Culture Shock

Ok so it is officially my fourth full day in Mendoza Argentina, my sixth full day in the great country of Argentina and the seventh day on this great adventure that is my study abroad experience.

Although I had every intention of writing daily blog postings I have come to be in a slight predicament with my computer and thus I am sharing this single laptop with my entire family. So until I can rent a temporary interenet modem from the school I will just write when I can and attempt to fill you in on EVERYTHING that is happening. I guess I will start from where I left off...my second day in Buenos Aires

Day 2 BA July 22, 2010

After a lovely evening celebrating my day of birth with my new IFSA friends at a hip bar down some random street near our hotel it was another bright and early 8 am morning of fun in Buenos Aires Argentina. As I can recall Annabel (my roommate) and I got up and went down for a buffet style bfast in the hotel restaurant. I felt horrible for anyone who was just trying to enjoy a nice quiet meal because I can´t imagine that being an easy task when you´ve got over 50 American students trying to get as much food as possible to juice up for a full day of tourism. After eating we all piled onto the huge charter bus that was to take us to all the various places of southern Buenos Aires. The most memorable stop of the morning was hands down La Boca. Historically La Boca was originally home to all the misfits of BA many immigrants to the city ended up in La Boca because high society had little room for them. Throughout the amount of color was overwhelming all the houses and buildings are put together with sheets of painted tin and are kept in tip top condition and you will notice from some of the windows and rooves different cartoon-looking statues kind of making fun of the original inhabitants of the city.

The residents of La Boca thrive on the tourists with street performers and different gypsy-like people who will do almost anything to make a buck or two. After a small group of us were done walking up and down the streets we found a lovely little cafe behind the stage of a group of salsa and tango dance performers. It was the best view in the house and we all ordered Las Ruedas which is a sweet espresso with dulce de leche and rum which was incredible and we sipped on our drinks and tried to enjoy the warmth of the restauarant before going back out into the cold streets.

After lunch of a million different courses including empanadas, milanesas de pollo con quesso (breaded chicken with cheese and ham on top) Tomate and flan we left for the Plaza de Maya and the Casa Rosada. La plaza de Mayo is basically the exact center of the city and la Casa Rosada is the our equivalent of the white house home to the much loved La Presidenta. We explored the different buildings inluding the beautiful cathedral just next to the different houses of parliament. Although the buildings and architecture were beautiful nothing was so moving as the demonstration of Las madres.

Las madres of la Plaza de Mayo are a group of women who gathered together in seach for their missing children after the mass abudctions by the Argentine governement during what is now described as "the dirty war". After the war the military admitted that 9,000 of the children who were kidnapped are still unaccounted for but Las Madres say that the number is closer to 30,000 most of whom are dead. After the war because most of the children were born in jails and were orphaned during their imprisonment some 500 children were given to the families of military officials. These are the children Las Madres faithfully wait for every day. The demonstration consists of who are now "las abuelas" the grandmothers of the lost children, walking around the plaza with the names of their children embroidered on their white head scarves. During this presentation the names of every child are read off a list from one of las abuelas or a close family member and to every name the crowd and las abuelas shout "presente" or "Present yourself" hoping that one day one of the lost children will appear. During the presentation I don´t think a single eye was dry I know that for myself I was practically sobbing during the entire presentation just in admiration for the hope and the dedication that these women and family members have for this cause.

After that we were all drained emotionally and physically from walking around the city so most of us spent our free time taking naps or siestas until orientation.

After orientation we all decided to go out for our only full night in the city so a small group of us girls decided to go to Palermo SOHO which was the artsy area of Buenos Aires night life. We tried to organize a larger group to all go to the same area but that was nearly impossible. So we called up three Radio Taxi´s (the only taxi service garunteed to not rip off nice young american tourists) and took what seemed like a roller coaster ride to the plaza. **Side note drivers in Argentina are frighteningly terrible... I mean there may be lanes on the road but no one abides by any of the typical traffic laws** So we all reunite and decide to go to a random restaurant that looks swanky enough for our only night out. Immediately when we walk in we are served glasses of complimentary champagne and what looked like sausage by the hostess. We had to wait a while to be seated but we had a lot of time to kill before anything opened up. Once we were seated the six of us ordered a couple bottles of Malbec wine for the table and dug in on the complimentary bread with some weird but tasty spread. I ordered a filet mignon marinated in wine sauce with mushroom rissoto on the side all for A$60 pesos which is actually practically $15 American dollars. The food was delicious and sooo filling but instead of staying for dessert we decided to head to one of the local bars.

We decided on one that looked pretty well occupìed and headed to the top floor where there were people everywhere. At this point there were about 15 of us so we piled a few tables together and figured we would do something totally typical and order margaritas. They were amazing even though it took about two hours to get them. We stayed there for a little while and then most of the group decided to head back to the hotel, however, a few of us including myself decided to stay out and see if we could find a discoteca or dance club. We managed to find one that was packed but the bouncers at the front kept charging people different prices to enter and when it was finally our turn to enter he was asking for A$40 pesos which was ridiculous so we left. We made a slight attempt to find some other discoteca but after getting followed a few blocks by some creepy guys we decided to call it a night. It was about 4 am so it was all in all a pretty successful evening....and one of many typical Argentine days to come I´m sure.

To sleep to sleep I go...my last night in Buenos Aires, a huge success and tomorrow off to Mendoza to meet my family!!!!


Much love and many hugs and kisses to everyone who will be reading this blog religiously to stalk my every Argentine move. Pictures will be up as soon as I can get my computer to stop being dumb


****MB