battery says it best: i spend half my time with friends (friends!) hoping it never ends (ends!)

Sometimes I feel just so very lucky to have hardcore in my life. In many ways, it’s been a gift that just keeps on giving. I’ve always seen it as a refuge for kids who felt different. Lately, perhaps as a consequence of feeling the alienation of being someplace new, I've been thinking about hardcore all of the time. After neglecting the habit, I’ve been reading hardcore blogs (oh doublecross is too good) and discovering new (to me) music, listening to a crop of stuff that I’ve always wanted to listen to but am just now really getting into for the first time really (see: BATTERY, bt1k, early shelter, common cause, remains to be seen, and CIV). And just as I’ve always felt about it – this asylum for kids who feel somehow a step apart – hardcore has been embracing me. 

Wednesday I had some extra time after a visa appointment so I stopped into Axel’s tattoo shop, which was later followed by a conversation about the Disengage EP and how hardcore might not have recovered from the awesomeness if YOT had made a full length of Disengage quality. Then Friday night I literally ran into Axel and his friend as I was walking to meet up with a friend and her parents. I was majorly running on Argentine time (aka late) but it was just so great to run into a friend like that. Stressing that is important; it’s not uncommon for me to run into American kids from my program around town because we all tend to hang out in more or less the same places, but it was a sublime thing to find myself cheek-kissing with a real porteño before hitting a series of subjects about which I have something substantive to say. 

Yesterday I was cared for (babysat?) by the kids down here. When I didn’t hear from the kid who was supposed to take me to the show, his bandmate answered my call for help. I met up with him and friends and they brought me to the show, even paying for my bus fare. At the show, I received a steady stream of hellos, introductions, and unbelievable warmth. Most of the kids I met last week were there and it was super exciting to see them and to see how excited they were to see me. As they say here, it was baaaaarbaro. After the show Fedex brought me back to house, no invitation truly stated, with his friends. I listened to them and their friends and tried so hard to understand (through the slang and speed) to their talk about dudes/bands and then we played a game of charades against the Rosario kids which I totally sucked at even though I didn’t really need Spanish. It was probably the most normal night I’ve had here except that it was all in castellano! 

On the one hand, it was super amazing. I had a fun night Friday night going out with some American friends and their two British friends but it was really nice not to be made to feel like the boring/awkward person because I don’t drink. It was incredible to have a night that was just so very perfectly normal, about hanging out for hanging out’s sake. I’m so absurdly grateful for how much they went out of their way for me. On the other hand, it was bittersweet. Nothing makes you miss your friends quite like being happy and hanging out in the same way with new friends, you know? 

On a final note, it occurs to me that I haven’t used this blog to talk much about Argentina but mostly to talk about me and occasionally to use that as a prism through which to talk about Argentina. In large part that’s been because I’ve been struggling to find my place and to encounter truly authentic experiences on which to reflect. I will post more very soon – last night gave me much ammo. 

¡oye esteban!

If you come to the home page of this blog, you'll discover the subtitle "hay una luz que nunca se apaga" which translates into Engish as "there is a light that will never go out" aka the famous (and gorgeous) Smiths song. Perhaps now I can justify the connection.

Tonight when I was halfheartedly working on some homework for my Spanish class I happened to also be partaking in my favorite form of procrastination -- watching Morrissey videos on youtube -- and I foudn this incredible gem: Morrissey on TELEMUNDO in Spanish. 

If after this Telemundo video and "First of the Gang to Die" you still have any doubts about how much Morrissey loves the Mexicans that love him more, drink in this lovely photo of Moz in a Chivas jersey at a CHIVAS USA game. That's right, folks, MLS Chivas not even Guadalajara Chivas. Wow.

In related news, I have plans to go to a hardcore show on Saturday and the cancha between River Plate and Racing this Sunday. Hopefully the suspense matches up the awesomeness of stoppage time of the match between River and San Martín de Tucuman last week. I still can't believe it took River almost all game to come back from San Martín's weak early goal. 

If Sunday works out, it brings my life in BsAs part circle. To explain: I passed the Racing team in practice sweats outside of their hotel two Sundays ago, ostensibly waiting to go to a stadium in GBA. (They play Sundays... there is no other explanation.) Full circle would be if I make it to a Lanús game, as I passed those guys wandering around AEP Jorge Newberry in practice sweats while I was en route to Bariloche. Both times I will admit to finding the experiences extremely strange. Just sayin'-- when's the last time you saw members of your favorite football or baseball teams loitering about? 

Finally, I have a confession to make: I have been courting fandom CA River Plate. I have until April 19th's Superclasico to decide. Updates most assuredly to come.

hardcorelyrics.com ctrl-c ctrl-v

I had probably my favorite conversational exchange last night. It went like this:

Shana: ¿No hablás ingles? ¿Pero escribís tus letras en ingles? (You don’t speak English? But you write your lyrics in Engish? NOTE: Check out that castellano riplatense in action!)

Frederico: No, seriously. Hardcorelyrics.com. Ctrl-C. Ctrl-V. That’s it.

Jajajajajajajajaja says me.

 

Hat trick to Marie on this one: When I talked to her this week in my generally down state, she encouraged me to put myself out there in order to make Argentine friends. After a fierce internal debate and an extremely lucky venue change from the province to 8 blocks from my apartment, I made the incredibly wise decision to go to my first Argentine hardcore show by myself. Because I went by myself, I didn’t have the luxury of withdrawing into myself. I was forced to be friendly as fuck. It paid off.

The strategy: Take pictures of random kids waiting for the show to start. Successful? Yeah! Because it’s pretty awkward to just snap photos of some dudes, I told them that I was American and taking some photos for my friends to document the scene here. Okay that’s probably equally awkward… but it was also true and it worked on two separate occasions to strike up conversations, one of which was extremely successful. Marcelo, Axel, Ryan, and Paula -- featured below in their Verse shirts har har – were super friendly and nice and patient about my Spanish and helpful.

From BAxHC

Marcelo gave me the lowdown on some of the who’s who – pointing out the 674 crew with neck tattoos and DB4D shirts and Red Sox hats (so much like I never left!), the kids in important bands I hadn’t heard of, and the kids I wanted to meet – while also listening with some degree of really adorable awe about Boston. We talked about bands we all liked and the hilarious National Geographic doc about Edge Day and straightedge. The best part was that none of those dudes really spoke English and for the first time in way too long I was forced to speak Spanish to execute a conversation. (!!!) They also introduced me to their awesome friends Carlos and Magalí, who I especially loved and with whom I spent most of the rest of the show.

From BAxHC

In addition, Marcelo pointed out Kiko, the amazing kid who runs Varsity Records whom I emailed my first week of being down here and with whom I’ve been doing some MSN chatting. OKAY Kiko is seriously one of the nicest people I have ever met in my whole life. He immediately was super warm to me, asking me lots of questions about how I’m doing, how I got to the show, etc etc. He introduced me to his friend and bandmate Frederico, of the infamous Ctrl-C Ctrl-V quote, who also went out of his way to be super friendly and who also knew way too much about American college sports and that Tufts was good at crew (uh?). Frederico introduced me to his gf (I think) Pauly who was super adorable and with whom I waited after the show ended because Kiko had asked me to stay. He promised to meet me in the city and literally take me to the show next Sunday, which is just amazing considering he doesn't even live in the city. And when I parted ways with them, he gave me a sincere “cuidate.” 

Check out their band Reconcile on myspace or in youtube video.

From BAxHC

As for the show itself: The opening band was terrible. They were followed by a hard, New York influenced band and their singer, of course, was the dude with neck tattoos. Reconcile was legitimately really good and it was great to see a hometown band that hometown kids were into. No Turning Back (Holland) was just hilarious. Their singer was a Dutch version of Scott Vogel in Greg Mental's oddly proportioned body. I took some video which I am stoked to show Bobby in the fall. Only about half of the kids knew enough English to laugh at his jokes and participate in his requests for call and response. I laughed throughout the whole set, pretty much. Plus they played covers of Negative Approach and Alone in a Crowd, which allowed me to participate a bit thank goodness.

Although I feel a little bit embarrassed admitting it to folks, especially when they don’t really understand hardcore at all, last night demonstrated the success of my logic: I picked BsAs in large part because there is a hardcore scene. With all of those kids I met last night, I spoke Spanish, exchanged contact information, and just generally had a meaningful experience over which to bond. For the first time, although I obviously felt like an outsider to some degree, I didn’t feel like such a tourist or such an American. I felt like a hardcore kid. And with the greatness of the smallness of the hardcore scene (¿hardcore es un panuelo?) I had more than just interests in common but also some friends as well. It was pretty incredible to explain where I live in the States by proximity to the Anthrax Club, to discuss kids I know from Boston, and to be able to share in a way I hadn’t yet been able.

All in all, an extremely awesome experience on which to build! Already super stoked for the 28^th in Gerli (which I can now finally pronounce).

what my parents are paying for

This will be the first in a two part series on why I went from feeling pretty crappy early in the week to why I am feeling loads better now, as the week ends. It’s amazing what a difference a few days make.

I finally know which classes I’m taking! This is huge for a lot of reasons but instead of just telling you that, I will show you.

I registered for all of the following classes:

• At the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella: Comparative Politics and History of Peronism. (2)
• At the Catholic University of Argentina: New Latin American Cinema, Contemporary Short Stores, Nobel Prize Winners of Literature, Comparative Revolutions, Comparative Political and Social Processes in the Southern Cone. (5)
• At the University of Buenos Aires: Political Parties in Presidential Democracies, Forms of semi-directed democracy and political participation, and Political Leaders and Leadership in Latin America: A Study of Carlos Menem (Argentina), Fernando Collor de Melo (Brazil), and Hugo Chavez (Venezuela). (3)
• At the University of Salvador: Argentine Literature, History of Hispanic Art, Comparative Latin American Political Systems, and Comparative Politics. (4)

Of those 14 classes, for which registration took place at different times and in different locations and which take place at four different universities, I have attended seven with some degree of regularity. On top of that, my Spanish class has started.

Why, might you be wondering, would someone subject oneself to an unnecessarily large number of courses in an exorbitant number of universities? What a great question! It’s necessary that I attend as many classes as possible to ensure that the ones in which I end up have professors and TAs that I understand, students with whom I am capable of interacting, and reading that I am capable of understanding. This is no tiny feat, seriously. Furthermore, the registration process here has been a shitshow. As mentioned, registration took place at different times and via different methods. After registration, many of the schools have lotteries because they limit the number of spots foreign students occupy. Of course all of the foreign students need to fulfill basically the same credits and register basically for the same courses aka the classes which we all want to take are competitive and randomly selected. Again, it is important that one keeps his or her options open in case that Spanish language/culture course closes… understand?

At long last, my schedule is finally pretty settled and I have been to almost all of the classes at least once. In addition, que suerte!, I am pretty sure my courses fulfill the credits necessary for Tufts: Spanish language, culture/literature, and comparative politics. It is as follows:

-          Tuesday: New Latin American Cinema (UCA) – for foreign students

-          Tuesday: Nobel Prize Winners of Literature (UCA) – for foreign students

-          Wednesday and Friday: Leaders and Leadership in Latin America: A Study of Carlos Menem (Argentina), Fernando Collor de Melo (Brazil), and Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) (UBA) – difficult!

-          Thursday: Spanish Grammar and Popular Urban Argentine Music (IFSA)

In the mean time I will probably also continue to try out:

-          Comparative Politics at USAL (because I want to be sure I get a comparative politics credit while I’m here and need to confirm about UBA)

-          History of Peronism at Di Tella (because I LOVE the professor and would be sad to see him go)

This way I am a) pretty set course-wise and b) leaving my options open.

I am by far most excited about my UBA class, even though it’s already kicking my ass. He’s the hardest of my professors to understand – of all of the courses I have tried out! – and there is the smallest concentration of foreign students. By the end, I need to produce 30-40 page paper IN SPANISH about a particular case study, about which I am at present totally uncertain in large part because all of this history is totally new to me. But UBA (or la UBA, as I might also call it) is also the coolest thing about being here and I am certain it will prove to be the most authentic experience I will have in my time in Buenos Aires. I will post separately about UBA for y’all as soon as I get a chance to snap some photos because you seriously just have to see it to believe it.

Also, since I only sort of came here to work and don’t want to give you the wrong impression of my striving high, I assure you that my two UCA classes fall somewhere on the scale between completely manageable and absurdly easy. This is good because I have Mondays off and they meet on Tuesday, giving me plenty of absolutely true long weekends to travel or look up every other word in my UBA reading.

Finally, I really can lay off my academic neuroses because I thought about taking Portuguese while I was here and decided in the end against it. I am confident that it was the right decision.

 

A few regrets, when all is said and told: I will miss my comparative politics class at Di Tella and, if I really don’t continue with Peronism, I will miss Di Tella generally. It is basically like Tufts – small, wealthy, and with generally smart and amiable students. I have already made a friend from Di Tella with whom I can continue a friendship, even if we can’t continue class together. Also, as stated, I definitely will miss my Peronism professor. I also majorly lament that I really only have one class with Argentines, the UBA class. If I don’t continue with Comp Pol at USAL, which would be pretty stressful because I’d have less than a half hour to get from USAL to UBA every Wednesday, it will be only one Arg class. That’s a bummer.

 

If you have thoughts, please please please let me know! Right now, although I’ve really been putting it off, I think it’s finally time to start some homework. 

not the happiest birthday

It pretty much sucked to have a birthday abroad. I was trying to be more diplomatic than that because I like my friends here and ended up having a lot of fun at the folklorico show but basically that’s how I feel and I want to own it.

It was not because having class all day was rough. In some ways that helped take my mind off of my general dissatisfaction with having my bday abroad and was beneficial. It was not because we didn’t adequately celebrate; I didn’t contribute any good ideas to planning for my birthday and the show was as good as anything I would have come up with, to put it in the most negative framing possible. It wasn’t exclusively because I felt sad about not being home to share it with my friends and family for I had many ambivalent feelings about being away for six months, some of which do not look very favorably upon my life at Tufts. And it really wasn’t because of some birthday-related existential crisis that I think happens to everyone almost every year.

I will confess that I cried a little on my birthday. I almost never cry – except when I choke up while reading or during a movie, but hardly even when instigated by my own life or my own feelings – but I couldn’t help getting emotional while I walked home from UCA to meet David before going out. I think I always find birthdays disappointing – there are always a couple of people who I wish had called to send their love, for example, and I always feel uncomfortable about the way in which a birthday gives one license to call inordinate amounts of attention to oneself – but this was different: this was a conscious understanding that, on the day I most want the people I love to reach out to me, the interactions we could have were guaranteed to be disappointing. In that way, it was a very pointed reminder of how I truly know no one in this city, how I could go through a whole birthday and should not expect any calls or texts, and struck me with a profound sense of isolation. When compounded with some other feelings addressed above, it stung.

I don’t mean to sound melancholy or pathetic or anything of the sort. I received some fantastic emails and facebook messages from friends from home (Andrew Helms, you clearly take the cake on that one) and had what ended up being a good night out with interested and caring friends… but, for the first time since arriving here, I felt legitimately and profoundly homesick. It put a damper on what ought to have been a happier day. And in the interest of being honest, that's the truth about my 21st.

David comes to visit OR a photo tour of Buenos Aires (click the links!)

In an excellent birthday not-surprise David came to visit last week! Since the Bursteins and the Hurleys are perhaps the only people who read this blog, I will catalog for posterity his awesome visit with selected photos from his ample collection. Photos are linked, rather than pasted, because then this post would be waaaay too long. Please enjoy the photos because without them I assure you that this post will be rather boring.

On SUNDAY, we first explored Plaza San Martin, the beautiful playground of Argentina’s formerly rich and famous. To celebrate peace (or something?) there is this excellent collection of “Buddy Bears” with whom we had perhaps too much fun. David posed with the Cuban bear (complete with a cigar). We walked down touristy Calle Florida before meeting my friend Brenna for coffee and sandwiches at a café. The three of us headed for San Telmo, stopping to explore Plaza Del Mayo, the Catedral http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30439274&id=1088130041, and snap some shots of the Casa Rosada. We somehow managed to miss most of the antiques at the San Telmo Fería but it was aight because that Sunday walk up and down Calle Defensa is still a good time. We capped our day off with ice cream at Volta, the best I’ve had in Buenos Aires, where we found ourselves laughing a lotttttt. One of the questions that had been bugging me most – do waiters in bsas carry two wallets or just give you change from their own wallet? – was finally answered and I was heartily encouraged by the resident pep squad to ask the waiter out on the date. (FYI I did not.) David and I later enjoyed parilla in San Telmo where we had yet another extremely nice waiter who took almost as much pleasure in affectionately teasing David for his bad Spanish as I did.

Fortunately I had no class (yay!) on MONDAY so we returned to Plaza del Mayo, wandered a bit around the city, and then decided to go to Montserrat to tour Congreso. We were a bit early so we walked around the Plaza of Two Congresses, towards Argentina’s high court at Tribunales, the reconstruction-laden Teatro Colon, and the Israelite Congregation Synagogue while also passing a rather irrelevant-seeming protest and the highest density of musical instrument stores I have ever seen.

From Congreso we hopped a bus to beautiful Puerto Madero. Enjoy the many photos taken (each different photos) in Puerto Madero. We then walked to the Ecological Reserve where we encountered amazing green parrots and gave our tired feet a little rest. Finally we capped off our day at a nice dinner in San Telmo in which the waitress and I did some expert translating for David and I fought my shy instincts to literally run down some hardcore kids wearing Integrity and Black Flag shirts that I saw through the window, most of whom were from Chile but one of whom lived in bsas and happened to also have lived in Boston. Hopefully we have a friendship to follow!

TUESDAY was my birthday. I will write separately about my feeeeelings but here address that I had class almost all day (4 classes, three of which were 3 hrs long). At night we went to see Alana’s host mother’s folklorico dance troupe at la Pena del Colorado. It was super awesome. Definitely not a 21^st birthday rager, but all-in-all a good time.

It was threatening rain on WEDNESDAY but stayed nice when we needed it to be. We headed out to the Recoleta Cemetary, which is quite literally like a city of the dead, to explore. I went last week but after some good lessons in Argentine history was able to appreciate so much more! Expecting the rain, David and I took up shelter at the amazing MALBA where we saw incredible works from Xul Solar, Luis Botero, and Frida among others. Later we journeyed to Abasto where we met up with Natalie for some amazingly tasty Peruvian food and introduced a new crop of friends to the Orq Tipicia de Fernandez Fierro.

On THURSDAY I had still more class so David packed up and went to Tigre. I enjoyed a quiet day in bsas before we went to a tango show at the classic (and touristy) El Viejo Almacen. It featured whom we enjoy believing was the Argentine Liza Minelli and some amazing dancing, as well as the happiest collection of senior citizens I’ve seen in a long time. Much enjoyment was had.

David’s last day, FRIDAY, was jam-packed. I walked him through a short Retiro tour that was my best attempt at mimicking the miraculous Gabi, my UBA-grad tour guide. We visited palacios, the former site of the Embajada del Israel, and saw some awesome Spanish and French architecture. After my class and his explorations of San Telmo, we headed to La Boca which was beautiful, touristy, and to our liking.

 

I had a great time with David last week. It turns out, also, that what I had suggested to him upon initial confirmation of his visit was true: I am definitely hitting the abroad-rut right now and his timing was truly perfect. I think he helped me stave off a week of the inevitable feeling of homesickness that sets in about a month into everyone’s abroad experience. Partly because we did lots of touristy things and I saw new areas, David helped me preserve some degree of good newness about being here; more importantly, he distracted me in the best friend-from-home way from the academic frustrations and general unease hitting this week. On this subject, I can only say that there will be more to come. 

things I love in Buenos Aires #1: domingos y futból

I love Sundays in Buenos Aires. 

On Sundays, the only people at Plaza del Mayo are tourists. Ferías populate most prominent plazas and draw in all of the city’s English speakers. Some porteños go to church; others sleep off a long Saturday night of partying. Streets, generally, are quiet. 

…except in the same moment when, no matter where you are, shouting or sighing escapes every bar and café in town. Argentine soccer devotees (aka everyone) don’t scream at the TV during the game. They watch silently, intently concentrating. But in the best moments for River or for Boca, everywhere you can hear GOOOOOO-AAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLL!!!! 

Yesterday Natalie and I went to the fería in San Telmo where we miraculously didn’t die from an excellent street-vendor choripán sandwich, enjoyed street tango orchestras, and scoped a crazy assortment of antiques and artisanal goods. After sitting in the quiet grass of a pretty empty Plaza del Mayo, we split a peach licuado at the corner of Santa Fé and Pueyrredón while watching the River – Velez game and leaving the café in the same second everyone else did. I later walked to the bus stop to the sounds of the Boca game spilling out of the cafes. Finding the bus stop proved difficult and I consequently made a new friend, a very amiable, non-English speaking porteño whose somewhat lonely American girlfriend gave him cause to ask me to join them for an outing soon. I happily promised to do so. 

It’s been a month as of today and yesterday was perhaps my favorite day since arriving. Probably because my classes still aren’t official and I barely know any real Argentines, I still feel like a tourist. I have a feeling, though, that more Sundays like yesterday will help me feel like I actually live here. That would be great.

sea lo que sea, pase lo que pase

Thursday was Manu Chao at the Club Ciudad de Buenos Aires in Nuñez. If you're curious (aka if you're Jordan), the newspaper Clarin and hipsterblog vuenosairez have reviews of the concert in Spanish. Some basic thoughts:

He played for over three hours, with three encore style sequences. These often commenced and ended with Manu smacking himself with the microphone against his chest plate. It looked painful. He played literally almost everything in his catalog with many mash-ups of songs (as he frequently does on his albums). One of my favorites was mixing the clasic folklorico song Se Fuerza la Maquina with his own Luna y Sol.  Many of the songs I hadn't heard, presumably from the 2007 Radio Bemba Sound System's La Radiolina were played much faster whereas many of the old songs took on a more reggae vibe and were slowed down. The GANJ was abundant -- I saw spliffs in all directions -- and the whole event took on a pretty leftist spin, with ample criticism of the States in the form of poetry from members of La Colifata, a radio collective run by inpatients and outpatients of a mental hospital in Buenos Aires, and general hating on Bush. (Obama wasn't lauded especially, though, either.) 

All in all, I had an awesome time doing the reggae sway with the dreaded portenos for at least 2.75 of the over 3 hours of the show. I frequently have moments that remind me of the scene in Half Baked where they start listing all of the things that are better ON WEED. Here it's that some things are just that much cooler for experiencing them in Buenos Aires, Argentina, or a Spanish-speaking country generally. Seeing Manu Chao was definitely one of them.

Enjoy this pretty rough clip of the show from youtube. 

Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro

Went to see these guys last night in the neighborhood that birthed Carlos Gardel.  It was super amazing. 

It was definitely a more modern spin on traditional tango and definitely awesome.

fuimos a Patagonia este fin de semana

Sorry for the long delay in writing. Things got busier just before I left for Patagonia for the weekend. Rather than write about academic stuff, which I will soon, I’ll instead talk about and show pictures from Bariloche, a small touristy city in the foothills of the Andes in the Río Negra province.

SATURDAY

AIGHT so I met up with my friend Alana on Saturday morning on Santa Fe. While I was waiting for her to pack up, I saw so many Orthodox Jews going to services. I never go to services, don’t have any particularly strong religious inclinations, and usually feel a fair amount of chagrin about Hassidim. However, the sight of brown members of la colectividad just made my morning. (More on this later, I think…) It then took us about half the time we budgeted to get to Aeroparque Jorge Newberry so we spent over an hour people watching. Some of the people we happened to see when we were bumming around were none other than the LANUS FUTBOL TEAM, the dudes that upset Boca last year for a remarkable win in the Apertura and then upset Boca again last Sunday, wandering around in their team sweats. (Of course, I didn’t realize this until we had been in Bariloche for a few days. I thought they were some junior level team or something.) That, in retrospect, was pretty awesome.

The flight was too short to nap really but they did serve bang-ass snacks. We then took a bus tour of the Circuito Chico, the shorter version of the path around Lake Nahuel Haupi, overlooking peninsula Llau Llau (pr chau-chau), on this awesome bus. Check out that little dude’s hat!

From Bariloche

We drove to an aerosilla (air chair aka chairlift) for some wonderful early views.

 

From Bariloche

Then we went to San Carlos de Bariloche, the huge tourist town in Argentina’s Patagonia. There I bought Silivia a b-day choco gift at Mumushka, which is just as good as the Rupprechts suggested it would be. YUMM.

From Bariloche

After Bariloche, our journey continued. We had a guide who explained things but she didn’t have a microphone so it was either look at her to try to hear better or stare at the gorgeous views outside. Take your guess which I chose. We stopped at some spots with good views and did a short hike for a beautiful view of Llau Llau. Here is one more of the beautiful vistas:

From Bariloche

It made me very happy to see how pretty everything was. 

From Bariloche

By the time we got back it was pretty late and we were exhausted. Dinner was late, then an earlyish ending hangout sesh and dinner in the city center. High points included death by narrow roads and insane bus driving (INSANE), the hilarious crew of Israeli backpackers, the extremely drunk Argentines who directed unpleasant piropos at us while we waited for the bus that didn’t come, then the nice taxi driver who made A$77 driving the five of us all the way back to Llau Llau where we were staying. Ask me sometime and I’ll tell you how he distinguishes good chocolate from bad chocolate or about how he thinks Obama is a socialist.

 

SUNDAY

The weather in Patagonia is pretty crazy and it was supposed to be cold and rainy so rather than do a boat excursion, a hike, or go rafting, Anna and I decided that we would go back to downtown Bariloche to hang. We met up with other folks and headed down together. We, of course, went back to Mamushka and followed that visit with a taste-test tour of the many touristy chocolaterias. Excellent decision.

The saga of DIEZ:

What followed was a hilarious adventure that will forever be known as DIEZ, Spanish for the number 10. The plan was to head to the Swiss Colony where there is a fería (flea market, I guess?), supposedly much cuteness, and where we were meeting with our guide for a short night hike (to miss the rain) that evening. We took the crazily driven by the same driver 20 bus out of the city to the 18^th KM mark. Our bus driver told us something in poor English about 5/10 and it wasn’t entirely apparent if he meant the 10 bus would come in 5-10 minutes or at 5:10 so we waited. And we waited. A pretty stray dog came to hang out and we waited with him, who we decided to call Diez after the absent bus, even more. Our 20 driver “friend” passed us in one direction, and then stopped when passing us in the other. Trying to explain but then just taking pity on us / thinking we were retarded, he wrote 17:20 on Christine’s hand so as to indicate when this nonexistent bus would arrive. Then we another forty minutes.

We waited in this totally random place on the side of the narrow road for over an hour and fifteen or. Then, around 5:10, it came. But the driver, despite seeing us waving for him to stop and actually making “no thanks” motions with his hands, passed us by. YEAH. I KNOW. We were a cross between furious and hysterically laughing, given how ridiculous the whole situation had been. We decided to walk up a bit and see if we could ask anyone why this bus decided not to stop for us. A very kind girl at a nearby restaurant told us that the next bus would not be coming for another two and a half hours, too late for us to make it to the Swiss Colony to meet up with our group for the night. She helped us call a remís (group taxi) and suggested, since it was close, that we wait outside for it. After literally two minutes, A NUMBER TEN CAME followed by none other than our taxi. This time the bus stopped for us but we had to take our taxi. (I still can’t really believe this.) We were basically splitting at the seams from laughter.

I want to complain about this but actually the trials and tribulations with the buses made the trip to Bariloche so great. BsAs is a city, a pretty westernized and modern city with full services and a European flavor. I had not felt more truly in Argentina than I did while my Linea 20 bus drove impossibly quickly down a rainy narrow cliff-side road in the dark. Definitely the most memorable part of our trip to Patagonia.

/ story of diez

At Colonia Suisa, all we wanted to do was sit inside. It was super busy because there had just been a big two-day trekking race that had commenced and terminated at Colonia Suisa. We had coffees and visited the fería. The most memorable moment was when I turned to a friend to ask if she was okay – I don’t remember what prompted the question – and, in response to my question, a random dude apparently replied quite loudly “Estoy bien.” Oh Argentine men… We then waited for our late guide, about whom many of us had our doubts she was going to take our prepaid money and run. But she came and it was awesome!

We took 4x4s up a mountain which was simultaneously amazing and unbelievably scary, as we definitely very easily (and at certain moments very nearly) drove off the side of the mountain. We stopped about 2/3 of the way up the mountain, then received a nature lesson about birds, tectonic plates and the formation of the Andes, etc. in the form of a hike up to the refugio (summit house?). The sun was setting as we walked up and, as is the theme, the views were just amazing. At the refugio we ate pizza and laughed SO MUCH before one of the guides played and sang Argentine folkloriko songs before passing his guitar to some of the IFSA students. It became a night of folklorico and Elliot Smith, then, with some gringo dancing in between. Then we went outside and I saw more stars than I think I’ve ever seen. Truly amazing.

 

MONDAY

Monday almost the entire IFSA group took a six hour hike up to the refugio at Cerro Lopez. The refugio, oddly enough, was pink and it was sooo incredibly beautiful. It was the best view of the weekend of the snow-covered Andes in the distance. Oh man. The weather in Patagonia is notoriously odd and yesterday was a perfect example: it was really chilly. Afterwards we went back to Bariloche and got ice cream at what was supposedly the best heladería in Argentina. Hopefully my eating habits this weekend were offset by all of the hiking….

 

 

TODAY

Today I had my first class which meets at 8 AM in Belgrano. I left my house around 7:05 and was still late, grrr. I don’t know if I am going to be able to stick with this for a whole semester, especially knowing that I have other options. Despite the earliness and that Patagonia was really beautiful, I’m pretty happy to be back in the city. Walking from Di Tella (UTDT) to the subte this morning, I walked through some of Belgrano’s Chinatown, and my subte ride was filled with more beautiful Argentine commuting men. 

My full photo album from Bariloche is linked to this photo below!

Bariloche