Monday, August 25, 2008

The places I stayed and worked





Now that I am in Cordoba, I want to try to catch you up on some things from Buenos Aires. Tomorrow or the next day I will share with you more of my impressions of Cordoba. The pictures I have posted are of the places I lived and worked in Buenos Aires. As you can tell, they are not real exciting, but they do, at the end of my time in those places (lo siento, sorry) let you know where I went home to every night, where I went to learn Espanol (although I have been corrected by my hostess and her amiga in Cordoba that I am learning Castellano, not Espanol, lo siento, again. They seem very big on their historical connection with Castelon, or is it Castillo, in Spain, from which the language originated here in Cordoba. This was the original location of education, culture, and the monied elite in Argentina long before Buenos Aires became a center of government and the country.) But I digress to Cordoba, let me get back to the past three weeks in Buenos Aires. The first picture is of Senora Vivi Restelli, my hostess for my three weeks in Buenos Aires at the language school. The apartment of Senora Restelli is in the second photo. It was on a busy avenue, Avenida Cordoba about 10 blocks from the school, on another busy street Calle Callao, just around the corner from one of the primary avenues, Avenida Corrientes, which in this area is the heart of the theater district. (It is the Buenos Aires equivalent to Broadway.) Her apartment is the balcony immediately above the door to the street. (I posted pictures of the inside of her apartment in an earlier post the beginning of August. ) [So you get a true feel for my life here, I do not have Internet access for my laptop, no WI-FI in the home where I am staying, so I am writing this while sitting outside at a cafe where I have internet access, but no power access, and so I am doing this while eating. I am enjoying a marvelous steak Milanese Neapolitan with mashed calbasas squash and I just got my sleeve in the squash while typing! Such is the life of a traveling pastor on sabbatical! By the way, you did catch that I am sitting outside. It is a glorious 70+ degrees out today. Feels like Miami!!!]

Anyway this post has become far longer than I intended. There is also a picture of the building the school is in (at least the one I attended, it is supposed to move to a new location the first of September). The school is located behind the third set of windows above the Libreria Santa Fe. Finally, there is a picture of the building which houses the dance studio where I took Tango lessons, again, not real exciting, but it is located on the fourth floor up from the ground. It turned out to be a wonderful stay and experience, my first three weeks in Buenos Aires. Senora Restelli is a fascinating woman who reads a lot, thinks deeply, has some off-beat ideas, but was a marvelous hostess. It was a pleasure and joy to stay with her and I got a very good idea what many, many Buenos Aires residents are like.