Today I made a trip to the Indian embassy here in Buenos Aires, because as luck would have it, a friend of my dad’s knows the ambassador here. Ambassador Vishwanathan turned out to be a most interesting man. He loves everything Latin American, and has previously had postings in Venezuela and Brazil. Something quite rare, as Latin America is a region in the world that isn’t given much importance in India. He even has a blog on random subjects related to Latin America, and makes for pretty entertaining reading: http://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com/. Everyone at the embassy was most welcoming, and I spent over two hours chatting with different people in the office. Listening to Indians speaking Spanish was lovely. The embassy had a wonderful collection of movies and books on Argentina, and I think I will use it as a library during my time here, having already taken the opportunity to borrow two of the movies they had. I was also invited to a seminar on Indian businesses that the embassy is holding in a few weeks time, and I definitely plan on going. My visit ended with the ambassador himself driving me home.

Over the last week I tried to continue my sightseeing in the city, though at times to no success. After extensive research (in my lonely planet) I picked out two museums I wanted to visit: El Museo de la Casa Rosada (the museum of the presidential palace) and ‘La Pasión Boquense’, a football museum in the stadium of the local team here, Boca Juniors. As it happened, both museums were closed on the days that I made trips there, much to the chargrin of the friends who I had led there enthusiastically. I did manage to however successfully visit the Recoleta Cemetery. This is a cemetery that houses the mortal remains of the rich and powerful of Argentina, and has a nice little free tour. The graves aren’t merely graves however, but are housed in plushy tombs. Most of the ‘big’ families of Buenos Aires have one tomb for their family, which guarantees place for most of their members. The bigger the tomb is, the more wealthy or influential the family tends to be. The whole concept of the cemetery seemed pretty interesting to me. On the one hand, you have the beauty and architectural brilliance that the different tombs offer. On the other, you have a sort of competition of material wealth and influence that seems to have been carried on to the afterlife. Either way, I did enjoy the tour, and getting to see Evita’s grave, which was adorned by bouquets of flowers from admirers.

Day before yesterday, I made a trip to the theatre in the theatre district of Buenos Aires, Avenida Corrientes, to watch a play called ‘Marat Sade’, about post French revolution life in a mental ward. I have difficulty understanding Spanish when sung and spoken very excitedly. The play had both a lot of singing and animation in dialogue, and it turned out to be difficult for me to understand most of it. Though of course I did follow the jist of the plot, the subtleties of relationships between characters and debate and dialogue were lost on me. I did however enjoy the spectacle that the play was, with brilliant acting, wonderful music, and an amazingly done set. The Porteños (citizens of Buenos Aires) take their theatre quite seriously. There was even some opera balcony-like seating on either side of the stage, and at the beginning, I wasn’t sure whether the people seated there were just audience or part of the play. They turned out to be audience, but it must have been quite a viewing experience, as the play took place a few centimeters away from them, and the actors often acted as if they were part of the happenings on stage!

I also had the chance to attend a Salsa class last week. Things seemed to be going pretty well until the instructor finished with the basics and got to the more complicated stuff, at which point most of us were lost. Once the class finished more experienced salsa dancers took the floor, and put on the moves. The ease by which they seemed to do it led me to resign myself to acknowledge that I would never be able to dance like that. You never know though….I’m considering joining a salsa class.

Yesterday I made a trip to the ‘Jardín Japones’, or Japanese Garden. It is the biggest such garden outside of Japan. There was a 5 o’clock special tea and performance of Japanese drums, which was great fun. The garden was really crowded with families on their Sunday outing. There is actually a rather sizeable Japanese, Korean and Chinese population here, and almost all the supermarkets and Laundromats are owned by Koreans and Chinese. Quite in distinction with the Indian population here, which is almost non existent. Before going to the Indian embassy, I had encountered only 2 other Indians here. I went to an Indian restaurant last Friday with Lucas and Alejandra, his girlfriend, called Tandoor, and it was hilarious to read the names of Indian dishes in Spanish.

Over the last two weeks here, I’ve also picked up a thing or two about Argentina culture. - Argentineans are very conscious of their appearance. You will almost never come across an overweight Argentinean. In the square block around my house, consisting of four streets, there are almost 8 hairdressers. The mullets are a particularly popular look among the young men.

- Argentinean men are very aggressive when it comes to courting girls, almost to the extent that the courtship is eliminated. It’s perfectly acceptable to introduce yourself to a girl in a nightclub by taking her hand and starting to dance with her. It seems that I have much to learn…

- The café culture is a staple of the city. As long as you order something, you can go on sitting in a café for as long as you like, without being troubled. I’ve currently been sitting in this café for the last 4 hours.

I’ve also come to realize the vast network that I have, thanks to UWC, AIESEC and Yale. All those communities put together, there are probably over a 100 students who I have something in common with in Buenos Aires at the moment. Last week I met Sara, a friend of mine from MUWCI, who has been in Buenos Aires for the last 4 months, doing volunteering work and promoting an experiemtnal theatre production. I bumped into a girl wearing a UWC sweatshirt on the subway the other day, who graduated from the Adriatic UWC last year. I’ve met over a dozen Yalies and AIESECers doing different sorts of internships and volunteer work.

Clearly, I’m not alone…