Day Eleven

    This city shuts down on Sundays. Most restaurants are closed, as well as all stores except for tiny convenience stores, and there are very few people are out and about. Not to surprising after the whole city stays up until 6 on Friday and Saturday.

    Went on a nice three hour walk around my neighborhood stopping at one of the only open cafes for breakfast. The cafe sits across from the park in front of the Capital building and the view was incredible:

    Afterwards I strolled through the park and took a bunch of great pictures. The hardest part of my day everyday is deciding which picture to use as pic of the day. Todays came as I paused to watch the little kids feed the pigeons corn and was reminded that even though their are huge cultural differences here, some things are universal, such as the happiness from little things:

Day Ten

    Great workout with my Columbian amigo Sydney Fortura!

    Napped before headed out to an outdoor full moon party at the Buenos Aires Planetarium. Really fun/really hippy. Probably 20 people brought drums and there was a big drum circle going around a big bonfire. Tons of people came out to it and it was a great time:

    I spent probably 6 hours today just speaking with locals and my Spanish is starting to get decent! So much so that the bus driver on the way back from the planetarium told me I speak spanish very well!

Day Nine

    I can't believe it was a week ago when I touched down in this amazing place! It already feels like forever ago. I'm happy because I have done so much in one week to make it feel that way, but I still have so much more time here!

    Highlights from today:

    Went to the gym solo today because Zack has been MIA the last few days and the biggest guy who goes to this gym asked if we could work out together. He's this big black columbian who is one of the most stylish guys in the city. Needless to say I'm looking forward to tomorrows workout.

    I went to a birthday party for the one of the roommates of the girl I'm taking Tango with. Awesome group of 20 people half internationals, half portenos (locals). We stayed at the restaurant till 2 then went out the clubs. I got to experience my first real Buenos Aires Dance club, called a Boliche. We all danced the night away and I came home around 6.

    Pic of the day is a modest theatre that is next to me. It goes my place, a hole in the wall grocery store, this place then the church from day 1. Pretty spectacular neighborhood!:

Day Eight

    Highlight of today was easily this guy:

    He informed me he is a retired gaucho (cowboy). I stopped in the a local butcher shop after hitting the gym this afternoon so I could nab some protein and for some reason this guy took an interest in me. The only English he spoke was 7 words "This is not your country. It's mine" And he said it anytime I tried to protest his plans. Other than that he spoke/understood zero English so we played a very high level game of charades. He gave me directions to the grocery store but was afraid I wouldn't find it so walked me there, then took me shopping, helping me plan my entire meal, showed me every variety and cut of beef in Argentina as well as practically everything else in this store. 

    As we were leaving I made the mistake of asking about scotch tape which no one in Argentina uses. Its weird tape doesn't exist here. That took like 15 minutes to hand sign out, he wouldn't drop it no matter what (This is not your country) and then he took me to 4 different stores looking for it before he finally bought two strips of adhesive Velcro that I could use to hang a photo in my room.

    He said all cowboys read the bible no matter what Christian sect and it was his duty as a Christian to help me. He even walked me to the subway afterwards even though I explained to him I've ridden it every day for the last six days! 

Interesting note a pound of amazing steak here costs the same as two packages of skittles! 

    Went back to el gimnasio for a 'hard combat' class. It was insane. I received a standing novation from the class for being valiente! 

   Wiped from my hour and a half tour of Buenos Aires with my Cowboy friend Oscar and a double work out. Calling it a night.

Day Seven

   Starting to get settle in here! Getting used to not being able to understand my host dad at all. He has a great mix between a heavy Argentinian accent (there is a very very heavy accent in this country) and an Italian accent. He will talk at me for about 20 minutes at a time and I can understand about 10 words. I was 30 minutes late to dinner today because I got lost trying to get home and he went off. As I listened to him while not understanding anything I realized I will be fine down here!

   Had my first tango lesson today! I go to this beautiful studio thats about 12 blocks from my house. The studio is run by none other than Mora Godoy who I'm sure you don't know and I didn't either but apparently is one of the biggest names in Tango! (Mom please skip to the next paragraph) I googled her too and she is pretty impressive, even was the cover girl for Playboy!

   The Tango lesson went amazing. A girl from my program just started today too. We both have zero experience in Tango but she competed in ballet for a number of years. However at the end of this first class we were actually doing fairly well and I already signed up for more classes, as well as got a list of tango clubs in the city so game on!

   Subway pic of the day is coming as soon as I ride the subway next. But today is a random street in Buenos Aires:

Day Six

Learned today that getting smashed by doors in mass transit is totally normal which made me feel much better about my experience on the bus. I tried to take the subway to Zack's neighborhood today during rush hour.... UNREAL. Makes NYC subways look deserted. I'm going to go back tomorrow and hopefully shoot a video or at least a picture so there is your verbal preview for the pic of today tomorrow hopefully.

They wedge more people on than you can imagine and the last guy tried to push it to far. The subway doors CRUSHED him from both sides. He fell back to the platform and the subway went on. I felt bad watching him grimace the whole time we waited for the next subway which was just as crammed but we were the first people to push in instead of the 20th.

Hit the gym with Zack. Apparently 8pm is the time to go because it was packed today. My god do we stick out like sore thumbs there haha. Its pretty wild they blast techno that sounds like it got mixed with a laser tag game and then tossed into an accelerator, but everyone digs it so props to them.

Zack came over and we went on a late night run at like 12. My host mom was very worried about us getting robbed and kept making a gun out of her hands and pointing it at me saying "Bang! Bang!" Needless to say, we didn't get shot. I learned that the building which is the background of this blog is more than just a cool building that I took a photo of my first night. Its el Teatro Colon, apparently the second best opera house in the world, although I imagine there is a some debate on that. Regardless it's amazing and it's one block from my house!

We are in the process of researching upcoming shows and buying tickets.

Pic of the day was taken a couple minutes later in the run (Zack is the silhouette in the bottom right):

Day Five

Went to my first horse races ever today with Zack. El Hipodromo Argentino de Palermo. Its like the Kentucky Derby of South America. Epic!

Day Four

    Went on a nice 3 hour run today. Found the horse-track and casino. This was one of the entrances:

        After the run grabbed some great carne at a local restaurant. Had an amazing 4 course meal for $20. Went back to the casino, this time to actually play. Left up and feeling good.. Then I tried to take the bus home.

       Lesson of the Day: Just because I've ridden the subway 5 times doesn't make me a master of public transportation. Bus driver yelled at me for not knowing how to pay into their weird ticket machine. Then I tried to stand out of everyones way (Bus was packed at 1:30 am) so I picked the only open spot. Next stop realized it was open because it is right where the back doors swing open about as hard as Roger Clemens throws a fastball. I got crushed/pinned between the door and the bus in front of everyone. Don't expect a fool me twice story after that.

I think I'm getting the hang of this place.

Day Three

    Great Day. Met up with Zack Fox, who is killing it down here by the way. No surprise first thing we did was a little research on gyms... and then joined a killer four story gym in the middle of BA. Pics to come of it I'm sure.

     My host mom is awesome, she's this little old argentine grandma named Marcela, and my host dad is this old Italian Grandpa named Louis who wears cardigans and berets everyday!

     Zack and I went out to Palermo which is the bar/club scene in BA. Had a great time, met two of his friends...

No one goes to the clubs here until 2. When I told Marcela I was going out she asked what time I thought I would come home. 7? 8? This culture is crazy and perfect for me!

At 4 the city was just starting to get going but the four of us called it a night. I decided to walk home since Zack's house is the opposite direction from mine from Palermo.

Great decision... 1:45 later I made it to my place putting it around 6! Time for bed..

Day Two

     Just 36 hours after leaving for the subway in Brooklyn I made it Buenos Aires!! Made two great friends on the flight and we all shared a cab into the city. I'm going to start doing a picture of the day (I have a facebook album with all of these as well)

     Host mom made me dinner. First meal in the country was steak of course. I'm going to love it here.

Todays is from my late night stroll around my neighborhood. Its a church that is two doors down from me:

   I live in Centro which is close to everything! El obelisko which is perhaps BA's most famous monument, the famous opera house (regarded as one of the best in the world) and the famous Tango theatre along with countless other theatres and monuments!

Day One

Trip is off to a great start! Subway from Brooklyn to JFK was broken so I arrived 53 minutes prior to check in and TAM airlines has a 1 hour prior check in policy. No worries though $528 later and a solid 12 hours of sitting in JFK and the trip is back on track!