Winding down

Just another 11 days until I'm off to Berlin once again. The semester was a lot shorter than I thought it would be (in some aspects). So much to do before I leave, though. I need to move...again...and write approximately 836 thousand pages.

Here is the lovely Biblioteca Nacional de Maestros

Okay. Slight exaggeration. The tally stands at: six for a take home test (which is actually more like twelve because of the font size and spacing), five for one part of a class, fifteen for another part of a class (they'll be given the same weight which totally makes sense) and then maximum of eight for another class. Add to that the fact that I'm also doing research interviews for my thesis...well..we'll see how it all comes together. I really would like to be done before I fly off back to that frigid snowpocalypse...

This weekend was quite nice. We had "Fangsgiving", a thanksgiving celebration offered by someone whose family name is Fang.

So. much. food. 

After which, I got convinced into going to "La Bomba del Tiempo" which was an awesome drum performance/party/dancing thing. Stayed out until all hours of the night listening to crazy compound meters. 

So that was fun. And now I have 11 days to make the most out of the rest of this crazy Porteño experience before I move on to the next adventure. 

Radio show

A few weeks ago, we had to give a presentation for our class on research methodologies. I decided to do my proposal on the actual topic of my master's thesis: study abroad. After many technical difficulties and interruptions, my presentation was over and our Professor offered his feedback. One of the most valuable things he mentioned was that one of his PhD students is currently writing his dissertation on a similar topic to mine. He offered me his contact info and of course I jumped on the opportunity and sent him an email. Funnily enough, the PhD student happened to be an American who co-hosts an English-speaking radio show here in  Buenos Aires and asked me if I'd like to be interviewed. I hesitantly said yes (one of the stipulations was to be an "expert" on something, which I'm pretty sure I'm not). I headed out to Palermo the following Tuesday to meet up with him for coffee, talk about the show and discuss our research. It turns out that they  wanted to talk less about the Global Studies Program, and more about my experience comparing Buenos Aires, Heidelberg, Berlin and San Francisco, and, for some reason, the Queer scene in each city.

The venue where the interview took place was gorgeous. It was a joint cafe-radio broadcasting studio, that was designed and initially conceived as it is now, instead of being converted later. Here is the foyer/entrance for the cafe area.

The rest of the building is a restaurant dining area on one side and recording/broadcasting studios along the other side. All in all, the ambience was great

Really cool, super high-tech recording equipment stuff juxtaposed by chicy-chic eatery

Also, there was a cool upper floor terrace overlooking a small area that I assume could be used for live performances

And this is where the actual interview took place

And aside from a few minor blunders on my part (two minutes to answer that last question!), I think I did an okay job of saying things that needed to be said. I was definitely grateful to be a part of the experience and think that it was a cool opportunity to do something new here in Argentina :)

Here is the link to a recording of the interview. It's under "Global Studies Nov", lasts about an hour and starts after about 3 minutes of advertising.

http://www.thetypicalmistake.com/archive.php

Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos

On Friday, I had the opportunity to visit the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos (Space of Memory and Human Rights) of Buenos Aires.

From the outside, the compound of buildings seems like any other collection of official-looking buildings of vaguely colonial style in the city. However, after learning the awful history of this institution, the overwhelming importance of what it represents became clear. 

The Ex Esma ( Escuela Mecánica de la Armada) was a naval institution that was turned over to the municipality of Buenos Aires in order to be used as a clandestine detention center. This mean that over 5,000 people were involved in the process of illegal detention,very often resulting in torture and murder. The Desaparecidos (the disappeared ones) were kept in small rooms, hooded so that they could not see and not given any information about where they were, all because of their leftist ideology. From 1976 to 1984, they were detained and denied basic human rights. The legal process is still continuing as well (which is why I couldn't take pictures inside). It was a very interesting, heavy tour that showed me a side of Argentina that I hadn't realized existed. 

La marcha del orgullo gay/La noche de los museos

Friday was an interesting juxtaposition of two somewhat different cultural offerings: Buenos Aires' Gay pride march and the night of museums. I thought it was interesting that the events happen simultaneously; a friend told me that he thinks the government is attempting to split the population. Hmmmm...

At first, the celebrations seemed quite tame. I was watching the crowd and thought to myself "Okay, this seems like San Francisco...on a tuesday" but later that night, things got a lot more exciting. 

Crowds and crowds of gay men, trannies, pretty girls in high-heels, goths, attractive bearded dudes, porteños and everyone else just kept coming and coming. The march was literally that: a giant stream of people chanting and dancing and playing music. It was definitely the most interesting people watching spectacle I've experienced in Buenos Aires. 

After that, we went to the night of the museums, which was essentially a network of free museum activities open to the public all night. The thing that I enjoyed the most was that every exhibition or showing I went to included some kind of  music.

Here is a baritone singing a lovely collection of songs written by Latin American and Spanish composers

The offerings were spread throughout the city, and although I was VERY tired from the night before, I managed to get to see a few museums before heading home around midnight

Here I am looking thrilled at the Argentinian center of culture

I have to say my all time favorite moment of the evening was when we went to a church that happened to be featuring a chamber vocal ensemble. They sang a lot of works that I hadn't heard before but right at the end they closed with Haydn's "Abendlied zu Gott". It was such an emotional rush to remember singing that with both the SFSU chamber singers and The Camerata Carolina in Heidelberg. This small group sang it very well and the acoustics were excellent. It was quite a sweet moment to end a long and eventful day.

La Orquesta

About a week ago, I had the pleasure of attending a concert in the beautiful Teatro Colón

This beautiful venue is located no less than 4 blocks away from my apartment and the night was warm but crisp for a nice jaunt over to hear the Orquesta  Filarmónica de Buenos Aires. The inside of the building was just as impressive as the outside

Our tickets were standing room only (the highest possible seating placement) but the acoustics were great so it didn't matter. There was also a place to sit near the back of the standing area so most of us got to relax instead of stand for the two(ish) hours. The concert itself was okay. It brought back a lot of memories of my undergrad. They even played Sibelius 2, which I remember playing with the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony back in the day. It definitely had some interesting moments. That piece is all about dramatic musical shapes and at times the orchestra was surprisingly not together which tended to ruin the effect, in my opinion. The second was Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Overture which, of course, is a lot of fun to listen to (other than Prokofiev's unfortunate inclusion of saxophone) and the final piece was a cute and playful rhapsody by Enesco that I'd never heard before but did a good job of showcasing the woodwinds' ability to stay together with each other despite their questionable ability to maintain ensemble with the rest of the group. One thing that I noticed, even though the trumpet players were playing German horns, they still had a bright and brassy (latin american?) tendency. The first player was very precise, which was nice to hear.

All in all, the evening was quite enjoyable.