Ramblings of an Insomniac

So, I am finally here in Buenos Aires! Sadly, my life is still as transitional as ever, since classes will not start for another two weeks. On the bright side, without any school work or commitments, I have plenty of time to update this guy.
Since coming here, we have had orientation activities for the program that included information about the colectivo (bus) and subte (subway) systems here, as well as presentations about school, Spanish placement tests, and other boring ways to spend my time in a room with 100 American students. I've been able to explore a little bit but mostly walking around, and not actually doing much. Part of our orientation involved a guided tour of a specific part of the city - my group was assigned the tour entitled "The Paris of South America" and focused on the Parisian-influenced architecture in the Retiro and Recoleta area. A few pictures:I know, not the best, but we were walking quickly. Anyway the interesting part of this building is the specific type of roof. It was developed in France to deal with snow, and adopted by the porteños (Buenos Aires dwellers) in an effort to Europeanize the city, even though Buenos Aires got its only light dusting of snow once in about 90 years. So illogical, overly ornate, and beautiful.And here is a randomly selected apartment building in the area, but I promise there are many, many more just like it.

I am living in an apartment in the City Center with an older woman who has three daughters (two married, one engaged.) I have met all the daughters and their significant others, and they are really nice people who promise to take me out to futbol games and dancing, etc. My host mom is a really good cook, and I am glad to say that part of our first meal together included knishes.
Finally, to answer the question from earlier, (by the way thanks for all the comments - love them) mate is a really popular drink here. Many people you see walking on the sidewalk carry with them a thermos full of hot water and a hollowed gourd filled with an herb called yerba mate, that is very flavorful and filled with caffeine. It reminds me of emptying a teabag of green tea leaves straight into my mouth. Instead of using a straw, they use a bombilla that is like a straw with a strainer on the end, since it sits amongst the loose herb leaves. It's really delicious, and meant to be shared. I think I will buy my own because, well, I don't so much love other people's germs all over my bombilla.

Okay, sorry for the lack of substance this time. I promise that in two weeks when school starts I will either stop posting altogether or have much to share! (Just kidding....or am I?)

BESOS (kisses!)

edit: turns out if you click on the pictures above they are enormous because I uploaded them differently than the others. Sorry. All the better for checking out the details on the buildings, I suppose.

Goodbye, Montevideo

Hellooo,
My last week here has been, well, relaxing to say the least. I made the weekly Arielle/Jen peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies for the family. After they came out of the oven and we gathered around the table to try them and with that offer the first taste of peanut butter to many present, my efforts to convince everyone to actually drink milk from a glass - plain, from a glass - was rather like pulling teeth. After a few minutes of begging, we finally enjoyed cookies and milk like a proper (North) American family.

Jani and I watched some good movies with her friends (Charlie Wilson's War had a really fantastic script that was not at all captured by the Spanish subtitles. The Hours was another good one, especially after reading the novel on which it is based as well as some works by Virginia Woolf.) I finished A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn (a real upper about life in a Stalin-era concentration camp,) and am now in the middle of some short stories by Pushkin. (Am working my way through the Werner household hand-me-downs.) I also went to the local theater with Jani and Graciela, but it was a really awful production. So awful in fact, that we left halfway through. Graciela still has not stopped apologizing for putting me through that, even though it is in no way her fault. Saul took me on a tour of the city and I was able to visit the museums and sites that remained on my list of places to see here in Montevideo. In other words, my days have been completely mine, and as much as I am enjoying this period, I think I need to go to school to maintain some sort of mental health. Life is tough when the only structural part of the day involves the time-table for classes at the local gym. At least I wake up, walk out on the balcony of Jani's room, and see this: (an unusually cloudy morning that cleared up about an hour later)

OK, well the time has finally come for me to move to Buenos Aires and actually go to school and do something productive with my life. I will miss traipsing around this city. As a parting gift to Montevideo, I offer a few reflections:

Malls
I have concluded that malls are universal. The ones I have visited in Spain, Uruguay, Argentina, Canada, Ecuador... All boast the same stores, the same flourescent lighting, high ceilings, overwhelming advertising, and McDonalds. Prices are the same, and each building is completely devoid of the culture in which it is situated (except maybe American culture... I think that just might be everywhere. Maybe American culture is actually embodied by the mall structure itself. How sad.)
The Gym
The local gym that I have been visiting most days is in the city, so there are five floors that each serve different purposes (a horrible walk all the way up to the top.) While the machines are pretty much the same, exercise classes demonstrate a few interesting differences than the ones I have been to in the US. In general, the instructors do not actually do the exercises with you - they are there to teach and to help you improve. Also, motivation is conveyed in a dissimilar manner. Instructors hoot, hollar, whistle and clap at participants. It's kind of scary, especially in really fast Spanish.
The City
Montevideo is a really unique city. Its inhabitants are, as a whole, quite friendly, and I feel safe in most areas that I have encountered. I think much of this uniqueness comes from, as I discussed earlier, a strange necessity that Uruguayans feel to separate themselves from their larger, richer, and more famous neighbor, Argentina. This neighbor will soon be my home, and I hope to really explore those distinctions myself once I go there. I'll let you know what I find.
I think one of my favorite aspects of the city is the rambla (boardwalk along the beach) that skirts along the entire coast of the city. I have spent a lot of time there reading, walking, and people-watching. I was also able to spend time by the rambla at night, when I spent some time with another former Akron exchange student, Ari (he went to Revere HS for the year.)
The Food
In general, I am really enjoying the food here. I've found that it's very simplistic - with the exception of one restaurant, the food is prepared with negligible spices, and emphasis is placed rather on the quality of the main ingredients in the dish. There is never pepper on the table, though salt and olive oil are used with everything. Except, perhaps, chivitos. This is a very important part of Uruguayan food culture, and is comparable to our hamburger. It involves a tenderized slice of steak, a fried egg, bacon, ham, tomato, lettuce, olive tapenade, cheese, and various spreads. They are available on every block that I have yet visited in the city. One of my favorite desserts is a delicious Uruguayan specialty that I believe is also available in surrounding countries is called pastaflora, a simple pie made with quince marmalade as the filling.

Okay, so now I am off to Argentina. I have a little more than a week before school starts in Buenos Aires to acclimate myself to the city. Until next time, I leave you with a photo of the living room in the Witkind's apartment. (I spy a Don Drumm bowl)


Ciao ciao (bye bye)

Montevideo

Hellooo,
It's Thursday now in Montevideo and I've had a pretty fun week. I've been
-to the beach (burnt my legs,)
-running on the rambla (boardwalk,)
-roaming around the city (introduced to the strange horse-driven carts for dumpster divers that get paid for returning certain products in the trash,)
-reading in the park (next to a group of singing kindergarteners,)
-to Medialunas restaurant (delicious croissants - Jani and I met with some of her friends there)
-Perfin gym (spinning class with Jani, and to exercise with Saul,)
-Read Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman (decision not yet fully formed)


Yesterday I finally thought to bring my camera with me and took a few pictures. I walked from one side of the city to the other to the Parque Rodó, in which an art museum is happily situated along a grove of cyprus trees. The park is pretty large, and has a small amusement park (which was closed yesterday. I couldn't help but think, if it isn't open during the summer in 75-degree weather, when does it operate?)

Also in the park was this freestanding fort...or castle... or hacienda... or something. Anyway it had a sign that said "edificio libre" (free building,) so I went in. It was just a structure with turrets, a courtyard, stairways up to the roof, and a possibly rabid dog. Turns out the few rooms inside the building were all sections of a public library! I just had to take a picture, even though it doesn't capture the whole coolness of the place.

The museum in which I spent a few hours is called Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, and is a pretty modest space, which boasts mostly Uruguayan artists. There is even a small section with videos of a performance art series the museum supported earlier this summer. There was a really interesting exhibit by an Ecuadorian artist by the name of Oswaldo Guayasamín. I took a few photos of his stuff, and what I took from reading his mission statement (it was in Spanish so no promises,) was that much of his work involved the idea that human anguish eternally crosses political and cultural boundaries, without exception. Below are a few of his pieces.

L-R: Hope, IX, X, XI ('68-'69)





















L-R : The Jewish Man, Eichman, The Black Child (all '63-'65)












Here is a final shot of the bottom floor of the museum, taken from the second floor. I think it's a really nice little space, even if the sculptures were a little dusty.

Okay, that's all for now. Tomorrow we're going back to Punta del Este for my last weekend before I go to Argentina on the twenty-first. I had better get in all my relaxing while I can.

First Legitimate Post

Hello all,

I have just returned from a weekend at the Witkind's beach home in Punta del Este. I drove there with Saul and Graciela (parents) on Thursday, and the kids (Jani, Roní, and Marcel [aka Matthew Golden]) joined us on Friday evening right before Shabbat dinner. It's a bit strange to start dinner between 9:30 and 11:00pm each night. Luckily Graciela bought me some peanut butter. During the days we spent our time lounging around the apartment, by the pool, and on the beach, except when it was raining.

One fun outing that we took was to an area called La Barra, which is a through-and-through surf town that has been infiltrated by commerce and tourism. The steep slope down to the shore is spotted with homes that are gravitate between shacks with corrugated tin roofs and enormous haciendas with great bay windows facing the ocean.

For some reason I've gone running everyday here, and it has been an interesting way to explore the area in Punta. The beach is lined by a boardwalk that is frequented by all manner of people and businesses, and also skirts along a marina and area that boasts trendy indoor/outdoor bars.

We ate some really delicious food, mostly made by Saul at the apartment (I will never be able to go back to American meat,) but today we had a particularly special lunch. The restaurant was called Ruben, and it is a parrilla (a special type of grill) that prides itself on being representative of the pure gaucho culture that lives (mostly in memory) in Argentina and Uruguay. We just ordered a bunch of dishes to share. Aside from the salad, everything on our table had been wrapped in tin foil and then thrown onto the grill. These included sweet potatoes sprinkled with sugar in the raw and thick eggplant slices with grated cheese and herbs. Mmm.

I am now under the impression that Uruguayans either live in, or feel that they live in, a country that lies within the humbled shadow of an imposing and grandiose Argentina. The richest tourists there, according to my hosts, are Argentine. Saul even took me aside when he saw me reading a book about the history of Argentina, and told me "Arielle, Argentina is a very, very rich country. They have fertile land and many resources. This is all you need to know." I guess I'll see for myself in a few weeks.

Now I'm back in Montevideo and will be here until next weekend when we return to Punta. I plan to go wandering in the city (mostly on my own since everyone else has work.) They live just a few blocks away from the beach, so I doubt I will ever be bored. Don't worry.
Okay, bye for now.

-Side note: I don't know who recommended the book Empire Falls by Russo, but it was a huge disappointment. I thought I'd bring it with me to read about small town America, obviously to ease myself into the culture. But what it turned out to be was a novel absolutely brimming with underdeveloped characters that offered no surprises in their dealing with various difficult situations. I also found that it was overloaded with Christian morals and characters that only survive their trials after exhibiting Christ-like behavior and, while he didn't directly admit it, finding their place in the way of the church. 500 pages of wasted reading, I think.

Commence language immersion...now!...Sort of

Hi everyone,
Just thought I would let you know that I AM HERE!

I made it here relatively unscathed, after rerouting my originally intended itinerary and sitting in front of a coughing baby and his coughing father. (My worst nightmare.) I was also served a vegan meal...Awful.

I'm sitting in Jani's room right now looking out her window over the city of Montevideo. She and her parents are at work, so I'm home alone, left to my own devices to unpack then repack since we leave for the beach tonight. We kind of decided that the Witkinds would talk to me in English and I to them in Spanish so we could all practice what we needed. So far it's working out, but we'll see how it devolves once we're relaxed at the beach, and eating delicious delicious meat cooked on their brick-walled grill.

Since Jen is coming to visit me in April, Jani said she would come visit with us in Argentina at that time. I am emocionada for that (excited!)
I can't believe I'm here!
Arielle