Teatro Colon

First things first, this marks my 33rd post in the past five months - success! (Considering I only blogged 32 times in a nine month period the last time I was in Argentina.)

On to more interesting topics...Teatro Colon, which is considered one of the top five in the world. It is especially well-known for its acoustics and its architectural value. (Interesting fact: they don't use any microphones and you can hear even the slightest whisper.) A few years back, it celebrated its 100th birthday.

About a month ago, I went on a guided tour. The theater was built over a period of 20 years, due to the death of two of the three architects. (The first one died a year after starting the project and the second one was killed by his butler when the butler found out he had an affair with his wife.) Due to this, one can see varying styles of architecture within the building, depending on which architect carried out that specific project.

In 2006, restoration of the theater began. This process took 4 years, 1500 individuals and $100 million to complete. This makes sense when you consider that the theater takes up the whole city block and that it has three levels underground, which houses the tallers ... in other words, the shops needed to create everything the theater needs - costumes, wigs, backdrops, etc. (Interesting fact: everything used in the theater is made there.)

This morning, I had the opportunity to go to Teatro Colon and listen to Cuarteto Petrus for free in great seats! (More on that later) For anyone into music, they played Felix Mendelssohn: Capriccio en Mi menor; Anton Arensky: Variaciones sobre un tema de Tchaikovski, Op.35 a; José Bragato: Tres movimientos porteños; and Maurice Ravel: Cuarteto en Fa. It was neat because Mr. Bragato was present ...and because the theater is breath-taking! I'll leave you all with a tidbit of the concert. :-) 

A Bittersweet Realization

Today as I was passing through migrations in Uruguay to get on the boat back to Argentina, I realized that today is June 12th...Thirty days until the day I have been dreading for the last five months - July 12th. Why you ask? The very day I will be in Ezieza International Airport boarding a plane to return to Iowa.

Maybe "dreading" isn't the best word choice, but pretty much. Let me explain... Unlike most college students, I'm not dreading living with my parents for 3 weeks. And I am definitely not dreading seeing my family, boyfriend or friends, but that comes with the realization that I don't know when I'll see my Argentine friends and adopted family again (or my study abroad friends for that matter). I can't even begin to explain how sad that makes me.

Many talk about culture shock when going to new countries, but few people know of reverse culture shock. I have never had a problem with culture shock, but reverse culture shock gets me every time. Summer 2007 is still a blur to me.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely have a list of things to do and places to go when I get back, but going from a life in a city of 14 million people to one of 300,000 or 50,000 has no comparison.

I found a good explanation of reverse culture shock from the study abroad student handbook (http://www.studentsabroad.com/reentrycultureshock.html):

Reverse culture shock is usually described in four stages:

- Disengagement
- Initial euphoria
- Irritability and hostility
- Readjustment and adaptation

Stage 1 begins before you leave your host country. You begin thinking about re-entry and making your preparations for your return home. You also begin to realize that it's time to say good-bye to your friends abroad and to the place you've come to call home. The hustle and bustle of finals, good-bye parties, and packing can intensify your feelings of sadness and frustration. You already miss the friends you've made, and you are reluctant to leave. Or, you may make your last few days fly by so fast that you don't have time to reflect on your emotions and experiences.

Stage 2 usually begins shortly before departure, and it is characterized by feelings of excitement and anticipation - even euphoria - about returning home. This is very similar to the initial feelings of fascination and excitement you may have when you first entered your host country. You may be very happy to see your family and friends again, and they are also happy to see you. The length of this stage varies, and often ends with the realization that most people are not as interested in your experiences abroad as you had hoped. They will politely listen to your stories for a while, but you may find that soon they are ready to move on to the next topic of conversation.

This is often one of the transitions to Stage 3. You may experience feelings of frustration, anger, alienation, loneliness, disorientation, and helplessness and not understand exactly why. You might quickly become irritated or critical of others and of U.S. culture. Depression, feeling like a stranger at home, and the longing to go back abroad are also not uncommon reactions. You may also feel less independent than you were while abroad.

Most people are then able to move onto Stage 4, which is a gradual readjustment to life at home. Things will start to seem a little more normal again, and you will probably fall back into some old routines, but things won't be exactly the same as how you left them. You have most likely developed new attitudes, beliefs, habits, as well as personal and professional goals, and you will see things differently now. The important thing is to try to incorporate the positive aspects of your international experience while abroad with the positive aspects of your life at home in the United States.

Obviously this process is different for everyone and not all steps will apply to each individual, but in googling reverse culture shock I came across a comment from a girl that I completely identify with...

"Reverse culture shock sucks. It's so hard to sum up an entire semester abroad in a conversation let alone as an answer to 'so what exactly did you while you were in Argentina?'"

I also enjoyed some sarcastic advice from: http://www.women-on-the-road.com/reverse-culture-shock.html

"Fill your backpack. Carry it around with you every day, even to work. Then lock it to your desk and look back furtively each time you take a few steps away."

So in a month if you see me with my backpack or struggling to find the right word in English, you'll know why :-)

A Successful Day

Finally - a successful day! After a not so successful Saturday, which was spent waiting and waiting and waiting, I welcomed an action-packed Sunday.

I slept in, had my cup of coffee and was off. There was nobody in the street as I waited...and waited...and waited for the colectivo. It finally came, but failed to stop for me. (crazy colectivero) The next colectivo was as equally full as the first, but I literally squeezed in. At the next stop, he let people climb on through the rear door. I´m pretty sure a majority of the riders didn´t pay, as it was impossible to reach the machine to put your coins in.

I started out the day by visiting the National Library, which in all honesty, I thought was going to be much cooler than it was. (Probably due to the fact that I wasn´t getting a tour -- only Fridays at 3pm -- and I was allowed to go to the 6th floor to ¨study with my materials¨ or the 5th floor to check out/reference books. The 6th floor was full of people drinking mate and studying and the other wing was closed, so I have no idea what was in it. The 5th floor was equally as drab...a few computers to look up reference materials, a row of lockers to put your belongings in, a circulation desk for when you wanted to get a book and a security guard who wouldn´t let you pass unless you only had your notes and the form you had to fill out to get in the library. All purses, drinks, books and other belongings needed to be put in a locker. If you wanted a book, you had to look it up on the computer and then tell the desk what book you wanted. I bet the 1, 2, 3 and 4th floors were much more interesting, but they were off-limits. It did have an interesting piece of art outside and a weird structure to the building, so I guess it isn´t all bad.

I proceeded to aimlessly walk around Recoleta, an exclusive neighborhood in BA, and stumbled upon some lovely buildings before making my way to one of the five most famous cemeteries in the world for the 2 PM tour. In 1822, the Recoleta Cemetery was the first public cemetery in Buenos Aires and is the final resting place of some of Argentina's richest and most powerful citizens - national heroes, former Argentine presidents, soldiers, scientists, writers and other celebrities - like Evita.

There are few individuals buried underground, as the majority are housed in ornate buildings. These buildings have 2 floors underground (about 7 meters) and some even have space for individuals above the main room. Many had stained glass works, but interestingly enough, they were created for the person who peers in the building from the outside. (Not for the person who looks at the window from the outside of the building.)

It was interesting seeing the graves of many of the writers that I have been learning about in my literature classes, especially Eugenio Cambaceres' daughter, Rufina, who died in 1902 at the age of 19. She was getting ready to go Teatro Colon when she fell to the floor unconscious. She was pronounced dead and thus buried, despite having only suffered a catalepsy attack. (The heart beats, but extremely slowly and the body becomes rigid.) Her grandmother (who was in France at the time) didn't believe that Rufina had died, so she hoped on a boat and arrived a few months later. She got permission to see the body and when they opened the casket they saw Rufina's hands all scratched up from trying to get out. She unfortunately died of suffocation and her grandmother had this monument made for her in the cemetery.

After the tour, I walked around the feria (artesian fair) to purchase a few things I had been meaning to get and drank mate in the plaza with some friends while taking in the different shows - a band and then Brazilian martial arts - before heading home to bundle up for the next item on my bucket-list ... an Argentine soccer game!

I've never been a huge fan of soccer, but I must say the game kept me entertained. The hinchas (biggest fans) were cheering from the moment they walked into the stadium and the atmosphere was laid-back, but you could tell the fans meant business. It was 0-0 for what seemed like forever and then the other team scored a goal. There was a 5-year old boy behind us who kept screaming profanities at the players and fans were not happy. If River (the soccer team) lost the game, they would be endanger of dropping down a league. Thankfully they got their act together, scored a goal, and the crowd went wild!! They had a few more close goals, but the game ended in a tie.

The River fans had to wait in the stadium as security escorted the visiting fans out of the stadium and into their buses. (Each stadium has a special section for visitors.) I had a lot of fun, despite not being a River fan *BOCA, BOCA* I can't believe I didn't go to a game sooner, but next time I come to Buenos Aires, I will be sure to schedule in a few. :-)

Staying Informed

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like a lot has happened since I've been in Argentina:

• Extreme flooding in Brazil
• Japanese earthquake and tsunami
• Multiple tornadoes in the U.S.
• Earthquake in Spain
• ...and now the Chilean volcano 

It may also be that I don't pay that much attention to the news when I'm in the States, but I feel like I would have been informed of any worldly news items of this magnitude. Either way, the recent eruption of the Chilean volcano doesn't make me want to visit Chile anytime in the near future (even thought I had planned on it when I first got to Argentina).

A few days ago, a friend was supposed to fly into Buenos Aires from the Bariloche area, but the flights were cancelled due to the ashes that covered everything and when I saw them on tv...it reminded me of a snow storm. Today, I heard that these ashes will be arriving in Buenos Aires tomorrow! The volcano located is more than 1,000 km from here, but due to the direction and speed of the wind, ashes have already arrived in other parts of the province of Buenos Aires.  We shall see...

I'll leave you with the post be CNN, which has pictures: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/06/thousands-evacuate-ashes-spread-after-chilean-volcano-erupts/?hpt=wo_t1

OVNI

Dinner last night was interesting... Miguel (one of my "host family's" sons) came over for dinner and the wife actually ate with us! There was a lot of conversation, especially in comparison to the usual dinner where the owner talks and talks and talks and never seems to stop. (But really, I don't even have to comment or anything because he just keeps talking....)

Either way, they were all excitedly talking about OVNIs and I understood Omnis (colectivo). In any case, I wasn't really paying that close of attention to the conversation until I could no longer avoid not chiming in. They were talking about how craters were formed in Cordoba and then I had to ask - 'What exactly are we talking about?' ... 'OVNIs' 


As I came to find out, OVNI stands for objeto valador no identificado or as we all know it - unidentified flying object. Why were we talking about UFOs you might ask...well, I really don't have a good answer for that. What I do know is that they all thought that they saw a UFO in Buenos Aires in 1982/5? Are you kidding me??! At first I thought they were kidding, but insistently said saw a UFO....I'll let that one sink in... Apparently this UFO was so large that the military planes tried to get near it, but they could never reach it. At one point, the UFO had a giant pole that it lowered down for who knows what reason.

This morning on my way to work,  I was reading the paper (La Razon - The Reason) and they had a part about UFOs. Ironic. For all of you interested, there is a documental called Invasion Extraterrestre (Extra-terrestrials Invasion) that talks about what would happen if extra-terrestrials attacked Earth and how we would defend ourselves. Scientists in the Department of Defense consider this to be a 'real possibility and one that we shouldn't ignore.' Thus, they are developing military tactics and strategies for it.

If this isn't intriguing enough, there are more out-of-this-world experiences occurring in recent years, such as 20 some cows found without a single drop of blood in their bodies in La Pampa, Argentina (without any puncture marks on their bodies) or cars that just stop running on certain roads. I also found an article online that NASA "verified" the sighting of a UFO in Argentina this past December.

Speaking of NASA, during dinner they also discussed how they don't think that Neil Armstrong actually landed on the moon....again, are you kidding me?! Apparently they landing was 'filmed' elsewhere to make it seem as though he landed on the moon, but with today's technology you can see that it is actually a backdrop. Thankfully we didn't discuss Michael Jackson, but a few weeks ago an Argentine told me that he thought that Michael Jackson faked his death and is actually in hiding. Um, I'm pretty sure he's dead. If he had wanted to fake his death, I bet he would have done so a long time ago, but then again...what do I know?

Humahuaca

We arrived Tuesday mid-afternoon and set out for the hostel. After checking in, we reserved our spots on four excursions and went exploring before dinner. At the feria artesanal (craft fair) we looked around for a bit and also tried some foods traditional of this part of Northern Argentina -- tamales and humitas, which come wrapped in corn husks.

We proceeded to take a cable car up to Cerro San Bernardo, where we got a wonderful view of the city as the sun was setting. On our way down we could see all the city lights against the dark and cloudy mountain backdrop. 

Wednesday we got up at 6am - yes, 6am - to go on our first excursion, Humahuaca. It started off by driving through the yunga forest. (Yunga means dark and closed.) I learned a lot of interesting things - half of which I can't recall because it was 12 hours worth of information, but nonetheless I will do my best to share some...

If anyone has ever studied Latin American culture, you probably know that many people suck on coca leaves - particularly in Bolivia and Columbia, but also in other parts like Salta and Jujuy. A small bag of leaves is around $2.50. It's interesting to note that Argentina doesn't cultivate coke plants. Instead, it is brought into the country illegally from Bolivia and then sold legally in northern Argentina. 

In order to cocear, the person packs 20 or so leaves between their cheek and teeth and lets them sit there - no chewing involved. Every once in awhile the person may put a bit of baking soda on the leaves to bring out the flavor. The coca leaves curb your appetite, is a natural stimulant and has nutritional value. All of our tour guides had coca leaves packed into their cheeks.

*To clarify, these people are not drug addicts. It takes 100 kilos of coca leaves and multiple chemicals to make one gram of cocaine. (In any case don't worry, I did NOT try it.)

We stopped at the Cerro de los Siete Colores (Hill of Seven Colors) and various Andean pueblos (small villages) - including Purmamarca, Maimara and Tilcara - whom still preserve traditions and customs of ancient times. I took countless pictures of old churches, adobe buildings, cardones (similar to the cactus) and the breathtaking mountain views.

For lunch, I ate more food typical of the region - milanesa de llama and pumpkin in almibar (a sweet syrup). It was delicious! After lunch I checked out some stores and found the coolest pair of slippers ever -- made out of leather and alpaca fur. The best part was that you could take the inner part out and wear them as socks in bed and the  put the outer part back on to walk around your house. Unfortunately I have large feet, especially considering the average height of Argentineans, thus they did not have my size or any size close to mine. :-( oh well it was still a fun day!

And I'm Off

My mom would be proud, I had my bag packed and ready to go before I got up this morning for my flight to Salta AND I packed light. I may or not have been late leaving my house to meet up with Cara and Paula at school to go to the Jorge Newberry Airport, so I took a remis (taxi) and got there a good 15 minutes before they arrived.

With our flight in two hours, we flagged down another remis ... well he flagged us down ... and we were on our way. Our remisero was jamming to the radio and in a matter of minutes we pulled up to the airport. There was hardly any wait and before I knew it we had tickets in hand.

We opted to carry-on our bags and right before the scanning process we realized that we probably had prohibited items - tweezers and aerosol cans. But since this is Argentina we ran our bags through the machine, walked casually through the body scanner with our shoes still on and continued on our way. Not to mention that I'm pretty sure I could have packed more than a ziplock bag full of liquids if I had wanted.

In order to get to our gate, we had to pass through a shopping area with everything imaginable -- suitcases, wine, chocolate, clothes, leather goods, etc. When we finally reached the end, we were greeted by the national Argentine soccer team! I used my stealth picture taking skills to capture the moment, so I'll have to post that later. For the moment being, I'm really loving the laid-back travel procedures here :-)