Age of Aquarius

There are a few things that are universal, such as the need to express through art. We have been spending our days traipsing about to various fine art museums and parks. Although the fine art in the galleries is amazing my favorite part about this prominent university town is the street art.

Spray paint stencils are everywhere, and they are awesome political and social statements. Like this one about Che, which is made even better by the book I am reading about his life.

Some more street graffiti. It´s really cool to see tags in another language.

While strolling through the Dinosaur Museum today we discovered another thing that seems to be universal... Taxidermy. Thats right, the art of preparing and preserving the skins of animals and of stuffing and mounting them in lifelike form. Take this little guy for example from the Musuem of Natural History...

I don´t even know what this is!?! Although this little fossilized prehistoric spitfire did make me laugh today because it reminded me of when I psudo-lived with Tonya in her Ducks appartment in Eugene and she would pull back the head skin of her kitten and chase me around the appartment with kitty held in front like a pissed off live shield, hissing and squirming with its eyes all bulged out. That thing was a menace, Ahhhh the spitfire days.

Something that Liz and I have been doing to amuse ourselves when we get bored is taking humorous American phrases and making a literal translation out of them. Example: Beefcake - used to describe a suave man of above average physical attractiveness who struts around showing his bulging biceps in tiny muscle shirts and tight jeans. The literal translation we have thus far attained is: Pastel de carne. This first came about when we were in BA and our doorman/bouncer at the first hostel turned out to be quite the Ricky Martin look alike beefcake. So imagine how hard we laughed today when we are in the mall in Cordoba, browsing the foodcourt for our usual empenada lunch regime when we saw this...

It´s a stew, who knew? When Liz pointed it out I think I peed a little.

In other news, Uncle John asked if US politics is a hot topic of discussion over here, well I imagine it is, however between our two simple phrases spanish translation books they pretty much only teach you how to talk about the green party, global warming, and the environment. So far its a no go on the hot political discussions. Turns out we only know how to talk PC around these parts.

I have also started keeping a daily tally of the various shows, gestures if you will, of appreciation we recieve from men. Just so everyone is clear as what constitutes as affection in this category I will name a few we have personally witnessed: Whistling, yelling compliments from long distances, the creepy over the shoulder ear whisper, honking the horn, clicking the tongue, clapping, presenting gifts, crashing the car/bicycle/skateboard into a stationary object because the drivers head is turned in an obviously leering way that leaves no room for even the peripheral vision to obey the rules of the road, and of course who can forget the ever popular marriage proposal... Just to name a few.

October 1, 2008 tally: 11

XOXO