Los Porteños

(Porteños = Residents of Buenos Aires)

I slept through an earthquake! What an eventful first night in Mendoza! My host family is so wonderful, and they have a dog named Tupac! But, more about that later. Here are the highlights from the few days we spent in Buenos Aires...

There are so many animals around the streets of Buenos Aires - birds, cats, dogs - it´s a zoo.



This is a picture taken in La Boca - a well-known and very colorful Italian neighborhood. A tango dancer was having some sort of problem with her shoe, and an eager tourist was there to help!



More tango dancers on the street!



Here are some of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. They have marched every Thursday since the Dirty War. During the time of the desaparecidos (the disappeared), these women lost children or grandchildren. Some very young children were taken from their families and adopted - in hopes that they could be ¨saved¨ from the ¨radicalism¨ of their parents. The organization of activists shown in the picture is dedicated to finding these adopted children and reuniting them with their parents. A few days ago, with the help of this group, a father and son were reunited after 30 years of separation.



Later, after a delicious dinner of gnocci and a few glasses of wine, some of us decided to hit the streets for an evening out. By ¨evening¨ I mean 2:30 am, and by ¨out¨ I mean an extremely crowded bar. I met some locals, but conversation was difficult because of 1. noise, 2. my formal and incomprehensible Spanish, 3. their crazy attempts at English, and finally 4. Quilmes. Quilmes is the most popular local beer. Apparently it is awesome, to me it tasted like...beer. Overall, I had a great time, and didn´t get to bed until 4:30 am.



The next day, I was obviously a zombie. Here is the cemetery site of the beloved Evita Peron.

That´s all for now! The internet here is hit or miss, and sorry for typos!!

Estoy aqui, queriendote.

Yes, I have been in Argentina for less than a day, and I have already heard my favorite Shakira song! After a brutal 10-ish hour flight, I have FINALLY arrived! On our bus from the airport, I got my first impression of Buenos Aires - plenty of "graffiti" (though I prefer to call it "art") with political messages, both modern and from Argentina's darker past.




After arriving at the hotel, we wandered around La Plaza Libertad, enjoying the fantastic weather and avoiding the crazy Argentine drivers! Good riddance, Wisconsin winter; hello, some temperature in Celsius that feels pretty darn great. Then, as exhaustion set in, we had a nice lunch which included (of course) Argentine beef. After a much needed siesta, our group got together for our first orientation session, the only session held in English. We discussed how we should pronounce our names in Spanish, and it has been decided that here, in Argentina, I am officially Cara. Not Care-a, Car-a. For those of you who are not familiar with Spanish, my name pronounced "car-a" means "face."

Hola, me llamo Face, y soy de Wisconsin.