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Hi Everyone!
Return to the Cemetary
So this week has been a big week at Spanish school with a few interesting outings in our big city. After a quiet start to the week (Spanish is coming along nicely J ) on Thursday we took a tour with one of our Spanish teachers (part of the whole package) to Recoleta, the ritzy, expensive part of Buenos Aires. We took a crazy colectivo (Buenos Aires buses - the drivers have a tendency to weave through traffic and open the doors for you to disembark as the bus is still hurtling down the block) and started the tour opposite a huge former church which is now used by one of the big universities as a faculty building. We continued down the road to the National Library, a huge 60s looking building which took 30 years to complete and holds the best collection in Argentina. Our teacher Luciana then took us through some of the parks and plazas. She really knows her stuff, reeling off the names and dates of all the presidents who have statues in the park and streets named after them. Plus it was all in Spanish and we actually managed to follow her pretty well. We even asked questions- we'd seen younger, school aged kids coming home wearing what looked like tiny little lab coats. I asked Luciana why and she explained that when the public school system was first set up, as they had so many kids of different nationalities - Italian, German, indigenous Argentinians etc and a lot of division between the communities. The white coat was like a uniform so they all looked more similar and to promote unity between the school kids and some schools still maintain the tradition. Ryan was particularly interested in Fidel Castro's visit to BA. In 2003 he came and made one public appearance, ironically in Recoleta, BA's most notoriously conservative suburb. Despite this, the speech was attended by thousands and an entire roadway was shut off beneath the foot bridge where he spoke from. (We posted a photo from the bridge earlier, it's the one with the Che Guevara portrait).The final part of the tour was visiting the Recoleta cemetery - a return visit for us. However it was fascinating hearing the history of the place as we walked around and it had just rained so all the cats were sheltering in the tomb doorways - so cute (or creepy??). We also visited Evita's grave which we hadn't done the previous week and Luciana told us the very interesting story of how Eva's body was shipped off to Europe and only in the 70s was returned to Buenos Aires. It's a very complex story but worth looking up if you're particularly interested. We said goodbye to Luciana then and went on with the next part of our day. After seeing the level of poverty in this city, as we mentioned in our last blog, we decided we wanted to look into doing something hands on to help. After a lot of research and recommendations from both a friend and our Spanish teacher we decided to volunteer with LIFE or Luchamos Infancia Feliz y Esperanza (we fight for children's happiness and hope) Thursday afternoon was our orientation with the organization and it went really well. Essentially what they do is run workshops, parties and football games for kids living in the very poorest areas around Buenos Aires. They started after Argentina's economic crash of 2001 when the level of poverty got significantly worse in this country. There's a lot of young people working there especially doing internships from America, so the vibe is pretty laidback but at the same time there's a specific code of conduct relating to the treatment of kids we work with. Anyway, we will do our first official session is a birthday party at a community centre for all the kids having a birthday this week in that neighbourhood. We have cake, dancing etc. So we'll let you know how it all goes!!
Tangotastic!
In a generally quiet week, the last few days have been quite busy, so we'll try and fill you in on mostly what's been happening around our weekend. On Friday night, we had decided to finally get ourselves to a tango show. Buenos Aires is perhaps most famous for it's passion for tango, and there is certainly no shortage of choice when it comes to where you can catch a show. For our first foray into one of the city's greatest institutions, we decided to go with a classic venue with a good deal of porteno history - Café Tortoni. The café has been at the centre of the BA cultural scene since the early 1900s, and during the course of the 20th century, has been famous for not only its vibrant tango scene, but also as a hang out for the local literary talent. We headed out to Café Tortoni around 7:30, about an hour before the show was to start. At our table, were seated a lovely couple (Australian/German) on the last leg of their South American holiday - we were even lucky enough to get some tips from them on countries we will be heading to. Time passed quickly before the show had begun, and it didn't take long for us to be completely roped in to the spectacle. The show was effectively broken into three seperate 'mediums' of entertainment - song, dance and music - which were rotated and mixed together throughout the show. All told, it was an amazing experience, and even though we did not understand all of the words to the songs, the show itself definitely transcended lingual boundaries. This was especially of true, when it came to the tango itself, which was obvious in the emotion, tension, and passion exhibited in the incredibly romantic, yet violent dance. Hopefully, some of the photos and video we have taken can give you a bit of an idea! Before we knew it, the show had finished, and we left the café very impressed and keen to catch another show if we get the chance.
In Spanish, Botanical = Cat!
The next day we decided to head out to the greenest suburb of Buenos Aires - Palermo. We visited the Botanical Gardens here, which are beautiful and filled with people, relaxing, eating and even sun baking in bikinis! We saw some interesting plants and statues and lots and lots of cats! The gardens are renowned for their cat population- strays which are fed and watered by locals and live within the fences of the gardens. We felt like we were in cat heaven! They are so placid too, just lolling around and sleeping metres from picnicking families. We took lots of pictures, see our photo albums! We headed home after a quick lunch - we needed to have a siesta as we were going out!! We met friends from Couch Surfing Bianca, Adam, George, Zack and some of Zack's housemates for drinks at Utopia bar in Plaza Serrano. From there we trekked a few blocks to a private party of sorts (a friend of a friend's) where after knocking on a random door we paid 10 pesos to enter and got a free drink. It was kinda of like a performance/exhibition space with heaps of cool art and photography on the walls and it could be hired out for parties like this one. After a while we left in search of another boliche (club) but soon gave up and just headed back to Zack's place for a few more drinks. We were quite proud to survive till 5.30 am this Saturday, a much better effort than last weeks 2.00 am when so many other portenos were just heading out to the clubs!
Sunday at the Park
The next morning we woke up feeling a little worse for wear, but as it was a beautiful Sunday we naturally had no choice but to get out there and see the city! Hayley came up with the great idea of spending our day in one of the city's many parks, and upon scanning our map, we decided to head to the enormous patch of green towards the north of the city. So, once again (for the third time that weekend!) we headed out to Palermo. One interesting thing that we thought we would mention at this point is just another little side note in the craziness of BA. The trains are often very packed and always filled with a mixed crowd. It is not uncommon to see beggars shuffling between the carriages, but they are never confrontational, and are just another permanent and accepted part of the metropolis. But on seemingly just about every train in the city, you will find people trying to flog you (often) useless trinkets. These range from rainbow packs of hair ties and mass produced bracelets, to bus/train guides. The weirdest part is the method of advertisement. The 'vendor' walks along the carriage, placing the relevant product in peoples hands, even on their knees. Once they have made it to the end of the compartment, they head back to the start and make any necessary exchanges for money, but more often than not, the hawkers collect the products unsold. Their sales theory seems to be "If we let you stare at it for long enough, surely you'll want to buy it!" We are yet to see a successful sale.
After our relatively uneventful train ride, we arrived near the Botanical Gardens we had explored the previous day. Across from the gardens is the city's zoo (for which the line on a Sunday is enormous. Shudder.). Beyond the zoo is the city's largest and most diverse park, Parque 3 de Febrero, and this was our objective for the day. Here, we spent hours just wandering through the amazing diversions the park had to offer; from the gorgeous Rose Garden (which apparently turns into a transvestite hang out at night!) to the Epcot-centre-like Planetarium. We got the impression that this was where everyone in greater Buenos Aires came on a Sunday - people were everywhere, cycling, rollerblading, playing futbol, riding paddleboats and just generally enjoying the great environment that the park had to offer The best thing about the park was that even though there were so many people there, because it is so large, it is very easy to find an out of the way spot somewhere in the area. It was one of the rare moments in our trip, having spent so much time living in huge cities, that we both felt truly relaxed. After spending the better part of the day in the area, we said a long goodbye to tranquility and made our way home for a tasty dinner of risotto, watched some tv and went to bed, fresh and ready to start our new week.
And once again, that brings us up to date for another week. We miss you all, don't forget to leave us a message every now and then, and check out the new photos! Also, we wanted to clear something up from our last blog - we mentioned hearing a loud American girl in passing, saying something had been phenom. We are pretty sure this was short for phenomenal. We think. Anyway, please feel free to ask any questions you may have and we will try to answer them in our blog from now onwards.
All our love
Hayley and Ryan
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