Buenos Aires

I have been having a grand few days in BA. There is so much to see and do - I can´t wait to come back and get to the museum of Latin-American art, and to have a better look around a few neighbourhoods. My first day I got to my hostel and took a nap and a stroll around San Telmo, the historical and antiquing district. I had dinner in a cafe-bar and inflicted my terrible Spanish on the friendly waiter, and then went back to the hostel and passed out again.

The next day I met up with Lydia, a friend of the family who is here on exchange, and her friend Erica, also on exchange. We did lunch in Palermo, a boutique-filled and leafy neighbourhood, and traded notes on the city. Her program is quite serious about keeping its students safe - "I have a security debriefing at the US Embassy tomorrow," she said -so Lydia had lots of information on which taxi lines and neighbourhoods to avoid, as well as fun things to do. It was quite nice to catch up, as I hadn´t seen her in years. She used to think I lived at the Minneapolis airport, actually, as our mothers would always arrange to meet there when my family was in transit from the East Coast. Considering my lifestyle in the past few weeks, not much has changed!

After lunch, I wandered down to the Bosques de Palermo and the beautiful rose garden the city maintains there. It keeps the gardens beautiful by employing an abundance of blue-vested guards who blow their whistles at you bossily the instant your foot makes contact with the grass. Thus died my dream of sitting on a tree branch in a rose garden by a lake , though I found a bench that served pretty well. In the evening I was, once again, pretty tired from walking, so I didn´t go out at all. Lame, I know, but bear with me.

Wednesday I did the Microcentro, the busy downtown core. It has a central pedestrian mall called Florida which, like Sparks Street, is full of discount apparel stores and is under renovation. There is quite a lot of historical stuff around as well. I failed to infiltrate the Casa Rosada, the huge, ornate pink building housing the president´s offices, as it is (notice the theme) under renovation. I had more success at the Cabildo, the hall where the assembly to proclaim Argentina´s independence was held in (I believe) 1810. It is overlooked by more construction, unfortunately, but once the construction is over the central courtyard will be a very serene and beautiful place. On my way over to the Cabildo, I happened to stick my head into the church where Eva Peron´s funeral was held. It is in need of a bit of paint but it is very gorgeous. The main altarpiece was a painting in an unusual sort of style that I will call art nouveau, since I know nothing about architecture or design.

Resolved to experience Buenos Aires´ legendary nightlife, I took advantage of the free tickets my hostel was giving out to a big club called Museum, and took myself out dancing on Wednesday night. After one too many over-persistent come-ons from local guys, I decided not to be a lone antelope anymore and made friends with a group of three girls, two of whom spoke pretty good English and were eager to practice. It surprised me how much of the music was familiar from home - I guess a club is a club is a club. I was impressed with the crowd, though, and couldn´t believe such a cavernous space could be so packed on a Wednesday night. It was excellent.

Yesterday I did the Recoleta cemetery (more dead Eva Peron attractions!) and happened upon one of the only two English-language tours conducted by the cemetery staff every week. It was all quite fascinating, actually. The guide obviously had a lot of affection for the place and for the stories of the people in it, even the ones who are not especially notable in life. She has nicknamed one of the statues Brad Pitt, because women always ask about him, and told us the story of a nineteen-year-old girl named Rutina who was accidentally buried alive by her parents.

Last night I met up with an English couple my age, and we sat on the terrace at the hostel and chatted for a few hours - very pleasant! Today we´ve agreed to strike out together for Maradona´s house, the soccer stadium in La Boca. It is known as La Bombonera because it is apparently shaped like a gigantic chocolate box - sounds more appetizing than the Butterdome in Edmonton! This is also excellent because La Boca has a bit of a reputation, apart from the tourist areas, but now I have company and an authentic football fan to answer my stupid questions.

Photos to follow!

Toronto Pronto

After Cuba, I flew to Toronto to spend Friday night and Saturday with Colleen at the aforementioned Home for Wayward Backpackers. Her rates are very reasonable - an optional donation of some kind of memorabilia from your destination. And she gives you delicious veggie chili and a place to hang your pack, as well as a guided tour of the St. Lawrence Market, home of amazing fresh vegetables and assorted specialty products. Vegetables and I had a wonderful reunion. We also had a little high school reunion, as our old friend Chris is in town studying photography at Ryerson. Colleen and I met up for drinks with him on Saturday night and it was great to sit and have a chat with both of these characters before re-planing for Buenos Aires the following morning.

Have A Cigar!

Wednesday was Kelly´s wedding. She´s been married for a whole week now, although it is non-ideal that she and Andres have to be separated right after the honeymoon. The next time they see each other, he´ll be in Canada! Anyway, it was a really nice affair. Weddings in Cuba apparently aren´t as big a deal as they are in Canada, so everything was a little more laid-back than the usual (evidence: the priest was an hour late and nobody really got mad). After a quick lunch out, a bunch of the girls went to Kelly´s parents´casa particular to help get her ready. Kayt and Rachael were on hair and makeup, while Christina, maid of honour Viv, and Sarah were in charge of steaming the dress. I didn´t have any particular duties so I was in charge of finding people´s camera battery chargers and such, and taking James Bond photos of all the dudes from Kelly´s family who had dressed up for the occasion.

Team Hair and Makeup

Team Dress.This was just before we discovered that the bouquet had been put in the freezer by our hostess. The flowers wilted dramatically in a matter of minutes, but new ones were acquired.

The ceremony was at a place called Club Almendares, in one of Havana´s leafier outlying areas. The venue was a stage behind a big old club built in what I, who know nothing about architecture, would call a hacienda style. It was open to the air and the temperature and ambience were very tropical , as one side of the venue abutted an absolute wall of greenery. The ceremony was all in Spanish, so I didn´t understand most of it, and fairly short. Kelly and Andres both just looked so happy throughout. Also, the best man, Andres´good friend and Kelly´s "Cuban brother" Pedro, was tearing up in a serious way. I don´t have many good photos from the ceremony because I specialize in getting awkward shots of people exiting hugs or wiping stuff off their shirts, but I did like the one below.There was an extra-special moment for the buck-knife given to me by Katie´s ex-Army friend DJ, who is from Tennessee and insisted that no woman should travel without a knife. I will allow that I was sceptical at the time, but darn if that little knife didn´t get used almost every day on stray threads in shoes, or guavas, or coconuts at the beach. Its crowning moment was when it had the privilege of cutting Kelly and Andres´ wedding cake. This cake was coconut, I believe, and since I adore coconut it was probably the best wedding cake I have ever eaten.

Post-garter shenanigans.
After that, everyone kicked back, smoked a Cohiba, and cut a rug. The Cuban contingent once again distinguished themselves on the dance floor, but the Canadians´enthusiasm during "Cotton Eye Joe" made me smile. Overall, a sterling event! I would go again, but they are probably only allowed to get married once.

Impressions of Cuba

"That's the biggest Jesus I've ever seen!" I exclaimed upon espying this, the largest Jesus I have ever seen.


The stairs to the laundry area-cum-balcony at our casa particular, and the courtyard below. These casas are private homes with permits to rent rooms as a source of additional income - they are basically little B&Bs.


The view from inside a Coco-Taxi.


The view from outside a Coco-Taxi. It is basically a motorcycle with a giant's helmet affixed, so as to create a mode of transport blending minimal speed and safety with maximal fun.

In a conversation with my sister, I just told her that aside from the food you eat and the air you breathe, Havana is great. But that's not entirely fair: that comment makes it sound as though I liked it far less than I did. It's not a perfect city, but hey, name one that is. The bad part is that a lot of people seem to be only just getting by, not getting the resources to improve their surroundings and prospects. The buildings outside of the old town (Habana Vieja) are mostly a little on the dilapidated side, and some are just outright falling down. While there wasn't any really abject poverty that I saw, although some Cubans do have cars that are, suspiciously, a lot newer and nicer-looking than the general fleet's quality. In fact, the two things that bothered me most are the aforementioned food and air. In a tropical country, you might expect markets ought to be overflowing with vegetables and fruit at all times of the year. In Havana, I saw exactly five varieties of fruit and veg: onions, tomatoes, green peppers, cabbage, and guavas. It might have been the bad hurricane season, but that still seems odd. The other problem is that the city's famed antique cars are pretty bad on the ol' tailpipe emissions, conditions not ideal for this asthmatic.

On the other hand, it's an amazing city - a look at a completely different way of life, at once richer and poorer than the way people live in North American cities. For that reason, I was very glad to have stayed in Vedado in Havana proper, rather than out of town at one of the beaches. I had never really considered all the things a person can live without: toilet seats, for instance, aren't a popular feature even on perfectly functional indoor toilets. And man, do people know how to enjoy music. A bunch of the other Canuck wedding guests and I dropped in on the final night of the Jazz Festival to see Los Van Van play, and it was sensational (albeit hard to photograph). The populace has also not had the opportunity to rot its collective brain on video games, with the result that I got demolished at chess by a 16-year-old.

All of this sight-seeing only happened at all due to Kelly's wedding to Andres (there is an accent on the e, but I can't get it to appear just here). That happy event is to appear in the next post, but I probably won't write that until Buenos Aires! See you on the other side of the equator.

Grenader Remainder

It's been a very exciting and educational couple of weeks! I apologize for the length of time between updates. I didn't get a chance to update before departing Grenada, due to Girl Time with Katie. In Cuba, Internet access is not terrifically hard to come by (especially not as a tourist) but it is wicked expensive. Plus, Havana is really interesting and thus I was a pretty busy sightseer!

My last week in Grenada was passed doing extensive chilling out with Katie. I was there on Tuesday, when she got the sad news from home that the health of her cat, Figaro, had deteriorated to the extent that the family decided to put him down. I was also there on her birthday, which started out with us spending two and a half hours waiting in line for a mandatory annual vehicle inspection (boo!) and ended with us eating veggie lasagna and cupcakes with her roommates, before a last outing to Bananas, to sit in the warm tropical night for an hour or so.

Here is the horrible line of cars for the inspection.


Here is how we passed the time: physiology revision for Katie, photography and iPod-surfing for your humble correspondent.

But then it was off to Toronto for an eight-hour stay at Colleen's Home for Wayward Backpackers! I was able to get this shot of the SGU campus from the dilapidated little LIAT plane flying me to Barbados.

St. George's

All of these photos are from my afternoon in St. George's on Friday. I took the bus in by myself and spent a good few hours wandering around the historic sites. I paid a visit to the rather idiosyncratically curated National Museum (everything from "Grenada's soil is four-fifths clay loam" to "this bathtub is reputed to have belonged to Josephine Bonaparte"), and poked around in the market square, finally buying some great bananas and a bag of mace, a spice I've no idea how to use. I trekked up the hill to Fort George under the blistering sun. Fort George seems to have switched hands a number of times in more imperial days and is also the site of the execution of a Grenadian prime minister. The fort, along with most of the major historical buildings, is still pretty messed up from Hurricane Ivan - most of these sites are missing bits of roof and the stonework is all chipped. St. George's itself is a beautiful town by day. Though we drove through later Friday night and it was a little sketch, I felt pretty safe walking around in the afternoon sun. Grenadian men engage in a great deal of cat-calling (mostly hissing and calling you "sweetie") but it didn't actually perturb me, because nobody I encountered was especially pushy about it or took being ignored personally. Without further ado, a bunch of photos of my adventures:

Regrettably, the parade ground at Fort George seems to have been made into a hoops court, perhaps for use by members of the adjoining Grenada police training academy.

This gentleman obligingly permitted me to take a photo of him with his ceremonial sabre.


One or the other of the historical churches, sans roof and under restoration.

Somebody's rum stash.


Cannons and laundry!


A south-east view across the harbour from Fort George.


Top of the chapel or some such structure at Fort George.


Most exciting van of all time.


Some historical meanness. The text is not clear, but basically this is a document calling W.H. Royce and Chas Bushnell out for being useless, and is signed by the entire crew of their vessel. Ouch.

Back down at the Carenage (the harbour).


If anyone knows what this little guy is, then do tell! I was wondering if it was the Grenada dove, but that is apparently very rare so I suspect not.

Grenada In Pictures

So, aside from the unfortunate decision to fence off that one bit of shoreline, Grenada is very beautiful. I'm finding myself wanting to read up a bit on the geology and wildlife of the island, having seen a bird and an insect today that I couldn't even begin to identify, and a bunch of rocks that made me curious.

Last night Katie and I went out to Stuart's to discover that the final-term medicine students were all there too, commemorating the fact that they have only 100 days until graduation and their departure from the island. Most of them didn't seem especially sad, but it must be a time of mixed feelings; St. George's has students from all over the world, and once you leave there's probably not much reason to come back to Grenada. I'd imagine some friends wouldn't see each other for years and years.

Today I accompanied Katie to her Animal Welfare and Production lecture, which was quite interesting. The focus for today was pet birds and all of their various problems (lots of discussion of screaming). I did cut out before embryology, though - I went yesterday and decided there are only so many fetus diagrams one can look at before getting distinctly squicked out.

That's it for now! Hope you, dear readers, are all well and happy.

The Spice Island

I reached Grenada last night, safe and sound. Dad and I had a nearly-teary (on my part anyway) farewell at the airport and I boarded the red-eye to Toronto. Ontario threw me some serious flurries as a send-off present, but the plane got out with no problems. Landing in Barbados was like touching down on another planet, one where it is actually warm! My first sight of Grenada wasn't during the day, so today Katie and I have done a bit of driving around to get oriented - the beach, the grocery store, all that. We're going out to local haunt Stuart's tonight (not sure how that's actually spelled). Although I was nervous heading out, I feel pretty good about this trip now! The next week at least is sure to be stellar. Took a bunch of photos today, so I'll see about uploading them at some point very soon!

Comenzamos!

In about an hour and a half I'll be off to the airport for the red-eye to Toronto, the first leg of my journey. The past few days have been spent mostly on preparations. The 17kg of stuff I've collected is supposed to be my basis for the sustenance of life for the next few months. Should be OK.