Open Doors Program, Chile, Ingles Abre Puertas: Buenos Aires: Jardines, Cementerio Recoleta. and more

Ah Buenos Aires...

I left at 10:00am from Cordoba, arrived at my hostel in Buenos Aires at 10:00pm. It was a 10/11 hour trip. Wasn't too bad I stayed up at the hostel in Cordoba and stayed up for a bit drinking beers with a few people there, this is after Marlen's birthday party. The hostel in Cordoba was super close to the bus terminal and I walked it in 5 mins. Got on a bus and pretty much slept most of the trip, was up for about the middle 3 hours.

Arrived in Buenos Aires and stayed at a hostel recommended by a friend. It was nice, it had a great location for what I wanted to see. That night I stayed up for awhile and had a few beers and met Natalia, a Colombian that studied in BsAs and her contract was up with her host family(or apartment) so she is staying there for a month(I believe). Anyway that night I didn't go out, I was actually still tired from traveling, in fact the mix of alcohol and traveling has a dangerous effect on your energy levels.

The next day I left to explore Buenos Aires. First things first, I needed to change some USD into Argentine pesos. I had changed some before, but spent most of it at the disco/hostel/bus ticket in Cordoba. So after sitting at the Argentina national bank for about 20 minutes I realized I was not being called, now Argentina on the other hand I think is kind of split with boletos. In Cordoba, at MariaMaria, I just went to the bar ordered a beer and gave the bartender my money, received my drink from the same man. But here at the bank, it was like being at the DMV. You went to a touch screen computer that printed out your ticket. This ticket had a letter and number. I waited for 20 minutes and we went through, I'd say J190-J215(there were about 4 different letters for different things). So like 25 people. J must have must have been like deposits or withdraws because today was a Friday. Anyway after waiting for 20 minutes I finally get up and ask the security guard why there wasn't any numbers called with my letter. He shows me the sign on that touch screen computer that says 'we cannot change foreign bills today'. So asking around for a bit I finally made it to a casa de cambio and changed my money over....

Ok I left the hostel at 11:00am did not get back until 7:00pm, so 8 hours of almost continuous walking. I started my trip at the Jardin de Botanico, or Botanical Garden of Buenos Aires.

Signs everywhere to tell you what kind of tree/plant is there. I was not interested...

Cool looking house in the middle of the Garden.

It's in English(on the right, remember you can click the photo, I upload the large file size for you guys). About the picture/statue below.

Complete heaven. I want a replica of this about 1/90 of the size and put it on my dresser.

They had multiple greenhouses, but many of them were closed, I wanted to search for some Orchids, lost interest after the first two greenhouses were locked.

Had multiple parks like this. Many people were just chilling, or reading or whatever, it was a cool place.


I hope you can see, there were cats EVERYWHERE, haha seriously, here are three.

Multiple statues as well, maybe because I was an art major, but I love statues...

Another cool statue, there were many..

It was quite shady(like shadows) in the Botanical Garden, It was a BEAUTIFUL day in Buenos Aires when I went exploring, and remember it is their winter there. I had my coat just in case, didn't wear it most of the time. Anyway here is a picture of the sky from the Botanical Garden, like being in a forest in New York...

After the Botanical Garden I went strolling, didn't really have an exact plan, but so I just started walking, some Brazilians were looking for directions to the Japanese Garden, So after I saw a few things I wanted to take pictures of, I followed my own advice from the map I had and went to the Japanese Garden, but here are some pictures of that stroll.

Thought this was cool, Statue with the somewhat of a skyline in the background. As you can see they are modernized in new building architecture.

Another View of the Statue. I wanted to get both looks, because one side has skyscrapers, while the other has trees/green. The coastal part of the city is a port, but in between downtown and the coast/port, is where you can find these plazas and gardens. Great idea for a city as big as Buenos Aires.

Argentinians love Italian things, but so do I, a Gazebo with Roman Columns.

Haha, look what I found! I don't know if this was the embassy or not, didn't bother to go look, I am not here to meet Americans nor take pictures of our embassies...

Middle of a round-a-bout, Popular down here(Chile and Argentina)

Ah, i have a soft spot for Angels and Statues. Beautiful.... this was in the center of the Roundabout.

Jardin Japones

I have no idea why there is a Japanese Garden in Buenos Aires, but I do like Japanese things, like say Samurai swords(I do have two)... So yea that was cool, something different. After the Japanese Garden I was on my way to Recoleta, a like 'hip' neighborhood in the city, Wikipedia tells me it's very expensive to live there and that its the cultural center of the city. Anyway it was really far from the Japanese Gardin it took me awhile to get there, I don't know maybe 40 minutes. I wanted to go to Recoleta, because of the cemetery there. Here are some pictures of my walk/trip to Recoleta.

Obviously the Flag of Argentina

Yes, they have a Ford dealer here, but it didn't have any trucks, all tiny cars.

I just love the colonial architecture.

Plaza on the way there, people just like chill on the grass.


Reminds me of Europe, I also love cobblestone roads.

Cementerio de Recoleta

I cannot explain it well enough, be a visual learner and take a look for yourself:

Outside the cemetery, I think it was for some contemporary art project.

Typical plaque that adorns the outsides of the crypts.

Rows and rows.

Some of the crypts are obviously larger than others.

Another view.

The corner ones are usually larger, but most are very different others, architecture is different on all, some have the same style of statues however.

Beautiful.

Picture of one in the middle as an example.

Some have some beautiful stained glass windows.

Restaurante

Saw a decently priced restaurant really close to the cemetery and wanted to try out the Argentine restaurant side of the food. I got milanesa de napolitana, and a beer, asked for hot sauce, I received crushed red pepper in a bottle of olive oil(very Italian/Spanish, in fact the Chileans say Argetines think they are Italian. By the way had the same type of 'hot sauce' in Spain). The dinner was good, and it was very close from the Cemetery as I had been walking all day, good to take a break and eat/have a drink. I did the math while I was waiting for my check, to get back to my Hostel it would be 27 blocks, haha, Yea I did it, took me about an hour.

Haha, yea I got served beer in this thing, full of ice.

Restaurant.

Milanesa, ham and cheese. In reality Mariana in Cordoba made me a better Milanesa, homemade.

Friday Night

My friend Ceci had to plan a bachelorette party on Friday night, so I was free for the night. I met two more Chilenas (conty and cote) and a Colombiana, Natalia, another Argentine(forget), and a Brazilian joined us later in the night. We bought some fernet, vodka, and some coke and sprite. While we went out to buy the drinks I tried the Argentine version of empandadas, they are a lot smaller than Chilean version, and they don't have seafood/cheese, my favorite kind. Anyway we all just hung out in the hostel patio(hostels in Argentina have an open area in the middle of the building called a patio/to smoke drink). However, I was told by the Colombian(Natalia) that I don't know the first thing about salsa, so those classes I took for a month did nothing for the Colombian I guess, but I think I did woo her(haha) with my fleeting skills of ballroom. Anyway we drank and conversed all night. I had some pretty good conversation with the Chilenas(Cote and Conty) about the problems they are having with their education system(ie strikes), and the huge difference between the north and south of Chile compared to the Central area(or Santiago). Only Natalia spoke English, so I was practicing my Spanish all night.

Dining area/bar of the hostel in Buenos Aires. Also where Natalia, Ceci, and I hung out before heading to her friend's place on Saturday.

Saturday

I helped one of the Chilenas, Cote move into her new apartment and then Cote, Natalia and I went to lunch. We went to a Cafe/Restaurante and I got a pizza, because I wanted to try the Argentine version of pizza. It wasn't too bad, but nothing like Chicago pizza(I'm sorry, we are so spoiled). I got Prosciutto on my pizza, reminded me of my late grandfather who was Italian, he would always bring Prosciutto to our house when he would come to visit or he would have some when we would visit him. So all in all it was delicious. After packed all my stuff for the night, because I knew I was not going to sleep that night. Took a nap and waited for my friend Ceci to come to the hostel before we went to her friend's place before heading to a disco. Also there was a bachelorette party full of Argentine girls. They had bunch penis shaped stuff, haha yea at least the part of the our cultures are the same.

As you can see the penis shaped candles, They all stayed at the hostel that night, so that leaves me to believe that they all lived with their parents. because they didn't pre-game at one of their apartments or houses, they really didn't like the gringo asking to take a photo of them.. haha

Ceci, Yo, and Natalia.

So we went to Ceci's friend's place to pregame a bit before heading to the disco. I think we got there around midnight, we had some interesting conversation about animal rights. As 2 of the 4 girls there were animal activists. Ceci was the only one that spoke English really well. So again I was practicing my Spanish, I would like to think I did pretty well. We drank Fernet and Coca, which has to be 'the drink' of Argentina. We didn't leave Ceci's friend's place(sorry I am terrible with names) until 3:30am to go to the disco.

Oh yes, more Fernet.

5 Argentine women and me in a car. They might have been crazy, or they drank a lot before I got there, ahah. They were fun nonetheless. Also the driver didn't drink and was a good driver. But if there are 2 lanes in a street in Argentina, there will not be two lanes or cars, but three. They are crazy, and I thought the Dan Ryan was bad. You CANNOT drive aggressively here, you WILL get into an accident....

It was a nice 'night club' filled with 20-something year olds dancing. Yes same rules that apply in Chile, dancing the usual 2 feet apart, no grinding really. Oh and BOLETOS are in effect here, need to go to the cashier before going to the bar, with your ticket to buy a drink.... (yo lo odio)We stayed until around 6, Ceci and her friend dropped me off, and I had a taxi bring me to the airport from the hostel, I left at 7 am. Waited for my flight to Santiago. Customs took forever at the airport, waited another hour and a half in Santiago, and arrived in Arica at around 7:30 pm. Slept on both flights. 7 am to 7:30 pm, a longggg day. The flight from BsAs to Santiago was only and hour and a half. It was finally nice to back 'home' or in Arica. Traveling and drinking/dancing/no sleeping takes a lot out of you...

Burro - donkey, but the way its pronounced is burocracia - bureaucracy. I love it, I actually took this in Cordoba, but it gets my point across on how I feel about the boletos...

Traveling

I think traveling alone is a completely different experience, but one where you learn a lot. I am glad I did solo. You really get to know how things are run, meet new people, and learn how to take care of yourself more than you would if you were with a group. I had a very interesting conversation in Cordoba with Mariana and her mom. That their culture, or perhaps latin culture in general is a lot different. I mean my host mom and host uncle live with my host mom's parents still. Mariana said she had a hard time leaving her home for the first time for a week during her high school graduation trip with a bunch of friends. People normally stay with their parents until they are 30, in the states people would start to worry about you(this may be changing since our recession/depression). Mariana and her mom were telling me that people don't really like to leave their family, as they are super close with their parents until they basically get married. They are not really off on their own often. Obviously our culture is a bit different as in college/university we live on our own and that taste of freedom is enough for us to want to get our own place and live on our own. With respect to their family circles being closer to ours, I don't know if that is a complete truth, but since they do live with their families longer, it is a comparison that can be made. Hopefully my trip to Argentina has taught Mariana that you should open your eyes/mind to other cultures and try to travel even if you can only do it alone. I wish I had more time in Argentina as I think their culture is very different than the Chilean culture. Since I have lived with a Chilean family for 4 months, I know a lot about Chilean culture. I have that want/hunger to get to know more about Argentina after just a small taste... This is not my last/only time down here(south America), after traveling I don't know if that want will cease...

Also traveling solo, I believe makes you aware of your surroundings a bit. I was not relying on someone to get me to where I needed to go, I had to take my map out and look like a complete tourist, I mean if I got lost, I was alone, but that didn't happen often, and I was really only alone in the street while exploring the city during the day. I was with people at night, another thing, it always helps to have local friends, ie Mariana and Ceci. I got lucky that Mariana's family had a birthday party, because I got to experience a bit of their culture... All in all it was a great experience, one I wish to do again.

Other things I saw in BsAs, I love my parents.