Buenos Aires, Argentina

I finished up all my work and arrived in Buenos Aires Wednesday night and met up with my friend Jenn from my program and her friend to spend the next day with them.

Day 1 - Casa Rosada, Plaza de Mayo, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo
First we went to the Casa Rosada which is the presidential office and is actually pink (the pink house). You can´t go in except for a small museum in the back but being in the museum you don´t get any sense of the actual palace. In front of the palace is the plaza de mayo. Here is me and Jenn in the plaza in front of the Casa Rosada. The balcony on the left of the picture is where Evita Perón used to give her famous speeched and Madonna used the same balcony in the movie Evita.

We walked around the area a little and saw some churches and the really beautiful architecture around the city, waiting for 3:30. Every single Thursday at 3:30 the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo have a march around the plaza. During la Guerra Sucia (The Dirty War) when there were ¨disappearences¨ and many people were kidnapped, tourtured and killed, a group of mothers and grandmothers of the disapppeared formed to protest what was going on starting in 1977. All the mothers all wore white scarves on their heads and wore photos of their missing children and grandchildren around their necks. The people who commited these crimes have still not been brought to justice and so as a symbolic act the madres continue to protest once a week. These women were mothers and grandmothers 30 years ago and so are all really old, most of them I would guess are 80 or older but still come out every thursday. It is a small group but people still come to support them. My immpression was that they also address more current issues based on their sign they carried. After half and hour of marching one of the mothers and a palistinian woman spoke about the tourture adn disappearences happening currently in Palistine and expressing their support for and solidarity with the palistian people, particularly Palistinian mothers that have also lost their children. It was a really really amazing thing to see. These women have so much commitment to their cause and continue to protest what happened to their family and their country which takes a lot of dedication.
(Distribution of Weath Now!)


Day 2 - Around the City, cemetary, Recoleta, Museo de Bellas Artes
The day before, Jenn and her friend left and I moved hostels to be in a more central area. I decided just to spend the day exploring the city and decided to walk and ended up walking really far and was exhausted by the end of the day. I went to see if I could see a show at the famous theater opera house but nothing was playing, so hopefully I can get another chance to see something. It is a beautiful city and was really nice to walk around. I walked down to the river, throught the shopping district, and around some of the more historic areas that have beautiful European style buildings. Someone recomended that I go to a particular bookstore. It was a old theater house that has been converted into a bookstore and was so cool. It looked just like a theater but was filled with books and bookshelves instead of seats, including the balconies and on the stage is a cafe. I also went to the cemetary which is all just little mini chuch like buildings that are very fancy. I saw Evita´s grave which is where everyone flocks to and leaves flowers and things because people adore her so much. Then I went to a museum and saw an exibit by a Colombian painter, Botero which was amazing. He does all political art work about the violence in Colombia and I really liked it.

My hostel is a lot of fun and there are lots of people from all over so I have been hanging out in the hostel with all of them at night which is fun.

Day 3 - La Boca, Recoleta Feria
Saturday morning I went to La Boca which is a working class neighborhood on the river. There is one section that is really touristy selling lots of souveiners and things, and then the rest of the neighborhood is really dangerous and the police stop tourists for going in. All the houses are painted bright colors which is fun but it wasn´t so exciting, I went took a few pictures and was done. I then went to a outdoor fair/market that happens every weekend. It is a really nice market kind of hippy with lots of nice crafts, jewlery, etc. it reminded me a lot of telegraph. While I was there I ran into this girl Tess who also goes to Bard but I don´t really know but we have mutual friends. We ended up spending the afternoon together walking around the city. Argentina is supposed to have amazing steak so I went out to dinner with some people from the hostel to a good meat place but I don´t eat meat so unfortunatly I can´t tell you how Argeninian beef is but I have heard it is amazing.

it finally started working again to post pictures normally and then stopped so I couldn´t put up the pictures of around the city and of the bookstore which I really want to put up so check back i will try and get it to work again