Day 2 - City Tour

#1 Rule in Buenos Aires: Don't help anyone... Rule #2: No one is going to help you! Hola! We woke up to cereal and tea on the kitchen table! Marité prepared a quick breakfast for us to eat last night as she slept in this morning because it is her Sunday! **From now on whenever I say we or us I am referring to the group of 20 Study Abroad Students Tay and I are here with!** Taylor and I managed to make the 40 minute commute into Belgrano (where our University and Study Abroad office is located) all on our own! First time on the SUBE without our mom, Marité! We spent our entire morning in a safety orientation at the ISA office. Guillermo, the head coordinator, tried to scare us as much as he possibly could. He told us countless stories of the schemers here in the city. Groups of thieves join together to devise complicated plans to rob pedestrians. They especially target foreigners as we are "easy, and carry more money". We were warned countless times to not speak English in public and especially on the SUBE, as this will attract thieves. No one is your friend, and the people are trying to trick you (the mustard trick, the baby trick, the dropped wallet trick). This morning we learned about every possible robbing scheme there is and now wear our backpacks on the front instead of the back. We knew our 3 hour safety presentation was finally coming to an end when we smelled the delicious empanadas that were delivered to the office for lunch! I ate two Caprese empanadas and Tay tried one empanada de carne (beef) and one empanada de pollo (chicken). They were all delicious, and we needed to fill up because we know we won't eat again until 9! Next we began our city tour around Buenos Aires! We started on the Colectivo (the city bus) so we could start to get used to using public transportation. We got off and walked straight to the Cemetery of Recoleta (pictures below). This place is far more than a cemetery! Dating back to the 1800s, in this cemetery lay the remains of the most influential and important people in Argentine history. Its marble mausoleums are dedicated to entire families and resemble the opulence of Argentine high class. Most of these monuments were the size of small houses, truly incredible to see! Our guide, Sebastián said that people pay up to $3000 per month to keep their site at the cemetery. Our private bus picked all of us up outside the cemetery and drove us to a local market where they actually had very unique and interesting items! Usually these markets are all the same around the world, but Taylor and I were pleased to see some new things! We only bought one thing though, a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice! We watched the man squeeze each orange! The bus then dropped the group off at Plaza de Mayo which houses important city landmarks such as the Casa Rosada (Pink House) where the President has his office. Why can't our White House be pink!? I sound like Taylor...ugh. The IRS building (the most hated building in Argentina is also in the Plaza del Mayo). Our next stop was the waterfront and modern neighborhood of Buenos Aires called Puerto Madero. There are glass skyscrapers, cool restaurants and night clubs! It is a young neighborhood that just went through the largest urbanization project in the cities history. In 1993, the government remodeled the old ship docks to a new area that is now considered to be the most important tourist and business area in Buenos Aires. In this area, we also walked across the famous Woman's Bridge (Puente de la Mujer) which is a contemporary white urban bridge. It was designed with the inspiration of a woman dancing tango. Our final stop was La Boca neighborhood. This is a colorful and delightful town known for tango and football (soccer). This neighborhood includes multi-colored houses and taverns with Italian roots. This town opens right up to the old port, hence the name "La Boca" (the mouth). Our guide explained to us that the people here are all immigrants. In the 40s and 50s, these people were dropped off by the shipload and had no where to go. This area used to be very high class but when the immigrants arrived all of the rich people fled to other areas. The immigrants divided these high class mansions and rented one room in the house for a family of 8 or more. This is how the area remains today, several run-down mansions FILLED with "porteños" (the name given to the people dropped off at the port). Taylor and I then strayed from the group and took the SUBE home, as we live in the opposite direction than everyone else in our group! Marité prepared delicious gnocchi con salsa (marinera) for me and con crema (alfredo) for Taylor! We ate way too much!
 Hasta Mañana, The First Born