To pick up where I left off, on Sunday I met up with Aunt Barbara's friend Dee. She apparently is the woman that lives in my grandfather's old house in new york, who knew? She made plans with her husband to move to North Carolina, but first to live for several months in Buenos Aires, a city they had visited and loved. Recently, Dee's husband passed away unexpectedly. She decided to continue with the plan on her own.
I met Dee at the Feria de San Telmo. The feria was full of antiques and other little trinkets (one of Dee's passions), food, tango and music. Dee was there with her neighbor (a young student like myself). Since he is learning English and she is learning Spanish, they sort of met up and hit it off (even though they are about 40 years apart in age). It was nice to meet this friend and his family. I spoke in Spanish with all of them. Sometime soon we are going to get together, Dee luciano and I to cook! Luciano isn't big into cooking but he says he's into eating.
We got to hear a band at the fair (with 4 accordians, 3 violins, and 1 bass) playing tango music by Carlos Gardel, the most famous tango singer in BA.
One thing that is so great about cities is that there is always so much going on! This fair happens every Sunday in San Telmo. Although there were a bit of extranjeros there, there were also a good number of portenos sitting in cafes, strolling around and enjoying the sunday afternoon. There are countless events going on right now in March. My friend went to check out a circus at the same time I was at this event. I saw the pictures and it seemed really cool. Luckily I will have a chance to go this weekend.
After the Fair, I met up with my friend Jesus to check out a movie. It was an indie movie that Jesus found out about online. We went to this tiny library run by these young portenos. They had resfreshments and live music from a band that some of them were in.
I spoke with one of the guys there named "Nacho, like the chip." It is interesting to see that a lot of the people my age that I meet speak English. The friends of the IES assistent I went out with all spoke english as well. Nacho said it was fairly common when kids are young to learn English in school. But of course, we spoke in spanish. Then the movie started and I had my philosophy major friend to talk about the indie movie with afterwords. There was apparently a lot of metaphors about female body in a male dominated culture. Besides the interesting themes that the movie presented, I was interested in thinking about the differences between what I got out of the movie and what my friend did. I was characterize him as a more "artsy" thinking, not that I really know what that means. But I am more analytical in a way. After my friend described to me what he saw in the movie, I could see it too, and I was interested in discussing the subject and themes. But on my own, this form of transmitting these ideas doesn't really speak to me. Some of the metaphoric portrayals of ideas in artsy movies or literature don't get the message accross to me. It was interesting to realize this about myself. Not to say I can't appreciate art, or I won't try to see this messages, but that maybe there is a difference in the way people's brains are wired and some mediums of communication work better for some than for others.Bueno, afterwards I came home, chatted with my host mom and went to bed. My host mom is very supportive and always asking me how I am doing here in BA. She is checking to make sure I'm adjusting comfortably and she always supports my enthusiasm. We have had very meaningful conversations about people and values. She lives her life mainly through the church but she is very respectful of those who aren't religious (like her 4 children).
Today I went to UBA to register for classes. In many ways the facilites resemble UAM (university in Madrid). There are no fancy buildings like at Lafayette, just basic concrete facilites covered in posters and flyers. There were lots of students around making their schedules and such. I picked four classes to check out: A seminar on recient argentinian history, social geography in Argentina, Argentinian History III, argentinian thought and latin America. I'll check them out and then select just 2 of the 4. Classes don't start until the 23 though.
Afterwards I walked home. I love walking around this city and just running into unexpected spectacles, such as the man covered in wine flour yerba mate ect. the other day. Here are some pictures of random things I have come across in this city to wrap up my post today
Luego,
Kati
Wow that car is pretty wrecked!
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