I woke up relatively early for a
nice breakfast. It was a peculiar breakfast of mostly sweets—dessert cakes and
pies—with fresh-squeezed orange juice and fruits. I wasn’t particularly fond of
the Vienna sausage they served at the breakfast; they looked like hot dogs (more
like tubular Spam) but didn’t taste anything like them. Although, the highlight
of the breakfast was the dulce de leche,
a very delectable sweet caramel famous in Argentina. Mae Leigh and Antonia spread
this rich sweetness on their morning toast. My breakfast was topped off with a
nice cup of tea before we headed out to tour the fun filled city.
We hopped onto our tour buses
and went around the Buenos Aires city. We first stopped at Plaza de Mayo and
took pictures of La Casa Rosada (The Pink House, which is the office and
mansion of the President of Argentina), Pirámide de Mayo (The May Statue, which
was built on the first anniversary of the May Revolution), and Catedral
Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires, a
Catholic church that the current Pope Francis lived next to when he was in
Argentina). We then made yet another quick stop at La Boca and El Caminito (a
small pedestrian street filled with colorful houses—as you can see on the
background of the blog page). There were so many street vendors selling many
different trinkets—from mate, a
special Argentinean drink, to Messi jerseys. Our trip ended with an encounter
with a churro merchant on a bicycle. The churros were to die for—crunchy and
crispy while oozing with dulce de leche from the center. Our last bus tour stop
was at the head of Rio de la Plata (River of Silver), where we went to Puerto
Madero and crossed the bridge, Puenta de la Mujer, and returned back to the
hotel to have lunch.
I went
out to the huge shopping mall, Galeria Pacifico, and ate at one of the many
shops in the food court. I tried an empanada for the first time—actually 6; I
got a chicken, tomato with basil and cheese, spinach and cheese, “spicy meat”,
“sliced meat”, and a regular “meat” one for 98 pesos (or about 12 US dollars).
I especially liked the chicken and spicy meat because of their rich and savory
taste and aroma.
After a brief lunch, we had to
hurry back to our hotel to dress up for our first concert. We got all our
equipment ready and made our way to the Facultad de Derecho, University of
Buenos Aires, where we first took a big group photo in front of the magnificent
building and then rehearsed with the National Youth Orchestra of Argentina. The
resonance of the hall made it hard to hear across the orchestra, but we,
thankfully, pulled it off. I learned that the age range of their youth
orchestra goes from about 14-15 to 28 years old. In first part of the concert, we
intermingled with the National Youth Orchestra musicians to play Overture to
Candide and Malambo as a huge ensemble. It was such a fun and new experience
and the sound was grand and magnificent. After our joint performance, the
Argentina Youth Orchestra played Suite Ecuatoriana by Segundo Moreno and Arturo
Marquez’s Danzón No. 2 by themselves and WYSO finished off the huge concert
with Tchaikovsky’s 4
th Symphony. The audience was stunned after the
concert and gave us a standing ovation and a huge applause.
After a long afternoon at the
Facultad de Derecho, we had a pizza dinner with the Argentina National Youth
Orchestra at La Rey at 9:00. There, the WYSO musicians and Argentinian
musicians sat together and we talked and ate mozzarella and olive pizza. Even though
there was some sort of language barrier, they were so nice and excited to talk
to us. We learned lots about them, such as their musical background,
experiences in America, and their lives in college. They helped us with our
Spanish, and we even taught them some English! We stayed there until about
11:30 and then we bused back to our hotel, all tired and eager to go to bed.
~David Cao and Thea
Valmadrid :))
P.S. Having so much
fun in Argentina!
We started this
morning with a breakfast of mostly bread and runny eggs. Most of us left the
hotel restaurant at about 9 AM, expecting to have plenty of time to pack and
return to the lobby by 9:30. We were greatly mistaken. One of the three
elevators was out of order, and about eighty people were trying to use the two
small remaining elevators to travel up and down fifteen floors. Some decided to
take the stairs after waiting too long; others waited more stubbornly. Those
who decided to take the stairs had to lug their heavy bags and instruments all
the way down to the lobby. I personally had to carry my suitcase down from the
15th floor. Luckily, I didn’t have to carry an instrument.
We all made it to the bus, albeit
not in a timely manner. And so we embarked on our six-hour journey from Buenos
Aires to Mar del Plata.
There were three things
people chose to do on the bus: sleep, talk, and look at the scenery. The
terrain was surprisingly flat, making it difficult for me to remember I was in
Argentina and not Nebraska. There were some interesting sights, though, such as
long rows of billboards and a huge plethora of countless herds of numerous
cows. They were everywhere. Seriously, there were a lot of cows.
