Buenos Aires IV
Aug. 1st, 2019 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeWith the opening ceremony of ArFF not until 7pm on the Friday (28 June), this gave us most of the day to do some more exploring of Buenos Aires. It was another quite cold day with a bitter wind, so we opted to check out some of the museums along Avenida de Mayo, which is where our hotel and the con hotel was situated. We decided to target three, but with them not opening until noon, it gaves us time for a healthy lie-in, which was just as well considering how busy the previous day had been in Uruguay.
Our first museum was the Museo Casa Rosada, a sweeping wood and glass building tucked behind the famous pink building. It took a little while to find and once we did, we were met by a long queue of pensioners and an equally long queue of children on a field trip. However, we managed to sneak ahead of them all, past the metal detector and into this rather impressive space. It was one of those museums where we spent a lot longer than we had anticipated due to the varied nature of all of the exhibits. There was a middle section donated to a range of figures in Argentinian public life including actors, politicians and prominent transgender people amongst others. Further back there was a history of the Casa Rosada and how it used to be right on the Rio Plata before a mile of land was reclaimed from it. Indeed this history of the building along with the detailed cataloging of Argentinian political history down the left-hand wall was the most interesting part of the museum. Focusing on the Argentinian Revolution of 1810 all the way through to the present day, the range of important political documents and iconic possessions including cookware and clothes added personality to the history that the TV screens were portraying. This was done in the form of about eight mini-films dedicated to different epochs in Argentine political history, with the conclusion being that Argentina's heyday (1880-1910) correlated precisely with its most politically stable period. Indeed, the tumults of coups and financial crises since the mid-1950s is one of the reasons why Argentina doesn't punch near its weight economically. Most of the signs here were in Spanish but the videos had English sub-titles, which were useful. Another highlight here was the official cars used by some past presidents, with the ones from the turn of the twentieth century monogramed with the president's initials, which was a nice touch.
After this, we stopped off at Temple Craft in Peurto Madero for a cheeky beer as it was so close by, before heading back across the road to the Centro Cultural Kirchner. Nestor Kirchner proposed turning this old postal building into a cultural centre in 2005, it being one of the most impressive baux-arts structures in the city (it took thirty years to build, was completed in 1928 and was modelled on the New York Post Office Building). Standing at eight storeys tall and taking up an entire block, it was reopened in 2010 after Kirchner's death but did take his name. Stepping inside, it has become something of an arts and cultural centre, with modest art exhibits on various floors. A lot of what we saw was modern art and wasn't particularly good (although the room with walls clad in blackboards where they invited the public to draw trees with chalk was quite impressive), but the highlight was the Ballena Azul, an 1800-seater concert hall built out of wood right inside the main post office building. Cladded in silvery metal material, it looked a little like a horizontal bean on stilts, and I had never quite seen anything like it before. We weren't sure whether we were allowed inside it - with the entrance being on the second floor - but we just snuck in after a small party of about five and managed to see its stunning wooden interior. A security guard subsequently stopped someone else from entering so I guess this was naughty, but it would be great to see a concert here sometime.
There was little else here of interest to be honest so we decided to head to the Palacio del Congreso which was at the other end of Avenida de Mayo, past our hotel. On the way, we stopped off at the Claro mobile phone store ont the recommendation of Auster, who had told us that this was the best place to get Argentinian SIMs. So it proved to be, with 2GB of data for just £4, which proved to be all we needed. The process took about half an hour, which meant that we were cutting it slightly to get to the Argentinian parliament building. We knew they did free tours at 5pm, which was our target, and we were outside the place bang on 5pm. Modelled on the US Capitol Building and completed in 1906, the green domed roof is its most striking feature, but it is rather large, which meant circumnavigating it took time. Typically, the entrance we needed was right at the end of our route, so we were about five minutes late. Fortunately, a lady on the door was happy to lead us to the group, although I got the impression she wasn't 100% sure where they actually were. Renovation work was ongoing in the parliament, so everywhere was a little chaotic, noisy and dusty, while there was the quarter-final of the Copa America going on between Argentina and Venezuela so everyone was distracted by that (I was going to go see it with Fox Amoore but got my timezones wrong, thinking it was at 8pm local time rather than 8pm British time i.e. 4pm in Argentina).
Initially I thought we were having a private tour with the nice lady, but it turned out she was only there to drop us off with a bigger group of about twenty people. Alas, this was all conducted in Spanish so I had to piece together what I could as we went around. The place where we were left was a litlte hall at the top of a stairwell, often used for press conferences it would appear, where we were sat down and listened to talk about the history of the building. We were then led through the construction works to the pink room where women met to discuss policies until 1951 under the will of Eva Peron. The Argentinian constitution is in this room, which we also saw, before we checked out the awesome rooms of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate Chamber, both of which resembled a theatre. The lady conducting the tour was very good, but as it was all in Spanish, I did feel the urge to get through it, with people's questions becoming increasingly annoying to me. In the Chamber of Deputies, I spied on the other side of the room, another tour being conducted with just two people on it and wondered whether it was the English language one. Anyway, these spaces were impressive and you got a real sense of the functioning of Argentinian democracy here, so it was a pleasure to be there. Alas, my only regret was we couldn't get to see the fantastic walnut-panelled Congress Library but alas the construction work prohibited us access.
After the tour, which lasted about forty-five minutes, we headed outside. It had started raining at this point and so we checked out the Monumento de Dos Congressos quickly - a statue commemorating the congresses of Tucaman in 1813 and 1816 when independence was declared - before I made a drunk tramp who was lying on a bench very happy as I nearly slipped on the wet ground due to having no soles on my shoes. The con was set to open in about an hour, so we decided to call off at Mostaza Burger on the way as we were walking past it. We were itching to try Argentina's own burger chain and indeed it was very good, with massive burgers which tasted fresher than the American varieties. The fries were decent too and we noted they were the official restaurant of the Argentinian football team, which was nice. The burger bun, a proper floury bap with seeds on top, was perhaps my favourite thing about this place and it was very good food for fast food. It certainly set up us well for the con, which we went to once we had finished here.
Our first museum was the Museo Casa Rosada, a sweeping wood and glass building tucked behind the famous pink building. It took a little while to find and once we did, we were met by a long queue of pensioners and an equally long queue of children on a field trip. However, we managed to sneak ahead of them all, past the metal detector and into this rather impressive space. It was one of those museums where we spent a lot longer than we had anticipated due to the varied nature of all of the exhibits. There was a middle section donated to a range of figures in Argentinian public life including actors, politicians and prominent transgender people amongst others. Further back there was a history of the Casa Rosada and how it used to be right on the Rio Plata before a mile of land was reclaimed from it. Indeed this history of the building along with the detailed cataloging of Argentinian political history down the left-hand wall was the most interesting part of the museum. Focusing on the Argentinian Revolution of 1810 all the way through to the present day, the range of important political documents and iconic possessions including cookware and clothes added personality to the history that the TV screens were portraying. This was done in the form of about eight mini-films dedicated to different epochs in Argentine political history, with the conclusion being that Argentina's heyday (1880-1910) correlated precisely with its most politically stable period. Indeed, the tumults of coups and financial crises since the mid-1950s is one of the reasons why Argentina doesn't punch near its weight economically. Most of the signs here were in Spanish but the videos had English sub-titles, which were useful. Another highlight here was the official cars used by some past presidents, with the ones from the turn of the twentieth century monogramed with the president's initials, which was a nice touch.
After this, we stopped off at Temple Craft in Peurto Madero for a cheeky beer as it was so close by, before heading back across the road to the Centro Cultural Kirchner. Nestor Kirchner proposed turning this old postal building into a cultural centre in 2005, it being one of the most impressive baux-arts structures in the city (it took thirty years to build, was completed in 1928 and was modelled on the New York Post Office Building). Standing at eight storeys tall and taking up an entire block, it was reopened in 2010 after Kirchner's death but did take his name. Stepping inside, it has become something of an arts and cultural centre, with modest art exhibits on various floors. A lot of what we saw was modern art and wasn't particularly good (although the room with walls clad in blackboards where they invited the public to draw trees with chalk was quite impressive), but the highlight was the Ballena Azul, an 1800-seater concert hall built out of wood right inside the main post office building. Cladded in silvery metal material, it looked a little like a horizontal bean on stilts, and I had never quite seen anything like it before. We weren't sure whether we were allowed inside it - with the entrance being on the second floor - but we just snuck in after a small party of about five and managed to see its stunning wooden interior. A security guard subsequently stopped someone else from entering so I guess this was naughty, but it would be great to see a concert here sometime.
There was little else here of interest to be honest so we decided to head to the Palacio del Congreso which was at the other end of Avenida de Mayo, past our hotel. On the way, we stopped off at the Claro mobile phone store ont the recommendation of Auster, who had told us that this was the best place to get Argentinian SIMs. So it proved to be, with 2GB of data for just £4, which proved to be all we needed. The process took about half an hour, which meant that we were cutting it slightly to get to the Argentinian parliament building. We knew they did free tours at 5pm, which was our target, and we were outside the place bang on 5pm. Modelled on the US Capitol Building and completed in 1906, the green domed roof is its most striking feature, but it is rather large, which meant circumnavigating it took time. Typically, the entrance we needed was right at the end of our route, so we were about five minutes late. Fortunately, a lady on the door was happy to lead us to the group, although I got the impression she wasn't 100% sure where they actually were. Renovation work was ongoing in the parliament, so everywhere was a little chaotic, noisy and dusty, while there was the quarter-final of the Copa America going on between Argentina and Venezuela so everyone was distracted by that (I was going to go see it with Fox Amoore but got my timezones wrong, thinking it was at 8pm local time rather than 8pm British time i.e. 4pm in Argentina).
Initially I thought we were having a private tour with the nice lady, but it turned out she was only there to drop us off with a bigger group of about twenty people. Alas, this was all conducted in Spanish so I had to piece together what I could as we went around. The place where we were left was a litlte hall at the top of a stairwell, often used for press conferences it would appear, where we were sat down and listened to talk about the history of the building. We were then led through the construction works to the pink room where women met to discuss policies until 1951 under the will of Eva Peron. The Argentinian constitution is in this room, which we also saw, before we checked out the awesome rooms of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate Chamber, both of which resembled a theatre. The lady conducting the tour was very good, but as it was all in Spanish, I did feel the urge to get through it, with people's questions becoming increasingly annoying to me. In the Chamber of Deputies, I spied on the other side of the room, another tour being conducted with just two people on it and wondered whether it was the English language one. Anyway, these spaces were impressive and you got a real sense of the functioning of Argentinian democracy here, so it was a pleasure to be there. Alas, my only regret was we couldn't get to see the fantastic walnut-panelled Congress Library but alas the construction work prohibited us access.
After the tour, which lasted about forty-five minutes, we headed outside. It had started raining at this point and so we checked out the Monumento de Dos Congressos quickly - a statue commemorating the congresses of Tucaman in 1813 and 1816 when independence was declared - before I made a drunk tramp who was lying on a bench very happy as I nearly slipped on the wet ground due to having no soles on my shoes. The con was set to open in about an hour, so we decided to call off at Mostaza Burger on the way as we were walking past it. We were itching to try Argentina's own burger chain and indeed it was very good, with massive burgers which tasted fresher than the American varieties. The fries were decent too and we noted they were the official restaurant of the Argentinian football team, which was nice. The burger bun, a proper floury bap with seeds on top, was perhaps my favourite thing about this place and it was very good food for fast food. It certainly set up us well for the con, which we went to once we had finished here.
