Despite being worried for a few moments that I wouldn't get out of Mendoza on Saturday due to the weather and cancellations, I ended up arriving as planned in the afternoon! Francisco and I swam through the streets of Buenos Aires all day and we were able to see a bunch of places. First, I had to prep him for the new vocabulary he'd have to start using/recognizing.... For a swimming pool, we usually say "una piscina" but here they say "una pileta." For avocado, we say "un aguacate" but here they say "una palta." strawberries--fresa--frutilla bus--colectivo T-shirt--camiseta--remera butter--mantequilla--manteca sidewalk--acera--vereda exactly--exacto/cabal (El Salvador)--tal cual In México they use "gu:ey" (pronounced way), in El Salvador they use "maje" and here "che" (more often in some places than others) When something is fake/artificial, they say it's "trucho." Even if he used all the colloquial terms, I'm sure he'd still be called out as not being Argentinian because of his accent, as we've had the conversation many times since yesterday with people! Llegué el sábado por la tarde a pesar de las demoras y cancelaciones. Cayó un montón de lluvia por todo el día y Francisco y yo nadábamos por las calles de Buenos Aires pasando a varios lugares. Antes de salir, tuve que darle una lección del nuevo vocabulario aquí (¡es casi otro idioma!). Faltan bastantes palabras, pero estas son las que recuerdo y que hemos usado/oído más..... piscina--pileta, aguacate--palta bus--colectivo fresa--frutilla camiseta--remera mantequilla--manteca acera----vereda cabal/exacto----tal cual maje--che falso/chavela--trucho fresa---frutilla Me imagino que es similar en España como me han corregido varias veces que aquí no hablan español sino castellano. Our hotel is right near the Plaza de Mayo and in walking distance to many other things. Its location, price and breakfast that includes scrambled eggs (a rare commodity!) were the reasons for choosing it. My students had to plan 4 days of my trip to Argentina for a project this past semester and many picked some great hotels in Buenos Aires and other places. Since we're only spending a short time in each place, I had to choose lodgings based on location and price primarily. Nuestro hotel se encuentra por la Plaza de Mayo (enlace arriba) y cerca de muchas otras cosas. El lugar, precio y el desayuno americano (no es algo típico aquí--jamas he comido tanto pan blanco en mi vida!!) fueron las razones por escoger este lugar. Para un proyecto en la escuela, mis estudiantes tuvieron que planear 4 días de nuestro viaje a Argentina y muchos encontraron lugares muy bonitos en el país. Solo podemos pasar un rato en cada lugar así que tomé en cuenta sus sugerencias pero al fin tuve que escoger el hospedaje más adecuado para nosotros y el poco tiempo en cada destino. Below are some photos from the plaza. It was raining pretty heavily at times, thus it was hard to get photos while juggling an umbrella as well! The last couple of photos above are the equivalent of the US White House--la Casa Rosada. It only contains the President's offices though. The balcony is where Eva Perón (Evita) spoke (and others). My guide book said there were tours at the Casa Rosada, but you have to book them ahead of time. I scheduled for us to come on Friday when we're back in Buenos Aires, if everything works out. Las últimas fotos son de la Casa Rosada aquí en Argentina--la Casa Blanca de aquí aunque solo tiene las oficinas del president--su residencia se encuentra en otro lugar. El balcón es famoso por los discursos de Eva Perón y otros. Llegamos para tomar un tour pero hay que programarlo con anticipación. Lo pedí para el viernes cuando regresamos de nuevo y ojalá todo salga bien. We walked around to find a place to eat and ended up at London City near our hotel. It ended up having lots of things dedicated to the writer, Julio Cortázar, including a corner booth with a statue of him sitting there. Apparently it was a place where he enjoyed writing. Anduvimos buscando un restaurante y llegamos a London City. Tenía un homenaje a Julio Cortázar allí aun una estatua de él escribiendo en un rincón. We walked across the Plaza to the Catedral Metropolitana de Buenos Aires. It was impressive and enormous. It is where the José de San Martín is buried--he was the leader of Argentina's independence from Spain. We'll actually be here for their Bicentennial Independence Day celebration on July 9, but I'm still trying to figure out what's going on. There are tons of events throughout the month of July, but I haven't found anything for the actual day yet. Fuimos a la Catedral Metropolitana de Buenos Aires donde descansa Jose de San Martín, el líder de la independencia de España. Se celebra su independencia el 9 de julio y aunque estaremos aquí durante el día, no he averiguado de ninguna celebración, desfile, etc. todavía. We then went to the Cabildo--it served as the center of colonial government since 1580. It's changed its form, but not its location, over the years. We missed the last guided tour, but the information on the walls provided a lot of insights. It was a key location during the Revolution. Luego fuimos al Cabildo--fue el centro del gobierno colonial desde 1580. No tuvimos un guía, pero había mucha información en los letreros en el museo. The highlight for the night for Francisco was attending the loosely organized rally that took place under the obelisk in Buenos Aires to get Lionel Messi to return to the Argentinian National Team. The rain really put a damper on things, but there was still a sizable crowd that would erupt in chants, song and dancing along with an occasional firework at times. El evento más esperado para Francisco era el llamado de los argentinos implorando a Messi que regrese al equipo nacional. Hubiera estado más gente, pero estaba lloviendo fuerte. After a little late start this morning and enjoying breakfast, we looked into our plans for the day. We REALLY wanted to head out of the city and do some horseback riding on a ranch, but I called so many places and either they didn't offer it on Sundays or weren't going to because of the weather. Después de despertarnos tarde y desayunar planeamos el día de hoy. Teníamos MUCHAS ganas de salir al campo y cabalgar pero por el pronóstico, varios lugares no ofrecieron las cabalgatas hoy. =( It turned out that the weather was better today with only a few moments of heavy rain, but it made walking outside a lot more enjoyable. We perused the blocks and blocks of the market in San Telmo that has a lot of artesian products. We picked up some unique pieces and souvenirs. The journey put us in the direction of the Boca Juniors stadium--La Bombonera. We arrived in time to get a tour of the world-famous stadium. It was really neat to be inside, go on the field (well, the sidelines) and see things behind-the-scenes. There were people in our tour group from all over Latin America--Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico and maybe even more! Estaba bien nublado todo el día pero la lluvia no estaba tan mal que ayer. Pasábamos por la calle del mercado grande en San Telmo donde había bastante artesanía. La calle nos llevó en camino al estadio del equipo de fútbol, Boca Juniors--La Bombonera! Compramos un tour guiado y pasamos.... Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can leave for El Calafate on time tomorrow!
Should we be so happy just because our plane actually took off? Apparently in Argentina we should be! Talking to others in the airport as we waited over 2 hours for our flight to board without any information at all, other than an announcement every 10 minutes saying there were air traffic control issues, this tends to be the norm here. One lady even left believing that it was a baggage workers' strike but they weren't telling us the truth! We finally made it to El Calafate though! Look at the map below to see where we are right now! We almost went to Ushuaia, the town located farthest south in the world, but decided on El Calafate instead. The berry from here is called calafate and they say that eating it guarantees your return--I think that was determined before ever eating it, but glad to know it's "true" now! We'll be heading on a glacier tour tomorrow. We only had a short time to go to the Glaciarum--the glacier museum located outside of town. But they gave us a pass to return tomorrow at not extra charge. The little bit we got to see was SO interesting! I had no idea that there was a bug that lived in the glaciers (I thought this would be an insect-free zone!). I took a few shots of some things inside, but I'm sure they will not be comparable to what we will see tomorrow! Sorry for falling behind! Aerolíneas Argentinas changed their flights on Saturday, having our scheduled flight to Patagonia leaving nearly 3 hours EARLIER than originally scheduled. This means that neither of our flights arrive on time for us to board for the earlier departure time. Thankfully they were able to rearrange all of our domestic flights this week, allowing us to spend the same amount of time in each place, only on different dates. I had to rebook all of our hotels and make plans in Buenos Aires earlier than expected (i.e. last night!).
In honor of the 6th anniversary of my open heart surgery today, I decided to do something heart-healthy so I went on a wine tour! Well, I was planning on going on the wine tour no matter what! =) We went to three different places where they make wine and one where they make olive oil. I've been to the Guinness Factory in Ireland, saw how they make mezcal in Mexico, so wine was the next one on my list of processes to learn about and appreciate more! The tour today and yesterday was arranged by Buscando America and both were great! In class today, I learned a little more about the culture in Argentina. We'll be talking about immigration next time. In my other class, we became a little more philosophical and analyzed a short film from Mendoza. We talked about the history of cinematography and how it compares/contrasts here and in the US (principally). This bottle from the wine tour just wouldn't fit in my suitcase. =( I wanted to write all the notes I took about the wine-making process and info shared in each place, but it's getting really late (Argentinian time, it's still early, but I haven't fully adapted yet!). I'll try to add the photos tomorrow (sorry--even though I have my USB cable now (check out the photos from Che house from Saturday!) because it takes a really long time to upload. |
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