Tours and Tango: Week 1 in Buenos Aires

[5 de Enero, 2014] We made it to Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires
As a brief orientation to the city, there are roughly 2.5 million residents so that makes it close in size to LA. Adding in the surrounding metropolitan area, Buenos Aires is the 2nd largest city in South America behind San Paulo which is huge! So we got used to having people around. There are beautiful parks and plazas all over the city and our favorite street, Avenida 9 de Julio (standing in it above) is a park in and of itself which runs the length of the downtown. It is also a monster road of 18 or so intertwining lanes of traffic. 9 de Julio takes about 5 minutes to cross and we could never get cross it in one light cycle, no matter how hard we tried.

There is a great cultural, historical and political influence in the city. La Casa Rosada (the Pink House shown above) is the equivalent of our White House and is in the middle of Buenos Aires. In front of it is May Square, or la Plaza del Mayo. Our Spanish school was about 2 blocks away and sometimes you could hear a protest going on when you were in the middle of class. The city's downtown is busy and full of people but it is more or less safe to walk around. There is a pedestrian only street called Florida where you can exchange money on the black market. That is worth a post in and of itself but the street is an interesting and wild place for foreigners to walk down. No matter what you do, the salesmen shouting "Cambio" (money exchange) know full well you are not from there and when one spots you there is soon a chorus of cambio going on all around you.

Plaza de Mayo

All over are historical buildings and monuments and gifts from other nations. In 1910 Buenos Aires was in its hay day and they tried to turn themselves into the Paris of the south. Whether or not they were successful (some say they were) the point is that there was a lot of money spent on making the city beautiful and there is still a lot of evidence of that in the architecture and style of the city today.

Judicial Building

Teatro Colon

School
[6 de Enero] The real reason we came to Buenos Aires was to take language classes. So like excited students we packed up our backpacks the night before and arrived bright and early at the Academia Buenos Aires on Monday morning.

Academia classrooms and the conversion of our hostel room to a study hall

So a little background, I studied Spanish for four years in Jr High/High School but pretty much forgot all of it. Eli studied for about 2 years in High School as well and has been our Spanish translator for the past few years of us traveling together. Needless to say, he is a better foreign language student then I am and his retention of beginner Spanish helped him to place in a level 1B class. I got put into a level 1A-2 class, hey not bad!

After a terrifying first day Spanish interview Eli treated me to a congratulatory ice cream for making it through day 1. What a guy!

In case you are wondering there are 9 levels of Spanish instruction. No one is going to become fluent on this vacation! But if it makes you feel better there is nothing past level 1B and Eli made it to level 2 by the end of the week.

[7 de Enero, 2014]
We made some friends in class and decided to go to a Tango show at Cafe Tortoni together. It is one of the oldest restaurants in Buenos Aires. The is a Tango academy next door that puts on a great show in a dinner/theater below the restaurant. I don't know much about Tango but the women are very tall, the moves are all about the footwork, and the men were the more featured performers in this show. It was excellent.

[8 de Enero]

We went on a school organized tour of the La Boca neighborhood. Here we are being great students (the tour was in beginner Spanish):

The history of the neighborhood is that it was the original port for Buenos Aires and was very much a blue collar community. Many immigrants came to work here and the houses were a collection of styles and colors from all around the world. Over time this neighborhood is still one of the toughest and hard working neighborhoods in Buenos Aires but the port has moved north. Its about 30 minutes by bus from downtown Buenos Aires, so not far, but in some ways its like a world in and of itself. The downtown streets were colorful and it is right on the waterfront, a great place to visit.

Trees and lamp posts were decorated with yarn- I have no idea how they did this and/or how often they have to redo it after it rains, eck, but I loved it.

There is a celebrated piece of tango history in La Boca- I think a famous composer lived here (tour was in Spanish!)- and so the streets and restaurants are filled with live tango performances.

The best looking of them all

Another thing La Boca is known for is its Boca Juniors football club. As one of the most successful teams in Argentina, there is a lot of hometown pride. Here is one of their stadiums right in the heart of La Boca.

And a neighborhood park which reminds me of what playgrounds must have looked like for my dad back in the Bronx 50 years ago. Little kids were playing soccer under the shadow of one of the best soccer teams in Argentina just around the corner.