Ciudad de suerte

I forgot about my lucky story! Last Sunday I was walking home from taking the subway, and all I had in my wallet was a $100 bill and enough coins for one bus fare. But I needed to take a few more buses that day. The subway, though less direct, would also work, and had the added advantage that they always give you change on the subway. (As you might remember from earlier posts, there´s a dramatic coin shortage around here, though coins are necessary to take the buses. For example, they´ll let you through for free on the subway when they´re getting low on change.) Anyway, to get back to my conundrum: try and pay for a $1.10 subway ticket with a $100 bill? Are you joking? They give you angry looks when you try and pay for the ticket with a $10. So I was pretty stuck. I really needed to break that $100. That itself is not always easy, although the ATMs love to give them out.

I stopped by a pharmacy on the way home to pick up a few things I didn´t actually urgently need at the moment: shampoo, toothbrush, body wash. It added up to $32.30, and I handed the cashier my $100. "Got anything smaller?" he asked inevitably. Sorry, I told him, today I have nothing. He began to count out the change and had to call over another guy from the pharmacy section to ask for smaller bills and coins. "Do you have a $2?" he asked. Sorry, I said again, I really have nothing. Looking annoyed, he began to give me my change. A fifty. A ten. Seventy cents. And then he began dropping $1 coins into my eagerly outstretched hand. I wasn´t paying attention to how much change I was getting back, so after the first two I was already happy. Sweet, I thought, he doesn´t have any two-peso bills! But he kept going! He gave me $7 in coins! Ha ha, that´s what he got for hoarding his coins--Sunday came around and he was out of two- and five-peso bills. It was glorious. It made my day for the next three days.

Yesterday I went to Ciudad Emergente, a festival with concerts, art exhibitions, street dancing, poetry readings, etc. There were some walls being painted with graffiti, which was really cool to watch:



There were break dancers and poppers:




In one room we walked around and watched artists at work. One painter had several canvases covered in brightly-colored shapes. Three canvases were called "What my mother told me," and three were called "What my father told me," and he was soliciting quotes from the guests and writing them on the paintings. Some were sweet, some were sort of sad, and some were really funny. I added to the last category with a quote from my mom: "A la moda, aunque te jodas," which she always says when I complain about my feet hurting from my shoes. She always used to tell me that it meant, "Fashion, no matter what," but as I learned when I wrote it on an essay in Spanish class freshman year, that´s a very loose translation. The real translation involves a word I don´t want to use in my blog, ha ha.



My other favorite is also in that picture: "Fabi, por qué no vas al psicólogo?" which means, "Fabi, why don´t you go to the psychologist?"

I earned a culture point last night for watching Clockwork Orange. Well, only half a point so far because I got sleepy.

Identity crisis: am I actually a cat person?

Happy 16^th birthday shout-out to Kaily!

3 oranges, ½ banana, 3 strawberries, 2 slices of bread, 1 egg, 1 tsp syrup, ¼ tsp cinnamon, 1 cup granola, ¾ cup milk, 1.5 cup boiling water, 1 tsp honey, 1 bag jasmine tea

AKA an incredible breakfast: glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, french toast and granola with strawberries and bananas, cup of jasmine tea

I tried Peruvian food for the first time, though I suppose I´ll be having much more soon since I´ll be there for two weeks! It was a little seafood-heavy but yummy (don´t worry Kaily, I was told it´s not like that in the mountains). The ceviche was very interesting—raw fish and potatoes and onions are marinated in lime juice, so it´s pickled instead of cooked. I also had the first spicy food I´d had since leaving Houston!

This week I did a class presentation about the Recoleta Cemetery, which you´re probably familiar with by now because I have so many pictures of it. My dad pointed out that it´s no surprise that I´m crazy about that place; when I was a kid, I used to get really excited when we drove by cemeteries. Last Friday I had a lovely conversation with Greta, who feeds the 50 cats twice a day. All of them have names and vaccinations, and are spayed and neutered. There are two “señoras paquetas” (snobby ladies, in the words of Greta) who pay for all of that, and they even pay her to feed them. Pretty sweet deal for the cats, right? I recorded the conversation, which was really cool because she would talk to the cats, things like, “Hungry? I think you were taking a nap. Don´t be mean,” and my favorite, “Hola, Luly, you want to go into your penthouse?” as the cat jumped into its favorite spot—inside a tomb, a foot away from a coffin.

Luly in her penthouse

I found a book online that had a ton of little bios about famous people in the cemetery, including Federico de Brandsen, a Frenchman who fought heroically in the Napoleonic wars and with San Martín for the liberation of Peru and Chile. During a war between Argentina and Brazil in 1827, General Alvear told him to go charge a Brazilian infantry. Brandsen pointed out that they had a huge ditch for defense, and he couldn´t attack succesfuly.

Alvear: “Colonel Brandsen! When Napoleon gave an order on the field of battle, none of his officers argued, even if they knew they were going to die!”

Brandsen: “General, ok! I know I´m going to die, but I will comply with the order!”

And he galloped forth to what they say was a “heroic” death.

I had another lovely day of soccer in the park, but this time with a few girl friends, not strangers. It´s not that common for women here to play soccer, and as we were leaving a guy called out “torta,” which literally means cake but here also means lesbian. That was a first for me. The irony is that all of them except me have indeed dated women!

We only have one more work in my painting class! ): I messed up the last one a bit. We always have 2 four-hour classes for each painting, and the teacher says that after the first one the whole canvas should be covered in paint, like a rough draft. But I always have trouble with the cloth because it´s never the same the second day, and anyway I see lots of students who still have white space after the first day, so I decided to be rebellious and just go object by object and do a very detailed job. The teacher was not happy with me. She pointed out that colors should be painted in relation to their background, not in isolation, and anyway I was really rushed at the end because I didn´t pace myself very well. So that learned me.

Uy, there are only a few weeks left here! It´s terrifying. Food things I´m going to miss: frutigran, empanadas, fugazzetta pizza, alfajores, anything with calabaza, high-quality pasta. I´m going to miss being able to wake up and walk downstairs and across the street to the fruit stand for oranges to make my orange juice. At home I´d have to get in the car, drive ten minutes, walk across that huge HEB parking lot, navigate an acre of food, wait in line, and come back home. It would probably take about 25 minutes. And nevermind at Rice, where my car is a 12-minute walk from my bed and the store is a 12-minute drive at least. I´ll just have to plan better. Ew, how boring.

Last night: chocolate chip cookies and stuffed noodles but not ravioli

This morning: Granny Smith with peanut butter

This afternoon: PB&J. Get excited.

This post is filled to the brim with food. I would just like to say for the record that I´ve been working out.

Haikus

IES had a photo contest, and you had to submit text with the pictures. Here's what I submitted. There are so many more haikus for the cemetery picture because I had written them already for class.





La gran decisión.
El nene come el gorro
mientras medita.

The big decision.
The boy eats the cap
while meditating.



Se calla el perro.
No veo que ve él, con sus
ojos distantes

The dog quiets.
I don't see what he sees,
with his distant eyes.


Los gatos duermen.
Festejaron anoche
con espíritus.

Los ángeles tocan
trompetas en silencio.
Fantasmas oyen.

La mujer verde
abraza su cruz verde
y llora siempre.

Las parras fuertes
tienen hambre de piedra
desmenuzada.

Por las ventanas,
puedo ver ataúdes:
cuartos finales.

Vidrio refleja
una fantasma con mis
zapatos rojos.

The cats are sleeping.
They partied last night
with spirits.

Angels play
trumpets in silence.
Ghosts hear.

The green woman
hugs her green cross
always crying.

The strong vines
are hungry
for crumbling stone

Through the windows
I can see the coffins:
final rooms.

Glass reflects
a ghost with my
red shoes

I didn't feel so cold then

El Ataneo

Uy, I'm very behind. Last week I was busy being a tourist and a tour guide, and this week I was catching up on all the homework I hadn't done. My dad visited last week, and it was really fun.


Recoleta Cemetery

We did all my favorite things: pictures in Recoleta Cemetery; Don Carlos, the restaurant where there's no menu and Don Carlos just brings you a ton of amazing food; Carlito's, the panqueque restaurant with 700 items on the menu; the parks in Palermo.


Recoleta Cemetery

We did a bunch of things I'd been wanting to do for a while: the Sunday San Telmo market; MALBA, a great art museum; lots of yummy yummy restaurants; a tour of the Running Water Palace that turned out to be pretty much a toilet museum (it seems so obvious now when you look at the name); more pictures in La Boca; a "tour" of a mosque, El Ataneo, a cool bookstore that used to be a theater.



San Telmo Market

We did some things I hadn't thought of before his visit: a small folkloric music concert; a tango show; a sneaky tourist trap; a pickpocketing incident, a taste of rabbit.


Museum in Palacio de Aguas Corrientes

Here are some highlights, but I'm afraid they will give the wrong impression of the trip because all the interesting stories are from things that didn't go quite as expected. So, to re-emphasize, on the whole it was really fun and went really well.




Mosque

The mosque tour was something I'd wanted to do forever, ever since I saw the huge, beautiful mosque in Palermo. But they only offer tours when I'm in class, so I wasn't able to go until I skipped class on Tuesday to hang out with my dad. Unfortunately it was not much of a tour; it was more like a 45-minute lecture on the basics of Islam. It was especially boring for my dad because he doesn't know much Spanish! On the upside, I did get some really cool pictures.


Palermo Park

One time we were looking for somewhere to get a snack and saw a place called El Puerto Rico. That sounded interesting, so we approached and tried to figure out what it was, but it was a little mysterious, as the windows were curtained. Then a woman came out and pulled us in, saying, "Come in and see, it's a free show," and we saw a man singing tango on a stage in the restaurant and decided to stay. We were almost literally tourist trapped! Pretty funny. They also had flamenco dancing and drumming that was really cool, even if it was a tourist trap.


Jardín Botánico

That tango show was really something. I wanted to avoid going to one of those really expensive, cheesy dinner show things that are all over the place, so I found something at a cultural center. Sounds pretty classy and artsy, right? And it was cheap to boot. As we waited for the show to begin, I read the impressive bios of the two dancers: they were hired by the embassy to put on cultural shows in other countries, they had been in the movie Evita. Turns out though that that movie is old enough that they were a little past their prime, and we were sitting so close that it was hard not to notice the wrinkles. The other unexpected thing is that it was very theatrical; I think my favorite part was when the woman mimed having a baby. During one of the acts she ran out into the audience and asked to sit next to me and handed me her purse. I think it was like we were at a dance, because she came back a couple more times like she was ready to go, but when I started handing her purse back she shook her head and ran back to the stage for more dances with her irresistible new love interest.


Jardín Botánico

The pickpocketing was very unfortunate. My dad's camera was stolen from his front pocket while we were on an extremely crowded subway car. The worst part is all the lost pictures, since it was near the end of the week :( Speaking of crowded subway cars, the other day I rode one that was absolutely ridiculous. I was desperately holding onto the railing above to avoid falling into the laps of the sitting people because the crowd was pushing so much. I very seriously considered giving up and just sitting in a stranger's lap, and it was a miracle, truly incredible, that I managed to cross the car and get off at my stop. It was so crazy that it made my day.



La Boca

I can't really think of any more notable stories, but maybe I will later. Maybe I'll have my dad do a guest blog entry!


La Boca

I skipped class again last Tuesday for a lovely reason, to go to Colonia with Alex. He is Rose's friend since before birth and now goes to Brown. Colonia is a cute little Uruguayan town that's only an hour-long ferry ride across the river (the bay?).



We walked around the sycamore-lined streets and had mate in an extremely colorful café. Alex tried his first alfajor there. We tried a hamburger place that Rose said had the best burgers in the world, but I think we have different concepts of the best burger in the world. I pictured something thick and juicy, but I’m a lifelong carnivore and she only started eating red meat in Argentina. It did have very unique toppings, including corn and peas.



My favorite part was this magical wooden spiral:



We saw it from far away and were wondering how to get to it, and then we walked by a cultural center with an old man standing outside. Alex peered in and the man said, “Go on in.” I asked him what was inside, an art gallery? “Go ahead,” was all he said. So we went. After passing through a little art gallery we walked outside and found the spiral. Doesn’t it look magical? We just hung out there for quite a while, it was so neat.

Cat in the lap

I went to Barrio Chino recently for Chinese food and the ever-elusive bubble tea. At first there was a lot of confusion between Ian's orange chicken and Pedro's glazed crispy pork, but we sorted it out eventually. With the waiter's help. After dinner Rose and I scoured the two-block-long China "Town," searching for bubble tea. Like expert detectives, we asked all the shop owners: "We're looking for this tea, it's sweet and milky with little balls, and you need a really big straw to drink it." Most of them had no idea what we were talking about ("mate?"), which was dismaying, but a few seemed to recognize the description and said it was old in the grocery store. But the grocery had already closed. Tragic.

Yesterday afternoon was absolutely beautiful. I meant to go to lab and stare in a microscope for a few hours, but I forgot to email Cecilia and let her know I was coming, and she thought this was the week I couldn't make it due to my dad's visit (next week, yay!). Since the seeds have to be put into solution the night before, there was nothing for me to do. Which could have been a downer considering I'd just ridden a 45-minute bus to the campus, but it was an extremely happy mistake. I went to somewhat chaotic, gorgeous garden and immediately was befriended by a calico cat who was very sweet. I'm sure it was the cat from the poem I'd written the night before for my creative writing class, so I knew that her name was Manchita. I happened to have a book of poetry by Juan Gelman that I'd bought the other day after reading some of his poems in that class, so I sat for a long time reading pretty poetry and petting Manchita. I took breaks every now and then to watch the kingfisher, the hummingbird, or the pretty blue bird whose name I don't know. It was my first time reading a book of poetry cover to cover, and what an unforgettable first time!

Last night I ate at Carlito's. I'm in love with Carlito. The menu has 700 items, most of them panqueques (crepes), only a third of which are sweet. I got one with tuna and onions (a potent combo!), and Pedro got avocado and artichoke hearts and we shared. Soooooo yummy! For dessert no one else was going to order dulce de leche so I went for it, for the truly Argentine experience: dulce de leche, cream, and rasberries. Oh. My. God. I couldn't take it, it was too rich. I definitely should have shared it. After about half I had to give up and eat the panqueque without the topping. Carlito, I'm coming back soon, my love.

Yesterday the señora was asking me very insistenly about when we leave. I don't know yet though because it depends on exam dates and what exactly we're doing afterward. I know the program end date is June 27, but is that including a day or two to pack and leave? I have no clue. Doesn't she have a contract? "Are you leaving before the 27th? Or on the 27th? Oh, because we'll miss you," she quickly added. Riiiiight.

I was telling Rose about this in a break in Spanish class, and another student was listening. "Why do you think she won't miss you?" she asked. Because she doesn't like us that much, we explained.

"Oh man, if you think you have it bad, you should read on of the essays posted on the board outside...That poor girl."

"Wait a sec," I said, "was it about how she felt unwelcome at home and then she went and spent a weekend with another family out of town and really enjoyed it?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"Oh yeah, that's mine." Oh my, it was quite hilarious. I might be missing out on the typical host family experience, but I sure am getting lots of great stories from our crazy host mom. I don't think I've told enough of them here. Someday I'll devote a post just to her.

Thank your socks

You never realize how wonderful socks are until it's cold and rainy and all your socks are at the laundromat except for one pair that you already wore last night to go to the gym.

More glacier and iceberg pictures, as promised. I got sick of all the sky and lake in the background, so I cheated and cropped them panoramic-style. Did you know there is no standard panoramic size?



Class really frustrated me yesterday. Sometimes my teacher cares too much about the rules and the textbook, but that's a daily and minor complaint. Yesterday, however, I was the victim of a grave injustice.



When we were reviewing for our test, we learned that indicative tense is for certainties like "It is true that...(insert indicative statement here)" and "I believe that..." while subjunctive tense is for doubts, like "I doubt that..." and "It is not true that..." (in case you're totally confused, it's because we don't have subjunctive in English.)

Then the prof said that "It's false that..." is a trigger for indicative because it doesn't contain "no," which makes no sense to me and I told him so, but he assured me it was true so I wrote it in my notes with a star and a circle. The next day on the test, that exact phrase appeared and, remembering the star, I used indicative.



And he marked it wrong, as well he should have, because it was wrong. But he told me during the review to put the wrong answer. So I talked to him about it and he admitted he was at fault for saying the wrong thing during the review. "Te pido disculpas," he said, "I ask for your forgiveness." "Te pido puntos," I said, "I ask you for points."



But he wouldn't change it because then he'd have to change everyone's. Well, yeah! He should! "It's not really about the points," I told him, "it's about justice." But to no avail.



But then I went to lab, and the three hours of lab grunt work were very therapeutic, just like Rose suggested they would be. And then I went to the gym, so I was happy from endorphins, and then after dinner I had ice cream, so I was even happier. Especially because the ice cream scooper was bored and studded the little cone-shaped pieces of merengue all over the scoop like devil's horns.



We made such an amazing, easy dinner on Sunday: mushrooms, spinach, and chicken sauteed together in olive oil, and bruschetta. Try it. Now. Hmmm, now that I think about it I've been making lots of simple yummy meals lately: butternut squash soup with mushrooms on toast; sauteed swet red peppers and onions on crackers with goat cheese and fruit. Staying in hostels is good for scratching the itch I have to cook.



The plane ride home from Calafate last Saturday was surprisingly entertaining! Whenever the announcer came on there was a silly technical problem that could have actually been someone standing next to him saying "ooooooooooooo" like a ghost. Once, the announcer hiccuped in the middle of a sentence, and twice he sighed heavily. If I were a stewardess I would totally do stuff like that to entertain the passengers.

Hyena tourists

I have so many pictures of glaciers and icebergs to sort through from yesterday, so I’m starting with the easier ones that include people.

We did the All Glacier Tour yesterday and saw a million icebergs, Spegazzini, and Perito Moreno again. We should have seen Upsala, the biggest glacier touching the lake, with a surface area four times that of Buenos Aires (!), but the channel was blocked by icebergs so that’s why we saw Perito Moreno again. Which I found out is as big as Buenos Aires. My goodness.



They were all incredible, and when there was no blue ice in sight I looked at incredible mountains with tons of small waterfalls feeding the lake. And roaming the mountains, believe it or not, was a bunch of wild cattle. I didn’t realize cows could live without people taking care of them, especially down here in the cold, and especially on the harsh mountain terrain! Apparently they were abandoned by settlers.



We also saw some wild Andean condors, with a wingspan of 3 meters. I think that’s probably the big bird that I saw on the way out of Bariloche that I mentioned in the last post.

I was expecting Perito Moreno to be really boring, since I looked at it for about three or four hours straight yesterday, but actually today there was some really cool new dark blue ice in front of it. I think the guide said it came from deep down. The coolest thing of all was when we were leaving and we saw the glacier calve a big chunk! (I hope I’m using that verb correctly.) I felt so lucky to have witnessed that. I didn’t get any pictures; we were already far away and it happened so fast.



I made friends with a really cute little girl sitting in front of me. At first I was playing games with her like making faces and popping out from behind the seat, but after a few minutes she got relaxed enough to start chattering a little and I realized she was probably too old for those sorts of games. I don’t really know. She mostly just said words and some very simple sentences. The really great part was when she kept saying, “El señor! El señor!” over and over, looking behind me, and eventually I turned around and realized that she was talking about this old guy who was sort of pressed up against the glass about eight feet away and looking into the cabin. He may or may not have actually been looking at her; I didn’t look closely. But whatever he was doing, he stayed like that for a couple more minutes, long enough for her to start saying, “Miedo! Miedo! El señor! Miedo!” which means “scared.” At first I think she really was scared but her parents and I told her not to be and then she started joking about it.



That reminds me of another funny thing involving windows. In the bathroom there was one stall that had a really big window, but it was reflective to people from the outside. Still, when there were people outside literally aiming a camera straight at the window for a couple pictures, I just couldn’t bring myself to use that stall even when the other one was occupied. I guess it would make a cool picture for them, since they saw it as a mirror, but it was just way too weird!



The tour should have included some hiking around Upsala, but we didn’t end up hiking at all. That made the day kind of boring because we were on the boat forever (somehow I thought there would be more exciting moments). Still, it wasn’t bad, just more chill than expected. Well, except for prime photo opportunity moments, at which we were all competing like hyenas after the kill. That boat definitely needed more deck space!


This dramatic picture was totally an accident. I took a self-portrait without realizing the camera was zoomed in so far.



There was also competition for seats, at least in my mind…when we got on, all the rows of two seats near the windows were taken, so we had to sit in the middle section. Then I found an unoccupied row, and we sat there for about ten minutes before a woman showed up and said it was hers. When we moved, I noticed that she took the window seat and her husband took the window seat of the row in front of her. That is totally unfair, right? You can’t use two rows for two people! So I passive-aggressively asked to sit next to the guy, hoping to make them feel awkward enough that they would move to the same row. But they didn’t, and I gave up after a few minutes. Well, I thought it was kind of a boring day, but there was plenty of human drama apparently, ha ha.