Day 2

Another excellent day.

Definitely hotter than yesterday, which btw was a perfect 80 and breezy.
Today was in the 90´s. Which, though hot, made me a pretty happy dude. Almost wipes out the memory of A2. And snow. Snow? What's snow. Can't even remember.

Anyway, after my late night (early by Argentine standards, gotta work up towards staying out till 9am), I slept till noon. Which, by those same Argentine standards, is just about perfect for a Sunday. Beat Henry and Michelle up by an hour :-)

Michelle and I went to walk through the recolleta cemetery, about a 10 minute walk from their apartment, down to the MALBA.

The cemetery is sort of the same style and the old cemeteries in New Orleans, but even more elaborate. Huge mausoleums that looked like miniature (but not that miniature) churches.

Curches, which reminds me, I didn´t even mention yesterday that we went to the Plaza del Mayo, the center of political life in BA. It´s where all the large protests are held and where the Mothers of the Plaza del Maya protested the -disappearances- of all the politcal prisoners in the 70s and 80s. It´s right in front of La Casa Rosada, the pink house, and the argentine equivalent of the white house. On the other side of the square is the national cathedral, a huge and ornate catholic church, where San Martín is buried, the general who freed Argentina, and most of south america, from Spanish rule. The whole place was amazing, and I´d really like to go back (which i´m sure we´ll do when I go on the sightseeing stuff during orientation next week) and spend more time looking at all the details of the hugh place.

Anyway, back to today.

We walked through the cemetery, another place I can´t wait to spend more time in, and down past the UBA Law School, which is like a jumbo sized version of Angell Hall. The ornate part. On State Street. Good architecture is good architecture, all over the world.

Right next to it is a big park (BA is totally tree covered and full of big parks) that was totally empty except for a giant, robotic, did I mention GIANT, flower, that opens in the day and closes at night. It´s probably 6 stories tall. And amazing. Im sure if you google Buenos Aires Flower it´ll show up.

Next was the MALBA, the Museo de Arte de Latinoamericana Buenos Aires. It´s all modern art, which as you may know, is my favorite style. Pop art. Abstract. Sculpture. New and Old. All latin american artists. There was a great frida khalo, and a rivera.

My favorite two pieces though were a big wall installation that was moving sheetmetal bubbles, and all the pieces by Bruni I think. I´ll def be going back to do more exploring, I only went through one part of one floor, leaving me plenty more to check out. And it´s free for students. Even with my Umich id. Which is sweet.

After that, some lunch in Recoleta (I had a Lomito, it´s a steak sandwhich worth at least beating a small child for) we went to see Changeling at the nearby movie theater.

A few notes on the movie.
1. They pretty much just make up the spanish titles of english movies here.
Changeling was El Sustituto (the substitute).
Bedtime Stories was Cuentos que no son cuentos (Stories that are not stories)
He´s just not that into you was No te quieras (he doesn´t love you)

Seems to me like they go out of their way to come up with an awful translation that totally loses the meaning of the title.

2. Any american movie is here, around a month later. which is pretty nice. Even frost nixon, which i imagine makes no sense here.

3. CHANGELING SUCKS, especially if you´re not in the mood to intentionally depress yourself. That is all.

4. Okay, so it doesn´t suck. It´s an excellently acted drama. That puts you in a sucky mood that is instantly remedied by stepping outside into perfect weather in a marvellous and amazing city!

Then home for siesta.
I sat out on the porch and finished the book i was supposed to read as the sun went down. Which it does around 930, which is probably why I´m not even remotely tired. In my head right now, the sun goes down at 4pm, so when it gets dark, im pretty sure my body thinks its hours earlier than it is.

It´s almost 11 oclock, so almost dinner time. We´re thinking about cooking up some burgers (which are popular as all get up here, so Zach, you would be my only surviving family member).

Wish me luck, tomorrow I actually start my program, which I would say would be an end to 24 hours of goofing off a day, except we have a week of city exploring and orientation, so still another week and weekend of nonstop fun. On top of my last 2 months of that.

So yeah, life is pretty sweet.