24 de Marzo-33 anos del golpe genocida

I know, I'm a little behind with the whole "March 24" thing. But I figured you guys would like to see my pictures of the day.

March 24, 1976 is the day in which the "democratic" (and I say it in quotes because it was super corrupt) government was overthrown by the military in a coup. It was the first day of the Dirty War, in which over 30,000 innocent people would be labeled subversives and disappear. In a nutshell.

And now, every March 24th, the people of Argentina declare a national holiday and march in the streets. They have a HUGE human rights rally, and remember those they lost. I was lucky enough to attend this year's event, and here are just a few of my pictures of the day.


I would estimate that about a million people showed up for the rally in Buenos Aires. It certainly felt that way. The event was held on Avenida del Mayo, and the rest of the streets were desolated.






The "parade" line ended at the Casa Rosada, which you may remember from a previous entry as the official government house, and where the human rights organization Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo walks every Thursday. At the end of the line were the Madres on a little stage, and they gave a speech about human rights, remembering those who disappeared, and getting justice.

Also ending at the stage was a HUGE banner that stretched across the parade, covered with photos of the 30,000 who disappeared. The banner was carried over the heads of people down the middle of the street, and at the stage it was folded up.

Mas picturas!

I'm in a cafe with wifi, so I'm finally able to post a few more of my pictures! Huzzah! This is by NO MEANS all I've done in Argentina, and by no means all the photos I've taken. They're just the ones I've saved to my computer...so it's really just a smattering of my trip thus far.


The cemetery in Recoleta. These are all HUGE mausoleums dedicated to hundreds of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Buenos Aires. It's like a city of the dead. Very eerie, especially when walking past it at night. This is also where Evita Peron is interred. But that's another picture for another day.



The symbol of Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, painted on the ground in Plaza de Mayo. A reminder that even when they're not walking, they're working for their cause.



La Casa Rosada, aka "The Pink House." This is not where the President lives, but where the government works. The original paint used to make the building pink was supposedly bovine's blood.


The view from my window in my apartment. Jesus.

Food *insert nom nom sound here*

Going to eat in Argentina, or even getting a cup of coffee in Argentina, is like going to see a show. Every meal is like a little coreographed performance.

A cup of coffee is not just a cup of coffee. You get the coffee, but you also, no matter where you go, get little sugar cookies and a shot glass of mineral water. No extra cost.

If you go to a restaurant and order water, you don´t just get chucked a bottle of Poland Spring or get a glass fresh from the tap. No, you get your choice of "agua sin gas," which is just regular mineral water, or "agua con gas" which is the same thing carbonated. I´ve heard that agua con gas is an aquired taste, but personally I love it.

And when that bottle of water comes, it comes in a glass bottle. Never plastic. And the waiter will open it one handed with a bottle opener. And pour it for you, typically into a wine glass.

And there´s more! It´s a culture snafu to ask for your waiter. There is a process to get your waiter´s attention, which, for those in the States, I recommend to try and play along at home.

Step one: make eye contact. She or he should see you and come right over. My friends and I have contests to see who can make eye contact first.
If step one fails: look at the waiter and raise a finger, but don´t say anything and don´t raise your hand high. Shoulder height is good. Then make eye contact.

Step two: make a hand gesture that looks like you are writing on the air. Hold your index finger and thumb together, and just wiggle it around a little. Again, do not make this gesture high in the air, do it about shoulder height. It shows you want the bill(en español, "la cuenta").

If all else fails, and seriously, I mean ALL else fails, then you call for the waiter by verbal language.

I will say, that all the food in Argentina is so delicious (and for the most part, all the waiters are so polite and friendly but that´s another story for a later time), that it´s worth the little performance you have to put on to actually get the food.

Best food I have had so far: alfajores. Pronounced alpha-whories. Singular is alfajor.
Now this baby is an Argentine pastry that is the United States equal of the doughnut or brownie. You can get them everywhere, and they are ALWAYS delicious. It´s essentially two soft cookies with dulce de leche in the middle, or sometimes fruit. They often have a chocolate coating on the outside, or the cookie is made with chocolate. They come individually wrapped where ever you get them, even at a restaurant, and are GLORIOUS. The nicest restaurant to the cheapest food stand sells alfajores, and they are also available on the subway, in bus depots, coffee shops and candy kiosks.

Strangest food that I haven´t had, but was offered to a friend for dinner last night:

Hell is COTO

So yesterday I decided to take the afternoon easy, just run some errands, take a siesta, and read "Slumdog Millionaire." A nice, relaxing day in Buenos Aires.

Until I tried to run those errands.

All I wanted was some yogurt. Some nice, Activia 0% strawberry (frutilla) yogurt, to mix with my cereal in the morning. Instead I was unwillingly dragged through the gates of hell and my soul was ripped into itty bitty pieces that no amount of glue will ever be able to put back together in its original form.

Yes it was that bad.

Let me elaborate. Ever visit a supermarket when right before a big storm, when everyone stocks up on bottled water, canned soup and pop tarts? It´s super crowded, no one knows what´s going on, and everyone´s IQ drops 40 points.

Now imagine that atmosphere in the supermarket EVERY FRICKIN DAY. People in Argentina stock up on groceries like the world is ending. Might have something to do with the food being so tasty.

I thought Wegmans on a Saturday afternoon in Ithaca was crazy. The Argentine supermarket COTO just kicked Weggie´s ass and spit in its eye.


The sign of the devil is no longer 666. It is C O T O.

The actual shopping part isn´t so bad. Everything is well organized, and there´s an excellect selection of food. It`s tough selecting what I need, versus what I want (still unsure if oreos with dulce de leche filling are a need or a want). It´s waiting to pay that is murder.

Now, one of the keys to being a good Argentine citizen is patience. Unfortunately, I was born in Philadelpia so I was not born with this attribute. When I get in the "15 items or less" checkout line, I expect to get out of the market pretty quickly. Not wait 45 minutes to pay for 15 items.

Because, much to my dismay, the main 15 items line in COTO is also for the elderly. And unlike in the United States, people in Argentina tend to respect their elders. So no matter how long the line is, the elderly are allowed to cut in front of you. 20 gallons of Sprite and all.

Also, apparently, the elderly are allowed to leave the 15 items or less line to see if there are any shorter ones. And if they can´t find a smaller line, they´re allowed to resume their old spot in front of you.

By the way, I should mention that most people in Argentina don´t have credit cards. They pay in cash. So what cards these little old ladies were giving the cashier, that took him FOREVER to swipe, I have no frickin clue.

I eventually got to the front of the line and started piling my yogurt (which I blame for all of this) onto the conveyor belt. But apparently, it´s not really a conveyor belt. It just looks like one. You have to find a way to slide all your food down it, or the people behind you will just push it and give you dirty looks...or that just happened to me.

I´m still loving Argentina more than life, but from now on I will either buy my food at an express store, or never eat yogurt again.

¡picturas!

I`ve never had luck with internet, and in Argentina my luck seems to be taking a long smoking break. So here are two pictures to tide you over, until I can hunt down some elusive high speed.



The fabled shower. Notice the fact that it`s not in a shower stall, but in the bathroom. No curtain. Just a squeegie. I can shave my legs and wash my hair while sitting on the toilet. My life will never be the same.



Mi duermo.

Why I'm Here (pictures to come)

So yeah, Argentina's been a load of fun. Crazy showers, sangria (Oh the sangria), and just lots of crazy awesome stuff you can never find in the United States. Other than sitting through hours of Spanish review in orientation, I haven't been bored. There is ALWAYS something exciting to see or do in Buenos Aires, the city that really never sleeps (suck it, New York).

All the coolness almost derailed me from my original goal; to study human rights.

The other day during orientation I was lucky enough to meet professor Patrick Rice, a former Catholic priest who now teaches the human rights seminar at IES. He arrived in Argentina in the 1970s, has been "disappeared," held in prison, and exiled from the nation but is so passionate about what he does that he fought to come back in the 1980s and has testified in multiple courts about the horrors of the Dirty War.

I love Patrick Rice. I'll probably propose to him by the end of the semester.

But anyway, soulmates aside...

As cool are Buenos Aires can be, I must remember it's past and current human rights issues.

Today with a tour I went to the Plaza de Mayo, where the Mothers of the Disappeared march every Thursday afternoon. Pictures of their iconic kerchiefs are painted into the concrete of the ground, to remind people of the missing even when the mothers are not marching. It's really sobering.

Hopefully this week I will get to see the Mothers march. They remembered what happened here in the 1970s and 1980s, and I must remember as well.

A Little Bit Slower Now...

Orientation is done for the day, so I have a little free time to write. Actually a lot of free time, since in Argentina the typical dinner doesn´t start until 9pm. This is something I have to seriously adjust to, considering at home my family starts dinner around 5:30.

Argentina is glorious. I´ve only been here since Sunday, so obviously I haven´t seen a lot. But what I have seen has made me so happy I decided to come here. Every one is super friendly, and more importantly, patient with my Spanglish (light on the Span, heavy on the -glish).

Most of my time has been spent at IES orientation. Every day I show up at 9am, and we go over an aspect of the program such has internships or health and safety. Then we study Spanish. IES is really trying to get us oriented with basic terms and phrases so that we can go into stores, restaurants and hospitals without starting a scene. But since I´ve already studied some Spanish, it´s kind of a bore. There are only so many times you can review the parts of the body (partes del cuerpo).

Lunch is always an adventure. We usually have an hour break to eat, and every day we try a different place. So far we ate in a nice restaurant*, a deli and a supermarket.

*A short retelling of my fun adventure in a nice restaurant, and how I learned an important lesson about Argentina.

So two of my new friends and I were trying to find a place for lunch, and couldn´t find a place that had an inexpensive menu. As we were peering at the menu for one restaurant, a guy came up to us and suggested we eat there because the food was good and they spoke English. We took his advice, and as we walked in he told a waiter we spoke English. They promptly brought us a menu written in our native tongue...and with no prices. Turns out, the nice guy that suggested the restaurant is paid to stand outside and suggest the place to tourists. We were sucked into his game.

But by the time we noticed, it was too late to leave without starting a scene, and we were running out of time to eat. So I ordered a personal pizza, which was delicious, and what I thought was a GLASS of sangria. Turns out that in Argentina, when you order a mixed drink at a restaurant they typically serve it in a pitcher under the assumption you would share. But I didn´t want to share. I wanted a glass, and was stuck with a giant pitcher of wine and brandy. I shared with my friends, but I had to pay for the whole thing and drink the brunt of it. There really wasn´t a lot of time to put up a fight, we needed to get back to class.

Hell, at least the sangria was good.

I made it!

I don´t have too long to write, just because I´m at orientation.

After a pretty harrowing trip (my plane from Philly to Atlanta was canceled because it was struck by lightning on the tarmac before takeoff), I made it to Buenos Aires late Sunday afternoon. Even though the forecast said it was going to be sunny, it was pouring rain. But the weather was so hot and humid outside, that the rain was actually a relief (except for my hair, which now makes me look kind of like Carrot Top it´s so curly).

My homestay family was not actually expecting me on Sunday. After my original flight, which was supposed to land in the morning, was canceled, IES contacted them and said that I wasn´t going to arrive until Monday. So when I showed up on Sunday, they were all in their pajamas and getting ready for a nap. I´m just happy they were still home to let me in.

My homestay mamma is named Virginia. She is VERY nice, and even though we have a major language barrier between us, she has been very patient. It helps that her son, Ignacio (Nacho for short) is home for a few days to help me and my housemate get acclimated.

Some things to get acclimated to:
-the shower: in the U.S., the average shower is in a stall or a bathtub. In Argentina, my shower is in the bathroom. In the bathroom as in, I can watch myself wash my hair in the mirror and lean on the toilet seat to shave my legs. The shower is basically some knobs and a spicket in the wall, and a drain in the floor. Every once in a while I need to use a squeegie (like what you use to wash a car window) to push the water into the drain, or it will flood the hall. It´s kind of like the shower in Israel, only more hardcore.

There is much more interesting to Buenos Aires than just the shower, but that´s currently my favorite thing and all I have time for.

Much love!