Palermo Parks & Evita Museum

Today was a beautiful day in Argentina.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky and even though most of the locals thought it was cold - by Kansas standards this was a fall/spring day and not a winter day.  So I seized the opportunity to go to some of the parks and monuments in the Palermo area.

The first monument (pictured below) is the Monumento de los Cuatro Regiones Argentinas.  It's a pretty nice statue in a very busy intersection.

It's a beautiful statue, but please look very closely for the social commentary here...

This resident of the streets was obviously doing his weekly laundry and taking a bath in the fountain water.  Not pictured here is his lady friend who came to check on his progress a short time later.

Near this monument is the beautiful park that surrounds Lake Palermo that is tucked away in this section of the city.  It is only 2 stops on the subway north from my house and about 5 blocks to the east.  It was pretty easy to navigate and find.

The entrance to the park welcomes you with these beautiful fountains.  The sky was absolutely beautiful all afternoon.

Above a portion of the lake is pictured with the business there that sells paddle boats.  I did opt to take one of the paddle boats around the lake to snap more than a few photos...

After I finished at the Palermo Lake I visited the Evita Museum.  Anyone who is anyone is Argentine history has some sort of museum dedicated to him/her and this one dedicate to Eva Peron did not disappoint.

There were many displays dedicated to her sense of fashion and the one above was one of the many displays concerning her hat collection.

She famously received much of her clothing from outside of Argentina - like the dresses pictured above.

This reads: Passion, Courage, Work, Dignity, Greatness, Solidarity.  This was included in a room that had many artifacts related to Evita's work advocating for orphan children and the disabled elderly.  Regardless of your political positions... I think you can still stand in awe of her unique life.

Tonight's plan is to celebrate the birthday of one of the other student's on the trip...

Ciao,

Tim

Graffiti Tour

After our regular classes ended at 14:30 today we were taken on small buses to various parts of the city to view graffiti in the city.  In Buenos Aires there is a rich history with graffiti and it has been used as means of political protest, as an underground form of communication and to find missing people believed to be killed by historical dictatorships.  These pictures are taken in the Palermo district where I live and some of these artists are well known and charge a lot of money for their work, but believe this is a way for them to give back to the community.  It is still technically illegal here, but many times the artist obtains permission from the property owner or these are done on public buildings where permission was granted in the past and the newer artists just use that as blanket permission to paint.  Also, some political parties - including the one in power now - will actually pay groups of people to perform graffiti with political slogans.

It should be noted that the Palermo district is quite large and split into several factions and these pictures were taken in Palermo SOHO and what is now being referred to as Palermo Queens.  I guess the developers in these areas try are familiar with the geography of Los Angeles and New York.

The photographs:

Traveling the El Tigre

Yesterday I didn't have the chance to blog because we took the subway to the China town in the far North part of the city.  So here is a wrap up of my Thursday night and Friday for everyone.

On Thursday night a group of us went to a bar called Port in Palermo SOHO, a part of the city.  On Thursdays they have free Pizza all night as long as you are drinking.  I took the subway and for some reason it was abandoned and I didn't have to pay to use it... so that was pretty great.

I tried an Argentine beer called Buho and I chose the have the "Blonde" Ale.  It was actually pretty delicious and tasted like a nice Boulevard Pale Ale, but maybe just not as much after taste and little less hoppy.

After everything was said and done I think that I spent a total of $31 US to go out, eat free pizza, drink and then come home in a Taxi.  It's not bad, but prices fluctuate a lot depending on location here - so there is a chance that we'll just have to learn the lay of the land to understand what is a good place to go.  This particular bar was pretty awesome because of the all of the artistic graffiti on the walls.

On Saturday we went to China Town and it was pretty cold so I ended up buying a stocking cap that I didn't pack because I didn't think I would need here.  It turns out in US dollars I think it only costed about $7, so that's not bad.  I also found a store with a ridiculous amount of fresh sushi for sale (average price $4 US per roll).

We walked up and down the banks of the river El Tigre and the river was pretty dirty, but it was still impressive.  I took the following picture of a bike that was abandoned next to the bank of the river.

We are going back and taking a boat tour of the river in a couple of weeks and I think that will be pretty interesting.  After walking along the bank for awhile we ended up at the Museum of Art which had an beautiful lawn.

When we returned from the Museum of Art we were able to meet some of the students from the actual University of San Andres.  They were all soooo impressive.  They spoke at least two languages and some three languages and had traveled many different places in the world.  We were able to sit and talk with them and I think that some of them will join us on other excursions.

This was Tomas who spoke to us at our table. He is from the Patagonia region in South Argentina and spoke a few languages and had studied English since he was a child.  He also took a year and spent it in Europe and then returned to school... he is still in his early 20's and has had a lot of experiences in the world.

Saturday Agenda:  Laundry Day & Tango Lessons