Tuesday May 26th, 2015

Buenos Aires is a city built on immigration from mainly European countries and Jewish people added a lot of diversity to the initial culture of Buenos Aires. We initially started our tour at AMIA which is the Jewish Federation of Argentina. AMIA provides several services to its members including job opportunities, legal issues, and travel to Israel. AMIA was a target of a terrorist attack that killed 85 people and damaged the building extensively. Today, AMIA is under extensive security and a passport is required in most cases for tourists. These were some of the artifacts that survived the blast and are still on display today.

The next stop on the tour was the Abasto. Years ago, the Abasto used to be an old farmers market. Over the years it went out of use and was empty. It was recently renovated and today it is a mall with several American brands such as Wendy’s and Burger King.

There are over 95 synagogues in Buenos Aires and the next stop on the tour was the oldest synagogue in Buenos Aires. The synagogues was first started in 1897 by Russian Jews but it wasn’t completed until 1932. The architecture of this synagogue was just like that of a Catholic Church.

The synagogue also had a museum that included items that immigrants had brought over from their homelands. After we got to the hotel we had a conversation with a Guest Professor that talked with us about about various topics concerning Argentina. The viewpoint from a professor that wasn’t from the United States was interesting to hear and really gave a different feel to the topic rather than the news that I have seen beforehand in America.

To finish the day we had a group dinner at El Pasaje Resto. El Pasaje Resto is a Jewish restaurant and the meal was kosher and predominantly vegetarian. It was interesting to see a different style of dinner because up until now it had been predominantly meat. The meal tied the entire day together and really showed the impact of a specific culture on Buenos Aires.

Welcome to Buenos Aires, a city where you never really know what to expect. The private tour of Malba was definitively a different experience from every other museum we have visited thus far. It was an extremely modern representation of the arts as shown by the photo below.

One aspect of the tour that was interesting to me was the human representations of art. This was something that I have never experienced. It was very uncomfortable at first, but at the end of the tour I came to appreciate the modern approach. The different human representations included humans forever painting a room, humans acting as revolving doors, humans bound to different aspects of society, as well as others. These representations are shown in the photos below.

Today was also their national holiday of independence 25 de Mayo, and the experience lived up to the hype. Plaza de Mayo was packed full of people all day. There were different food stands set up, entertainment, exhibits, and much more. I was shocked by how many people that were out walking the streets, and sitting in the plaza all day. We listened to the President’s speech, and I was very impressed. No hablo espanol muy bien, but the president was a very passionate speaker. It was very interesting to see the crowd react to what she was saying. She seems very well liked by the people, because she entered the plaza like an absolute rock star, with fireworks and music. It was interesting to see the crowd’s passion for politics and their high sense of nationalism throughout the whole event especially during the national anthem. Although we were not able to get very close, but the picture below show what the scene was like in the plaza.

Finally we ended the day at La Nazarenas to experience some authentic aspects of Argentinian cuisine. Some parts were not my favorite, but definitively worth a try. The best part was looking at everyone faces after they realize they just ate kidney. Although I didn’t snap any live action shots they looked similar to the face shown below. All in all another culturally full day.

Every year the people of Argentina celebrate el Dia de la Revolucion de Mayo or the Day of Revolution that falls on May 25. In fact, the whole week – May Week is celebrated to remember the week of May 18-25 in 1810 that lead to the revolution which helped achieve independence from Spanish rule. People throughout the country are celebrating in many ways including: marches, parades and concerts.

Yesterday, some of my classmates and I visited the Plaza de Mayo in the morning when we had some free time to see these marches, parades and concerts in action.

Some of us in Plaza de Mayo

Of course the first thing you notice is the amount of people that are gathered in this single Plaza. It is eleven some in the morning when we arrive and already there are thousands there. Then you notice what these people are wearing, saying, and carrying. This celebration involves a lot of politics – everyone is wearing wardrobe to represent their parties and balloons are up in the air displaying their messages and logos.

Balloons from various parties.

We are told later that only a fraction of the parties in Argentina are represented there even though it feels like very many. If you notice in the picture on the right their is a face. That is none other than their president Cristina Kirchner. Many of the political party posters contain the phrase “con Cristina” meaning they support the Kirchner administration. This is not so surprising since the president was to speak at 6:30pm that afternoon and many of her supporters were waiting to see her.

Kirchner’s face

One party I noticed that was particularly prominent at the Plaza with supporters young and old was Campora. This party is both Peronist and supporters of Kirchner. To provide an idea of the magnitude of Campora’s party size and the idea of how people were celebrating in other parties, I have included the following video:

Taking a slight break from the holiday action, our group visited Malba – a modern art museum. I have actually recently discovered a new appreciation for art and have been painting on canvas myself at home recently. However, this museum showed things I have never seen before in an art museum. On the first floor there was an exhibit of Latin American art from the 20th century, these pieces were interesting, colorful, and used many different mediums including paint, metals, and moving pieces.

A view paintings from the first exhibit

The other exhibit currently showing at Malba is called Infinite Experience. This exhibit had live works; for example, there was a woman who had words drawn on the wall behind her and she was speaking into a microphone. There was a man who had many wires connecting himself to an object suspended in air that moved when he moved. There was a man who walked around with a mask made of glowing lights that completely covered his face. There was a room covered in signatures where you could as yours too. Finally, there was a group of people who acted as a revolving door in a circular room to leave the exhibit into the hallway.

One piece in the exhibit – woman speaking into a microphone

Room with the signatures

As Yonni, Gabby and I walked downstairs to the main section we overheard a lot of noise generating outside of the museum. We left briefly to check it out and to our surprise a sea of red covered the middle of the streets. It turns out that the River Plate fans paraded in the street. Soccer here is no joke and the rivalry between River Plate and La Boca is substantial – bigger than OSU vs the team up north! These fans seemed to be walking by endlessly. After what seemed like 10 minutes of watching them walk by (and still missing some who walked by at the beginning), they had several buses packed like sardines bringing up the rear. Many of the fans had bottles in their hand that looked like coke but suspiciously had their labels removed and were most likely a combination of coke and fernet, their favorite local beverage (which I personally dislike a lot).

River Plate fans in the street

As if we hadn’t seen enough parading and chanting, after a brief stop at the hotel, some of us returned to the Plaza de Mayo. Concerts were going on from 4 until late to celebrate. At this point we are packed in tightly – tighter than in the morning. We had no hope seeing the stage or Cristina when she came out later, but we had a chance to listen and dance with the locals who also sang along. Below is a video of some music played from the stage in the morning. I never got a video from the afternoon, but this gives an idea of how it was setup.

Many would see the 25th of May in Argentina comparable to the 4th of July back in the United States. I had a great time seeing the Plaza in action and getting a better idea of their attitude towards politics. We are lucky to have the timing of this trip when we did so we could experience something integral to the Argentine history, and I only wish I had captured more of the experience to share with you all!