A week

It seems odd to round off a semester of studies in sociology, history and economy with a couple weeks of fun and sight-seeing.

Saturday I went with Mayra ("My-ruh") to spend the night at Mayte's ("My-tay") house. We're a diverse bunch: Mayra came from Bolivia five years ago and is finishing massage studies, Mayte arrived from Peru early this year to study gastronomy, and I came from the States to learn how to speak like them (except Mayte still has her "tu" and "y"'s - which probably doesn't mean anything to you). We spent the evening chatting a lot and eating dessert first, then watched a slightly oldish but interesting movie on the Tribulation, ordered pizza and empanadas and the boys (Mayte's brother Juan and friend Pablo) joined us to watch The Longest Yard. It made us laugh enough that the Main House requested us to pipe down a little. The others started another movie but I had already seen it and went to sleep.

Sunday we all slept in late, ate, and watched another movie on TV (the 'nun' one with Whoopie Goldberg). Juan taught me some chords on the guitar. We girls managed to arrive at the church about an hour late.

Monday... I really don't remember what happened Monday.

Tuesday... Tuesday night Felipe came over to visit. Silvina and Emi lent us their roller blades. It was fun to skate after about a decade; but only a little on the sidewalk, as I didn't feel like trying the street and watching out for traffic. Maybe a good thing, since we had to quit rather soon when Felipe managed to lose some of the screws in his skates.

Wednesday afternoon I went to visit the Chacarita cementary, quite close, only twenty blocks or so away. It is enormous. I only visited a small part of it but took over fifty pictures. One part is a little city of tombs, like houses with narrow alleys between them... and you can see inside some of them. Will be linking pictures when I get back.

Thursday afternoon I went to visit the Museum of Oriental Art, only to discover it was being moved to another location. So I was stuck with the Museum of Decorative Art, which fortunately didn't turn out to be the semi-modern stuff we studied in Argentine Art. Rather, it was a house in a baroque French style, two floors, no photos allowed. Sorry. Afterwards I had time to go back and visit just about all of the Museo de Bellas Artes in a more relaxed manner, instead of hunting up subjects for Art homework. After that it was time to come back for our small group in the evening.

This morning I had planned to go to the city center and take photos of important things like the Casa Rosada (the Argentine White House), Plaza de Mayo, the obelisk, and the world's largest McDonald's. But yesterday we stayed up late to talk about something and then had to clean up the dishes to avoid more cucarachas. So let's hope it doesn't rain this afternoon, despite all the oppressive humidity. But then again, better if it rains today and doesn't rain tomorrow, since Silvina and I are going to a nearby city to visit the Museum of Natural Science (lots of dead animals) and walk around to see the city.