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:

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