Gone Fishing!

Well, not actually.  

I'll be doing that for Spring (Fall here) Break.  But I'll give a full update on Spring Break plans later (they're ironed out and they're life changing)

I'm about to head out to Uruguay.

Here actually:

Going to Punta del Este in Uruguay with 8 people.  It's about 4-6 hours away via ferry->bus.  It's the boundary between Río de la Plate and the Atlantic Ocean, and supposedly the second nicest beach resort in all of South America.  We're staying in the highest rated hostel in the town, seemingly a good place to have my first hostel experience.  It's called 1494 Hostel, if anyone is feeling googly.

For interested parties, wiki for Punta del Este, and for the disinterested, voy a bajar en una playa por dos días.  Y nadar.  Y voy a ser feliz.  

Have a nice weekend / un buen fin de semana.

More words next week.

...and a spring break sneak peek here!

Enter the Intern

I had my meeting for my internship today.

I'm working for a big Jewish charity called Tzedaka.

This is their website (English and Spanish, English link is in the top right corner)

I am exceedingly excited.

I'll be working as the President's assistant.  On tuesday afternoons from 2:30 - 5 I'll be working on their International Cooperation initiative which basically amounts to international fundraising.  You know, grant proposals, making contacts with Jewish orgs abroad (esp. in Michigan and Chicago, if you're paying attention), and preparing english language material for the executive board to take with them abroad.

The coolest part in Wednesday, which is the day I'll get to work at their big clinic/hospital/dispensary place.  They receive medicinal donations from all over the world, especially drug companies and NGO's (not bad connections to make) and I'll be working both with procuring them and dispensing them to the public below the poverty line.  Totally my interest, my field, and great work and resumé experience.

Foray into Technography

Hey guys,

Just a few updates on the blog itself going on.

1.  As you can see on the right hand column, I've added my twitter feed.  I update it way less than I do when I'm home (for now, until I can figure out how to text in updates), but I still thought it was kinda cool.

2. Inspired by MGoBlog, I'm giving a twitter posting auto-bot a try. (Yes autobot, it an Optimus Prime kinda way).  If you have twitter, and would like to get a little notice that the doctor is ready to inject the prescribed daily dose of "Passing Through Palermo" into your brain, follow Passingthrough.  Feel free to leave comments here as to whether or not this works, is appreciated/cool/egotistical/etc.?

Pics man... Pics?!?!

And yes, I've received the many various and frequent requests for pictures of the fantastic city, and I am working on actually obliging.  I literally haven't taken a picture here yet for a number of reasons:

1.  I don't want my "face bashed in" and my camera stolen.

1.2. "Face bashed in" was an expression used by a local friend here, but I think he didn't have any better English expression in his repertoire.  No one has gotten violently mugged here.

1.3. People have gotten mugged.  Seems like there's a two week grace period, followed by a third world reality.  4 people this weekend.

1.4. Have I mentioned I don't want my camera stolen?

2.  I have been fully perscribing to the live-life-to-the-fullest-every-moment-mantra here, and haven't wanted to be one of those people who walk around with a camera.  I'm not a tourist, and I don't want to look like one.

3.  I will probably feel like going and doing touristy things and will want pictures very soon.  These things will be posted.

4.  I also love taking pictures, and #2 was a tad bit of self-righteous b.s.  Heed #1 - 1.4, ignore #2, and now that I'm embracing #5.

5.  I can't wait to find time to take pictures.  This is a beautiful and unique city.

Complete Non Sequitur

Unrelated to my current hemispheric location, but this is one of the most oddly written sports-pieces ever....

Highlights include:

Jason Hanson as Yoda, only with skin tone from an entirely different palette.
Honolulu blue and silver clashes with a complexion the shade of split pea green anyway.
P.S. How'd you like to try to stuff Yoda's ears inside a helmet?

Kickers without leg strength are like three-legged thoroughbreds in the Preakness; they are just not going to experience much success.

In football, when he is not kicking the pigskin so hard that it soon has the consistency of a pulled pork sandwich, he is playing free safety and wide receiver.

and last but not least

He knows that kickers need a strong leg. He also realizes kickers need strength of character. They need it when the clock is ticking down and the ball is 45 yards away from the uprights and while a field goal will win the game, a shank will turn a young man into a pariah quicker than you can say "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective." Laces out. Laces out.

Third Weekend Wrap-Up

So thanks to the less than reliable internet here today, I lost a rather long, extensive, and exciting blog post.  I turned my computer off as punishment.  I figured I’d try to re-write it later tonight.  Lucky, we’ve had some fun in the ensuing few hours, so now I don’t just have to re-write, I get to expand.  But first, back to where I started this afternoon…

 

Third Weekend Wrap-Up

 

Sorry the Passing Through Palermo blog hasn’t been so readily overflowing with updates these last few days.  Plowing through the end of my first week of classes took some recently unpracticed focus.  No worries though.  Tearing it up with classic style.

 

So Friday night was pretty much the most perfect Argentinean night.  We went to the dinning hall here for the homemade pizza.

 

Pizza here! Oh how do I describe you?  Perhaps a haiku:

 

Pizza Argentine

Oh how you don’t need sauce

Just cheese and olives

 

But yeah, Pizza here gives Chi-town deep dish a run for its money.  Well I guess it’s more akin to giving Backroom or In-n-Out Convenience store a run for their monedas, because it’s definitely more new York style.  Actually Italian apparently.  We have an Italian girl here.  She said so, so it must be true. 

 

Fainá also.  It’s this weird and delicious thing here.  You buy a slice of it with your pizza.  It’s fried chick peas.  Kinda like a hummus pizza-slice.  You put it on top of your pizza and eat it like a sandwich.  Quite delectable.

 

Man what a tangent.  So Friday night.  After residencía dinner, we went to the corner bar for some wine, from like 11 to midnight.  Then we cabbed over to Milión.

 

Frequent PTP readers (“Passing Through Palermo,” yeah, that’s right I can abbrev my own blog) will remember Milión from before; it’s where Michelle took me on my second night in town.

 

So, Milión is this beautiful old mansion/townhouse, which I really didn’t get the full scope of when Mich and I ate in the backyard courtyard.

 

You enter the courtyard through this tiny little unmarked tunnel, walk up this sweeping marble staircase, onto a grand marble balcony on the second floor.  This opens up to an oldish yet somehow modern wooden bar and the rest of the dining space.  The real charm of the place are the second and third floors. 

 

The second floor is basically just the preserved house.  Instead of beds they have couches, but besides that, it’s really just a beautiful mansion with great modern art hanging everywhere.  We snagged one of the rooms right around 1, which was quite lucky because the house really started to fill up after that. 

 

There were about 8 of us, all lounging around on these beautiful old leather couches, and it really felt like we were at some millionaire’s house party. 

 

The coolest part of the house is the top/third floor.  It’s the converted attic, and the ceiling is still unfinished, there was a projector playing 80’s music videos on the wall, and a tiny little bar that was no bigger than an innertube around the bar tender.  And it was our lucky night, the bartender was freaking out because a bunch of Argentineans had ordered a few hundred pesos worth of drinks and then left, but the bar-back had brought them all up from the downstairs bar.  As he was yelling to the bar-back, I asked if he would let us buy them for half price.  He was more than willing to get the drinks off his hands, and I got a bottle of expensive Champaign for $20 pesos, or about $6 us dollars.  Woot!

 

 

So we schmoozed around the penthouse party till about 4:30 in the morning, when the fun really began.  Somehow, when we left the building as the place was closing, we fell in with these two Argentine girls.  Me and two other guys and a girl from NYU just started talking to these girls on the street corner, and somehow we all ended up in a restaurant down the street, sharing litres of Quilmes and French fries and having epic all encompassing conversations, 100% in Spanish, till about 6:30 in the morning!  The girls were students from UBA, one was an architecture student, one was a polisci major.  Too cool.  When the sun came up, we all went separate ways.  Me and Jasmin (the girl from NYU) were walking home, and after I dropped her off at her homestay, I was mentally preparing myself for a long, but pleasant walk home for the 20 or so blocks (down the major, very safe, main street) when I realized that it was 7:00 and the Subte was on the verge of opening.  I walked until I saw the open signs lit up, jumped on the first train, and was home in my bed 10 minutes later.  Well, not exactly 10 minutes later, I stopped by the café across the street from my dorm to say Buenos Dias to the owner who knows my order every morning.  Then to bed around 7:30am!

 

For those keeping track at home:

 

Study-Abroad Goals Met Friday Night:

1. Stay up till the sun comes up.
2. Get breakfast before going to bed.
3. Become friends with porteños

 

 

Great night.  And just as nice, I woke up four hours later Saturday around noon feeling epically refreshed and almost giddy (okay well definitely giddy) at the night I had just had…. [Moving into abreve mode again] Went to the café, did some homework (yeah yeah yeah, it finally happened, I’m a student again), got a call from Jake, the two of us went to Palermo SoHo (the uber trendy shopping area), checked out a classic-High Fidelity-esque record store, checked out the swatch shop, fell in love with a watch, met up with some more friends, went to Mark’s Café and Deli, a restaurant opened by an American in 2001 and the ONLY place in BA to get a real American style brunch and iced coffee, did some more wandering, went home, went to dinner, [FREEZE!]

 

Dinner.  Saturday night.  Perfect meal.  (How does this keep happening?)

 

So a bunch of us from master decided to back to Don Julio, the restaurant you may recall from my second night here with NYU. 

 

Let me just say right now, anyone that comes to visit me down here, this is where I’ll take you first.

 

It’s a straight-up gaucho parilla, but uber-nice.  The owner/host and the waiters really show what classic service is really like, did everything to make our dinner (for 8!) perfect.  When I asked them what the difference between the three differently adjectived Befe de Chorizo was, the owner took me back to the grill and have the chef show me the different raw cuts of meat.  Too cool.  As I was talking to the chef, I asked him what he makes himself after work, and he said the parillada (mixed grill) and specifically the kidneys, chorizo sausage (which like in Mexico is absolutely delish, but in BA is all beef, and not spicy), and….. um…. Cajones. 

 

And I’m thinking to myself, why not!?! You only live once, so I ordered a round of beef kidney, heart, chorizo, throat, and testies for the table.  Let’s just say, one of the above was a little to much to handle, but the rest were superb.

 

So we go all out, 5 course meal, appetizers, salad, more appetizers, entree (STEAK!), and dessert.  I know what you’re thinking, hundreds Sam, maybe more.  Well you’re right, this amazing meal cost $600 pesos.  Sounds like a lot right?  Wrong.  Let’s do some math.

 

$600 / 8 people = $75 pesos / 3.5 = $21 dollars US.  Oh, and did I mention we drank wine the whole time, from 11 till 2:30 in the morning?

 

That’s right 21 bucks.  For one of the best meals of my life.  And I know I keep hammering on how good the food is, and how cheap, but it really is mind-blowing.  I’ve had meals here that I would expect to pay at least a hundred dollars for the in the US and not one time have I paid more than 25 dollars American to eat.  Or at a bar for that matter.  I’m pretty sure moving to BA for 5 months is the best possible way to save money in this economy.  I highly recommend it, especially if you like meat.  Well, only if you like meat really.  Not entirely true though.  There is a very interesting, and almost comically underground vegetarian culture here.  The restaurants are totally unmarked most of the time, but the three times I’ve been (cause really I needed to eat vegetables at some point) it was just amazing.

 

And so Saturday came to a conclusion.

 

Today you might ask?  Today was a good lazy Sunday, filled with lots and lots of homework.  Me, Jake, and Lindsay went to the local starbucks equivalent (Café Martinez) and worked for a bunch of hours. 

 

After coming home and mate-circling there was some long hanging out time around the residencia, watched some fútbol, and then was swept up in a kinda nuts adventure.

 

We decided that we wanted to cook food for Oscar night.  We, you may inquire?  Me, two other guys, and 4 girls from around the dorm.  So we headed over to the super market to pick up the necessary supplies for pasta, sautéed veggies, and dessert.  Get everything for a 8ish person dinner for about 20 bucks American, and head home. 

 

Interesting problem.  Power’s out at home.  Crap!  Tons of food, no power, BUT WE STILL HAVE GAS!  So we head up to the kitchen to proceed to cook a giant dinner with nothing but the light from our cell phones.  That’s right.  We didn’t even cook by candle light.  Cell phone screen.  And there were no plates not locked up, so all eight of us (and by this time, a bunch of other people had decided they wanted to buy into our feast so it was really more like 12) ate pasta all together out of our one big industrial pot that we mixed our sauce, pasta, and sautéed-in-white-wine-and-garlic vegetables in,  along with French bread and asparagus.  One of the best meals I’ve ever taken part in cooking.  And the best meal I’ve ever cooked in the dark.  And we managed to clean up the whole kitchen in the dark as well. 

 

And you know what happened next.  I know you do.

 

The moment we turned off the water and put away the last dish, the power came back on.  Damn you Murphy! 

 

But it was just in time to watch the Oscars.  In awfully dubbed Spanish.  But I toughed it out, trying to focus on the Spanish, but finding it unbelievably difficult because they really just laid it on top of the English, and my brain can barely decode one language, let alone two at once.

 

I’m actually still toughing it out.  Just saw slumdog win best song.  Love that film.  And love that Heath Ledger actually got the props he deserved.  And love the choice in host.  Really funny stuff.  Miss watching the Oscars with you especially Mom.  I know how you love them.

 

Anyways.  After more than two thousands words of update, I feel like you’re pretty caught up.  Or at least I hope I’ve done a bit to make up for a few days of being off the grid.  I’m having a great time (duh), and I’m more than ready for week two of class. 

 

I’ll try and talk to you all early this week.  I have my first day with my charity volunteer thing, and I’ll have to tell you how that goes.

 

Chao, Sam

Too Cool in BA

This is a video made here in Buenos Aires.
It is possibly the coolest use of graffiti ever.

Enjoy

First Week of Classes Donzo Baby

This Week's Top Ten(or) Eleven Highlights

1. La Bomba de Tiempo (again!)
   
2. Live underground reggae show
   
3. Eating at 1 of the 4 Kosher McDonalds in the world.
   
4. Watching the Boca Jr's game at the bar with a bunch of angry old men.
   
5. Getting a lead on taking brazilian samba drum lessons with one of the guys in La Bomba from my music class teacher.
   
6. "Look here guys.  I'm a musician.  I write modern argentine classical music, and I have listened to too much loud rock music.  I've read a couple books, so I can teach this class, but I'm not really a teacher, so don't think of me like that"   -Juan Raffo, my Music of Latin America (not) Teacher
7. Empanadas de Humito (creamed corn)
8. The first salad I've found in this city with vegetables also being the best salad I've ever had.
9. Getting laughed at every time I ask how it's possible that Argentina is the world's second largest producer of soy and manages to LITERALLY not eat a single leaf of eat.  This answer is always, "We really just like beef here."
10. Planning spring break at the end of the world.
11. Hunting penguinoes!

Pears

I had the first good pear I've had in at least 10 years today.

I don't know exactly how pears fell out of my diet, but I am exceptionally positive that I have not had a good pear, you know, one that meets all of the following criteria for good pears, in many a year:

Good-Pear-Criteria

1. Sweet

2. NOT HARD

3. Crunchy-ish

4. Delicious

5. Not a funky color

This pear today, what a magical pear it was.  Met all of the above criteria and more.  Got it for 1 peso (30 cents) at the frutería today.  

I ate it while I was walking to the MALBA.  About a leisurely hour walk from the NYU building. Found this great little park beside the Biblioteca Naciónal (anyone who's ever taken spanish or seen Jon Stewart ought to know what Biblioteca means), which also happens to have this great view of an absolutely massive notre-dame-esque cathedral off in the distance that I am unfamiliar with but am on a quest to discover.  

But the MALBA... (Museo de Arte Latinoamerican Buenos Aires for new comers)

I wanted to go back and check out the second floor galleries, but apparently they are closed till March 13th to be set up for the next exhibit. 

Still spent a good hour perusing the gallery I had been through two weeks ago with Michelle. 

Antonio Berni.  Look him up.  Great stuff.

By the way, it's hot.  Like hundred degrees Fahrenheit hot.  Like locals sweating, gripeing, and going on beach vacations hot.  I like it but it does require the changing of shirts and undergarments quite frequently.  

First Day of Class - As the Matrix

You know that scene in the matrix?

When Neo tries to the jump sequence for the first time?

And fails? And falls?

And when they unplug him, his brain can't handle the total data overload from the alternate world, and he gaks on the floor?

That was my first day of class.

Okay, well I didn't puke.

But by the end of my 7th hour of total immersion in the academic Spanish language, I had an almost visceral reaction to my brain working in overtime, overloaded.

I think I know what it feels like to grow synapses.

Classes Explained

So today was the first day of class.

What class, you might ask?

So I finally have a complete(ish) answer to that question, as NYU hadn't been especially clear on the topic, as they really didn't know until this weekend.

I take classes at the NYU Center/Campus/Mansion.  It's a fantastically beautiful corner mansion in around the border of the neighborhoods (barrios) Recoleta and Palermo.  2 blocks from a subway (subte) stop, which is only 3 stops from my residencia, or exactly a 3 minute walk and a 5 minute ride away from my bed.  Which is going to be clutch for 9am classes.  

In this beautiful mansion, there are three floors of rooms, decked-out mac computer labs (thank god) and a coffee bar/lounge.  Pretty posh, stained glass windows and all.

My first class was Intensive Intermediate Spanish, Monday through Thursday, from 9 till 11 in the morning.  Brutal adjustment from staying out till basically then.  But not too foreseeably bad, as it'll just require, you know, a real world/non-BA bedtime. 

Second class: Spanish for Health Professionals.  Sounds dry.  Sounded dry.  Sounded too pertinent to my academic focus not to take.  

THANK GOODNESS I ACTUALLY AM IN THIS CLASS.

It's two of us.  TWO!  With a professor from UBA (the University of Buenos Aires, here pronounced ooo-bah.)  It's part fascinating discussion on the latin/argentinean/third-world conception of health, part vocab expansion, and part private tutoring session from a university teacher specializing in the education of extranjeros (foreigners).

Which reminds me, I should mention that I am not, as previously asserted, taking classes at UBA.  NYU implied that we were.  In semesters past they have.  The program has so grown in size however that they've simply started hiring professors from local universities (UBA, Belgrano, Palermo, etc.) to teach classes at our center.  Pretty cool.

My other class was going to be Mass and Pop Culture of Buenos Aires; from the gaucho to maradona, but the amount of writing, and the level of said writing, in spanish, is currently beyond my abilities.  The professor was really quite spectacular though.  A grad school teacher at UBA, he specialized in the relation of cultures to their national sport.  However, as I mentioned in the above post, it was a little much; so....

I decided to take on english language class, called The Music of Latin America.  It's taught by a local classical composer and musician, from UBA as well, and focuses on the music theory that forms the basis of various south american styles, from Cubia to the Salsa to Tengo.  Just my kind of class, with a great semi-crazy professor.

Tomorrow I have my last class, which is a 3 hour conversation class about modern argentine history.  Wish me luck.

In other news:

-I went to the drum show again, "La Bomba de Tiempo" at el Centro Cultural de Konex.  I'm getting closer to perfectly describing the experience.  It's like a giant Brazilian, percussive samba-rave.  Too much fun.  Perfect for an early monday night.

-At la bomba I turned around an saw Emily Moyer walking up to me, to which I could only respond, "NO WAY."  No better place to catch up with an old friend that you haven't seen since high school graduation (literally, I have a picture to prove it) than half way around the world, at a wild brazillian samba-rave. 

-I found the perfect parilla near me, called Palermo Parilla (pronounced par-eeee-shyaa).  A parilla is basically a grill and a cash register, and this one makes a bunch of amazing and cheap sandwhiches; literally costing around 2-8 pesos (less than 4 bucks american)

Anyway, off to bed.  Another big day ahead.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

This is my ad hoc card to everyone, seeing as if you want mail to travel between BA and the states, it requires fedex-ing it for a gratuitous amount of cash.  The post here isn't really the whole "come sleet or snow" mentality, but more "let's steal or throw," as in nothing makes it intact, if it even makes it at all.

So I guess this Valentine's Day card is for everyone; except the Argentine postal workers.

Love,

Sam

Things I learned today

Things that I learned today:

1. Don't take the buses in a loop.  They do not go where you want them to go.

2. They weren't kidding, Boca is scary as hell after dark.

3. Plaza Serrano is equally as awesome as Boca is scary after dark.

4. BA has a speak-easy called Ocho 7 Ocho, even though they've never had prohibition.

5. Sleep, as always, is overrated and easily recouperated on saturday mornings.

6. Picnics are a good way to spend saturdays.

Only a little more orientation

Slowly but surely settling in here.

Slowly, mainly because everything here is so chill and the days seem much longer and better spent (maybe because I spent the last two months not being exactly what you might call productive, but I made it here okay, so that's gotta count for something).

Surely, because it almost all has been too easy.  Almost :-)  I've got some initial slip up stories to share but first....

We went to one of the restaurants from the "best of" guidebook (thanks Anne!) called Don Julio with about 12 or so people... in the pouring rain.  First time I've seen anything less than a perfect high low 80's and sunny since I've been here, but no complaints from me, it was kinda cool.

Anyways, the restaurant was great.  We showed up and they said they only have space for 6 more outside (under a very large and practical metal awning, but we convinced/"charmed" our way into them carrying out a few more tables.  As always seems to be the case here, wine and good beer led the way for the next few hours.

A brief aside.  Eating dinner after 10 at the earliest is the best possible way to plan an eating schedule.  Have a good lunch at noon, work till 5, siesta until 8 or 9ish, goof off and get ready, walk to the restaurant at 10, eat till around midnight and then see where the night takes you.  And I find myself eating much better portions and not ending up hungry again and snacking before I go to sleep like what happens con frequencia when eating dinner around 7ish in the states (or you know, a periodic 4:30 dinner.)

But today... the first slip up.

I went to go pay for my coffee this morning, and the amazingly sweet old woman and husband that run the cafe next door were like, [in spanish] "Ooohh, we're so sorry but this money is fake/counterfeit.  Where did you get it?"

To which I replied, "The ATM at the central bank."  Which is totally true, and apparently not surprising to the locals.

Apparently you really need to know what the money here looks like, feels like, and all the security features are on the bills, because the number one crime here is counterfeiting.  

Normally what happens is that you will pay for something, and a cashier or a taxi driver will pay you in one of a variety of fake options.  Sometimes they will give you standard counterfeit prints.  Sometimes they will give you currency from the previous government, which is now worthless.  Almost always, the rip off comes from a transaction, so you're always supposed to check the watermark and the feel right off when you get money.  Also, this normally is only perpetrated on extranjeros because obviously locals would know their own currency.  

Here's where it gets interesting...  I got my money from an ATM inside of a bank.  And as that money hasn't left my wallet since yesterday when i got it, it had to have come from there.

A point that I should note: don't worry, this is only 2 bills out of all the ones I've gotten, amounting to $150 pesos, or about $43 dollars.  

So, today, when the husband and wife showed me how to figure out fake bills, and today at our security in BA seminar thing, where the two cops told me they were definitely fake, I went back to the bank I got them from.

I told them my story in spanish, they didn't believe me, telling me it's not true, it's not possible, that their money in their atm's is all guarded until the moment it is put in, and it all comes from the central bank, and what I was saying was totally impossible.  Then, when I insisted, they brought the manager who spoke english, who happened to be a 20 something girl, and she tried to argue with the men on my behalf, but, in the end, I got stuck with my fake pesos.

And another plot twist:  I was talking with my cab driver on the way back, and he said that this has been happening to more than just tourists.  Apparently locals (porteños) have been getting fake bills from atms periodically too.  You're supposed to check right when you get them to make sure they're all real.  Which I now know, but wish I'd know yesterday (at least everyone here with NYU now knows, yes, I know it's typical that it would COMPLETELY RANDOMLY happen to me first, but hey, at least it was just).  

Anyways, even this has been a long rant about this dumb money, it shouldn't be too hard to get rid of.  I can pay tonight at dinner when everyone throws their money in and no one would know for a while.  So not really a big deal.

Other than that fiasco, today (and yesterday) have been totally great.  Gunna take a little siesta now, and then see where tonight goes.  I might just stay relatively in tonight, try out the dorm food.  

~Sam

P.S. start getting excited for some skyping action, I think I might have time tonight to get some of that flying through the interweb.

So it begins [for real]

Hey guys,

So today I actually start my program. 

Or kinda... I took a cab to the academic center, which, btw, IS ACTUALLY A GORGEOUS MANSION!

There were about 20 people just getting there from the plane (There's supposedly 95 in the whole program, but I'll wait and see that).  We got a quick, and by quick I mean light speed runthrough, but basically it was just, here's where you're living, grab a cab and go there, but first, buy your cell phone.

Which I now have.  But I am still in the process of figuring out how to add minutes to it.  It is kinda complicated to go through an automated phone service, especially in spanish.

30 minutes later, I still can't figure it out.

Time, which reminds me, I really need to go out and get some socket converters so I can charge my computer.  I'm getting down to 55%.  

But anyone, I'm here in La Residencia Master, which is right in the middle of Palermo.  My room is small, shared, on the first floor, but it has it's own bathroom, which is more than I could say for Markley. 

The building itself is 3 stories of a beautiful old building, and there are a bunch of people who are with other programs and have been here for a few weeks.  I haven't met more than one yet, but I'm gunna try and get on that later tonight.

Anyways, that's it for today.  Nothing to do with NYU till tonight, a bunch of us are going to go out to dinner tonight.

~Sam

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.

Dont get any ideas

Don't get any ideas

You might be immensely enjoying my blog, but it´s coming through Michelle´s computer, and I don´t have internet, ergo no skype, so you can´t hear the intoxicating sounds of my voice just yet. A few more days...

Day 1

Talk about hitting the ground running.

So after managing to make it through customs with getting strip searched, and getting all my bags (cause that would have been bad), I waved on of the magazines my cousin (technically second cousin, as we decided at lunch) had asked for, and saw two people eagerly waving back at me from the crowd waiting outside arrivals.

Michelle and Henry, my second cousin on my Dad´s side and her boyfriend of 9 years, graciously lent their couch to me for a weekend of couch surfing, though it doesn´t look like I´ll really be spending much time sleeping.

So we drove into the city, on the highway above all the miles and miles of slums (villas), and I started to bask in the heat and the sun the conversation of two fascinating people.

Got back to their apartment in ricoleta (the nicest neighborhood in the city), took a quick shower, and went off to lunch in Palermo (the neighborhood I´ll be living in for the next 5 months). We grabbed a table at this outdoor restaurant (okay, well right now in the perfect weather everything is outdoors, even the indoor restaurants but I´ll get to that later). The restaurant was called Mirando I think, and it was the picture of a south american lunch. Started at noon. Finished 2 bottles of wine, a heaping helping of steak, and three hours later.

Then we walked around Palermo SoHo, which I figured out later last night was about 3 blocks from where I´ll be living. Palermo Soho is the trendy fashion district, and its really does remind one of SoHo in NY. Tons of custom shops. Custom shops, each of with owned or designed for by one of Michelle´s friends. Every shop, i swear. She knew the owner, or the designer, or the manager. Including, Lacoste, which she knows the managing director of. Pretty cool.

Brief aside. At home, Lacoste is the height of prep and fashion. here its the Gap. Totally out of fashion. And kinda cheap. But not really.

The store that was really cool was called Penguin. It´s apparently some 50´s designer label that they´ve revived here a few months back. It´s like polo, or ralph lauren. And it´s their end of summer sale (or at least high summer, but more on that too, later) and I got a pretty awesome orange striped shirt for 40 bucks American.

After finally dragging michelle out of shopping frenzy, the three of us went back to their place and watched RockandRolla. Pretty good. Nothing new or inventive, but definitely Snatch-esque. Nothing to compound my trouble adjusting to the argentine dialect like a full blown dose of unintelligible cockney.

And then, the siesta!!! Ah, im going to get quite used to the siesta. A nice nap from around 6 till around 8. Quiet refreshing. I laid on Michelle´s couch and, looking out the window, watched the sun dip down the side of the apartment building sofaderech, ontop of which, an old man was laying out and smoking.

After the nap and some pettering around the place, Michelle and I went out to dinner. And by after, I mean we didn´t leave the house till 11. and then drove around looking for a parking place. and then walked two blocks to this tiny restaurant called Millión, that was built out of this beautiful old masion/apartment. Very much like the french quarter, you walked through this covered allyway, tiny and between two buildings, and came out into this tiny little courtyard that opened up to the stars, with like 10 tables and trees draped in christmas lights. Apparently the inside of the house is quite a glamourous little place itself, but we snagged the last table and sat down to a long dinner of tapas. Oh, and I had my first quilmes, the national beer. It´s not all that bad, kinda like a good pilsner... Okay, fine, which to me means PBR, but i guess it´s closest parallel is a Coors.

The only other notable about dinner was that the waiter was giving me, via Michelle, shit for not paying for both of us. Apparently here it´s still almost unheard of for a girl to pay for anything. Very patriarchal. Even after Michelle said we were cousins. She said the waiter was just being obnoxious, but still, good to know.

Afterwards, we drove over to Carñitas, another area like Palermo, filled with the young and excitable. About 2 am at this point, which by the way, was when i laughed to myself thinking about how absolutely alien this would be to my parents. (Hey mom, hey dad. Be glad I said you couldn´t come vacation here, you would have probably starved about 72 hours in. No one wakes up or goes to work till 10, there is no food anywhere till around noon, theres nothing open between 5 and 10pm, and if you show up before 11 for dinner you´ll be eating in an empty restaurant.)

Back to Carñitas. It´s the biggest neighborhood for the twenty-something, college crowd. Except, since there is no drinking age, there are high school kids too. Except here they don´t stick out like sore thumbs like in Ann Arbor. These kids are practiced professionals when it comes to clubbing. Im pretty sure I saw a 15 year old with more cool than me. But anyways, we barhopped down this one street from about 2 till 4 in the morning. Corona all the way here, and stella. Pretty much your only choices. And heinicken (or as michelle calls it, hi-nah-gahn) if you´re feeling ritzy. Still didn´t have any pesos, so I ordered stella for me and michelle at one bar, which was 24 pesos, to which i handed the soon to be confused looking bartender 6 usdollars and walked away. Which would come out to 3 US a stella which is pretty damn good. The average transaction exchange rate for US is 3.50 to 1US if you´re just dealling with someone on the street or a store. So I paid 19 pesos instead of 24, but even if i´d paid 7 bucks (24.5 pesos so probably more accurate), who could complain about $4.50 stellas. That would be a hell of a deal beer in Ann Arbor.

Anyways, after bar hopping till 4 (which is what michelle says people do before it´s time to -go out- for real, ha, makes michigan look like party pre-school) we went to Rumi, which michelle said was a great and pretty exclusive club, but there was a long line and michelle couldn't figure out what name to drop to get us in, so we went back to the car to go home. Except Michelle got a little bit turned around.....

and drove us down the street through the park where all the prostitutes troll for costomers. Slight mix up. Pretty freakin' hysterical though. It's apparently legal here, and I don't think a sight like this has ever been seen in the US. Maybe a hundred girls not wearing anything you could call clothes, just walking around on the sides of the road. Michelle and I couldn't stop laughing. Compounded by the fact that apparently during the day, the park we were driving through is a polo field. A POLO FIELD FOR PROSTITUTES! Priceless.

Anyways, that was my first night in BA. Lasted till 4am. With barely any sleep the night before. I expect nothing but awesomeness from this semester.

Much love,

Miss you all,

Sam/Rufus

Take off.

So tonight is my last night in town.  Which town exactly, well that would be Chicago.  But more exactly Highland Park.  I'm sitting here thinking of all the things I haven't done before I leave, even though I managed to be completely packed by 3pm, which is nothing short of a personal record.  Normally would be more like 3am.  

So, as I think of all the things I haven't done, I feel like the thought itself isn't really enough.  I ought to write these things down, so at the very least I have a record of them, to either 

A. Berate myself pointlessly for not doing things that don't matter anyway.

B. Actually get these things done before 10am tomorrow.

C. Let's be honest, get these things done before Feb. 15th, the day classes actually start and "orientation" ends.

or D. Have a place that let's me look back and go, "I told you so,"... to myself..."I told me so," I guess.

So, right, the list:

1. Back-up my computer.  This is kinda critical.  I have accumulated a lot of digital life, which I would kinda like to perpetuate, seeing as it's the sum total of 3 years of work.  Maybe I won't put this one off till Argentina.... Maybe.

2. Get the ipod figured out.

3. Download enough new music to keep my occupied during my 11 hour plane flight!

4. Read the book I was supposed to read before studying abroad.

5.  I'm actually way prepared.

Way more prepared than I've ever been to do anything...

5.5 Well, except I have no idea how many people are in my program.  Maybe an email could fix that but...

WAY PREPARED.  READY TO GO. T-12 Hours to Lift Off.

This is "Passing Through Palermo", but I'm damn sure I'll be doing more than just passing through.