i was in a movie today

Sunday started out with a touristy agenda. I wanted to go to two spots that I've seen photos of: an old cafe called "El Gato Negro", and a bookstore in an old theater called "El Ateneo". I checked to see if the bookstore was open, but unfortunately it was closed on Sundays.

So a friend an I hopped on the subte around 12:30, got off at our stop only to find that the coffee shop was closed too.... on Sundays! Seriously, a cafe closed on Sundays? umph.

So, we walked towards Micro Centro (business district) where everything shuts down on the weekends. The city looks like a ghost town. Luckily we found one coffee shop open on "Florida" (the pedestrian shopping street). We had some coffee and some food.

Without plans for the rest of the day, we walked towards the subte to return to our barrio (neighborhood). When we were walking down the pedestrian street we saw red and pink confetti in the sky. "What is that?" As we got closer we noticed there were people pumping confetti into the air as children were playing in it. Then we noticed the film crew, then we noticed the production crew, the street signs that were covered up with English signs and the car with the German license plate. How cool, a movie!

I've heard that Buenos Aires is a popular spot to film movies because the city will close down a street for much less than any other city.

At one point, one of the workers asked people if they wanted to be a part of it. "Sure!", so we walked back and forth a couple of times while they filmed. I doubt that we'll be in the scene, but it's fun to think that we were unrehearsed extras for the day. With all the excitement we wanted to be in a closer shot, but we weren't able to because we were wearing summer clothes. The real (paid) extras were wearing spring clothing. "damn". We later learned that the "movie" was a German commercial instead.

We hung around for an hour or two watching the action. We were sitting next to the technical crew for most of the time. It was cool that we were so close, sitting with the crew and nobody was telling us to leave.

So, ok, I wasn't in a movie today, but I was in a commercial....kind of.


(photo below: notice that the signs are in English. Also notice some people are wearing long sleeve shirts? They're the real extras. (it was in the high 80's today))