Argentina Turns 200... (this post is very long, sorry)

Argentina celebrated it's bicentennial this past Tuesday, May 25, 2010. Although whether that was the real date of it's 200th anniversary is up for debate. Argentina is one of the few countries to celebrate two independence days. May 25th is celebrated as Día de la Revolución de Mayo, which marks the date of the end of the May revolution that established the first local government in Buenos Aires. That's also when the Argentine War of Independence against Spain began. On July 9, 1816, Argentina officially declared it's independence, and every July 9th, the country celebrates it's Día de la Independencia. Argentina's history is very connected to the histories of other South American countries that were formally Spanish colonies, and Argentine history seems closely connected to Chilean history in particular. Chile also established it's first local government in 1810 and will be celebrating it's bicentennial in September.

Since May 25th fell on a Tuesday, Argentina declared Monday to be a national holiday as well in order to create a long four-day weekend. During those four days, there were hundreds of huge events being held all across Argentina, but the festivities in Buenos Aires were certainly the biggest! Millions of people from all over Latin America came to participate in or watch the various parades and shows that took place. On Friday, we made it to the Desfile federal (Federal Parade), which was full of all sorts of floats and performers representing Argentina's 23 provinces and Buenos Aires, an autonomous capital city. Every province had colorful displays of their own particular cultural identities. It was interesting to see the differences. Mendoza and San Juan had giant grapes parading through the street representing their famous wine country, while northern regions like Salta, Catamarca and Chaco had more indigenous floats and dancers depicting their culture, and regions of Patagonia like Chubut and Santa Cruz had mate-sipping Gauchos walking down the street. An interesting observation was related to the differences in displays of wealth of each province. The more "touristy" destinations had more elaborate floats and gaudy displays, which was starkly contrasted with the regions with more indigenous populations and less tourism, which had no floats and more people-centered displays related to dances and traditions. As foreigners and tourists, it was interesting and sad to see those contrasts and the apparent dependence on tourism as an industry.

After watching the parade for about 2.5 hours, we got tired of the crowds and headed out. All of the parades were routed down 9 de Julio, which is the widest street in the world, but since the street was also full of huge temporary food stands and stands with tourism information, the street didn't feel wide enough at all. It was really difficult and stressful to try to walk around.



Sunday was filled with another parade, but we felt way too tired to venture out to another one after having just done it the day before. We watched part of the Desfile de la integración (Integration parade), which included floats and performers from foreign populations in Buenos Aires and from other Latin American countries, on TV from our apartment.

On Monday, Argentina's national soccer team played against Canada, in it's last friendly game before the World Cup. We sometimes participate in a forum for expats in Buenos Aires and had the good luck of finding out that there was a group of Canadians giving away free tickets to anyone who would wear red and sit with them at the game. We thought we had scored 5 free tickets, but found out that it was likely that none of us would get in because we had responded so late and the Candians got fewer tickets than they had expected. So we sat at a restaurant full of Canadian soccer fans and drank wine with our friends Elana, Jill B., and Jess while we waited to see if some people would fail to show up. Fortunately we were able to get two tickets, but that left us with the difficult process of trying to determine who should go. Sara and Elana ended up being chosen because Sara was the one who had found out about the tickets and Elana really wanted to see the music acts that were supposedly going to perform at the game. They must have had pretty good seats because they were sitting about 20 feet away from a box that Maradona's father and brother were sitting in. Argentina beat Canada easily, but unfortunately neither Shakira nor Ricky Martin performed, it was apparently a wild rumor. Still, Elana and Sara enjoyed seeing a game surrounded by so many Argentinian fans. While they went to the game, Jill, Jill B. and Jess went downtown and met up with Bliss to explore some of the stands that had been set up along 9 de Julio. Again the lines and crowds were crazy so they really only made it in to two stands that were not necessarily worth the wait. So instead of continuing on to see more they got some emapandas and a liter of beer and people watch the crowds and listened to the concert playing at the obelisk.

Later up Jill, Jess, and Jill B. went to meet up with Sara and Elana to see the light show being projected on the newly renovated and reopened Teatro Colon. Once we found each other the show had started and we were too far away with the crowds, so we escaped to the subway and went back home to watch the show on TV! It was beautiful and much easier to appreciate from there.



Tuesday was the biggest day of celebration, but after dealing with the crowds the day before, we decided to celebrate at home. Argentinians traditionally eat a stew called locro every May 25th, so we made Argentine locro with Jess and ate it later that night with Jill B., Elana, and their friend Carolyn. Locro is hearty but not thick, and is made of beans, corn, carrots, red peppers, onion, squash, tomatoes, chorizo sausage, and panceta (the closest thing Argntina has to bacon). We made the traditional version as well as a vegetarian version and some empanadas. The girls brought an alfajor cake, which was like a giant-sized alfajor, for dessert. Alfajores are a very common cookie here, that are made up of two biscuits layered with dulce de leche (a carmel like substance made from condensed milk) in between. And of course we rounded the meal out with Argentine wine. While we feasted on Argentine food, we watched parts of the closing parade and a light show being projected on Cabildo (the first government building in Bs.As.) on TV. It was a nice way to wind down the long weekend.

Random Bs.As. photo: Sexy Potatoes

We were walking around Belgrano (a neighborhood in BA) when we ran into this person dressed as a potato in a bikini. They were out promoting some kind of new processed flavor cube that you're supposed to mix with potatoes. Knorr must have decided that the sex sells thing applies to potatoes too. We got some free samples of the cubes and a photo...

Muchos Festivales!

Buenos Aires is the biggest city either of us have ever lived in, and with around 13 million people living in the metro-area, there are always a ton of of interesting things going on. One of the coolest things about Buenos Aires is all the festivals that are put on throughout the year by the city's Ministerio de Cultura (Ministry of Culture). Since January, they have organized three huge festivals. One of them, Aires Buenos Aires, was a summer festival with all sorts of activities including concerts, dance shows, circus shows, exercise classes, movies, poetry and theater. Amazingly, the whole festival was completely free! One of our favorite shows included aerial tango dancing, which meant that throughout the show various tango dancers had giant bungee-like cords attached to themselves to they would dance horizontally on walls or be bounced around from the floor so they nearly flew for a few moments. Here's a clip from the show:



In April, an independent international film festival, BAFICI, took place. It included many free films, and the ones that cost anything were in general half to a third of the price of most regular theaters! And one of the coolest parts of the festival was that there were several open-air screenings, like this one:



Most recently, the city hosted Circo Polo, an international circus festival from the end of April through the beginning of May. About half the shows were free and those that cost money were very affordable for the level of talent that was performing. The festival also included many lectures about the history of the circus in Argentina, the troupes that were performing, and circus schools around the world. There were several circus tents set up in a park with a lot of open space, but we went went to a couple of really impressive (cirque du soleil-esque) shows that were held outside. At one of the opening shows there was a giant metal spider-like structure, and several aerial artists ziplined into it from nearby buildings. They all wore bright white outfits that were meant to resemble angels. Here is some video from that show:



A week later in the circus festival they had a special show in honor of Argentina's Bicentennial. It took place in Plaza San Martin. The show was made up of the same angel-like zipliners who had been in the opening show, but this time they were coming from much higher and performing above a much larger crowd. As they came in they'd drop a lot of feathers on the crowd below, and the visual effect and along with the music were beautiful together. The night sky made it difficult to see the zip lines so it really looked as though they were floating and flying above us. The crowd of people, kids and adults alike, had so much fun playing in the feathers that after the show, they stuck around having "feather-ball fights" and breaking into dance. Here is some video from that evening:



It's exciting to think the city will be hosting 6 other big festivals this year that should be just as entertaining. The level of entertainment that these festivals provide for free is really impressive, and it's interesting to think about what projects the government funds. You can go into beautiful old public buildings here that are falling apart and lack toilet paper or paper towels, or walk down streets where the sidewalks are completely broken, but the city still manages to hold high-quality public events for it's citizens. Besides the 9 major festivals the city government hosts, it also substantially subsidizes many other festivals. From the end of April to the beginning of May one of those festivals included a giant book fair, which was so big we weren't able to see it all in one trip and actually went three times! Here are some photos from the Feria Internacional del Libro.

Random Bs.As. photo: Dog-Man...nequin

There are all sorts of districts in the city. There's a district that sells fabric, one that sells rugs, and many many more. We ran across a mannequin district that sold all sorts of weird ones, like this dalmatian with a human body.

6 months in BA!

It's hard to believe, but yesterday we officially passed our 6 month mark of living in Buenos Aires! It's definitely a significant milestone for both of us as it's the longest we've ever been outside of the states. To mark the day, we traced our steps back to where we spent our first days here. On Saturday, we took the subte back to San Telmo and strolled around the neighborhood. Since it was May 1st, it happened to be Día Internacional de los Trabajadores, or International Workers Day (similar to Labor Day), which commemorates the struggle for an 8-hour workday. So as we walked around, we came across many gatherings in streets and plazas, that were being held by various unions. We walked by the hostel where we had ended up stay at on our first night after the apartment we rented online wasn't what we expected. We walked by the studio apartment that we had rented for our first month. We spent some time in Plaza Dorrego where we had seen street performers and loads of tourists, and where we had bought empanadas, and where had Sara passed clubs with other jugglers on our first night in B.A. We walked by the apartment we had stayed in with Sara's family when they visited.

As we walked, we reflected about how all the things we've done in the last six months and how much we still want to do with the rest of our time here. In some ways it feels like we got here so long ago and in other ways it feels like we're still so new to this place. We feel proud of how much we've managed to do in the time we've been here. We're both employed, and are living well on our budget, we've got a great apartment in a great area, have made some friends, and feel like we really know the city pretty well.

On Saturday, we celebrated the 6 months here by treating our selves to a nice dinner. In B.A., there are many puerta cerradas, or closed-door restaurants, which are essentially meals hosted by various chefs in their homes. We went to Casa Saltshaker, where the chef serves 5-course dinners centered around various themes. The themes are usually based upon a historic event that occurred on or near that day, but that night the theme was Iron Chef. So the first two people to make reservations (not us) had gotten to choose a key ingredient they wanted to eat that night. They chose chocolate and duck, so each of the courses included at least one of those ingredients and a couple of them included both. Since the meal is held inside a home, the number of guests is pretty small at around 10 people. Although they often have visitors from all over the world, we were the only ones there that night who weren't Canadian! We enjoyed both the company and the food and hope to get to check out another puerta cerrada for another special occasion while we're here.