Cultural Immersion -- birthday edition by Laura

After ten days of toiling with the Krishnas we returned to Buenos Aires filled with youthful exhuberance and a desire to spend our days and nights in a sliiightly different manner from our time on the huerta. It is true that I have high expectations, yet I will freely admit that the three of us have been doing exceptional work keeping in line with the BsAs way of life. There have been, however, some casualities as all of a sudden, we are now really old...I was the last to succumb with today being my 23rd birthday. I am told memory is the first thing to go with old age, so I will begin the weekly recap with today. Dinner is being prepared to the sound of the Rolling Stones and is a symbolic culmination of our last few days spent in Belgrano -- an area of the city that is a bit quieter and residential, but will forever be known to us as CHINATOWN. For real, we found chinatown and it has served us right in every gastronomical aspect possible -- we not only found the first peanut butter that wasn't an 'import' (overpriced skippy) AND every type of spicy deliciousness possible. We have yet to emphasize our various challenges with the Argentine aversion for spice and our adoration of it. My salt addiction aside, we are all unaccustomed to garlic and black pepper being considered 'spicy'. Alas, for my birthday dinner tonight we are joining the forces of peanut butter and salsa picante to make dleicious Thai noodles (I am being told by the sous chef in the kitchen that it must be mentioned how delicious the smell is around us right now because a) they are cooking with ginger, mint, cilantro, and garlic b) they have talent c) it is springtime here and everything smells good).

Jess being especially excited that we found Chinese 'pasta de mani'

Our new Argentine friend, Juampi, examining his first experience with peanut butter and jelly

skeptical, yet satisfied!

Our culinary achievements aside, we have been engaging with the culture of Buenos Aires' past and present. We have been going to museums almost on the daily and have been putting our degrees to work (again) by discussing the artists, movements, and curatorial decisions made. The 'second most highly regarded fine arts museum of Argentina' is in Rosario and we enjoyed discussing the unique decision to add black shoe prints to the walls, the use of tattered and crooked wall labels, and hanging white paintings on white walls.

Rosario´s attempt at curating a museum show...I know I sound pretensious but that is what my education earned me.

Alternately, the 'most highly regarded fine arts museum of Argentina' here in BsAs had a great collection of Argentine and Latin American art spanning the last 500 years -- we especially enjoyed the contemporary art which lent itself to our better understanding of the local culture and how it differs from that which we are used to seeing in contemporary European and States art.

Two more ways in which we have embraced the Argentine culture is through lounging and dancing, and then dancing some more. Last week we went to a drum circle concert called 'la bomba del tiempo' that everyone (including us) from the States must tell their friends to go to, rightfully so, because we haven't heard so music English spoken since we began our travels. The concert was amazing although we were initially turned off by the idea of paying to go to a drum circle and being surrounded by hordes of dreadlocked kids and the wafting scent of patchouli. We danced and danced and then Jess and I joined in the all-male mosh pit finale because 1) we were the only girls big enough not to be mauled 2) girls that aren´t from the States just don't act like that. It was exhilirating and we emerged triumphant with raspy voices and dirty feet as our only casualities. On Jess' birthday we went to an 'after-office' party which are particularly popular on Wednesday nights and are the perfect place to go if you are interested in having middle aged men in suits breathily whispering sweet nothings on your neck and carressing your hair as you walk by. Needless to say, we soldiered on and danced, danced, danced.

For the weekend we headed West a few hours to Rosario -- a city often preferred over Buenos Aires for its slower pace of life and more manageable size; it is also home to the Stalin-esque monument to the national flag, which was undeniably impressive. Rosario is also well-known as it is situated next to the Rio Parana where we did much lounging in parks and on the beach (just for the cultural immersion, of course). The beach was really beautiful as it sits on the periphery of an undeveloped island on the opposite side of the river as the city. While in Rosario we danced (noticing a trend?), continued to observe that youth culture is pretty much the same regardless of country, and empanadas are easy to make and delicious to eat.

I will abruptly end this posting as we have actually already eaten our delicious dinner and must continue on with our exhilirating lifestyles!

A face that only a mother (and her two best friends, and the world) could love


Looking sagacious (because I am now 23) in a tree that is far older and more impressive than I am

Just before the birthday dinner!

for Marcus: jca 30 world 8!