New Blog!!!

Here it is folks! I am currently in Dublin, Ireland, and have been for four days. I love it so far!

Keep up with my tall tales HERE and enjoy! Thanks!

- Meg Kilkenny

Hello all!

I have been back in the United States for over two weeks now. The day after I came home, still tired from all my travels (I had a safe arrival home with ALL of my things! what luck!) I had a tonsillectomy, and am still in stages of recovery, albeit the time has come where I can finally eat real food with not much pain, oh the excitement!

Thus, here I am, relaxing and taking it easy during this beautiful Wisconsin summer, recovering both from surgery and from my experience abroad; adjusting back to the way in the USA was an interesting transition, both comforting and eye-opening. The cultural differences I became so accustomed to in Buenos Aires have truly shown once back in my original environment.

And these differences will continue to show and my wanderlust will continue to thrive.

I leave for two months in Dublin, Ireland in six days. Perhaps a new blog will have to begin, tales of new adventures. Sorry to see this one close on such a delayed note / feeling of incompleteness, but I hope you have all enjoyed what was written. And I hope you enjoy what is to come! I will be sure to send a link to any of my other writings on this blog. Hope to be writing more again soon.

Thanks to everyone,
Meg

All Apologies

... that I have not been keeping up with my writing here and that I have not done some of the posts I promised. There's a chance I might have to save them for my return to the states. I leave on June 2nd, and arrive home on June 3rd. Currently I am bogged down with way too much humanly possible work on my plate and a gastrointestinal virus (fever included) that has had me bedridden for what is now the fourth day. I just want all my school duties to be over (it's honestly way too much stress), but I do not want to also have to think about leaving this city. I have too many things I need to do, and have not been able to do because I am physically incapable at the moment.

But sometimes we all get stuck with moments of horrible timing.

It's official!

The number has been broken -- I'm at over 1,000 blog views! Thanks for all you have stopped by to read my ramblings and for those (shout out to friends and family) who keep coming back! More to come... les prometo!! :D

UNAS FOTOS! Buenos Aires through my lens

Although I am not cool enough to play with the big kids to have a DSLR camera like everyone else, I still very much enjoy taking pictures, and, am MORE than satisfied with my camera: a Canon PowerShot G11. It has a really nice LCD viewing screen so I more than often don't even have to look through the viewfinder. I know people who can talk up all the other technical stuff for days, and I know more or less about it, but I also just like the simplicity of point-and-shoot ability to get great shots. Granted, the following pictures I am about to show you have also been edited using Photoshop CS5 because I like to edit my photos before putting them up anywhere (Facebook, etc), mostly to resize them to a smaller size so that the act of uploading does not take as long. Most of my friends and family keep up with my pictures via Facebook, but I would also like to put some here for any others who might be interested. The following pictures were all taken in Buenos Aires and represent either iconic scenes / monuments of the city, my favorite places, my favorite moments, or, in general, shots I just happen to really like ascetically:

PS - Sorry for the extremely long, scroll-bar setup of this post. I'm not sure how to make a better photoset within a post on blogspot. Can anyone help with this? I hope you enjoy anyways! I know clicking on the picture to see it in full size will let you click 'next' all the way through all the photos, so I hope that works just the same.

PPS - I have to continue writing about the trips I have been on (now that I have written about Chile and Uruguay, I still have my short visit to parts of Patagonia and Mendoza left), and will include their respective photos there. I also am very interested in film photography, and have taken a couple of rolls of film and got the pictures developed, that I will potentially also show on a post here. Enjoy!

Recounting an Old Trip: What will I find to be the most memorable about Uruguay?

School is coming to a close, with presentations and final papers (including a 10-15 page paper in Spanish for my Art History class) and assignments and, after all of that, exam week. I have an insane amount on my plate... it is quite overwhelming, especially when I also have to think of the fact that these are my last two weeks in Buenos Aires. How will I fit in all the things I still have not yet done? See all the friends I want to see? Get gifts for all the people I still have not purchased gifts for? PACK?? And the lists of things constantly running through my mind goes on and on...

So, right now, I am taking a homework break (wrote one of my two essays due tomorrow for Spanish, the latter has to be based off a book we're supposed to read by Argentine author Adolfo Bioy Casares [La invención de Morel], which, of course, I have not read yet; among other things due for only tomorrow). A much needed break this is, where I can write in my native language. Because as much as I love the look, the sound, and the speech of Spanish, sometimes I just need a break. Being all encompassed in a second language can be overwhelming, especially when the brain is worrying about so many other things... but I sure as hell know I am going to miss speaking Spanish when I'm gone. This means frequent visits to my high school to chat with my favourite (and dearly missed) teacher, and phone calls to my roommate where we have already promised to only speak to each other in our now (somewhat) developed castellano so as not to lose it.

And now to answer the question I ask in the title of this post: my roommate and I traveled to Uruguay for a weekend, April 20-22, exactly a month ago today. So what images and memories linger about the country that is just another stamp on my passport? And the answer truly is... a lot.

My host mother is originally from Uruguay, born in Montevideo and everything. She has one of the biggest souls I have ever met in a person, and a very relaxed spirit. This more or less reflects the way of life in Uruguay, extremely relaxed and a slower pace... and I thought porteños took it easy!!

First, we took the ferry to Colonia del Sacramento (from Buenos Aires to Colonia is the ferry route, so we made it our first stop). The historical district in Colonia makes it a World Heritage Site, adding another one to the list of those I have seen! It's located on the Río de la Plata, and has that characteristic brown water that treks all the way to Buenos Aires as well. Uruguay is generally the place people go to experience real beaches; I have been told that the Mar de la Plata (about four hours from Buenos Aires) isn't up to par with something like Punta del Este, for example. The clean water is the attractive force. This still does not exist in Colonia, but there aren't 'beaches' exactly, as much as there are little pockets of sand here and there mixed amongst the forests that dip into the water, which I may actually enjoy more than commercial beaches of any sort. To exemplify:

View from our hostel window in Colonia

Taken by Susannah - me by a 'beach' in Colonia

Our hostel was away from the city center, which we were skeptical about at first because of the hike, but it ended up being for the better to get a peek into residential life in Colonia. Relaxed, and immersed into beautiful and abundant amounts of nature.

There's not much to do in the city center but shop and eat, but the EATING is just as godly as Chile's chorrillana... the traditional meal of Uruguay is called chivito (more or less a combination of chorrillana and the simplicity of Argentine food), also a common platter for sharing.

Our first chivito (al pan, para dos) at La Pasiva, a chain restaurant in Uruguay our host mom recommended to us

Meat, roasted peppers, caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato, ham, cheese, fried egg, mayo, and sometimes more on a giant sandwich. When it is not al pan, it is served just like this, no bread, with fries on the side. We made sure to get our fill of chivito, after falling in love right away, before leaving.

Beyond the city center is the historic district, which you can learn more about by visiting the above highlighted World Heritage Site link. It is an incredibly pleasant area with rich history and few people walking around, save some tourists (who are usually coming from somewhere around South America, or even just Uruguay).  Colonia is a nice town to walk around on a sunny day and have some maté with friends, but I'm not sure if spending more than a day or two there would have been entirely worth it.

Our next stop was just a two hour bus ride to the west to Montevideo. Suddenly, we were back in a big city, and in a hectic part of town: Tres Cruces (where the bus station is). We get a cab and head to our hostel which was located on a pedestrian street, just a few blocks away from Plaza Independencia downtown. It was hard to say just what part of the city it was compared to Buenos Aires, but it definitely gave off vibes of microcentro and the pedestrian street of Reconquista, save the stretch of bars like The Kilkenny and add more living complexes, but keep all the kids drinking their beers sitting on the benches in the middle of the cobbled street until the wee hours of the morning.

We were also very close to the water, which on our first day there (after the night we arrived) we discovered was a gorgeous blue!! I took the following picture just a couple of blocks away from our hostel:

The night before we explored a lot of what was up and down on Avenida 18 de Julio (essentially the equivalent of Avenida 9 de Julio en Buenos Aires), so this day we decided to see the water and go to some beaches. That blue water was truly mesmerizing. Our host mother recommended Playa Pocitos, which holds all of what was in my preemptive images of Montevideo: a mix of lovely sand and water with the city in the background, kind of like Miami, but cleaner and prettier.

A quick shot I took of Susannah on Playa Pocitos

Even though it was fall and cooler, it was still warm and sunny enough to be able to walk barefoot and dip our feet in the water, something I had craved since coming to South America, and Montevideo gave me my fix. Also it being out of 'beach season' it was fairly empty, which was even more pleasant to me, since I'm not much of a crowded beach goer.

After this, we headed back towards downtown after seeing some of the barrio of Pocitos. We ended up arriving at a market on 18 de Julio that was a mix of my Latin American experiences so far: artisan objects like that of the fairs in Buenos Aires, but then also boxes of baby chickens and ducklings like that in Guatemala. I of course, was sucked into all the little baby animals of which I spent more than enough time with. Susannah had trouble dragging me away. But seriously, HOW COULD YOU WALK AWAY FROM THIS?? :

Little baby bunnies, a box of puppies, a cage of kitties, and of course, my friend I made for the day: a little puppy who looked exactly like my puppy Richie Rich (may he rest in peace) who I picked up and fell in love with especially after he decided to be my friend, too and snuggle up into me. I still miss him!! And to prove he is a Richie Rich, Jr., here is a picture of my wonderful dog I had throughout all of my childhood, and until I was 18 (he passed away when he was 15 years old, what a feat!) :

Jumping into nostalgia's arms: high school graduation, and my belated puppy dog. Love you and miss you still.

So, overall, Uruguay was an amazing experience. I would say that I liked Montevideo more than Colonia, however, but the two cities are still very unique in their own respect. Also something I love about that country: MATE. I thought people drank mate here pretty frequently. Well, I was incredibly mistaken. In the big city of Montevideo you couldn't walk down the sidewalks or through the parks without seeing every other person with a thermos around their shoulder and a gourd in their hand. It was such a beautiful thing. And, as my host mother explained to me, it is for all classes. You see the wealthy and the poor and the old and the young always drinking mate. I found that to be a very honest and lovely statement about the culture of the infused drink. And because it is so widespread, Uruguay is where you go to get the GOOD STUFF. Susannah and I came home both with new gourds and a giant bag of Canarias, the best of the best brands of yerba mate in South America. I have got to bring this stuff home (I'm having some right now, it is insanely delicious) to the states. Thank you, Uruguay, for all these experiences and for your delicious mate!

The Art of Writing about Travel: Rewards of travel blogging, and closure that need be made

(The Art of Travel, post 15, Farewells

this is my final post for my blogging course!)

I still have four full weeks until I return home to the States, meaning the end is looming near, but I still have several days to explore and participate in activities on my list of things I want to do with my time here. Then, inevitably, and as is the case for most NYU students right now, school will take over with final papers, projects and presentations. I’m trying not to think about all of that right now, however, and enjoy my last month here in Buenos Aires.

By semester’s completion, I will be able to say I’ve been to two cities in Chile, two in Uruguay, and three different provinces (many visited cities within them) of Argentina.  Although these destinations may not be as extensive a list as others’, I’m still pretty impressed and more than pleased to have those passport stamps and stories to tell.  I’m seriously going to miss everything that is South America, everything that will become my memories of South America (preemptively making memories is such a silly game I play, or perhaps, a terrible habit I have).  The somewhat embarrassing self-picture I have posted here is from the trip I took by myself to San Carlos de Bariloche in Patagonia.

And throughout it all, I have been incredibly thankful to be in this course.  I haven’t been enrolled in a writing course since freshman year, and am pretty horrible at keeping up with personal writing if I’m not forced to do so.  And although I have not been all that great about the regularity of my posts (as is something to be learned about the ‘art’, per se, of blogging), I always find the time I take to sit down and write them enjoyable.  And in this last post, I find the time I have taken to look back on my old posts even more enjoyable, if not a shock, combined with humble moments of reminiscing.  I find it a fair generalization to say that all of us have certainly changed throughout this semester because of our experiences, and are able to notice these changes based on our recorded first memories and our knowledge now.  Is not that the point of a journal, or the public version, a blog?  Tracking these changes and these experiences has been, I think, essential, and that is why I am, as I will reiterate, thankful for this course.

Beyond this blog, I also have a more personal blog, conducted through blogspot, where I repost these pieces along with adding some other ones every now and then (when I can, and when I feel the need to – you can read these other posts here [this was originally a link to THIS blog!]).  And if I didn’t have this course to be a starter’s guide or a source of things to post on that other site, I would not have been quite as ambitious.  Another reason to be thankful.

Now here comes the hardest part of all: having to end both of these sources of public writing, having to end my adventures abroad, having to say goodbye to a city I have come to know and love.  As already mentioned, however, I still have time to make my farewells, but am most certainly not looking forward to it, no matter how much I want to see my friends and family at home.

I am more than happy that I decided to take a semester abroad, however.  It is something that is much more widely advertised for college students in our generation, just as it should be.  The encouragement comes with good reason.  I was scared to go at first, almost reluctant.  And now I think it crazy that I ever doubted coming to Buenos Aires.  The stories I have, the things I’ve seen, the new ways of living I plan to carry with me for the rest of my life, will be with me forever (I feel that goes without saying).  And I know, above all, that I will, one day, be back.  So perhaps this farewell is more of a “goodbye for now” type deal, because I find it inevitable that one day, I will return.

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Dear Ensueños readers:

Now I have posted all of my blog posts that I had to write for my 2-credit course called The Art of Travel. You can read them all here on this blog, with the tags of 'the art of travel', or you can go to the actual course's website and see my posts here. When pursuing the second link, I very much recommend checking out the other students' blogs (you will see a sidebar on the left called "Blogroll Spring 2012 -- make sure you are on the Art of Travel tab) where you can read about students' adventures, realizations, and tall tales from Florence, Paris, Berlin, Abu Dhabi, other students in Buenos Aires, and my favourite posts to read each week: the students in Accra, Ghana. It's been a semester of work, so please check them all out! I hope you've enjoyed the guided themed posts and everything. This last post expresses my gratitude for having this writing course this semester. And although the class is over, I do plan on continuing to write my own personal posts and keep up with the blog, until, of course, it comes time to leave this wonderful city.

Thank you all, muchísimas gracias :)

Mis Aventuras en Chile: the other side of Latin America...

I'm here to finally write about my spring break in Chile... almost four full weeks after my return (surprisingly enough I have found time in my school schedule to do so!!). It will surely be a game of flipping through my journal, diving back into the archives of my memory, trying to put myself back into that other world... because another world it was.

One of the most common ways to travel domestically and internationally in South America is by bus (what would be considered more or less a coach bus). They cost cheaper than most plane rides (depends on location, of course) and are said to be of good quality for long, overnight rides. I had my first experience of an overnight bus going from Buenos Aires to Santiago, a long painful ride, and a long stop at customs on the border. There really is not much to tell about this act of travel, except for my view of the sky at night, which you can read about here, and then the glorious, surreal and incredibly scary drive through the Andes (what I would consider a quintessential South American experience to be had).

Upon arriving in Santiago, the cab ride from the bus station to our apartment we rented for three nights consisted of downtown landscapes that reminded me of (a sunnier and warmer version of) Buenos Aires. European architecture and grand statues of independence liberators surround me as we drive through busy, downtown avenues. Yet there is something completely distinct between the European feel of Buenos Aires and this capital... it didn't seem as elegant. There was a sort of charm missing. It felt like for the first time I really was in Latin America.

I believe that spending my time in Buenos Aires has given way to an incredibly blurred outlook on just what is 'Latin America'. Buenos Aires is incredibly European and a big city with Fifth Avenue-esque fashionistas walking the streets where obesity is severely looked down upon (which is why you never see it here). It is a place where I, with my light skin, dark hair and freckles, can join the masses and be stopped by outsiders who think I'm a local and ask for directions. In Santiago, however, I stuck out like the sorest of thumbs. I was some strange white girl invading these people's space, where fashion is not of priority, and being thin and beautiful is not the required look as it is in BsAs. My comfort of being 'home' (my new home, back in Argentina) was completely lost in this place where I truly was the Other.

Something that my friends and I took great satisfaction in, however, was the amount of fast food in Santiago. There was plenty of it. McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, and their own chains swarmed the city and I was honestly completely surprised by just how much there was, which is truly saying something coming from the United States (from the Midwest, no less). But then there were also your classic, greasy diners. And we were ecstatic. Nothing of the sort exists in Buenos Aires (except for some kitschy, American-style diners with overpriced burgers and milkshakes that come with your Elvis Presley napkin and Back to the Future placemat), and we've been craving giant cups of shitty coffee and cheese fries at the wee hours in the morning from our favorite 24-hour diner in the East Village (we are college students, are we not??). Thus diner cravings were satisfied, particularly with the glory that is Chile's most traditional platter: chorrillana.

Chorrillana is a typical meal for sharing in Chile. It consists of a giant plate of fries, some sort of meat spread on top (usually beef, but sometimes it can be a mix of beef and pork and chicken), fried egg(s) and onions (caramelized, grilled or fried). Of course there are variations: some people add cheese, olives, roasted peppers. There is always a bottle of ají sauce on the table, something Buenos Aires would never dare to try (in Argentina their food is notorious for lacking any spice, because for some reason it is unwanted). We got into the habit of always asking for it with palta (avocado) to make it even more beautiful than it already is (if that's even POSSIBLE). So, our desire for greasy, bad-for-you-yet-totally-delicious food in a genuine, diner setting was beyond fulfilled. In fact, it was more genuine than any New York experience nowadays, because in pretty much all public places in Chile, one is allowed to smoke. And you can buy your cigarettes, right there behind the cash register. Some might find this to be a bit 'backwards', as if we were in 20th century America, but the fact is that Chile is a country filled with smokers, so their restaurants abide to that as well.

My camera was dead for spring break (because I was not smart and forgot to charge it before leaving) so the photographic evidence I have of these glorious meals are the two pictures below, which were taken by my friend Z (not a nickname, that is indeed his first full name) : the first one is of our first chorrillana ever! and the second at a restaurant in Valparaíso, with cheese and avocado added to the mix of meat.

My time in Santiago was spent at the music festival Lollapalooza 2012, which took place in Parque O'Higgins (a giant park, much larger than the festival's original counterpart: Grant Park in Chicago). I hadn't been to a music festival in quite some time, and still have yet to see a show here in Buenos Aires, so it felt really good to get my concert fix. AND NOT JUST ANY CONCERTS. Highlights of the weekend / a list of the shows I was able to see: Cage the Elephant, Band of Horses, Bassnectar, Arctic Monkeys, Skrillex, Peaches, Björk (she was beautiful and it was surreal), and, what made traveling to Santiago worth it all, JOAN JETT with her group The Blackhearts. She was beyond incredible, and for her age she still looks so flawless on stage in her pleather jumpsuit and studded belt. I couldn't believe how close I was to her, and how perfect she played all of her songs (including the best ones from The Runaways days) live. It was such a perfect show. Below is a picture I took of her on stage. THE REAL DEAL. Writing about this now, I still can't believe I can say I saw Joanie.

The Monday after the weekend's festivities, we took a two and a half hour bus West to Valparaíso, which cost about 7 USD. We arrived at the bus station which occupies a busy part of town (because as a general theme, I would say the bus terminals I have been to here have all been pretty crazy and noticeably unsafe areas to be in), and grabbed a cab to go to our hostel. Once nearing towards the water, we could glimpse up into the infinite hills with beautiful colored houses stretching for miles, far away and up into the sky. I begged that we would take a trek up one of these hills to get where we were going to (a random hostel we booked that day while still in Santiago, which was the cheapest one we could find on the booking site we used) and sure enough, we turn a corner and make a climb. Mind you, the United States is the only nation (at least as far as I am convinced) that more commonly drives automatic cars versus manual. That is not the case everywhere else in the world. So we were rising at what felt like a straight 180 degrees with the driver driving stick. It was a bumpy ride to say the least. And then finally we arrive at a bright blue, nautical themed hostel that more than exceeded any expectations that I had of what would be La Maison de la Mer.

I still feel that I could talk for days about this hostel, even looking back on it now, a month later. To read more details about this beautiful place and everything it was to me (and also to see some pictures from my extremely limited functioning camera) you should read this post that I wrote for my blogging class.

Everything about Valparaíso was beautiful. It is truly a charming city (as I hope can be gathered from my other post) and I cannot wait to be back. But I also can't even know where to start with remembering it all. It seems too great an effort. So I'm asking a little help from one Chile's own: Pablo Neruda.

Neruda won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971, and is one amongst his many Chilean contemporaries who paved the way for Latin American literature to be recognized globally. Most important among this group is Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in 1945 - not to mention the obvious fact that she is also a woman, this is a pretty big deal and has made her name known internationally.

Neruda had a house in Valparaíso in his heyday: it was something he wanted whose design would allow him to look at out the sea and at the hills of the city when he wrote. The house today now functions as a museum, called La Sebastiana (again, I do not have pictures of my own, not until I get some film pictures developed, so I can direct you all here to put an image to this beautiful spot), which has most original furnishings and paintings that one can walk through with a guided audio tour which my friends and I thoroughly enjoyed (it is a must-do while in Valparaíso). I would very much recommend checking out the link to be able to see the dazzling views the author had from his comfortable armchair.

If you think it long and mad, 

the wind of banners 

that passes through my life, 

and you decide 

to leave me at the shore 

of the heart where I have roots, 

remember 

that on that day, 

at that hour, 

I shall lift my arms 

and my roots will set off 

to seek another land. 

The above excerpt was taken from a translation of Pablo Neruda's poem "If you forget me". Valparaíso, to me... is this place... a place of return (as noted in my other post)... a place at the shore where I sensed from the start was a place in my heart "where I have roots" that could either remain or be sent off fleeting "to seek another land." But even if my wanderlust gets the best of me, somehow my traces will remain in Valparaíso, this magical city I am itching to go back to.

So I understand this post is long. But it only just begins to touch on my experience in Chile, in all honesty. I wish I had more pictures to share, and again, hopefully I will once my film gets developed (I'm picking up a good chunk of pictures on Monday). I have been meaning to write about it for a while beyond just for my blogging class. I hope you enjoyed and were able to follow along to the delight I found in my Spring Break vacation in Chile, a truly unique and beyond beautiful country in the Southern Cone.

Advice Before Taking the Plunge: Why I would recommend Buenos Aires as a study abroad location

(The Art of Travel, post 14, Tips)

When discussing the things one needs to know before traveling to a certain place, the knowledge is endless.  One could read travel book upon travel book and still never truly grasp the ‘genius loci’ or any other sense of the location.  But, existing within the realm of study abroad sites and a college student framework, there are certainly a few tips that can be passed down from student to student.  I hope to relay a bit of my experience on things I wish I had known and things that I know now about Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Reasons why one should come to Buenos Aires: (oh god, where do I begin…?) if one is interested at all in Argentina, or perhaps South America in general; if one doesn’t mind stepping into a different culture, astray from that of the United States or Europe of which we are so closely related to; if one knows a little bit of Spanish, or is willing to be immersed in it and learn much more; if one has a little adventuresome wanderlust, to see epic beauties and glorious cities across the continent one never thought one would ever have the chance to see (which is more a reason for anyone to study abroad anywhere, no?).  These reasons, among many others, drew me to this location.  South America is more or less made up of ‘second world’ countries.  But what did I know about any of Latin America before coming here?  Shamefully, not that much.  But now I have so much history and cultural studies that I have gained through my classes and through my experiences here, and I could not be more pleased with finally beginning to know an area of the world I was once previously clueless about.

The weeks before coming here, I was apathetic and lazy, but excited to make this new change in my life, and excited to go from bitter Wisconsin winter to this sort of paradise I made out in my head.  Friends of mine were excited for me because they figured I was moving to the jungle.  I had to get through to them that I would be living in an incredibly large and very modern metropolis, although ideas of moving somewhere that would be more or less ‘tropical’ sent me in dizzying reveries.  Too bad I am sitting here, writing this in pants, thick socks, a shirt, a heavy sweater and a scarf.  Which brings me to another important tip: PACKING.

One is always warned to pack as minimal as possible, and this is beyond true.  I tried to do this (I basically had one big duffle bag with me for my four months here), but most definitely still ended up bringing too much with me (and I’m the kind of person who very much enjoys bringing my entire wardrobe, especially all my shoes, with me almost anywhere I go, but cut it down so low, and somehow it still was too much).  Also be incredibly aware of the climate of the place you are going.  People warned me it would start to get a little cooler right before we left back to the states, where it will be summer again (that will be an interesting change to make).  No one said it would be this cold, however.  I only brought one sweatshirt, and thankfully had some jeans on me.  I was lucky to have my parents come and visit, in which I asked if they could be the wonderful parents they are and BRING ME MY SWEATERS.  Thank goodness they did.

I could go on and on, and talk about how one should be in a homestay, and about traveling throughout South America while here (Uruguay is just a ferry away, there are buses that travel internationally to almost anywhere you want to go, etc), but I suppose I’ll save that for pre-departure orientation, NYU study abroad fairs, and the like.  All I must say, however, is that Buenos Aires is such a unique experience, and NYU does an excellent job with the education and the staffing here, and I could not be happier with my choice.  Leaving will be a difficult thing to do.

Promises I must make!!

1. Finish my post about my spring break in Chile (it is currently in draft format, not quite yet done).

2. Write about my weekend in Uruguay (Colonia del Sacramento, Montevideo).

3. Tell you, when I return, about my trip to Patagonia this weekend (El Bolsón, San Carlos de Bariloche)!

These are promises that I promise to keep!!

Chau, todos. Que tengan un buen finde :)

The Ethnography of Language (of Self): A complicated, and perhaps not fully realized epiphany on language, people, and place

(The Art of Travel, post 13, Epiphanies)

An epiphany is something that cannot be forced.  But certainly a realization is something that can be discovered via writing.  Or rather, a further understanding of one’s grand thoughts, one’s moment of recognition defined by the epic and overwhelming word ‘epiphany’.

So here I am, in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, in South America, a predominantly Spanish-speaking continent (save Brazil, the Guyanas and Suriname).  And this place I’m in is defined by all of these characteristics.  And the inhabitants of this place are here because they speak Spanish, or this place exists because Spanish is spoken.  A reciprocal relationship reigns; language, place, and people are inextricably connected.

I suppose one could label that my ‘epiphany’ of sorts, particularly because it is something that can only be noted once placed outside of one’s home country.  I am from the United States.  I speak English.  I am a student, I learn Spanish; I travel to Argentina, I use that Spanish.  I live in Buenos Aires, I adapt to the porteño, castellano accent.  It’s all very simple, with some parts inherent and others a process (and others still an inherent process).  But what are the further implications of being in a place where they speak Spanish, a language I struggle to perfect?  I’m sure several language and travel theorists have explored this exact issue, but I am far from being well read enough to know just whom they are.  Thus the attempt is my own.

Knowing a second language is extremely beneficial, and encouraged in education globally.  Learners are able to construct different realities within these different languages, without even knowing it.  These different realities are primarily based off of culture associated with the language… for example: if I were to say the word lunch one would think of generally a sandwich or a salad or something of that sort, but if I were to say almuerzo, one may think of something more common for lunch in either Spain or Latin America.  Beyond these cognitive, linguistic abilities, however, there’s another branch to linguistics directly related to this: linguistic anthropology, or the “ethnography of speaking.”

So I go to a café and have my respective almuerzo and I go to school and I run errands and I take the bus and I am speaking Spanish within all of these daily activities.  And the people I know and see are formed in my mind as being who they are because they speak Spanish, because I speak Spanish with them, whether they are originally from Argentina or not.  I have travelled to Chile and Uruguay now, and the Spanish there is different, and of course differs anywhere you go.  But the Spanish here in Buenos Aires is now my Spanish, and porteños and travelers alike can attain cultural identity via their special way of speaking the language.  And so I have come to realize that all the Spanish I learned has been completely altered, to a new reality, because I finally exist within a Spanish-speaking place and interacting with its inhabitants, and that reality constructed and based on my first second language is now my own, personal reality.  And so this ethnography of speaking I am undergoing reaches beyond cultural and social identity, and touches upon my own identity.

Marina, Mi Vida: My house mom, once a stranger, but now no longer

(The Art of Travel, post 12, The comfort of strangers)

I can’t imagine the difficulty of giving up one’s home for a bunch of rowdy, North American teenage girls every semester.  Those who host students in a homestay program must have hearts of gold, and a wealth of patience.  This ‘virtue’, however, must be reciprocated, or the chance of a homestay running smoothly falters.  Cesare Pavese says, “Traveling is a brutality.  It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends.  You are constantly off balance.”  Being placed in a porteño home upon arrival and knowing it will be your place of residence for four months is a bit overwhelming, but when the home you enter belongs to a family of truly kind spirits, the stress of being somewhere new is instantly alleviated.

In writing of the comfort of strangers, I find the need to dedicate this post to my house mom, because she was undoubtedly a stranger in the beginning, and the first porteño I met coming to Buenos Aires.  I had had some email exchanges with her before arrival, asking what her house was like, what her family is like, what she is like.  Even so, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but looking back at her emails and knowing her now, it really is quite fitting.  The first month here, however, was mostly about trying to settle in, and find comfort in a routine, and accept that this stranger’s place was my new place of residence in a foreign country.

I was “forced” to trust her cooking, since she provides meals for me every night.  This was of no effort, however, because all of her cooking is out-of-this-world delicious and full of variety.  My roommate and I eat separate from the family, since we live in a beautiful guesthouse across the courtyard from the main house.  Thus the traditional experience of long porteño meals is lost, and I am found “off balance” by not knowing what is genuine or not.  I really do not have room to complain, however, because if sacrificing conversation to still be able to eat her glorious food is what is a stake, then I will take it, and take it gladly.  Having this sort of distance at dinnertime, however, makes it more difficult to strike conversation with her, so the bridge between strangers to friends to house mother and house daughter is lengthened, maybe even lost. But not entirely so.

I have definitely come to know her now, in my two months that I have been here, even if this knowledge is derived from conversation-in-passing.  We have shared things about life on a deeper level than I ever would have expected, told each other stories about our pasts, talked about music, food, love, travel, family, death, anything and everything.  She has a heart so big and so full of love that this woman who was once a stranger is now, truly, my house mom (I now refer to her as mamá).  And thus, inevitably, she has giving me the greatest comfort of all: a house I feel comfortable in, and can return to, and truly feel that it is my home when placed in a completely foreign South American country.  There is also the inevitability, however, that every now and then I still feel that notion of being “constantly off balance.”  And whenever this happens, I have someone, once a stranger, to turn to, to help me sort things out, within the comfort of what is now my own home.

(The picture above is of the view of our guesthouse from the courtyard.)

ONLY IN ARGENTINA...

... your ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD erupts into either screaming: "GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!" or shouting in defeat and anger on a Saturday, midday.

And when I say the entire neighborhood, I mean it. This happens all the time, actually. I don't even have a clue who's playing. I just love how, without even watching or knowing, I am signaled by all the apartment complexes around me when a football game is on.

My homestay sister just went out running in our courtyard, screaming. That was a sight to see.

La Maison of my Heart: Valparaíso’s genius loci as the spirit of a place of return

(The Art of Travel, post 11, Genius loci… this week’s prompt: “The first condition of understanding a foreign country,” wrote Rudyard Kipling, “is to smell it.”  In the ancient world, the genius loci was the deity who protected a place, its guardian spirit.  The term now refers to the “spirit of place”—its characteristic atmosphere or feeling, as embodied in its architecture, environment, food, the people’s manners, etc.—and smells.  Write about the genius loci of the place you’re living or a place you’ve visited this semester.  What embodies the genius loci for you?  It could be an individual, a food, a drink, a place.  Use lots of concrete details in your description.)

Sitting in the dining area of our hostel at a table with a blue and white checkered table cloth, my travel companions and I take a slow start to the morning, eating our bread and assorted jams, drinking coffee, writing in our journals. My friend suddenly comes out and says: “it’s like, almost stressful not being able to capture this place when I write. It’s just so beautiful and unique and I want to include every detail, but even then I feel like it wouldn’t be enough.” I responded asking whether or not that is the entire challenge of writing, when writing about a place. Sometimes it does feel impossible, especially when there are so many wonderful things surrounding you, so many special experiences detailing one’s journey, and so many to come. I experienced the same stress of wanting to remember everything, every detail, absorbing all the wonderfulness around me within only my first moments of arriving in Valparaíso, Chile, one of my destinations during my spring break.

The city is located on the coast of Chile, and is an important seaport and cultural center for the country. It is known to be the “San Francisco of South America,” and although there are certain parallels between the two cities, I find this to be an unfair comparison. There are steep, winding hills with raised sidewalks made of stone steps, brightly colored houses, and a view of the sea, all like San Francisco, but it’s still so different. Making the hike back up to our hostel on one of these rigid hills, in between the houses you can get a glimpse of the other hills that lie beyond, and the pop-colored rainbow of structures, lingering in the fog from the sea, effortlessly resting on dangerous dirt edges; it seems that only a huff and a puff would be enough to blow them off the cliff. Thus I think it could be easy to say that the genius loci, the spirit of this place, is embodied in all of these beautiful houses up on the hills, the guardians of the sea. But then I could say that the smell of the sea embodies that the town is a port, or that the people who live in the houses embody the town as a whole. And a loop could continue forever.

So then I turn to look at my own experience in the city, instead of viewing what the entire location has to offer as a generalization, I think of what it offered me in my short time there. And I discover that I think my first inkling was right… it is in the houses. But it’s also in the people in the houses, the smell and sight of the sea, everything… but specifically it is in the hostel I stayed in, ‘my house’ when I was a temporary Chilean living in Valparaíso.

La Maison de la Mer, or “the house of the sea” in French, is owned and run by a wonderful, spirited old man who originally is from Normandie, but has lived in Valparaíso for over 40 years now. And his Spanish is perhaps the most beautiful I have ever heard, where instead of rolling his r’s, he uses his natural, closed-throat hack for r’s… an elegant mix of my two second languages, so fluently spoken. He explained to my friends and I that he has lived there long enough to be able to speak perfect Chilean Spanish, but he chooses to keep his strong French accent, just as he said we should keep our porteño accent, so as not to lose where we come from.

There were days when we would spend hours in the garden (pictured above, with a lovely, little framed view of some houses on a distant hill), relaxing, playing cards, talking, eating. I would sometimes have little conversations with the owner in my lost French, and explained to him I knew more Spanish than I did his native tongue, malheureusement (“unfortunately”). Upon our departure, I left him a note in French saying that when I come back to this very unique city, I plan on spending my time at La Maison once again.

And so, in the end, I physically and visually consider the genius loci to be the beautiful hostel I stayed in for those few days. But when I left Valparaíso, I think I realized that the true spirit of the place, for me, was that it isn’t just a city I can say I have visited, and recount my stories for you here, but rather a place where my stories will continue, because that place is a place of return. And I cannot wait to be back.

Borges’ Buenos Aires: Literature and the complication of Argentine identity

(The Art of Travel, post 10, Book #2 [of choice]
for this class we had to chose two books about
our site from a list and do one post discussing
each choice -- this is the post I wrote for my
second book, which I find to be an essential
not just for those who want to learn about
Argentina, but for those who love literature
as a whole... Borges is king)

Jorge Luis Borges is an internationally known author and poet… an icon and ambassador for Argentina, and above all for Buenos Aires.  In a place where literature was the art form that allowed for a people to shine and be recognized by their former colonizer crown, Borges is a name on the top of the list.  Below is a picture of a street sign in my neighborhood, the barrio of Palermo, where Borges was known to have lived.  Literacy as a whole skyrocketed in Argentina in the first half of the 20^th century. There are bookstores, librerías, all over every city.  This generalization really came into perspective recently, since I just returned from my spring break in Chile, where the amount of book stores in Santiago seem minimal to nonexistent in comparison to Buenos Aires. This is not to say they are any less literate, or do not have their respective artists that represent their country (Pablo Neruda and Gabriel Mistral to name a few Chileans), it’s more that Argentina paved the way for all Latin American writers to become read worldwide and known worldwide for where they’re from.

Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings is a collection of Borges’ works, translated and organized into categories: Fictions, Essays and Parables. His short stories (Fictions) dip in, develop, and end with a complete drawing of a character and that person’s story. And in what I have read, twists, secrets, murder, religion, dreams, history, truth and identity are frequented themes, the last holding particular importance. Cultural heritage and actual legal identity like that of “The Shape of the Sword,” or family identity in “Emma Zunz,” and even existence of identity in “Everything and Nothing” seems so Argentine to me. Defining a culture can be so difficult, especially when that culture is made up of so many others, like in Argentina and many other countries in Latin America. Writing helped define Argentina and allowed Buenos Aires to shine to the point where even Spain could not ignore the city.

But what does it mean to be Argentine, and thus an Argentine writer? Who is Borges, really? What does he tell us about his nation, his self? Does not one’s writing always let this trickle between the words? Borges himself addresses such questions in his essay, “The Argentine Writer and Tradition.”  He notes that much of it, as others have claimed, begins with the “gauchesque,” or the writings and poetry of the gauchos, or those of the countryside that could be considered the ‘cowboys’ of Latin America.  Yet, he then turns around and states that his belief is that writers do not necessarily need to define themselves in terms of themes or national traits. “The idea that Argentine [writing] should abound in differential Argentine traits and Argentine local color seems to me a mistake” (180). And thus this further complicates what makes an Argentine writer truly Argentine.

What he eventually gets at, however, is that an Argentine is truly a mutt, and adopts different ideas culturally, just as Shakespeare and other examples of great writers and poets. A text is “no less Argentine for having accepted such influences” (182). I find that the city of Buenos Aires is no less Argentine for having Italian influences mixed with Latin American vibes. And the presence of Italian and other European influences are felt strongly, because history here in Buenos Aires is felt “profoundly” (183). Borges said it, and in my experiences thus far, I only know it to be true. And because the history is profound and abundant in different cultures, the country of Argentina, “our patrimony,” should thus truly be “the universe” (185), and this I feel, too.

Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1964. Print.