Clasica y Moderna

Holaaaaaaa. Another fun weekend... Saturday my friend Hanna and I went to La Boca, one of the older and more colorful (literally) neighborhoods to the south. It is home to Boca Juniors, lots of outdoor tango, and brightly colored tin buildings. It is also known as a fairly dangerous neighborhood, and you are never supposed to be there at night. We got a little lost and scared after getting off the bus too early but eventually made it past the soccer stadium (where last night at the Boca game more than 60 hooligans were arrested, several people were taken away in ambulances, and a huge police force shot pellet guns at rock throwing fans) to the more touristy area. We were approached by this chef at an outdoor restaurant who insisted on taking our picture by his restaurant, walking us down the street to various good leather and mate stores, and generally showing us around. Everyone seemed to know him and wanted to ask us where we were from. We bought some cool, handpainted earrings at the open air market, saw some dancing, and heard some locals drumming down by the river before it started pouring.

My host mom is actually in the hospital for a couple of days so it's just been Fran and me at home. Saturday night he cooked this huge steak in sea salt that he let me try and it was delicious. We just hung out and watched soccer for a couple of hours, which was really fun. At one point there was this flashback to a '82 Boca v. River game and I'm listening and all of a sudden I hear "Cacho Cordoba" (who was my Argentine coach in Wisconsin) and see him scoring a goal on the scree, so that was super exciting. Later Saturday night Hanna, Ed, and I went out for pizza then went to this awesome old bookstore/restaurant called Clasica y Moderna to hear some live music. There was a 25 peso cover but we got a great table right in front, and the atmosphere was amazing. Karina Beorlegui, a tango singer, performed with these three guys on guitar, Los Primos Gabino. They did tangos in Spanish and fados in Portuguese. The guitar was amazing, and one guy did some songs with a Portuguese guitar and this tiny thing called a "guittaron" or something. We had cafe con leche and sat enjoying the music with the rest of the crowd, mostly older intellectual types. It ended around 2:30, and we went straight to bed!

Yesterday Fran came with Hanna, Ed, and me to San Telmo, the oldest neighborhood and original center of Buenos Aires, also more to the south. On Sundays it has a huge, famous open air "feria" or market with crafts, food, street performers, everything. We walked down Calle Defensa and saw the Plaza, then went to El Federal, a historic bar, for lunch. We got HUGE steak sandwiches and Guinness for pretty cheap. It was super fun, and having Fran there made us speak in Spanish, which is always good. We also ran into my friend Lina before lunch, so she came with us. I feel like Fran is getting to be friends with my friends now, and we are actually starting to be able to use sarcasm, humor, teasing, etc., which is quite difficult in another language but makes conversations much more interesting and breaks up my simple, limited sentence constructions. Yesterday was also "Dia Internacional de La Mujer" or International Women's Day, which I had never heard of but is apparently fairly celebrated here.

Well, classes at two of the universities start this week and one of them still doesn't have the schedules out. Seriously. It looks like I won't have anything on Fridays and probably not on Mondays either, which will be really nice. I am getting more and more stressed about classes though because the whole system is just a mess and all the ones I want to try overlap. I probably won't have a schedule set in stone for another three weeks, and I just like to have things set in stone!! Also, Danny will be here this Saturday, which is crazy. Now I'm off to a cafe for a couple hours to eat lunch and attempt to start the books on Argentine history I bought. Hasta pronto.