Day 11: The Malba

Instead of my private lesson today, I went with a group of people to the Malba, which is about 15 blocks away. Malba stands for Museo Arte de Latinoamerica de Buenos Aires as I mentioned in my previous blog. The museum is in a wonderful building, and it had mostly modern art exhibits. There was quite a lot that was created by Latin-Americans, but there was also currently an Andy Warhol exhibit. I found it kind of ironic for me to see his work there and read about his life (in Spanish), but it was interesting nonetheless.  When I left the museum, I decided to walk back to the subway, which turned out to be quite the trip, but I saw quite a lot of interesting things, like the Museum of Modern Architecture (housed in a very antiquated building), and multiple wonderful looking buildings and parks.

I was super hot when I reached Florida street, so I stepped into a book store for a little while to read the Spanish version of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" and cool off. While riding the subway home, I thought that this was quite the appropriate time to have some ice cream, and there just happens to be a fantastic ice cream shop on the same block as Betty's house. How perfect. There were just under a million flavor choices, so I asked the guy working there what his favorite was and trusted his judgement. Once he discovered (right away) that I was not a native Argentinean, he wanted to use his English with me. So I spoke Spanish, he spoke English, and we both sounded woefully foreign. But, I left the shop with a little cup of excellent ice cream. It was vanilla with a caramel swirl and a few malteasers (a chocolate, cookie-like sweet, very common in England). I think that I shall return. 

Floralis Generica: a giant silver flower that opens and closes with the daylight

Tonight we went to another performance from the program of Cultura para respirar, which is a government-sponsored series of events spread throughout the city during the summer months. We went to the Parque del Centenario, which is about a 5 minutes' walk from the house, to an open air, permenant, theater. It had lots and lots of seats, and the stage was covered in a mound of grass on top of the concrete, giving it the look of rising up out of the ground. 

We saw a wonderful performance of Tango and Ballet by a group of famous Argentinean dancers. The music was fantastic, the majority of it live, and the whole thing, very enjoyable. They are performing again tomorrow night, so I will recommend it at school tomorrow morning. Tomorrow night we are going to see some Carnival performances, since Carnival began this last weekend and continues for the next 3 weeks. 

I feel obligated to once again mention food, since Betty made a chocolate "torta" that is absolutely deadly. It is the size of a large pizza, very thin, and delicious. I think between the ice cream, dulce de leche, and this "torta," I will need a forklift to assist me in and out of bed. I would love to go running in the mornings, but right now I am up too late to get up at 06.00. I will need to adjust my schedule. 

The Dessert

Well, "sweet" dreams everyone in cyberland. One final observation: I love not having the American pop music in my head. Tango is much better.

Chao.