WEDNESDAY 02/17/10
I met up with another friend of Nicole’s, Julia (an Argentine) for lunch, and we ended up spending 4 hours together! We went to an Italian restaurant near Plaza Italia (and the Recoleta cemetery) where we had a build-your-own salad (with as many ingredients as you wanted, and they had nearly everything available) and all-you-can-eat pasta. Julia just finished law school and we definitely seem to have a lot in common – traveling and enjoying life being the principal similarities! It’s amazing how easy it is to just immediately feel intimate with the people here – there are no fronts that people put on or distance that they place between themselves and new acquaintances. There really is a quality of genuineness to a majority of the people that I’ve met – whether it’s a barista or someone I have a connection to. Granted, maybe I’m being fooled, but I feel that I can judge situations pretty well, and there is a sense of sincerity and openness that I have found in many of my encounters with Argentines. Anyway, Julia and I spent a great afternoon together and I wandered around Recoleta a little before going to my Danza Africana class at the UBA.
The instructor is from the U.S., I believe (when we made introductions, she asked what part of the U.S. I was from and her accent isn’t quite native, although very close). She teaches mainly Senegalese style, which is similar to what I’ve learned from my classes in MN from Fatawu (who’s from Ghana), but there are some differences that make it exciting for me to learn something new. It was a really great practice, and I’m excited for next week!!
I quickly grabbed some empanadas de espinaca from the school cafeteria (coffee shop) and went to my Cine Argentino class. The instructor is really interesting and does a good job of engaging the class (and stopping a viejito know-it-all that just wants to speak every chance that he can). He guided the class in asking each of us to name an Argentine movie that has impacted us, and through each movie, he went outlined the main themes and place in history to which they pertained. His breadth of knowledge was impressive and he gave some great insights into the overall Argentine cinema. One is the fact that it’s been waning in the last decade due to many people not going to movie theaters anymore – many theaters have closed and the black market for getting movies has increased drastically that there isn’t as much financial security for moviemakers to produce and distribute their movies. He also mentioned two primary themes in the Argentine cinema: the loss of memory (attempting to erase the past, which results in a repetition of history) and not being able to bring closure to stories (many films end abruptly without any finality). It was so stimulating to be in a classroom again!
After class, I walked in what I thought was the direction of the subte, but soon realized I needed to get over a few streets, but I continued walking until I hit a busier street. So, I ended up walking quite a bit extra to get to the subte. Along the way, I made some observations:
STREET SIGHTINGS
Oddly, I feel safer on the street when there are a bunch of Hasidic Jews and elderly people around. Not sure what kind of defense they can offer.
I met up with another friend of Nicole’s, Julia (an Argentine) for lunch, and we ended up spending 4 hours together! We went to an Italian restaurant near Plaza Italia (and the Recoleta cemetery) where we had a build-your-own salad (with as many ingredients as you wanted, and they had nearly everything available) and all-you-can-eat pasta. Julia just finished law school and we definitely seem to have a lot in common – traveling and enjoying life being the principal similarities! It’s amazing how easy it is to just immediately feel intimate with the people here – there are no fronts that people put on or distance that they place between themselves and new acquaintances. There really is a quality of genuineness to a majority of the people that I’ve met – whether it’s a barista or someone I have a connection to. Granted, maybe I’m being fooled, but I feel that I can judge situations pretty well, and there is a sense of sincerity and openness that I have found in many of my encounters with Argentines. Anyway, Julia and I spent a great afternoon together and I wandered around Recoleta a little before going to my Danza Africana class at the UBA.
The instructor is from the U.S., I believe (when we made introductions, she asked what part of the U.S. I was from and her accent isn’t quite native, although very close). She teaches mainly Senegalese style, which is similar to what I’ve learned from my classes in MN from Fatawu (who’s from Ghana), but there are some differences that make it exciting for me to learn something new. It was a really great practice, and I’m excited for next week!!
I quickly grabbed some empanadas de espinaca from the school cafeteria (coffee shop) and went to my Cine Argentino class. The instructor is really interesting and does a good job of engaging the class (and stopping a viejito know-it-all that just wants to speak every chance that he can). He guided the class in asking each of us to name an Argentine movie that has impacted us, and through each movie, he went outlined the main themes and place in history to which they pertained. His breadth of knowledge was impressive and he gave some great insights into the overall Argentine cinema. One is the fact that it’s been waning in the last decade due to many people not going to movie theaters anymore – many theaters have closed and the black market for getting movies has increased drastically that there isn’t as much financial security for moviemakers to produce and distribute their movies. He also mentioned two primary themes in the Argentine cinema: the loss of memory (attempting to erase the past, which results in a repetition of history) and not being able to bring closure to stories (many films end abruptly without any finality). It was so stimulating to be in a classroom again!
After class, I walked in what I thought was the direction of the subte, but soon realized I needed to get over a few streets, but I continued walking until I hit a busier street. So, I ended up walking quite a bit extra to get to the subte. Along the way, I made some observations:
STREET SIGHTINGS
Oddly, I feel safer on the street when there are a bunch of Hasidic Jews and elderly people around. Not sure what kind of defense they can offer.
The garbage diggers come out before the garbage is collected at 11:00 pm, and it really is a production. They come with huge carts to take the sorted trash away and completely empty the garbage cans before replace the invaluable rubbish.
There really is a lot of litter on the streets – not sure if it’s due to the system of placing the garbage out and not having it secure, the garbage diggers themselves, the laziness of people to use receptacles, the lack of receptacles, the shortage of employees to clean up the streets, or a combination of all of the above.
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