Awesome Weekend

Well this weekend was pretty amazing once the rain finally decided to stop. On Friday I headed out to pick up the Argentina vs Spain soccer tickets I bought online. I had a bit of a walk but it was really easy to get them. That night I was planning on going to a dance hall for Salsa & Tango lessons but I didn't have any coins for the bus, and the easiest way to get change is to buy a subway pass...Coins aren't easy to come buy here, its really obnoxious. Anyway, I figured since I had until 7pm to do something I might as well take the subway down to the Evita Museum. It kinda drizzling so it was a good day to spend some time in a museum. I forgot to bring my camera but if you go to the museum's website you can see almost exactly what's there. If you didn't already know, Eva Peron was the wife of one of the most famous Populist Presidents, Juan Peron, in all of Latin America. Eva Peron herself was adored by her people & is viewed by many in a similar way as Princess Diana. The museum focused on her life before Peron and the works she did rather than the specific populism politics. It was an interesting museum to visit while taking the classes I'm enrolled in because most of my professors are very anti-Peronist/anti-populism.


After the museum and after getting enough coins for the bus I headed home for an early dinner. I had to eat early, at 7pm, so that I could get to Salsa and Tango lessons at 9pm. I successfully got myself there via the bus, which not an easy thing to do. This dance club, La Viruta, is in the basement of the Armenian culture center and has a bar & food. Half of the people there were Argentinians and the other half were tourists wanting to get the Tango experience. So, during the classes we switched partners multiple times and got to talk with lots of different people. The salsa class was first and was tons of fun, very up beat. After salsa there was a short tango show performed by the instructors and one of the instructors had just won 4th place in a world tango competition. The tango class, that being my second class, was fun as well & I think next time I'll take the intermediate class! After the classes the dance floor was opened up and they played salsa and tango music. Argentine men, especially the older ones, have a very particular and peculiar way of getting a dance partner, frankly its kinda creepy. They basically stand across the room and stare down a girl, if the girl wants to dance she meets him on the dance floor. If not she looks away....weird huh?

After some dancing and chatting with friends we decided to find a more up-beat club, and one with some more people our age. We found out some other friends of ours were at a club called Crobar. I'd heard of the place but never been. Once we got there (via cab) we found out it was a $50 peso cover charge, $12.50 USD, so really its not that much but in comparison to most other clubs its a lot. Well, let me tell you...it was WAY worth the money! This place was HUGE and had a pretty great DJ. It was mostly electronic music, and there was a special light show that night. We got there around 3am, which is when it starts getting good at clubs here, and stayed until 6am. It was crazy ridiculous but tons of fun! There's a picture below of the club...I think it explains a lot.



Needless to say I slept a good bit on Saturday. But, I did get up in time to join my host mom and her friend for a little tea time. It was a fun way to practice my Spanish.

Sunday was a beautiful so I headed out to find The Immigrant's Day Festival. I took the Subte (subway) and walked through a couple of parks filled with people running/roller blading around and other drinking mate & hanging out. I started hearing some loud music & followed it to find a stage with people performing traditional dances. It was fun to watch but eventually my legs fell asleep so I got up to look at the tents that each country had. They were all selling food & trinkets related to their country. I had already eaten lunch but I found the Scotland booth and couldn't pass up some ginger bread. It was soooo good! I hung around until the end which was another dance to tango and then to Argentine pop music. The grand finale was sparks shooting up from the stage & then confetti blown up and out to the crowd. It was so much fun!



Sorry it took so long to post this!
Amy