June 2010
3 posts
Just an extended "mini-pausa."
My time in Buenos Aires is done. I’m not going to make this a sentimental post but I have to say that coming here was the best decision I’ve ever made. Despite its flaws, I loved every second of it and absolutely fell in love with the city and everything it has to offer. I’m not saying goodbye to Buenos Aires per se—it’s just an extended “mini-pausa”....
“I’m like a Pavlov Dog, I’m conditioned to turn around whenever...”
May 2010
16 posts
Locura, locura: Important Images
I’m going to be really gross and just post pictures with anecdotes because let’s be real—NO TENGO TIEMPO PARA BLOGGEAR (real verb). A bunch of us went to an Onda Vaga concert a few weekends ago. I LOVE them. They’re indie rock with a Latin twist. And since it’s Argentina—and everyone knows everyone in Argentina—we have an actual connection to the band....
I guess I should write about Iguazú.
I HAVE NO TIME/GANAS TO BLOG BECAUSE THE CRUSHING WEIGHT OF MY FINALS CAN NO LONGER BE AVOIDED. But the story of Iguazú must be told, I can’t let my faithful readers down (Mom/Dad, Phoebe, AND ARIELLE)…. A few weeks ago, NYU took us on an all-expense paid trip to Iguazú and it was the first time NYU paid for anything in their entire capitalist, money-hungry existence (shout-out to...
Painting cardboard = Instant entertainment
One thing very distinct about Buenos Aires is that there is no government-form of recycling and instead there are people called Cartoneros who collect the cardboard that people leave on street corners and sell it for money. Eloisa Cartonera is a company that buys the cardboard for a lot of money in order to make cheap books to give to children in impoverished neighborhoods. Arielle, Phoebe,...
Gettin' political.
As much as I constantly gush about how Argentina is the best country on earth, the fact of the matter is that this country has a very dirty and harrowing recent political history. Back in 1976, there was a Coup d’état that gave power to Jorge Videla, head of the Argentine military. The new government then set out to rid the country of “subversives”, which included students, activists,...
Hey, remember that time that Morgan and Andy told...
AND HE SAID THAT HE WOULD TAKE THEM TO A GAY CLUB? DO YOU REMEMBER THAT? DO YOU? BECAUSE I DO. BECAUSE IT HAPPENED TODAY. 20 MINUTES AGO. AND WE ALL DIED LAUGHING. God, my Mítos class is nonstop hilarity everyday. I really hope that they go. Arielle and I are very jealous that we aren’t men and thus not allowed to go out on “Boys’ Gay Night Out Para Romper La...
Estoy HARTA de estudiar, solo quiero FESTEJAR.
NYU needs to stop with this whole “finals” and “papers” nonsense they’ve started up. Here’s my version of apocalypse in university form: 1. Eight page paper about the culture of death in Latin America and how it differs from country to country for Mítos 2. Article about Bolivian Immigrant communities in Buenos Aires 3. Creative writing portfolio 4. Feature...
“And I think Dolores broke my computer!” -Arielle
“Who’s...”
“He wants some of my sleeping pills, but this motherf*ucker is borracho as sh*it...”
Ay, nena, ¿no querés dar la vuelta?
SUP HOMIES. So I’ve been neglecting my tumblr because I am: a) Too busy to blog b) Too lazy to blog c) Eating an alfajor I’ll eventually update all my faithful readers (i.e. Mom, Dad, and Phoebe) about my trip to Iguazú Falls last weekend. It was so incredible, google image it now and don’t be upset if your soul shrivels up in jealousy. This week for Mítos class we had to...
I'm embarrassed that this is a true story.
Last night I had a dream I was about to eat a chocolate covered alfajor, but I dropped it right before I bit into it. I immediately woke up and starting searching around room, in between the sheets, around my nightstand, under my copy of Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, mildly panicking that the chocolate would start melting. Then I stopped for a moment and thought about what I was doing...
Día de la Madre
Argentina’s Mother’s Day is in October, but since today is Mother’s Day in the United States, I bought my host mom, Cristina, some flowers and made her a card. She LOVED it, almost cried, and kept saying, “¡Ay qué divina! ¡Mi amor!” over and over. Happy Mother’s Day to my real mother, as well! I hope everyone in the U.S. had a wonderful Mother’s Day!...
“¿Qué es ‘Boys in the Hood’? ¿Cómo N.W.A.?”
“No es...”
This song is “Mambeado” by Onda Vaga,...
Qué rica es la vida.
This past weekend was absolutely non-stop, jam-packed, cray cray action. I don’t think I slept PARA NADA, which is perfect because I have no time to sleep since I want to do everything humanly possible before being dragged away from the loves of my life (Buenos Aires, Argentina, and South America…and alfajors, OBVIO). Friday a.k.a. That Time We Went to a Art Exposition with Mariano:...
I LOVE BUENOS AIRES AND I REFUSE TO LEAVE.
Unfortunately, my parents are two evil creatures who can only survive off of my misery and therefore refuse to extend my ticket and are making me come home as schedule in June. Because of this unfortunate truth, I made a promise to myself that I am going to make the rest of my stay even more adventurous than it’s already been. So far it’s working. I’m honestly very sick of the...
April 2010
8 posts
I did something bad today...
I went to the bookstore El Ateneo to buy Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina for my Mítos class, but instead I bought this: IT’S FINE, I JUST WANT TO LEARN HOW POP CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, AND ART SHAPED GAY CULTURE AS WE KNOW IT.
I’m fuera de control.
A Haiku by Yours Truly
I hope every girl studying in Buenos Aires can read this, relate, and possibly laugh their head right off their shoulders. “Buenos Aires” En Buenos Aires Demasiada lengua Insoportable THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT.
A series of unfortunate Quilombos*
In case you didn’t know, I am a target for ridiculous situations and this hasn’t changed since I’ve been in Buenos Aires. I was reading some of my older posts and I was like, “¡Jesus Crísto! I’ve forgotten to write about the past 500 (more like four) fuera de control situations! TO THE BLOG!” 1. Never, ever assume that someone doesn’t speak English....
El Realismo Mágico + Cumbia = Mi Vida
I’m currently reading “Aura” for my maliciously sassy, über-gay Latin American Culture Professor. It’s such a fantastic novel and I’m so proud that I understand 90% of what is happening (of course my best friends, translate.google.com and wordreference.com are helping me out a tiny bit). However, in the midst of my manic studying craze, my neighbors have decided to...
“I bet the ‘Leche Asada’ is just them shaving a cat into your...”
“Doolittle” is such a great album....
Sorry, I can't hang out. I have to go to...
¿Cómo andas, Che? It’s been a long time since I’ve updated the universe on my happenings in Buenos Aires since I came home on last Sunday after spending 10 days roughing it in the Patagonian wilderness. My best friend Anita made me a little to-do list consisting of riding a humpback whale, taming a wild horse, and mingling with the penguins and I’m proud to say that I did ALL...
“It’s not science fiction. It’s not fantasy writing. It’s...”
March 2010
15 posts
Facebook is making me uncomfortable.
Recently, Facebook keeps putting advertisements on the side of my homepage about making babies and it’s getting out of control. At first it was funny: Then it got personal. The advertisement reads “Will it be an ugly child?” LOW BLOW, FACEBOOK: Facebook decided to pull out the race card:
The advertisements became frightening. Look at how menacingly this baby is...
¡Dale, dale, Boca! Superclásico 2010.
In case you didn’t know, soccer is kind of a big deal in South America (and in Europe…and in Asia…and pretty much everywhere in the world besides the U.S.). In Buenos Aires, the two major teams are Boca Juniors and River Plate—each from opposite barrios, the former coming from La Boca, a notoriously poor neighborhood while the latter goes by the name “Los...
Once upon a Womp-womp-womp weekend...
This past weekend was the first weekend in Buenos Aires that I can actually consider as mediocre, or even boring. There were some fun parts, but it was overall a giant piece of crap. On Friday Phoebe and I decided that we would not go to the Alamo (Voted Planet Earth’s Worst, Yet Cheapest Bar) for once and explore other options. Life Lesson #1: When a bar has a “Two drinks for 20...
Desubicado + Pesado + Insoportable = Trifeca of...
¡Hola a todos! The last week of summer is here in Buenos Aires, fall officially starts on Sunday. It’s funny because the other day it was around 65 degrees and I was literally TREMBLING from being cold. I was wearing pants and a jacket, too. Then today it was SO DAMN HOT that wearing jeans would have been suicidal. Buenos Aires, you’re being too fickle! Now I need to explain the title...
My friend Phoebe loves taking pictures.
She’s the principle photographer out of our group of friends. She takes pictures of everything. Sometimes we’ll be like, “Phoebe, it’s not necessary to take a picture of EVERY helado you eat!” or “Phoebe! Don’t take pictures on the colectivo! You’re going to get mugged!” But I will never again question her obsession with documenting every...
"You ain’t artsier than me 'cause you pluck a...
I had to throw in a Living Legends lyric because I’ve finally found my favorite bookstore in Buenos Aires and now I’m feeling particularly artsy. My creative writing professor decided to hold class at Libros de Pasaje, which is this really awesome bookstore in the Palermo barrio. Erin and I took the colectivo (the bus) from school to Palermo and after getting off 10 blocks further...
WatchFootage of one of the La Bomba songs. ¡QUÉ BÁRBARO!
Insoportable: (adjective) unbearable; Layla's new...
Yesterday was very action-packed. As usual, I almost slept through my alarm and had to all but sprint down Avenida Santa Fé to make it on time for my 9 am class. It was super humid and I was wearing leg detention centers (a.k.a. pants) for the first time in two months so I was already very uncomfortable. I thought that the day was going to be IN-SOP-ORT-ABLE. Luckily I wasn’t late, so I...
HAPPY ONE-MONTH ANNIVERSARY, BUENOS AIRES!
Friday the 5th marked my one-month anniversary with Buenos Aires, and I couldn’t be happier. Vos sos mi unico cariño para siempre.
I want to make this a relatively short blog post so I’m going to make a list. “Things I’m obsessed with” by Layla Halabian 1. Bañado de chocolate: Yes. A chocolate bath. It’s the term the use here in the heladerias when they dip your helado in chocolate and...
The "studying" aspect of "studying abroad" is...
What a stressful week! My professors must have had a meeting over the weekend and came to the consensus that this week each of them would give me a trillion pages of reading. Mariano’s reading was so confusing and had all these complicated Spanish terms so I didn’t sleep at all Tuesday night because I was on Spanishdict.com and translate.google.com making failed attempts to figure out what the...
“My dad’s friend was mugged in Peru by a band of tiny women. They slashed...”
Eaahh, I'm bored. Let's go to Uruguay.
HEY Y’ALL. I haven’t posted a blog in ages (one week) so it’s time to update you on my aventuras latinoamericanas. Thank goodness I have pictures—you’d seriously think I was a pathological liar if I just wrote what happened without any proof. On Thursday our Reporting Buenos Aires class went to El Centro Cultural Borges for the Steve McCurry exhibit. Unless...
February 2010
14 posts
Transforming from a Persian Perversion to a Spicy...
Before I left for Buenos Aires I thought up a few goals that I wanted to accomplish this semester, and I have two more to add: 1) Take a picture with Mariano, my indecently attractive “Mítos, Iconos y Tradiciones Inventadas” professor, so I can frame it/make it my facebook profile picture until the Internet stops working 2) Become a SPICY LATINA
Let’s focus on the latter....
Bros' Night Out a.k.a. "The Night Emma Had Her...
Saturday was such an eventful day! So Erin, Phoebe, and I went to the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) so we could see the Andy Warhol exhibit. Erin and I rode the Subte from Recoleta to Plaza Italia and let me tell you, I am PUMPED to start using it for all my transportation adventures. It only costs $1.10 pesos which is 30 CENTS. EACH WAY. I’m becoming so cheap...
““Bros before hos.” -Mahatma Gandhi
(Scholars have tried to write...”
¿Qué tomas lunita y porqué estas tan amarilla?...
THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT AGAINST...
Trust me on this. I am tattooing I WILL NEVER HAVE SEX WITH YOU on my forehead and carrying around the following list with me everywhere:
“Things I’d rather do than have sex with you”
By Layla Halabian
1. Live in a world where sharks with legs exist. This would mean that not only could sharks terrorize you in the water, they would also have legs—as well as powerful lungs—to chase you on...
““The most innocent orgy took place in the apartment the night...”