Asado y Polo: dos cosas muy argentina.

Friday, while I was looking for a museum, I finally ended watching my first polo game. Play occurs in seven-minute periods, called chukkas. Riders score by driving a ball into the opposing team's goal using a long-handled mallet. While watching the game I had a though for my friend Manouch, whom is a polo player.
Then another great moment of my time here was to enjoy an “asado” with good friends. It is a local tradition. Needless to say that is a time where everybody drinks and eat a lot! The atmosphere was great, and when I am “un poco burracho”, I feel like I can speak perfect Spanish! This is obviously not true! But let’s get back to the asado. This asado is composed of carne vacuna (costillar, vacío o tira de asado), achuras, chinchulines, chorizos parrilleros, mollejas, riñones, salchichas criollas : to be brief a whole cow is roasting on the “parilla” or on a barbecue in English. Estuvo muy delicioso!

What I will remember from Chile.

I stayed in Chile for 10 days. Enough time to visit few cities: 4 days in Santiago, 3 days in Valparaiso - Viña del Mar and 3 days in La Serana – Coquimbo.
In all those cities, panoramas were what I enjoyed the most. Sitting on the top of Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago and watching the sunset was very unique.
After few days in the capital of Chile, I took a bus to meet up with Greg (a friend living in Medoza). In Viña del Mar, we did absolutely nothing except sunbathing, and it was good! When he went back to Argentina, I went north to Coquimbo – a very cute village built on a hill facing the Pacific. There I relaxed, ate fresh fish, and enjoy the fauna and flora (Sealions, pelicans...). On Sunday, I went to an observatory where I saw through a telescope Saturn, constellations, nebulas… Indeed, the centre of Chile is very famous for having a very clear sky most of the time in the year, making it a great place to study our universe. It is also the place of production of “Pisco”, a national alcohol distilled from grapes (it tastes a bit like whiskey).
Of course, visiting my photo section will tell you a bit more on what I’ve seen, on whom I met, and on what caught my eyes.

Santiago de Chile

I have just been few hours in the city, but I can tell that religion is a big thing here. Churches are everywhere. On the top of that, there are people praying, crying or asking a Saint a favour! This is a novelty for me as in Western Europe; churches are always empty outside of the masses hours.
My hostel is very nice; it is surely the best value for money that I experienced in my globetrotter life! I am next to the “Museo Bellas Artes” in the centre of Santiago.
The city is quite pleasant. It looks wealthier than Buenos Aires, in the sense that the underground and the buses are more moderns, the streets are in a better shape, the inhabitants are driving nice cars; but at the same time I went to areas where you can feel the misery. This feeling never occurred to me in Buenos Aires.
And I have to say that I really enjoy the view here. Mountains surround the city.
I’ll say a bit more, when I’ll know a bit more!

Alejandro Xul Solar (1887-1963) – Argentinean Painter

Do you know this guy? I did not until 3 days ago, and the strange thing is that he seems quite famous.
With a musician and architect formation Xul Solar finally decided to dedicate his self to art. He had a strong interest in astrology, Buddhism and believed in reincarnation. Some people say that his work is half way between Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Marc Chagall. According to me, the most interesting part about him is that he tried to propose an alternative world by inventing new languages, games and instruments.
One of the languages is a mix between Spanish and Portuguese: Portuñol; and the other one - Pan Lingua - was a system to communicate and link mathematics, music, astrology and the visual arts. He also imagined a piano, with three rows of coloured keys. This invention aimed at accompanies his painting (mainly aquarelles) with his own music. Finally his proposed a new version of chess that is named « non-chess ».
His friend Jorge Luis Borges, who was influenced by him, said: “Xul took on the task of reforming the universe, of proposing on this earth a different order. For that, among other things, he changed the current numerical system of mathematics to use a duodecimal system, with which he painted his watercolours.”

Impressions on the Porteños

As my knowledge of Argentinean is getting more and more precise I decided to talk a bit about them in this article.
What can I say about the Porteños & BA: what do I like and what do I dislike.
In general the Porteños are very nice, attentive and friendly people. They dress the European way with additional details. For instance, men like to clip their mobiles and keys on their belts. Unlike in many other countries, it is usual to see a man with long hair here.
The women know how to dress in a very sexy way, but according to me lack most of the time of elegance. They love to go to the hair removal centres.
The guys have the reputation to be very direct when approaching girls, and usually finish the discussion by insulting her if she refused the offer. The girls are said to be “hystericas”, in other words you think that everything is going well but when you are about to give her a kiss, she lives wishing you a pleasant night (I had the opportunity to experience it).

The inhabitants of BA are very paranoid: they always lock their front doors. Therefore, when you have a friend coming to your flat you have to go down to open him and accompany him when he lives. Sometimes it is a real pain in the neck, especially when you invited 10 friends for dinner.
They drive in a very silly way. Never stop at red traffic light during the night, never respect the speed limit, don't turn on their lights at night …
They enjoy drinking “mate” (kind of tea, made out “yerba”), drunken very hot in a “guampa” (recipient) with a “bombilla” (straw). The typical bistro in BA is called a “parilla” (big barbecue) where are cooked all kinds of meet: a paradise for meat lovers. I promise to invite those, who come to visit me to one of them called Peña.

Un dia de diluvio en Buenos Aires

Hoy, era un día de diluvio en Buenos Aires. Todo la ciudad, se quedo en casa. Fue también un buen día para los taxistas. Yo, después de mi clase de castellano, camine para mi casa, cuando encontré un restaurante muy porteño. Acá, comi agnelis mixto (mozzarela y ricotta) y tome una copa de vino. Después de mi almuerzo, yo fui a mirar con mi compañera – Monica - una película que se llama :

¿Quién dice que es fácil? :
"Aldo es obsesivo, tiene toda su vida bajo un perfecto control y no pretende que nada cambie sus días. Andrea pasó los últimos quince años viajando por el mundo, está embarazada y no sabe quien es el padre de su hijo. De repente algo se cruza en la vida de ambos: el amor."

Estaba regular. Después yo fui al supermercado para comprar comidas y bebidas.

Ahora estoy mirando un partido de fútbol: Boca (equipo muy famoso de la cuidad de Buenos Aires) contra Cienciano ( equipo de Perú). Nosotros somos también tomando vino: ELEMENTOS Malbec 2006.