Frank Walsh comes to Argentina!

I wouldn't trade this past weekend for anything.  I had the wonderful opportunity to have my Dad come down to visit me here in the city, and it was absolutely wonderful!

My dad, me and my host mom!

He arrived Thursday afternoon after some interesting experiences traveling, but nonetheless he made it! I walked to his hotel after school and then we walked from his hotel to my homestay to meet my host mom! My host mom had invited him over for a "reception" as she called it, but in a weird turn of events she actually half forgot about it. In a way, I'm glad that happened because my dad was able to see my host mom in her true colors, frazzled, frantic, and absolutely hilarious.  When she arrived home she was in an absolute panic and it was pretty funny, but we calmed her down and gave her the book my dad had made of pictures of my hometown, which she loved.  She made appetizers and offered us drinks like "vino tinto." (Yes, just red wine.  The bottle literally just said red wine, no actual type.) Thursday night had to have been one of my favorite nights on the trip so far, and I'm so glad my dad got to meet my host mom.

The weather forecast for the entire weekend looked grim, but I secretly hoped that we would get some sunshine, and luckily we did! Friday was beautiful and sunny, and I wasn't going to complain.  We walked from his hotel along the Bosque de Palermo, and eventually made our way towards Plaza Italia.  While walking along the road, my dad and I were stopped by a man, who asked to see the photos on my camera because he had gotten a phone call from inside the United States embassy that they thought I was taking pictures of the building (which is apparently not allowed) and that security outside had to check it out.  Ironically enough, I hadn't even taken my camera out of my bag since the night before, and my dad was the one with the huge DSLR in a backpack behind him. I spoke to the man in spanish and explained that I hadn't taken any pictures, but for some reason they thought I was some sort of threat to american national security. Not only that, but the US embassy wasn't even pretty and I wouldn't have wanted photos of it anyway.

Once we got to the plaza we explored the Botanical Gardens of the city, and then made our way down towards Plaza de Mayo and the Puerto Madero area. I wanted to show my dad all of the cool touristy things when I knew the weather would be nice, so we did a lot of walking! Eventually we were both exhausted and headed back to his hotel just to lay around and watch some television. That night I took him to his first parilla restaurant (steak, chorizo, etc), and we had a wonderful evening.

La Flor

Saturday was another surprisingly beautiful day in the city. The rain held out and we headed down to Recoleta so I could show him the Recoleta Cemetery and the weekend artisan's market.  First we stopped so I could FINALLY see the flower! La flor is this giant metal sculpture in Recoleta that  looks like a flower and actually opens and closes like a real flower! It was extremely impressive in person. After that we headed to the cemetery, where we walked around the majority of it, getting lost between the mausoleums and monuments and appreciating the beauty.  After the cemetery we walked around the market and bought a few things as gifts. It was a really beautiful day overall and I had a great time. Saturday night we had tickets to a tango show (starring my professor), so we went to go see it at the legendary Cafe Tortoni! It was a great show, and I even got to dance on stage with my professor mid-performance!

Café Tortoni, and the stage where I danced

Sunday the weather was unfortunately not in our favor, but luckily we were able to head to San Telmo for the antiques/crafts market that morning before the rain hit! We were able to take shelter in a shopping mall and get some lunch before walking back towards El Obelisco in the center of city. While walking in centro we stopped outside El Teatro Colón, and then saw something super weird...

Do you ever have one of those stories that just no one believes? Well ours starts with a man on a little bike.  We were walking through centro when my dad told me to look up. When I did I saw a man riding a tiny bike with a 2 foot tall potted plant on his head.  Believe it or not, this isn't the weirdest part of the story.  It was raining too, which made it strange.  As we were standing across the street we saw another man come up with a two liter bottle of coke, and subsequently pour some of it into the other man's potted plant. The man with the plant stood up, yelled at the guy, and then tried to pour the coke out of the plant.  Clearly angry, the man with the plant told the other guy off for trying to kill his plant.  Surprisingly, the man with the soda then physically pushed the guy with the plant into the street, who then rode off in the rain.  I had no real words.

After that little moment the weather started getting pretty crappy, so we headed back to his hotel and were miserable excuses for human beings for the rest of the day.  We went out for dinner that night, got some ice cream, and overall just had a nice evening.  The next day the weather was so-so, but we decided to go out and explore some other stuff anyway. We headed back to Plaza de Mayo so we could find the San Ignacio church which has a series of underground tunnels. Unfortunately due to the holiday the church was completely closed.  After that we took a walk and I finally got to see the congressional building, which was very impressive! We walked back towards the plaza and along Calle Florida until we reached Plaza San Martin, which was very nice and had a cool clock tower.  My dad and I spent a lot of time just walking around his neighborhood and exploring all the city has to offer.

Unfortunately I had to say goodbye to my dad yesterday, which was not an easy thing to do because the weekend was not nearly long enough. Overall this weekend really made me appreciate home so much more, but it also gave me a greater appreciation of the city.

Beyond that, this was the weekend I finally realized how much I've learned here. Three months ago, I would never have been able to fully translate for my dad who speaks no spanish to my host mom who speaks no english. My confidence now is so much higher speaking spanish, and I finally realize how much I've grown as a person. This experience is one of those that I'm never going to forget and one that truly affected me as a person, and made me a better version of who I was.

The next coming weeks are pretty crazy looking. I have a day trip this coming weekend and a full weekend trip the following weekend to Iguazu falls! In reality, I only have ONE MONTH left here and I'm not quite sure I'm ok with that.  The days and weeks seem to be going faster and 33 days will be here before I know it.  It's a bitter sweet feeling, but I know for sure I'm going to be upset to leave this place. Argentina has it's ups and downs but the goods far outweigh the bads.

In the words of my host mom, "Qué voy a hacer?"

Love and miss everyone at home! Besos!

- Meagan

One Week Down...

Ah, the past week has been absolutely crazy.  It's been a big mix of traveling as a group and exploring our neighborhoods on our own, but it's been a blast.

But before I begin, I have one more concern to add to my list of things that are incredibly weird here: Dog poop.  Everywhere.  People seriously need to learn to pick up their dog poop here, but I guess that's just the culture.  The street that my school is on reeks of the smell and its horrendous. But I digress...

 We had our orientation on Monday and celebrated Gita's birthday.  I don't think there's any way I'll ever be able to adjust to the way of life and going out here. Most places don't get crowded until 2 AM, and apparently its socially acceptable to just sleep the entire next morning/early afternoon away.  It's obviously an adjustment but we're working on it!

On Tuesday a few of us headed down to see the Plaza de Mayo and Puerto Madero areas of the city. Man, I could spend all of my days down there with no complaints whatsoever.  Our first adventure was walking the wrong way out of the subte but that lead us to El Obelisco which is absolutely beautiful.  It's pretty much a much smaller version of the Washington Monument, but it gives the same effect.  El Obelisco is set in the middle of a street with God only knows how many lanes, but it's wonderful!

Our group at El Obelisco

Me at the plaza!

After that, we continued to walk in the wrong direction, which eventually lead us to a really pretty park with a fountain with a statue of two dancers in the center, where we did typical tourist things like pose with them.  After we realized it was the wrong way, we turned around and headed back towards our subte stop.  We then headed down to La Plaza de Mayo, and it was beautiful! It was a beautiful park area in the center of some very busy streets.  There were little kiosks of vendors trying to sell touristy-type things, but that's to be expected.  There were two major highlights of the plaza.  The first being the Pirámide de Mayo in the center, and the second being La Casa Rosada.  

El pirámide

Part of La Casa Rosada... it's very big!

So after we explored the plaza are, we headed down to Puerto Madero, where I decided I could live for the rest of my life.  The water is lined with boats and restaurants where you can sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather (Though, the people here think it's FREEZING!). While waiting for a few of our other friends to meet us, we stumbled on a museum on a boat that was only 2 pesos to get on to.  So we took an hour or so to explore the levels of the boat and climb around inside, and it was actually pretty cool! We sat down for our lunch, and all did the very american thing of ordering hamburgers, but sorry we're not sorry.  One thing I'm never going to get used to here is that there are no free refills, and you always have to pay for water.  All drinks here come out of a bottle... never a tap. So because of that, if you order a coke, you'll pay about 16 pesos but if you want more, it's another 16.  It's very frustrating because I would prefer to just have free water, but that's just not the way it works here. 

We did have our first super awkward begging experience while at that restaurant.  First, a man and his young child came up to our table, and asked if he could have the rest of our food.  Since none of us expected this at a nice restaurant, we chose to ignore him and continue with our meal, but he stayed and didn't move from our table and repeated the same thing over and over again.  Eventually, his wife and another child came up and were literally hovering over us asking each of us individually about our food. One of the girls gave them the rest of her french fries thinking they would go away, but they didn't.  The most peculiar thing about this entire experience was that the wait staff didn't do a single thing to stop it.  It really put a damper on the dining experience for all of us, and made everything incredible awkward.  After telling them we wouldn't give them anything else, and them being less than appreciative, they finally left and we were able to move on. 

The boat museum!

So we let the restaurant and headed to walk around a bit, and Puerto Madero is just so beautiful! That was pretty much the end of that day.  The only major things since then were our dinner and dancing with our program director, and our city bus tour on Friday.  We went to dinner a salsa/milonga/tango club, where they teach different levels of the dances while you have dinner.  It was incredibly fun and I had an absolute blast.  We got to watch our teachers put on a show and let me tell you... tango is the most beautiful thing I've ever watched.  The dancers are just so strong and so good at improvisation. Its something I need to learn how to do, or at least try to before I leave! We had our city bus tour on Friday which was pretty boring because we were stuck on a bus, but we were able to visit La Boca for about a half hour, and it was beautiful! I'll put up pictures of La Boca soon, but for now, it's time to nap! ¡Adiós!

- Meagan