Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Horse Riding in San Antonio de Areco

Michael (my flatmate) and I did a day trip to San Antonio de Areco 2 weeks ago in the hope of finding some gauchos. San Antonio de Areco is about 100km west of Buenos Aires and is the symbolic centre of Argentina's gaucho culture. Unfortunately it was a public holiday and the village was empty, but we managed to find a couple of horses to ride and a pub to watch the footie in while it was raining. I'll go back in November for the Día de la Tradición (gaucho celebrations).

Architecture in Buenos Aires


Ironwork at Teatro Colon
Originally uploaded by louise_parmenter.
Click here for a compilation of photos that give an idea of some of the typical styles of architecture that are to be found in Buenos Aires.

World Cup 2006 in Argentina

Although I'm in Argentina my heart and soul is for England!

I've found a great pub to watch the England games - Loco por Futbol - and we few England fans make a lot of noise between us!

So what is this blog post about? Well, you certainly don't want to see photos of a small group of expats watching footie. But as you can see from this picture, the Argentines celebrate each of their victories in style, as if they'd won the whole thing!

Argentina 6 : 0 Serbia
What a game! I left the pub, and the scenes of elation, and stepped out onto the street to find that the blue sky was glistening with tiny pieces of white paper thrown from the office towers. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me.

Argentina 0 : 0 Holland
This time I had my camera and went from bar to bar in search of the action. Unfortunately there wasn't any.

Argentina 2 : 1 Mexico
We went to an Irish pub near to our apartment and suffered alongside the Argentines in silence until the explosion of noise and action when Argentina scored. Click here for a video when the final whistle was blown.

We joined the crowds on Santa Fe (main road) dancing in the street. Click here for a video of the action.

We then followed the masses to the Obelisk and found ourselves amongst a crowd of 10 thousand! They were so chuffed that some foreigners had joined their celebrations and we met lots of people. Click here for a video at the Obelisk.

And here are the photos.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Luisa La Gaucha!


Luisa la gaucha!
Originally uploaded by louise_parmenter.
Yes, I'm settling in just fine!

A quick update:
On the work front I'm now teaching English 12hrs per week, I have great students and actually learn a great deal from them about Argentine culture, history, politics, etc. In addition to this I regularly translate from Spanish into English the news section of an EMI website about a famous Mexican TV soap opera and the pop band that emerged from it and I am receiving the odd architectural translation from Europe, which is very welcomed!

Click here for more photos of Buenos Aires.

Click here and here for some quite poor videos of a wonderful concert of Argentine folk music by Pateco Carabajal. I seem to have missed the most exciting parts, i.e. the fantastically showy footwork of the male dancers and the very regular instrumental breaks when Carabajal plays the violin and the entire audience claps frantically. I'm sure I'll get better at filming one day!