Weekend

This weekend was busy, in a productive way!

On Saturday, Jamila and I braved the rainy weather and took a bus to the Mueso de Bellas Artes in Recoleta. It's on Avenida de Libertador, a beautiful long avenue of gorgeous apartment buildings and tree-lined lanscaping.
The museum itself was alright. It was free, a plus, and poorly curated, a minus. Rooms seemed to be organized with no rhyme or reason, mixing eras and origens. The best parts were the Pop Art section and the Argentinian art section.

After artwork, we went with our friend Mariah and her host sister Jimena to café La Biela, a classic café that overlooks the famous Recoleta Cemetary. It was a very nice merienda (snack), with delicious coffee and scrumptious bittersweet chocolate accompanying our drinks.

We then headed on to a birthday party of another person on our program, Chelsea. Her host mom (and host aunt) planned a pizza birthday party, cooking 4 different kinds of pizza (the best was by far spinach and ricotta), a brownie cake with dulce de leche, cream, and merengue, and birthday hats. It was really fun and super generous of her to host us all.


Today Jamila and I went to the San Telmo fair. On Sundays, it seems as though all the streets in the neighborhood are lined with vendors of antiques, artwork, handicrafts, you name it. When we got tired, we took a break in Pride Café, a small café with great vibes and delicious and inexpensive food. http://www.adondevamos.com/bares/Pride-Cafe/1529/?b6=11&js=0 I got Caprese Brusqueta and Jamila got a walnut brownie with a class of milk. We shared both of them.

Besides enjoying the city, Jamila and I have both been busy doing research for our independent study projects, conducting interviews, and writing a LOT in Spanish! I'll let Jamila post about her topic later, but my topic explores identity formation in the Sephardic Jewish communities of Buenos Aires. As some of you may know, Buenos Aires has a very large and diverse Jewish population. The Sephardic members of the community are descendants of people from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and from the Middle East. The majority of people I have interviewed have been of Syrian descent. It has been a very interesting research process and I will happily show the final product to anyone willing to read over 20 pages in Spanish!

This week, my parents and sister come to visit me in Buenos Aires. It will be a nice excuse to do any touristy things I haven't yet done and eat some yummy food!