Hey everyone!

Sorry it’s taken me so long to update…I’ve been keeping pretty busy, what with classes finally in full swing all over the city and actually making FRIENDS (see some here)!

Clockwise from the top left: Sara (from Elon in NC), Natasha (from University of Oregon), Colby (from Vanderbilt), Me, Crystal (from Occidental College in LA).

This picture was from one of my recent adventures in which I went to go see Luciano’s band, Imperio Diablo, perform at the Festival Nacional de Folklore in La Plata.

La Plata is the capital of the province of Buenos Aires (I’m living in the city of Buenos Aires, which is different…the city functions basically like Washington, DC does; it’s the capital of the country but doesn’t pertain to any province) and it’s about an hour away from the city of Buenos Aires by bus. A bunch of us went to see them play. Here’s a picture, which I stole from my friend Sara’s (top left above) facebook!

The band has about ten members but this is a pretty excellent picture of Luciano playing the accordion in one of their songs. Their music is Latin American folk music meshed with sort of hip hop-y stuff. They were really fantastic. Luciano gave me one of their cds but it just really can’t compare to hearing them live. They’ve got brass instruments, some electronic stuff, the accordion, strings, etc. It’s really fun to listen to, and since they practice over here fairly often I get to hear lots of it. Iupi!

A couple of weeks ago I also finally got to go see La Boca, which is one of the most famous barrios in Buenos Aires. It’s also one of the very poorest, but has become a tourist attraction because of its colorful houses. The area is right on the edge of the city by the port and is where the vast majority of the European immigrants who came near the end of the 19th century settled and worked in shipyards and other such places. They built houses out of sheets of metal and used whatever paint was leftover from painting ships and stuff to paint the sheets. Hence, the colorful houses.

While it is very touristy and there are shops and a market that clearly exist for that reason, the tourist area is really only a few blocks and everywhere outside of that tiny area is exactly the opposite of touristy. It’s interesting to see that juxtaposition of lots of expensive things being sold to people who are clearly there visiting right in the middle of a community that couldn’t afford to buy the things those vendors are selling.

My classes are all going very well so far, I am happy to say. I’m taking one at FLACSO, one at the private Catholic university here (UCA), and two at the public University of Buenos Aires (UBA). I like them all, but the ones at UBA are definitely the most fun for me, just because I feel like I’m really with Argentines…the FLACSO one is with all students from the program, which is great but they’re all from the US. The one at UCA is with Argentine students but, because of the way it’s set up it seems much more like high school in that everyone knows each other and the professor and it’s very cliquey. The UBA is definitely much more of a university feeling, and it’s been really interesting to see how that works here. UBA is completely free and anyone who wants to can take classes there. So, in my sociology class people range from me being almost certainly the youngest to a woman who is in her 60s. Most of the students appear to be in their mid20s but it’s just cool to see such a wide range of people there with all different situations. It also makes for really interesting class discussions! It’s the most prestigious school in the country (and a world-class institution, at that), but there is no entrance exam or application and no student body limit. The only requirement for attending is being willing to take all the classes required for your major and being able to pass them, which is definitely a challenge, but there is no rush; people can take as long as they want or need to graduate. So if someone is working and can only take one class at a time or someone has a family or other emergency, or just doesn’t feel like taking classes one semester, nothing precludes them from taking the time they need. I feel like in certain ways it makes an excellent university education much more accessible than it is in the United States. The facilities are not nearly as high-tech, but there are pretty classrooms and chairs and chalkboards and professors (who get paid very little and t.a.s who are volunteers) and it seems to work pretty well.

So when Adam, Sara’s (from Georgetown) boyfriend, first got here (because he’s visiting) we thought it would be fun to go eat at a parrilla since neither of us had done so yet. Parrilla means grill and they’re the restaurants to which one would go to get a good Argentine steak. When I realized I’d been here for a month and hadn’t been to one yet, I realized that the situation needed correcting immediately, so we set up a date to go to one together. We found one that was supposed to be pretty good and relatively inexpensive, and we sat down to eat. About 15 minutes after getting there, before we ordered, we noticed that the room was filling slowly with smoke. We looked down the stairs at the kitchen and the cooks, we saw, were throwing buckets of water at the wall above the spit/oven/grill thing. Well that couldn’t be good. Then all the lights went out, so we decided at that point that leaving would be the best idea at that point. No sooner had we gotten across the street than the entire side of the restaurant and the chimney and the wall that connected to apartments were all completely on fire.

It was too unbelievable not to take a picture.

Anyway, sadly we didn’t get any steak…but sadder for whoever had to fix that damage. Luckily nobody was hurt.

On March 24 there was a huge march in memory (but not honor…) of the 33 anniversary of the last military coup that took place in 1976 and which started of the Dirty War that I mentioned in an earlier post. I went to it and it was amazing. Over 100,000 people were there, including student groups, older people, political groups, and people whose family members and friends are still missing (never returned) after having been disappeared by the government. It was really moving.

I still haven’t bought a mate but it’s my goal for the week! I’ll take pictures and explain when I finally get one.

My favorite decorative item in Carla and Luciano’s house:

(Alice in Wonderland with a blowtorch…?? )

Most amusing stencil I’ve seen so far:

T-shirts of the week: “Let’s Monster” and “Who loves good times enjoys good life” Amen to that!

Okay well I think that’s it for now. I hope you all were entertained by my musings, or at least by the pictures… I miss you all and hope you’re doing well!