Monday, February 8, 2010

Futbol, Superbowl, and a Library with No Books

Places to watch the Superbowl here in BA were lacking. Everyone was watching soccer. Soccer is less of a sport here and more of a religion. There were a couple of bars who advertised showing the Superbowl, but the commercials would be local ones, not American ones. And as not big football junkies, we thought, what's the point?! So we had our own Superbowl party here in our flat. We made tacos, watched the commercials online, and played a made up game that combined flag football, soccer, a Barbie ball, and a lots of laughs.





Prior to the big game, we took a stroll to visit the National Library. Argentine people pride themselves in being a highly literate country and the library was built as a symbol of that. It's a strange looking building--designed to look like a table, so that you'd get the feeling of sitting down with a book. It's seven stories high, however, visitors may only reach 3 of those stories. We toured the three stories and much to our confusion, didn't see any books. In a library. The floors were mostly tables and desks for study. It was so quiet in the large rooms, that I was paranoid of Ella making any noise at all. And where are the books?! I learned that if you want a book (or up to 3 at a time), you first go to a computer located here and there throughout the study rooms. You look up the books you want and request them on the computer. Then you wait for your name to be displayed above the librarian's desk. And you go pick up your books from there. The librarians fulfill the book requests by going to, I suppose, where ever they do keep the books. It was not a very inviting place in general. We were a bit disappointed. I had hoped that it might be a nice place for me to get away and work sometimes, but I think now I'd rather hit a cafe.


1 comment:

  1. That library would make me sad. I love strolling the aisles of books. Plus I don't always know what I'm looking for. Sometimes I'll just head to section, like cookbooks, and see what I find.

    You have to teach Ella to say, 'goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal'. =)

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