With 26 days left in Buenos Aires, there are a lot of things I'm going to miss. There are also a number of things I can't wait to say chau to.
Here's a few things that I just simply need to do a little venting about.
The first thing being-
I'm tired of being "mami'd" and "puta'd". To the many doormen, young men, old men, boys still in their school uniforms...I am not your mami, bebe, chica, flaquita, puta or whatever else you want to throw at me as I walk or run past you. It's one thing to look me up and down like a machismo-ridden creep, but asking me if I wanna get with you as I'm running past you on the street, even though we both know I'd never actually respond, is getting on my GODDAMN nerves. This is one cultural difference that I don't feel flattered by and have a hard time getting behind.
The second thing-
Can a chick mail a letter around here? Once again, I understand and accept that there are both cultural and systemic differences that come with being in a foreign country. Having said that, I would like to introduce Argentina to the concept of a MAILBOX. To send any postcards back to the US, I have to go to a post office (which are not terrifically common) and buy the stamps there and watch the employee post them for me. I just want to buy some fucking stamps and post my own damn letters in a mailbox.
Third (and for now final) thing-
STREET SIGNS. Buenos Aires overwhelmingly must feel they are too cool for proper and consistent street signs. I can go for four or five blocks easily and not see a SINGLE, even poorly posted, street sign. I can tell you firsthand that when you're trying to figure out where to get off the damn bus in Buenos Aires, don't count on street signs to help you. It's such a simple (and probably silly) thing but proper street signs can go a LONGG way in helping you know where the hell you are.
That's all for now kids.
-j
Monday, June 4, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
what's next with art is...?
Tonight Chelsea and I met up with a guy named Alejandro. He's one of three guys who operate a kind of graffiti/street art photo collective at www.escritosenlacalle.com We contacted them about participating in the Art Is...project about a week ago and they hit us back saying they were interested.
Consequently, Chelsea and I found ourselves at the corner of Cabildo and Lacroze waiting for someone we'd never met. Perfectly safe.
We finally located Alejandro(who on a sidenote smelled like sandalwood)and walked a few blocks to a quieter street and along the way we talked about the Art Is...project and his own website. Since the majority of our Art Is...phrases have been basically hit and run, meaning we ask the person on the spot, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about the project at length. Therefore, when Alejandro asked questions about the project I found myself not having a lot of well-formed thoughts (in Spanish at least)and was stumped when he asked what we wanted to do with the Art Is...project and where we saw it going. With a month left in Buenos Aires, I've started to ask myself the same question but haven't come up with anything yet.
In one way, the project has already been taken further via the larger organization that is FOKUS(www.fokus.org). The Art Is project is rather how the ideas of FOKUS have been taken further. Since the question of what "Art Is" is so central to what FOKUS represents, I can't mentally separate the two. Entonces, the question of what else to do with the Art Is project doesn't have an immediate answer for me.
Gonna let this one marinate...
-j
Consequently, Chelsea and I found ourselves at the corner of Cabildo and Lacroze waiting for someone we'd never met. Perfectly safe.
We finally located Alejandro(who on a sidenote smelled like sandalwood)and walked a few blocks to a quieter street and along the way we talked about the Art Is...project and his own website. Since the majority of our Art Is...phrases have been basically hit and run, meaning we ask the person on the spot, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about the project at length. Therefore, when Alejandro asked questions about the project I found myself not having a lot of well-formed thoughts (in Spanish at least)and was stumped when he asked what we wanted to do with the Art Is...project and where we saw it going. With a month left in Buenos Aires, I've started to ask myself the same question but haven't come up with anything yet.
In one way, the project has already been taken further via the larger organization that is FOKUS(www.fokus.org). The Art Is project is rather how the ideas of FOKUS have been taken further. Since the question of what "Art Is" is so central to what FOKUS represents, I can't mentally separate the two. Entonces, the question of what else to do with the Art Is project doesn't have an immediate answer for me.
Gonna let this one marinate...
-j
Monday, May 21, 2012
deliciously awkward human theatre
This Sunday my host mother had her "graduation" for her life coaching class. I was invited and since she's been so nice to me, I thought I'd do her a solid and go to show some support. The morning began with me wondering what the hell I had voluntarily agreed to-why would I willingly spend five hours in a room full of rich Argentines celebrating themselves? I almost backed out when I realized my host dad and I were going together and saying I was sick wouldn't work.
So the two of us left the apartment building and grabbed a taxi. Mind you, this is the closest proximity my host dad and I have ever been in, save for the occasional dinner. He and the taxista had a conversation about the corrupt government while the taxista's cigarette smoke wafted back. We arrived at the hotel where the event was being held and powerwalked through the lobby. No one had arrived yet so we helped ourselves to the breakfast that we thought was for the invitees. Halfway through this mostly silent meal, a waiter came over and told us that the food was only for hotel guests. Whoops. In the smoothest of moves, my host dad paid the waiter and kept eating his ham and cheese croissant. A few other of my host parent's friends came and sat with us and I found myself deeply engrossed in a conversation about how fantastic the city of Las Vegas is and how awesome the United States government was.
We finally went in to the room where the event was set up. It looked exactly like a business conference crammed into a small space. Pepin (my host dad) and I squeezed into one of the narrow rows and sat down. A few minutes later an annoyingly bouncy man came out in front and began explaining the event. His voice sounded like that of a mid-grade car salesman and gave me the impression I was about to be swindled into buying something I didn't know I wanted. There were five other "graduates" and the first woman began her presentation. With a dance. The entire audience was urged to stand up and follow along as the Sims-looking dancers on the screen did a series of increasingly humiliating dance moves. I glanced sideways at Pepin and knew that neither of us had any intention of losing that much dignity so early in the morning. After an eternity, everyone sat down and the woman continued her presentation.
Why was this such great human theatre? Well my friends, after the woman had finished, the same bouncy man came out and began publicly critiquing what she had done. Essentially, he constructively hoed her life. Then one of the other "judges"(there were three of them, I assume the teachers of the life coaching class)came out and did the same thing. At that moment I was so glad I had no emotional connection to the potential embarrassment of any of these people and upon realizing it, the whole event became hilarious.
When we broke for lunch I told Pepin that I had to be somewhere in an hour and he patted me on the back and told me I was fine to leave. There was almost a sense of "save yourself" in his voice. So I bee lined past the food (which looked dank)and headed for the exit. Walked a block, caught the 10 line home and then went for a 7 mile run.
If I think about it,not a bad Sunday at all.
-j
So the two of us left the apartment building and grabbed a taxi. Mind you, this is the closest proximity my host dad and I have ever been in, save for the occasional dinner. He and the taxista had a conversation about the corrupt government while the taxista's cigarette smoke wafted back. We arrived at the hotel where the event was being held and powerwalked through the lobby. No one had arrived yet so we helped ourselves to the breakfast that we thought was for the invitees. Halfway through this mostly silent meal, a waiter came over and told us that the food was only for hotel guests. Whoops. In the smoothest of moves, my host dad paid the waiter and kept eating his ham and cheese croissant. A few other of my host parent's friends came and sat with us and I found myself deeply engrossed in a conversation about how fantastic the city of Las Vegas is and how awesome the United States government was.
We finally went in to the room where the event was set up. It looked exactly like a business conference crammed into a small space. Pepin (my host dad) and I squeezed into one of the narrow rows and sat down. A few minutes later an annoyingly bouncy man came out in front and began explaining the event. His voice sounded like that of a mid-grade car salesman and gave me the impression I was about to be swindled into buying something I didn't know I wanted. There were five other "graduates" and the first woman began her presentation. With a dance. The entire audience was urged to stand up and follow along as the Sims-looking dancers on the screen did a series of increasingly humiliating dance moves. I glanced sideways at Pepin and knew that neither of us had any intention of losing that much dignity so early in the morning. After an eternity, everyone sat down and the woman continued her presentation.
Why was this such great human theatre? Well my friends, after the woman had finished, the same bouncy man came out and began publicly critiquing what she had done. Essentially, he constructively hoed her life. Then one of the other "judges"(there were three of them, I assume the teachers of the life coaching class)came out and did the same thing. At that moment I was so glad I had no emotional connection to the potential embarrassment of any of these people and upon realizing it, the whole event became hilarious.
When we broke for lunch I told Pepin that I had to be somewhere in an hour and he patted me on the back and told me I was fine to leave. There was almost a sense of "save yourself" in his voice. So I bee lined past the food (which looked dank)and headed for the exit. Walked a block, caught the 10 line home and then went for a 7 mile run.
If I think about it,not a bad Sunday at all.
-j
Friday, May 18, 2012
and in the end it's all about having fun isn't it?
This afternoon, this cold soggy rainy afternoon, my Visual Arts class piled in a van and went on a guided tour of some of the street art in Buenos Aires. For those who know me, you know that even the mention of street art makes my heart beat faster so even though it was a crappy day, I was still enamored by the rich luscious creative beautiful color disturbing thought-provoking whimsical street art I saw. The art ranged from murals to stencils to tags, combinations of them all. We learned about the artists and their histories, what materials they favored, the reasons behind their style. Something that our guide said stuck with me. She said, "...and in the end, it's all about getting your friends together and having fun, isn't it?" It's so simple and yet it's one of the truest things I've heard about art and what it means.
Art is...about having fun :)
-j
Art is...about having fun :)
-j
Sunday, May 13, 2012
living in an in-between
With roughly six weeks(!) left in Argentina, I've been taking stock of what I've done so far, what I want to do and how I'm feeling about everything now that time seems to be ticking down. I'll be the first to admit, Buenos Aires wasn't my first choice of a place to study abroad but I'm very glad I chose it. I have grown a lot in my time here and know that I'll only keep building on those changes once I'm home. It's hard to explain how I feel about being here but the best way I've come up with is that: I'm glad I'm here and I'm doing my best to get the most out of my time here but when the time is over I will be ready to go home. I know that this is where I am supposed to be right now and the same is true for when I go back to Ann Arbor.
Even this far into my time in BA, I feel like I am floating between two worlds, my world here in BA and my world in Michigan. Sometimes I feel frustrated, as though I'm not fully present in either of them and I have to remind myself that there is a time and a place for everything and right now is my time to BE in BsAs.
As this is Mother's Day, I'll close by saying that I could not be here without my mother's love, patience and support. She knows how to hold my hand and make me smile even from a world away. Te quiero mucho!
-j
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
"inhalo.....y exhalo....."-yoga in buenos aires
A few weeks ago, I was at dinner with my host mom and got talking about yoga and the Yoga Park. She said I could take classes at the same place she does if I wanted and she'd help me register the next day. For $130 pesos(about $30US)I got a month of yoga classes twice a week and anyone who knows the average price of a single group yoga class in the states knows that this is crazy cheap. I've been going for the last two weeks and so far, I've been the only person in class. Which means I'm basically getting private yoga lessons.
The instructor can't say my name properly so in yoga class, I'm Victoria (my middle name). She's a very calm middle-aged woman named Adriana who has been wonderfully patient with me. The instructions are always in Spanish and I'm able to understand almost everything Adriana says. It's been a fun way to learn some new Spanish vocab-a lot of body part names and motions. It helps that she demonstrates a lot of the exercises but there are times when I won't change a position because I didn't understand what she's said and she'll calmly correct me or say it a different way.
The class practices a form of yoga called Ashtanga which is very calm and low-key, focusing on breathing, posture and flexibility. It's a different cup of tea than the much more dynamic Hatha yoga I was introduced to at the Yoga Park. Although I think I prefer Hatha between the two simply because as a runner, I am used to very dynamic and physical exercise, practicing Ashtanga is helping me to slow down and think about different aspects of my mind and body that I don't when I'm running. Realizing how my breathing changes when I am carrying more stress is something I would probably never notice otherwise. Happy happy, namaste namaste.
Flash forward to today's class. I showed up a few minutes late meaning I was right on time. In Argentina, show up on time and people will look at you funny. Once again I was the only person in my class. Adriana asked me if I needed to borrow a pair of socks (she had a few clean pairs in her bag) but I thanked her and said I was fine. We began our session with the guided relaxation and I could feel the subconscious stress in my body start to shake out and burn off like some kind of early-morning stress fog. A few minutes later, we were doing an exercise where you lay on your back, pull your legs into your chest and grabbing the tops of your knees, you slowly rotate your legs in a circle. You would think this is an easy thing to do; lay down, move legs in a circle. But apparently there are a number of ways one can do this wrong. Almost every time I do this exercise, Adriana makes a small correction. Either my legs need to be a little wider apart or my torso shouldn't be moving, today it was my lower back coming too far off the mat. Even though I understand most everything she says, it can be tricky to get it quite right. The motions and positions are so subtle and specific that even in English I think it'd take me a few times to get the correct form down. It's always a humbling moment when I don't understand something simple and have to be told again.
Towards the end of the session, Adriana offered me a light blanket in case I was cold. Why the multiple offerings of blankets and socks? Because in the last few days, the weather here has turned a lot colder, from mid-80s to mid-60s and while I'm kind of enjoying the change,for porteños, it might as well be Siberia. I politely declined the blanket, explaining that this weather wasn't cold for me and that where I'm from, it snows most of the winter. I've discovered, when trying to convey the difference in Michigan weather/temperature to an Argentine, telling them you get lots of snow in the winter usually does the trick.
I left the class feeling calmer, stretchier and happy that finally, my high tolerance for cold weather is at least somewhat useful.
Patagonia on Friday-shoooop
-j
The instructor can't say my name properly so in yoga class, I'm Victoria (my middle name). She's a very calm middle-aged woman named Adriana who has been wonderfully patient with me. The instructions are always in Spanish and I'm able to understand almost everything Adriana says. It's been a fun way to learn some new Spanish vocab-a lot of body part names and motions. It helps that she demonstrates a lot of the exercises but there are times when I won't change a position because I didn't understand what she's said and she'll calmly correct me or say it a different way.
The class practices a form of yoga called Ashtanga which is very calm and low-key, focusing on breathing, posture and flexibility. It's a different cup of tea than the much more dynamic Hatha yoga I was introduced to at the Yoga Park. Although I think I prefer Hatha between the two simply because as a runner, I am used to very dynamic and physical exercise, practicing Ashtanga is helping me to slow down and think about different aspects of my mind and body that I don't when I'm running. Realizing how my breathing changes when I am carrying more stress is something I would probably never notice otherwise. Happy happy, namaste namaste.
Flash forward to today's class. I showed up a few minutes late meaning I was right on time. In Argentina, show up on time and people will look at you funny. Once again I was the only person in my class. Adriana asked me if I needed to borrow a pair of socks (she had a few clean pairs in her bag) but I thanked her and said I was fine. We began our session with the guided relaxation and I could feel the subconscious stress in my body start to shake out and burn off like some kind of early-morning stress fog. A few minutes later, we were doing an exercise where you lay on your back, pull your legs into your chest and grabbing the tops of your knees, you slowly rotate your legs in a circle. You would think this is an easy thing to do; lay down, move legs in a circle. But apparently there are a number of ways one can do this wrong. Almost every time I do this exercise, Adriana makes a small correction. Either my legs need to be a little wider apart or my torso shouldn't be moving, today it was my lower back coming too far off the mat. Even though I understand most everything she says, it can be tricky to get it quite right. The motions and positions are so subtle and specific that even in English I think it'd take me a few times to get the correct form down. It's always a humbling moment when I don't understand something simple and have to be told again.
Towards the end of the session, Adriana offered me a light blanket in case I was cold. Why the multiple offerings of blankets and socks? Because in the last few days, the weather here has turned a lot colder, from mid-80s to mid-60s and while I'm kind of enjoying the change,for porteños, it might as well be Siberia. I politely declined the blanket, explaining that this weather wasn't cold for me and that where I'm from, it snows most of the winter. I've discovered, when trying to convey the difference in Michigan weather/temperature to an Argentine, telling them you get lots of snow in the winter usually does the trick.
I left the class feeling calmer, stretchier and happy that finally, my high tolerance for cold weather is at least somewhat useful.
Patagonia on Friday-shoooop
-j
Sunday, April 22, 2012
art projects, underground music shows and alfajores:puro porteño
Entonces..
Yesterday afternoon I met Chelsea at the Recoleta feria to be the wing woman in her quest for a leather bag. It was one of the first days that truly felt like it was autumn and the break in humidity and high 80s weather was fine with me. Of the ferias I've been to, I've been to San Telmo twice and Recoleta about 4 times(it's a ten minute walk from my house)and between the two I like the layout of Recoleta better. It winds and loops and sprawls enough that people are not forced to explore its vendors like a strange sort of mass processional.
We began looking for her bag and almost immediately I saw a man selling beaded bracelets and necklaces. A blue bracelet caught my eye and when it comes to the color blue, I'm like a moth to a flame. Price was $25 pesos but I sweet-talked him down a little to $20. I then gave Chelsea permission to physically restrain me if I tried to buy anything else. We kept walking and found the vendor selling the leather bags she had seen before but the bag she wanted had been sold already. Tragic stuff. So we wandered around some more and saw some pieces of paper and drawings taped up on a big sheet-metal dividing wall just behind a row of vendors' booths. After a half minute of observing, I decided it looked like some kind of project that was (hopefully) open to the public. So we walked over and asked a young woman with a clipboard and paper what the dealio was and she told us it was an art project that her and another woman were doing for their class at UBA(University of Buenos Aires). Basically, they gave you a piece of blank paper to draw whatever you wanted to and afterwards they would ask you a few questions about what you drew and why. A free chance to draw whatever I want in the middle of a park? IN THERE like swimwear.
Chelsea and I grabbed some paint, water and brushes and started on our masterpiece which had no real theme or direction. There were a few cans of spraypaint and I kid you not, I lamented the fact I didn't have any stencils on me. Definitely going to knock out a few and keep them in the bolsa when I go wandering around. I painted the FOKUS eye and added "Arte es..." below it, then threw in the sun, some clouds and ocean waves for good measure. Chelsea painted a cat and some other dopeness I can't quite recall. While we were cementing our reputations as the next Picassos, a woman looking like Penny Lane 40 years of grass,pastillas and band chasing later, came by the project and after briefly talking to one of the women in charge, grabbed a can of spraypaint and went to town on the dividing wall itself. One glance at the faces of the two women in charge told me that this wasn't exactly what they had in mind and probably (meaning definitely) wasn't legal. She graffiti'd something along the lines of "leave us be, let us be free". We finished painting and answered the questions they had for us-why did we paint what we did, what did we think about street art. Afterwards, we hit them up with our own "Art is.../Arte es..." project and they were very willing to participate. One of the women quickly pulled up her sleeve and showed us her very own "Art is..." tattoo. It was crazy cool to find someone who had that kind of ink!
It was starting to get dark and we were starting to get hungry so we went to Palermo and hit up a Mexican restaurant. There were so much color on every square inch of the place that it was like a visual sucker-punch. Yummy yummy cheesy quesadillas and tacos hit the spot. If only they'd had jarritos.
Plan for the evening was a music show at the house of someone we knew in Buenos Aires. We were told to arrive around 9:30 and got there at 10p. We were mad early and Little Dragon was quietly hanging on the airwaves. Eventually more people came and the music started. Two acts played and while I liked both, the second act really went in. During the break, Chelsea and I talked to some of the musicians and collected some pretty great "Arte es..." phrases and photos.
After the music had winded down we hung around for a while and chatted with the musicians. All of them were independent musicians and artists and as party favors were passed around they gave us the heads up on a lot of great, off-the-beaten-boliche path places and people. As we headed out, Earth Wind and Fire's "September" came on the stereo-the vibe of the whole night was very chill and silly and warm and I'm excited about digging deeper into the underground art/music world of BA.
Woke up craving alfajores like nobody's business.
This concludes another random snippet of my life in Buenos Aires.
Over and out, amigos.
-j
Yesterday afternoon I met Chelsea at the Recoleta feria to be the wing woman in her quest for a leather bag. It was one of the first days that truly felt like it was autumn and the break in humidity and high 80s weather was fine with me. Of the ferias I've been to, I've been to San Telmo twice and Recoleta about 4 times(it's a ten minute walk from my house)and between the two I like the layout of Recoleta better. It winds and loops and sprawls enough that people are not forced to explore its vendors like a strange sort of mass processional.
We began looking for her bag and almost immediately I saw a man selling beaded bracelets and necklaces. A blue bracelet caught my eye and when it comes to the color blue, I'm like a moth to a flame. Price was $25 pesos but I sweet-talked him down a little to $20. I then gave Chelsea permission to physically restrain me if I tried to buy anything else. We kept walking and found the vendor selling the leather bags she had seen before but the bag she wanted had been sold already. Tragic stuff. So we wandered around some more and saw some pieces of paper and drawings taped up on a big sheet-metal dividing wall just behind a row of vendors' booths. After a half minute of observing, I decided it looked like some kind of project that was (hopefully) open to the public. So we walked over and asked a young woman with a clipboard and paper what the dealio was and she told us it was an art project that her and another woman were doing for their class at UBA(University of Buenos Aires). Basically, they gave you a piece of blank paper to draw whatever you wanted to and afterwards they would ask you a few questions about what you drew and why. A free chance to draw whatever I want in the middle of a park? IN THERE like swimwear.
Chelsea and I grabbed some paint, water and brushes and started on our masterpiece which had no real theme or direction. There were a few cans of spraypaint and I kid you not, I lamented the fact I didn't have any stencils on me. Definitely going to knock out a few and keep them in the bolsa when I go wandering around. I painted the FOKUS eye and added "Arte es..." below it, then threw in the sun, some clouds and ocean waves for good measure. Chelsea painted a cat and some other dopeness I can't quite recall. While we were cementing our reputations as the next Picassos, a woman looking like Penny Lane 40 years of grass,pastillas and band chasing later, came by the project and after briefly talking to one of the women in charge, grabbed a can of spraypaint and went to town on the dividing wall itself. One glance at the faces of the two women in charge told me that this wasn't exactly what they had in mind and probably (meaning definitely) wasn't legal. She graffiti'd something along the lines of "leave us be, let us be free". We finished painting and answered the questions they had for us-why did we paint what we did, what did we think about street art. Afterwards, we hit them up with our own "Art is.../Arte es..." project and they were very willing to participate. One of the women quickly pulled up her sleeve and showed us her very own "Art is..." tattoo. It was crazy cool to find someone who had that kind of ink!
It was starting to get dark and we were starting to get hungry so we went to Palermo and hit up a Mexican restaurant. There were so much color on every square inch of the place that it was like a visual sucker-punch. Yummy yummy cheesy quesadillas and tacos hit the spot. If only they'd had jarritos.
Plan for the evening was a music show at the house of someone we knew in Buenos Aires. We were told to arrive around 9:30 and got there at 10p. We were mad early and Little Dragon was quietly hanging on the airwaves. Eventually more people came and the music started. Two acts played and while I liked both, the second act really went in. During the break, Chelsea and I talked to some of the musicians and collected some pretty great "Arte es..." phrases and photos.
After the music had winded down we hung around for a while and chatted with the musicians. All of them were independent musicians and artists and as party favors were passed around they gave us the heads up on a lot of great, off-the-beaten-boliche path places and people. As we headed out, Earth Wind and Fire's "September" came on the stereo-the vibe of the whole night was very chill and silly and warm and I'm excited about digging deeper into the underground art/music world of BA.
Woke up craving alfajores like nobody's business.
This concludes another random snippet of my life in Buenos Aires.
Over and out, amigos.
-j
Monday, April 16, 2012
so i know it's real... [[finding thrift stores in buenos aires]]
Today something wonderful happened.
Today, I found a thrift store in Buenos Aires.
So? Why is this a big deal?? Well, what makes this a rather epic discovery is the near-total lack of secondhand and thrift clothing/anything in BA. The culture here is more one of buying high quality items and wearing them until they are falling apart. People don't tend to throw things out or donate old clothing anywhere close to the amount that many people do in the States. Great for them, but for me, this messes with my shopping style.
Let me back up by saying that at home, at least 80% of my closet is comprised of items gathered from Salvation Army, Goodwill, those random shops that have an "everything in this bin is $5". I love how much cheaper thrift stores usually are and paying full price for an item just confuses me. I won't buy my delicates secondhand (pre-worn underwear gives me the heebie-jeebies) and jeans are usually a full-price purchase but other than that I don't understand why you would pay $30 for a grey threadbare t-shirt at American Apparel(to pick an easy target) when you can find the same damn shirt for $5 at Salvo's. If this makes me a snob/hipster/whatever, oh well. To me, shopping thrift and secondhand is just logical. It takes time, patience, and you aren't guaranteed to find what you are looking for right away, but the payoff is huge...(pro-thrifting rant over)
Coming to Argentina and not being aware of their "buy quality and keep forever" culture, I was disappointed to realize that finding thrift/secondhand clothing would be a challenge. There's a decent amount of true vintage shops, meaning old clothing from major labels and investment pieces, but that didn't do much for me except make me wish I had a grown person's clothing budget and after a few weeks I'd all but given up finding something akin to Goodwill or Salvo's.
Until today, when I decided to take a different way home after class,originally in order to find a post office to mail some postcards. About halfway home I walked past a storefront with the words "Juan Perez Vintage" in big red letters, and then I saw a telltale pile of assorted clothing on a wooden pallet in the window below a sign reading "$5-10". My heart started racing, my pulse quickened, I was having a physical reaction to the unexpected presence of secondhand clothing.
I walked in and put my backpack in a locker, threw the keychain around my neck and started in on the long racks of clothing that ran along the walls. My hands shook slightly as I began methodically picking my way through each item. It's best to go thrifting with an idea of what you want to find but very low expectations about actually finding it and the only thing I'd really been needing was a cardigan to replace my black one that had been "misplaced" at the Yoga Park. Por suerte, I found a soft grey cardigan, the long kind that you can wrap around your body. It was $35 pesos (less than $10US). Did a quick check for major stains, holes and did a quick sniff of the pits and tucked it under my arm.
After briefly perusing the rest of the store, I retrieved my backpack and went to the counter to check out, but not before rooting through the $5-10 peso pile and emerging with a light navy long-sleeve shirt for $10. It would've been impossible to convey how stupid-happy I was to the cashier so I kept the reason behind my dopey grin to myself.
Floating out of the shop I walked home with a renewed sense of faith in Buenos Aires. This Friday I'm going to San Telmo to bum around and do some day-time exploring and not gonna lie, finding another thrift store would be alright with me...
-j
Today, I found a thrift store in Buenos Aires.
So? Why is this a big deal?? Well, what makes this a rather epic discovery is the near-total lack of secondhand and thrift clothing/anything in BA. The culture here is more one of buying high quality items and wearing them until they are falling apart. People don't tend to throw things out or donate old clothing anywhere close to the amount that many people do in the States. Great for them, but for me, this messes with my shopping style.
Let me back up by saying that at home, at least 80% of my closet is comprised of items gathered from Salvation Army, Goodwill, those random shops that have an "everything in this bin is $5". I love how much cheaper thrift stores usually are and paying full price for an item just confuses me. I won't buy my delicates secondhand (pre-worn underwear gives me the heebie-jeebies) and jeans are usually a full-price purchase but other than that I don't understand why you would pay $30 for a grey threadbare t-shirt at American Apparel(to pick an easy target) when you can find the same damn shirt for $5 at Salvo's. If this makes me a snob/hipster/whatever, oh well. To me, shopping thrift and secondhand is just logical. It takes time, patience, and you aren't guaranteed to find what you are looking for right away, but the payoff is huge...(pro-thrifting rant over)
Coming to Argentina and not being aware of their "buy quality and keep forever" culture, I was disappointed to realize that finding thrift/secondhand clothing would be a challenge. There's a decent amount of true vintage shops, meaning old clothing from major labels and investment pieces, but that didn't do much for me except make me wish I had a grown person's clothing budget and after a few weeks I'd all but given up finding something akin to Goodwill or Salvo's.
Until today, when I decided to take a different way home after class,originally in order to find a post office to mail some postcards. About halfway home I walked past a storefront with the words "Juan Perez Vintage" in big red letters, and then I saw a telltale pile of assorted clothing on a wooden pallet in the window below a sign reading "$5-10". My heart started racing, my pulse quickened, I was having a physical reaction to the unexpected presence of secondhand clothing.
I walked in and put my backpack in a locker, threw the keychain around my neck and started in on the long racks of clothing that ran along the walls. My hands shook slightly as I began methodically picking my way through each item. It's best to go thrifting with an idea of what you want to find but very low expectations about actually finding it and the only thing I'd really been needing was a cardigan to replace my black one that had been "misplaced" at the Yoga Park. Por suerte, I found a soft grey cardigan, the long kind that you can wrap around your body. It was $35 pesos (less than $10US). Did a quick check for major stains, holes and did a quick sniff of the pits and tucked it under my arm.
After briefly perusing the rest of the store, I retrieved my backpack and went to the counter to check out, but not before rooting through the $5-10 peso pile and emerging with a light navy long-sleeve shirt for $10. It would've been impossible to convey how stupid-happy I was to the cashier so I kept the reason behind my dopey grin to myself.
Floating out of the shop I walked home with a renewed sense of faith in Buenos Aires. This Friday I'm going to San Telmo to bum around and do some day-time exploring and not gonna lie, finding another thrift store would be alright with me...
-j
Monday, April 9, 2012
trannys, drunk biking, colombian backpackers and a chubby aussie-my weekend in Mendoza
First, I'll start by telling you all that I now think in Spanglish. It's confusing but kind of awesome.
Last weekend began Semana Santa, basically Easter Week, which meant no class Thursday or Friday. So, about half my program decided to venture to the wine region of Mendoza to booze, bike, raft, hike and do other outdoorsy shit.
Now about Mendoza..sadly too damn much occurred for a play-by-play account so here's the highlight reel, so to speak.
Left BA Wednesday night on an omnibus (a big-ass double-deck tour-lookin thing). We drove out of a storm and could see lightning zinging the city over and over from a distance. Apparently the storm was so bad that in the province(not city) of BA, 13 people died.(almost typed se murieron)
About two hours before we pulled into Mendoza, the bus stopped at a restaurant and everyone got a cup of coffee and some medialunas (which are like sweet, glazed croissants). Cool with me. However, the woman sitting outside the women's bathroom with her damn box of rationed portions of toilet paper FOR SALE was not cool. I can't fully explain why but as a woman, something in my core firmly believes that if toilet paper is available in the vicinity of a bathroom, it should be FREE. Of course there wasn't any toilet paper in the actual bathroom, OG perched outside the door had apparently cornered the TP market.
Taking a stand in support of the right to have freely available toilet paper, I held it til Mendoza.
Finally we got to Mendoza, got a cab to our hostel and checked in. We stayed at La Puerta hostel and having been in my fair share of hostels, La Puerta was trailing the pack. However, to my knowledge, no bugs or diseases were acquired during our stay and the breakfast pastries were bangin so all's well that ends well.
Chelsea and I had beds in a large, communal room, shared by four other women in their late twenties. One woman looked like a well-done drag queen and by the end of the weekend, I'd seen way more ass-crack than I cared for.
That night we waited too late to order food and since all the markets were closed for semana santa we feasted on crackers and alfajores for dinner. Movie of the night was the Miley Cyrus Disney movie, which I can say with minimal shame I quite enjoyed. Followed tragically, by a Spanish-dubbed version of Passion of the Christ. Everyone in the hostel gathered around the two TVs and watched it with a transfixed intensity. In the US, we watch Charlie Brown's Easter or the 10 Commandments, in Argentina-they keep it real, crucifix,Jesus and all.
Next day, we tried and failed to get our shizz together for hiking. Plan B? Wander the city with Natalia, our new found Colombian friend. Natalia was in her mid-30s to early 40s (never asked) and was in the middle of a sabbatical year after living in Madrid for 12 years. We spoke entirely in Spanish and I realized how normal the juh-ing of Argentinian Spanish had become to me. For dinner we walked a few blocks to get burgers and pizza with our other new friend, Danny Donnelly, an Australian passing through on his way to Chile. When marking his leftovers, I told him to be real obvious about it-I'd left a half liter of 7 Up in the fridge the night before but came back to find it almost gone. So he wrote in big letters "Chubby Aussie's breakfast."
The night's viewing selection: Shrek.
That night, the crone quartet came back to the hostel at 6am. They were some loud drunk mufuggas, not even bothering to keep the volume down to a drunken stage-whisper level but preferring to just be upfront with their conversation. I pulled out my earplugs and discovered to my horror, that one of them had disappeared.
Our final day in Mendoza we had signed up for Mr. Hugo's wine tour on a friend's recommendation. We get to Mr. Hugo's, expecting an all-inclusive guided bike tour and wine. We got..a cheery grandpa man handing us numerous styrofoam cups of red wine and no tour guide. Helmets obviously optional. First place we went to was a beer garden-the beer was amazing and I'd bet very good money that our waitress was packing a pair of huevos beneath that mascara and 5 o'clock shadow. We ended at a winery that gave us samples of olive oil, jams and chocolate as well as a complimentary shot of liquor or absinth. It worked.
25 kms, 5 hours and even more styrofoam cups of wine later, Chelsea and I took a taxi back to the hostel. We looked at each other with our wine-stained teeth and sun-baked faces and broke out laughing at what had happened that day. Per usual in Argentina, what we got was a version of what we expected. Nothing went according to plan but it all went alright.
Back on the bus to BA and the in-bus movie was.. Tree of Life with Brad Pitt. Freaking weird-ass movie. I eventually had to close my eyes in order to stop feeling like I had unwittingly entered into someone else's acid trip. By the time we got off the bus in BA, I was glad to be "home". Went back to my apartment and collapsed.
Next adventure, Patagonia.
Sike, every day is an adventure here
-j
Last weekend began Semana Santa, basically Easter Week, which meant no class Thursday or Friday. So, about half my program decided to venture to the wine region of Mendoza to booze, bike, raft, hike and do other outdoorsy shit.
Now about Mendoza..sadly too damn much occurred for a play-by-play account so here's the highlight reel, so to speak.
Left BA Wednesday night on an omnibus (a big-ass double-deck tour-lookin thing). We drove out of a storm and could see lightning zinging the city over and over from a distance. Apparently the storm was so bad that in the province(not city) of BA, 13 people died.(almost typed se murieron)
About two hours before we pulled into Mendoza, the bus stopped at a restaurant and everyone got a cup of coffee and some medialunas (which are like sweet, glazed croissants). Cool with me. However, the woman sitting outside the women's bathroom with her damn box of rationed portions of toilet paper FOR SALE was not cool. I can't fully explain why but as a woman, something in my core firmly believes that if toilet paper is available in the vicinity of a bathroom, it should be FREE. Of course there wasn't any toilet paper in the actual bathroom, OG perched outside the door had apparently cornered the TP market.
Taking a stand in support of the right to have freely available toilet paper, I held it til Mendoza.
Finally we got to Mendoza, got a cab to our hostel and checked in. We stayed at La Puerta hostel and having been in my fair share of hostels, La Puerta was trailing the pack. However, to my knowledge, no bugs or diseases were acquired during our stay and the breakfast pastries were bangin so all's well that ends well.
Chelsea and I had beds in a large, communal room, shared by four other women in their late twenties. One woman looked like a well-done drag queen and by the end of the weekend, I'd seen way more ass-crack than I cared for.
That night we waited too late to order food and since all the markets were closed for semana santa we feasted on crackers and alfajores for dinner. Movie of the night was the Miley Cyrus Disney movie, which I can say with minimal shame I quite enjoyed. Followed tragically, by a Spanish-dubbed version of Passion of the Christ. Everyone in the hostel gathered around the two TVs and watched it with a transfixed intensity. In the US, we watch Charlie Brown's Easter or the 10 Commandments, in Argentina-they keep it real, crucifix,Jesus and all.
Next day, we tried and failed to get our shizz together for hiking. Plan B? Wander the city with Natalia, our new found Colombian friend. Natalia was in her mid-30s to early 40s (never asked) and was in the middle of a sabbatical year after living in Madrid for 12 years. We spoke entirely in Spanish and I realized how normal the juh-ing of Argentinian Spanish had become to me. For dinner we walked a few blocks to get burgers and pizza with our other new friend, Danny Donnelly, an Australian passing through on his way to Chile. When marking his leftovers, I told him to be real obvious about it-I'd left a half liter of 7 Up in the fridge the night before but came back to find it almost gone. So he wrote in big letters "Chubby Aussie's breakfast."
The night's viewing selection: Shrek.
That night, the crone quartet came back to the hostel at 6am. They were some loud drunk mufuggas, not even bothering to keep the volume down to a drunken stage-whisper level but preferring to just be upfront with their conversation. I pulled out my earplugs and discovered to my horror, that one of them had disappeared.
Our final day in Mendoza we had signed up for Mr. Hugo's wine tour on a friend's recommendation. We get to Mr. Hugo's, expecting an all-inclusive guided bike tour and wine. We got..a cheery grandpa man handing us numerous styrofoam cups of red wine and no tour guide. Helmets obviously optional. First place we went to was a beer garden-the beer was amazing and I'd bet very good money that our waitress was packing a pair of huevos beneath that mascara and 5 o'clock shadow. We ended at a winery that gave us samples of olive oil, jams and chocolate as well as a complimentary shot of liquor or absinth. It worked.
25 kms, 5 hours and even more styrofoam cups of wine later, Chelsea and I took a taxi back to the hostel. We looked at each other with our wine-stained teeth and sun-baked faces and broke out laughing at what had happened that day. Per usual in Argentina, what we got was a version of what we expected. Nothing went according to plan but it all went alright.
Back on the bus to BA and the in-bus movie was.. Tree of Life with Brad Pitt. Freaking weird-ass movie. I eventually had to close my eyes in order to stop feeling like I had unwittingly entered into someone else's acid trip. By the time we got off the bus in BA, I was glad to be "home". Went back to my apartment and collapsed.
Next adventure, Patagonia.
Sike, every day is an adventure here
-j
Monday, April 2, 2012
the hippie farm of hare krishna-my weekend at an Eco Yoga Park
This weekend I went with a few friends to an Eco Yoga park about an hour outside the city. We arrived and were greeted by more nature than we'd seen in a good month. A friend had told me about the park when I said I was studying abroad in Argentina.
All vegan and eco-focused, there was no smoking or drinking or drugs of any kind allowed in the park. The park is run by Hare Krishnas and one of the monks showed us to the volunteer rooms. They were clean and comfortable, and when staying in a hostel-like place, those are really some of the most important characteristics.
We quietly walked into the second half of the afternoon yoga session in the temple, a white dome-shaped building which reminded me a little of something you might see in the David Bowie movie, "The Man who fell to Earth". I could do a lot more of the exercises than I thought I would be able to do. This form of hatha yoga is an integral part of the Hare Krishna beliefs so there was a deeply spiritual aspect to the session.
In the evening, we all piled in two small cars and drove to the nearby town of General Rodriguez to listen to a swami (spiritual figure-I want to say similar to a monk) who had just returned from six weeks in India. Everything was spoken in Spanish but one of the swamis translated in one part of the room for those who didn't know Spanish. I strained my ears to listen to the Spanish and understood nearly all of it but my brain kept wandering over to the English translation and at times I felt confused as to which one I was hearing. Before the swami spoke, there was a meditation recitation of a Hare Krishna mantra. There was a lot of chanting this weekend, which in the beginning I felt silly joining in on but by the end of the weekend, the strangeness had pretty much gone away.
At one point in his talk, the swami said "...y la funcion del alma es amar"(the function/purpose of the soul is to love) to love infinitely and everything. And for some reason, this hit me over the head with its profoundness. Something clicked into place. It seemed so obvious. Why hadn't I realized it quite this way before? That one sentence is still resonating with me and will stay with me possibly forever.
The next morning we got up at 5am for an optional pre-dawn meditation session in the temple. I had such Camino flashbacks of rolling out of a bunk bed in a strange place, getting dressed by flashlight and heading out. So much of this weekend had me flashing back to my time on the Camino, between the communal meals among strangers from a half dozen different countries to swapping stories using three languages to convey your point to running out of toilet paper. The morning meditation was early, dark and a lot of mumbling my way through sanskrit. The stars were jaw-dropping. In BA, I forget just how many stars there really are. Out there, in the pre-dawn sky, they were a beautiful sight to take in.
At 7am we were up again to start our volunteering for the day. In exchange for 4 hours of volunteering, we were able to stay at the Eco Yoga park for a fraction of what it costs to merely visit. We were placed in the garden and handed hoes to dig out rows for planting. I never knew there was a right or wrong way to hoe, but apparently there is. After we had done our best with our rows, Maria the person in charge of our work, came through and essentially destroyed them, showing us the correct method. One thing about Argentina in general-when directions are given, they are usually vague and people tend to wait for you to interpret them (usually incorrectly) and THEN you are shown or told the correct version. We also picked tomatoes and some indeterminate squash, both of which showed up in our meals later in the day.
After lunch we went on a short tour of the park and its grounds. A very cool place but the mosquitoes try to eat people alive. I never realized that a mosquito can pierce right through leggings, but they definitely can. At the end of the tour, one of the monks ran towards our group with a phone, asking if there was a Jordan Kifer there. It was my study abroad program director calling. Due to a miscommunication with my host mom, she didn't know I was spending the whole weekend at the Yoga Park. Of course, I had chosen not to bring my iPhone or laptop and hadn't checked my phone since last night. I rushed in to see that I had 16 missed calls and text messages and called my host mom to tell her where I was and to straighten things out. Being accountable to more than myself is a concept I am honestly a little out of practice with. Whoops.Afternoon yoga session that had me breaking a sweat by the end of it followed by a shower and delicious dinner. In the evening, there was an 'art therapy' session, which had us starting out in a circle giving group massages and made me think that yes I really had gone to a hippie farm for the weekend.
No volunteer work on Sunday meant sleeping in until...8:30 the next morning. After breakfast, we went to a nearby dairy farm where I tasted the freshest yogurt and milk I've ever had in my life. We bought chocolate milk, a chunk of mozzarella cheese and some dulce de leche from the woman who made all of them, Patricia. She was churning a vat of soon-to-be mozzarella cheese as we talked to her. There's something to be said for getting your food right from the source!
Chelsea and I were able to collect some really beautiful "Art is..." phrases from some of the Mothers(like nuns) as well as a lot of the other volunteers and visitors at the park and I can't wait to see the photos.
Leaving the park after the final yoga session yesterday, we rode back to BA, watching the sun set and the building get taller and larger. Soundtrack for the car ride?: Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. What other way to top off the weekend?
The weekend was one I'll remember for a very long time and has made me think seriously about how I can incorporate yoga into my life when I get back to the US. I am so grateful to have had the time there :)
-j
Sending love and light to JH. You were in the sunshine this weekend, I have no doubt.
All vegan and eco-focused, there was no smoking or drinking or drugs of any kind allowed in the park. The park is run by Hare Krishnas and one of the monks showed us to the volunteer rooms. They were clean and comfortable, and when staying in a hostel-like place, those are really some of the most important characteristics.
We quietly walked into the second half of the afternoon yoga session in the temple, a white dome-shaped building which reminded me a little of something you might see in the David Bowie movie, "The Man who fell to Earth". I could do a lot more of the exercises than I thought I would be able to do. This form of hatha yoga is an integral part of the Hare Krishna beliefs so there was a deeply spiritual aspect to the session.
In the evening, we all piled in two small cars and drove to the nearby town of General Rodriguez to listen to a swami (spiritual figure-I want to say similar to a monk) who had just returned from six weeks in India. Everything was spoken in Spanish but one of the swamis translated in one part of the room for those who didn't know Spanish. I strained my ears to listen to the Spanish and understood nearly all of it but my brain kept wandering over to the English translation and at times I felt confused as to which one I was hearing. Before the swami spoke, there was a meditation recitation of a Hare Krishna mantra. There was a lot of chanting this weekend, which in the beginning I felt silly joining in on but by the end of the weekend, the strangeness had pretty much gone away.
At one point in his talk, the swami said "...y la funcion del alma es amar"(the function/purpose of the soul is to love) to love infinitely and everything. And for some reason, this hit me over the head with its profoundness. Something clicked into place. It seemed so obvious. Why hadn't I realized it quite this way before? That one sentence is still resonating with me and will stay with me possibly forever.
The next morning we got up at 5am for an optional pre-dawn meditation session in the temple. I had such Camino flashbacks of rolling out of a bunk bed in a strange place, getting dressed by flashlight and heading out. So much of this weekend had me flashing back to my time on the Camino, between the communal meals among strangers from a half dozen different countries to swapping stories using three languages to convey your point to running out of toilet paper. The morning meditation was early, dark and a lot of mumbling my way through sanskrit. The stars were jaw-dropping. In BA, I forget just how many stars there really are. Out there, in the pre-dawn sky, they were a beautiful sight to take in.
At 7am we were up again to start our volunteering for the day. In exchange for 4 hours of volunteering, we were able to stay at the Eco Yoga park for a fraction of what it costs to merely visit. We were placed in the garden and handed hoes to dig out rows for planting. I never knew there was a right or wrong way to hoe, but apparently there is. After we had done our best with our rows, Maria the person in charge of our work, came through and essentially destroyed them, showing us the correct method. One thing about Argentina in general-when directions are given, they are usually vague and people tend to wait for you to interpret them (usually incorrectly) and THEN you are shown or told the correct version. We also picked tomatoes and some indeterminate squash, both of which showed up in our meals later in the day.
After lunch we went on a short tour of the park and its grounds. A very cool place but the mosquitoes try to eat people alive. I never realized that a mosquito can pierce right through leggings, but they definitely can. At the end of the tour, one of the monks ran towards our group with a phone, asking if there was a Jordan Kifer there. It was my study abroad program director calling. Due to a miscommunication with my host mom, she didn't know I was spending the whole weekend at the Yoga Park. Of course, I had chosen not to bring my iPhone or laptop and hadn't checked my phone since last night. I rushed in to see that I had 16 missed calls and text messages and called my host mom to tell her where I was and to straighten things out. Being accountable to more than myself is a concept I am honestly a little out of practice with. Whoops.Afternoon yoga session that had me breaking a sweat by the end of it followed by a shower and delicious dinner. In the evening, there was an 'art therapy' session, which had us starting out in a circle giving group massages and made me think that yes I really had gone to a hippie farm for the weekend.
No volunteer work on Sunday meant sleeping in until...8:30 the next morning. After breakfast, we went to a nearby dairy farm where I tasted the freshest yogurt and milk I've ever had in my life. We bought chocolate milk, a chunk of mozzarella cheese and some dulce de leche from the woman who made all of them, Patricia. She was churning a vat of soon-to-be mozzarella cheese as we talked to her. There's something to be said for getting your food right from the source!
Chelsea and I were able to collect some really beautiful "Art is..." phrases from some of the Mothers(like nuns) as well as a lot of the other volunteers and visitors at the park and I can't wait to see the photos.
Leaving the park after the final yoga session yesterday, we rode back to BA, watching the sun set and the building get taller and larger. Soundtrack for the car ride?: Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. What other way to top off the weekend?
The weekend was one I'll remember for a very long time and has made me think seriously about how I can incorporate yoga into my life when I get back to the US. I am so grateful to have had the time there :)
-j
Sending love and light to JH. You were in the sunshine this weekend, I have no doubt.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
one month mark and more arte es...
So, Friday marked one month of being in BA. Hard to believe I've been here that long but when I think about how differently I feel now in comparison to that first week, I believe it. I am still getting to know the city, (pretty sure I'll be saying that even as I board the plane to come home though)and I'm more comfortable with exploring and taking risks. Classes have started and while I'm not in love with any of them, except my poetry class maybe, I am learning a lot of things outside of them.
Last Friday my friend Chelsea picked up free tickets to go see an orchestra at Teatro Colon. I'd been there earlier in the week for a class visit but when I saw the teatro lit up at night for a performance, it took my breath away. The lights on the balconies of the seven levels reminded me somewhat of the scene in Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire when they're at the Quidditch world cup (yeah I just made a HP reference). It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. When the music started, I closed my eyes and felt like I was floating on the notes. At the risk of sounding like both a nerd and a hippie, the best I can describe how I felt is to say it felt as though my soul were being fed by the music, the lights, the sheer beauty of my surroundings.
On Saturday I went with Chelsea to the Recoleta feria close to my apartment and we got six new phrases and photos for the "Arte es..." project. It was easier to get into the swing of asking people and we found some great characters. One woman was very zen about it when we asked her, she had such a quiet but vibrant energy about her and I loved it. Another was a woman and her friend (they looked like sisters) who were from Hawaii. I wished I had asked them how the hell they ended up in Buenos Aires. They gave us their info card and asked for the website where the photos are being posted (www.fokus.org/artis/)so maybe I can retroactively inquire..
Another character was a man selling handmade hats. I had been questing for someone selling their own HANDMADE hats, I saw a lot of mass-produced ones but there's something deeply personal about handmade hats, there's a pride in them. This man agreed to be part of the project and put on one of his hats for the photo. Gotta love it!
I am so glad that I got my shit together to make the Art is... project happen in BA. I feel so lucky that Chelsea hopped on board with her camera, don't think I could do the project the way I want to without a partner in crime. Cheers to people being in the right place at the right time. For me there's something so beautiful about being able to share what I'm passionate about with other people and use art to enrich my experience in Argentina. It's really just further confirmation to me that incorporating your passion into what you do will lead to crazy awesome incredible things, opportunities, people, experiences. It's easier for people to vibe with you when you're doing something you honestly love. It shows :)
Damn, that was a bit sappy wasn't it?
To seal my fate as a earthy crunchy nerd, I'm going with a group of friends to an Eco Yoga park this weekend-vegan/vegetarian food, yoga sessions, music therapy, theoretical discussions, run by Hari Krishnas. I'm so excited for it.
We've come to the end of another snippet in my life.
stay tuned for more..assuming I come back from the hippie farm.
-j
Last Friday my friend Chelsea picked up free tickets to go see an orchestra at Teatro Colon. I'd been there earlier in the week for a class visit but when I saw the teatro lit up at night for a performance, it took my breath away. The lights on the balconies of the seven levels reminded me somewhat of the scene in Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire when they're at the Quidditch world cup (yeah I just made a HP reference). It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. When the music started, I closed my eyes and felt like I was floating on the notes. At the risk of sounding like both a nerd and a hippie, the best I can describe how I felt is to say it felt as though my soul were being fed by the music, the lights, the sheer beauty of my surroundings.
On Saturday I went with Chelsea to the Recoleta feria close to my apartment and we got six new phrases and photos for the "Arte es..." project. It was easier to get into the swing of asking people and we found some great characters. One woman was very zen about it when we asked her, she had such a quiet but vibrant energy about her and I loved it. Another was a woman and her friend (they looked like sisters) who were from Hawaii. I wished I had asked them how the hell they ended up in Buenos Aires. They gave us their info card and asked for the website where the photos are being posted (www.fokus.org/artis/)so maybe I can retroactively inquire..
Another character was a man selling handmade hats. I had been questing for someone selling their own HANDMADE hats, I saw a lot of mass-produced ones but there's something deeply personal about handmade hats, there's a pride in them. This man agreed to be part of the project and put on one of his hats for the photo. Gotta love it!
I am so glad that I got my shit together to make the Art is... project happen in BA. I feel so lucky that Chelsea hopped on board with her camera, don't think I could do the project the way I want to without a partner in crime. Cheers to people being in the right place at the right time. For me there's something so beautiful about being able to share what I'm passionate about with other people and use art to enrich my experience in Argentina. It's really just further confirmation to me that incorporating your passion into what you do will lead to crazy awesome incredible things, opportunities, people, experiences. It's easier for people to vibe with you when you're doing something you honestly love. It shows :)
Damn, that was a bit sappy wasn't it?
To seal my fate as a earthy crunchy nerd, I'm going with a group of friends to an Eco Yoga park this weekend-vegan/vegetarian food, yoga sessions, music therapy, theoretical discussions, run by Hari Krishnas. I'm so excited for it.
We've come to the end of another snippet in my life.
stay tuned for more..assuming I come back from the hippie farm.
-j
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
mi dia fue un quilombito
meaning... my day was a little bit of a clusterfuck. Quilombo is probably one of my favorite Argentinian slang words-not the dirtiest but fun to say and very versatile.
Let's back back back it up nah...
Woke up this morning at 6:30a for my 8am class at UMSA (the local BA university I'm taking a class from). Today was the first class-Estado y Politicas Publicas(the state and public policy). I was gonna be a PoliSci major before I found International Studies so I've taken my share of public policy-related classes before. All I need to do is pass this thing. Not even do well, just..sobrevivir(survive). I go on autopilot and forgot that my class starts at 8 not 8:30. At 7:45 I got a text from another IES student taking the same class asking if I was close. Well fuck, I haven't even left my apartment building yet. I fly out of the apartment and realized it was raining and I didn't have my raincoat with me. Hauled back up, grabbed my jacket and walked to the bus stop, which is on the corner. I wait...five minutes later the line I needed comes down the street. I stuck out my arm to flag it down. It sees me, and the other three people waiting. Fucker passed right on by. Awesome.
Finally caught the bus and then walked to UMSA. I met Zach, the other IES student. 10 minutes late but thankfully Argentinians don't believe in being on time. Ever. So we climbed the five flights of stairs because there was a huge line for the elevators. Found the class, sat down. Bueno.
Professor rolls in, starts class. Speaks at a good speed, I'm keeping up. Talking about things I'm familiar with. Awesome. Then...he spoke faster and faster and I'm sad to say I didn't have the balls to raise my hand and ask him to slow down. Also, he starts writing notes on the board. Except they aren't notes, they're fucking glyphs. He writes letters, like SL or E, circles them and draws a bunch of arrows connecting to other circled letters. I lost the thread of his lecture, looked down for five seconds and three or four more circled mystery letters had appeared like mushrooms. Great.
Fast forward an hour and my brain was fried. It actually felt hotter and flattened. The professor ran out of class. I turned to Zach. He looked deflated. A girl in the class asked us if we're all right. We straggle out of UMSA and walk back to the IES center. It was raining, obviously. Back at IES we strategized about other, easier classes to take. Historia de Argentina, I'll see yo fine 1st year-level ass tomorrow.
After lunch, during which I unsuccessfully attempted to open not one but 4 packets of ketchup for my burger, I walked back to my apartment. I collapsed on my bed, checked emails and felt a bit better. Today my Visual Arts in the City class had a visita at the Museo de Arte Moderno(its Spanish acronym is MAMBA which makes me smile-Kill Bill anyone?) I caught the colectivo and grab a rail. It's hotter than a mug on this goddamn bus, lots of people and 97% humidity doesn't mix. Actually 97% humidity doesn't seem to mix well with anything except my hair, which by the end of the ride looked like a white girl version of Diana Ross early 70s, post-Supremes. I'm on the bus and I'm sweating. I don't mean buckets, I mean slow, steady, under the bra, trickle down the back annoying-type shit. I look at the woman next to me and she is pristine-hair done,high heels and no profuse sweat beads on her brow. THE HELL? Do porteños have a no sweating on the colectivo-gene???
I got off the bus and start walking the three blocks to the museum. Glad for the breeze I passed by a random park/wasteland and in my peripheral vision I see a man pissing on a tree. I ever so slightly turned my head his direction to confirm. Yep, a grown man, dick out in the daylight, peeing on a tree. Oh San Telmo. Oh Buenos Aires.
I arrived at the museum, still lowkey ladysweating. At least here so was almost everyone else. We started the tour of the exhibition. A few works of art down and we are looking at a large canvas of white paint, a big block of white. As I was standing there, I felt that disgusting sensation of sweat rolling quietly down my back, then as though to balance everything out, my boobs retaliate with their own trickle of perspiration. Fantastic. During the rest of the exhibition, my mind kept floating away and fun.'s song "Some Nights" played soothingly over my inflamed brainwaves.
By the time the exhibition is over, I felt flattened, sticky and not overjoyed about that exact moment in my life. I flirt heavily with the idea of emailing my conversation partner to cancel our meeting later that evening but decide to go home, regroup and go.
Reaching my apartment, I collapse onto my bed, feeling like I was sinking into it as waves of fatigue rolled off me. A power nap and regrettable WEAK-ass cup of instant coffee later and I left to go to my meeting with my convo partner. We talked for an hour, half in Spanish and half in English. I have found that there is a direct correlation between how awake I am and how good my Spanish is. Therefore in my artificially conscious state, my Spanish tonight was shittay.
Walking home I felt better, glad I had gone to the meeting and so happy it had cooled down. As soon as I got home I booked it to the bathroom and took one of those life-fixing showers. Feeling more like a human, I putzted around on my laptop and Skyped my mom until my host mami called me to eat dinner.
At dinner I asked if I could use the stove to cook some eggs on the weekends. She said no, she was too afraid that the gas would not be turned off all the way and that basically I could kill everyone in the building. I wanted to say that I'd been successfully not killing people via natural gas exposure for about 10 years of stove use but this was just not a situation to argue about. I am taking this slightly harder than I probably should but the stomach wants what the stomach wants and I want some goddamn eggs.
So, that was my quilombito of a day. Now I'm making it (almost) all better by listening to fun.'s new album and getting lost in the excessive drums and bass.
-j
Let's back back back it up nah...
Woke up this morning at 6:30a for my 8am class at UMSA (the local BA university I'm taking a class from). Today was the first class-Estado y Politicas Publicas(the state and public policy). I was gonna be a PoliSci major before I found International Studies so I've taken my share of public policy-related classes before. All I need to do is pass this thing. Not even do well, just..sobrevivir(survive). I go on autopilot and forgot that my class starts at 8 not 8:30. At 7:45 I got a text from another IES student taking the same class asking if I was close. Well fuck, I haven't even left my apartment building yet. I fly out of the apartment and realized it was raining and I didn't have my raincoat with me. Hauled back up, grabbed my jacket and walked to the bus stop, which is on the corner. I wait...five minutes later the line I needed comes down the street. I stuck out my arm to flag it down. It sees me, and the other three people waiting. Fucker passed right on by. Awesome.
Finally caught the bus and then walked to UMSA. I met Zach, the other IES student. 10 minutes late but thankfully Argentinians don't believe in being on time. Ever. So we climbed the five flights of stairs because there was a huge line for the elevators. Found the class, sat down. Bueno.
Professor rolls in, starts class. Speaks at a good speed, I'm keeping up. Talking about things I'm familiar with. Awesome. Then...he spoke faster and faster and I'm sad to say I didn't have the balls to raise my hand and ask him to slow down. Also, he starts writing notes on the board. Except they aren't notes, they're fucking glyphs. He writes letters, like SL or E, circles them and draws a bunch of arrows connecting to other circled letters. I lost the thread of his lecture, looked down for five seconds and three or four more circled mystery letters had appeared like mushrooms. Great.
Fast forward an hour and my brain was fried. It actually felt hotter and flattened. The professor ran out of class. I turned to Zach. He looked deflated. A girl in the class asked us if we're all right. We straggle out of UMSA and walk back to the IES center. It was raining, obviously. Back at IES we strategized about other, easier classes to take. Historia de Argentina, I'll see yo fine 1st year-level ass tomorrow.
After lunch, during which I unsuccessfully attempted to open not one but 4 packets of ketchup for my burger, I walked back to my apartment. I collapsed on my bed, checked emails and felt a bit better. Today my Visual Arts in the City class had a visita at the Museo de Arte Moderno(its Spanish acronym is MAMBA which makes me smile-Kill Bill anyone?) I caught the colectivo and grab a rail. It's hotter than a mug on this goddamn bus, lots of people and 97% humidity doesn't mix. Actually 97% humidity doesn't seem to mix well with anything except my hair, which by the end of the ride looked like a white girl version of Diana Ross early 70s, post-Supremes. I'm on the bus and I'm sweating. I don't mean buckets, I mean slow, steady, under the bra, trickle down the back annoying-type shit. I look at the woman next to me and she is pristine-hair done,high heels and no profuse sweat beads on her brow. THE HELL? Do porteños have a no sweating on the colectivo-gene???
I got off the bus and start walking the three blocks to the museum. Glad for the breeze I passed by a random park/wasteland and in my peripheral vision I see a man pissing on a tree. I ever so slightly turned my head his direction to confirm. Yep, a grown man, dick out in the daylight, peeing on a tree. Oh San Telmo. Oh Buenos Aires.
I arrived at the museum, still lowkey ladysweating. At least here so was almost everyone else. We started the tour of the exhibition. A few works of art down and we are looking at a large canvas of white paint, a big block of white. As I was standing there, I felt that disgusting sensation of sweat rolling quietly down my back, then as though to balance everything out, my boobs retaliate with their own trickle of perspiration. Fantastic. During the rest of the exhibition, my mind kept floating away and fun.'s song "Some Nights" played soothingly over my inflamed brainwaves.
By the time the exhibition is over, I felt flattened, sticky and not overjoyed about that exact moment in my life. I flirt heavily with the idea of emailing my conversation partner to cancel our meeting later that evening but decide to go home, regroup and go.
Reaching my apartment, I collapse onto my bed, feeling like I was sinking into it as waves of fatigue rolled off me. A power nap and regrettable WEAK-ass cup of instant coffee later and I left to go to my meeting with my convo partner. We talked for an hour, half in Spanish and half in English. I have found that there is a direct correlation between how awake I am and how good my Spanish is. Therefore in my artificially conscious state, my Spanish tonight was shittay.
Walking home I felt better, glad I had gone to the meeting and so happy it had cooled down. As soon as I got home I booked it to the bathroom and took one of those life-fixing showers. Feeling more like a human, I putzted around on my laptop and Skyped my mom until my host mami called me to eat dinner.
At dinner I asked if I could use the stove to cook some eggs on the weekends. She said no, she was too afraid that the gas would not be turned off all the way and that basically I could kill everyone in the building. I wanted to say that I'd been successfully not killing people via natural gas exposure for about 10 years of stove use but this was just not a situation to argue about. I am taking this slightly harder than I probably should but the stomach wants what the stomach wants and I want some goddamn eggs.
So, that was my quilombito of a day. Now I'm making it (almost) all better by listening to fun.'s new album and getting lost in the excessive drums and bass.
-j
Sunday, March 18, 2012
"arte es.." san telmo #1
So, at home I'm involved in a group called FOKUS(Fighting Obstacles Knowing Ultimate Success)In a nutshell, FOKUS is an arts-advocacy group that believes everyone is an artist and that art is one of the best ways to bring people of different kinds of backgrounds,races, genders, religions, politics...together.
There's the phrase "Art is...what unites us" and before I came to BA, me and another FOKUS member developed a project centered around the phrase "art is..." using postcards.
Why is this important? When I knew I was going to study abroad, I knew I wanted to do a spin on the postcard project and take it to the streets, literally. After a few weeks of adjusting to being in Buenos Aires, I finally got organized enough to move forward on my idea. So yesterday I bought a chunk of different colored construction paper and two big colored markers, writing out "Arte es..." in big letters on each piece of paper. I also wrote out (s/o to the superior Spanish skills of Suhaly Bautista)a short paragraph of information about why we were doing this project and what we were asking people to do.
There are a lot of different ferias (street fairs/markets) in Buenos Aires but one of the biggest and most well-known is in San Telmo every Sunday. I wanted to go to San Telmo and ask different street artists if they would complete the phrase and let us take their photo with what they wrote.
I proposed the idea to my friend Chelsea who has a knack for photography and a much more sophisticated camera than I do. I wanted her to come with me and take the photos and thankfully she dug the idea and said yes.
So, this afternoon we went to San Telmo and started at the beginning of the feria, which runs along one of the main roads in the barrio. I'm not the type of person who naturally approaches people I don't know so asking different street artists if they'd participate was stepping outside of my comfort zone. Being comfortable with what the project was and the reasons behind it made approaching people much easier.
The first person we approached was a man in his mid-twenties who was doing caricature portraits. He said yes but asked several times for a moment to think of a good answer. I assured him that there was no "right" answer and to take his time. While he was pondering a worthy answer, a huge argument/borderline fight broke out behind him. Apparently there had been a theft. This slowed down his thinking process but eventually, he put marker to paper and wrote a very eloquent response. Chelsea took his photo and we moved on.
The second person we asked, an old man playing a guitar, said no. He was very nice and out of everyone we asked, was the only person to decline. Moving slowly through the cobblestone street, we looked for people whose work was their own, especially those working on the same items they were selling. A man who worked with wire and metal agreed and let us take his photo. Another woman, sitting in the shade behind her table knitting a hat(she was selling knitted scarves and hats)was almost zen-like in her agreement to participate.
We approached a couple, sitting on the curb behind their work of decorated and patterned sneakers and hightops. The woman seemed a bit shy but they agreed and their friend, whose table was right next to theirs, asked what we were doing and if he could also complete the phrase. He proudly posed with what he wrote and then told us that he was from Colombia. Each time a person said yes and wrote down what art meant in their lives, I felt a surge of excitement, a tiny victory.
Something that I noticed was how different people's actual reactions to my asking them to participate were in comparison to what I thought they would be. I didn't expect the caricature drawer to be so thoughtful and almost painfully slow in his response nor did I expect the rougher looking man who worked with the wire and metal to be so forthcoming and nice. Some people responded to the phrase very quickly while others paused and I wondered how often, if ever, had someone asked what their art meant to them.
Everyone we asked was very friendly and had varying degrees of curiosity about the project, who we were and where we were from. At times stumbling over my explanation of the project, I was always able to successfully deliver my point.
As we neared the end of the street, I was happy with how the afternoon had gone. We had ten responses out of the eleven people we asked and all but two of them had agreed to pose with their completed phrase.
Stepping outside my comfort zone paid off and I can't wait to go to other ferias and ask more artists and performers what "arte es..." for them.
Art truly is what unites us. Today was absolute proof.
www.fokus.org
-j
There's the phrase "Art is...what unites us" and before I came to BA, me and another FOKUS member developed a project centered around the phrase "art is..." using postcards.
Why is this important? When I knew I was going to study abroad, I knew I wanted to do a spin on the postcard project and take it to the streets, literally. After a few weeks of adjusting to being in Buenos Aires, I finally got organized enough to move forward on my idea. So yesterday I bought a chunk of different colored construction paper and two big colored markers, writing out "Arte es..." in big letters on each piece of paper. I also wrote out (s/o to the superior Spanish skills of Suhaly Bautista)a short paragraph of information about why we were doing this project and what we were asking people to do.
There are a lot of different ferias (street fairs/markets) in Buenos Aires but one of the biggest and most well-known is in San Telmo every Sunday. I wanted to go to San Telmo and ask different street artists if they would complete the phrase and let us take their photo with what they wrote.
I proposed the idea to my friend Chelsea who has a knack for photography and a much more sophisticated camera than I do. I wanted her to come with me and take the photos and thankfully she dug the idea and said yes.
So, this afternoon we went to San Telmo and started at the beginning of the feria, which runs along one of the main roads in the barrio. I'm not the type of person who naturally approaches people I don't know so asking different street artists if they'd participate was stepping outside of my comfort zone. Being comfortable with what the project was and the reasons behind it made approaching people much easier.
The first person we approached was a man in his mid-twenties who was doing caricature portraits. He said yes but asked several times for a moment to think of a good answer. I assured him that there was no "right" answer and to take his time. While he was pondering a worthy answer, a huge argument/borderline fight broke out behind him. Apparently there had been a theft. This slowed down his thinking process but eventually, he put marker to paper and wrote a very eloquent response. Chelsea took his photo and we moved on.
The second person we asked, an old man playing a guitar, said no. He was very nice and out of everyone we asked, was the only person to decline. Moving slowly through the cobblestone street, we looked for people whose work was their own, especially those working on the same items they were selling. A man who worked with wire and metal agreed and let us take his photo. Another woman, sitting in the shade behind her table knitting a hat(she was selling knitted scarves and hats)was almost zen-like in her agreement to participate.
We approached a couple, sitting on the curb behind their work of decorated and patterned sneakers and hightops. The woman seemed a bit shy but they agreed and their friend, whose table was right next to theirs, asked what we were doing and if he could also complete the phrase. He proudly posed with what he wrote and then told us that he was from Colombia. Each time a person said yes and wrote down what art meant in their lives, I felt a surge of excitement, a tiny victory.
Something that I noticed was how different people's actual reactions to my asking them to participate were in comparison to what I thought they would be. I didn't expect the caricature drawer to be so thoughtful and almost painfully slow in his response nor did I expect the rougher looking man who worked with the wire and metal to be so forthcoming and nice. Some people responded to the phrase very quickly while others paused and I wondered how often, if ever, had someone asked what their art meant to them.
Everyone we asked was very friendly and had varying degrees of curiosity about the project, who we were and where we were from. At times stumbling over my explanation of the project, I was always able to successfully deliver my point.
As we neared the end of the street, I was happy with how the afternoon had gone. We had ten responses out of the eleven people we asked and all but two of them had agreed to pose with their completed phrase.
Stepping outside my comfort zone paid off and I can't wait to go to other ferias and ask more artists and performers what "arte es..." for them.
Art truly is what unites us. Today was absolute proof.
www.fokus.org
-j
Saturday, March 17, 2012
real talk: half-formed thoughts on race, ethnicity, self-identification in Argentina
In the United States, being Latin@ has a huge range of meanings, definitions and connotations. There is such a large mix of different countries of ancestry and origin as well as increasingly diverse ways that people are self-identifying. Risking generalization in the hope of conveying a point, in the US there is an ongoing struggle with a desire to be 'white' among many Latin@s. This is certainly not true of everyone, and I can say from experiences with friends of mine that among younger Latin@s, there is a stubborn pride to connect with one's culture and embrace their entire identity/ies. Before I go off on a huge separate thread...
Being in Argentina, the racial diversity seems to be more muted, even in comparison to Michigan. For me, coming from the University of Michigan 'bubble' where the majority of Latin@s on campus are not European-identifying or desiring to be so, Buenos Aires has been interesting. I will speak on Buenos Aires, as I don't have any real experience outside of the city yet. In Buenos Aires, something like 90% of residents are of pretty significant Italian origin mixed in with several other European countries. The overall 'hue' of Porteños(BA residents) is white. There is a great affinity for European things, trends, customs, which to a degree makes sense as a majority of the population IS of European descent. However, in contrast to my experiences in the US, there is less of a proclaimed "Latino" identity. Yes, they speak Spanish and yes, Argentina is a South American country, but the self-identification of people in BA is (as I suppose self-identification is anywhere) very complex. At the risk of making another dumb, uninformed observation- I venture to say that a significant portion of BA residents cling to a quasi-European identity with a 'tinge' of Latin@ because they can create the identity without a great deal of other/outside voices contradicting it.
On a side note, being in BA, where people are mostly 'white', I have had to check my own assumptions about what 'Latin@' looks like. For me to see someone with blue eyes and blonde hair who is a native Argentinian, I need to remember that being Latin@ does not equate to any specific race or ethnicity.
One topic/issue that I want to educate myself on is the presence of Bolivian refugees in Argentina. Noticeably darker than many Argentinians, I wonder if their presence creates a certain unease among more European-identifying Argentinians. Are they afraid that by identifying with a more Latino identity, they risk losing something, some kind of superiority or cultural prestige?
Ethnicity and self-identification are issues that challenge people around the world. In no way do I wish to pass judgement on what is a 'better'/more authentic way of identifying oneself nor do I pretend to know much about the underlying and complex reasons behind how Argentinians construct their own identities. But I do believe it is worth thinking about and, in a respectful, open way, to question why.
Make of this what you will.
-j
Being in Argentina, the racial diversity seems to be more muted, even in comparison to Michigan. For me, coming from the University of Michigan 'bubble' where the majority of Latin@s on campus are not European-identifying or desiring to be so, Buenos Aires has been interesting. I will speak on Buenos Aires, as I don't have any real experience outside of the city yet. In Buenos Aires, something like 90% of residents are of pretty significant Italian origin mixed in with several other European countries. The overall 'hue' of Porteños(BA residents) is white. There is a great affinity for European things, trends, customs, which to a degree makes sense as a majority of the population IS of European descent. However, in contrast to my experiences in the US, there is less of a proclaimed "Latino" identity. Yes, they speak Spanish and yes, Argentina is a South American country, but the self-identification of people in BA is (as I suppose self-identification is anywhere) very complex. At the risk of making another dumb, uninformed observation- I venture to say that a significant portion of BA residents cling to a quasi-European identity with a 'tinge' of Latin@ because they can create the identity without a great deal of other/outside voices contradicting it.
On a side note, being in BA, where people are mostly 'white', I have had to check my own assumptions about what 'Latin@' looks like. For me to see someone with blue eyes and blonde hair who is a native Argentinian, I need to remember that being Latin@ does not equate to any specific race or ethnicity.
One topic/issue that I want to educate myself on is the presence of Bolivian refugees in Argentina. Noticeably darker than many Argentinians, I wonder if their presence creates a certain unease among more European-identifying Argentinians. Are they afraid that by identifying with a more Latino identity, they risk losing something, some kind of superiority or cultural prestige?
Ethnicity and self-identification are issues that challenge people around the world. In no way do I wish to pass judgement on what is a 'better'/more authentic way of identifying oneself nor do I pretend to know much about the underlying and complex reasons behind how Argentinians construct their own identities. But I do believe it is worth thinking about and, in a respectful, open way, to question why.
Make of this what you will.
-j
Thursday, March 15, 2012
SUBE card success and other general life updates
So two days ago, I went with a group of other IES students to our appointments for criminal background checks, because honestly why wouldn't you wait two weeks after someone has been in your country to make sure they're not a bat-shit crazy person or packin a violent prior criminal record? Makes total sense.. We arrive at the building and it all moves surprisingly quickly, I fill out a form, pay $30 pesos and get fingerprinted. I asked if the woman wanted my toe prints too and she cracked a half smile. Afterwards, we went to Cafe Tortoni, which is this beautiful, very famous coffee place in Buenos Aires. It's apparently the oldest one in the city. We were the definition of American tourists as we walked into the cafe, which is actually more along the lines of a small concert hall than a little cafe, and sat at the tables they set up for us. I usually don't like feeling like such a straight up tourist but when the coffee is that good and free, I'm gonna set aside my pride.
On the walk back to the IES center, a few of us saw a Correo(post office) on the street and decided to see, on the off chance, if they had the terribly elusive Sube cards. There was no line, the nice woman behind the desk had Sube cards and within 15 minutes, about 10 of us walked out with our cards in hand and damn near pissing excitement. It was amazing.
Yesterday afternoon after I walked home from class, I decided to take out the camera (my hardcore point and shoot Nikon..) and wander around Recoleta, the barrio (neighborhood) where I live. There's a good amount of street art here of varying degrees of complexity and form. Ranging from a simple political message written in hasty capital letters to a neon stencil of Charlie Brown on a skateboard, to a street-long elaborate mural with different kinds of nature and wildlife depicted. I wandered down a cobblestone side street called Calle Bellini, with no one on it. The buildings were lovely, many with bright colors and it seemed like the street the rest of the city forgot. Some of my favorite stencils were a skeleton, Charlie Brown and Britney Spears.
In other business, this week has been much nicer weather-wise, highs in the mid-70s and partially cloudy. I can roll with that. All but two of my classes have met, with the last of my IES classes meeting today and UMSA (the local Buenos Aires university I'm taking a class at) starting Tuesdsay. About UMSA-I'm mildly freaked out. I know that the Spanish spoken will almost certainly be way faster than my little mind can keep up with. But as long as I don't tragically and epically fail, I'm hopeful it will be a cool chance to meet some Argentinian students and improve my Spanish. I need to pass this class, not set the curve. Which they actually don't have here. No grading curve, no Ctools, no office hours and usually no syllabus. Yeah, I'm super pumped.
Also, St. Patty's Day is this Saturday. A little piece of my heart breaks knowing I won't be in Ann Arbor for the shitshow that will take place. There's nothing quite like seeing the whole place go green, drink with your friends without a huge amount of societal shame, crash for a few hours and then live to rage again.
But, I'm here in BA and interested to see what St. Patty's looks like in South America.
Over and out.
-j
On the walk back to the IES center, a few of us saw a Correo(post office) on the street and decided to see, on the off chance, if they had the terribly elusive Sube cards. There was no line, the nice woman behind the desk had Sube cards and within 15 minutes, about 10 of us walked out with our cards in hand and damn near pissing excitement. It was amazing.
Yesterday afternoon after I walked home from class, I decided to take out the camera (my hardcore point and shoot Nikon..) and wander around Recoleta, the barrio (neighborhood) where I live. There's a good amount of street art here of varying degrees of complexity and form. Ranging from a simple political message written in hasty capital letters to a neon stencil of Charlie Brown on a skateboard, to a street-long elaborate mural with different kinds of nature and wildlife depicted. I wandered down a cobblestone side street called Calle Bellini, with no one on it. The buildings were lovely, many with bright colors and it seemed like the street the rest of the city forgot. Some of my favorite stencils were a skeleton, Charlie Brown and Britney Spears.
In other business, this week has been much nicer weather-wise, highs in the mid-70s and partially cloudy. I can roll with that. All but two of my classes have met, with the last of my IES classes meeting today and UMSA (the local Buenos Aires university I'm taking a class at) starting Tuesdsay. About UMSA-I'm mildly freaked out. I know that the Spanish spoken will almost certainly be way faster than my little mind can keep up with. But as long as I don't tragically and epically fail, I'm hopeful it will be a cool chance to meet some Argentinian students and improve my Spanish. I need to pass this class, not set the curve. Which they actually don't have here. No grading curve, no Ctools, no office hours and usually no syllabus. Yeah, I'm super pumped.
Also, St. Patty's Day is this Saturday. A little piece of my heart breaks knowing I won't be in Ann Arbor for the shitshow that will take place. There's nothing quite like seeing the whole place go green, drink with your friends without a huge amount of societal shame, crash for a few hours and then live to rage again.
But, I'm here in BA and interested to see what St. Patty's looks like in South America.
Over and out.
-j
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Raincoats and Adele in Once
Can't believe this is the start of week 3. Tomorrow brings the start of classes through IES and the return of homework and a real schedule. I'm kind of looking forward to having more of a regular schedule and the presence of homework is the definition of familiar.
In packing for Argentina, I would say I am happy with almost everything I brought or decided not to bring. There are a few things I wish I'd brought more of (underwear comes to mind) and other things I just haven't found myself wearing (such as dresses). The one thing that I almost brought but oh so regrettably did NOT pack was my raincoat. It's great, Patagonia brand, a nice cream color, mesh pockets, adjustable hood, breathable. And it is currently sitting on a chair in my room in Michigan. Bumba.
Therefore, after being caught in a virtual monsoon last week, I spent all of the following week in various stores along Santa Fe avenue and on Carlos Pellegrini questing for a raincoat, only to be disappointed in the high prices and lack of hoods. No, I had to politely tell the salespeople, I did not have $750 pesos to spend (the rough equivalent of $200US) on a raincoat. I had to stumble through explaining my price range an embarrassingly large number of times. After a certain point, I stopped looking on the nicer streets, because the reality was my pocketbook didn't have quite that much wiggle room to remedy my idiot error of not packing my existing raincoat. I asked around for suggestions as to where I could find a decently priced raincoat in Buenos Aires. Now this seems..well, like a stupid thing to have to do. Rarely in my life have I missed the all-inclusive shopping experience that is Meijer and Wal-Mart. In the United States, I can tell you five good places off the top of my head where you could go and buy a raincoat and have a large amount of colors, sizes, styles and price points to choose from. Regrettably, I am in Buenos Aires, and the world of Wal-Mart does not seem to exist.
After hearing from several trusted and more knowledgeable sources, I set my sights on Once, a barrio in Buenos Aires that is known for its' cheaper shops and stores. I was also told to watch my belongings very carefully, which is saying something, because in Buenos Aires, to consciously hold onto one's things is as habitual as breathing. Having been warned, I took the 101 to Once yesterday with a friend from IES. Both being idiots and not having packed our raincoats, we held on to the hope that Once would be our raincoat salvation. We met on the corner outside one of what must be ten million kioscos and began trolling down the main street of Corrientes. Putting our faith in sports-equipment stores, we checked out block after block of shops selling Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Fila. Nothing that fit the bill. The deal breaker seemed to be that none of the raincoats we found had hoods, which was somewhat of a requirement. As I felt the sweat start to trickle down my back and I wondered what was wrong with this country, we walked into a small shop selling a combination of sports equipment, shoes, and sports jackets. Looking through the warm-ups and pullovers, our eyes roved over a rack containing rain jackets. Excitedly, we examined them-looking at price, size and hood-having. All three requirements were met. Way too shamelessly, we try on the coats to be sure. They fit. Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" comes on as we hurtled to the register. I'm sure the saleswoman thought we were crazy. Crazy Americans.
We pay, we exit. We freak out.
In closing I would like to say that yes, buying a raincoat really can be the highlight of your week. I'm living proof.
Bring the rain, motherfluzzas.
-j
In packing for Argentina, I would say I am happy with almost everything I brought or decided not to bring. There are a few things I wish I'd brought more of (underwear comes to mind) and other things I just haven't found myself wearing (such as dresses). The one thing that I almost brought but oh so regrettably did NOT pack was my raincoat. It's great, Patagonia brand, a nice cream color, mesh pockets, adjustable hood, breathable. And it is currently sitting on a chair in my room in Michigan. Bumba.
Therefore, after being caught in a virtual monsoon last week, I spent all of the following week in various stores along Santa Fe avenue and on Carlos Pellegrini questing for a raincoat, only to be disappointed in the high prices and lack of hoods. No, I had to politely tell the salespeople, I did not have $750 pesos to spend (the rough equivalent of $200US) on a raincoat. I had to stumble through explaining my price range an embarrassingly large number of times. After a certain point, I stopped looking on the nicer streets, because the reality was my pocketbook didn't have quite that much wiggle room to remedy my idiot error of not packing my existing raincoat. I asked around for suggestions as to where I could find a decently priced raincoat in Buenos Aires. Now this seems..well, like a stupid thing to have to do. Rarely in my life have I missed the all-inclusive shopping experience that is Meijer and Wal-Mart. In the United States, I can tell you five good places off the top of my head where you could go and buy a raincoat and have a large amount of colors, sizes, styles and price points to choose from. Regrettably, I am in Buenos Aires, and the world of Wal-Mart does not seem to exist.
After hearing from several trusted and more knowledgeable sources, I set my sights on Once, a barrio in Buenos Aires that is known for its' cheaper shops and stores. I was also told to watch my belongings very carefully, which is saying something, because in Buenos Aires, to consciously hold onto one's things is as habitual as breathing. Having been warned, I took the 101 to Once yesterday with a friend from IES. Both being idiots and not having packed our raincoats, we held on to the hope that Once would be our raincoat salvation. We met on the corner outside one of what must be ten million kioscos and began trolling down the main street of Corrientes. Putting our faith in sports-equipment stores, we checked out block after block of shops selling Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Fila. Nothing that fit the bill. The deal breaker seemed to be that none of the raincoats we found had hoods, which was somewhat of a requirement. As I felt the sweat start to trickle down my back and I wondered what was wrong with this country, we walked into a small shop selling a combination of sports equipment, shoes, and sports jackets. Looking through the warm-ups and pullovers, our eyes roved over a rack containing rain jackets. Excitedly, we examined them-looking at price, size and hood-having. All three requirements were met. Way too shamelessly, we try on the coats to be sure. They fit. Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" comes on as we hurtled to the register. I'm sure the saleswoman thought we were crazy. Crazy Americans.
We pay, we exit. We freak out.
In closing I would like to say that yes, buying a raincoat really can be the highlight of your week. I'm living proof.
Bring the rain, motherfluzzas.
-j
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Dear Mr. Chubby Sube man...
Dear Mr. Chubby Sube Man,
(to preface, a Sube card is like a pre-paid debit card you can use on the busses, trains, and subways of Buenos Aires. Otherwise you need to have coins to ride all these lovely modes of transportation and coins are pretty difficult to come by. Sube cards are useful as shit but apparently impossible to get)
Que boludo! I really enjoyed waiting 2.5 hours in line under drippy AC units and being stared at by a little Argentinian girl with a juice box the size of a small boulder. While the side conversations with the older married couple was mildly enjoyable, the real treat was when you came down the line and profiled me and my friends for being Americans. No, coño, you were not magically out of Sube cards after the person in front of us, no we couldn't come back tomorrow, and no we were not leaving just because you told us to.
I write this with sore feet and a growing dislike for the ridiculousness that can be the Argentinian government.
Sincerely,
Jordan
(to preface, a Sube card is like a pre-paid debit card you can use on the busses, trains, and subways of Buenos Aires. Otherwise you need to have coins to ride all these lovely modes of transportation and coins are pretty difficult to come by. Sube cards are useful as shit but apparently impossible to get)
Que boludo! I really enjoyed waiting 2.5 hours in line under drippy AC units and being stared at by a little Argentinian girl with a juice box the size of a small boulder. While the side conversations with the older married couple was mildly enjoyable, the real treat was when you came down the line and profiled me and my friends for being Americans. No, coño, you were not magically out of Sube cards after the person in front of us, no we couldn't come back tomorrow, and no we were not leaving just because you told us to.
I write this with sore feet and a growing dislike for the ridiculousness that can be the Argentinian government.
Sincerely,
Jordan
week 2
It's already Thursday of Week 2. I can't believe how fast this one went. A much smoother emotional ride in comparison to the rush of events that last week was. Each day I am learning a bit more about the city, how to speak Spanish (boludo, anyone?) There are definitely moments of frustration but I am far more excited about discovering the city and learning more Spanish.
There are a few things I'm going to write more about later but some teasers are...
-My hate letter to Mr. Chubby Sube man
-God damnit, weather.com
-"This is NPR, National Public Radio"...
In closing, BA is still HUGE and Skype is still a lifesaver.
besitos
-j
There are a few things I'm going to write more about later but some teasers are...
-My hate letter to Mr. Chubby Sube man
-God damnit, weather.com
-"This is NPR, National Public Radio"...
In closing, BA is still HUGE and Skype is still a lifesaver.
besitos
-j
Monday, March 5, 2012
rain rain go away..wait, this class won't count?!
Today I had my first Spanish class at IES. It went great, small class size, chill professor, etcet. Later today, I find out that the class level won't count for me because it is the equivalent to a course I took at U-M. Well shit. So now I am in the process of trying to get the class counted for something else or if I have to, try and switch into the next higher level. I don't think I'll be too screwed over if I can't switch and it won't count but it'll be crappy.
Apart from that, I went to UMSA, the local BA university I'll take one class from. It was fine, they fed us. Then after registering to sit in on classes during the "trial period", I look outside to see it POURING. I am wearing moccasins. Balls, or rather soggy mocs.
I brave the rain because a taxi just isn't in the budget and make it home. I drop off my laundry and a few hours later, I pick it up, folded and fresh and nothing markedly shrunken or ruined.
At least that went well. And since it is once again a weeknight, I get dinner from my homestay. Savings!! Hahah. But really, when you're on a budget and a fair number of things in the future depend on you staying as on budget as possible, it can be a wee bit stressful when EVERYTHING seems to start costing money. Do the best you can, and pinch pesos where possible.
So here I sit, listening to the thunder and some old jazz standard coming from my host parents bedroom, doggedly plodding ahead.
besitos
-j
Apart from that, I went to UMSA, the local BA university I'll take one class from. It was fine, they fed us. Then after registering to sit in on classes during the "trial period", I look outside to see it POURING. I am wearing moccasins. Balls, or rather soggy mocs.
I brave the rain because a taxi just isn't in the budget and make it home. I drop off my laundry and a few hours later, I pick it up, folded and fresh and nothing markedly shrunken or ruined.
At least that went well. And since it is once again a weeknight, I get dinner from my homestay. Savings!! Hahah. But really, when you're on a budget and a fair number of things in the future depend on you staying as on budget as possible, it can be a wee bit stressful when EVERYTHING seems to start costing money. Do the best you can, and pinch pesos where possible.
So here I sit, listening to the thunder and some old jazz standard coming from my host parents bedroom, doggedly plodding ahead.
besitos
-j
Sunday, March 4, 2012
"It's just like Dorthy..."
After reading my previous post, my dad sent me this email. Further proof I have the best parents ever.
"You are loved, and learning about your self. It's just like Dorthy , you need to travel to find out there's no place like home. It happened to me when I went to FL. for 1 1/2 years, it was great... and found out what Dorthy did. I never want to stop traveling, it reminds me what I have , how lucky . XXOOX Papa"
-j
"You are loved, and learning about your self. It's just like Dorthy , you need to travel to find out there's no place like home. It happened to me when I went to FL. for 1 1/2 years, it was great... and found out what Dorthy did. I never want to stop traveling, it reminds me what I have , how lucky . XXOOX Papa"
-j
day by day
There are multiple moments in every day in BA where I wonder "Why am I here? Why have I voluntarily put myself in an often stressful situation where I struggle with a different language and way of doing things?" Am I hard-headed? Do I forget how much I can stress about new things and uncontrollable events? Well, probably. Which is why each day is an adventure, even if all I do is go to a different barrio and take the bus like I did today with an IES friend. Today, riding the bus and getting off at the wrong stop, in a sketchy part of town, and finding our way back to the market we came to see and then afterwards finding the right bus to go back home was my adventure, my grand accomplishment.
As someone who is used to doing many things in one day and then going here to Buenos Aires, where a formerly simple task can become the event of my day, I have to constantly remember to be patient with myself. It is really starting to sink in that I will be here for the next three months and three weeks. Mentally I have always know that, but now the emotional part of what being gone for that amount of time is beginning to hit me. And this means sometimes having a mini panic attack and having to talk myself off the proverbial ledge.
I am so blessed/fortunate/lucky to have the most incredible, patient and loving parents. They are holding my hand through this emotional roller-coaster in so many ways. They are always there to Skype me when I want to, send me supportive emails and as my dad did today, let me know that Michigan won their basketball game. Their love and support knows no distance and I don't think I could do this without them. We all have our angels, don't we?
So here I sit, on my bed, listening to Marc Anthony and the ambient noises coming in from the open window, doing my best to take it one day at a time.
besitos
-j
As someone who is used to doing many things in one day and then going here to Buenos Aires, where a formerly simple task can become the event of my day, I have to constantly remember to be patient with myself. It is really starting to sink in that I will be here for the next three months and three weeks. Mentally I have always know that, but now the emotional part of what being gone for that amount of time is beginning to hit me. And this means sometimes having a mini panic attack and having to talk myself off the proverbial ledge.
I am so blessed/fortunate/lucky to have the most incredible, patient and loving parents. They are holding my hand through this emotional roller-coaster in so many ways. They are always there to Skype me when I want to, send me supportive emails and as my dad did today, let me know that Michigan won their basketball game. Their love and support knows no distance and I don't think I could do this without them. We all have our angels, don't we?
So here I sit, on my bed, listening to Marc Anthony and the ambient noises coming in from the open window, doing my best to take it one day at a time.
besitos
-j
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Not available outside the US
I have recently discovered that neither Hulu nor Xfinity's content is available outside the US. Jerks.
-j
-j
la boca and life at 5AM
Yesterday was my first full week in Buenos Aires but these past seven days have felt like so much longer. Throwing myself into everything that I need to learn to get around BA and enjoy the city is to be honest, exhausting. I have to be patient with myself and realize that each day there are little victories. And as much as everyone at home says how lucky I am and how they wish they were here, I want anyone considering traveling abroad to understand that it is a lot of work. The payoff is great and perhaps the biggest reward is that as a result of having to navigate such a different set of rules, customs, and language, you will know so much more about yourself as a person, what you can handle, what scares you, how you cope with the stress of being far from home or struggling with tasks that were previously simple such as taking a bus or going to class. You gain a level of self-sufficiency that allows you to know that almost always, you can do what you think you cannot, it just might take a few tries. I considered myself a pretty independent and self-sufficient person before I went abroad last summer and came back knowing that I can handle much more than I thought. I know that being in BA will do that for me as well. Roll with the punches.
Aside from my philosophies on life, yesterday I went to La Boca which is a working class barrio in BA known for its colorful houses and tango. It's on the port and has a bad reputation for being a place you don't want to be after dark, especially as a foreigner and as a woman. During the day however, La Boca is full of tourists looking for a photo with a tango dancer or to take pictures of the iconic bright houses.
I walked around with my camera and did my best to notice the unnoticed. I snapped quiet pics of the old men sitting on a bench with their white hair and canes and the man dressed as a devil enjoying a cup of mate outside a restaurant, the alleyway leading to someone's apartment. To me, these seemingly unimportant people and places are often where the best stories lie and the most interesting characters reside. There was so much color in La Boca, so many murals and paintings and different decorations. My eyes overloaded on the richness and vibrancy of the sheer volume of color that surrounded me and I wished that other parts of BA had this same kind of visual intensity.
After crashing back at my homestay, I went out for my first major night in BA. I left the apartment at 12am. This was leaving early. Meeting up with some friends from IES, we walked to the bus stop to wait for the 39 line heading to Palermo SoHo or as I call it, Bar Land. As we walked along Santa Fe avenue, we passed little kids eating ice cream with their parents or families in the middle of dinner. Saddest sight on the walk to the bus stop was a group of Argentinian girls who weren't any older than 14, dressed in far too little clothing and all clinging to their cigarettes. I wanted to throw a blanket over them and tell them to value their childhood! BA goes hard, even at 14.
Going out in BA when you don't know the ropes is a lot like being a freshman at college. You don't know where you should go, or much of how to get there. You fumble with what you say, the dumb questions you ask, and you reek of new kid on the block. But that is just part of the game. A fun night later spent at an outdoor bar, I quietly rolled into my homestay at the ripe old hour of 5am. Crawled into bed and opened up the Hulu. Hulu isn't available to those outside the US.
BA struggles.
Off to shower and make friends with the butcher on the corner.
besitos
-j
Aside from my philosophies on life, yesterday I went to La Boca which is a working class barrio in BA known for its colorful houses and tango. It's on the port and has a bad reputation for being a place you don't want to be after dark, especially as a foreigner and as a woman. During the day however, La Boca is full of tourists looking for a photo with a tango dancer or to take pictures of the iconic bright houses.
I walked around with my camera and did my best to notice the unnoticed. I snapped quiet pics of the old men sitting on a bench with their white hair and canes and the man dressed as a devil enjoying a cup of mate outside a restaurant, the alleyway leading to someone's apartment. To me, these seemingly unimportant people and places are often where the best stories lie and the most interesting characters reside. There was so much color in La Boca, so many murals and paintings and different decorations. My eyes overloaded on the richness and vibrancy of the sheer volume of color that surrounded me and I wished that other parts of BA had this same kind of visual intensity.
After crashing back at my homestay, I went out for my first major night in BA. I left the apartment at 12am. This was leaving early. Meeting up with some friends from IES, we walked to the bus stop to wait for the 39 line heading to Palermo SoHo or as I call it, Bar Land. As we walked along Santa Fe avenue, we passed little kids eating ice cream with their parents or families in the middle of dinner. Saddest sight on the walk to the bus stop was a group of Argentinian girls who weren't any older than 14, dressed in far too little clothing and all clinging to their cigarettes. I wanted to throw a blanket over them and tell them to value their childhood! BA goes hard, even at 14.
Going out in BA when you don't know the ropes is a lot like being a freshman at college. You don't know where you should go, or much of how to get there. You fumble with what you say, the dumb questions you ask, and you reek of new kid on the block. But that is just part of the game. A fun night later spent at an outdoor bar, I quietly rolled into my homestay at the ripe old hour of 5am. Crawled into bed and opened up the Hulu. Hulu isn't available to those outside the US.
BA struggles.
Off to shower and make friends with the butcher on the corner.
besitos
-j
Thursday, March 1, 2012
estancias, ropas interiores y walmart
Well hey kids--
Tomorrow will be my seventh day in Buenos Aires. I really can't believe it will have been one week. The amount of changes that have taken place in that amount of time blows my mind a little bit.
Buenos Aires gets a little less gigantic-feeling each day and the more I get to know people in my program, the less I feel like I'm doing all of this solo(dolo). Yesterday I finally got my phone for Argentina-a jacked up Nokia that has T9 texting and no idea of what the internet is. What up, 8th grade?? On that note, I don't think I've ever used Facebook chat so much in my mothafluzzin life, even in my middle-school heyday. With texts and calls being in short supply on our planes prepagos (pay-as-you-go plans) and not everyone having a phone quite yet, Facebook has become the main way people in IES (my program) are posting information, making plans and staying in touch. Notifications overload. Between the T9 texting and Facebook chat blowing up, I really think I might be technologically regressing.
Apart from the technology adjustment, the inevitable has occured; I have officially run out of clean underwear. No one's gonna lose a life here but shit's serious, clean drawers are a basic thing. Solution? Brave the intimates store on calle French and make my virgin voyage into the purchasing of clothes in Argentina. The chances for awkward situations and lost-in-translations to occur are huge. Most likely I will have unintentionally propositioned someone in the shop before all is said and done. Stay tuned.
I never thought I would actively miss Walmart but being pretty much anywhere outside the US forces you to go to five different stores for your list of five different items instead of going to one store that fucking has everything under one blessed roof. There are many things the US fucks up on-going to war with countries they don't need to, eating themselves into diabetes and heart disease... but Walmart and Meijer exist for a reason. For a REASON. Forget freedom or liberty or the Constitution, the United States' gift to the world is one stop shopping. And I miss it.
Oh yeah, today I went to a ranch, with a llama and some ducks. More on that later.
besitos
-j
Tomorrow will be my seventh day in Buenos Aires. I really can't believe it will have been one week. The amount of changes that have taken place in that amount of time blows my mind a little bit.
Buenos Aires gets a little less gigantic-feeling each day and the more I get to know people in my program, the less I feel like I'm doing all of this solo(dolo). Yesterday I finally got my phone for Argentina-a jacked up Nokia that has T9 texting and no idea of what the internet is. What up, 8th grade?? On that note, I don't think I've ever used Facebook chat so much in my mothafluzzin life, even in my middle-school heyday. With texts and calls being in short supply on our planes prepagos (pay-as-you-go plans) and not everyone having a phone quite yet, Facebook has become the main way people in IES (my program) are posting information, making plans and staying in touch. Notifications overload. Between the T9 texting and Facebook chat blowing up, I really think I might be technologically regressing.
Apart from the technology adjustment, the inevitable has occured; I have officially run out of clean underwear. No one's gonna lose a life here but shit's serious, clean drawers are a basic thing. Solution? Brave the intimates store on calle French and make my virgin voyage into the purchasing of clothes in Argentina. The chances for awkward situations and lost-in-translations to occur are huge. Most likely I will have unintentionally propositioned someone in the shop before all is said and done. Stay tuned.
I never thought I would actively miss Walmart but being pretty much anywhere outside the US forces you to go to five different stores for your list of five different items instead of going to one store that fucking has everything under one blessed roof. There are many things the US fucks up on-going to war with countries they don't need to, eating themselves into diabetes and heart disease... but Walmart and Meijer exist for a reason. For a REASON. Forget freedom or liberty or the Constitution, the United States' gift to the world is one stop shopping. And I miss it.
Oh yeah, today I went to a ranch, with a llama and some ducks. More on that later.
besitos
-j
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
tostada and toilets
My day so far has consisted of: being handed a cerrated knife and a plate for no apparent reason by the part-time housekeeper, being asked questions about my life when I'm not even able to spell my own name due to being asleep while awake, and having to pee so bad I couldn't see straight and realizing that the only bathroom was occupied via a shower.
I've been up for 20 minutes.
On a food note, when the custom is to have only a piece of toast and jam and coffee for breakfast, you turn into a food hoarder. Not trusting the eventuality of lunch, you take food whenever it is presented to you. This may be a bit of an exaggeration but in adjusting to Argentina, I have to say, I miss my eggs and orange juice for breakfast, and not being handed knives by housekeepers. I am not a morning person, as my mother will vigorously vouch for, and being asked to hold even a small conversation (in any language) is my idea of breakfast torture, a conversational hold up with words.
Now I am waiting for the shower to be vacated by Pepin, my host dad.
Livin the life
besitos
-j
I've been up for 20 minutes.
On a food note, when the custom is to have only a piece of toast and jam and coffee for breakfast, you turn into a food hoarder. Not trusting the eventuality of lunch, you take food whenever it is presented to you. This may be a bit of an exaggeration but in adjusting to Argentina, I have to say, I miss my eggs and orange juice for breakfast, and not being handed knives by housekeepers. I am not a morning person, as my mother will vigorously vouch for, and being asked to hold even a small conversation (in any language) is my idea of breakfast torture, a conversational hold up with words.
Now I am waiting for the shower to be vacated by Pepin, my host dad.
Livin the life
besitos
-j
Monday, February 27, 2012
Instant Coffee and getting hostel-clean
Last night I could not sleep. My head was overflowing with the events of the last few days and I kept combing through them. Also, Buenos Aires nightlife STARTS around 2AM and ends...when the sun comes up? So there was a lot of actividad outside my window. Sorry to ruin the fantasy for anyone but I haven't gone out yet in BA. I'm still soaking in all the changes. It will happen however, I will get fancy, and there will be raging.
This morning I ventured into the world of instant coffee. It was the strangest thing I've had that purported to be coffee. I have never wanted a coffee machine more in my life and feel that if I had the equipment, I'd mainline the stuff. But instead I sat in the cocina, full of morning sunshine, clinging to my instacoffee like an alcoholic clings to a vodka tonic.
After my breakfast of multi-fruit juice, a breakfast cake thing and instant coffee, I took a shower. It was incredible. I took a shower at the hostel but this means I only got 'hostel-clean' and by that I mean all the important bits got washed but I dried off with my terrycloth travel towel still feeling a layer of grime. So this morning's shower was the first proper one I've had since I left home.
Now I'm dressed and blogging about instant coffee and life in Argentina, enjoying feeling clean.
besitos
-j
This morning I ventured into the world of instant coffee. It was the strangest thing I've had that purported to be coffee. I have never wanted a coffee machine more in my life and feel that if I had the equipment, I'd mainline the stuff. But instead I sat in the cocina, full of morning sunshine, clinging to my instacoffee like an alcoholic clings to a vodka tonic.
After my breakfast of multi-fruit juice, a breakfast cake thing and instant coffee, I took a shower. It was incredible. I took a shower at the hostel but this means I only got 'hostel-clean' and by that I mean all the important bits got washed but I dried off with my terrycloth travel towel still feeling a layer of grime. So this morning's shower was the first proper one I've had since I left home.
Now I'm dressed and blogging about instant coffee and life in Argentina, enjoying feeling clean.
besitos
-j
Sunday, February 26, 2012
my love letter to skype
Dear Skype,
On behalf of all far-flung lovers and family members around the world, I would like to thank you very much for existing. You make homesickness be less sucky. You allow me to feel connected to people I am thousands of miles away from.
Like I said, thanks for existing.
Stay golden Skype.
Sincerely,
Jordan
On behalf of all far-flung lovers and family members around the world, I would like to thank you very much for existing. You make homesickness be less sucky. You allow me to feel connected to people I am thousands of miles away from.
Like I said, thanks for existing.
Stay golden Skype.
Sincerely,
Jordan
Buenos Aires
How do I even begin to cover the last 48 hours of my life?
I'll give you some bullet points.
February 24th, my mom and I drive to Lansing airport, where I was scheduled to fly out at 3:30pm. It was of course, snowing and my flight was going to be delayed, which was long story short going to fuck me over. But then a nice beardy man behind the Continental airlines counter switched me to a direct flight leaving out of Detroit at 3:00. I wanted to kiss nameless beardy man but I settled with a handshake.
I said a long goodbye to my mother and boarded my plane to Houston. Laid over for a few hours and got on the plane to Buenos Aires. It was a weird feeling to watch the blue track lights on the runway and know the plane just lifted off and I was saying goodbye to the US for four months. Next to me were a man and woman, who I originally thought were father and daughter but after a sufficient amount of touching that would have been highly inappropriate for a father and daughter, I decided, for my own comfort, that they were instead probably boyfriend and girlfriend. Boring, long plane ride. I slept for about two hours and am now firmly decided that the only way to be on an overnight flight to a foreign country is drugged up on Xanax or melatonin. I was across the aisle from a family of Argentinians and damnit if they weren't all model-good looking and tan.
After I get off the plane, I walked right into a line, which led to another line, where I paid $140 for a visa. Then I got back in the first line. It was hot, I was tired, and my backpack felt like a million pounds. The woman in front of me thought it was just too damn funny that I had to go buy a visa and then get back in line. I, on the other hand, felt like punching her. Two hours of standing in a sweaty basement type room later I was through customs and breathing relatively fresh air.
I got a taxi service through the hostel I booked and finally I was in the cab, driven by a strong cologne wearing older man whose name I never caught, but he seemed like a Pedro, so that is what I will call him. Pedro and I talked in Spanish about my life and he gave me a list of advice which was not negotiable. On my end, there was a lot of obligatory nodding and agreeing. At my hostel, Pedro bid me a whiskery kiss goodbye and I lugged 50 lbs of my belongings up three flights of narrow stairs to the bed I reserved. Needless to say I collapsed and woke up two hours later wondering how I had made it to Buenos Aires in one piece.
The hostel was trippy. If someone on an acid trip decided to open a hostel, this one was decorated accordingly. Bright colors, crazy murals and a kickin rooftop deck. Plus beer, delicious amazing cold cold beer.
Skip to today, I take a taxi to my homestay and meet my Buenos Aires madre, Patricia. She met me at the front door of the building, dressed in a classy all-white outfit and possessing what all Argentinians seem to have, a classy golden tan. She is super nice and friendly and showed me the apartment, which is gorgeous. My room is very nice and the closet is bigger than mine at home. It was nice to unpack and not have to lug heavy shit around anymore.
This afternoon, I met up with a FOKUS connect Anna B and we walked around the famous Recoleta cemetary. Rich Catholics really know how to rock the afterlife in style. Then we walked through a market that had different items like bracelets, rings, bags, etc. I bought a dreamcatcher. It was a great afternoon and always good to spread the traveler love.
Right now I'm a little braindead.
besitos
-j
I'll give you some bullet points.
February 24th, my mom and I drive to Lansing airport, where I was scheduled to fly out at 3:30pm. It was of course, snowing and my flight was going to be delayed, which was long story short going to fuck me over. But then a nice beardy man behind the Continental airlines counter switched me to a direct flight leaving out of Detroit at 3:00. I wanted to kiss nameless beardy man but I settled with a handshake.
I said a long goodbye to my mother and boarded my plane to Houston. Laid over for a few hours and got on the plane to Buenos Aires. It was a weird feeling to watch the blue track lights on the runway and know the plane just lifted off and I was saying goodbye to the US for four months. Next to me were a man and woman, who I originally thought were father and daughter but after a sufficient amount of touching that would have been highly inappropriate for a father and daughter, I decided, for my own comfort, that they were instead probably boyfriend and girlfriend. Boring, long plane ride. I slept for about two hours and am now firmly decided that the only way to be on an overnight flight to a foreign country is drugged up on Xanax or melatonin. I was across the aisle from a family of Argentinians and damnit if they weren't all model-good looking and tan.
After I get off the plane, I walked right into a line, which led to another line, where I paid $140 for a visa. Then I got back in the first line. It was hot, I was tired, and my backpack felt like a million pounds. The woman in front of me thought it was just too damn funny that I had to go buy a visa and then get back in line. I, on the other hand, felt like punching her. Two hours of standing in a sweaty basement type room later I was through customs and breathing relatively fresh air.
I got a taxi service through the hostel I booked and finally I was in the cab, driven by a strong cologne wearing older man whose name I never caught, but he seemed like a Pedro, so that is what I will call him. Pedro and I talked in Spanish about my life and he gave me a list of advice which was not negotiable. On my end, there was a lot of obligatory nodding and agreeing. At my hostel, Pedro bid me a whiskery kiss goodbye and I lugged 50 lbs of my belongings up three flights of narrow stairs to the bed I reserved. Needless to say I collapsed and woke up two hours later wondering how I had made it to Buenos Aires in one piece.
The hostel was trippy. If someone on an acid trip decided to open a hostel, this one was decorated accordingly. Bright colors, crazy murals and a kickin rooftop deck. Plus beer, delicious amazing cold cold beer.
Skip to today, I take a taxi to my homestay and meet my Buenos Aires madre, Patricia. She met me at the front door of the building, dressed in a classy all-white outfit and possessing what all Argentinians seem to have, a classy golden tan. She is super nice and friendly and showed me the apartment, which is gorgeous. My room is very nice and the closet is bigger than mine at home. It was nice to unpack and not have to lug heavy shit around anymore.
This afternoon, I met up with a FOKUS connect Anna B and we walked around the famous Recoleta cemetary. Rich Catholics really know how to rock the afterlife in style. Then we walked through a market that had different items like bracelets, rings, bags, etc. I bought a dreamcatcher. It was a great afternoon and always good to spread the traveler love.
Right now I'm a little braindead.
besitos
-j
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
two days mothafluzzas
Two days away. Suitcase has been packed and unpacked at least ten times.
People have been giving me advice, some of it's been total crap, some of it's been useful.
Favorite nug of knowledge so far? "Bring condoms"
Shit's about to get real.
besitos
-j
People have been giving me advice, some of it's been total crap, some of it's been useful.
Favorite nug of knowledge so far? "Bring condoms"
Shit's about to get real.
besitos
-j
Friday, February 17, 2012
minimalist living-life from a suitcase
Generally, I'm the kind of person who cleans and organizes everything. There is very little in my life/surroundings that doesn't have a specific place or purpose.
For the most part, I subscribe to the belief that a cluttered environment means a cluttered mind and I make a conscious effort to frequently reevaluate what I need and what I could give away. Living with as little clutter as possible helps me to think more clearly.
But when it comes to packing for a trip, a long distance, four month long trip for example, those urges to clean and be minimal come into conflict with my urge to be as prepared as possible. Weighing the necessity of each thing I pack makes me truly think about what is required for a full life. The answer is: not much. Beyond the basics, it is best to leave room for experiences to flesh out the space around me.
Bottom line: living with less allows you to live more fully.
besitos
-j
For the most part, I subscribe to the belief that a cluttered environment means a cluttered mind and I make a conscious effort to frequently reevaluate what I need and what I could give away. Living with as little clutter as possible helps me to think more clearly.
But when it comes to packing for a trip, a long distance, four month long trip for example, those urges to clean and be minimal come into conflict with my urge to be as prepared as possible. Weighing the necessity of each thing I pack makes me truly think about what is required for a full life. The answer is: not much. Beyond the basics, it is best to leave room for experiences to flesh out the space around me.
Bottom line: living with less allows you to live more fully.
besitos
-j
Monday, February 13, 2012
strong foundation
It's starting to get really real. In 11 days, I'll be on a plane headed to Buenos Aires. Mild terror and second guessing have officially set in.
But apart from the normal nervousness and double-triple-checking, I am ready to take the leap. There will be moments and even whole days that are pretty crumby because navigating an entirely new place has it's challenges but I know that I have a whole bunch of people who are excited for me, who are wishing me well and who can't wait for me to have this adventure.
It's a very reassuring feeling to know you've got people in your corner, even if it's a whole continent away.
besitos
-j
But apart from the normal nervousness and double-triple-checking, I am ready to take the leap. There will be moments and even whole days that are pretty crumby because navigating an entirely new place has it's challenges but I know that I have a whole bunch of people who are excited for me, who are wishing me well and who can't wait for me to have this adventure.
It's a very reassuring feeling to know you've got people in your corner, even if it's a whole continent away.
besitos
-j
Thursday, February 9, 2012
the rosy glow of impending nostalgia
I've been at home for almost two months. Away from the rush of classes but also away from my friends and my city. I've been back to visit several times which has definitely helped and now I feel like I've said my temporary goodbye to Ann Arbor.
But now, with the days beginning to tick down seemingly louder and faster than before, I find myself looking around my house, the photos and furniture beginning to take on a a rosy glow, fuzzy around the edges. I call this the glow of impending nostalgia. It happens every time before I go away for a long time, the mundane and familiar objects, places, and people in my everyday life adopt a heightened significance.
I've started to look at my recommended packing list and it's really starting to hit me.
Argentina is coming.
besitos
-j
But now, with the days beginning to tick down seemingly louder and faster than before, I find myself looking around my house, the photos and furniture beginning to take on a a rosy glow, fuzzy around the edges. I call this the glow of impending nostalgia. It happens every time before I go away for a long time, the mundane and familiar objects, places, and people in my everyday life adopt a heightened significance.
I've started to look at my recommended packing list and it's really starting to hit me.
Argentina is coming.
besitos
-j
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
victory
The insurance company finally agreed that it made sense to give me a 4 month supply of my medication seeing as I'll be gone. Only took them a week to see that. They're brilliant.
besitos
-j
besitos
-j
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Malaria-Oh My
Yesterday I went to a travel clinic to get my immunizations for the rare diseases I will most likely never encounter. After waiting for twenty minutes and spending $250, I received shots for yellow fever and typhoid. Delicious. I also received anti-malarial pills and Cipro, an antibiotic for traveler's diarrhea. Having intimately experienced this during my time in Spain, I consider the $10 for the Cipro arguably the best money spent all day.
The next item on Argentina day was to haggle with my insurance over a vacation override to get a 3 month supply of a medication I take for ADD. Life would be easier if I didn't have to deal with this part of the...wait, what was I saying? In all seriousness, I'm very fortunate to have good insurance, or rather, that my mother does and it will all work out soon enough.
Surprise of the day was my dad buying me a new camera. Seeing as my existing camera was purchased in 2004, has seen the countries of France, Italy, Greece, Canada and Spain, been dropped off ledges and down stairs, and has a charger which was left behind somewhere in northern Spain...it was time for an upgrade. However, I had planned on spending the money to technologically advance my camera and was genuinely surprised when my dad said he'd take care of it. The most my parents ever pay for is dinner when we go out to eat so this was great.
Now I sit playing with my new camera, promising I won't ever drop it off high places onto hard surfaces, knowing I'm probably lying. I have my suggested packing list printed off.
Maybe considering packing would be good....
besitos
-j
The next item on Argentina day was to haggle with my insurance over a vacation override to get a 3 month supply of a medication I take for ADD. Life would be easier if I didn't have to deal with this part of the...wait, what was I saying? In all seriousness, I'm very fortunate to have good insurance, or rather, that my mother does and it will all work out soon enough.
Surprise of the day was my dad buying me a new camera. Seeing as my existing camera was purchased in 2004, has seen the countries of France, Italy, Greece, Canada and Spain, been dropped off ledges and down stairs, and has a charger which was left behind somewhere in northern Spain...it was time for an upgrade. However, I had planned on spending the money to technologically advance my camera and was genuinely surprised when my dad said he'd take care of it. The most my parents ever pay for is dinner when we go out to eat so this was great.
Now I sit playing with my new camera, promising I won't ever drop it off high places onto hard surfaces, knowing I'm probably lying. I have my suggested packing list printed off.
Maybe considering packing would be good....
besitos
-j
Monday, February 6, 2012
y mis padres son...
I just found out who my host familia is. They are in their sixties, my host mother is a literatura teacher, they are Buddhists and have a dog. Yes, I briefly thought of the scene in Anchorman..
I am going to live with two Argentinian Buddhists. This makes me so excited. Not because I am Buddhist myself but because I am currently imagining what it is like to be, I assume, a practicing Buddhist in Argentina-a country of Catholic tradition where many have a laid-back, non-Mass attending way of faith.
I am thrilled they have a dog, hopefully I will miss mine less.
These detalles are making el hecho de mi viaje a Argentina muy real.
Getting travel vaccinations later today-Yellow Fever, Typhoid and Malaria here I come. Please don't kill me.
besitos
-j
I am going to live with two Argentinian Buddhists. This makes me so excited. Not because I am Buddhist myself but because I am currently imagining what it is like to be, I assume, a practicing Buddhist in Argentina-a country of Catholic tradition where many have a laid-back, non-Mass attending way of faith.
I am thrilled they have a dog, hopefully I will miss mine less.
These detalles are making el hecho de mi viaje a Argentina muy real.
Getting travel vaccinations later today-Yellow Fever, Typhoid and Malaria here I come. Please don't kill me.
besitos
-j
Sunday, February 5, 2012
deuces A2
This weekend I went to Ann Arbor to celebrate a good friend's 21st birthday. I knew that this was going to be my last time in Ann Arbor for five months, kind of heavy shit. It's a city I love and identify with far more than with my actual hometown.
Between the car ride to Ann Arbor, house-shaking birthday party, somewhat surreal journey to Livonia and Fleetwood Diner for a farewell meal of Hippie Hash, it was a near perfect good bye to not only my friends but the city as well. Maybe it was the fact that it was a birthday, a celebration of life and accomplishments and all that goodness, but the atmosphere throughout was of optimism, exuberance and seriously good vibes.
This morning, sitting in Fleetwood with a cup of coffee and a steaming plate of hash, I felt incredibly fortunate to be where I was and headed where I am headed. I hope that my second family in Ann Arbor, particularly my FOKUS fam, know how grateful I am for them.
The experiences I have had in Ann Arbor have helped to shape who I am and I'm going to miss this city something crazy but after this weekend I feel ready to jump into this new Argentinian adventure
besitos
-j
Sunday, January 29, 2012
In limbo
I am in limbo. Visiting Ann Arbor this week has given me a great chance to see friends and partially revive a nightlife that really doesn't exist at home. But as wonderful as it is to catch up, go on adventures and relax, I am not in the school world right now. My weekend time is unhampered by the pressures of schoolwork, unlike my friends, and to end this incomplete thought, I am getting very ready to go to Argentina and be back in the flow of things.
Desperately seeking schedule.
besitos
-j
Desperately seeking schedule.
besitos
-j
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
challenged
Right now I don't feel challenged. My intellect, my skills, my urge to be productive and helpful, none of these are being tried or tested and after being at U-M, where the feeling of being challenged is omnipresent, I don't really know what to do with myself.
One good thing from all this free time is that I have the chance to think about and think through some things that I often push back because frankly, dealing with them doesn't facilitate getting from one day to the next.
The good and the bad of waiting.
besitos
-j
One good thing from all this free time is that I have the chance to think about and think through some things that I often push back because frankly, dealing with them doesn't facilitate getting from one day to the next.
The good and the bad of waiting.
besitos
-j
Monday, January 23, 2012
calm before the storm
these days I have an almost sinful amount of free time. I wake up virtually whenever I want, do as much or as little as I want. I play with my dog, I fuck around on Tumblr, do some research for a friend. After almost a month at home I have somewhat accepted the relative nothingness that my days have the potential to be. As Argentina draws closer, there are more practical things to be done-exchanging currency, beginning to pack, signing forms, but the waters of my life are still basically undisturbed.
I know that in three weeks, with a few days before I leave, the world will launch into hyper-speed and all this slowly passing time will evaporate, replaced by hours and days where you feel cheated a few minutes here and there. I have come to see my time now as the calm before the storm, before the frenetic never-stopping rush that will be Buenos Aires.
besitos
-j
I know that in three weeks, with a few days before I leave, the world will launch into hyper-speed and all this slowly passing time will evaporate, replaced by hours and days where you feel cheated a few minutes here and there. I have come to see my time now as the calm before the storm, before the frenetic never-stopping rush that will be Buenos Aires.
besitos
-j
passive learning
Right now I am at home, waiting for this Argentina adventure to begin. I am bored, relaxing, learning. I am taking the time I have and trying to learn about things I haven't had the time to really learn about before, music, language, cultural quirks. This is all well and good but it is passive learning.
I can't wait to be in Buenos Aires and be knee deep in active learning. While it's more difficult and messy it's what I somehow keep gravitating toward.
besitos
-j
I can't wait to be in Buenos Aires and be knee deep in active learning. While it's more difficult and messy it's what I somehow keep gravitating toward.
besitos
-j
Sunday, January 22, 2012
mi primer entrada
This blog will document the next seven months of my life, six of which will be spent in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am terrified, thrilled, excited and impatient to begin the next adventure of my life. I am ready to accept the unexpected, unplanned for and undesired because I know that these are what often lead to the best, most wonderful and incredible experiences.
Estoy muy emocionada para este adventura, or something like that.
besitos
-j
Estoy muy emocionada para este adventura, or something like that.
besitos
-j
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)