Recoleta!

Supermercado

Stacey and I began the morning with a trip to Carrefour, the largest and most efficient supermercado we have found. I bought groceries for an entire week or two for only $20! By the end of a summer of paying for food, I think snacking will be removed or at least less common in my diet.

Exploring Recoleta

The other side of Recoleta, the neighborhood we live in, has a park called Plaza Francia and a lot of attractions, so we made those our Saturday activity. With 15,900 steps on my pedometer at the end, here are all the places we conquered:

Recoleta Cemetery

This cemetery is one of Argentina's biggest landmarks and where a lot of its most prominent residents are buried, and I did not understand until seeing it why it was such a big tourist attraction. The graves are all huge and above-ground, and many of these statues and gravesites are named after a family and its members are placed in the various drawers. Besides having Evita buried here, a lot of the famous members also have streets named after them, so I enjoyed seeing where these people were and reading about their history.

The entrance to the cemetery

The grave of Evita, Eva Perón, one of the most popular stops at the cemetery

What the inside of the boxes look like, with the coffin, artwork and more.

Living family members have keys to enter the gravesites and some of them even have a downstairs area. They will go in and put pictures and flowers in the room.

A typical passageway in the cemetery, with all of the standing tombstones.

Centro Cultural Recoleta and

El Museo de Bella Arte

Although we didn't take too much time in these places since I'm kind of art-ed out, we walked through these beautiful museums! This view below is of the market from the Centro Cultural, which is lined with yellow columns.

La Iglesia de Pilar

Upon arriving to the heart of Recoleta before the cemetery, you see this church. Named after Pilar, the interior was gorgeous!

Plaza Francia

This park is full of greenery and a statue, and is a great place to take walks! The market is right next to it on the weekends.

Rodocrosita and the market

Outside Plaza Francia on Saturdays from 9 am to 6 pm, vendors sell jewelry, mate cups, leather, purses and more. The official stone of Argentina, rodocrosita, is a beautiful pink color and I bought a necklace and chain for only $5! The prices at the market in pesos are the same as they would cost in US dollars!

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A rodocrosita ring

Statue of General Alvear

Law School at Universidad de Buenos Aires

We had no idea what this huge-columned building would be, originally assuming it looked like a museum. Stacey and I entered out of curiosity and it was Buenos Aires' law school, which definitely shows that Argentines value this degree. Other post-graduate degrees are available, but it specializes in law/derecho.

Stacey and I on the bridge that crosses Avenida de Libertador,

Law school on the right

La Floralis Generica

This reminds me of the bean at Millenium Park, and is located in United Nations Square in downtown Recoleta. Called "the flower," it was designed in 2000 and placed in the square in 2002 and opens up each morning at sunrise and closes at sunset. Stacey and I felt very accomplished as we found it after seeing it in so many photos on the internet!

Pobre Stacey!

Each one of my roommates came home individually after running errands, and Stacey had yet another unfortunate experience this evening (as if getting her wallet and credit cards stolen on the Subte was not enough). Our apartment has one key to enter our 5th floor room, and another to enter the building's one door. There is a doorman at all times on weekdays, and before 8 p.m., you can "buzz" anyone into the building by pushing a button. Since it was Saturday at 9 p.m., none of this existed. She put her front door key into the front door, and it got stuck in the lock, inhibiting anyone from entering or exiting the building. Ten people outside (no exaggeration) tried getting it out, and nothing could be done from the inside either. The locksmith came about 25 minutes later and everything got worked out, but only Stacey would have such an experience happen to her for doing the right thing. Here were some funny aspects of the story:

• Since we don't live in this apartment all year like most do, they were calling her the "extranjero" or outsider, which made it more normal for such an occurrence to happen
• Jordin came downstairs and screamed, OH MY GOSH! IS IT STUCK?! to a crowd of six Argentines who don't speak English. I couldn't even reply because I was crying of laughter, but 30 seconds later, one boy replied, "Sí." He probably had no idea what those words meant, but her expression made him understand.

This actually happened.

Other things Stacey has done correctly that have somehow ended badly:

• Received a $10 parking ticket for PAYING the meter
• Got rear-ended by a car when she was driving perfectly fine
• Gotten her wallet stolen on the Subway after finally figuring out the system
• Locked the whole apartment in or out for using the right key.

A Streetcar Named Desire/Un Tranvía Llamado Deseo

Buenos Aires's main street mimicking Broadway, Avenida de Corrientes, hosts a lot of plays and musicals throughout the year. As Elizabeth is a theater double-major, she reads up a lot on this information and Stacey and I joined her in seeing A Streetcar Named Desire in Spanish tonight at Teatro Apolo. I read this play and watched the movie junior year of high school, so I was aware of the setting and plot line. Seeing a performance in Spanish was a cool experience that I'm glad we participated in. You know the acting was good when I was able to understand the entire play without picking up on every word, and even with the faster dialect, I understood a majority of the lines! The musical Chicago is on Corrientes so who knows, maybe we'll see that next!

Avenida de Corrientes, the Broadway of Buenos Aires

"You can't assume anything...we're in South America."

This week we utilized the bus system (colectivos) for the first time, and applied our knowledge (or lack thereof) to take a colectivo to Avenida de Corrientes for the play tonight. We arrived promptly and right at the intersection where we needed to be, so we figured you would take the same bus number home. False assumption!! Rather than circling the city, this colectivo line goes in one direction only. Elizabeth, Stacey and I unfortunately ended up 45 minutes away from our house at 2 a.m. after the show because we took this bus line. The blonde hair and English was an excuse for such a wrongdoing, so the bus driver instructed us to where the same line in the opposite direction, back to our apartment, would leave and when. We FINALLY got home after an hour and a half commute!

Reason #52892347 why I hate Movistar--our phone provider:

The 30-minute phone card I activated on my cell phone is already done (figures, I'm the first one who needs more minutes on my phone), but this is odd because I RARELY if never use it. Each text message sent and received costs money (or time) from this 30 minute amount, but we don't know how much. So I activated a new card and Movistar sent me FOUR text messages to tell me that it worked. FOUR. For all I know, that could be four of my 30 minutes. Thanks Movistar!