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.