Saturday we had an IES official city tour. It was pretty boring; we were on a bus, and only got off three times: La Boca, La Plaza de Mayo, y El Cemetario de Recoleta. I’d heard from people that La Boca is very tourist-y and boring, and it was very tourist-y, but not at all boring. I want to go back for more pictures and to browse the artist stalls. The Recoleta Cemetary is amazing, but I don’t have any pictures yet because it started to rain. I want to go back, and I’m thinking of doing a project photographing the many cats in the cemetery. Pictures of statues would get boring after a while, but focusing on the cats could be interesting.
The boring tour was very worth it because of the lunch they gave us beforehand. All the students were sitting at a long table, and they brought out plate after plate of little appetizers and side dishes, and eventually amazing steaks. Every side dish was amazing: empanadas, fried spinach balls, cheese balls, roasted potatoes, spinach ravioli, this wonderful pizza that had egg on it (like a quiche), and more. I’ve talked to people from two other tour groups, and they went to an Italian restaurant, so I feel very lucky that we got to eat there.
The pizza in general is pretty different here. I’ve had four very different pizzas at four different restaurants, and each one has been very good. Tomato sauce is not common, and it’s drowned out by cheese if it is there at all. There are strange and delicious toppings like hearts of palm and pumpkin. I’m getting hungry just writing about it!
Rose’s dad came over on Sunday and brought 20 roses for Día de la Mujer, which was very nice. He finally met Miriam and then went with us to run a few errands and go to a café. Rose went to a Manu Chao concert that she really enjoyed, but I didn’t want to pay more than $20 for an artist I’m not familiar with, so I opted to go to dinner with other friends instead. We went to the cheapest area restaurant in my guide book (which was still not super-cheap…I need to stop acting like I’m on vacation and leaking money). It was very good, and I got an interesting salad with celery, apples, walnuts, and Roquefort cheese. The funny thing about salads here: whatever it says on the menu, that’s what you get. It didn’t say lettuce, so it was pretty silly of me to expect that all of those yummy things would be on a bed of lettuce. Similarly, I’ve heard of people ordering a tomato salad and getting a bowl of tomatoes. My salad was decent (surprisingly), but I think that is one thing that we do much, much better in America.
My favorite part about last night was when Julia and I were waiting at the meeting point and we saw some street performers making “you’re mama’s so fat” jokes. I couldn’t understand most of them, but for some reason it was so delightful that they have these jokes here too.
Rose and I are going to take a painting class at a local university (UMSA). I’m so excited! I’ll get to meet actual Argentines and learn how to paint simultaneously. Who could ask for more? We went to a used book store after the UMSA Spanish placement test, where I found this fantastic book called Lucha Libre that’s full of diagrams and instructions on how to be a professional Latin American wrestler. I haven’t yet found a section on how to choose a mask. Nor have I decided what to do with it, but I like to collect things like that in the hopes of making them into some sort of art project someday.
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