My first and hardest finals-- Social Psychology and Sociology-- are done! I'm halfway through (two more!), and then I'll graduate! =) As I've been saying for months now, ¨estoy a punto de recibirme¨ (I'm just about to graduate)! It gets truer every day, haha.
July 9th I celebrated Argentina's Independence Day with Nam, the American guy who moved into my house. We had a nice, colonial day! I went inside the Cabildo, one of the oldest colonial buildings in Buenos Aires, for the first time. Inside are a bunch of cool colonial artifacts: clothes from the 1800's, a printing press (which helped spread the French and American ideas that sparked the revolution), triptychs and wooden sculptures of the Virgin Mary and other virgin saints, old keys and iron chests, a wooden 'stocks' (where they cuffed prisoners' ankles, wrists, or necks, depending on the gravity of the crime), velvety/satiny red banners, lockets, and lots of other cool stuff! I don't know why I expected that museum to be kind of lame... But I'm glad I saved its awesomeness for the occasion of Independence Day!
The French girl in my house asked Fernanda what Argentineans typically do on Independence Day, and she told us that they usually celebrate by eating traditional food (kind of like we do for Thanksgiving-- right now it's the Thanksgiving-style weather here). The example she gave was 'locro y mondongo,' a kind of stew. As Nam and I were aimlessly looking for a place to eat after visiting the Cabildo, I saw an advertisement for locro y mondongo and decided to check it out. It turned out I'd stumbled upon el Mercado de las Luces, the oldest building in Buenos Aires, built in 1663!
The restaurant (former market) was made of brick and looked like catacombs. The tables were lit with old candle-lanterns and there were replicas of colonial outfits and an antique piano around. The combination of those things and the Irish music they were playing reminded me of the movie ¨The Titanic.¨ I was excited to try locro, y con razón (with excellent reason)-- it was delicious! It's a stew with lots of beans, potatoes, sausage, and pork. It reminds me of pot roast, but is possibly even better! It was a charming, Disney-esque Independence Day. =)
The next day we went to la feria de San Telmo and walked all the way down to la Casa Rosada again. After that we tried to find the Joan Miró café I passed a while ago, but I think it was closed for voting day (last Sunday Argentineans voted for the new Jefe/Jefa de Gobierno, Chief of State-- voting is obligatory here). Instead we went to a café in one of my favorite librerías, which was also nice. I'd never had coffee there!
Yesterday I took my Sociology test, which was easier than I'd expected it to be, and relaxed for the rest of the day! That night Nam and I went to Café Nefertiti, a cool café at Plaza Dorrego, and watched la Copa América (the Latin American international soccer games). Argentina beat Costa Rica 3-0! Messi, one of Argentina's players, is one of the most famous in the world.
Today I attempted to study in the morning, but was too burnt out from the last 8 days of study, and mostly just wasted time online. At 3pm I decided it was too beautiful a day to say cooped inside the house. It is like spring in the midst of winter-- beautiful! So I went to Plaza San Martín, where they've installed a giant screen for people to watch la Copa América on, and listened to this year's theme song. It's cheesy, but I like it, and the video is really uplifting and nice. ¡Vamos, Argentina! ...even though I don't care at all about sports.
Today, other than Plaza San Martín and a bit of studying, I went to Jorge's house for an excellent chicken and potato dish (which is in the oven now) and we went to el Centro Cultural Borges to see the new artwork there. There's an amazing exposition with 'photography for the blind' that I really love. The photos are based on quotes from Ernesto Sábato, one of my new favorite authors, and the contours of the objects in them are raised, for people to feel. The photos also have descriptions and Sábato quotes written in Braille.
I'll still be studying like crazy until the 20th, the date of my last final. I'll be a freer woman then! haha.
Abrazos,
Kaeli
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