Saturday, July 14, 2012

a lil unannounced tour


13712 aright, so things are starting to pick up with the weekend coming. woke up early as per normal, and the commuter train got us to school in a record amount of time, we ended up sitting and waiting for about 20 minutes for class to start. class started, and we did a bunch more grammar, i think one of the girls is bumping up, i think after a day, ill grill her and possibly follow. after class Evan and i meandered around looking for food, we found our way to a cafe and i had a cheese and onion empenada, and a meat empenada. while seated 3 separate street venders ambled in and attempted to peddle their wares. Evan had never seen anything like this, i spotted the first guy before he even came in and mumbled some kind of lamentation, the dude walked straight to us, and placed a packet of highlighters and a crappy flashlight on the table, and distributed the same set to each of the tables. i guess so we could inspect it more thoroughly? without feeling pressured by his scrutiny?, anyways, we werent havin it, i shooed him away, and the next, and the next. after the cheesy incident of the ravioli, and the empenada, i had to find some kind of digestive/lactose aid, so we stumbled into one of the many pharmacies in the area and began to look for it. turns out its an over the counter med, not on the shelf, so i had to ask. and while i asked in spanish, the lady responded with english that it was expensive, and it was pretty expensive, something like 19USD for a packet of 10 pills, whatever i needed em. she put it in a safety magnetic theft-proof bag, and i checked out, swallowed a pill dry on the threshold of the shop, and continued to the meeting point for the architecture tour which we had learned of only minutes after class. so this is what i got from that: Buenos Aires doesn't have any colonial architecture like the rest of the spanish american empire, all of its character is copied from Europe, this and its 19th century focus on immigration, makes it a very European city. Until the end of the 19th century, there was a mass consciousness in the world of architecture, which proscribed the italian/french neorenaissance style as the way to go.
Pictured above: Italian and French neoreneissance inside-the-line designed buildings built circa 1870s, also note that shadow covers much of the picture, thats because we were taken an an architecture tour in the late afternoon, during winter, in the southern hemisphere, the sun goes down at like 630... im sorry By 1900, many architects had broken off and began their own styles, like the art nouveau (modern) style. Argentina did not have steel until rather late in the global advancement game hence their lack of turn of the last century tall buildings, early on they bought from the US, gogo Carnegie monopoly.
This statue was originally intended to go to chile, but the argentines grabbed it first, it was the first statue of San Martin in Argentina, which is kinda bananas, cause he is a big deal here. It was commissioned by the chilanos in 1878 to some french artist, but when the argentine ambassador to France heard of this, he orchestrated the delivery to be "delayed" to chile, so it was delivered to argentina while the chilanos waited an additional 6 months for their statue First Reinforced concrete building of Argentina, built in 1932, art deco style. While the inside is designed to look much like the palaces in the immediate neighborhood, so old and swanky and full of hardwood and scrollwork.
this was a the view from that park the statue was in
after this, we went home, did nothing, ate some food, and proceeded to find an entertaining and establishment for the consumption of of the (really overall awful) beers of Argentina. my roomate and i met up with a bunch of the other kids and we stood/sat around chatting and laughing and having an all around good time, well into the wee hours of the morn.

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