Weekend: Rosario, Santa Fe, and Paraná

After a harrowing week of taking parciales (midterms), Trevor and I got on a 4:3opm bus from Buenos Aires to Rosario on Thursday. Rosario, which is four hours away, is Argentina’s second biggest city. Which isn’t saying much. Compared to Buenos Aires, it’s tiny, and muy tranquilo – in a good way. Highlights include:

• beautiful Parque de la Independencia. There’s just something about well-designed urban green spaces. The park is also home to the Museo de Bellas Artes, which has an interesting collection, although it was mysteriously near-empty on a rainy Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend.
• the impressive Monumento a la Bandera (where General Belgrano raised Argentina’s flag for the first time in 1812). While we were sitting and taking in the monument, a huge, gorgeous rainbow appeared over the river.
  
  
• the Río Paraná – especially gazing at it while I ate a huge, fresh, delicious alfajor.
  
  
• boat trip to Vladimir Island, where there is a pretty beach and a few bars. It must get bustling in the summer. As it was, we were there on an absolutely beautiful Saturday and it was mysteriously empty. I just don’t know what Rosarinos do on weekends.
  
  

…then we moved on to Santa Fe, an easy 2.5 hour bus ride away. Well, if we thought Rosario was tranquilo, Santa Fe was muy muy MUY tranquilo. Not to mention refreshingly short on tourists, especially other Americans. I’ve never been asked where I’m from so many times in one day. Apparently we’re a rarity around there. My favorite was a girl who must’ve been about 14, selling wax roses in a plaza for four pesos (about $1.30 American). When we started talking to her after her adorably impassioned and super fast spiel about what the colors of roses meant what, she asked us something that essentially translates to, “Where are you two from with your tone that sounds so strange?!” Naturally, Trevor bought me a silly wax rose. We couldn’t resist.

More inviting than Santa Fe for intangible reasons was its twin city on the other side of the río (in the creatively named province of Entre Ríos), Paraná. Entrerrianos, due to the relative insularity of the province, are friendly and even more tranquilo than Santafesinos. By far the highlight of our day trip to Paraná was walking along the river. The whole waterfront was flooded with people when we got there around sunset – it was suddenly abundantly clear that the rest of the city had seemed quiet not, as we’d suspected, because people just stayed in on Sundays, but rather because EVERYONE was down by the river: walking, talking, eating ice cream, watching dancers, enjoying the day.
So that was my weekend... it was fun, somewhat relaxing, and a great way to celebrate surviving parciales.

In other news, I am now living with Juliana, a 27-year-old chica, in a little apartment about 6 blocks form the resi where I lived before. The pluses: my own room, and Argentine to hang out with and speak Spanish with, a place where my friends can come hang out. Also, seeing Calexico here was awesome.

And now... it is suddenly mid-October and I feel like for weeks I've hardly had a moment to think. My lifestyle here in general leaves me feeling like I'm always running around or catching up and never really catching my breath, but I guess that's how one makes the most of a semester. Goals for the next few weeks: sleep more, breath more, gym more, enjoy.