Day Forty!

     Can't believe it is already Day Forty! Time is going by wayyy to quickly!

     Zack got back from Iguazu which I am now more excited then ever to see! He said it is impossible to even imagine a waterfall like that. Over 1,000,000 gallons a second of water go over it. Can't wait to make it there, don't know when I will but hopefully soon!

     Anyways we spent the day trekking around the city trying to get him a student discount for the bus ticket to Puerto Madryn, but in the end he had to pay full price like the rest of us anyways so that was a bust. But the night was very fun. Went to one of his friends birthday parties at supposedly the only bowling alley in South America except that I find that impossible to believe. Regardless it was very fun. All of the UCLA kids were there who I think are some of my favorites to be with of all the international kids.

     Afterwards Zack wanted to take a FRIENDS picture in a fountain so he jumped in the giant one at Plaza Italia by himself....

     This totally set the tone and for the next hour we climbed every statue in sight which brings me to my choice for pic of the day:

     This caused us to work up quite an appetite so we found a 24 hour restaurant and split a rotisserie chicken and two giant salads at about 4 am. Fantastic adventures for just one day

Day Thirty Nine

     Crazy day! Derby Day in Buenos Aires. Boca Juniors took on River Plate at River Plate's stadium. 74,000 absolutely crazy Argentineans gathered for the biggest match of the year. I got a ride to the stadium with the host parents of the girl from Germany from my class who I went with. No one else was able to go for whatever reason, and Zack was up at Iguazu Falls. We accidentally found ourselves in the middle of the Boca caravan to the stadium. Absolutely wild! They pissed off the whole city because they didn't stop for any red lights or anybody. They set their sights on the other side of town and didn't stop till they got there. There were guys hanging out of windows, riding on the roofs of cars, 10 person vans filled with so many people that some people only had one leg in a window and the rest of their body was totally outside the van. And the whole way they were honking and singing and waving their flags and banners! Wild 30 minute car ride to the stadium! At one point in the middle of the city they all parked their cars and got out and sang and danced for about 5 minutes before getting back in and continuing on.

     Amelie and I had tickets with the River fans who are known as more civil but that would not be anywhere close to what I would call them. Especially because our ticket was to "the popular" section. The hooligans. The rowdies. This is their section. Standing room only, and they sing and chant the entire game from start to finish. It was so crowed guys would bring 10 feet of ribbon that they would then tie to the stands ten feet back from the handrails and then stand on the handrails. Craziness! We saw a fight break out between two river fans right before the game started, super intense with the one guy kicking the other in the head after knocking him to the ground. After that though the game started and everyone was really friendly and filled with River Spirit! River scored about 3 minutes into the game and the place erupted. I mean erupted. You could feel the stadium bouncing up and down or more flexing under all the fans jumping up and down. Wish I could explain how crazy it was. The police didn't ever come into our section. They stood outside but it was kind of like a no mans land and they all knew they couldn't make a difference inside our section if they wanted to.

     Now I understand why this rivalry is #1 on the list of top 50 sporting events you must attend before you die!

     The game was fantastic. River led the entire game. Boca scored its first goal part way through the second half making the score 2-1 River. Then at 90:45 with less than a minute left in play Boca scored again. The boca side went beyond crazy! Even surrounded by river fans whistling (which they would do everytime to drown out Boca when they started a chant) the Boca fans were deafening loud from all the way across the stadium. Then the game was over, finishing in a tie. Boca left cheering and River left feeling defeated since the win had been stolen at the last minute.

     Very interesting though, this rivalry is so intense that the Boca section is totally quarantined from the rest of the stadium, with its own entrance. After the match Boca gets to leave first. All of the River fans sat down and waited. It was an additional 30 minutes after the Boca section was empty until they opened the gates to let the river fans out. And still with this precaution 30 people were hospitalized including some police with initial reports of 1 death which has since been corrected. Crazy day in the stadium!!

     Afterwards we got sushi at this amazing sushi restaurant half way back from the stadium. Best sushi I have had in a very long time. Total splurge of a day, but an amazing day all around! I will never forget today!

Day Thirty Eight

     Sorry I just realized I forgot to write about today so I'm going to sneak it back in. Beautiful day in the city, sun was out and so were all the beautiful people. I headed down to Palermo Lakes, the place I discovered last weekend. Phenomenal Day, I didn't go roller blading but did go jogging for awhile. Had a nice little ego boost because probably 8 different locals asked to take a picture with me. I think though it was because I was jogging shirtless and am literally probably the whitest person they have ever seen hahah.

     There was a giant race going on, but it wasn't a closed course, and it incorporated the path around the lakes so I got to run with a bunch of runners for awhile which was fun. Also it was Viví el Festival de la Bici right across from the park at the planetarium there were probably 1,000 bike riders hanging out. They set up two quarter pipes with a pyramid ramp between them and had a big BMX demonstration which I was able to watch:

     Headed to the gym afterwards for a evening work out and didn't do anything afterwards despite it being Saturday night, since I have such a big week coming up. Overall very relaxing, fun Saturday!

Day Thirty Seven

     Everyone in my class passed the exams and is moving onto level three! I killed the oral portion, which I feel is more important, and definitely is harder.

     My teachers are the two women in the pink tops. Afterward class we all went to a local bar to celebrate, even Monica (back left of the photo) who had never been in a bar before. She got nervous though I think about her mom finding out she was in a bar so after about 5 minutes she asked "If I finish this, I can go?" We told her yes so she chugged her half a beer and ran out of the bar! Hahah she is something else thats for sure. Anyways now I have ten days off before the level three program starts. I think it will be the same class maybe add one or two students. Sadly we will be losing Radhika (front left in the blue). She was the most amazing woman, unbelievably intelligent and so nice. Definitely the kind of person you don't meet very often but are so thankful when you do. She's from New Delhi, but is headed back to Amsterdam where her partner works. They are moving to Buenos Aires though (where her partner's from) next year which is why Radhika came to learn Spanish with us. She received a 100 on both the written and oral portions of the exam!! Radhika you will be missed!

Day Thirty Six

     Sorry I missed yesterday and that this week has been pretty poor on the blogside of things. Really haven't gotten to do a whole lot with exams today and tomorrow. Had the written exam today. It went pretty well, especially considering that I thought today was the oral exam.... Oh well I will just be super prepared for tomorrow haha.

     Big things coming up in the next two weeks on this page, be sure of that so keep checking in! Here's a hint about Sunday's events:

     That my friends is a highly coveted ticket to the Boca Juniors vs River Plate. This is the most intense rivalry in the world even beating out Barcelona vs Real Madrid. The two teams are both from Buenos Aires and the fanaticism of the fans here is insane! I don't know if I shared this previously but I asked the guy at the pizza place by my house how to say 'slice' when I had first arrived here. He said to me "There are three things you need to know in this city. 1. Boca Juniors 2. Slice is porcion 3. Boca Juniors" And everybody here is like that. Additionally the Superclasico (Name for the match when these two teams play each other) didn't happen last year so this is the first time in 18 months that they will be playing each other! Super excited! This ticket is for the section where the die hard fans go. The locals that stand the whole game and sing songs and go absolutely crazy for each goal. Couldn't be more excited! Now back to studying for the test I already studied for.

Day Thirty Four

     Sun came out today and the predictions are for nothing but sunny skies all week! Thought this was kind of a cool picture with all the graffiti in it:

Day Thirty Three

Exams are this week. Super NOT excited. Oral Thursday, Written Friday. On top of that it was still absolutely dreadful outside today:

     Don't know what this building is, just a random one in the city. 

     I did manage to still have a good time today. I went over to the residence I would have lived in if I hadn't opted for the host-stay. I am very glad I think, that I chose to live with this family. I spoke with some of the people today who are worried they aren't learning Spanish as well because the natural tendency of people in the residence is to speak in English and not Spanish. Tonight was great though. A girl from my class, her roommate and I all ordered sushi and then had a great time eating all of it. It was a feast of a meal. I have managed to eat VERY well while I have been down here now that I reflect on it. 

     Only lousy part of the evening was I bet one of the girls who were both from England that James Bond is produced in America and not England. I figured it is to fantastic of a series as well as to well made to be anything other than American. They had no clue but lucky them it is British, and as a result I had to eat two tablespoons of wasabi which still isn't sitting right. Stupid Brits. 

PS- Lott pictures of the girls down here coming soon I promise. Stay patient

Day Thirty Two

     Talk about a rainy sunday. It poured all day. Rainstorms that you get in Boise and can expect to be over in 5 minutes. Rain harder than we ever really see in Seattle. Super intense lighting and thunder too, it was actually pretty cool. I stayed cooped up all day but finally had enough of it and went for a run. People looked at me from their cozy cafes like I was crazy as I jogged by absolutely drenched. I went to a part of the city I had never been to before and found yet another beautiful park with a running circuit. Most notable were these blokes who were the only ones in this city of 13 million as crazy as myself:

     They invited me to play, but I don't know rugby very well so I just watched for awhile then continued on my run.  

Day Thirty One

     Today I found out why this city feels dead/empty on the weekends. It is because they all go this park that I found today! It's Buenos Aires' take on central park and it is amazing. Literally thousands of people doing everything you can imagine. There are three lakes with a giant running path going around it filled with bikers, runners, and by far the most popular option rollerbladers! Definitely found my new weekend place. I worked on my base tan for awhile which I think blinded half the park but oh well got start somewhere. There were some amazing break dancers that had set up speakers and the wood dance pad and were tearing it up so I watched them for a good hour and a half. But there was seriously every activity going on here you can imagine. All the sports, especially soccer, some super intense slack lining with guys doing flips, a portion of the park had cones set up everywhere and tons of people were working on trick rollerblading which was absolutely amazing to watch. A drum circle, paddle boats, horse drawn carriages. I'm not kidding everything and everyone was there. I'm gunna turn into a rollerblader fein I can already tell.

Had a solid dinner at the dirt cheap but fantastic pizza place near my house. Definitely taking my family and whoever else visits me there. The place is legendary and now all the guys know me because I eat standing up by the bar and talk to them while they work so its turning into a really fun place! After that headed to Sugar Bar and then to Kika Boliche with all the girls from my class. Super solid night, danced the night away and headed home sometime around 6.

Day Thirty

     Was supposed to head out to my friends house in the country this weekend to ride horses and shoot guns but my stupid phone was being really temperamental and not letting me call anyone. Ended up deciding to stay in the city and I'm very glad that I did.

     Got a late workout in with Zack and then we went and got asado (grill meat) at this awesome place across from his flat that we had eaten at once before. From there headed down to Palermo to meet up with some chicas. Zack's dinner wasn't sitting well and he ended up heading back home right as we got to the clubs. It worked out well though because I wasn't wearing a collared shirt and they wouldn't let me in, so I borrowed Zack's shirt for the night and wore that which of course looked ridiculous. Finally went to Rose Bar which is a giant Boliche (Club) that I have been hearing about since I got here. It was awesome, favorite club I've been to here. Definitely going back. Took a bunch of pictures but the low light made all of them turn out funny. So here is the second choice pic of the day:

     Called it a night early tonight at 4am. People were actually asking why I was leaving so early!

Day Twenty Nine

     Not a ton to report today. After class went to a cafe with a german girl and a chinese girl who speaks very very little English and is so culturally awkward. Everyone in class loves her though because everything she does is really funny and she is SO CHINESE! Three days ago she said to me "My mom says I fat and make me join Gym." Just out of the blue and it took everything I had not to die laughing. Its just stuff like that. She's 17 and a good way to describe her is very cute. She very much wants a boyfriend and so everyone in class is trying to set her up with a local but she wants "good Chinese boy who will tell me he love me".

     I love all the multi-cultural influences in my classroom and how we all try and communicate to each other in a mix of spanish amongst other languages combined with high level charades.

    Pic o da day:

Day Twenty Eight

     Another great day! Woke up early for once and actually enjoyed a morning before heading to class.

     After class we my class had a mandatory tour of Avenida de Mayo which is where I went walking last weekend and toured casa rosasada and the catedral. Kind of was a waste since I had just done that but its all such amazing architecture I can't really call it a waste. Came home took a nap before heading out for the second class activity of the day which was a tango concert. No dancing just the music people tango to. It actually was a great time. I met some people from class for a beer beforehand and we walked into a cafe which ended up having karaoke which was entertaining to say the least. There were some very talented singers as well as some others.

     Headed to the tango concert. Pic of the day is from it but I'm working on uploading the video. I'll update this when the video is online:

     Super crazy thing happened afterwards. Went to a bar on the otherside of town in San Telmo with a girl from class and where we met up with other friends. It was a fantastic bar called La Puerta Roja, highly recommended if you end up in this city one day. While I'm there this girl walks up to me and says "Where are you from?" I respond with Estados Unidos and she says "yes where?" I say Seattle at which point she goes "You go to UW! I knew it!" I had never met this girl before but she said she used to always see me at the IMA (gym) and recognized me. So strange. In a city of 13 million, at one of the thousands of bars, on a wednesday night, I run into someone who goes to UW, and whom I had never met but recognizes me enough to prompt her asking. Mind=Blown. Her name is Yana Maslova for those of you in Seattle dropping in, you might know her. Great night, definitely going to be tired tomorrow though!

Day Twenty Seven

     Not to much to report today. Spanish is coming along well, but I have a lot of studying to do, already feel like exams are around the corner even though I have almost two more weeks.

     Went the the gym with the intentions of working out before tango tonight. Forgot today was Tuesday and I had promised the instructor and a couple members of that Hard Combat class that I would come to class tonight. So I ended up not going to tango class, having to extend my workout to kill time until the class started and then went through a brutal 1.5 hour super aerobic class. Needless to say I'm wiped. Had a great time though and put it all on the table and as a result got some huge props from the teacher who is this yoked porteno as well as a round of applause from the rest of the class at the end!

     Pic of the day goes to some local street musicians. Love how there is music everywhere here, and it doesn't get more authentic than these three (click the pic so you can fully appreciate these three) :

Day Twenty Six

Skipped school today to go take a guided tour of Caminito, which is the famous colored house section of Buenos Aires. It's in the neighborhood Boca which is home to the Boca Juniors Soccer Team. Seeing a match there has been #1 on my list of things to do since I got here, so hopefully I can go to a match soon. This neighborhood is also known as being one of the most dangerous at night, and even locals are told not to go there after sunset. It's really to bad, because I saw some amazing pictures today that were taken of Caminito at night. Here's my daytime picture though:

Afterwards the whole group stopped in a local cafe and split a couple liters of Quilmes beer. It took me a little while to get over it because it was a school outing, but thats just the difference in culture here I guess. La Boca is credited with the origin of Tango, so as we walked around there were couples Tango-ing everywhere. It was kind of touristy but still very cool. Most restaurants including ours had a couple preforming the Tango as well so we got to enjoy a nice show with our beer.

It was kind of overcast today, and the tour guide wasn't very good so I plan on going back to Boca soon with my tour book and doing a  self-guided tour! Still was a great day, and now it is pouring rain which somewhat takes me back to Seattle. 

PS- Happy Birthday Mom, wish I could be there celebrating with you and dad tonight!

Day Twenty Five

     I finally caved. I've been having such a great time exploring this city and stumbling upon things, but in order to not miss anything I finally caved and purchased a tour book. It's pretty cool, it has a three very full day tour of the city that hits most of the famous landmarks and cafes, attractions, etc. I'm going to work my way through it as I get an free hour here and there.

     I started off at Casa Rosada (Pink House) It's the Argentine equivalent to the USA's Whitehouse except theirs is literally pink. No one knows for sure why but its argued that the building was painted with cow blood when it was first built:

     This is where Evita Peron delivered her speeches to the the adoring masses of thousands in 1952. Amazing building and the inside was incredible. Each room was so elegant with elaborate works of art and the most amazing paintings. I took an hour guided tour of it,  and the tour guide spoke fluent spanish and english and overall I was beyond impressed! Pic of the day was one of my favorite rooms besides the president's office which was the only room we weren't allowed to photograph:

     After the tour, my next stop was at the Catedral Metropolitana. Absolutely amazing Cathedral. I felt like I was back in Italy and no longer in South America. It was massive, and actually gave me chills as I walked through it:

     It was built over 91 years and is home to the mausoleum for General Jose de San Martin who is the "Father of the Nation". Think George Washington.

     Finally to cap it off, I hopped on the A-line of the Subway. It is the only line in the city subway system that still uses the original 1913 subway cars. In addition the station I entered at is the only station that has been fully restored to its 1913 state. It felt like I had been transported back in time, to 1913 when BA installed the first subway system in South America. Very cool day, with great experiences and so many phenomenal pictures! 

Day Twenty Four

     Love how people do parties here. Tonight I brought Zack with me to Caroline's (My Tango Partner) birthday party. Well it actually was a birthday party for Caroline and one other girl from the dorms. We went to this amazing Italian Pizza place, there were probably 25 of us, and we were at the restaurant from 10-2. It is so much fun to have that many people from literally every corner of the globe at one table talking to one another for 4 hours. Pic of the day was my dinner:

     Caroline actually bet me that I couldn't eat this pizza by myself which was an easy win. Still had room for dessert and then some afterwards. This pizza was amazing though! Afterwards we all headed to a boliche a few blocks away. Someone decided to let the girls pick the place and lead so naturally we walked around for like an hour longer than we should have.. but when they finally picked a place we got VIP since the bouncer lives in the dorms as well so no complaints. The club was pretty cool, none of my pictures did it justice. Funny anecdote: Zack and I were approached by two portenas. After we had been talking to them for a few minutes we asked them how old they were.... 16 and 17!! Totally caught us off guard! Would've honestly guessed between 20-22. Zack got invited to a graduation party. Highschool grad party that is.

Day Twenty Three

     Great day, I'm feeling really good about how this experience is going as I get ready for bed. I met up with Zack at his university today (University de Belgrano) since I hadn't seen it yet. I got a cup of joe and got to meet his friends. Learned I should drink coffee pre-class everyday because I walked into my class today absolutely on fire. We had a sub today and she said that she was very impressed with the level of my Spanish!

     Got done with class and tried to figure out how to get money into this country. This country uses the US Dollar as the backbone to its economy but the US Dollar is illegal here. Additionally they have a fixed rate so if you withdraw from a bank ATM or have money wired here they give you money in Argentine Pesos using about a 4.3 rate. As in they give you 4.3 pesos for every US dollar. However there is a black market for dollars that pays around 6.2, that most people trade on. Quite a large difference in purchasing power. The trick is to just get the US into Argentina and then you can exchange on the market like everyone else, but getting US is tricky/impossible in Argentina. I am hoping to buy a bike and need the money so I looked at opening an offshore account in Uruguay where I could withdraw US money and then take the ferry back into Argentina but that looks just about as complicated. Thats the route most expats take here. We'll see, I have the rest of the weekend to research.

     Headed to the gym and got a fantastic workout. Afterwards headed to dinner with some friends. We went toSiga La Vaca which is this Asado place (Famous Argentinean BBQ, very similar to the parrilla). Great night. $21 US gets you a table, bottle of wine per person and all you can eat salad bar and asado. Needless to say since we came straight from the gym we turned this into the biggest deal on Earth. Its buffet style so there isn't any wait time between courses and we still managed to turn this into a 3.5 hour dinner. The waiter spoke very broken english but was a stud. You could tell he was very worried about his English ability, and the fact that he had been given the American table so we received the best service I expect to receive this entire trip. I took a million great pictures but in keeping with photo of the day:

     Needless to say we took very good care of our waiter but by our standards still tipped less than a tip would be for that class of restaurant with that level of service in the states. Regardless he was very happy and shook our hands numerous times. He was astounded with how much we ate, which says a lot coming from a guy who works a buffet! As we were leaving he told me, "Goodluck in Argentina, you will do very well for yourself. You are large with blue eyes and blonde hair and everyone here will love you for it." This is the fourth time in the last two days people have pointed out that I am one of the only people in this entire city with the blue/blonde combo! Anyways overall great dinner experience!

     After that we walked for what turned into probably five miles. I got invited to a Google birthday party from the girl I met on the plane ride into BA. Apparently we were within one block but couldn't find the place and our all phones were out of credit so eventually we called it a night and headed back to our homes. Probably a good thing, we were so full/tired at that point.

Day Twenty Two

A couple firsts today.

First time ever having my dry-cleaning done, going to be looking fresh this weekend.

First time that a beautiful German girl has asked me to get coffee with her after class.

First time I have seen an accident/the cops doing anything in this city:

     Actually scratch that, I'll leave it as first time I've seen an accident in this city. I had to bus home from the gym since the subte was broken and I saw about 10 cop cars and then I saw this accident so I hopped off the bus and looped back. I was a little worried the police wouldn't let me take a picture, however all the police were a block down the street taking a smoke break so it wasn't an issue. This is a good pic to keep fresh in my memory as I continue to think about buying a motorcycle down here!

Day Twenty One

     Not much to report today. Was feeling really warn down so took it easy. Had my second private instruction in Tango today though which went really well. Pic of the day is the Palace of Running Waters. Built between 1887-1894 it was built to hide the city's first water tower. Its located about 6 blocks from my house and I pass it on the way to school and tango. Apparently its also the highest point in the city:

     Check the biker to get a sense of the scale of this building which continues down the entire block. The facade is made up of 170,000 tiles and 130,000 bricks and could hold 72 million liters of water. It is now a museum so sometime soon I plan on returning and touring around it for awhile. 

Day Twenty

     Set my alarm for 8 to watch Red Bull do a skydive from 120,000 feet and attempt to break the speed of sound with an unassisted human body, but I slept through it! So next thing I knew it was very late and I had to cab to school to avoid being late. Class went very well and afterwards booked it to Belgrano to get a quick workout in. Then met up with my friend from Tango and we went to our first Milonga!! Milongas are a dime a dozen in this city and are clubs where people dance exclusively tango. But this place was amazing! It was the second story of this abandoned warehouse in the middle of BA with no signs or anything out front. Just the address which we had found online and a nondescript door. You walk in and up a flight of stairs and enter this giant ballroom with 50 foot high ceilings, walls draped in tons of art, a full bar, tables and a cafe, and a giant dance floor and stage! It was one of my favorite places in this city so far, easily!!

     We took a one hour group class which was substantially different than my 8 person group lessons at my studio seeing as this group was closer to 50 people. After the group lesson they open it up for dancing and people dance the tango there until 4am everynight! It was amazing watching some of these people move together, definitely fed the fire within me to study this dance!! I danced, but mainly watched until 1 and came home. Milongas are tourist attractions/ great entertainment and I would guess 100 people came tonight to just watch the dancers move to the Tango.

     This is a music video that was filmed at this milonga. Obviously a little more intense/sexual than my experience there but you can get a feel for the place and see some amazing tango!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riuF_Ur3unc&feature=player_embedded

     Another major discovery tonight! There is a store one block from my house that sells fully loaded hotdogs for $1.50 until 7am everyday! I think I found a new spot to become a regular at! I know have: El Quartitos (Fantastic Pizza place 2 blocks away)
Manhatten Cafe (Favorite Cafe in this city 6 blocks from Zacks)
Concept Gym
This corner store, not sure the name yet!
The haircut club
Any my favorite store discovered yesterday!

     I like having a few places to be a regular at, it helps build friendships as well as help with the full immersion into the culture and language.

The B-Day Weekend aka Day 16,17,18,19

Friday Day 16

     Well today we were supposed to go to Cordoba for Oktoberfest. Didn't happen. As I mentioned in day 15 we had gone to Retiro to get our bus tickets. Well Zack didn't know his passport number so we couldn't buy them, but the guy told us if we came today 3-4 hours before the bus we would be fine. So after school, Zack came over and we got ready to roll down to the the station. However he forgot his freshly made passport copies so we had to take the Subte (Subway) back across town to his house to get it, then back across town past my place to the station. We arrived about an hour before our bus and all the tickets were naturally sold out. The next bus wasn't until 8am putting us in about 3-4 which probably wasn't going to be worth it. Hakuna Matata, keep reading we still had an unreal weekend.

     Retiro the bus/train station is in a really poor part of town and while we were there I caught two separate guys trying to steal from my backpack as I was walking. It was crazy one guy got a zipper entirely open but luckily there wasn't anything valuable in it and I felt him right as he got it open. I looked at my backpack, saw it open and looked back up and the man had vanished. Absolutely creepy how he just vanished. Zack wanted to go on the warpath, I think part of it was the frustration of having to cancel the trip and needing an outlet, but we couldn't find the guys even if we wanted to be dramatic.

     The good news about poor parts of town is you can usually find great food for very cheap and thats precisely what we did. Went to down on some chorizo sandwiches and a few liters of Kilmes (Argentina Budweiser) and that helped lighten the mood.

     From there we decided it was time to go out. After a quick change we headed out to Palermo district where we met up with 5 of Zacks friends from UCLA. We all headed to Sugar bar which is this great two story all stone, very old bar that is known as the international bar. It was great spending a night speaking just English and hanging out with Americans as it can be very fatiguing always trying to figure out how to express every thought.  From there we headed into Kika, one of BA's premier boliche's. Zack and I picked up some playboy cuban cigars on the way and the bouncers saw them and let us skip the whole line which was fantastic. However Zack and I weren't in the club for long... In BA if the bouncers shine a green lazar on you it means you are doing something wrong:

     As you can probably tell from the green lazar Zack is swallowing and the dancer pushing us off the stage, we got bounced out of the club about 15 seconds after this was taken. Not a problem, we'll be back again I'm sure. Also check out the bling we got on our wrists as a little birthday present. Love it.
Headed home pretty soon after that chalking up another very fun night in Palermo.

Saturday Day 16

     Rolled out of bed late and kind of had a lazy day. Didn't really turn amazing until the evening. Zack came over and we headed out to grab an early dinner. We were just going to grab something within a couple blocks from my house but I said I hadn't been to a Parrilla yet so we asked some locals who said there was one about 6 blocks away. We walked to it and turns out... It's one of the nicest/most famouse parrillas in the city. Parrilla=Grill and the parrillas are famous in BA and Argentina for cooking amazing meets of all varieties. I bought a street map later this weekend that had major monuments marked on it, and this parrilla was marked as well! Since Zack and I were early we had the entire restaurant to ourselves which was an experience I won't ever forget. What turned into a casual stroll for food turned into a four course meal with a very nice bottle of wine. I have pictures of us and our food, but pic of the day is the view from our table:

     After dinner we watched Pumping Iron and then walked over by Teatro Colon and people watched/discussed the impacts this study abroad will have as well as what we are making of it so far. It was a very mellow night but one of those nights that everyone needs from time to time and helped put the world into focus. A good thing to do before the start of a new year.

Sunday Day 17

     Today was my birthday! Headed over to Belgrano, we bought a cake from a local bakery ate a little of it, and then went and got breakfast at about 4pm.  This cake was amazing. Chocolate mousse base layer with dulce de leche which is a liquid caramel of sorts, then meringue, then whipped cream. Incredible but I felt sick after more than 7 bites since it was so rich. Had breakfast at my favorite cafe in BA. It's in Belgrano and its called Manhatten Cafe. Beautiful two story cafe, right on the corner so it overlooks this intersection that is always bustling, and the servers there are the nicest I've come across in this city. Had cafe con leche, a few ham and cheese croissants, and then "complete" burgers. Giant patty, eggs, ham covered in melted cheese, as well as the rest of the usually fixings. Was like a 3 course meal between buns. 

     Headed from there to the movie theatre where we saw Taken 2, which was ok, followed by Ted which was hysterical. The movies here are the same english films we see but with spanish subtitles. Ted was funny because over half the time Zack and I would be roaring with laughter but the rest of the theatre would be quiet. I think some of the humor didn't translate haha, it would be very interesting to hear what the portenos thought of that movie. 

     After the double feature headed out again. Intended to go to sugar bar just to grab a beer but met two locals chicks and ended up staying till 4 talking with them. It was a great time since they spoke almost fluent English we would try and say everything in espanol and they would correct and help us. I don't know how they had the patience to do this for so many hours but it was a fantastic experience for Zack and I and we both felt significantly better at Spanish as we walked back to his house. 

Pic of the day goes to this guy who made this weekend a fantastic one:

Monday Day 18

     Today was one of the 27 Argentinean holidays celebrated here so I spent the night at Zacks which scared my host family to death apparently since when they woke up I wasn't in my room. Luis made sure to give me an earshot about it when I got home that night. We went to this cafe/restaurant called Forrest Gump which is an old cafe filled with black and whites of famous Hollywood Movie Stars. Amazing place. Decided we hadn't seen enough movies this weekend so we headed towards the theatre. Found my favorites shop on Earth on the way there. I know my description won't do it justice but lets just say if I were to design and run any shop on Earth, this would be it. Zack and I spent like an hour in it, and will definitely be back for more, I'm guessing within the week. 

     We had seen every movie now except for this one with Meryl Streep and Resident Evil 5 so we headed into Resident Evil 5 haha. Neither of us had seen any of the other 4 but it was okay. I don't think we were wild about it, but it had some interesting angles to it. 

     Afterwards stopped back by Manhatten Cafe. It was a long weekend, we managed to hang out a lot and do calm activities like see 3 movies, but we also did a ton of other stuff and it definitely felt jammed packed. Sometimes after such draining days a little comfort food is needed and thats exactly how I finished the weekend at Manhatten Cafe:

Day Fifteen

     Another great day. That's really all there is here! I did manage to get lost on my way to school and was 45 minutes late but the teacher luckily was very understanding. Afterwards Zack and I got our haircuts and decided to just go all out and got pedicures as well. Then we went and tried on some blazers for awhile as we meandered towards the train-station to buy our bus tickets for this weekend. We are going to Cordoba which is a 6 hour bus ride away from BA. This weekend is Oktoberfest in Cordoba. Its one of the largest Oktoberfests in the world outside of Germany. All my local amigos decided they wanted to come today too so now it will be a giant group of us. Super stoked! Pic of the day is the clock-tower across the street from the train/bus station:

Day Fourteen

     Somedays you wake up and things just fall into place. Today was one of those days. Went to class of course, which is going very well, I love my teacher! Then afterwards Zack and I set out to find a barbershop deemed worthy of our trust to cut our hair. Of course we decide that we needed to be smoking cubans while we looked so we stopped at a local liquor store where Zack asked if they had Cubans. The guy points to their cigar display and says "Son todos los Cubans." Of course! We should have known they would ALL be Cubans haha. Crazy, for $2.50 here you can buy a Cuban, of course they have have $150 dollar ones as well but its great to know that one block away I can buy a Cuban for $2.50!

     We set out looking for the right barber shop from there. BA is divided into districts. Like one street I walk down on my way to school is just guitar shops for 4 blocks. I happen to live a block from the street with just barber shops. After touring the barber shop blocks for awhile we decided on the one with old elegant Argentinean barbers and filled with business men in suits. It had a little mystique to it, with shutters half way shut over the windows. We walked in an instantly knew it was the right place. All the barbers stopped cutting hair and walked over to greet us and talk with us for a few minutes. And all the customers instantly treated us like we had just joined their club. We got business cards for motorcycle dealerships, a fantastic local grill that one of the members owns, another man who wants to help us with anything we need while we were here. It was incredible! They didn't have any availability today but we made an appointment for tomorrow and sat around for awhile enjoying our Cubans, a complimentary cup of coffee that was absolutely amazing, and these old timers company:

     Following this I had my Tango class which continues to be going very well! I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying it and can't wait for the next class. I then went out with the girl from Tango and all her friends. The same group that I went out with for the giant birthday party a week ago. We went to this bar called 'The Alamo' which is a 3 story bar that was jam packed on every single level. They serve  about 210 ounce pitchers there. Crazy how busy it was on a Wednesday night! Made me super happy to not have classes until 1 tomorrow!

Day Thirteen

    Super tired so this will be brief. Had my first real class today. It was awesome, I can already tell I'm going to learn a ton. Six of the kids in my 14 person class are from Evergreen which is ironic.

    Zack and I went shopping for a few hours after I got done with class. We went to this pedestrian street and narrowed down the shops we are going to get our white linen suits from down to three I believe. In addition I picked up some shoes for Tango since the gum-sole chukkas were far from ideal:

Day Twelve

     Quick Update: Had first day of class today. It consisted of an oral exam, I almost placed into level three but at the last minute she crossed off the three and put me in two. School should be good, I'm excited.

     Had my private tango lesson tonight followed by the group class. It's going very well for only taking 3 total instructions including the two from tonight. The instructor asked me what other dances I've studied!

     On to what I actually wanted to write about, a little cultural aspect if you will. The trash system here is whack. They have very few public garbage cans here which are always overflowing and none of the residents or businesses have trash cans either. There are a few dumpsters few and far between. So what you get is a lot of litter, and a lot of this almost on every block:

     Buenos Aires deals with this by having guys like this one walk around all day with these giant canvas sacks that they fill with trash, and then leave stacked on the sidewalk for the night.

     And the city doesn't have garbage trucks so at night crews go around on trucks like these and heave the canvas sacks onto flatbeds or empty UHaul trucks. 

     It doesn't really make sense to me. I feel if the city invested in a fleet of garbage trucks and dumpsters or trash cans they could really clean up this beautiful city! Then again I don't know much on the economics of it, just seems like a readily apparent fact.