el otro lado del río

Greg and I are in Uruguay just for today. We saw the beaches of Montevideo and ate loads of little delicious pastries.

I found an apartment in La Plata! I`ll start moving my stuff there this Thursday. I`ll have my own room and my new roomy, Vale, will have the other. He`s a Mendoza transplant and film student who happens to date Diego`s sister. Thus the roommate connection. The new place is awesome! Very close to both workplaces, a balcony, marble countertops, internet, a grill downstairs that we can use... and the price is right. Yay! Ya es oficial: me he hecho platense.

huevones de pascua

VISITAS

Since I`ve arrived here, I`ve had 3 visits from out-of-town friendles. The first was Asun, Marcela`s friend. The second was Greggo. The third, Marcy. Marcy leaves tomorrow and Greg leaves Wednesday. I will then have a few days to myself at the end of the week, which I will surely fill up with lots of reading and lots of running around La Plata and the public parks in Buenos Aires. And maybe buying a guitar. And definitely going to my favorite pizzería, PIZZERIA GUERRIN.

During this time, I have gotten to know the city really, really well and am starting to feel almost like a tour guide, now that I have a spiel for every landmark in the city, most of which are within walking distance of my apartment in San Telmo.

During this time, I have also lost and found a debit card and I continue to work out my housing situation in La Plata. I have come to the conclusion that it`s best to live close to where all my work, my students, and my classes are. So the search continues, this time with lots of help from coworkers, and a small crew of international students in the same search process.

It´s official

I´m now fully oriented after a week of orientation. I now have a load of teacher books, an actual factual visa de cortesía, over 20 American friends spread out through the provinces with over 20 couches where I can crash, and more official papers I can heft about when questioned by authorities or landlords.

The other ETA assigned to La Plata is way cool. Tomorrow we´re off to start house hunting. But first we must dance. It is Friday night, after all.

sweet home buenos aires (or) entre porteños y platenses

• LA LLEGADA
  I returned to Buenos Aires, smelling of B.O. and Chilean alfajores, after a 20-plus hour bus ride back from Santiago. I went to hang out with my friend Andrea, a Columbian Buenos Aires transplant and film student, and out of this chance meeting came the offer to fill a vacant space in her 4-person apartment in San Telmo. This will be my home at least for this month, as I work out the commute (45 minutes by bus to La Plata - doable?) and continue to check out housing options in La Plata.
  
  LA PLATA
  I went to visit Prof. Morales and she is an awesome person! She took me around the city, gave me a tour of the academic buildings, introduced me to a few students, and is helping me to get adjusted to moving in. I`m really excited to start doing my discussion sections for the English classes, because I`ve pretty much been given a lot of room to be creative with activities. Also, I might help out in a few literary and cultural studies classes there dealing with American literature (so like, talking about The Scarlet Letter or The House on Mango Street with a bunch of Argentine college students.) Most excellent.
  I also met up with Diego and the Comisiòn por la Memoria. It turns out that Diego lives about 10 blocks from me in Buenos Aires, so the commute is possible. He may even give me a ride there when he gets a car. Things at the Commission are similarly open to my interpretation and plans. I`m going to have an ongoing orientation this coming week and get familiar with their different departments and programs and then see where I can work with them. Also, there are 9 William and Mary students there doing a new exchange program masterfully organized by Prof. T. Three of them are my former Sharpies. It`ll be exciting to work with the Commission while they are there and to once again connect with them and their W&M sized sense of curiosity.
  
  ANYWAY
  I LOVE LIVING IN SAN TELMO! IT IS AMAZING! It is the art and tango capital of Buenos Aires and is within walking distance of the best parts of the city. And my roommates are really nice. Couldn´t be more happy with my housing arrangement.
  
  -----
  
  I´d like to clarify a few correct and incorrect assumptions I had about living in Buenos Aires before I arrived here:
  
• The schools are high quality. Correct. Public universities are essentially free and are high quality. The Universidad de Buenos Aires and the Universidad Nacional de La Plata are both ranked in the top 100 universities in the world and are number 1 and 2 in Argentina, respectively, in terms of prestige. I`m in a good place of learning.
• The streets are paved with gold. Incorrect. The streets are paved with trash, like in most capital cities. But check out the amazing green space and public gardens here! Very amazing and liveable city.
• The food is good. Correct (with qualification). You can get amazingly amazingly good pizza, steak, pasta, empanadas, burgers, wine, pastries, espresso or mate here. It is mindblowingly good and usually very cheap. What you can`t get in high quantity or quality: fruits or vegetables or things your doctor tells you to eat.
• The rent is cheap. Incorrect. The rent was cheap until all the Europeans and North Americans found out and bought time shares in BA and made it hard for Argentines to live in the capital. Housing is a seller`s market. Inflation is still the main culprit, though, since prices of utilities are going up as well - the energy crisis thing having its ripple effect. House-hunting is hard wherever you come from and Argentina`s middle class is sort of disappearing as people have to live with 3 generations in the same apartment.
• Los argentinos son pesados. Incorrect. People are expressive and talk with loud voices and lots of hand motions. True, people wear much nicer clothes than they can afford and they`re very proud of their highways, their Maradona, their team, etc., but they are way nice and will go out of their way to help you out. I didn´t imagine myself as a porteño but I`m liking living in the capi capi.
• Finding work in Argentina is easy. Correct (with qualification). If you work hard and have education, finding how to work shouldn´t be a problem. Unemployment is a bit of a problem in Argentina, but what there is more often is under-employment, that is, people working in jobs they are over-qualified for because of the job market.
  There it is, from my completely biased perspective.

aventuras en santiago de chile

CAJÓN DEL MAIPO
We zoomed along well-kept roads running parallel to the contours of the mountains due east of Santiago until we came to the last empanada stand before the Argentine border. Here we stopped, where the road stops being paved, to climb on some rocks on the side of the clear blue mountain stream that eventually feeds Santiago´s comically smelly Río Mapocho.

¡TERREMOTOS!
The following day after hanging out in Marcy´s rooftop pool (did I mention how nice her apartment complex is?) we went out with friends Carlos, Asunción and Gabi to the perfect hangout for guachones and flaites alike, LA PIOJERA. This place had a duo playing cuenca duets on accordion and guitar for anyone with a gamba and a request. We had their specialty: the TERREMOTO (earthquake), a pint glass full of red wine and topped off with a huge scoop of pineapple ice cream. It´s like candy that makes you drunk. It was an 8 on the Richter scale. We ended up running around the Metro and somehow ended up hanging out in Bellavista before the night was over.

OTHER SIGHTS
The giant national cemetary in Santiago, the National Temple containing an interesting display on some kind of holy blanket (?), the Sunday markets out in the Maipú part of the city, subpar (but healthy) Chilean pizza, a huuuuuge mall in Santiago, my eyes bugging out at how expensive everything is there...

DREAM THEATER
I went to the espectáculo that is a Chilean metal concert. The whole crew of us arrived at noon to have a rock picnic and wait for the gates to the Arena de Santiago to open. I was transported to the 1980s, smushed in between thousands of Chilean Bills and Teds. It was an excellent adventure. Marcy fell in love with the drummer of Dream Theater, who was wearing a Chilean Selección Nacional jersey. I told her about the Wilco song describing such a love but she still has to hear it. The concert was amazing! They had a very huge and well-orchestrated stage show, complete with dualling keytar/guitar noodle solos, giant ants that came down from the ceiling, cartoons in the background that showed the band members killing dinosaurs and space aliens with their rock music... it was virtuosic cock rock at its best.

VALPO
We got out of the Dream Theater concert at about 11. It was Saturday night and Marci was NOT going to hear anyone say they´re tired. Her American brother was in town and damn it, we were going to have a dance party in Valparaíso. Carlos drove us out there in his pickup truck. We arrived at a club called HUEVOS or something at about 1:30 am. It was a pretty sweet multi-level overlooking the foggy city and the ocean. The music was eclectic: reggaeton here, English 80s music there, salsa here, electrónica there... We danced until about 5:30 am when it started closing, then went to a late-night eatery to get gigantic Completos (panchos con palta, mayonesa, tomates, cebollas... tu cachai po) and coffee. Then we all went to the Miradores overlooking the city and looked at the lights of housing outlining Valpo´s classic hills.

Sunday night I had my final Chilean once (this time with SOPAIPILLAS!!! AHHH!!! my trip was now complete) at Carlos´s house.

SWEET HOME BUENOS AIRES
I now have just arrived, stinky and sleepy, to Buenos Aires after riding for a little over 24 hours (there was a short delay in customs) in a sweet decked out ANDESMAR bus (servicio cama) from Santiago to Buenos Aires, con parada en Mendoza.

Quehaceres:
-find an apartment in La Plata
-meet with my referente
-get my visa de cortesía (and maybe work out that absentee ballot thing while I´m there)
-party with BA friends (first get cell phone charged up)