Category Archives: Culture/History

Exploring Buenos Aires

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We had another full day of exploring Buenos Aires together. The first thing we decided was that we weren’t really interested in figuring out how to take the bus or the subway yet and that we’d rather walk.

So we set off with the goal of going to the MALBA, Museo de Arte Latinamericano de Buenos Aires, which is suppose to have art from all of Latin America from 1945 – present. We walked down Avenida del Libertador which is lined by numerous green spaces and tourist destinations.

Our first stop was the Plaza Naciones Unidas which is park containing a very large metal sculpture of a flower standing 75 ft high called Flores Genérica. The flower was designed and donated by artist Eduardo Catalano. The flower opens and closes mechanically each day, mimicking a real flower opening and closing with the sun. It was quite stunning!

Our second stop was the MALBA. Their collection of Latin American art could be described generally as modern art. They had some cool pieces including: a wooden bench whose ends curved up and around and down the wall, a set of moving malleable metal circles whose shadows made intriguing designs on the wall, some painted metal figures, a seascape whose bottom portion was a functioning fish tank, and a work with large prisms.

Other sections of the museum were filled with special exhibits. One called “Bye Bye American Pie” which documented an American view of war in the U.S. (including the war on poverty, drugs, welfare, abroad, etc…) through the pieces of 6 U.S. artists. The other was an exhibit of work by León Ferrari depicting an odd mix of religious artwork with erotic and war based images superimposed. Both of these exhibits had warnings stating that children under 18 should be accompanied by an adult. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen such an odd mix of art under one roof before.

Nothing was planned after that so we just started to wander. We found ourselves playing on some exercise equipment in a park and wandering through a mesh of street vendors near the Cultural Center of Buenos Aires. They were selling everything from leather book coverings to jewelry, to maté paraphernalia, to clothes, to artwork. It was all very beautiful.

By the time we navigated all the little booths we found ourselves at the entrance to Recoleta Cemetery, the main cemetery in the city. It is filled with mausoleums, both old and new, made up of concrete and marble and any building material in between, and in various states of disrepair. The mausoleums usually had ornate iron doors with glass to protect the shrines inside. All the shrines were different, but most had some kind of religious ikon and decoration. Below these would sit the actual coffins or small urns. Each mausoleum had a staircase leading below-ground. I couldn’t figure out if this was for more storage, as each mausoleum could be for an entire family or set of families, or if it was for drainage purposes. We wandered around for a while, enjoying the relative quiet in comparison to the rest of the bustling city.

In front of the Recoleta Cemetery and the Cultural Center in the park is a magnificent tree. Its branches stretch out  about 50 m in every direction and are supported by large beams that keep them up off the ground. A fence of about 15-20 m in diameter surrounded the trunk. It was incredible, but alas no picture. You’ll just have to use your imaginations!

On the way back to our hotel we stopped by a grocery store and picked up some sandwiches which we later consumed in our hotel room as a reward for our new discoveries!

Walkabout: Buenos Aires Edition

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Sorry for the delay in blog entries. We’ve been traveling! Yay!

When Asa and I arrived in Buenos Aires it was a beautiful sunny day. The boat ride was really pleasant despite all the children running around. When we disembarked, our first order of business was to get “the picture” of the boat. We thankfully bypassed the lines of people waiting for bags and headed straight out the door. We wandered around the corner and instead of seeing the perfect shot of the boat, we came face to face with a three-masted tall ship docked in the harbor, the frigate Libertidad. It was open for tours, but we had all our stuff with us so decided not to partake. We got the best picture of our Buquebus boat that we could and headed toward the hotel.

As luck would have it, the street that the Buquebus terminal is on was one of the cross streets for our hotel. All we had to do was walk about 8 blocks and we were there, the Dazzler Tower Maipu. We walked in and told them we had a reservation. We managed to conduct the entire check-in process in Spanish and understood just about everything we were told. Success!

The room was just like any other room in any other decent hotel and had all the amenities. We were on the fifth floor, which was a little unfortunate because we already know the floor numbers up to five. We were hoping that the elevator could teach us the words “sixth”, “seventh”, “eighth”, etc… Oh well! Can’t say that the view was spectacular, but what can one expect in a city full of tall buildings stained by years of pollution.

Anyway, we dropped our stuff and headed out to explore the city. Out first stop was the obelisk. It looked like a mini Washington monument surrounded by a sea of cars. It is positioned in the middle of one of the largest roads in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio which has 24 lanes. All this we determined in subsequent days, because at our first look on Saturday afternoon the road was completely closed and barriers were set up everywhere. There was a rally car race through downtown Buenos Aires TC2000, with the Obelisk as one turnaround point. People were everywhere trying to get a good look at the cars as they came wizzing past.

We followed the race through the streets trying to get our own good look. We ended up with a fairly good view and quickly realized that there were more interesting things to be seen. We found ourselves in a large square opposite the Casa Rosada, the government building where Evita made her famous speech rallying the people of Argentina. They light the building with an insane number of bright pink lights, hence the Casa Rosada or pink house. As it was just starting the get dark we were able to revel in all it’s glory.

As we were taking the requisite photos and remarking about the extreme pinkness, we heard a trumpet. Of course we were just in time for the ceremonial lowering of the flag in the square. Seven uniformed guards performed the ceremony and then marched into the Casa Rosada.

After this we meandered our way to Puerto Madero, or the port in Buenos Aires. There are several pricy restaurants overlooking the port, another three-masted tall ship, and some ice cream stores. The port itself is divided into 4 or 5 sections via bridges. The outer-most bridge, closest to the Buquebus dock, opens every hour by rotating the entire section of the road that runs across the water into a parallel configuration which allows boats to pass through. Even the Puente de la Mujer, a fashionable bridge in the middle of the port, seemed to be capable of rotating to allow boats to pass. The yacht club was located in the outer-most section of the port and looked fairly upscale.

At this point, we were hungry and went to find a place to eat some dinner. We finally settled on a touristy spot on one of the main streets. We easily ordered Milanesa de ternera napolitana with french fries for two. Milanesa is a common breading for meats and can be found covering chicken or beef. It can then be fried or baked. Napolitana is a topping that includes a cut of ham, cheese, tomatoes, and some tomato sauce.

Fútbol Game!

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Last night Asa and I were lucky enough to attend a local fútbol game. Our friend Carlos won some tickets to the game and invited us along for the fun!

Just a quick note about fútbol outside the United States and in Uruguay. Fútbol is a “national pastime” in many countries and in Uruguay especially. The Uruguayan Futbol Association (the country’s governing body for the sport) was founded in 1900. The national team has won the World Cup twice; once in 1930 during the first World Cup Tournament (also held in Uruguay) and again in 1950. They came in 4th during the 2010 World Cup and have won the Copa América a record 15 times, including in 2011. The success of the Uruguayan national team has been cited as amazing by many in the press because of the country’s small size (about 3.5 million people). Check out the great info about the team on Wikipedia.

In short: Fútbol is important here. Children start playing in local leagues when they are very young (i.e. when they can run and not fall over immediately) and they keep playing. There are numerous teams in the country’s professional league, the two most popular being “Nacional” and “Peñarol”.

When there are important games on television the city stops functioning (literally). Carlos told us that people will leave work early, stores will close, and people can only be found where they can see the game (i.e. at home or in bars). This type of interest/obsession with a sport can only be rivaled in the United States by the Super Bowl, which comes in at a very very distant second.

The game last night was Nacional vs. a team from Chile. It was one of several games in the Copa Santender Libertadores that occurs from January to July and involves teams from 11 South American countries. The game was at the open air Centenario Stadium. On our way to the stadium a crowd of fans from Chile were walking down the middle of the street yelling and carrying on, stopping traffic. Of course this was about 2 miles from the stadium.

The turn-out for the game was pretty poor because of a cold rain forecast in the weather. We went prepared with raincoats, thick socks, and beanies. Despite the small crowd as a whole, the die-hard fans were there in throngs. Clubs in the city get together and get seats behind the home-side goal, where they spend the entire game singing, dancing, lighting flares and small fireworks, and in general being the “life of the party”.

There was a huge fireworks display as the home team, Nacional, took the field. Carlos said that sometimes they fire off so many that they have to wait for the smoke to clear before they can start the game.

Vendors walk around the stadium selling various things to eat including: potato chips, peanuts, coffee, tortas fritas (fried bread), and sodas. Just like anywhere else, prices were a bit more expensive than in the supermarket or local corner store. There were police patrolling everywhere, but weren’t checking bags or preventing people from bringing things into the stadium. We brought some sandwiches and cookies.

The game itself was fairly frustrating. The home team, Nacional, had a ton of shots on goal and runs down the field, but for whatever reason couldn’t score. There were lots of yellow cards. A man sitting behind us even yelled “tarjeta (i.e. card)” every time a player hit the ground. I guess that’s part of the recent efforts to try and crack down on fouls in the game. Nacional managed to score in the second half with a nicely deflected ball from the heel of a foreword; home team wins 1-0.

The game was a blast. Asa and I are looking forward to other games, as we imagine each game has a different “feel” based on who is playing and the weather. We really want to see a Nacional vs. Peñarol match. Here’s to hoping that there will be one while we are here and that we can get tickets!

Check out some short videos I took with my camera: Video 1 and Video 2.

Living in a land with no name

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Raul stopped by for a bit earlier this week. For those not in the know, Raul is our landlord. He does sound production for movies all over the place and is currently working in Mexico. He was in town and called to see if he could stop by and check on The Little House. He came over and we hung out on the patio for a while. Among many other bits of knowledge and wisdom to be covered in other posts, he told us a bit about the land in which we live.

“You know that Uruguay isn’t the name of the country, right?”

I guess we all looked a little dumbfounded, he took that as his cue to educate us. He proceeded to tell us that the official name of the country is the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. Now, to the uneducated (that would be us), this sounded like a perfectly reasonable country name. As it turns out, as this name is further analyzed, it’s really just a description of a geographical region. Oriental meaning of or to the east. Republic.. pretty obvious a country with elected representatives. Uruguay is apparently the name of the river running by us here in the indigenous tongue. So, we’re actually just in the country to the east of the river.

To compound this he continued, “Well the city you’re living in doesn’t also has no name.”

Raul informed us that Montevideo can actually be broken down into Monte VI-D-E-O. Which was the Spanish Navigational Shorthand for Monte VI de Este a Oeste, meaning the sixth mountain from east to west. Saying anything around here is a mountain is a bit generous but we’ll let that slide.

All together now! We’re living near the sixth mountain from east to west in the country to the east of the river. It may be a bit overly dramatic to say we’re living in a land without a name, but etymology is always interesting.