Colonia

Friday was a day packed with culture. After class I went with some friends to an area of town called “recolleta”. Each barrio (neighborhood) here is very different and has a very different feel. Some are older, building built in the early 1800s and some are newer or have been renovated. Recolleta has a newer feel and is very current. We walked around where they have over a mile of art shops on the street and looked at all the work. Some of the stuff was absolutely amazing. The girls on our program had quite a hard time resisting buying everything they saw. I’m pretty sure some of them have bought presents for everyone they know back home. The only thing I have bought here is an Argentina jersey and a pair of pants (jewelry isn’t really my thing).
After looking at all the stores we went and saw Shrek 3, in Castellano (the type of Spanish they speak here). All the voices were dubbed, some better than others, but it was really fun to watch. I could understand about half of what was going on, but since I know the plot line from seeing the previous 2, I always got the gist.
After the movie we went to a fabulous place for dinner. Dinner here is my weakness. The food is so good, accessible and cheap that it makes it tough not to go a bit overboard at times. I feel like I have gone from instant mac and cheese to eating like I’m royalty. For just about every meal I order an appetizer, a main course (usually with beef), dessert and split a bottle of red wine (I usually don’t drink wine, but it is so good here and cheap). With everything the total is usually around 34 Argentine Pecos, including tip. That comes out to be about 11 US dollars. It definitely adds up after awhile, but it’s tough to resist such good affordable food.

The weekend and Monday were spent with my entire group in Uruguay (a small country north of Argentina). We had to travel over a river to get there (Rio de la Plata) which took us 3 hours to get there via boat. It’s a pretty wide river. While there, we had a fabulous time. First, we all had lunch at the house of the owner of Copa (the program I am on). It was a beautiful estate with grass, trees, a pond and a lemon field. It was so nice to see some green as there’s none in BA. It was also nice to have fresh air again and get out of the city for a bit.

After lunch we checked into our hotels/hostels and toured the city of Colonia. Colonia isn’t very big, about 12,000 people, but had a bunch of cool places to see. The currency is 24 Uruguayan pesos to the US dollar. It sounds enticing, but Uruguay is actually more expensive than BA. Everything in Colonia was very pretty, unique and right off of the “river” which looks more like the ocean. I took some pictures so you all can see what I saw. We also went on a guided tour and got some history of the city. Everywhere is South America has such a unique history, it’s really interesting to hear about the differences. The European countries were always fighting with each other to control the most land and trade in SA. The indigenous people had no chance. They were all killed or run off to the south western part of the country. That is why most of the people in South America look alike (dark hair, dark eyes and tan skin). Most of them have Italian or Spanish decent. We also went to a church service in Colonia. Catholicism is the predominant religion in all of SA and they take their religion very seriously. Mass is similar to catholic services in the states, just a bit more ritualistic. They are really into burning in-scents.
The next day I had a blast. We rented mopeds, golf carts and buggies and saw the entire city. I have never driven a moped, so it was quite fun. Some of the kids on our programs also hadn’t driven one before and had some issues controlling their vehicles. It’s hard not to laugh when you see your friends drive a moped into a wall or a street sign. Nothing was damaged and nobody was hurt, only pride was bruised. Never the less, I wish I had a video recorder and taped some of the wipe outs. This day nothing was planned in Colonia, just seeing the town and enjoying the scenery, but that was just fine with everyone. Nobody attested not having a strict schedule to follow.
The scenery was beautiful, the people were friendly and interested in our culture, the kids from my group all got along, the food was delicious, the air was clean, the grass was refreshing and the timing was perfect. It couldn’t have been a better weekend. Uruguay was a success!