PROA, La Boca, and Puerto Modero

Corina! That was art-lady's name: Corina. She picked me up around 11am at this cafe near the MALBA, but before leaving the hostel I got an email from Clara (friend of my stepmother). In Clara's email she told me that Corina felt uncomfortable talking to me about money yesterday, but that she is a guide for a living and wants to charge me $50 US for yesterday and today. Huh? Really? I thought this was a friend showing me around the city - an art enthusiast who was just excited to show a newcomer the ropes of Buenos Aires modern art. I mean, it now makes more sense why she knew so much and why she was so excited to take me around again today, but I felt a little tricked into this situation. No one likes to feel trapped in a situation, especially when it's dealing with money and charging someone for services which they thought were just kind gestures. Anyway, I didn't let this get me down, but rather met up with Corina and we had another fantastic day (I waited till the end to talk about money).

We went from Palermo to the La Boca neighborhood of Buenos Aires, which is on the outskirts of the city. This is one of the oldest and poorest barrios, and was the entry point for almost all of the early Italians who came over in the 1800's. La Boca is home to one of the most popular, and best, soccer teams in all of Argentina - Boca Juniors. We got out of the car into temperatures around 94 degrees, and although all my friends in Chicago love the sound of this, it's not as amazing with a ton of humidity as well. A quick walk across some amazingly old wood and stone roads got us into the air conditioning of the PROA - a small but very beautiful (and small) gallery right on the water. They are exhibiting a few works from the artist Ron Mueck, who I had never heard of but WOW this guy is amazing at creating human-like sculptures. The scenarios that he shows are so full of emotions and lifelike that it's hard to walk away without really feeling strong emotions for each piece. I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but please check out the links I included above because it was really beautiful. We grabbed some grub at the lunch spot in the PROA, which was great (pesto chicken sandwich - healthy!), and Corina actually paid for this. Maybe she felt bad that I didn't know she was going to charge me money? Who knows, but it was a very nice gesture. After lunch we watched a short video on the process that Ron Mueck employs for his sculpting, which was amazing to watch. Apparently he takes about a year to work on each piece, with so much detail put into everything in every piece (and it shows).

After the museum we walked around the little tourist area of La Boca, which was only about a block - full of cheesy dancing shows and a bunch of things I don't need to buy, and then we jumped back in the car to check out a music auditorium called Verano en la Ciudad. Although it was closed this building looked amazing, and they have free music on Saturday and Sunday, so I'll be going back then for sure! We jumped back in the car and drove a short way to Puerto Modero, which is the new and very rich neighborhood. Whenever anyone talks about this neighborhood they talk about rich people who made their money from corrupt ways. When driving through it became obvious that it was very modern - kinda reminded me of the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco. Within Puerto Modero there is another modern museum called Colleccion de Arte Amalia Lacroze de Fortbat. The architecture of the building was absolutely stunning, but the art was just so-so. Corina was ecstatic about this artist, who is from the Argentinian countryside, and who sculpts and paints a lot of farm-themed scenes (cows, branding, etc), and it was fun to see her get this excited. So we left this last museum and took some pictures out front along the river (pics below), and then she dropped me back off near my hotel. As we pulled up to the drop-off, I explained to her that Clara never told me that she was a professional guide, and I had no clue that she was hoping to get paid, so I hope she understood that this was kind of awkward. Corina is an incredibly kind woman though, so I paid her $400 Pesos, which is about $50 US (this is the number that Clara mentioned, so I ended up paying accordingly). Corina wished me a great trip and told me to email her anytime that I want to get information about more art and museums. She was indeed a great guide, but in the future she should let her clients know they have to pay in the beginning :)

So I left Corina and stopped into a little pizza spot and paid about $5 for two slices and a Pepsi and enjoyed some air conditioning and good people watching before walking back to the hostel. I got back and took a nice nap and then came upstairs for happy hour, which is from 6-9pm - two drinks for $5 :) I'm heading to dinner with a guy from Malta and the frenchman who's gonna be a dad, so that should be pretty interesting. I've walked by this amazing smelling steakhouse since I got here so I figured we give it a shot tonight. I'll probably head out with them afterwards - again should be interesting.

OH - and a HUGE SHOUTOUT to Tom Britton, who lives in my old apartment and is using most of my furniture while I'm traveling this year. Tom sent me my Polish passport, so I don't have to pay to get into Uruguay or Brazil, which amounts to about $250 total. It just came today and I couldn't be more excited!!! Pic below. THANKS TOM!!!