Frescas a la Muerta: Ashley-The zoo, Palermo, and other happenings

Since I still don't have class, I've spent the past few days getting to know the city a little better. On Saturday I went to the Zoo with three other girls from the hostel, and it was interesting. I have mixed feelings about zoos in general; if you know me you could probably guess that. They can be a great learning tool for people and a chance for them to realize that animals are living creatures (and hopefully to have greater respect for them). However, I generally find that they don't provide enough space, companionship, or stimulation for the animals. That's definitely true about this zoo. In many cases, normally social animals were left solitary in there confined areas. But it was interesting to see that some small animals (i.e. roosters, cats, and some animal that seems related to a guinea pig but much larger) were walking about the zoo freely, on the same pavement that spectators used. My final conclusion on the zoo is that it was worth seeing but I don't like it.

On Sunday, Jeff (the other student from OU) invited me to go with him and a few other people to Palermo for the afternoon. Palermo is the greenest, most park-filled barrio in Buenos Aires. It's also home to some of the wealthiest porteños. The weather was beautiful and it was nice to kick the soccer ball around a little bit. I almost forgot that I was in a big city (and probably would have been able to save for the nearby traffic-lined streets). Actually, as much as I love being here, sometimes I feel a little locked in and just want to be in the middle of a big field (who knew I could miss Oklahoma's terrain?). Anyway, we stumbled upon an awesome music and design festival. There was a lot of innovative sculptures made from recycled materials, some interesting paintings, and great live musical performance. There was an amazing jazz-funk fusion band and another band that played world music, mostly of the South American variety with a very West African-feeling percussion behind it. I also found the Argentine version of Tom's shoes; they look just like Tom's, but there are a lot more designs and they come out to about $15/pair. I'll have to look into getting a pair...or two...

On Monday, I spent the entire afternoon walking around and getting to know the barrio Montserrat. It's part of el centro, and my hostel is right by the border to this district. It houses most of the governmental buildings in the city, as well as a lot of other interesting historical sites, including La Libreria de Avila, the oldest bookstore in the city. I had to buy something, and thought that a book of poetry by Borges couldn't be more fitting. Later when I was having coffee at Cafe Tortoni, known for attracting celebrities of the literary and artistic sort, I was attempting to read a rather difficult poem with no Spanish-English dictionary at my disposal. A noise caught my attention, which ended up being nothing, but I turned around to find a large sculpture of Borges' head looming over me, seeming to mock me. All I could do was laugh and enjoy my coffee.

Yesterday, I walked around a barrio that's further out from the centro called Belgrano with one of the women that has been in my room in the hostel. She moved here from southern Brazil looking for an apartment. (A side note: it seems that the people from the southern part of Brazil would like to secede due to a lack of work and production in the northern part). The neighborhood was cute, slightly reminiscent of a small Northern Californian town. There were a lot of shops, some chains, some independent. I was intrigued to find several natural food stores (some exclusively vegetarian!). I might be returning for grocery shopping later...

Today I felt like I finally needed to get in some good cardio exercise. There is a bit of a problem though. There is only one part of the city that I know of that is conducive to running; Palermo, which is not so close to my hostel. So, I felt funny taking the subte to get to a place to run, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right. After several days spent in the sun, I just relaxed and read most of the afternoon. I'm reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. The interesting, and somewhat ironic, thing about reading this now is that Rand stresses her ideology of individualism through architecture in this book, arguing that there is no reason to copy styles of the past. Yet, I find myself in a city overflowing with dated buildings that took the shape of even more dated styles. Sometimes I find myself pondering the use of the city's decadence rather than enjoying it's artistic quality. Thanks for that, Ayn Rand.

And, as always, some more pictures:

One of the sculptures at the Music and Design Festival,

Another sculpture. This one was extremely detailed.

A statue of Athena atop the building that used to be home to La Prensa, the national newspaper. Now, the building is full of offices and is owned by the government.

El Cabildo. This building was built in the sixteenth century and was used for governmental purposes during colonialism. One of its functions was to serve as a jail.

Statue of Don Quixote found on one of the pedestrian islands on 9 de julio. The white structure is supposed to represent La Mancha (his fictional home).

La Libreria de Avila; oldest book store in the city-not just that's still standing. The first book sold in the city was sold at this bookstore (although it was in a different location then).