Tuesday, our last full day in Buenos Aires, was as packed as every other. After breakfast at the hotel buffet, we took the bus over to Palermo, where we embarked on a tour of street art and murals. We talked about the importance of street art to the culture of Buenos Aires, visiting murals ranging in subject from Frida Khalo to the LGBTQ community to soccer. It amazed us to see murals in many parts of the city, each symbolizing something different. Many of the murals wowed us with their intertwinement of 2D art with 3D art, incorporating aspects of the building’s architecture into the paintings. After the mural tour, we headed to another graffiti workshop, where we learned to paint a distinctive form of art central to Argentine culture. This style of art, called Fileteado, incorporates colorful components like borders to decorate parts of the city, including buses, signs, taxis, and trucks. At first, we attempted to mimic our maestro’s masterful paint strokes, but eventually diverged i...
Monday morning was wet and windy. We walked a short way to the ferry station where we caught a boat to Uruguay. Once on the boat, some of us chatted while others slept, and to our pleasant surprise, across the river, we found specks of blue and some sun. Profe. Levin crossed her fingers, hoping that the temperate conditions would hold for the day. Colonia was founded in 1680 by the Portuguese, and for much of its history, the settlement has passed from one controlling power to another. In the 18th century, the Spanish and the Portuguese fought for its possession, and in the 19th century, Argentina and Brazil became its new claimants. Finally, in 1825, Uruguay, along with Colonia del Sacramento, gained its independence. This history of hostilities had a hand in the settlement's design; the Portuguese surrounded the old peninsular town in a thick stone wall, whose battlements held cannons directed at whatever enemy the river might bring. We walked the cobble stone streets, whi...