This Thursday it was time to end the holidays and get to school. Firstly we had a lecture by Risto Korkia-Aho and Humberto Gianni welcoming us to UADE and informing us of some practical matters. Afterwards we had a brief moment to get something to eat and move back to school.
At UADE Risto had booked us a two tour buses and we were on our way to see the city. Some of the places we had already seen and some of the places were new to us. First, we headed to Plaza de Mayo to see Casa Rosada, the presidential office building and Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral. The Cathedral was really nice, the entire floor of the Cathedral was mosaic, made completely by hand.
Leaving the Cathedral, we headed to La Boca. The infamous La Boca is known for the caminitos, housing where 3-4 families live in a single apartment sharing the bathroom and kitchen. These multi-colored shacks are painted with ship’s paint. According to history, the people of La Boca asked the incoming ships, boats and frigates that came to Buenos Aires for paint to paint their houses. Today they keep up the tradition to attract tourists. In La Boca we stopped for a short coffee break and walked around the beautiful (tourist infested) neighborhood.
We were off again, this time through the wealthy Puerto Madero, where a square meter of apartment costs around 6000 USD. This is where wealthy people live and work as its home to several multinational corporations. One will find offices of IBM, Samsung and Standard Bank next to each other. We didn’t stop here, instead we headed to Palermo, made a small circle there and headed to the Recoleta Cemetary, which we already visited on our first week here. Shortly we headed back to school and ended our day.
Friday was cool, We dressed up and headed to school looking very business-like. Most men wore white collar shirts, some suits. We went to the auditorium for an opening ceremony, afterwards we had a snack at school and took a group photo at the courtyard inside UADE. We took a tour around the complex and heard that the school is empty until the beginning of February, thats when the summer school starts. The UADE is filled with over 5000 students at the beginning of March when the summer holidays end in Argentina. We have a Starbucks and Subway in the school.
For the evening our International Coordinator, (nowadays knighted by the President to the Order of the White Rose in Finland) Risto Korkia-aho had arranged a place called La Parolaccia, casa tua for us all to have dinner. So we headed back to the wealthy area (suitable for us students). The taxi ride to the Restaurant was exciting. We went by taxi via one of the biggest streets in Buenos Aires (Corrientes), but what we stumbled upon was very strange. There was a riot. The one-way street (all 6 lanes) was crowded, people were holding sheets saying something we didn’t understand, but we could tell they were all very angry. Our taxi driver reached to us and locked the back doors. Finally we reached the restaurant via an alternate route. The place was simply amazing. We had a toast to celebrate the UADE – JAMK partnership, ate a starter, beef tenderloin and had a chocolate mousse and Ice cream for dessert. There was a list from which we could choose what we wanted (picture below). I chose the above as main course and dessert and for starter I took fried octopus rings and zucchini. It was weird, but good. It tasted a bit like fish fingers and a mix of shrimps and mushrooms. The evening ended at around 1 am and we took a taxi home. Taxis in Argentina are very cheap compared to western countries. A trip of around 3 kilometers in downtown Buenos Aires during the night costed us 18,7 pesos (we paid the cab driver 20 and said that its okay) its about 3,5 Eur.
Sorry for the bad quality of pictures, but our SLR camera doesn’t fit in Maria’s “evening purse”.
Formalities were out of the way and it was time for yet another holiday weekend. I wanted to get a shoulder bag to look more local and carry my laptop around. We have been warned that carrying a laptop case around will make you a target for a robbery so, getting a regular looking bag was the best option. We had heard of a place called “Bond street promenade”, a kind of a shopping center for local teenagers. We looked it up on the map and noticed that just a few blocks from it there was a place called “El Ateneo”, the atheneum. Today it is a bookstore/cafe/library, but originally it was a theater. According to Guardian magazine, its the second best bookshop in the world.
The Bond street promenade was weird to say the least. At first glance we thought “okay, did we come to a wrong place?” It was an indoor “shopping mall” with 3 floors and about 15 stores per floor, each the size of kiosk. This place was very underground, half of the stores offered only 2 things: Piercings and Tattoos. The mall was swarming with teenagers wearing mostly “skater” -clothes, because the other half of the stores were selling skaterboards, t-shirts and other products related with the sport. In the end it was a cool place that one should visit if staying in BA for a bit longer.
On Monday we survived to school and the same fast-pace continued until Thursday. During these two intensive weeks we had lectures on Spanish 8-9.30am, Culture&Inflation 10am-12pm and Marketing&Sales 12.30-4pm. I really enjoyed Spanish lectures! There are 3levels of Spanish: basic, intermediate and advanced. Julius and I are on different groups. He has basic Spanish lectures and I am on the intermediate. The teacher on intermediate is so nice and energetic, but she speaks only Spanish. First lectures were a bit challenging to follow but later on it got easier to understand her.
