la playa!

Last weekend I took a vacation from my very busy schedule (ha.) here in Buenos Aires and went to the beach! Mar del Plata is a city with the infrastructure for a few million people, but roughly 600,000 permanent residents. It looked like a big city, and it was, but it had more of the small beach-town feel. We could tell we had entered a different life when we encountered chatty waiters, friendly taxi-drivers, and easy access to monedas.

The cashier at the supermarket gave me my change of $5.70 in monedas - a large feat in Buenos Aires, although I suppose in the U.S. I'd be pretty annoyed with over 5 dollars in change. The woman at the kiosco didn't understand what was happening when I gave her a weird amount of money to prevent her from having to give me a moneda, something a kiosco employee in Buenos Aires would beg for from a customer. It's quite amazing how there's no coin shortage when the buses allow you to pay with bills, or buy a pass in advance - no me digas!



But we spent the weekend relaxing on the beach, roaming through the city, eating the largest chocolate and nut covered ice cream with dough of sorts inside (I tried to convince the cute Italian lady to bring the invention to NY), exploring the nightlife, and taking full advantage of the amazing breakfast provided at the hostel (okay, more than full advantage, since we stole breakfast the first day upon our early arrival).

I'm surprised I didn't turn into a medialuna dulce (23829483 times better than a croissant) after the amount I ate.

Family Visit!

The family came to visit and these are some of the things we did!

Iguazu Falls
On the border of Brazil, and really close to Paraguay, Iguazu falls consist of 275 waterfalls. The biggest one, called "la garganta de diablo", or the devil's throat, is the border between Brazil and Argentina, and massive and impressive.

The province of Missiones, where the Argentinian side of Iguazu is located, is a completely different place than Buenos Aires, where the people talk slower and life moves at a relaxed pace, but garbage still lines the streets. The wildlife consists of lagartos (lizards), coaties (funny raccoon-like creatures with a very pointy noses) and supposedly monkeys, though they hid out pretty well.

Garganta del Diablo

Abbey tourists

tropics

Puerto Iguazu

Colonia, Uruguay
Colonia del Sacramento is the oldest city in Uruguay discovered by the Portuguese in the 15th century. Some architecture and the city layout still resemble the Portuguese style. It's a one hour ferry ride from Buenos Aires, lying on the other side of Rio de la Plata. The town was full of cobblestone roads, colorful buildings, mopeds, art galleries, and really old cars. Even the brown river looked better from the other side.

Rio de la Plata



Uruguayan kitten!

We also got to tourist around Buenos Aires and eat lots of Argentinean food - not always the most thrilling meals. But we had the experience of a authentic parilla - a sampling of different types of grilled meat, which I of course opted out of. The appetizer portion is meat - chorizo, intestinal meat, and maybe some kidney. This is followed by the main portion - meat - giant steaks. I did have a bite of steak for the first time in a year, to see what the fuss was about with Argentine beef, but it tasted like normal steak to me. Oh well.

It was a great 10 days of family and travelling and I'm so glad they came to visit!

Last night, I saw a disturbing thing. There was a kid, who couldn't have been more than 8 years old, standing outside the subway stop picking up any cigarette butts that had a little bit of cigarette left to smoke. He would smoke one, and then light and smoke the ends of the next one he found on the ground.

Pictures from Cementerio Chacarita

Buenos Dias, Buenos Aires, Vote Obama, Buena Onda

U.S. election coverage down here has been very prominent in the newspaper, and is often the first thing anyone asks me about when they realize I'm from the U.S. "Which one are you for" is probably the question I've heard the most often since I got to BA. The news coverage is pretty biased - which makes sense since 60% of Argentines support Obama, compared to only 10% who would have preferred McCain.

We went to watch the election at a bar party hosted by Democrats Abroad. The place was flooded with American students, as well as some older ex-pats, and the occasional Argentine. The rowdy American cheers and toasts every time CNN showed a Democrat ahead, followed by the boos when they put the check next to a red candidate, exhibited the stereotype of drunk, obnoxious American students. Sometimes I am reminded what I don't miss.

the coolest shirt

Suburbia

In an attempt to go to La Boca, a barrio in the southeast part of the city, Julie and I ended up getting a grand tour of the 'burbs, at a killer rate of 90 centavos. Long story short - we missed our stop, and rather than getting off in an unknown neighborhood, we decided we'd wait it out until the bus turned around. It was clear that we had left the city as the street signs changed and the buildings because smaller and more run-down.

One hour, a few horses, many near-brake failures, and a couple of suburbs later, we were told to get off and wait for the bus to turn around to head back to the city. The driver of the first bus kindly informed our new driver that we were lost and American and to let us ride for free.

Of course, on our return, we spotted the brightly-colored houses characteristic of La Boca that we had set out to see. However, the suburb excursion was so exciting, we decided to save La Boca for another day.

Plus, we discovered a new budget way to travel!

Meerkat's are way smaller than they seem on TV

Red Panda at the Zoo

Hi, my name's Amanda and I'm awkward...

...just in case you didn't already know.

Five and a half weeks in and I still find myself in awkward situations every time I say hello or goodbye to someone. Kiss on the cheek is standard - but what about in business situations? Do you stand up? Which side do you go to? Do you kiss everyone in the room?

Many times I have gone in for an interview and been greeted and seen off with a kiss - which just seems inappropriate to me. My English students kiss me hello and goodbye. And how do I greet my Spanish teacher?

Today I encountered my first handshake since I've been here. A director of a multinational oil company (who had a very snazzy oceanfront corner office) shook my hand and wished me luck when I left. Of course, I had no idea whether he was going to shake my hand, or lean in for the cheek-kiss, or just open the door and send me on my merry way. Every time I come or go I get awkward and don't know how to act. I usually end up saying something weird and running out the door before we have to have an awkward goodbye. Hopefully they attribute my odd comments to a "bad translation", which is an excuse I plan on using quite a bit.

Speaking of, my favorite Spanish-English translation is "besos" to "kisses". This is the correct translation, but in Argentina, people say goodbye by saying "un beso". I have received emails from people I didn't yet know that said "Kisses!" as their goodbye. I guess their just friendly..

On that note, a kiss! Chau

Moneda hijacking

I, along with millions of other people in this city, were blessed with free subway rides this past weekend. The occasion? No, not Dia de la Raza - which is basically Columbus day, but sometimes thought of as a counter to it: a resistance to the white man's arrival in the Americas. Okay, sorry, back to the free ride! It was actually due to a lack of monedas. Since the subway did not have enough coins to provide change to customers, they let everyone ride for free.

The direct cause of this? According to Clarin, the Gendarmeria or Justicia Federal (national guard, or some internal part of the government) decided to sequester 5,000,000 in pesos in order to... count it? Okay, so I'm not 100% sure since the articles were in Spanish, but that's what I can gather. They took the monedas from Maco, a wealth transport company that acquires monedas (probably from the bus companies) and sells them to companies, at a mark-up of 8 - 10%. Their main customers include the subway and the biggest pharmacy chain, which resulted in free train service and Farmacity turning customers away.

There are almost 5 billion coins of varying values (from .05 to 1.00) in circulation, and the 5 million pesos that were removed are estimated at a mere .42% of the total supply. However, this had a huge (and "unforeseen") effect on daily life here. When they sequestered Maco's supply, the government was searching for false monedas in an attempt to counter the underground business .

Luckily, the monedas were returned safely and the subway is no longer free.

from our trip to Rosario last weekend