Thursday, June 23, 2005

Que triste cuando se acaba

We said goodbye to my family last Monday and headed for Buenos Aires, the capital, for our last five days in Argentina. It was a sad goodbye. We had so much fun and Mark was made to feel like one of the family.

Now we’re in Buenos Aires one of the biggest cities in the world. Similar to New York in its bustling and hurried lifestyle, and to Paris in its greatness and splendor it’s also a city of contrasts, where the excesses of the monuments and of the rich clash with the poverty left by a horrid recession. We’ve already walked through most of the city. My favorite part is San Telmo, the old neighborhood of the newly emigrated from Italy or Spain. Today it’s full of anticuarians and bohemians. Every store is like a museum and we found the best restaurant there, more like a local cafeteria. We’ve been to touristy and colorful Boca, visited Plaza de Mayo (where we’ll be returning today to watch the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo mourn for the disappeared), gotten tickets for the opera tonight at Teatro Colon, and visited the apartment complexes of the dead and rich at the Recoleta cemetery (where Evita is buried). But my favorite so far has been the Museum of Immigration, housed in the old Immigrant Hotel, a huge building complex where people from all over Europe where given housing, food, language courses, and helped to find jobs when they first arrived to Buenos Aires. They have a database where you can search for relatives for a fee. I tried it out hoping to find the dates when my great grandparents (my grandma Chola’s parents) came from Italy. I couldn’t find them but it seems someone with my greatgrandmothers last name and place of birth came to Argentina in the 1920s. I’ll have to ask my aunt to see if they might be a relative or not. Anyways, that’s it for now. We’ll be back on Sunday so see you (or talk to you) soon,

Giovi

Cousin Virginia and my grandma drinking mate


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Originally uploaded by La gio.

Mark is a Newel's Old Boys fan


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Originally uploaded by La gio.

My uncle Tola making asado


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Originally uploaded by La gio.

Asado


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Originally uploaded by La gio.

Juan and Laura, the happy couple


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Originally uploaded by La gio.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

of Weddings and Meat

Well, as you can see I haven´t been updating very frequently. The last time I managed to drag myself across the street of my grandma´s apartment to check my spam I convinced Mark to post for us. I am in complete vacation mode. I know at some point I´ll have to return to my previous life with the keeping in touch with world events, and the being responsible and laborious, but for now that moment does not exist. Mark and I have created a very nice routine for ourselves. We get up around 11am, if we are feeling restless sometimes we forgo my grandmas coffee and medíalunas for coffee and medialunas outside of the apartment at a cafe, then we walk around the city center, then we have lunch, then we do touristy stuff, then we chill drinking mate and having tea, then we walk around some more, then we have dinner around 10, then we might go out with my cousins to a bar to catch some live music. Not bad, eh?
Well in bigger news,
Se caso el Juani!
My cousin Juan Pablo got married last Friday to Laura, his girlfriend of 8 years and the mother of the new addition to the family, the future Julieta or Santiago who is currently six months prepartum.
So you know how argentines like to party hard and late, right? Well the reception started at 9 and ended at 4:30 am, just after my grandma danced a tango with my uncle Tola. There was tons of food and drinks and tossing of my cousin up in the air, it was excellent. I danced liked I haven´t danced in my life.
And today we had the world-famous ASADO!! Vegetarians should stop reading at this point because their sensibilities WILL be offended. My family got together with the family of Laura to share in a small cow. Basically you eat everything, steaks of course but also, chorizo, sausage, tripe (small and large intestines), kidneys, mollejas (salivary glands), morcilla (blood sausage). All of course seasoned with chimichurri. Delish! Don´t knock it til you try it because down here they really know how to cook meat. And that´s coming from me, who is at best an occasional steak burrito, tri-tip eater at home. Generally not very enthusiastic but here I can´t help but have more beef than I would normally eat in a year.

I´ll really try to post pictures soon,
un abrazo

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Esta Mark Aqui

After just three days, I can tell you the fundamentals of Argentina (y Argentinos). Here, futbol and meat reign supreme, usually accompanied by Quilmes cerveza. Also, the primary cultural undercurrent is familia and friends. There's a closeness here not found in the U.S. There seems to be two reasons for this. First, it's a carry-over from the Spanish and Italian influence of the Old World. Argentina is a confluence of these two cultures. Second, there is far less 'dispersal' here than in the U.S., which affords an opportunity to keep family and friends close (both literally and figuratively). Giovi's grandmother, for intance, has probably spent 90% of her life within 2 blocks of her present residence (she will be 86 years old in one week). This is of course not to say that Chola isn't worldly. Anyway, enough blogging para mi. Argentina y Argentinos es muy comodo, relajante, y placentero.

Ciao

Monday, June 06, 2005

Culture Shock

Men kiss on the cheeks.
Old fashioned elevators with wire doors.
Tons of internet cafes.
Mate (I´ll post a picture of it soon)
Dinner at ten, going for drinks at midnight... out with the boys until 6am.
Also, sadly, there´s still lots of poverty.
I´ll write more soon,

un abrazo,

Giovi

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

First Post Travelogue

I'm writing from an exotic land, where curious looking people roam the streets talking to themselves, doing weird hand claps while humming the tune of Star Wars. Where are we? That's right we haven't left Berkeley yet. This actually just a test to see if this thing works.