Jewish High Holidays in Cordoba

Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year)
I attended evening services with a family that is friends with my Spanish teacher.
We went to the reform temple called Central Synagogue (the one I took pictures of). The services were in Spanish and Hebrew and I could sing along to about one third of the prayers and songs in Hebrew, the melodies that are based on trope or that are pretty universal were the same as in the US. The Rabbi is really cool, his sermon was very short and very sweet--about why we celebrate two days for the new year instead of just one. Then I went with the family to their friend´s house where we had DELICIOUS food. We ate fish croquettes, cooked veggies, roasted chicken, seasoned rice, cooked pears in wine (I forget the name of this...), cookies, cake, and then coffee!!!!! Everything was amazing, and everyone was very nice. I got to practice my Spanish comprehension and I brought a homemade apple cake which was repeatedly declared ¨Muy Rica.¨

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
I went alone to Kol Nidre in the evening, services were similar to the US and I made friends with the lady sitting next to me. Then I couldn´t go all the next day because I had class and I visited Carlos Paz where Carlos had a physics conference. At 530 I returned to the synagogue to find it absolutely packed. I stayed for an hour, but then I went to used the bathroom and literally could not get back into the sanctuary it was so stuffed full. That day the shops were closed for a national holiday and I couldn´t get the ingredients for the traditional Yom Kippur break fast dinner I wanted to make for Angie, Lucas, Carlos, and Flor. Instead we did it Thursday night.
We ate egg salad, homemade blintzes, a big salad, and banana cake with cream cheese frosting. For everyone else it was the first time they had tried all of it except, of course, the salad. While I was preparing this meal I discovered that cooking gives me the same endorphin high as thrift store shopping, which is good to know since I need a replacement for shopping therapy here! Hopefully I will get to do lots of cooking on the farm, where I will move Sunday.

Yom Kippur Break Fast

Rosh Hashanah Apple Cake

PS Lil I have no control over fonts so don´t judge.

Palacio Ferreyra

Palacio Ferreyra is a gorgeous old palace in the center of Cordoba that has been turned into a museum. The atmosphere is great and the paintings are amazing, I have already been twice and I am not even a museum person!!!!

 

 

 

Some of my favorite pieces

 

La Tormenta, Horacio Alvarez

 

Las Colchas, Fernando Fader

 

La Toilette, Eduardo Schiaffino



And from the temporary exhibit on the French Revolution,

Thoughts About the French Revolution While Eating a Shrimp Salad, Oldenburg

CELEC: Un Idioma, Muchos Mundos

I am taking language classes at a school called CELEC in a beautiful neighborhood outside the downtown area of the city. I either take the bus in the morning (Oh hey--it's the N3!!!!!!!!!! (This is what I always say when I see a bus I know)) or I am driven by Flor who works in the same area at thesame time. I have class for three hours in the morning, with two different teachers so I don't get too accustomed to one voice. I think I am learning a lot and I am looking forward to next week when I will have class for four hours every morning with another student from Austria. A lot of what we learn in US Spanish classes is Spanish from Spain so it is very vexing to discover that I have to relearn something because only one of the twenty one Spanish speaking countries actually uses it!!! My teachers are both very nice and teach in Spanish which I like a lot. All of the little phrases teachers use such as "go to this page" or "read this out loud" are easy to understand in Spanish and there is no reason to say those things in English! One of the exercises I have been doing is writing about my day what I do in the afternoon, then my teacher and I edit it the next day. The following is my entry from Wednesday (everything is in present tense because that was what I was supposed to practice that day. also it is sans accents):

Miercoles
Tomo el colectivo a la una de la tarde. Voy lejos de mi casa y me pierdo, pero salgo del omnibus y encuentro la casa en ¡cinco minutos! Despues, amuerzo. Como dos huevos, una zanahoria, y pastek con fruta. El pastel es muy feo, pero me gustan mucho las zanahorias. Despes, quiro dormir pero como el tiempo estaba bueno, camino a la sinagoa de Cordoba. ME gusta veo las tiendas y a la gente mientras estoy caminando. Pero caudo llego a la esquina de la sinagoga ¡no esta alli! ¡Mi mapa esta incorrecto! Camino en el area y despues de trienta minutos, loencuentro. Pero la sinagoga no esta abierta. Busco y busco pero no puedo encontrar niguna puerta. Tomo does fotos con mi camera (porque el edificio es muy lindo) y salgo. Durante el camino a mi casa encuentro un kiosco con mi nombre--El Kiosco Esther. Llego al departamento a las seis de la tarde, como una pera, y empiezo mi tarea.

Shalom Cordoba!

Today I walked the 20 blocks to the Cordoba synagogue to see if I could find out if I need to buy tickets for the high holidays and to see if there were any youth activities I could get involved in. This place was A FORTRESS. A beautiful building, but completely impenetrable. I could not find a way in. I may have to go on a Friday night when I know there will be people there. The telephone numbers for the Hillel (one of five in Argentina) and the synagogue are impossible to find on the Internet. I wanted to go bake cupcakes at Hillel tonight (the event was advertised) but I couldn't find an address or a number! Still, on my walk I took some nice pictures, found a kiosco with my name, and visited acraft store where I bought a button for my sweater and some new yarn--all in Spanish.

(The sidewalks were crowded and skinny so I couldn't get the best angles.)

A Room with a View

 

We are on the nineth floor of a fifteen floor building. The following are some pictures taken from the balcony where we dry our clothes, keep the bike, and check the weather.

 

Friday in Oncativo

Today I took the bus with Angelina to Oncativo where her mother lives. The rural areas between Cordoba and Oncativo were very flat and there was lots of soy and other crops growing. Maria Jose picked us up and we went to her house which is incredible, something out of a fairy tale. Everything is tile or hardwood or exposed brick in dark rich colors on the inside and the outside is brick with a little gate and a pretty tiled roof. The style of architecture here is very unique, I need to get some good pictures.

Maria Jose works for INTA which is a governmental organization that does agriculture research and also agriculture-related public outreach so it is right up my alley. We met her friend and coworker Jose at the office and talked for a long time about farming and the area (Villa General Belgrano) where I will be working later on. Sometimes Maria Jose translated, sometimes I just listened to the Spanish and caught the gist of what they were saying-it was very good practice. It turns out there is an INTA office near to Villa General and I might be able to visit their friend there on his house/farm with Maria Jose.

Jose works in public outreach and he supervises a bunch of home gardens, community gardens, school gardens, and hospital gardens in the area so after talking he took us on this wild tour of all his gardens in the area. They were all beautiful but in different states of progress. I recognized most of the vegetables--lots of chard, onions, lettuce. Winter is just ending so a lot of things are starting up. A couple of the gardens were in empty lots but one was in this huge hospice-facility where we drove down a road lined with trees into what seemed like its own miniature city with old beautiful buildings and murals everywhere. The patients are free to just walk around and there are dogs everywhere--I couldn´t imagine a more healthy and therapeutic place to be. And it is public! Free! Ten times better than the expensive private mental illness and hospice facilities we have in the US.

After the hospice we went to a backyard garden of a couple that was home. They were reeeeeeaaaallly nice people and let me try an orange from their tree (AMAZING) and called me "chica bonita." I have to say I am really starting to love the kissing-greeting, it is like an instant shyness-dissolver, although I am still finding it hard to practice my Spanish speaking. On the way home I learned that horse-drawn carts are a legitimate form of transportation in Oncativo (I saw three). Now I feel like I have had a proper initiation to Argentine urban gardening and I look forward to visiting some gardens in Cordoba at a later date.

Flight and First Day in Cordoba

Hello!

I am writing from my friend(Angelina)/hostess's computer in her apartment in downtown Cordoba. Everything went smoothly with my flights but I got sick within an hour of being on the first plane. But I am better now after sleeping from 6pm to 8am and I had breakfast that Lucas (Angie's brother who also lives here) went and got at one of the yummy european style bakeries that are aparently all over the place here. I have my own little bed in Angie's room and she made me closet space. She, her brother, and Carlos and Flor (their dad and stepmom) are the sweetest people ever. And Angie's mom, Maria Jose, is coming tonight to "cook for me" and then maybe tomorrow we will visit her lab and home in Oncativo. I am looking forward to doing lots of cooking and reading when I am not at my language classes at CELEC. I actually visited CELEC yesterday because it was near the airport and it is THE CUTEST place ever in this fancy nieghborhood with beautiful architecture. Aparently there will be students from all over the world with me and we have access to computers and a kitchen. So between the computers Angie and Lucas have and the one at CELEC I can check email whenever so shoot me an email!!!

Esther