On Wednesday, we enjoyed another very eventful day at Colegio del
Salvador. It all started with a class on Argentinian history regarding
Rio de Plata, and when the country gained its independence from Spain
and became formally known as Argentina. The next point of discussion
was the Plaza de Mayo, a central place in Buenos Aires where people
often gathered for all different reasons. This was quite interesting,
and was followed by our very exciting city site visit to La Casa
Rosada, the workplace of the Argentinian president. We were welcomed
into the building around 10:30, not before making some friends outside
who, after asking where we were from, mistook Boston for Bosnia. After
a brief security check, we were treated to a very fun tour throughout
the whole building, seeing several different salons, balconies,
meeting rooms, and the patio. The Casa Rosada overlooked the Plaza de
Mayo, which we walked through briefly before entering. After we left
the Casa Rosada, we headed to a nearby museum that contained a rather
eclectic collection of historical artifacts and pieces of art from
Argentina. A highlight of this visit was the piece of art that we saw
that consisted of an entire room. There were paintings on the floor,
ceiling, and walls of people looking into the room to give the
illusion that we were in some sort of transparent bubble that people
were eager to look into. At noon, we headed back to the school, in
which many were already leaving for the big fútbol match between
Argentina and Nigeria which began at 1:00. So when we arrived to
school all 20 of us made our way over to Santiago
Rudolf's home to watch the exciting, seesaw battle between these two
teams in which Argentina narrowly escaped with the victory 3-2 to go
undefeated in the preliminary round, qualifying for the bracket with
flying colors. To add more to the celebratory atmosphere we celebrated
Jack A.'s birthday with cake and on that happy note, we all parted
ways.
Thursday was filled with excitement for various reasons. We started
off the day by beginning to watch the movie "The Mission", which tells
of how Jesuits brought Catholicism to the northern region of South
America, which we will be visiting next week. After we watched about a
third of the movie we took an hour and a half van ride to a ranch called Estancia
Santa Susana. We were immediately greeted with orange juice and
empanadas when we got out of the van and began to explore the ranch.
We first made our way over to the stable where all the horses were and
we took a twenty minute ride on them. Some people wanted to go much
faster but others were holding on for dear life at the speed we were
going. After this ride we made our way to the large dining hall that
was on the ranch and watched the beginning of the United States soccer
game, until we were called to lunch to have an asado. For some this
was their first asado, while others were veterans working on their
third or fourth asado. As lunch began to wind down so did the United
States game, so many of us huddled around the little tv that they had
hooked up just for the World Cup, but those that weren't concerned
with the game watched the beginning of an entertaining dance show.
Once we discovered that Portugal beat Ghana and the United States
passed through to the Round of 16 the rest of us sat down and watched
the rest of the very entertaining show. After dessert we watched about
50 horses run around while the trainers did various tricks with them,
such as putting a pen through a small hole while riding full speed.
After a very enjoyable day we returned back to school with a lot of
fun memories.
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