what a city

Whew. First week of classes finally over. Spanish is challenging as usual, although I{m catching on a little more each time. We{re into some pretty heavy conjugation while the other class is singing songs. Our studio is actually in a renovated car factory. They built a second floor inside the hangar like space so its actually pretty cosy and cool up there. Lots of desks for the grads students and the undergrad. It{s been a phenomenally busy week.

My typical day begins at 830 when I get up, shower, and walk to the subte which is about 10 minutes away walking. Take the subte to the end of the line and then walk another 25 minutes to the studio where we take our spanish class. Typically, i{ll stop at a cafe for a cafe con leche y tres medialunas (coffee with coissants) somewhere in there. 4 hours of spanish. Whew. Walk-subte-walk and I{m back at the flat for a snack-lunch of salami and cheese. The rest of the afternoon is devoted to exploring the city.

Friday was a busy day. Instead of taking the Subte home, Aldo met us at the school and we went to the movies nearby the school. At the theater we grabbed a bite to eat in its shopping center. Choripan, which is basically a grilled sausage sandwich. This really isn{t a vegetarian{s town. The theaters are huge. Cine Capri size. We saw Volver with Penelope Cruz totally in Spanish. I understood snatches of what was said, but was totally oblivious to the grand scheme as there werent even subtitles. Aldo explained it afterwards that it had a very complicated plot, with most of the plot advances revealed in conversation between two people. Nice cinematography at least.

After the movie, we went back to a lecture at the main campus- a roundtable between seven eminent south american architects from different countries. It was all in spanish, allthough I was able to undsterand a few sentances. The room was totally packed with students and faculty, hanging on every word. After the 2 hours of talking, the undergrads went back and we all met again at a pizza and beer joint near our apartment, called Rosarios. The guys who worked here over the summer lived next door to us while they were working, so they knew everything about our neighborhood, including being good freinds with one of the waitressses at Rosarios. So the entire group of 16 students sat down inside, shared a ton of great pizza and decent beer. the national alchol of choice down here is Quilmes beer, athough argentines really aren{t big drinkers. So that was fun.

Afterwards, we all went to this bar called Crobar, which is really a very nice club. We got there around 1AM , which is very early for BA. The club really didnt get jumping until about 230 in the morning. Nice place, steep cover, about $10, but its one of the nicer clubs in town. The cover is also good for one drink, which is cool. The place got packed, and played house trance all night long. Very swanky, but very loud. I was partially deaf when I left at 5:30 AM. I caught a cab home alone, since I got separated and the other people either left earlier or went on to another bar. Cabs here typically run a few dollars to most places, and theres tons. Aldo didnt get back until 7. I crashed until about noon myself.

I've never seen such a beautiful day here. It was gorgeous, sunny, and warm. I even went out in a tee shirt ( and a light jacket).

Today after making calls and showering, our day started at 2 in the afternoon. I had been wanting to go to the natural preserve which is a huge park between teh city and the river, and I got a few more people interested. So Aldo, Dusty, and Jacob came along too. We made a small group and went down to Puerto Madero, by the old loading warehouses that have been transformed into luxiry condos and expensive restraunts and shops. Stopped for a cafe con leche there with medialunas and admired the canal and the weather. Then we walked along the huge sidewalk street at the edge of teh city, which was filled with people: the ubiquitous lovers making out everywhere, people of all ages playing soccer, people drinking mate and eating from the street carts, families out for a saturday afternoon stroll. It was really a peaceful and lively scene. We walked all along the edge of the park and then we came to an outdoor market near the entrance to the park, so we had to check that out for awhile. Coming out of that, I heard music, so we went over and watched people dancing and playing reigional music. The dancers were people from the crowd doing folk dances, and one woman got up and sang to one of the songs they were playing on guitar. We plopped down on the grass and just took it all in for awhile. Everyone had a mate gourd and a thermos, and we wished we had brought ours. Anyway, by that time it was already 630 so the park was closed, so we decided to head back by anther way. I just love it, exploring, letting one thing lead you to another, taking your time, its great. We wandered trhough some cool parks and admired some more of the architecture in the area, before we headed back. And that was one afternoon.