A Collection of Many Days

Sunday September 15th, 2013: In San Telmo they have a free penitentiary museum that depicts what life was like for prisoners in the 18 and 19th century. Their living conditions, torture techniques etc. Very interesting. 

Below shows some of the weapons they used against inmates...ouch!

The graffiti here is insane! I was randomly walking down Sante Fe and came across this small shopping mall with an incredible amount of artwork on almost every part of the building. 

 

Monday September 16th, 2013: I was walking around one day after class not really wanting to go back to my apartment and found this cute little park right off Sante Fe Ave. 

Sante Fe Ave. would be like Newbury Street to Bostonians, so to find this nice quite place in the midst of the city was cool. I sat down on one of the benches, read, did homework and took a nice cat nap in the sun. Although it wasn't too long of a nap because I kept waking up, afraid that someone had taken my backpack from me.

Friday September 20th, 2013: La Boca's Art Museum

We visited a local artists house in La Boca which doubled as her studio. The sculptures were amazing, as was the house.

Here are a few of my favorites! Surprisingly some of her work was rather dark...take a look. 

 Asado at Scott's House!

In Argentinian culture, having an asado is an intricate part of the culture. It would be similar to the US version of a cookout but with a lot more dedication to cooking and preparing the meats. Argentinian's believe that one is born with the ability to cook an asado, the techniques cannot be learned, they have to be observed. It is also believed that only men are able to cook these feasts...I don't like that part. But cooking an asado requires one to stand in front of a grill for over 6 hours so I wouldn't like that too much either.

He bought about $400 pesos worth of meat, which would be equivalent to about $70 US, but the picture below is only half the meat he bought. The other half was already eaten by the time I snapped this pic.

Also, fun fact, the only ingredient used to cook this meat was salt. Nothing else. Argentinian's believe that their meat is so good it doesn't need any other spices, which is true. But, their meat also has a lot more fat in it, so that could have something to do with the taste...in my opinion.

La MALBA

Today Aline and I visited La Malba, the largest modern art museum of South America! 

The visiting exhibit focused on a very modernized Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama whose artwork is very centered around the idea of circles. There was a lot of information about her throughout the exhibit, but it was all in Spanish so I only picked up a few details about her opinions on each of the pieces. 

We got there about 3:30pm but the line was long so we had to wait in the rain for a bit. I was starving so walked across the street and picked up a really good sandwich! It was a medialuna with jamon y queso (ham and cheese) for 30 pesos, like $4 US. A medialuna is a type of croissant, that is shaped like half a moon, hence media (half), luna (moon). 

The trees that lined the entrance way to the museum were covered in poke-a-dot fabric. 

So I know I've seen this picture before but I have no idea why/where it comes from. I definitely know it's a famous one so I had to take a picture regardless of my lack of knowledge on it's significance. 

Self Portrait with Monkey and Parrot 1942 by Frida Kahlo 

Looked this painting up online...it's worth over $3 million. Wish a picture of it was.... 

Outside of the exhibit was a really cool bench. The end of it went all the way down the wall onto the lower level.  

Here are pictures of Yayoi Kusama's exhibit based on circles and poke-a-dots.

When you entered the museum you were given a sheet of stickers in the shape of circles...you were asked to create art with them wherever you saw it necessary. Most people chose to decorate themselves!

Here are some of her paintings. Most of the exhibit didn't focus on her paintings but more on her modern art. 

This was a room filled with the stickers same stickers we got when we first entered the museum. I'm not sure if these rooms were purely created by visitors, or if she set them up and people added to them. 

 

Part of the exhibit was this little room people walked into. You were allowed to go in with 4 people, for 10 seconds only. The guard outside would close the door and you'd be surrounded by these figures. There were no walls, only mirrors. 

Another part of her exhibit was a light show that you could walk through. There was a path way with mirrors on all four sides so it looked as though the lights went on forever.

Feria De Mataderos

Today a bunch of us girls ventured out to Mataderos, where the Feria de Mataderos is held every Sunday during the summer months. It's about an hour bus ride outside of the city so it was a bit of a trek. Finding the bus, now that was the hard part. We planned on taking the bus at noon, didn't end up happening till about 2pm, which was fine. Some people were late, others wanted to grab a cafe con leche on the way, so I was cool with it. Learning to relax and not be on a schedule is part of the culture here, so I'm trying to embrace it. 

On the way to the bus stop we ran into the Olympic sign so I took a picture. 

A little history: the Feria de Mataderos was created in 1986 to spread this popular Argentinean culture through food and dance. There is folk music playing, traditional dancers, and gauchos practicing their horse races. There's also a museum, Mueso Criollo de los Corrales that depicts the lifestyle of these gauchos according to the different regions within Argentina. 

Once we got to the feria one of the first things I saw was this little pony! They were selling rides and pictures with it. 

 A gaucho practicing his horse racing in traditional clothing.

The street food was amazing. They had all kinds of foods, including the ones below. I had a pancho (hot dog) with salted potatoes on top! I didn't try any of the sweets but the one below is different types of fruits, dipped in caramel with sweet/salty popcorn. 

After walking around the market for a few hours we sat down on the grass in front of this skate park where people, mostly kids were swimming. It poured all day yesterday and must have flooded the skate park because there was enough water to swim in without seeing the bottom. 

Art Museum Visit

For my Culture and Civilization of Argentina class my professor took us to La Boca, a neighborhood in the southern part of Buenos Aires which is known as one of the first places of settlement for explorers coming to Argentina. The soccer stadium is also here so that draws a big crowd. 

We visited La Proa, La Boca's Modern Art Museum where our professor had an exhibit being shown. He is getting his Doctoral degree in silent film and made a short 10 minute film for this museum. It depicts the buildings of Buenos Aires within famous films and compares how the buildings are filmed throughout time. 

There was also an exhibit about the Obelisco, the quintessential monument that was built in 1936 to commemorate the foundation of the city. 

Here's a map of where the Obelisco is located in relation to the rest of Buenos Aires. Smack dab in the middle of the city! 

My favorite part of the museum was a section that looked at the future of Argentinian architecture. It displayed drawings that architects had drawn in 1910 predicting what Buenos Aires would look like in 2010. It was really cool being able to see how they imagined the future of their city to look like.

    

View from the top of the museum! 

There was a cute cafe on the top floor, so we all had a coffee after looking through the exhibits.

That night we had culture night at the Residencia! About 15 kids on our trip are staying there with a housemother, Edita who cooks them breakfast and dinner. She made us homemade empanadas! 

Edita's daughter, Pamela works for CEA and came over to give us a demonstration on the importance of Mate in the Argentine culture.

Aline (my roommate) drinking her mate. It tastes kind of like green tea, but the interesting thing about it is that you share the mate with everyone. Instead of everyone having their own separate cup, you pass the cup around to everyone and refill the hot water after each person has their share.

After culture night we went to JOBS, a bar type thing right near our apartment. It was three levels and had pool tables, ping pong and archery!