Catch-up from Buenos Aires (until October 28)

Hi!

I kind of lost motivation with my blog after my camera broke. However, my new camera just arrived yesterday and seems to be a perfect excuse to start back up (hopefully weekly again). I'll try to give a quick summary of what I've been up to this last month or so...

School's been going well. I'm really interested in both of my UBA classes. In politics, we did separate two hour reviews of the current political situations in almost ever South American country, which was extremely interesting. In history, we learned about the Mexican Revolution, Brazil under Vargas and now we've moved on to Bolivia and Cuba. A lot of the class discussions (especially in politics) get very heated, and it's really cool to see how a whole different groups of students conceptualize all these political and historical issues. I just finished my first round of midterms, which were pretty intimidating (all in Spanish), but I think I did alright. Overall, I'm not only learning new information but also learning a new way to think about it all.

Volunteer work at Help Argentina has also been going very well. I just finished up a step by step guide so that the member organizations can create their own fundraising home pages on the Help Argentina website. More importantly, I really like the people that I work with. We eat lunch for about an hour everyday, read each other's horoscopes and chat. It's only the Argentines, however, who take part in this lunch break. The two Americans in their office sit at their desks and eat while they work. Overall, it's been a very interesting way to compare the American and Argentine work styles.

Everything is still going great with my host family. We hang out and drink mate and eat beef together almost every night. They recently cooked me rabbit, which was a little bit sad but absolutely delicious. One study snack they brough me during finals was cocktail shrimp and champagne (a little unexpected and not exactly conducive to me getting work done). Last weekend, we had a barbeque in a park in a pretty area of the city called Belgrano. My host mom is a wonderful friendly person and I`m extremely lucky to be living with her.

One of the most fun things I've done over the past month or so was to go to the Argentina vs. Peru World Cup qualifying soccer game. Argentina had to win this game to keep a chance of qualifying, so it was a pretty big deal here. We decided to try to go to the game the morning of, so we looked on line and found a place we could get the tickets for super cheap. We bought a bunch of Argentine soccer gear and snacks in front of the stadium, and in we went. The stadium was utter madness. It was packed, and everyone was jumping and screaming songs the whole game. The first half was relatively mellow, but and Argentina scored in the beginning of the second half and the stadium errupted. Shortly after the first goal, a torrential downpour (complete with lighting and thuner) started. The game, however, would go on. Although we could hardly see what was going on because of the rain, with about 30 seconds left in regulation Peru scored to tie it up. The stadium was super tense, and 3 minutes into stoppage time Argentina scored again to win with about 30 seconds left in the game. The crowd turned into a bouncing, screaming mob of people and Argentina's coach Maradonna did a belly slide across the muddy field. Possibly the best single sports moment I`ve ever witnessed. A few days later, I went to a bar to watch Argentina beat Uruguay to officially qualify for the World Cup.

Another fun thing I did was to go to the Recoleta Fair. It's an open market in a really pretty part of the city, where various artesans and food vendors gather every weekend. I wandered around, bought a bunch of Christmas presents, listened to some guitar and drumming music, and saw the beautiful metal flower near the fair. I also went to an architecture exhibit at a near-by cultural center.

One of our Argentine friends took us to a corporate party for the 20th birthday of a company called Radio Argentina (basically like Radio Shack). It was a very formal affair, and we were all very underdressed. We danced with a bunch of corporate guys in suites and listened to the popular Argentine band they had brought in for the night. The party was in a really fancy room of a place called La Rural, which we never would have had access to otherwise, and that was fun to see too.

Last weekend, we finally went to the Japanese Gardens, which is the biggest Japanese gardens outside of Japan. It was beautiful (first place I went with my new camera) and very relaxing. Spring has just started in earnest here, and it's beautiful weather for walking around the city's many wonderful parks.

I`m having a really incredible time here in Buenos Aires, even though midterms have kept me inside a little more than I might prefer. I`ll try to do a better job with blogs and pictures. I hope you`re all very well!

Love, Melanie

JAPANESE GARDEN PICTURES