how to drive like an argentine

[original post June 13, 2007]

One of the big cultural differences between Latin Americans and North Americans would have to be driving. Maybe it's just my American bias, but Argentines drive like maniacs.

Street signs are just suggestions. Some signs are followed implicitly--I guess at the busier intersections you don't really have a choice. Stoplights are followed, but even these are different than in the states. Instead of yellow meaning to slow down because red, which means stop, is coming, the light goes straight from green to red. Yellow is used along with the red light when the green light is coming. The natural result: people start going when the red/yellow light is up.

The old dashed yellow line versus solid yellow line also stands as a suggestion. Passing is always preferred to riding behind someone. It is also acceptable to pass in groups.

If you have a two-laned road, sometimes it can magically turn into a three laned road if the guy behind you wants to pass you badly enough. It's simple: all he would have to do is just ride up the middle of the road, over the little dashed lines in between all of the cars--provided there is room of course.

I saw something on Avenida 9 de Julio (the gigantic highway that is the artery that runs through downtown) that shocked my little American self. On this 16-lane highway, when you come to a turn, you can just switch lanes, willy-nilly, cutting the corner sharp. Just hope that you aren't the guy in the inner lane.

I'm lucky that my host is a safe driver. I did have a hair-raising remis experience (a remis is like a taxi that you can hire), zooming down the main avenues of downtown BsAs.

Oh yeah, and the thing that I don't know if I'll ever understand. At nighttime, usually, they don't use their lights. This is especially true out in the country. If they use the lights, they are usually dimmed (how they do it, I don't know). If you pass a car, they will flash their lights at you. "Hey, I'm here" ...oh, thanks.

I'm lucky, though, in that I walk and ride the trains and busses where I need to go. My only challenge is crossing the streets!

el centro

[original post June 11, 2007]

When sight-seeing this time, I started at the downtown plaza, Plaza de Mayo, and worked my way up the main Avenue, Avenida de Mayo, to see some sights in the main downtown area.

In the Plaza de Mayo, I faced a big pink governmental house, the Casa Rosada. I read that it got its pink color from ox blood, used as a colorant and fixative...pleasant. The plaza also has an obelisc/pyramid (Piramide de Mayo) thingie commemorating the one year anniversary of the May 25 revolution for Argentina's independence. The square itself is very historically significant. Painted on the tiles around the piramide are white headscarves, meant to be like the ones the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo wore. The madres were mothers of dissidents captured and tortured by the past dictatorship who stood in the plazy in silent protest.

On one side of the plaza was a cathedral, but I wouldn't have known it was a cathedral except for my tour book. It is an almost neoclassical-looking building, with 12 columns commemorating the 12 disciples. Above the columns was a bas-relief of Joseph and his family. Another building that stook out, in contrast to the very art noveau French influence of most of Argentina's buildings, was the Cabildo--the only colonial era building left in the area.

Behind the Casa Rosada, I found an enormous Argentine flag as well as a statue of Christopher Colombus staring back toward the Old World.

I tried to walk toward an area of town known as La City, which is their financial district and a historically English barrio, but it was a workday, and I couldn't compete with the mass of humanity on the streets. There's an Anglican Cathedral as well as the house of Bartolome Mitre (who founded the nation's La Nacion newspaper) that I want to come back and see on another weekend.

So, escaping the throngs of businessmen and towering banks, I walked up the main Avenida de Mayo. I passed by the La Prensa building, which houses another one of Argentina's newpapers. I stopped and had a turkey sandwich and a Pepsi in the famous Cafe Tortoni...an elegant cafe that is famous for the intellegencia that often grace it. I want to return to the cafe during the evening because they have a tango show then. Next door was the Museo de Tango, which had a lot of interesting artifacts and bits of history about the nation's famous dance. My favorite thing was a felt fedora of Carlos Gardel's. I also liked the costumes they had on display.

Then, I braved the 16 lane highway Avenida 9 de Julio, courtesy of a giant crosswalk. At one end of this street was a crazy-looking stature of Don Quixote bursting out of a white stone. I walked up the Avenida de Mayo some more to catch a glimpse of a cafe named 36 Billares, which introduced billiards to Buenos Aires. A little ways up, across the street, was the towering Edificio Barolo. I thought this building was pretty neat because it is supposed to be representative of Dante's Divine Comedy. The 3 sections of the building represent the three parts (heaven, hell, purgatory), it's 100 meter height is representative of the 100 songs in the comedy, and its 22 floors are the 22 stanzas. The point of the building is supposed to line up with the Southern Cross constellation in June (this constellation is supposed to be associated with the gateway to heaven).

Soon, the avenue widened into another plaza, the Plaza del Congreso. Here, I saw the gigantic congress building. I also passed by Teatro Liceo, one of the city's oldest theaters.

At this point, my feet were tired, so I wandered the pedestrian street Florida on my way back to the train.

Sorry for the tour-book sounding entry--it's just that the city's history really fascinates me. If you prefer my cultural exploits, I'll promise to sprinkle in both sight-seeing and cultural insights. Until then!

exploring buenos aires

[original post June 9, 2007]

This weekend has been filled with lots of sight-seeing. Some things I have seen:

Recoleta Cemetary: the stunning cemetary for the rich and famous of Buenos Aires, filled with above-ground masoleums. Evita Peron is buried here. I walked through the Doric columns of the gate (graciously donated by the super-rich Alvear family of BA) and just sucked in my breath. It is like a miniature city inside. I shuffled past the crowd of people around Evita's grave to grab my glimpse of her final resting place in the Duarte family tomb. I also saw the Panteon de los Guerreros del Paraguay, a monument to those who died in the War of the Triple Alliance against Paraguay. Near that was the grave of Angel Firpos, a famous Argentinian boxer who fought Jack Dempsey for the world heavyweight title in 1923. The place was filled with feral cats too!

Museo Nacional De Bellas Artes: Oh wow, I couldn't believe it was free to get in! I kept looking for a place to pay, but they just wanted to store my bag instead. They had a beautiful collection of European art, including the likes of Degas, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, El Greco, Goya, Rubens...the list goes on of well-known names. But, perhaps my favorite part was upstairs, where they housed the Argentine art. Some of their major artists are heavily influenced by their European training. My favorite would have to be Xul Solar, with his brightly-colored surrealistic tempera paintings. I also enjoyed (enjoyed is not the right word for such a piece, perhaps appreciated is more appropriate) Analogy One by Grippo. It is a modern art piece that has a bunch of potatoes in cubby holes connected to electrodes. It is a powerful piece if you know that it was his statement about the torture and crimes committed by the country's past dictatorship.

Floralis Generica: What else does a city need but a 25 meter high aluminum flower? It sounds strange, but the sculpture is pretty magnificent. Even better, it closes at night because of its light sensors. It was a gift to the city by the architect Catalano, as a tribute to all flowers, an overall symbol of the city's "new spring."

Okay, so enough with sounding like a tour guide, but the city, from my first day exploring, absolutely took my breath away. It was so neat to be in a place where you could see Evita's grave, dine in a cafe, and peruse beautiful artwork. More places that I visited to come!

maté

[original post June 8, 2007]

I have been in the capital city, Buenos Aires for a couple of days now. So far, I have seen a little of downtown and some of my barrio (neighborhood), but I should get to see more this weekend. Expect to hear about my visits this weekend to the Recoleta Cemetary (where Eva Perón and many other famous Argentinians are buried) as well as some landmarks downtown. My barrio, Palermo Soho is very fashionable and features many artesianal shops, so I should be able to see some pretty neat shops.

I also got my first maté! It was a prize from Andy for finding daguerri (the parasitic ant) in Brazil and Paraguay. Maté is the national beverage, an addiction shared by all Argentinians. It is almost like drinking tea backwards. The vessel, or mate, is filled with yerba (like bitter tea leaves) and then hot water is poured over the crushed leaves. A bombilla, which is a straw with a seive or spring at the bottom, is placed in the maté, and you can sip maté to your liking. A trick that Andy taught me is that if you want your mate a little smoother than the strong stuff the locals drink, put a wet hand over the dry crushed leaves when you are preparing the mate. It makes for a smoother drink. Drinking maté is a very social event, where it is passed around. A helpful hint, though, if you are finished and do not want any more, just simply say gracias. Oh yeah, and it contains a chemical mateine, which is similar to caffeine but doesn't make you jittery.

Today, we will be setting baits for ants in an area outside of the city (we also did this yesterday). The results are then characterized, giving us an idea of the types of ants and the competition between the species.

Stay tuned for my weekend sight seeing. I will try to get some pictures up as well of the pampas grass!

Chau!

small town argentina

[original post June 1, 2007]

For the moment, I'm just cruising around small towns in Argentina while we search for the parasitic ants. Finally the weather cooperated today, and we were able to collect 10 colonies.

Not too much new...just working on my Spanish. I can successfully ask directions, order food, and count. I've noticed that when people know you are foreign, they will say "muy bien" (very good) a lot when you speak Spanish to them. One hotel front desk worker said "muy bien" about fifteen times after I said my room number. It was pretty funny.

More later!

southern buenos aires province

[original post May 30, 2007]

After the ten-day jaunt in Paraguay, we flew back to Buenos Aires and spent the night there. The next day, Andy and I grabbed a rental car and headed for some of the small towns south of Buenos Aires. These little towns are very pretty and remind me of some of the historical small towns in the southern US.

Some important things:
~always try to stay in a hotel near the manzana, or city square (literally, apple)--this way when you get lost you are more likely to stumble across your hotel
~you take your life in your hands when you cross the street...driving here is very aggressive (don't worry mom and dad--I'm very careful)
~everyone smokes
~nobody goes out to eat until around 9:30PM (at the earliest)...we are always starving by 8, so we find a place then (they usually have only just opened by this time)

It's been really chilly here--I'm actually not that far from Patagonia Province. One morning in Tres Arroyes it actually snowed! Hopefully the weather will clear up a bit so that we can search for ants in less frigid conditions.

More later!

paraguay

[original post May 28, 2007]

Location: Pedro Juan Caballero, Bella Vista, Paraguay

Here is a recap of my first ten days in South America:

I arrived in Buenos Aires on May 14 and spent the night at my host's place. The next day my host, Luis, Andy (a scientist from University of Florida), and I hopped on a plane to Asuncion, Paraguay. We stayed a night in the capital because they had lost some of our luggage (luckily we were able to get it the next day), then we set out for the border of Paraguay/Brazil. Here we spent time in two small border towns Bella Vista (Bela Vista for Brazilians) and Pedro Juan Caballero (Ponta Pora for Brazilians).

Here I was inundated with Portuguese, of which I know very little. (I did manage to pick up on important words like obrigada (thank you) and sobre mesa (desert)). Nevertheless, a lot of my time on the Brazilian side was spend pointing and grunting.

As far as work goes, I spent all daylight hours digging up anthills. We would pop open a mound to see if it was infested with a certain parasite. We ended up finding only about 10 after the 10 days.

The food was excellent. I am in love with a good Brazilian breakfast (Argentine breakfasts are scant to say the least). I have also picked up on drinking mate--the Argentine tea-like national beverage.

I didn't do a lot of sight seeing in Paraguay, but I did see a pretty neat national forest. I also got a glimpse of some road-side toucans and rheas.

After ten days, I got on a plane and was shipped back to Buenos Aires, Argentina.