The past few days I have been in Buenos Aires and my head is still reeling from that whole experience. I don't even think I have processed most of it, even though I had a day and a half with which I could do it. I spent most of yesterday, and a lot of today, being exhausted. I don't know when I am going to have time to just chill outttt, because tomorrow I have the class regime from hell. But at least for one class we are going to a museum. I have reading for terrorism studies, sentences for conversational, and a mini paper. Rawr. The thing I want to concentrate the most on is the reading, because I feel like that will be the hardest. So, when I really want to just sit for hours ad nauseum doing nothing, I cannot. My life is tragic.
Tragically awesome.
Buenos Aires is a fantastic city. It is ginormous. Well, I suppose it is ginormous in comparison to Montevideo, which has a population of about 1.3 million people. So most places are big. According to Wikipedia, that I just checked, there are about 3 million people in Buenos Aires, but I saw somewhere that there were 12 million people there. So I don't know. I don't think it's a mega city when I looked other places, but it seemed pretty freaking big. And scary. But, since I am looking at it, this is what Wikipedia says are the most populated cities.
1. Shanghai, China
2. Mumbai, India
3. Beijing, China
4. Sao Paolo, Brazil
5. Seoul, Korea
6. Moscow, Russia.
7. Delhi, India
8. Congquing, China
9. Istanbul, Turkey
10. Karachi, Pakistan
There you go. Enjoy that. Ps, thank you, China, for getting your population on. Goodness.
Anyway, I cannot possibly recap every single thing that happened in Buenos Aires, so I am going to do a highlights segment for Buenos Aires. Not in order, just what I remember.
1. There is a place called Farmacity. Which is just like a CVS or Walgreens. Except it is so much cooler because the name is an incredbily cool play on words. It kind of sounds like pharmacy. Man, was I amused by that. But it's a farmacity. And I like it. Except for the cashier was probably the rudest human I have ever come into contact with there. First off, Argentineans are soooo picky about money. They absolutely abhor when you use a bill that is too big to pay for something. It's not like they have a terrible economy. They'll get their change replaced. I promise. My friend paid for her stuff at Farmacity and had just withdrawn money at the atm, and so since the ATM doesn't cater to the whims of the Argentineans, which it should, because, hello, it's in freaking Argentina, she had a large bill. She didn't buy too much stuff, but the cashier chewed her out for not having anything smaller. And since we had been in the country for about 36 hours, we hadn't turned into urban socialites yet, so we don't know what we are doing, and he probably could tell. But he decided to chew her out. Not cool. Whatever happened to the customer is always right? What about common courteousy? What about the fact that that she was freaking supporting your lifestyle, you bum. Then, when I went, and paid for my stuff with a credit card, and since I needed to show him an ID, I showed him my lisence, which I have done other places, and they just need to check it to see that it matches me, and not my number. Not this guy. He freaking enters in the number for my drivers lisence, which clearly says CALIFORNIA in big blue letters at the top. With an address below it. But ohhh no. This kid just starts punching them in. And then he prints it out and looks at me and says "Error" in exaggerated Spanish. Ok, smarty pants, if you weren't so freaking anxious to check me out you would let me freaking get my freaking passport. Foolish. So then because he is such a mean spaz I have to rummage around for my passport, and then he gets those numbers and it works like a dream. That's what you get for being impatient, cranky farmacity adolescent.
2. We went to a tango show. Where they feed you. And then feed your soul. With tango. And I can legitimately tell you that it was one of the most fantastic experiences of my life. The tango is a.ma.zing. I cann0t really describe it to you except for the fact that I want to dedicate my life to perfecting its steps. It's exciting, it's sexy, it's dramatic, it's powerful. It's freaking hard. I cannot imagine how long those people were practicing all of that. They made it look so easy. I could probably do that for the rest of my life and be totally happy. It was especially wonderful to see because we were watching it in its native land, though that is debatable because Uruguay claims that it invented tango, but nobody really knows where it comes from. All they know now is that it is an incredible dance and take immense pride in having it come from their culture. Argentina definitely gets points because of their tango origins.
3. Museo de Bellas-Artes. Fantastic museum. They had lots of Degas. And a Rembrant. And air conditioning. It was a lovely museum. Again, I felt like someone was feeding my soul with the colors and shapes and paints. It's a bummer that it's such a huge museum, because after an hour or so you just get so overwhelmed with all of the art. I mean, it's a great feeling, at least for me. It makes me feel all sophistocated and cosmopolitan, but there comes a point where I just cannot look at anymore art, because I'm overloaded with all of the other pieces that I have seen. My favorite was one by Degas, it's called Deux Danses (sp?) avec Roses et Jaunes.
I love this painting. I actually like anything by Degas. I was trying to think about why I liked him so much and I think it's because he paints ballerinas. And they're always in pretty colors and they look so graceful and beautiful. Then The Doctor had to shoot down my beautiful dreams of being a ballerina that Degas painted by saying "Did you know that Degas only painted ballerinas because they were one step up from prostitutes, and the other women in his paintings are prostitutes because prostitutes were the only women he could gain access to?" Thank you, Doctor. Thank you.I also really like van Gogh, but they only had one painting of his, and it was this pale sauce thing of a windmill/lighthouse which I was not particularly fond of. But the Rembrant and Rodin sculptures were cool. Oh, how I love art.
4. Las Madres! I don't know why I put an exclamation point, because it is not really something that I should be particularly excited about. But sort of. Las Madres is an organization founded by the mothers of the people who were "lost" during the dictatorship and the time of Los Desparacidos. The organization fights to bring about information about those who were "lost." We didn't actually see the women, with their trademark white headscarves, but if you go to the plaza at four on Thursday, you can see them. Which I hope I can do one of these days. On the free day the Doctor and her lackey and I went to the organization headquarters and I probably have not felt that intelligent in a long, long while. It was glorious. Then we shopped. And I bought the most beautiful pair of shoes I have ever seen in my life. Buenos Aires knows what's up. Oh! I had starbucks too. It will not escape me. I can now say that I have had Starbucks in three countries outside the US. Win? Who knows.
K. I Feel like this blog is sufficient, at least for now. I might update more later about Buenos Aires, But who knows.
P.s. Buenos Aires believes in air conditioning. God bless Argentina.
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