So, I usually write on Sundays but this Sunday I was in URUGUAY! Yep, just some casual country hopping for the weekend. But, before I relay my adventures from the weekend I started classes last week so here is a run down of my schedule...a week in the life, if you will:
Monday: NO CLASS!! Perfect for long weekend traveling, recovering after a busy weekend, getting extra work done (extra work?? does that exist here??)
Tuesday: Nuevo Cine Latinoamerica 4-7: there´s a reading for every class, and then a short quiz, discussion, and the second half is watching a latin american movie
Wednesday: Procesos sociales y politicos 9-12 (in reality it´s 10-12 because that´s when the professor decides to stroll in, blaming it on his mujer of course) : this is my least favorite course becuase the professor doesn´t seem so thrilled to be teaching it and he is the most difficult to understand, but he throws in si, cierto, claro, ¿no? words that even my Dad knows (love ya, pops!)
After class, I head to the BahÃa Bar for lunch, it is equivalent to The Pier at Richmond, or a fast food type place where you can get sandwhiches, coffee, and snacks. I then print/photocopy anything I need to for classes. Yes, you don´t buy textbooks here, instead you go to one of the several fotocopiadoras on campus where you tell the student working there your class and the assignment and they photocopy it out of a master book. Then, you pay for it.
Arte y Arquitectura 3-6: I really like this class. The professor teaches us about different art and architecture of Latin America and then compares them to other countries within L.A. and Spain/Portugal. Throughout the semester we´ll go on field trips to different landmarks & museums around B.A.
Thursday: As of right now, another day off. Soon to be filled up with my Spanish course at Expanish.
Friday: Registrando Buenos Aires 10:30-1:30: I´m getting art credit for this course at Richmond. It´s a photography course and the professor is great. She is really passionate about photography and we get to use our own cameras to explore the city...perfect!
Sat & Sundays: Exploring the city & travelling!
Okay, now on to the more exciting stuff...
Friday night I went to dinner with my PAL and his other students as well as some of their friends. It was a lot of fun and good practice for me considering I spoke Spanish the entire time. I met other exchange students at UCA, mostly from Germany. Everyone was going out after dinner, which ended at midnight, but I had to go home & pack for Uruguay at 5 a.m! Which, is what time I would´ve gotten back from going out.
So, how to get to the port on the border of La Boca and Puerto Madero by 7 a.m? Well, take a colectivo of course! Nicknamed Dora, I looked up what bus to take to get there. The five of us, with backpacks and ready for our Uruguayan adventure, got on the 152 colectivo towards La Boca. Now, let me preface this story by saying La Boca is NOT where you should go at night. Generally, it is the most unsafe neighborhood of Buenos Aires by night. So, as we are sitting on the bus and I am still wishing I was asleep as it is still dark out, we miss our stop and end up at the bus terminal. Only about 15 blocks away from where we needed to be. So, five girls, with bookbags, clearly foreign, in La Boca at 6 a.m. I see a woman sweeping the sidewalk and ask her if she knows how to get to the port. She tells us to follow the water. Okay, great except for the fact that there are NO lights along the water and the spooky fog wasn´t helping either. So we follow the lit street up a bunch of blocks until we cut over and eventually make it to the port where we see our friend, and tourguide, Leti waving for us :)
We took the one hour ferry ride over to Colonia, Uruguay. A small, quiet, touristy town that is located right on the Rio Plata. We had an hour walking tour of the town seeing the famous lighthouse, church, and ruins left from when Spain and Portugal fought over the land.
The worst part was the exchange rate. It was 20 uruguayan pesos to 1 american dollar. So dividing everything by 20 was a pain, much easier to divide by 4 in Argentina. Also, despite their money being so devalued, it wasn't as cheap as Argentina, even though prices were still very low. It was nice to see such a change in living with cars that yielded for pedestrians, beaches, and no one was yelling Alemenias, as we walked by...much different from B.A. Colonia has a gorgeous coastline and at the end is the Plaza del Toros. Perry, Jen, Helen, and I rented a golf cart and took it along the coast to the old bullring. We rode around the residential neighborhoods and saw the sights in a fun way. The only frightening part was when a stray dog ran up to the cart and started to bark right at the wheels. We made it back, checked into our hostel, and then walked around before getting dinner at the famous El Drugstore in Colonia. After dinner, we went back to the hostel and were all exhausted from the long day, so we attempted to go to sleep in the home sweet hostel....with the mold...and the guy/girl (really, I could not tell) that we met, and the 3 other roommates that we never met that night. Being the spoiled brat that I am in my apartment in B.A...not having heat made it a little more uncomfortable to get to sleep. I felt perfectly safe in the hostel but I still thought it´d be for the best if I slept with my purse that night, yep, under the covers and everything.
Beautiful sunset in Colonia
We woke up at 7 the next morning, took our freezing showers, got dressed in a dark room, and got the hell out of Dodge. We walked back to the Colonia port and tried to figure out where to go for our bus to Montevideo. This was a challenge because everyone at the port tried to tell us something different. Since we were taking a bus I figured we should be at the bus terminal, so with 10 minutes before we were supposed to leave, we ran two blocks down to the bus terminal...only to find out no, we had to be back at the port. The truth was, that no one understood that we spent a night in Colonia from B.A. and then wanted to take a bus to Montevideo. Anyways, why did we think anything or anyone was going to be on time in this country?? About half an hour after we were supposed to leave, our bus came and everyone from B.A. got off the ferry and got onto the bus. After the two hour drive, we were ALMOST into Montevideo when our bus accidentally hit the car in front of us at the stop light. We had to wait for the police and everyone to exchange their info...luckily, no one was hurt :) We finally got into the city & took a cab from the bus terminal to the hostel. We checked into our 'treehouse' of a room. Literally, you had to practically climb on the roof to get to our bungalow of a room. Once we threw our backpacks down, I picked up a map and we headed towards the water and la ciudad vieja, the older part of the city where our hostel was located. The architecture was gorgeous as we walked further into the main plaza. I kept thinking there was an eeriness to the city, until we noticed that there were no people, anywhere. Also, every store and restaurant was closed. We didn't mind though, it was like our own personal tour of the city & the Atlantic/Rio de la Plata.
Palacio Salvo in the Plaza Independencia in Montevideo
I assume that Uruguay is similar to Spain in the sense that Sunday is a day of rest and being that it was the afternoon, siesta was in full swing. We found one cafe that was open and had a long leisurely lunch. We then headed back to the hostel, watched Shutter Island (what a great idea, watch a scary movie when you are staying in a treehouse hostel room.) I asked the woman working at the hostel if Montevideo was always this quiet on Sundays and if there would be more to do on Monday. She got sort of offended that I was saying it was so quiet, but I sort of enjoyed the peacefulness of the city. It was a different pace from B.A. which is always bustling 24/7. We had a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant and then headed to bed, excited for the full day ahead and nice and cozy in our treehouse bungalow.
We woke up, checked out of our hostel and headed back into the downtown of Montevideo. There were lots of more people around the city, heading to work, sipping mate, and just generally living at a much slower pace of life. We walked around and saw some churches, stuff about Darwin when he was in Uruguay, and all of the pretty architecture of the different buildings and the many gorgeous plazas. Montevideo had similarities to B.A. but I think the two cities are very different and shouldn't be compared as much as they are. After saying bye to Montevideo, we got on a bus headed back to Colonia and then a ferry back to B.A. and we were home sweet Argentina by 10:30. It was really nice being away for the weekend and coming back to B.A. and it feeling like a home :) I missed my city and I'm glad I was back. I miss you all and hope that as the summer ends for those reading this (minus those sharing the southern hemisphere with me) you have nice tans & are excited about the new school year & the fall! My mom asked me the other day if I liked Sevilla or B.A. better. I honestly, could never compare them, but I have to say, if it wasn't cold here...B.A. would be perfect...minus the fact that none of you are here! Besos a todos!
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