Casa Rosada and Plaza de Mayo

   Plaza de Mayo

           Casa Rosada      

      
In the city games, which my team (Los Ganadores) won, one of the places we visited was the Plaza de Mayo. In the Plaza de Mayo, there stands a stratue with the date of May 10, 1810. This marks the day of the May Revolution in Buenos Aires which started its path toward becoming a country. It started the route towards independence. Also in the Plaza de Mayo is the Casa Rosada. This house is the office and mansion of the President of Argentina. The reason for the house being pink is that it was painted a combination of white and red to combine the colors of the two governement parties in the country and defuse the tensions between the two. In order to get the pink color, it was painted with cow blood.

San Martin's Mausoleum and Recoleta Cemetery

  La Recoleta Cemetery      

       Evita Peron's Tomb

    La Recoleta Cemetery

       

 San Martin's Mausoleum

Another destination on our city game trip was the La Recoleta Cemetery. This cemetery houses 4,691 graves of the dead. One of the most significant of these deceased people is Eva "Evita" Peron. Eva Peron was one of the former Presidents of Argentina. Near La Recoleta Cemetery is San Martin's Mausoleum. This is the memorial grave for Jose de San Martin. San Martin was the general ho led the independence charge back in the early 1800's. The Mausoleum is located in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral. There are guards at certain spots around the cathedral and they change everyday at 2 pm and 5 pm.

The Metallic Flower at the United Nations Square and Graffiti Bridge near by

Metallic Flower at the United Nations Square

Metallic Flower at the United Nations Square

Graffiti bridge near United Nations Square

The last place we visited for the games (after 10 miles of walking) was the United Nations Square. On our trek over to see the Metallic Flower, we crossed a cool bridge with graffiti on it that we all took interest in. The Metallic Flower is molded in a metal with an element that is so light sensitive that it opens and closes as the day goes on. When the flower is most open, or at full bloom, is at midday when the sun is highest in the sky.

The Beginning of an Adventure - El Comienzo de una Aventura

Time for a flashback:

All forty of us students and four faculty members got off the plane in Buenos Aires early Sunday morning and headed for the Meliá Hotel downtown. I was thinking to myself that Buenos Aires smelled particularly poorly, especially having caught unpleasant whiffs from the airport all the way to the orientation room in the hotel. But then it struck me that the forty-four of us were the ones who passed our expiration dates a little bit after all those hours travelling. We were all tired and simply wanted to clean up and nap until we had dinner in the evening. I know all I really wanted to do was to shower and sleep. That was it! Luckily enough for us though, immediately after orientation at around 10:00 AM we were deemed fit and safe enough to go around all of Buenos Aires and compete in a scavenger hunt. 

We were grouped into teams of six and given a stipend of 500 Argentinian pesos ($41.67 at the rate the hotel provides us). My team was Chelsea, Marta, Morgan, Jon, Kevin, and myself. Strongly desiring to just shower and sleep, we headed off anyway onto what became not only the first adventure of many, but a stellar time too.

One of our many stops was the Obelisco (Obelisk). We were tasked with taking a selfie with the monument. Constructed in 1936, it was built to commemorate the fourth centenary of the foundation of the city of Buenos Aires. It is placed in the center of Avenida 9 de Julio which is the widest avenue in the world, consisting of up to 7 lanes in each direction flanked on the outsides by parallel streets of 2 lanes each. 

Avenida and the Obelisk
http://www.buenosaires.travel/avenida-9-de-julio/

Our most costly stop was at the Café Tortoni where we spent four hundred of our five hundred pesos. Stepping inside was like being whisked into the past. The location that it sits at at present was constructed in 1880. There is beautiful wood walls and columns and marble all around. It even appears that they host shows as there were small theaters and other rooms down corridors and behind velvet curtains. At the advice of our Spanish-speaking group member Marta we ordered a sort of hot cocoa that was rich and delicious and similar to nothing I had ever had before, combing hints of coffee, what we know as hot chocolate, and the richness of a hot fudge. Served with freshly baked croissants, there was hardly a peep at the table as we were all in awe with this simple Argentine snack. 

Los Ganadores at Café Tortoni

Entrance to Tortoni

Jon and I are here in our room about to go out to dinner tonight writing about this day because our team, fittingly, Los Ganadores (The Winners) won the "city game" out of all the groups. I was really pleased with the whole experience and look forward to maybe (probably) seeing Chelsea and Morgan tasked with writing about the Chilean city game after we bring home that trophy too. 

Congratulations to us! (Courtesy of Sofia)

In the moment we were mostly happy that we did not clean up prior to the game because it began to rain and ultimately we stayed feeling rather icky, but more generally, looking back on the experience I had a great time with Chelsea, Marta, Morgan, Jon, and Kevin and I firmly believe that the best way for us to have seen and become familiar with Buenos Aires was exactly how we were commissioned to go about it, effectively a free-for-all. The city became our oyster, and we found many pearls. 

 

 

   

                                    Two performers at a classic Estancia dancing the tango.

Ranch worker Circilo plays his guitar and sings his heart out to entertain us.

                                 Liam O'Brien gets swept off his feet by a woman

                              from the U.K. whom we met earlier on the carriage ride.

Dustin Braman and Señora Gomez joined in the fun as well!

After our lunch break, we all filtered outside where we were again entertained by the fine gentlemen of Santa Susana.

There they performed a horse show for all of us which involved herding the horses in circles and snagging a small pin off a bar going full speed.

                                  Video of workers at the ranch performing stunts on their horses.

A few students were taken for a short ride on the back of the horses, which they all enjoyed very much. Matt Gosselin took the tradition to a new level by possibly being the first guy to ever ride on the back with Cirilo.

Unfortunately, this was the end of our wonderful trip to Santa Susana, as we made our way towards the bus and back to the hotel. 

Service Learning Project at Hogar El Alba

Love is Universal-El Amor es Universal-Ame é Universal

Morgan holding hands with one of the children.

While I was at the Hogar El Alba, I decided to take a moment for myself. I took a step back, closed my eyes, and focused on what exactly I was feeling inside. Despite the fact that it was 86 degrees, I felt a different type of warmth. I felt similar to the way that I do when I am surrounded with my family and friends. I could not help but smile because I knew that I felt the love in the air. This feeling existed between us and the children and workers at the orphanage, even though there was a language barrier. By giving love to the kids/workers and getting it back, we were able to form connections. Claire said it best when she told me that her favorite part about the visit was the fact that she "was still able to play with Fabiana (one of the children in the orphanage) even though I did not speak Spanish". For these reasons, it can be argued that love is universal, and knows no language boundaries. 

Matt and Nicole are making bracelets with the children!

I experienced this sensation first hand when I was making bracelets with Chris, Srdan and Carolina (one of the girls at the orphanage). Despite the fact that Carolina was not able to communicate with Srdan directly (because she does not speak English) she still made a bracelet for him. She did this because she felt a strong connection with him because love is not something that is shared through words, but rather actions. One of the reasons why spending time at the orphanage was rewarding was that we were able feel the love that we are all missing from home. Morgan even told me that playing with the kids reminded her of all the time that spends playing with her nephew from back home. This experience reminded her of her nephew because she felt loved by the children because this feeling is universal.

The communication barriers present between us and the workers seemed non-existent because love is triumphant to language. The feeling made it easy to connect with them. Jon really captured this idea when he told me that his favorite part of the trip was when we were painting one of the houses with Ruben (one of the workers). He told me that he had a blast laughing with him, even though they did not speak the same language. The only words that he seemed to know how to say that were not Spanish were Justin Bieber (because he called me that approximately 8 times). One of the main things that we will all take away from this trip is that if you give people love, you will get it back- even if you cannot directly communicate with them. We will never forget this day because of the way that Hogar El Alba made us feel- loved.

Jackie took an adorable picture with one of the children!