As promised, here's a summary of my last week in Argentina. It's a little late, but better late than never right?
Sunday:
The group got back from Iguazu Falls early Sunday afternoon (a little bit later than expected, but who knew that the bus would break down?). Enrique helped Kassidy and I find our way back from Retiro to Palermo. We came home, showered, and decided to go to the feria of San Telmo. San Telmo is one of the oldest barrios in Buenos Aires. It's known for its Tango scene and cafes. Unlike the other ferias which sell modern souvenirs and things like mate cups, the feria of San Telmo is known for its large collection of antiques. Kassidy and I met up with Megan, Shelby and Krista to take the subte to Florida Street, a very touristy part of Buenos Aires that is known for its shopping. We met up with Austin and Lee to find a place to exchange money and then we headed to San Telmo.
I was really excited to go to San Telmo because we had to walk through the Plaza de Mayo (the area where La Casa Rosada, Argentina's White House, is located). The only time that I had been able to visit this area was when we took the city tour at the beginning of our trip, so it was nice to see the area again. Before you get to the actual feria de San Telmo there is a large feria that runs down Calle Defensa, the street that leads up to the plaza where the feria de San Telmo is located. Calle Defensa was lined with vendors and it seemed as if the feria ran for almost a mile. I immediately fell in love with the feria. There was such a large variety of gifts: mate cups, jerseys, t-shirts, art, and indigenous crafts. In addition, everything was a lot cheaper than the feria of Recoleta.
San Telmo was also a lot different from Recoleta because it was much more touristy than Recoleta. There were a lot of English speakers, Brazilians, Europeans, Blacks and Asians. This was probably the most diversity that I've seen since I've been in Argentina. I absolutely loved it! As Kassidy and I were walking along the strip, a group of kids who looked a little younger than us came up to us and asked us if we were speaking in English. They told us that they were students who were studying English and asked us if they could ask us some questions and film us for a project. They asked us how long we had been in Argentina, how we liked it here etc. Then they asked us if we had ever tried dulce de leche. Kassidy busted out laughing and pulled out a little cup of dulce de leche that she had brought back from the hostel. LOL! They told us that they also had some and asked us if we wanted to try it. I'm not gonna lie, I was a little nervous about that but we took our chances. They wanted to see our reactions to trying an Argentina treat. Then they asked us to read a tongue twister in Spanish. They seemed to be surprised at how easily we read it. I guess they were used to interviewing English speakers who weren't that good at Spanish. haha! There was a vendor who was watching us in our interview and she was cracking up! Afterwards they took a picture with us and we were on our way.
It seemed as if the feria de Calle Defensa stretched out for almost a mile before we reached the actual feria de San Telmo. It was closing as we got there but we still had enough time to see some of the stands. It was really interesting to see what some of the vendors were selling. There were vendors selling old albums filled with photographs from the 1920s, old coins from Argentina, Italy and Spain, family heirlooms, hand sewn clothing, and collectibles that had come from various countries around the world. There was a little cleared square where people had gathered to watched dancers dancing the tango.
The part of Defensa that was closest to the feria de San Telmo was lined with lots of small Cafes. There were also little alleyways that had more vendors. We walked up one of the alleys. There was a tango band playing live music and a large Catholic church that had a small museum that you could walk through. There were also a lot of vendors walking up and down the alleyway selling food. I bought a slice of pizza from one man. The vendor was trying to hit on me, but his accent was very thick so I couldn't understand half of what he was saying...awkward. Even though it was awkward, that slice of pizza may possibly have been the best pizza that I've had in my entire life.
We stayed at San Telmo much longer than we had expected, but it was so worth it. Krista, Megan, Shelby and I all bought way too many souvenirs. But everything was cheap and cute (: We took the subte back and Kassidy stopped at a little bakery to get jamon y queso and empanadas for dinner. There is a cute middle aged couple that owns the bakery. The husband is always trying to speak English with me. He says, "thank you very much!" and "bye-bye" when we leave. The bakery isn't even a block away from my apartment so I walk past it all the time. The owner always waves whenever I walk by. I definitely miss seeing them.
Monday:
Monday was my last official day with the speech pathologist. There was a full house today in the speech clinic. There were at least 5 slps working so I was able to see lots of patients. One little girl came in who was four years old. She had no comprehensive or expressive skills. She literally didn't understand a word that the slp was saying to her and could only formulate small words, like her name and mom. It was really sad to see. I really hope that after her evaluation her mother takes her to receive further therapy.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Lost files- Iguazu
Hola a todas,
When I first started this blog, I had the intention of posting every day. I should have known that this was not going to happen. I started this blog post in the middle of last week, when I had less than a week left here in Buenos Aires. I started off by saying, "I'm really becoming saddened by the fact that this trip is ending. But we'll save all the sappy-ness for Sunday." Well turns out that I'm finishing this at my home in Georgia. You can imagine how sappy I'm feeling sitting at home and writing about my adventures in the amazing country. I'm not going to be able to fit the past week into one blog so this "post" will be split up into 3. I'll start off where I left off in my last blog post:
Wednesday:
Wednesday morning I went to my internship. I was able to see 4 patients today, which was really exciting! There was a little (and I mean little) four year old girl who had been born premature that was receiving a speech eval. She had nothing wrong with her speech, but you have to take extra precautions with children who are born premature & who will likely have developmental delays. Can I just say that she was the cutest little girl EVER! She was trying to help her mom find her health documents and was so patient throughout all of the tests. Absolutely adorable! Mirta, the other fonoaudiologa, took me with her on her bedside evaluations. There was only one girl who was mentally challenged. Her parents had a lot of questions about how to choose the best high school for their daughter. You could tell that they were really concerned with the care and attention that she would receive there. I can only imagine how daunting of a task that must be for a parent to decide where their child with special needs will go to high school. My mom was a basket full of nerves when it was time for me to go to high school. It must be much worse to send a child with special needs to high school. Let's be honest....kids are brutal.
I really enjoy the bus ride home from the hospital. We ride through Once, which is a poorer part of Buenos Aires that has a large immigrant population. You see a lot of Africans, Indians & Indigenas there...very different from Palermo. The streets are lined with vendors selling jewelry, clothing and baked goods. Then there are lots of stores that sell cheap clothing and things of that nature. There are always so many people walking the streets and it's fun to people watch. I will miss this when I leave.
Wednesday evening we met our group at UP to catch a bus to Retiro to the MicroBus station. This part of Buenos Aires is the oldest and really dirty. LOL! There were so many of us that we all couldn't ride one bus so we ended up on three different buses. Vanessa, Emily and I were watching the other bus to see when the rest of the group got off. We thought we saw them got off, but it actually wasn't our group. We got a little lost but we found our way to the station.
I was a little apprehensive about taking a 20 hour bus trip to Iguazu. However, the microbus was surprisingly comfortable. They had big comfortable cushion-y seats that reclined 180 degrees and there was lots of space. You could even lift the leg rest so that you could prop your legs up while you slept. The bus was way more comfortable than a plane. At midnight it was Aki's 21st birthday so we celebrated on the bus. It was really fun because there were only 2 or 3 non-UGA passengers on the bus so we basically had the bus to ourselves. However, the bus attendant didn't really seem to like us. Everyone fell asleep around 2 or 3 and when we woke up the next morning we were still on the bus.
Thursday:
The next morning's ride was really interesting because we were driving through the campesino/countryside of Argentina. It was really nice to see what the non-city part of Argentina looks like. There were lots of little farms and small houses along the way. It was beautiful and picturesque. We finally got to the city of Iguazu around 12. We had two hours or so to walk to the hostel and grab lunch. Luciano walked all the girls to their hostels and he lead us in the wrong direction a couple of times before we finally found it! haha!
This was my very first time staying in a hostel and it was a very interesting experience to say the least. Aki, Kassidy and I stayed in a room that had about 6 or 7 other beds. It was really clean and everyone kept to themselves so I really can't complain. The bathrooms in my freshman dorm were much worse than the hostel. I survived living there for a year, so what was two nights in a hostel? We grabbed lomo-pan at a restaurant across the street and headed to meet the group at the Microbus station to begin our Iguazu adventure.
On our first day we would be taking an excursion through the jungle and then taking a boat underneath the falls. The concept of this sounded amazing, but I'm not going to lie, my experience in Iguazu Falls was probably one of the worst, if not the worst experiences of not only this trip, but of all my travels. I was really looking forward to Iguazu Falls because all of my friends who had done the program in the past had told me how beautiful the falls were and how I was going to see so many exotic animals. All of the Porteños in Buenos Aires had told me that it was going to be really warm during the day and really cool at night so pack a mix of warm and cold weather clothing. I had brought four changes of clothing (warm and cold) since we would be there for two and a half days. However, our group was totally unprepared for the weather. When we got the bus station, we were told that it was forecasted to rain the entire weekend and to buy panchos. Unfortunately the stores around the bus stop rain out of panchos when my group got there. There were about 10 of us that had no rain coats or panchos. On top of that it was about 55 degrees.
We took a city bus to the falls. The city buses in Iguazu are very nice and look more like charter buses. You can tell that Iguazu is a tourist town. It began to rain as soon as we got to the park, but it was only drizzling so it wasn't that bad. We took a short walk to where we would hop on the truck that would drive us through the jungle. The tour was really informative and it was really fun riding through the jungle. However, because it was rainy, most of the animals that we would have seen were taking refuge so we only saw vultures and one toucan. The tour guide had told us that toucans love rainy weather, but I guess they weren't feeling our company! lol! It started to rain towards the end of the tour and it began to get chilly.
When we reached the end of the jungle, we walked down a path with several steps before we reached the boat. We would ride the boat up the river that would take us to the one of the smaller falls and then ride under the falls. I was not really looking forward to the boat ride because it was freezing cold and we had ridden through the jungle in the open air (which made us colder). On top of that I had no pancho. Luckily they had big plastic bags that you could put all of belongings into while we went under the falls and they told us that we could put our shoes in them too. I took off all my clothes and sat in my bathing suit so that at least my clothes would be dry when we got off the boat.
Even though I was freezing, the boat ride was actually pretty fun! The boat went so fast and we flew by several rapids that made the boat rise out of the water. It was kind of scary at some points, but still fun. We drove past several mini water falls before we reached the falls that we would be riding under. They were really beautiful and the driver let us take our cameras out and take pictures before we had to put everything in our bags again. Then he drove the boat "under" (more like next to) the falls a couple of times and we all were soaking wet! I couldn't really see anything at that point because there was a lot of wind and so much water was going into my eyes. LOL! Even though I was cold I enjoyed it. The adrenaline release from the boat ride and my dry clothes kept me pretty warm on the way back. When we were putting our clothes back on, Luciano was like, "everyone in this group is really white except for you Jackie. I don't understand why everyone is so pale." Then he lifted up his shirt to compare his skin to everyone else. LOL! We hiked up the falls, stopped and took some pictures along the way and hopped on the bus to come back to the hostel. We even saw some coaties, which kind of look like racoons, on the way to the bus.
That night we went to a restaurant with the group and I had some of the best Argentine pizza! It had bacon, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Then we went to find a bar so that Aki could have her first "legal" drink (even though the drinking age in Argentina is 18). The first bar that we went to was really upscale and had amazing music. It looked as if they were setting up for a band to play live music too. However, they didn't have any of the drinks that was on the menu so we decided to go somewhere else. We found another bar that was a lot smaller, but so much more fun. The bar tender was hilarious. She was really vibrant and had a lot of energy and she was so enthusiastic that we were there. She started jumping up and down and squealing when we told her it was Aki's birthday. Then she made us all some minty drink (which tasting like you were drinking toothpaste, yuck!). We decided that we would go back there the next evening.
Friday:
Thursday night was really cold in the hostel. On top of that my clothes were still wet the next day because it was so humid. Friday morning we had to meet the group at 9:30 to spend the day at the park. We would be walking up to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat), which is supposed to be the most beautiful part of the falls on the Argentina side of the park. [There are two parts of the park: Argentina y brasileña. Argentina's side is supposed to be really pretty because of the Devil's Throat and Brasil's side has a panoramic view]. Before we got to the park, we were able to buy panchos yay! & this time I brought my jacket and wore jeans so I would be prepared for the cold. When we got to the park we had to wait about thirty minutes for a train, but it was fun because our group decided to only talk in Spanish (when we're all in a group we have a tendency to only want to speak English). When we got off the train, it began to rain once again (and pretty hard!) We had to walk over a series of pasarelas (boardwalks) over the water, which were really slippery because they were made of steel. It was super windy and super cold and even though I was trying my best not to show it I was so miserable. If it had been hot, I wouldn't have minded being wet, but cold and wet is literally the worst possible combination. I was shivering and literally on the verge of tears when we finally made it to La Garganta del Diablo. Even though it was rainy and the river's water had become muddy, it was so beautiful! I was stunned by the beauty of the falls. There were big clouds of mist that would come up and cover the falls and then the falls would reappear. We took lots of pictures, of course even in the rain! It was kind of scary at the same time because the guard rails were so low. The kids in the program talk about how if you had wanted to commit suicide, it would have been really easy to do so here. I guess it would have been a beautiful death. In some places the boards of the pasarelas seemed a little flimsy as well. We took pictures at the falls for about 20 minutes before we headed back to catch the train. We had lunch at a buffet in the falls and then came home to change.
That night we took Aki to a parilla to celebrate her birthday. Aki and I shared a brochette (a kebab), which pork, chicken and beef. It was humongous! Then afterwards we headed back to the bar where we had been the night before. We had asked the bartender the night before if they could get a cake for Aki. Not only did they get a cake, but they also decorated the outside of the bar. It was really sweet and Aki was so surprised!
Saturday:
Friday night I was so cold and miserable that I slept in my entire outfit for the next day, including my peacoat. When we woke up, Saturday was our last day. Of course the sun was shining and it was probably about 65 degrees on the day that we had to leave. We had until 2m p to explore the city of Iguazu. That morning a new girl had moved into our hostel room. She told us that she was from Japan. Aki told her that she was Japanese and they began speaking in Japanese. It was hilarious, because the girl spoke English and Japanese but not Spanish. Aki had been so accustomed to only speaking Spanish for the past 4 weeks that she kept code switching between Japanese and Spanish, which was confusing to the other girl. LOL! Kassidy and I were trying not to bust out laughing.
Iguazu is such a teeny tiny tourist town. They have a lot of boutiques and souvenir shops. Kassidy, Aki and I walked in and out of some of the stores and then went exploring through the city. We came across a street that was mostly residential. One house had about 5 hummingbird feeders that were filled with colibris (hummingbirds). I've literally never seen so many in my life. They were green ones and black ones and other little finches that were trying in vain to feed from the feeder. Then we came across a river that was really pretty and had a farm on the other side. We grabbed something for lunch and then met up with the rest of the grab to get on the microbus.
This microbus was really bumpy and kept making weird noises. About 2 hours into the drive, the bus broke down. I swear we have the worst luck with transportation. We had to wait about an hour and a half for the mechanic, who was working on another broken down bus, to come fix our bus. Then it took the mechanic another hour to fix the bus. By then the sun had gone down so we were stranded on the side of the road for nearly three hours in the dark. We kept ourselves entertained by playing card games. It was definitely a great bonding experience for the group.
Although Iguazu was probably my least favorite activity in Argentina, I'm glad I had the opportunity to go there. We were told that the pasarelas were actually closed down this past week because they had flooded so badly that they broke. When I come back to Argentina, I will have to make another trip to Iguazu which will hopefully be more enjoyable.
When I first started this blog, I had the intention of posting every day. I should have known that this was not going to happen. I started this blog post in the middle of last week, when I had less than a week left here in Buenos Aires. I started off by saying, "I'm really becoming saddened by the fact that this trip is ending. But we'll save all the sappy-ness for Sunday." Well turns out that I'm finishing this at my home in Georgia. You can imagine how sappy I'm feeling sitting at home and writing about my adventures in the amazing country. I'm not going to be able to fit the past week into one blog so this "post" will be split up into 3. I'll start off where I left off in my last blog post:
Wednesday:
Wednesday morning I went to my internship. I was able to see 4 patients today, which was really exciting! There was a little (and I mean little) four year old girl who had been born premature that was receiving a speech eval. She had nothing wrong with her speech, but you have to take extra precautions with children who are born premature & who will likely have developmental delays. Can I just say that she was the cutest little girl EVER! She was trying to help her mom find her health documents and was so patient throughout all of the tests. Absolutely adorable! Mirta, the other fonoaudiologa, took me with her on her bedside evaluations. There was only one girl who was mentally challenged. Her parents had a lot of questions about how to choose the best high school for their daughter. You could tell that they were really concerned with the care and attention that she would receive there. I can only imagine how daunting of a task that must be for a parent to decide where their child with special needs will go to high school. My mom was a basket full of nerves when it was time for me to go to high school. It must be much worse to send a child with special needs to high school. Let's be honest....kids are brutal.
I really enjoy the bus ride home from the hospital. We ride through Once, which is a poorer part of Buenos Aires that has a large immigrant population. You see a lot of Africans, Indians & Indigenas there...very different from Palermo. The streets are lined with vendors selling jewelry, clothing and baked goods. Then there are lots of stores that sell cheap clothing and things of that nature. There are always so many people walking the streets and it's fun to people watch. I will miss this when I leave.
Wednesday evening we met our group at UP to catch a bus to Retiro to the MicroBus station. This part of Buenos Aires is the oldest and really dirty. LOL! There were so many of us that we all couldn't ride one bus so we ended up on three different buses. Vanessa, Emily and I were watching the other bus to see when the rest of the group got off. We thought we saw them got off, but it actually wasn't our group. We got a little lost but we found our way to the station. I was a little apprehensive about taking a 20 hour bus trip to Iguazu. However, the microbus was surprisingly comfortable. They had big comfortable cushion-y seats that reclined 180 degrees and there was lots of space. You could even lift the leg rest so that you could prop your legs up while you slept. The bus was way more comfortable than a plane. At midnight it was Aki's 21st birthday so we celebrated on the bus. It was really fun because there were only 2 or 3 non-UGA passengers on the bus so we basically had the bus to ourselves. However, the bus attendant didn't really seem to like us. Everyone fell asleep around 2 or 3 and when we woke up the next morning we were still on the bus.
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| Our hostel |
Thursday:
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| On the boat before we rode under the rapids |
This was my very first time staying in a hostel and it was a very interesting experience to say the least. Aki, Kassidy and I stayed in a room that had about 6 or 7 other beds. It was really clean and everyone kept to themselves so I really can't complain. The bathrooms in my freshman dorm were much worse than the hostel. I survived living there for a year, so what was two nights in a hostel? We grabbed lomo-pan at a restaurant across the street and headed to meet the group at the Microbus station to begin our Iguazu adventure.
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| After the boat ride |
We took a city bus to the falls. The city buses in Iguazu are very nice and look more like charter buses. You can tell that Iguazu is a tourist town. It began to rain as soon as we got to the park, but it was only drizzling so it wasn't that bad. We took a short walk to where we would hop on the truck that would drive us through the jungle. The tour was really informative and it was really fun riding through the jungle. However, because it was rainy, most of the animals that we would have seen were taking refuge so we only saw vultures and one toucan. The tour guide had told us that toucans love rainy weather, but I guess they weren't feeling our company! lol! It started to rain towards the end of the tour and it began to get chilly.
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| The coaties were moving so fast that it was hard to snap their picture |
Even though I was freezing, the boat ride was actually pretty fun! The boat went so fast and we flew by several rapids that made the boat rise out of the water. It was kind of scary at some points, but still fun. We drove past several mini water falls before we reached the falls that we would be riding under. They were really beautiful and the driver let us take our cameras out and take pictures before we had to put everything in our bags again. Then he drove the boat "under" (more like next to) the falls a couple of times and we all were soaking wet! I couldn't really see anything at that point because there was a lot of wind and so much water was going into my eyes. LOL! Even though I was cold I enjoyed it. The adrenaline release from the boat ride and my dry clothes kept me pretty warm on the way back. When we were putting our clothes back on, Luciano was like, "everyone in this group is really white except for you Jackie. I don't understand why everyone is so pale." Then he lifted up his shirt to compare his skin to everyone else. LOL! We hiked up the falls, stopped and took some pictures along the way and hopped on the bus to come back to the hostel. We even saw some coaties, which kind of look like racoons, on the way to the bus.
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| La garganta del diablo |
Friday:
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| La Garganta del Diablo |
Thursday night was really cold in the hostel. On top of that my clothes were still wet the next day because it was so humid. Friday morning we had to meet the group at 9:30 to spend the day at the park. We would be walking up to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat), which is supposed to be the most beautiful part of the falls on the Argentina side of the park. [There are two parts of the park: Argentina y brasileña. Argentina's side is supposed to be really pretty because of the Devil's Throat and Brasil's side has a panoramic view]. Before we got to the park, we were able to buy panchos yay! & this time I brought my jacket and wore jeans so I would be prepared for the cold. When we got to the park we had to wait about thirty minutes for a train, but it was fun because our group decided to only talk in Spanish (when we're all in a group we have a tendency to only want to speak English). When we got off the train, it began to rain once again (and pretty hard!) We had to walk over a series of pasarelas (boardwalks) over the water, which were really slippery because they were made of steel. It was super windy and super cold and even though I was trying my best not to show it I was so miserable. If it had been hot, I wouldn't have minded being wet, but cold and wet is literally the worst possible combination. I was shivering and literally on the verge of tears when we finally made it to La Garganta del Diablo. Even though it was rainy and the river's water had become muddy, it was so beautiful! I was stunned by the beauty of the falls. There were big clouds of mist that would come up and cover the falls and then the falls would reappear. We took lots of pictures, of course even in the rain! It was kind of scary at the same time because the guard rails were so low. The kids in the program talk about how if you had wanted to commit suicide, it would have been really easy to do so here. I guess it would have been a beautiful death. In some places the boards of the pasarelas seemed a little flimsy as well. We took pictures at the falls for about 20 minutes before we headed back to catch the train. We had lunch at a buffet in the falls and then came home to change.
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| The brochette that Aki and I shared! |
Saturday:
Friday night I was so cold and miserable that I slept in my entire outfit for the next day, including my peacoat. When we woke up, Saturday was our last day. Of course the sun was shining and it was probably about 65 degrees on the day that we had to leave. We had until 2m p to explore the city of Iguazu. That morning a new girl had moved into our hostel room. She told us that she was from Japan. Aki told her that she was Japanese and they began speaking in Japanese. It was hilarious, because the girl spoke English and Japanese but not Spanish. Aki had been so accustomed to only speaking Spanish for the past 4 weeks that she kept code switching between Japanese and Spanish, which was confusing to the other girl. LOL! Kassidy and I were trying not to bust out laughing.
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| Hummingbirds! |
This microbus was really bumpy and kept making weird noises. About 2 hours into the drive, the bus broke down. I swear we have the worst luck with transportation. We had to wait about an hour and a half for the mechanic, who was working on another broken down bus, to come fix our bus. Then it took the mechanic another hour to fix the bus. By then the sun had gone down so we were stranded on the side of the road for nearly three hours in the dark. We kept ourselves entertained by playing card games. It was definitely a great bonding experience for the group.
Although Iguazu was probably my least favorite activity in Argentina, I'm glad I had the opportunity to go there. We were told that the pasarelas were actually closed down this past week because they had flooded so badly that they broke. When I come back to Argentina, I will have to make another trip to Iguazu which will hopefully be more enjoyable.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Sunday Funday
Hola a todos,
Monday morning I headed to my internship. When I woke up it was FREEZING (39 degrees). But getting up at 7 am in the morning in the cold was definitely worth it. Alicia and I are really beginning to bond. We had an hour where a patient didn't show up to their appointment so we had a lot of time to talk. She told me about all the places that she's traveled to (she's very well traveled). She also told me how her Dad's family were immigrants from Italy and her mom's family were immigrants from Spain. She still has family that lives in Galicia and she travels there often. She asked me all about my favorite foods in Argentina and what I've enjoyed the most about here. Then she taught me how to use the ITPA tests that are used here to determine a child's "speech capability age," which was very helpful to me because they use the same tests here that they use in the United States. None of the slps in the US have ever explained the testing methods to me.
I hope y'all enjoyed my post about Saturday night! Haha! Sunday, Kassidy and I woke up around 12 and headed to Alto Palermo to get something for lunch. We were missing American food a little too much so we decided to go to Wendy's for lunch. It was really weird ordering food from Wendy's in Argentina because although most of the items on the menu translate into Spanish, the menu was completely in English. We tried our best to pronounce our meals in Spanish accents haha! We watched all the little kids playing in the jungle gym and reminiscing on our childhood.This little girl got stuck in the play gym and we were talking about how scary that feeling that you were trapped was when you were little. One of the workers had to climb into the play set to go get her. Haha! On the way back it begin to rain and it was really cold. Yuck!
After lunch we hopped onto a bus to go to Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) with our group. This time we didn't get lost (knock on wood).The Museum had a nice collection, but only three exhibits were open (which were all located on one floor). This didn't come as a surprise to me as I had read about this museum on trip advisor. I did like the art that they had there though. They had a nice collection of Avant Garde photographs taken during the 1940s. They were multiple pictures combined into one...sort of like a collage. Had they been taken today, the photographer probably would have used photoshop. I imagine that these pictures were the inspiration for photo shop. They had a couple of pieces from my favorite South American artist, Fernando Botero. They also had a really cool series of photos that were encased in glass that had bullet holes. The man in the photos was leaning back as if he got shot. Although it was small, I enjoyed MALBA.
After MALBA, we decided to go to a heladeria (surprise, surprise). There is a heladeria called Persicco that is located close to my apartment. They serve icecream on top of a waffle with syrup poured on top. Kassidy ordered a waffle with dulce de leche icecream and syrup chocolate on top and I ordered a waffle with coco de crema icecream and dulce de leche syrup on top.The coco de creama icecream literally tasted like coconut made into icecream. Delicious! I also ordered a cup of tea, which was fruity and delicious. On the way home we ordered empanadas and tostadas con jamon y queso for dinner and stayed in for the night.
Monday morning I headed to my internship. When I woke up it was FREEZING (39 degrees). But getting up at 7 am in the morning in the cold was definitely worth it. Alicia and I are really beginning to bond. We had an hour where a patient didn't show up to their appointment so we had a lot of time to talk. She told me about all the places that she's traveled to (she's very well traveled). She also told me how her Dad's family were immigrants from Italy and her mom's family were immigrants from Spain. She still has family that lives in Galicia and she travels there often. She asked me all about my favorite foods in Argentina and what I've enjoyed the most about here. Then she taught me how to use the ITPA tests that are used here to determine a child's "speech capability age," which was very helpful to me because they use the same tests here that they use in the United States. None of the slps in the US have ever explained the testing methods to me.
After my internship I had class. We're learning about Peronism, which is so complicated especially when you're learning about it in another language. After class I headed to Recoleta. I had seen a shirt that said "I <3 Buenos Aires" in one of the shops near the cemetery and I decided to go back and buy one. The bus went in a direction that was weird so I got off and just walked about a 1/2 mile to where I needed to be. The shirt was pretty cheap (80 pesos= a little over $10 USD). It was a little hard to ask for a shirt because I didn't know how to say medium in Spanish. The lady was trying to sell me a size small too! LOL! After I bought my shirt, I was exhausted from walking so much. I had no other choice but to replenish my tired body with helado. The shop that I went to was really small and there were all these workers standing in the front so I decided to just walk with my icecream. Everyone was staring at me like I had ten heads because it was such a cold day, but I didn't care. I was hot from walking so much and it was delicious. This one man even said to me "Icecream in this weather?" Haha! I finished my icecream and headed to the Recoleta mall. It was so expensive. The cheapest thing that I saw was a mini wallet that was $50 USD. Everything else was at least $100. So needless to say I got out of there really quickly!
Today was a simple day. Kassidy and I stayed up really late talking so we slept in today. I didn't really do anything after class. Just relaxed. I need this before this weekend. This weekend we're going to Iguazu Falls! I am super excited! I probably won't have an internet connection, so y'all won't be hearing from me until Sunday.
Ciao for now,
Jackie
Today was a simple day. Kassidy and I stayed up really late talking so we slept in today. I didn't really do anything after class. Just relaxed. I need this before this weekend. This weekend we're going to Iguazu Falls! I am super excited! I probably won't have an internet connection, so y'all won't be hearing from me until Sunday.
Ciao for now,
Jackie
Monday, June 17, 2013
Como le gusta la noche
Hola mi gente,
My last post left off at Friday afternoon. After my shopping trip, I came home to Arabic empanadas that Claudia had bought for Kassidy and I. Arabic food and Mediterranean food are both very popular aqui en Argentina. Claudia told us that they are prepared using lemon juice and I liked that they didn't have the strong taste of olives that the Argentine empanadas have.
Kassidy and I hopped on the subte to go to a concert. We were going to see Los Perricos, a band that we were told would play reggae music. The concert was much different from what I had imagined. I imagined the concert to be somewhat similar to La Bomba de tiempo...lots of dread heads, a bohemian venue, an easy vibe and relaxing music. There were lots of people with dreads, but they were the only thing that matched what I had imagined. The concert was held in a semi-fancy concert hall. Much fancier than what I had imagined and the musical style was more ska than reggae (ska= reggae infused rock. Think No Doubt or Sublime.). In addition, I had a slight headache before the concert began and they kept shining really bright concert lights directly into the audience's eyes. They were blinding, which made my headache worse. Considering the circumstances I didn't really enjoy the concert. I could definitely appreciate the music that they played, but we all thought that we were going to a reggae concert and it was hard to enjoy something that was so different from what we had all expected. I will say that it appears that Los Perricos have a cult following. They were an older band and their fans were decked out in Los Perricos shirts. A lot of the fans sitting in the balcony seats were waiving flags and they even stretched a huge banner across the entirety of the balcony.
After the concert, we split off into different groups. My group went to search for something to eat before we headed to a bar. As we were walking to the street where the restaurants and bars were a group of guys who were walking behind us started to try to flirt with us (there were 6 girls and one guy in our group). Aki said that if they came up to us again she would make weird noises. Sooner than later they caught up with us again and when they tried to hit on us Aki started squaking and making high pitched chirps like she was speaking some animal language lol! It was so funny and we were laughing so hard that we were all on the verge of tears.
After dinner, we headed to a bar called Shamrocks. It was really crowded, but I liked the vibe. Upstairs they had a large tv that was showing a soccer game and downstairs they had a dancefloor. By no means were they playing dance music (it was more like the music that you hear in a department store), but it was a nice space to just talk. I headed home around 2.
Saturday:
Por la mañana:
Saturday morning Kassidy and I woke up early to meet our group at the Reserva Ecológica de Buenos Aires. Although we had a rough start (we got on a bus going in the wrong direction that took us 20 minutes out of the way and ended up taking an expensive taxi ride there), we were some of the first to arrive from our group. We walked about 3 or 4 blocks to the reserve to rent bicycles and we were off to ride the trails that crossed through the Reserve.
It was obvious that some of our group members hadn't ridden a bike in a long time. One group member almost hit a group of joggers, who promptly responded with some not so nice words. LOL! Other than that the bike ride was probably one of the most relaxing activities that we've had on the trip (other than horseback riding). The Reserve was beautiful, even as Argentina's fall turns to winter. It reminded me of the Augusta Canal, but larger. Depending on which direction you were riding, you could see the city over one shoulder and marshlands and the ocean over the other. The grass was still green in most areas and certain parts of the trail were lined with trees that hung over the trail. The weather was a little chilly, but once we warmed up from riding it was perfect. There were lots of spots along the way that were ideal for taking pictures. The lonely trail also made for great conversation with my group members.
After bike riding we walked through Puerto Madero on the way to eat lunch. Puerto Madero is a modern, upscale part of Buenos Aires. It consists of a lot of restaurants, business and luxury apartments that line the river, Rio de la Plata. It reminds me of Chattanooga, Tennessee or other cities built along rivers. One thing about Puerto Madero that was really interesting was that they had an outdoor gym. It looked identical to a park except for it had metal elliptical machines and pull up bars rather than swing sets and monkey bars. We all found this interesting and all preceeded to try out all of the equipment. A group of local Argentine guys that were trying to have a legitimate workout were laughing at us! Haha! We ate lunch at a buffet called Siga La Vaca. They had a parilla with all different kinds of meats and VEGETABLES!! YAY!!
Por la noche
Saturday night we decided to try out one of the infamous boliches (clubs). Aki had heard about a boliche in Palermo. A big group of us got dinner together at this little cafe close to my house. I had milanesa and french fries. Then we headed over to Aki's house so that we could all take taxis together. When we got to the boliche it still had opened yet (it was 1 am.). We waited in like for about 30 minutes before we could go inside. While waiting in line, we noticed that all of the people there looked substantially younger then us. When we finally got inside, being typical girls we ran into the bathroom. When we got inside there was a group of about 5 girls. They heard us talking in English and asked us in Spanish where we were from. When we told them we were from the United States, one of the girls was like "OMG Los Estados Unidos!! Ahhh!!" and proceeded to take picture after picture of/with us and put them on her instagram. I literally felt like a celebrity. We asked them how old they were and they said 16 (I wasn't just imagining that everyone was younger than me). One of them spoke really good English and she told me that she had been studying since she was 7. We thought that this would be our only strange encounter, but it gets better. The boliche was separated into two rooms. One large dance floor that was playing house/electronic/American music and a smaller room that was playing reggaeton and cumbiaton. We started off in the smaller room, but there were a lot of people smoking so we came out to the larger room. Eventually the djs in the larger room started playing cumbiaton and reggaeton as well and it got really fun. They were playing all the reggaeton songs that I have on my ipod that no one ever knows when I'm in the United States and Cumbiaton is my newest Latino music obsession
. We all were dancing and having a really good time. These two boys came over and when they saw my braids they started yelling, "Serena Williams! Serena Williams!" I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Then they each put a braid in their mouths and started dancing...umm gross. Then the proceeded to walk around my group of friends and try to get us to kiss them...even more gross. We asked them how old they were and they told us 18....not only gross, but borderline illegal. They came back in our direction a couple more times and made sure to say "Hola Serena." -____-
After those boys left two other boys came to dance with us. They seemed to be closer to our age and were actually fun to dance with (and did not try to put my braids in their mouths lol). The kept putting their hands in
a bridge and made us walk under it. LOL!
Towards the end of the night my friends and I moved closer to the entrance of the club. Big mistake. We literally got swarmed by Argentine boys that were thirsty for American girls. We were obviously American because we had four blondes, a red head, a brunette, an Asian and a Morocha in our group. We could barely catch our breath without getting harassed. LOL! I was asked the typical "¿ Eres brasileña?" and we each were the recipients of several proposals for marriage, double dates and love confessions...all by boys who were 3 or more years younger than us. I'm not quite sure if I could deal with that on a weekend-ly basis! Regardless of the hormonal and overly confident boys that tried to hit on us, this night was definitely one for the books. Oh & did I mention that this was a true Argentine night out? I came home at 6:30.
Besos y Abrazos,
Jackie
My last post left off at Friday afternoon. After my shopping trip, I came home to Arabic empanadas that Claudia had bought for Kassidy and I. Arabic food and Mediterranean food are both very popular aqui en Argentina. Claudia told us that they are prepared using lemon juice and I liked that they didn't have the strong taste of olives that the Argentine empanadas have.
Kassidy and I hopped on the subte to go to a concert. We were going to see Los Perricos, a band that we were told would play reggae music. The concert was much different from what I had imagined. I imagined the concert to be somewhat similar to La Bomba de tiempo...lots of dread heads, a bohemian venue, an easy vibe and relaxing music. There were lots of people with dreads, but they were the only thing that matched what I had imagined. The concert was held in a semi-fancy concert hall. Much fancier than what I had imagined and the musical style was more ska than reggae (ska= reggae infused rock. Think No Doubt or Sublime.). In addition, I had a slight headache before the concert began and they kept shining really bright concert lights directly into the audience's eyes. They were blinding, which made my headache worse. Considering the circumstances I didn't really enjoy the concert. I could definitely appreciate the music that they played, but we all thought that we were going to a reggae concert and it was hard to enjoy something that was so different from what we had all expected. I will say that it appears that Los Perricos have a cult following. They were an older band and their fans were decked out in Los Perricos shirts. A lot of the fans sitting in the balcony seats were waiving flags and they even stretched a huge banner across the entirety of the balcony.
After the concert, we split off into different groups. My group went to search for something to eat before we headed to a bar. As we were walking to the street where the restaurants and bars were a group of guys who were walking behind us started to try to flirt with us (there were 6 girls and one guy in our group). Aki said that if they came up to us again she would make weird noises. Sooner than later they caught up with us again and when they tried to hit on us Aki started squaking and making high pitched chirps like she was speaking some animal language lol! It was so funny and we were laughing so hard that we were all on the verge of tears.
After dinner, we headed to a bar called Shamrocks. It was really crowded, but I liked the vibe. Upstairs they had a large tv that was showing a soccer game and downstairs they had a dancefloor. By no means were they playing dance music (it was more like the music that you hear in a department store), but it was a nice space to just talk. I headed home around 2.
Saturday:
Por la mañana:
Saturday morning Kassidy and I woke up early to meet our group at the Reserva Ecológica de Buenos Aires. Although we had a rough start (we got on a bus going in the wrong direction that took us 20 minutes out of the way and ended up taking an expensive taxi ride there), we were some of the first to arrive from our group. We walked about 3 or 4 blocks to the reserve to rent bicycles and we were off to ride the trails that crossed through the Reserve.
It was obvious that some of our group members hadn't ridden a bike in a long time. One group member almost hit a group of joggers, who promptly responded with some not so nice words. LOL! Other than that the bike ride was probably one of the most relaxing activities that we've had on the trip (other than horseback riding). The Reserve was beautiful, even as Argentina's fall turns to winter. It reminded me of the Augusta Canal, but larger. Depending on which direction you were riding, you could see the city over one shoulder and marshlands and the ocean over the other. The grass was still green in most areas and certain parts of the trail were lined with trees that hung over the trail. The weather was a little chilly, but once we warmed up from riding it was perfect. There were lots of spots along the way that were ideal for taking pictures. The lonely trail also made for great conversation with my group members.
After bike riding we walked through Puerto Madero on the way to eat lunch. Puerto Madero is a modern, upscale part of Buenos Aires. It consists of a lot of restaurants, business and luxury apartments that line the river, Rio de la Plata. It reminds me of Chattanooga, Tennessee or other cities built along rivers. One thing about Puerto Madero that was really interesting was that they had an outdoor gym. It looked identical to a park except for it had metal elliptical machines and pull up bars rather than swing sets and monkey bars. We all found this interesting and all preceeded to try out all of the equipment. A group of local Argentine guys that were trying to have a legitimate workout were laughing at us! Haha! We ate lunch at a buffet called Siga La Vaca. They had a parilla with all different kinds of meats and VEGETABLES!! YAY!! Por la noche
Saturday night we decided to try out one of the infamous boliches (clubs). Aki had heard about a boliche in Palermo. A big group of us got dinner together at this little cafe close to my house. I had milanesa and french fries. Then we headed over to Aki's house so that we could all take taxis together. When we got to the boliche it still had opened yet (it was 1 am.). We waited in like for about 30 minutes before we could go inside. While waiting in line, we noticed that all of the people there looked substantially younger then us. When we finally got inside, being typical girls we ran into the bathroom. When we got inside there was a group of about 5 girls. They heard us talking in English and asked us in Spanish where we were from. When we told them we were from the United States, one of the girls was like "OMG Los Estados Unidos!! Ahhh!!" and proceeded to take picture after picture of/with us and put them on her instagram. I literally felt like a celebrity. We asked them how old they were and they said 16 (I wasn't just imagining that everyone was younger than me). One of them spoke really good English and she told me that she had been studying since she was 7. We thought that this would be our only strange encounter, but it gets better. The boliche was separated into two rooms. One large dance floor that was playing house/electronic/American music and a smaller room that was playing reggaeton and cumbiaton. We started off in the smaller room, but there were a lot of people smoking so we came out to the larger room. Eventually the djs in the larger room started playing cumbiaton and reggaeton as well and it got really fun. They were playing all the reggaeton songs that I have on my ipod that no one ever knows when I'm in the United States and Cumbiaton is my newest Latino music obsession
 |
| All of us! |
After those boys left two other boys came to dance with us. They seemed to be closer to our age and were actually fun to dance with (and did not try to put my braids in their mouths lol). The kept putting their hands in
a bridge and made us walk under it. LOL!
Towards the end of the night my friends and I moved closer to the entrance of the club. Big mistake. We literally got swarmed by Argentine boys that were thirsty for American girls. We were obviously American because we had four blondes, a red head, a brunette, an Asian and a Morocha in our group. We could barely catch our breath without getting harassed. LOL! I was asked the typical "¿ Eres brasileña?" and we each were the recipients of several proposals for marriage, double dates and love confessions...all by boys who were 3 or more years younger than us. I'm not quite sure if I could deal with that on a weekend-ly basis! Regardless of the hormonal and overly confident boys that tried to hit on us, this night was definitely one for the books. Oh & did I mention that this was a true Argentine night out? I came home at 6:30.
Besos y Abrazos,
Jackie
Sunday, June 16, 2013
My Week in a Nutshell
Buen Día Mi Gente,
Like I said in my last post, my blog has been a little crazy and out of order recently. I told you about my internship on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, but there is still so much that I did this week. Let me fill you in!
Monday:
Monday morning I had my internship. When I got to school after class, I had my presentation for my literature class. It went pretty well, but I was super tired so I know my Spanish could have been better. My teacher told me I did a great job though, so I'm praying for an A. After class I was so exhausted so I came home and was knocked out for about an hour and a half. Then it was time for the group to go to La Bomba de Tiempo. All of our host mothers had been telling us that this was something that we needed to go to, so our coordinators made it into a group trip. It's basically a big party/concert with music performed by a percussionist troupe from Buenos Aires. The concert was held at this venue called Konex. It was an outdoor venue that had a bar on one side and a stage on the other. It honestly could have fit in with all of the concert halls in Athens. We stood in line for about thirty minutes. There was a really interesting combination of people....a lot of dread heads smoking weed [here it's illegal to sell it, but people openly smoke it in the streets and the cops don't do anything], middle aged adults, and Americans. When we finally came inside we met a lot of students from America. There was a group of students from Yale standing right behind us and a group of students from all different schools that were really cool. One of them was even from Macon! It's so exciting to meet people from America so that was fun!
Before the concert started there was a pre-show with drummers playing samba music. As I was listening I was thinking about how much greater it would be with dancers and then four samba dancers (two guys and two girls) came out! The girls were wearing close to nothing. I've seen carnaval style costumes before and I know they're very revealing, but these girls basically had on pasties. LOL! Regardless, they were all amazing dancers. I think that the Samba is probably one of my favorite styles of South American dances to watch (and the most difficult one for me to dance). Argentina also has a dance called the Zamba, except for it's a more slower traditional type of dance. Next was the actual show. I was really impressed with the percussionists. It was a group of about 15 drummers playing congas, shekeres, and other types of drums. Then a guy came on stage who was playing the bass and they played a lot of latin infused jazz. It was excellent! I really liked the atmosphere at the concert. It had a really relaxed vibe (probably because half of the people were high lol) and everyone was just dancing and having a good time. I'm really glad that we finally got to go to Bomba de Tiempo.
Tango Tuesday:
Tuesday night was my second Tango class. I have to say that I've been really disappointed with my Tango classes. We had two new tango teachers that were really cold and seemed to be annoyed by the fact that we were foreigners. Although they asked us if we spoke Spanish at the beginning of the class, they taught the class in Spanish (there were non-UGA tango students in the class as well). However, they chose to speak to us in English whenever they said something directly to one of the UGA students. I felt like this was extremely condescending. I also felt like I was going to get in trouble every time that I didn't do the moves correctly. It's really disappointing because tango is what you think of when you think of Argentina. I will not be attending next week's class. On the way home from class Abigail, Megan and I stopped to get helado (of course!). I had dulce de leche with oreos and it was delicious! It almost made up for our not so great experience at Tango class.
Wednesday:
Wednesday was our second salsa/bachata class. The salsa & bachata classes were such a contrast from Tango class. This week we had a female teacher and she was super friendly. A lot of the same people were there from last week's lesson as well. Both salsa and bachata were fun again & we did the same routine as we had the week before. We met two blacks girls at Salsa: one from California and one from France. The one from France came here two weeks ago and will be staying here until January. She doesn't speak any Spanish: only French and English! I cannot imagine being in a country where I don't know the language. I also met a guy from Colombia who spoke amazing Spanish like the other guy that I met last weekend! I might have to take a trip there one day. I just can't get enough of how their Spanish is so amazing and easy to understand. After bachata Aki, Enrique and I went to eat Peruvian food at this restaurant down the street from the salsa club. Enrique explained that a lot of Peruvians live in Buenos Aires because Argentina's economy is better and there is more value to the peso here. I really wish that more people had come to dinner with us because Enrique was really excited to share his culture with Aki & I. We had a great conversation about Peru's culture and the lack of financial aid available to middle class students in the United States (lol!). We had cancha, the Peruvian version of popcorn (except for it was more like a seed than the actual popcorn), for an appetizer. Then we had papa a la Huancaina, a potato covered in a spicy creamy sauce. For my main dish I had seafood tacu tacu. It consisted of fried grouper covered in a delicious yellow sauce that had shrimp, scallops, clams, chili, onions and bacon on top. It also came with rice and beans. It was so delicious and they gave me so much food that I had enough for lunch the next day!
Thursday:
Thursday evening we went to gallery night. Gallery night takes place in Palermo SOHO, which is about a 20 minute walk from "Nuevo" Palermo where I live. Palermo SOHO is a really cute bohemian part of town. It's very hipster and has all these cute shops and art galleries. All of the art galleries open their doors and the owners serve champagne to anyone who wants to come and browse the gallery. I felt so sophisticated and cultured sipping my champagne and discussing art with my friends. The majority of the art was very modern. Some galleries had sculptures, others had oil canvases, and others photographs. We even stopped into a really cool library that had a cafe in the back. I think some of the members of my group were more excited for the champagne than the art. I can only imagine what the gallery owners were thinking when our large group came flocking in and half of us headed straight for the alcohol. *rolls eyes* Kassidy and I went to about 6 galleries with the group. Our last stop was a library that had art on display and an awesome roof top cafe. We sat out on the terrace and rested for a while before we decided to go home. It was late and we were starving!
Friday:
Friday morning I didn't have my internship so I decided to go exploring around Buenos Aires. Unlike last Friday, I woke up early enough this Friday so that I would have time to go somewhere before my class. I decided to go to the Japanese Garden. I got a little lost finding my way because the bus did not go in the direction where it was supposed to go. But eventually I found my way to where I needed to be. The Japanese Garden was really beautiful, but a lot smaller than I had expected. The website said that it was the largest Japanese garden outside of Japan. But I made it through the entire garden in 15 minutes. I'm assuming that that was false advertising. But anyway, I got some excellent pictures and I had a great time exploring Buenos Aires on the way there. I'm realizing that there is still so much more in this amazing city that I still haven't done. I am seriously running out of time!
Friday afternoon I went shopping for souvenirs on Santa Fe. Santa Fe is a large calle that is lined with lots and lots of shops. Bookstores, cafes, bakeries, and lots of clothing stores. As usual, I'm not gonna say what I bought so as to not ruin the surprise for those who I bought things for. I had been told to go to Havanna, a cafe which sells amazing Alfajores (Argentina's most famous cookie. There is one on the corner of the street that I live on so I stopped there before heading home. Big mistake. I ended up buying 170 pesos worth of stuff. They have AMAZING white chocolate alfajores. They are white chocolate covered wafers with dulce de leche in the middle. Then I also bought these caudritos (squares) that have coconut on the top, dulce de leche/chocolate in the middle and a wafer that tastes like lemon pound cake on the bottom. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! I have had a hard time resisting the urge to go there every day.
Stay tuned for a post on my weekend!
Besos y Abrazos,
Jackie
Like I said in my last post, my blog has been a little crazy and out of order recently. I told you about my internship on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, but there is still so much that I did this week. Let me fill you in!
Monday:
Monday morning I had my internship. When I got to school after class, I had my presentation for my literature class. It went pretty well, but I was super tired so I know my Spanish could have been better. My teacher told me I did a great job though, so I'm praying for an A. After class I was so exhausted so I came home and was knocked out for about an hour and a half. Then it was time for the group to go to La Bomba de Tiempo. All of our host mothers had been telling us that this was something that we needed to go to, so our coordinators made it into a group trip. It's basically a big party/concert with music performed by a percussionist troupe from Buenos Aires. The concert was held at this venue called Konex. It was an outdoor venue that had a bar on one side and a stage on the other. It honestly could have fit in with all of the concert halls in Athens. We stood in line for about thirty minutes. There was a really interesting combination of people....a lot of dread heads smoking weed [here it's illegal to sell it, but people openly smoke it in the streets and the cops don't do anything], middle aged adults, and Americans. When we finally came inside we met a lot of students from America. There was a group of students from Yale standing right behind us and a group of students from all different schools that were really cool. One of them was even from Macon! It's so exciting to meet people from America so that was fun!
Before the concert started there was a pre-show with drummers playing samba music. As I was listening I was thinking about how much greater it would be with dancers and then four samba dancers (two guys and two girls) came out! The girls were wearing close to nothing. I've seen carnaval style costumes before and I know they're very revealing, but these girls basically had on pasties. LOL! Regardless, they were all amazing dancers. I think that the Samba is probably one of my favorite styles of South American dances to watch (and the most difficult one for me to dance). Argentina also has a dance called the Zamba, except for it's a more slower traditional type of dance. Next was the actual show. I was really impressed with the percussionists. It was a group of about 15 drummers playing congas, shekeres, and other types of drums. Then a guy came on stage who was playing the bass and they played a lot of latin infused jazz. It was excellent! I really liked the atmosphere at the concert. It had a really relaxed vibe (probably because half of the people were high lol) and everyone was just dancing and having a good time. I'm really glad that we finally got to go to Bomba de Tiempo.
Tango Tuesday:
Tuesday night was my second Tango class. I have to say that I've been really disappointed with my Tango classes. We had two new tango teachers that were really cold and seemed to be annoyed by the fact that we were foreigners. Although they asked us if we spoke Spanish at the beginning of the class, they taught the class in Spanish (there were non-UGA tango students in the class as well). However, they chose to speak to us in English whenever they said something directly to one of the UGA students. I felt like this was extremely condescending. I also felt like I was going to get in trouble every time that I didn't do the moves correctly. It's really disappointing because tango is what you think of when you think of Argentina. I will not be attending next week's class. On the way home from class Abigail, Megan and I stopped to get helado (of course!). I had dulce de leche with oreos and it was delicious! It almost made up for our not so great experience at Tango class.
Wednesday:
 |
| cancha |
 |
| Papa a la humacaina |
 |
| Seafood tacu tacu |
Wednesday was our second salsa/bachata class. The salsa & bachata classes were such a contrast from Tango class. This week we had a female teacher and she was super friendly. A lot of the same people were there from last week's lesson as well. Both salsa and bachata were fun again & we did the same routine as we had the week before. We met two blacks girls at Salsa: one from California and one from France. The one from France came here two weeks ago and will be staying here until January. She doesn't speak any Spanish: only French and English! I cannot imagine being in a country where I don't know the language. I also met a guy from Colombia who spoke amazing Spanish like the other guy that I met last weekend! I might have to take a trip there one day. I just can't get enough of how their Spanish is so amazing and easy to understand. After bachata Aki, Enrique and I went to eat Peruvian food at this restaurant down the street from the salsa club. Enrique explained that a lot of Peruvians live in Buenos Aires because Argentina's economy is better and there is more value to the peso here. I really wish that more people had come to dinner with us because Enrique was really excited to share his culture with Aki & I. We had a great conversation about Peru's culture and the lack of financial aid available to middle class students in the United States (lol!). We had cancha, the Peruvian version of popcorn (except for it was more like a seed than the actual popcorn), for an appetizer. Then we had papa a la Huancaina, a potato covered in a spicy creamy sauce. For my main dish I had seafood tacu tacu. It consisted of fried grouper covered in a delicious yellow sauce that had shrimp, scallops, clams, chili, onions and bacon on top. It also came with rice and beans. It was so delicious and they gave me so much food that I had enough for lunch the next day!
Thursday:
Thursday evening we went to gallery night. Gallery night takes place in Palermo SOHO, which is about a 20 minute walk from "Nuevo" Palermo where I live. Palermo SOHO is a really cute bohemian part of town. It's very hipster and has all these cute shops and art galleries. All of the art galleries open their doors and the owners serve champagne to anyone who wants to come and browse the gallery. I felt so sophisticated and cultured sipping my champagne and discussing art with my friends. The majority of the art was very modern. Some galleries had sculptures, others had oil canvases, and others photographs. We even stopped into a really cool library that had a cafe in the back. I think some of the members of my group were more excited for the champagne than the art. I can only imagine what the gallery owners were thinking when our large group came flocking in and half of us headed straight for the alcohol. *rolls eyes* Kassidy and I went to about 6 galleries with the group. Our last stop was a library that had art on display and an awesome roof top cafe. We sat out on the terrace and rested for a while before we decided to go home. It was late and we were starving!
Friday:
Friday morning I didn't have my internship so I decided to go exploring around Buenos Aires. Unlike last Friday, I woke up early enough this Friday so that I would have time to go somewhere before my class. I decided to go to the Japanese Garden. I got a little lost finding my way because the bus did not go in the direction where it was supposed to go. But eventually I found my way to where I needed to be. The Japanese Garden was really beautiful, but a lot smaller than I had expected. The website said that it was the largest Japanese garden outside of Japan. But I made it through the entire garden in 15 minutes. I'm assuming that that was false advertising. But anyway, I got some excellent pictures and I had a great time exploring Buenos Aires on the way there. I'm realizing that there is still so much more in this amazing city that I still haven't done. I am seriously running out of time!
Friday afternoon I went shopping for souvenirs on Santa Fe. Santa Fe is a large calle that is lined with lots and lots of shops. Bookstores, cafes, bakeries, and lots of clothing stores. As usual, I'm not gonna say what I bought so as to not ruin the surprise for those who I bought things for. I had been told to go to Havanna, a cafe which sells amazing Alfajores (Argentina's most famous cookie. There is one on the corner of the street that I live on so I stopped there before heading home. Big mistake. I ended up buying 170 pesos worth of stuff. They have AMAZING white chocolate alfajores. They are white chocolate covered wafers with dulce de leche in the middle. Then I also bought these caudritos (squares) that have coconut on the top, dulce de leche/chocolate in the middle and a wafer that tastes like lemon pound cake on the bottom. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! I have had a hard time resisting the urge to go there every day.
Stay tuned for a post on my weekend!
Besos y Abrazos,
Jackie
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Working with the SLPs!!! Rahhh!!!
I am going way out of order with this blog, but I'm so excited to share with y'all the things that I've been experiencing at my pasantia. For those of you who don't know, I chose to take this trip rather than go to Spain because of the opportunity to have an internship in a hospital with a speech language pathologist. I'm so excited that this week I finally had the opportunity to work with speech pathologists at Hospital Garrahan.
Monday morning was my first day working with the fonoaudiologa. I had stayed up until midnight the night before working on a presentation and when I woke up at the crack of dawn, I was tired out of my mind. But the excitement overwhelmed the exhaustion. Dr. Bes had given me a hand written slip that told me where I needed to go, but I didn't understand some of the symbols so I got lost. I had to ask three people before I finally figured out where I needed to be (their accents where really hard to understand). LOL! When I finally found the speech clinic I was introduced to Alicia, the fonoaudiologa (I'm gonna refer to her as an slp from here out because that's easier to type) that I would be working with, an slp resident, and two other slps that I cannot remember their names. Alicia explained to me that at Hospital Garrahan the speech clinic is located in the psychology clinic. In the office next door there was an office that has child psychologists that specialized in maturation. Children that come through this office are often sent to the speech clinic to evaluate their speech. Hospital Garrahan is different from other hospitals in that the slps here only make evaluations and reevaluations and direct children to other hospitals for treatment. Many of the patients have speech problems as a result of grave diseases and disorders. As a result, most patients come to the hospital from far away provinces. So it only makes sense that slps here perform evaluations and send children to hospitals that are closer to home for therapy.
We started off our day reading patient histories. There were five patient histories that we read. The majority of the children were on the autism scale and had both receptive and expressive speech problems as a result. Alicia read really slow and clearly so I understood the majority of what she was talking about. However, I think she thought I couldn't understand because she kept asking me if I knew what she was talking about. I started asking questions that I knew that answers to just to show her that I was following along with her. Alicia and I would be working with one patient that was five years old.His mother was an immigrant from Russia and the boy had speech delays in both Spanish and Russian. I knew this was going to be an interesting case. The little boy walked in with his mother and adorable baby brother, who looked to be about 1 year old. His mother had a slight Russian accent (which made it interesting to hear her speak Spanish). Alicia's eval was very similar to those performed in the United States. She had the little boy use blocks to mimic tasks that she was doing with the blocks then she had him identify and name pictures in a book. It was extremely sad to see the delays that the little boy had. What made it even sadder was that the little boy was five years old and this was his first time receiving a speech evaluation (autism is usually diagnosed by age three). He couldn't label the majority of the pictures that the slp showed him and he couldn't mimic many of the tasks that she was performing. In addition, you could tell that there was no discipline in the house because the little boy was doing things intentionally to get the attention of the slp while she was talking to his mother (this is a behavioral problem, not associated with autism). What made things worse was that the mother could not understand the majority of what the speech therapist was telling her and did not seem to be proactive about finding help for her son. This was a very sad evaluation to observe.
I was very surprised that I spent four hours with the slp on Monday and only observed one eval. In the hospitals in the US where I've observed, I would usually see 6-8 sessions in the span of four hours. Nevertheless, it was awesome to get to observe an slp in a different country.
Wednesday, I met with another slp that works with Alicia. We started off our day just as Alicia and I did. We read through patient histories together. Wednesday was particularly hard to focus, because this slp spoke extremely fast and was hard to understand. I had a paper due Wednesday afternoon so I was running on 4 hours of sleep. Needless to say it was a struggle to concentrate. Luckily one of the slps made coffee for us which was just enough to keep me through the day. We had a reevaluation with a boy that was 12 years old. Because he had been born severely premature, he had many delays and complications which were still causing problems to this day. He had received speech therapy in the past and the slp was reevaluating his speech to see what had changed since his initial evaluation. Unfortunately not much had changed. It was extremely hard to understand the boy. Although his reception was excellent, he mumbled and his speech was slurred and "muddy" sounding. In addition, he had trouble pronouncing his rs, ts, and cs. When the speech therapist asked his mother if he was still receiving treatment, she said that he was but it was hard on the family because they had to drive an hour each way to take him to see the speech therapist. However, he goes to an excellent school for those who are handicapped. The school has a farm and a garden and teaches the students how to tend crops and take care of farm animals. The boy had expressed a large interest in gardening and his school was preparing him for a related career. Learning about this school was interesting as this special treatment is usually written into the curriculum in special education programs in the public school system in the US. The slp and mother decided that because the boy's speech was not improving and he was doing so well in school, it was not worth it to continue with speech therapy. Although it was sad that the boy could not improve his speech he was very fortunate to have such a great education that would help to compensate for his lack of speech.
After that reeval I was able to sit in on 1/2 of a reevaluation with another boy who was about 5 or 6. I was not able to read this little boy's history so I'm not exactly sure what was wrong, but I knew that during his initial evaluation his speech was horrible and his reception level was very low. As the slp performed his reeval he was doing much better. He was able to identify 90% of the pictures that she showed him and his speech was pretty clear. I was really happy that I was able to see two patients today!
Wednesday afternoon I received an e-mail from Dr. Bes asking me to call a lady by the name of Margot. He told me that Thursday morning I would be working with the plastic surgeons who perform cleft palate corrective surgery. Thursday morning I was in the hospital with a room full of surgeons waiting to meet Margot. When Margot arrived we headed to the conference room with the surgeons, who discussed the surgeries that had been performed last week...a girl who had been scratched by her dog that needed corrective surgery on her eyelid, another girl with melanoma that had covered her entire right cheek and nose (they removed the entire portion covering her cheek), and several patients who had had cleft palates. The surgeons provided corrective criticism for each surgery and discussed what needed to be improved. Next we went to a cafe and had cafe con leche with the doctors. Then we headed back down to Margot's office. Margot explained to me that she was a speech pathologist that specialized in swallowing therapy and therapy associated with cleft palates. I've been told on numerous occasions by slps in the US that if I wanted to be competitive in the job market, this is where I needed to specialize. I could barely contain my excitement to be working with her. Margot worked alongside an odontologo (a dentist) and evaluated the speech/swallowing of those patients who had received surgery.
The first patient that we met with was a 13 year old girl who was born with a cleft palate and received her surgery at the age of 3 years old. She had NEVER received any form of speech therapy after her surgery. This was unbelievable as children with cleft palates have to learn how to swallow correctly and speak correctly after their surgery. I cannot imagine this little girl trying to learn the ropes on her own. The girls speech impediments were very obvious. She had problems pronouncing dentals (words that your tongue has to touch the roof of your mouth (ex: "t") or between your teeth) and nasals [words that the air comes through your nose to pronounce(n, m etc) ]. To make things worse she seemed to have some sort of psychological delays. When the slp asked her if she had hearing problems the little girl said yes and pointed to her left ear and mom said no and said sometimes she gets water in her ear when she bathes (which could mean a middle ear infection that can cause deafness). Just like the little boy with autism, the mother didn't seem to be too invested in the health of her daughter. Finally the slp asked the little girl to open her mouth so I could see what a palate looks like after surgery. Normal palates are rigid and curved. This little girls palate came to a point like a tee and her teeth were misaligned. It was very interesting to see.
The next patient was a little 2 year old boy that had received his treatment a year ago. He was your typical terrible 2 year old. When I said "hola" to him he growled at me. lol! Then every time the speech therapist asked him to talk he said no (you can tell he just learned this word) and screamed bloody murder when she tried to show me his palate. He put on an oscar winning performance when the slp pulled out a tongue depressor...all screams and no tears. Next, we worked with a 16 year old girl that had just received her surgery last year. This really put things into perspective for me. In the US, children are born everyday with cleft palates, but they have their surgery right after their born and speech therapists work with their mothers in the NIC-U. Thus, most children in the US don't have to experience the complications and social stigmas associated with cleft lips/palates. We are truly lucky here. This girl needed one more corrective surgery for aesthetic reasons only (one nostril and 1/2 of her lip was limper than the other). Margot showed me where the girl had received prostetic teeth and gums to help compensate for her cleft. The most amazing part of the day was when a woman walked in with her baby that was 13 days old. The baby was born with a cleft palate and needed corrective surgery. Margot and I watched as the odontologo fitted the baby with a mold. The mold would then be analyzed and altered so that a prosthetic could be made and the baby could have her surgery. This was really amazing to watch. The baby was fussing away but her parents where so calm and loving. She was amazing able to use a bottle (this is often really hard for babies with cleft palates and dangerous, because their nasal cavity is not protected and they can easily get respiratory infections from the milk.). I wish that I could see her progress after the surgery. Finally we met with a lady who had a baby that was 8 months. He was born with a severed uvula (the flap that prevents food from entering your respiratory system and air from entering your digestive system) and was extremely underweight because of it. However, he had received surgery and was now gaining a healthy amount of weight. Wednesday was by far my most exciting day at the hospital. I am so fortunate for receiving this opportunity to have an internship in a foreign country & it's gonna be so sad to have to leave this amazing country.
Ciao for now!
Jackie
Monday morning was my first day working with the fonoaudiologa. I had stayed up until midnight the night before working on a presentation and when I woke up at the crack of dawn, I was tired out of my mind. But the excitement overwhelmed the exhaustion. Dr. Bes had given me a hand written slip that told me where I needed to go, but I didn't understand some of the symbols so I got lost. I had to ask three people before I finally figured out where I needed to be (their accents where really hard to understand). LOL! When I finally found the speech clinic I was introduced to Alicia, the fonoaudiologa (I'm gonna refer to her as an slp from here out because that's easier to type) that I would be working with, an slp resident, and two other slps that I cannot remember their names. Alicia explained to me that at Hospital Garrahan the speech clinic is located in the psychology clinic. In the office next door there was an office that has child psychologists that specialized in maturation. Children that come through this office are often sent to the speech clinic to evaluate their speech. Hospital Garrahan is different from other hospitals in that the slps here only make evaluations and reevaluations and direct children to other hospitals for treatment. Many of the patients have speech problems as a result of grave diseases and disorders. As a result, most patients come to the hospital from far away provinces. So it only makes sense that slps here perform evaluations and send children to hospitals that are closer to home for therapy.
We started off our day reading patient histories. There were five patient histories that we read. The majority of the children were on the autism scale and had both receptive and expressive speech problems as a result. Alicia read really slow and clearly so I understood the majority of what she was talking about. However, I think she thought I couldn't understand because she kept asking me if I knew what she was talking about. I started asking questions that I knew that answers to just to show her that I was following along with her. Alicia and I would be working with one patient that was five years old.His mother was an immigrant from Russia and the boy had speech delays in both Spanish and Russian. I knew this was going to be an interesting case. The little boy walked in with his mother and adorable baby brother, who looked to be about 1 year old. His mother had a slight Russian accent (which made it interesting to hear her speak Spanish). Alicia's eval was very similar to those performed in the United States. She had the little boy use blocks to mimic tasks that she was doing with the blocks then she had him identify and name pictures in a book. It was extremely sad to see the delays that the little boy had. What made it even sadder was that the little boy was five years old and this was his first time receiving a speech evaluation (autism is usually diagnosed by age three). He couldn't label the majority of the pictures that the slp showed him and he couldn't mimic many of the tasks that she was performing. In addition, you could tell that there was no discipline in the house because the little boy was doing things intentionally to get the attention of the slp while she was talking to his mother (this is a behavioral problem, not associated with autism). What made things worse was that the mother could not understand the majority of what the speech therapist was telling her and did not seem to be proactive about finding help for her son. This was a very sad evaluation to observe.
I was very surprised that I spent four hours with the slp on Monday and only observed one eval. In the hospitals in the US where I've observed, I would usually see 6-8 sessions in the span of four hours. Nevertheless, it was awesome to get to observe an slp in a different country.
Wednesday, I met with another slp that works with Alicia. We started off our day just as Alicia and I did. We read through patient histories together. Wednesday was particularly hard to focus, because this slp spoke extremely fast and was hard to understand. I had a paper due Wednesday afternoon so I was running on 4 hours of sleep. Needless to say it was a struggle to concentrate. Luckily one of the slps made coffee for us which was just enough to keep me through the day. We had a reevaluation with a boy that was 12 years old. Because he had been born severely premature, he had many delays and complications which were still causing problems to this day. He had received speech therapy in the past and the slp was reevaluating his speech to see what had changed since his initial evaluation. Unfortunately not much had changed. It was extremely hard to understand the boy. Although his reception was excellent, he mumbled and his speech was slurred and "muddy" sounding. In addition, he had trouble pronouncing his rs, ts, and cs. When the speech therapist asked his mother if he was still receiving treatment, she said that he was but it was hard on the family because they had to drive an hour each way to take him to see the speech therapist. However, he goes to an excellent school for those who are handicapped. The school has a farm and a garden and teaches the students how to tend crops and take care of farm animals. The boy had expressed a large interest in gardening and his school was preparing him for a related career. Learning about this school was interesting as this special treatment is usually written into the curriculum in special education programs in the public school system in the US. The slp and mother decided that because the boy's speech was not improving and he was doing so well in school, it was not worth it to continue with speech therapy. Although it was sad that the boy could not improve his speech he was very fortunate to have such a great education that would help to compensate for his lack of speech.
After that reeval I was able to sit in on 1/2 of a reevaluation with another boy who was about 5 or 6. I was not able to read this little boy's history so I'm not exactly sure what was wrong, but I knew that during his initial evaluation his speech was horrible and his reception level was very low. As the slp performed his reeval he was doing much better. He was able to identify 90% of the pictures that she showed him and his speech was pretty clear. I was really happy that I was able to see two patients today!
Wednesday afternoon I received an e-mail from Dr. Bes asking me to call a lady by the name of Margot. He told me that Thursday morning I would be working with the plastic surgeons who perform cleft palate corrective surgery. Thursday morning I was in the hospital with a room full of surgeons waiting to meet Margot. When Margot arrived we headed to the conference room with the surgeons, who discussed the surgeries that had been performed last week...a girl who had been scratched by her dog that needed corrective surgery on her eyelid, another girl with melanoma that had covered her entire right cheek and nose (they removed the entire portion covering her cheek), and several patients who had had cleft palates. The surgeons provided corrective criticism for each surgery and discussed what needed to be improved. Next we went to a cafe and had cafe con leche with the doctors. Then we headed back down to Margot's office. Margot explained to me that she was a speech pathologist that specialized in swallowing therapy and therapy associated with cleft palates. I've been told on numerous occasions by slps in the US that if I wanted to be competitive in the job market, this is where I needed to specialize. I could barely contain my excitement to be working with her. Margot worked alongside an odontologo (a dentist) and evaluated the speech/swallowing of those patients who had received surgery.
The first patient that we met with was a 13 year old girl who was born with a cleft palate and received her surgery at the age of 3 years old. She had NEVER received any form of speech therapy after her surgery. This was unbelievable as children with cleft palates have to learn how to swallow correctly and speak correctly after their surgery. I cannot imagine this little girl trying to learn the ropes on her own. The girls speech impediments were very obvious. She had problems pronouncing dentals (words that your tongue has to touch the roof of your mouth (ex: "t") or between your teeth) and nasals [words that the air comes through your nose to pronounce(n, m etc) ]. To make things worse she seemed to have some sort of psychological delays. When the slp asked her if she had hearing problems the little girl said yes and pointed to her left ear and mom said no and said sometimes she gets water in her ear when she bathes (which could mean a middle ear infection that can cause deafness). Just like the little boy with autism, the mother didn't seem to be too invested in the health of her daughter. Finally the slp asked the little girl to open her mouth so I could see what a palate looks like after surgery. Normal palates are rigid and curved. This little girls palate came to a point like a tee and her teeth were misaligned. It was very interesting to see.
The next patient was a little 2 year old boy that had received his treatment a year ago. He was your typical terrible 2 year old. When I said "hola" to him he growled at me. lol! Then every time the speech therapist asked him to talk he said no (you can tell he just learned this word) and screamed bloody murder when she tried to show me his palate. He put on an oscar winning performance when the slp pulled out a tongue depressor...all screams and no tears. Next, we worked with a 16 year old girl that had just received her surgery last year. This really put things into perspective for me. In the US, children are born everyday with cleft palates, but they have their surgery right after their born and speech therapists work with their mothers in the NIC-U. Thus, most children in the US don't have to experience the complications and social stigmas associated with cleft lips/palates. We are truly lucky here. This girl needed one more corrective surgery for aesthetic reasons only (one nostril and 1/2 of her lip was limper than the other). Margot showed me where the girl had received prostetic teeth and gums to help compensate for her cleft. The most amazing part of the day was when a woman walked in with her baby that was 13 days old. The baby was born with a cleft palate and needed corrective surgery. Margot and I watched as the odontologo fitted the baby with a mold. The mold would then be analyzed and altered so that a prosthetic could be made and the baby could have her surgery. This was really amazing to watch. The baby was fussing away but her parents where so calm and loving. She was amazing able to use a bottle (this is often really hard for babies with cleft palates and dangerous, because their nasal cavity is not protected and they can easily get respiratory infections from the milk.). I wish that I could see her progress after the surgery. Finally we met with a lady who had a baby that was 8 months. He was born with a severed uvula (the flap that prevents food from entering your respiratory system and air from entering your digestive system) and was extremely underweight because of it. However, he had received surgery and was now gaining a healthy amount of weight. Wednesday was by far my most exciting day at the hospital. I am so fortunate for receiving this opportunity to have an internship in a foreign country & it's gonna be so sad to have to leave this amazing country.
Ciao for now!
Jackie
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Weekend Shenanigans
Che Mi Gente,
As promised here is an update on the past couple of days! It's a little later than I had expected, but I had a project and a paper due this week so I've had no time for blogging. Pero, es la vida.
Viernes:
Friday morning I told myself that I was gonna wake up early and go to the botanical gardens. But I don't know what I was thinking when I promised myself that because I knew it wouldn't happen & it definitely didn't! Instead, I woke up about 3 hours before class started, went to exchange some money and then explored the streets around UP. Class went by quickly today!
Originally the UGA en Buenos Aires program w as supposed to include a fútbol game. However, as the world cup in Brazil is quickly approaching and South American teams are competing for their chance to play, ticket prices in South America are steadily increasing. So we were told that we wouldn't be able to go to a game. However, one of the girls in my group found tickets at $140 and the program agreed to pay for all of our tickets. All 25 of us (including Enrique and Luciano) hopped onto a city bus to head to the River Plate stadium. We were going to see Colombia vs. Argentina. Before we left for the game, Marcela had warned us to not wear any American labels (patagonia, north face etc.) or do anything that would identify us as American. We were to only speak in Spanish in the stadium. She also warned us about insults that are often thrown at any game attendees who could possibly not be rooting for Argentina. She also told me not to be surprised if someone assumes that I'm from Colombia and says something. -___- I'm not gonna lie, I was super worried when I found out we were going to be going to a Colombia vs. Argentina game. I'm the only black person in my group and I've already had so many people assume I was Colombian (Colombia has one of the largest populations of Afro-Latinos in South America). I know how aggressive Latinos can be when it comes to soccer games and I didn't want any problems because someone assumed I was for the opposite team.
However, as usual, all my worrying was for nothing. The only incident involving someone confusing my identify came when we first entered the gates. We were walking through security when a man asked, "Is there anyone in line waiting to go to Colombia's side?" We all said no. Then he asked the question again and stared right at me -___- I told him no and he kept staring as if he was waiting for me to say, "Oh wait a minute. I forgot. I'm actually from Colombia." What I really wanted to do was put some of the curse words that I've learned to good use and be like, "No soy de Colombia *expletive*" but I just rolled my eyes and kept it moving. Luckily that was my only encounter with someone who assumed I was Colombian.
The cancha (soccer stadium) reminded me of those in the United States. It was really large. There were vendors selling hamburguesas y chorri pan. Aki and I bought hamburguesas that came with the hamburger patty, ham (they love it here!) and cheese. Our group was split up into different sections in the stadium. Luckily I was with the majority of the people that I've grown close to. I was really surprised by how many Colombia fans showed up to the gate. They were more enthusiastic than the Argentina fans. They tended to scream louder and they sang their national anthem way louder than the Argentines, who kinda just mumbled the words. LOL!
That was my first ever soccer game and it was awesome to get to attend one in a Latin American country. It was an awesome game to get to go to because Argentina is ranked #1 in South America (#3 in the world) and Colombia is ranked #2 in South America (#6 or 7 in the world). Luckily Michael sat next to me and explained what was going on in the game so I wasn't completely lost. It was crazy how enthusiastic everyone was about the game. Every time something happened, you could expect to hear a bunch of expletives being shouted. Even children were cursing right next to their parents. Haha! There were these two little boys sitting in front of us that were probably about 9 years old. They were so into the game and would get so upset every time something bad happened. They reminded me of these three little boys that I babysit who are huge Clemson fans and love to give me a hard time about going to UGA. What I loved most about the game was all of the songs that the fans sang. My favorite was, "Ole, ole, ole, ole, Messi Messi!" Messi is Argentina's most famous soccer player. The songs made me think of UGA football games. Oh how I miss them!
After the game we dodged traffic (I literally almost got hit 3 times) over to Barrio Chino. We ate at the same restaurant that we went to when we visited the first time. I had my 4th cup of coffee with dinner. I've never had so much coffee in my life! Here coffee is a big deal. At 5 pm, you go to a cafe with a friend, sip coffee and eat medialunas and alfajores. There are coffee shops on every corner. After dinner, some of the members of our group went out but I was super exhausted and decided to sleep so I could wake up early the next morning.
Sábado:
Saturday I woke up early to go to Recoleta again. I had so much fun the past couple of times that I went there so I knew that I wanted to return to the feria and the cemetery. I took a bus to Recoleta and met my friend Tiffany (the one who is doing research on the black population in Argentina) outside the cemetery. We ate lunch at a parilla. I had the same matambrito de cerdo that I had when we ate at La Payuca on the second day that we were in Argentina. Afterwards we walked through the cemetery again so that I could take more pictures. There was a man outside of the cemetery that was trying to hit on us at the same time...gross. We tried to find Eva Perron's grave again, but that cemetery is really hard to navigate when you're not with a tour guide.
We decided to stop by Tiffany's house which was a couple blocks down from Recoleta cemetery. On the way man with dreads stopped us to advertise a restaurant that he works for. We began talking to him and he told us that he was from Colombia. I have heard before that Colombian's pride themselves on speaking excellent, grammatically correct Spanish. However, I never had the opportunity to speak with a Colombian until then. I saw exactly what everyone meant after having the conversation with that man. He spoke very clearly and slowly and he was extremely articulate. He spoke very similarly to how teachers in the United States teach Spanish. It's a shame that Colombia is not safe for travel as it would be an excellent country for Spanish learners to study Spanish.
When Tiffany and I stopped at her host mother's house, her mother was home. She was going on and on about my braids...asking me how I styled them and telling me that they were so beautiful. She then told Tiffany that she wanted to see Tiffany's hair styled like mine. LOL! If only she knew the work that goes into these braids. It's really crazy how Tiffany has only lived with her host mom for two weeks but she knows all of her mannerisms and behavior. She literally predicted everything that her host mom was going to say.
When we left Tiffany's host mother's house we came back to Recoleta and shopped the feria. I bought several souvenirs, which once again will remain anonymous. Afterwards we wandered through the mall next to the feria and tried to find the Japanese gardens. We made it to the Floralis Genérica, but ran out of time before we got to the Japanese gardens. I'll have to return to them another day.
On the way home I couldn't find the bus stop to get me back to Palermo. I started walking up the street and found a bus stop that listed one of the streets close to my house. I asked a man waiting at the bus stop if he knew where the bus went. He was really nice and told me no, but to ask the bus driver before I got on the bus. When the bus came to the bus stop, I hopped onto the bus so the bus driver could hear me. He immediately took off when I got on the bus. I asked the bus driver if the bus went to Santa Fe, but he was pretty rude and didn't seem to understand what I was asking. Luckily I just watched the street names and got off on one of the streets where a friend lives. I could have easily gotten lost, but I'd say that Buenos Aires is pretty easy to maneuver. There are three main streets that I know how to get to regardless of where I'm at and I just direct myself to them whenever I'm lost.
That night our group went to a concert called Tonolec. They are a group of about 7 people. Two lead singers, a back up singer, a drummer, a bassist, an indigenous flute player, and a pianist. They sing a fusion of electronic music/cumbia and indigenous music sung in the language of kom. It's kind of hard to describe the lead singer Charo Bogarín. She's kind of like the Indigenous version of Amy Winehouse. She's really eccentric and she wears all these tribal patterns. Her hair was in a big braided bun and a braid came down to her hips. Her voice was kind of deep. When she sang she opened her mouth really wide and sometimes it sounded like she was yodeling. Lol! It was one of the most different, but enjoyable concerts that I've ever been to. I had a really good time!
Originally we were going to go out after the concert, but the concert ended a lot later than expected. Because of this we had no choice but to go get gelato :-P. I got a scoop of dulce de leche granizado and chaja (the dessert that we loved so much in Uruguay)!
Domingo:
Sunday we got up really early to go to the estancia/ranch. Argentina is set up into provinces. Buenos Aires is a province, just like New York is a state. There is the city of Buenos Aires (just like New York City), but there are also parts of Buenos Aires that are country (like upstate New York). The estancia was located about 2 hours outside of the city of Buenos Aires so we took a charter bus there. When we arrived at the ranch the ground was wet because it had been raining earlier. The bus couldn't drive down the dirt road that led to the estancia becuase it had become slippery mud in the rain. Luciano told us that he needed three volunteers to ride with the gauchos in a truck to the ranch. Kassidy, Megan and I volunteered to ride in the truck with the gaucho and Luciano. It was a slippery ride and the truck was shifting back and forth like it was loosing traction. But thank God we chose to ride in the truck because the rest of the group had to ride in this giant hay transporter that looked more like a Conestoga wagon. LOL
When the rest of the group got to the estancia we were welcomed with the best tasting empanadas that I've ever had. The group was then split up into two to go horseback riding. My group went horse back riding second so we had some time to explore the estancia. There were animals everywhere. A friendly labrador retriever greeted us as soon as we got to the ranch. Cats were sleeping in chairs and laying on the roof. There was a pasture that had donkeys, sheep and miniature ponies, a pen with work horses and a gate with chickens. & remember those green parrots that I was talking about in a previous post? Luciano told me they're called Cotorras, Monk Parakeets. They were in all the trees at the ranch along with several other types of exotic birds and hawks. The estancia consisted of an old house with a pool and newer quarters, which served as a restaurant. The home was old and antique looking...really beautiful. We had no choice but to have a photo shoot.
Finally it was my group's turn to ride the horses. We rode for about 30 minutes, touring the farm land that was part of the estancia. I rode a giant black horse named Enamorado. I loved his name. The gaucho that took us on our tour was very friendly...a little two friendly at times. LOL! The estancia was really pretty and it was really fun horse back riding on the land. I hadn't done that in about five years. I tried to get Enamorado to trot, but he was a rather lazy horse. He would trot for all of five seconds and then walk again. I guess I would be difficult too if I were a horse and I had humans riding me and telling me what to do all day.
After horseback riding was dinner...parilla style. We had carne asado, beef, chorizo, steak, and grilled chicken with a chilled rice (that was cooked with red peppers and cabbage), cabbage, salad and bread. They would bring the meat out on platters as it came off the grill and you got to pick what piece you wanted. They kept bringing platter after platter of meat and after a while I was feeling like I was gonna pop a button off my jeans. It was delicious to say the least.
At the end of lunch, the gaucho that had took us horse back riding played a couple of songs on his guitar. Then it was time to go outside. One of the other gauchos showed us an Indigenous horse whispering technique. When the Spaniards bought horses to Argentina, the Indigenas used their horse whispering techniques at night to soothe the horses and gain their trust. Eventually the Indigenas would gain the trust of the horses and steal them from the Spaniards. The Spaniards then learned the Indigenas' methods and used them as a means of breaking the horse. When the gaucho first started demonstrating the horse whispering it was really cool. He was laying on the horse and crawling underneath the horse, all while the horse remained completely calm. He even got the horse to lie on its back like a dog. Then things got a little weird. The horse was lying on its back, while the gaucho sat on top of it and caressed it. We all felt like we were intruding on an intimate moment between the horse and the gaucho. It was borderline bestiality. We were trying so hard to be respectful and not laugh, but a couple of the people in my group couldn't contain their laughter! Nevertheless it was interesting to watch.
After the gaucho's performance we took a couple of group pictures, rode the "Conestoga wagon" back to the bus and went home. We were all knocked out on the bus. When we got back to Buenos Aires I came home to work on a presentation for class.
Be on the lookout for a new post with Monday & Tuesday's endeavors.
Besos y Abrazos,
Jackie
As promised here is an update on the past couple of days! It's a little later than I had expected, but I had a project and a paper due this week so I've had no time for blogging. Pero, es la vida.
Viernes:
 |
| These little boys were so funny! |
Originally the UGA en Buenos Aires program w as supposed to include a fútbol game. However, as the world cup in Brazil is quickly approaching and South American teams are competing for their chance to play, ticket prices in South America are steadily increasing. So we were told that we wouldn't be able to go to a game. However, one of the girls in my group found tickets at $140 and the program agreed to pay for all of our tickets. All 25 of us (including Enrique and Luciano) hopped onto a city bus to head to the River Plate stadium. We were going to see Colombia vs. Argentina. Before we left for the game, Marcela had warned us to not wear any American labels (patagonia, north face etc.) or do anything that would identify us as American. We were to only speak in Spanish in the stadium. She also warned us about insults that are often thrown at any game attendees who could possibly not be rooting for Argentina. She also told me not to be surprised if someone assumes that I'm from Colombia and says something. -___- I'm not gonna lie, I was super worried when I found out we were going to be going to a Colombia vs. Argentina game. I'm the only black person in my group and I've already had so many people assume I was Colombian (Colombia has one of the largest populations of Afro-Latinos in South America). I know how aggressive Latinos can be when it comes to soccer games and I didn't want any problems because someone assumed I was for the opposite team.However, as usual, all my worrying was for nothing. The only incident involving someone confusing my identify came when we first entered the gates. We were walking through security when a man asked, "Is there anyone in line waiting to go to Colombia's side?" We all said no. Then he asked the question again and stared right at me -___- I told him no and he kept staring as if he was waiting for me to say, "Oh wait a minute. I forgot. I'm actually from Colombia." What I really wanted to do was put some of the curse words that I've learned to good use and be like, "No soy de Colombia *expletive*" but I just rolled my eyes and kept it moving. Luckily that was my only encounter with someone who assumed I was Colombian.
 |
| The two teams! |
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| La Cancha/Stadium |
After the game we dodged traffic (I literally almost got hit 3 times) over to Barrio Chino. We ate at the same restaurant that we went to when we visited the first time. I had my 4th cup of coffee with dinner. I've never had so much coffee in my life! Here coffee is a big deal. At 5 pm, you go to a cafe with a friend, sip coffee and eat medialunas and alfajores. There are coffee shops on every corner. After dinner, some of the members of our group went out but I was super exhausted and decided to sleep so I could wake up early the next morning.
Sábado:
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| Tonolec |
Saturday I woke up early to go to Recoleta again. I had so much fun the past couple of times that I went there so I knew that I wanted to return to the feria and the cemetery. I took a bus to Recoleta and met my friend Tiffany (the one who is doing research on the black population in Argentina) outside the cemetery. We ate lunch at a parilla. I had the same matambrito de cerdo that I had when we ate at La Payuca on the second day that we were in Argentina. Afterwards we walked through the cemetery again so that I could take more pictures. There was a man outside of the cemetery that was trying to hit on us at the same time...gross. We tried to find Eva Perron's grave again, but that cemetery is really hard to navigate when you're not with a tour guide.  |
| Charo Bogarín y Yo |
When Tiffany and I stopped at her host mother's house, her mother was home. She was going on and on about my braids...asking me how I styled them and telling me that they were so beautiful. She then told Tiffany that she wanted to see Tiffany's hair styled like mine. LOL! If only she knew the work that goes into these braids. It's really crazy how Tiffany has only lived with her host mom for two weeks but she knows all of her mannerisms and behavior. She literally predicted everything that her host mom was going to say.
When we left Tiffany's host mother's house we came back to Recoleta and shopped the feria. I bought several souvenirs, which once again will remain anonymous. Afterwards we wandered through the mall next to the feria and tried to find the Japanese gardens. We made it to the Floralis Genérica, but ran out of time before we got to the Japanese gardens. I'll have to return to them another day.
That night our group went to a concert called Tonolec. They are a group of about 7 people. Two lead singers, a back up singer, a drummer, a bassist, an indigenous flute player, and a pianist. They sing a fusion of electronic music/cumbia and indigenous music sung in the language of kom. It's kind of hard to describe the lead singer Charo Bogarín. She's kind of like the Indigenous version of Amy Winehouse. She's really eccentric and she wears all these tribal patterns. Her hair was in a big braided bun and a braid came down to her hips. Her voice was kind of deep. When she sang she opened her mouth really wide and sometimes it sounded like she was yodeling. Lol! It was one of the most different, but enjoyable concerts that I've ever been to. I had a really good time!
Originally we were going to go out after the concert, but the concert ended a lot later than expected. Because of this we had no choice but to go get gelato :-P. I got a scoop of dulce de leche granizado and chaja (the dessert that we loved so much in Uruguay)!Domingo:
Sunday we got up really early to go to the estancia/ranch. Argentina is set up into provinces. Buenos Aires is a province, just like New York is a state. There is the city of Buenos Aires (just like New York City), but there are also parts of Buenos Aires that are country (like upstate New York). The estancia was located about 2 hours outside of the city of Buenos Aires so we took a charter bus there. When we arrived at the ranch the ground was wet because it had been raining earlier. The bus couldn't drive down the dirt road that led to the estancia becuase it had become slippery mud in the rain. Luciano told us that he needed three volunteers to ride with the gauchos in a truck to the ranch. Kassidy, Megan and I volunteered to ride in the truck with the gaucho and Luciano. It was a slippery ride and the truck was shifting back and forth like it was loosing traction. But thank God we chose to ride in the truck because the rest of the group had to ride in this giant hay transporter that looked more like a Conestoga wagon. LOL
When the rest of the group got to the estancia we were welcomed with the best tasting empanadas that I've ever had. The group was then split up into two to go horseback riding. My group went horse back riding second so we had some time to explore the estancia. There were animals everywhere. A friendly labrador retriever greeted us as soon as we got to the ranch. Cats were sleeping in chairs and laying on the roof. There was a pasture that had donkeys, sheep and miniature ponies, a pen with work horses and a gate with chickens. & remember those green parrots that I was talking about in a previous post? Luciano told me they're called Cotorras, Monk Parakeets. They were in all the trees at the ranch along with several other types of exotic birds and hawks. The estancia consisted of an old house with a pool and newer quarters, which served as a restaurant. The home was old and antique looking...really beautiful. We had no choice but to have a photo shoot.
Finally it was my group's turn to ride the horses. We rode for about 30 minutes, touring the farm land that was part of the estancia. I rode a giant black horse named Enamorado. I loved his name. The gaucho that took us on our tour was very friendly...a little two friendly at times. LOL! The estancia was really pretty and it was really fun horse back riding on the land. I hadn't done that in about five years. I tried to get Enamorado to trot, but he was a rather lazy horse. He would trot for all of five seconds and then walk again. I guess I would be difficult too if I were a horse and I had humans riding me and telling me what to do all day.After horseback riding was dinner...parilla style. We had carne asado, beef, chorizo, steak, and grilled chicken with a chilled rice (that was cooked with red peppers and cabbage), cabbage, salad and bread. They would bring the meat out on platters as it came off the grill and you got to pick what piece you wanted. They kept bringing platter after platter of meat and after a while I was feeling like I was gonna pop a button off my jeans. It was delicious to say the least.
At the end of lunch, the gaucho that had took us horse back riding played a couple of songs on his guitar. Then it was time to go outside. One of the other gauchos showed us an Indigenous horse whispering technique. When the Spaniards bought horses to Argentina, the Indigenas used their horse whispering techniques at night to soothe the horses and gain their trust. Eventually the Indigenas would gain the trust of the horses and steal them from the Spaniards. The Spaniards then learned the Indigenas' methods and used them as a means of breaking the horse. When the gaucho first started demonstrating the horse whispering it was really cool. He was laying on the horse and crawling underneath the horse, all while the horse remained completely calm. He even got the horse to lie on its back like a dog. Then things got a little weird. The horse was lying on its back, while the gaucho sat on top of it and caressed it. We all felt like we were intruding on an intimate moment between the horse and the gaucho. It was borderline bestiality. We were trying so hard to be respectful and not laugh, but a couple of the people in my group couldn't contain their laughter! Nevertheless it was interesting to watch. |
| Um awkward! |
After the gaucho's performance we took a couple of group pictures, rode the "Conestoga wagon" back to the bus and went home. We were all knocked out on the bus. When we got back to Buenos Aires I came home to work on a presentation for class.
Be on the lookout for a new post with Monday & Tuesday's endeavors.
Besos y Abrazos,
Jackie
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