading to dinner (10:30 reservation) we had a delicious chocolate cake from a local bakery. The restaurant, Lele de Troya, was AWESOME. It was a collection of different rooms on two floors and each room was a different color and atmosphere. The food was all delicious and the wine was tasty and cheap. The plan was then bar (at 1am), then club because 1an is too early to go to a club. Unfortunately the bar, which looked really neat with board games and all, was full, so we started walking towards the club 4 blocks away. People wanted red bulls and vodka so we stopped at a bar on the way and had one drink, then on to the club around 2:20. What a place! Above the first area there were two people dressing up and one was pretending to rob the other of jewelry at gun point. It didn´t really seem to progress anywhere. VERY odd. There was dj playing 80s and 90s American songs that were fun to dance for for the first 4 or 5 songs, then a band went on. Wow, they were AWFUL.. At first the beat sounded good, but then they started singing, or rather screaming, and one looked like he had escaped from a mental institute and was ¨dancing around¨ and acting like a wild animal. The dancing stopped. At 3, Stacey and I made our escape!
Still no pics because the computer does not have USB 😞 Will have to go to an internet cafe at some point, but I have been busy!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 5; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0367s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mommy
non-member comment
LOL
Was really laughing at the ed. Trying to read out loud to Dad but had to keep stopping. Esp the club. What a time you are having. Continue to lve your descriptions. If yo decide you don't like law you can always start writin travel books! Trip to Ireland progressing nicely. Most planned. Edmund and Chris arrivineg mtn about 1115. I am going over to ave lunch and they will start skiing at 12. Aunt Heln driving up for afternooon becuz UG at basketball game, and lunch and dinner, so she had a lot of free time. Will miss you!!!! XOXM