Day 94-104 Traveling

Was so busy traveling to Bariloche, Mendoza, Iguazu Falls and Back To Buenos Aires I didn't have time to write. As I jot down the memories of my adventures with the family it is turning into quite the task and quite the novel. Stay tuned as I keep working to finish it. Probably will on this coming Wednesday during the 20 hour bus ride to Santiago Chile. Thanks for the patience!!

Day Ninety Three

     Well I’m done with school in South America! I finished my third month today and walked away with my best exam grades yet. We’ll see but I’m anticipating around a 94% which isn’t half bad from what is considered the best university in South America. 

     That night I went to Pacha with the few members of class who weren’t able to go out the night before with everyone.  Pacha is a club but it is a chain, and they have one in all 8 of the cities that compete every year for ‘best nightscene in the world’. It was good but not as good as it had been billed up to be. However apparently there were two parts to the club and I went into the part that wasn’t as ‘spectacular’ as the other part.  So maybe I’ll go back another time but most likely not.

Day Ninety One and Ninety Two (Wednesday and Thursday)

     Check out days 81-85 as I just updated them

     I have my final exams tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday. It’s looking like these might be my last exams for the next 6 months!  Seeing as this is the case I wanted to do knock these out so I had a private tutor come by for 2 hours after class to help review for my exam tomorrow. Then took a few hours to break before reviewing a little more before bed. Woke up the following morning bright and early to make some oatmeal and coffee before Mariana (my teacher) came by for another two hours pre-exam.  Thankfully it all paid off and the exam went quite well!

     That night we went out despite the fact that we all had the oral exam tomorrow. However I did have Marianna come by after school and my test for one more hour to make sure I was totally prepared for the oral exam. Some of the class had taken both exams today so that they could take tomorrow to travel before the holidays and so we all went out to wish each other buen viaje. Ended up at the roof with Sam and Breanden as well so needless to say the night was fun as always.

     For pic of the day I came across this really cool starbucks that is built into the space under the train tracks near the Palermo Parks. Shout out to all the people in 206 where starbucks started who are keeping up to date on this blog!

Day Ninety

     Before class my dad and I went down to Florida to do a major purchase of Argentine pesos on the black market. The whole process from when we met the guy took probably 45 minutes to complete. Unlike the usual smaller transactions I have done in the past with 'my guy' which take place in the street  this time he took us into a nearby building up a floor and to the back table of a small cafe. Never felt so much like Al Capone in my life!

     After class managed to get a quick workout in and returned home to put down half a chicken that my mom had cooked and left for me. The whole family and Erin left for Puerto Madryn today to go see the whales and penguins and to leave me to focus on my upcoming exams. I won't see them until next Sunday and my mom is worried I will get hungry in the four days till I see them next. 

     Tonight was Caroline's last night so all of us that are left in town went out to the Alamo. (See day 56 for another Alamo picture). We sang every song at the top of our lungs and apparently I missed the memo that we were taking a momentary break to take this picture and was still going full force on a Red Hot Chili Pepper's song:

     In other news Zack left today too to go to Bariloche and then a few other places before returning home for Christmas. I haven't seen him in the last week since his uncle and my parents got here which was a weird way to end our time here but really unimportant in the scheme of all the great things we did in BA together.

     With Caroline and Zack leaving that makes four friends that have left within the last week. Crazy to think I still have 3 months here and how different it will be with those four gone! 

Day Eighty Nine

     Erin Rea my sisters best friend arrived here today making our group five strong. Pretty cool that she was willing to come down straight from school in Vermont for Christmas break!  Pretty much as soon as she got here we went to the park because I wanted to go rollerblading before class. We all got there to learn that the 'street vendors' who rent the blades don't get to the park till 2pm. Today is day 89, I don't think I discovered the park until like day 30 but have wanted to rollerblade since then. This must be the 5th time a pair of blades has eluded me. However we did she some great dogs haha. Dog walkers are immensely popular here. In this picture the dog walker had tied them up to a fence while he sat on a nearby park bench and took a break:

     After class I had a two hour cultural excursion to Recoleta with my school. We spent most of it in the Recoleta Cemetery which I had no complaints with. I don't think I will ever get tired of going to that cemetery. I learned some amazing history and ghost stories too, including the true story about the 15 year old girl who was buried alive in one of the mausoleums.

     My mom made a nice dinner at the house and we played cards and took it easy the rest of the night.

Day Eighty Eight

      We all woke up early to go get a morning run in on the promenade which skirts the entirety of the beach. It was an overcast day with on and off sprinkles which couldn't have been more perfect for a morning run. However after the run when I laid out on the beach I was wishing the sun would peak it's head out:

      Around 1 we had to pack up and drive the 2 hours back to Colonia to catch the ferry. By 6:30 we were back in Buenos Aires. Clearly I didn't take this picture but my dad pulled it up to show all of us where we had been in relation to BA and its fascinating and definitely worth sharing:

(If you click the image it will expand)

     Buenos Aires is the greyish blob on the right side of the Rio Plata. Monte Video is the smaller greyish blob on the left side of the Rio Plata right where the water changes from brown to blue. Punta Del Este is the most famous beach/resort town in Uruguay and is located on the roundish point on the very far left side of the picture. Depending on whether you call this a river or the ocean the brown section is the widest river in the world. 

     Anyway we returned to Buenos Aires and went to get pizza at Pizza Piola. As before, some of the best bruschetta I've ever had. We all got accompanying daiquiris to celebrate a fantastic weekend jaunt to Uruguay. And to top it off we bought a kilo of helado on the way back to apartment. Surprisingly we didn't finish it. Almost, but not quite, which is a rarity for my family when ice cream is involved as it frequently is.

Day Eighty Seven

     Spent the morning exploring the tiny town of Colonia. I also managed to get a great tank tan in the hour  of walking around that the rest of the weekend on the beach wasn't able to correct.

     From there we drove (yes my dad was willing and brave enough to drive here and we rented a car) the hour and a half to Monte Video. Absolutely beautiful city. I found myself actually wishing for the day that I had studied abroad there and not in BA.

     Of course in reality I couldn't be happier with Buenos Aires and the experience has thus far been unforgettable. However the beach and the way Monte Video was built was very appealing and I was bummed we were only going to have 24 hours in the city.

     Our first stop coincidentally happened to be at one of the most famous restaurants on the city. It is one of the only restaurants between the road and the ocean (had to have been grandfather in) and the seafood was incredible. A few hours later we emerged from our table and headed to the hotel and then to the beach to soak up the sun and go swim.

     My dad surprised us all with a beautiful room in a very very nice hotel one block from the best beach in Monte Video. Here's the view:

     Couldn't have been a better day. As you can see not a cloud in the sky but somehow it was still cool enough that between an occasional swim and the ocean breeze I never got hot.

     For dinner we went to a small italian cafe hidden within a residential district of MV. I think we were one of the only tables there that wasn't comprised of local residents.

Day Eighty Six

     Thoughts and prayers go out to the families in Connecticut

    
 When you enter Argentina you pay $160 to essentially buy a ten year visa. However this only means that for the next ten years you don't have to pay to enter the country. There is a still a 90 limit to the amount of time you can stay before you have to leave the country, even if for only an hour. As you can see today is day 86 and my 90 day limit was quickly approaching. In order to not be an illegal immigrant my family and cruised across the Rio Plata on an express ferry to Uruguay. An hour and a half later we docked in Colonia Uruguay. Colonia is a small city, closer to town after being in BA. It was nice though and we ate dinner at a nice parilla in heart of the historic district.

     After dinner we stopped a nearby heladoria (noticed a common theme yet? Ice cream everyday it seems). There was a gaggle of young girls in front who waved me out to talk. Next thing I knew they all were gathering around for a picture. Of course my mom came running out of the ice cream shop to take a picture of her own and now I have it for pic of the day:

Day Eighty Five

     One of the weirder experiences of my life today.  We went to the ‘blind theater’. By this I don’t mean a theatre for the blind but rather a theatre where the audience is blind. As we all know, the blind have extra strong taste, touch, smell, and hearing, and this theatre is based off that concept, that with the removal of one sense the other four are heightened. 

     We were led into a totally pitch black theatre. So dark that I could wave my hand directly in front of my face without the slightest idea it was there. We were individually seated at a table holding 6, my family and two others, on which our dinner had been laid out. We had been told that our plate had 6 parts and we were to start from the left side and work our way to the right side of the plate. We were also told prior to entering that there was a breadbasket as well as glasses of wine on the table.

     I should mention that there was no silverware on our table. We ate the whole meal with just our hands. The whole time waiters were coming around (no idea how they were able to navigate the room) just like a normal restaurant. I call this period of the meal the calibrating process, where are mind got used to not having sight and began to heighten our sense of smell, touch, touch, and hearing.

    Right as we finished dinner the play began. It was in Spanish so my family wasn’t able to understand very much but it was a musical and the experience didn’t rely on comprehension as much as just immersion in the experience.  The entire play took place around us with the actors walking among the tables while acting and singing, occasionally spraying us with misters or rubbing their hand across our backs. It was all very interesting, and by the end you get used to not being able to see but still not really comfortable with the whole idea.

      At the end the revealed the actors and waiters who we had been imagining all night. Turns out about half of them were in face blind, what a twist!

Day Eighty Four

     The family was tired from the last three late nights plus a full day exploring the city while I was in class. As a result we just took it easy tonight. However my mom did make an amazing home made dinner for us.

     One thing is for sure… I sure have missed her cooking. The food here is amazing, and I have barely had any bad meals, but nothing beats my mom’s cooking.

     For dessert we wandered through palermo until we came across a small french cafe. We were planning on just ordering 2 desserts and sharing but fell victim to the descriptions and ended up with four large desserts and sitting and people watching for over an hour while we tried to eat it all.

Day Eighty Three

     Well after showing my mom the classic milonga last night, she wanted to see the nonconventional Catedral Milonga that she had read about in my blog a long time ago. So after dinner we headed to La Catedral. It’s a dark, one of a kind milonga that was created in an abandoned warehouse in the heart of Buenos Aires. It is very popular with the youth in the city and Tuesday nights in particular are quite good.

    My whole family liked this quite a bit more than the parakoultural milonga from last night, especially my sister who last night was wondering why anyone would want to tango but tonight informed me that she “Got it. Well at least more than last night”.

     A very weird coincidence, we ran into all the English guys at La Catedral. I think this was there first time in a milonga and as Sam said “Of all the tango joints, in all the cities in the world…” and while the Casablanca run in might have been a bit more of a coincidence, Buenos Aires has over a hundred milongas and it was really random running into all of them at this random one, especially when neither they nor I frequent milongas.

Day Eighty Two

     The first thing on my mom’s list was to see the World Famous Tango in Buenos Aires. My dad on the other hand was ready to try out the Buenos Aires steak. So come night time we headed to Siga la Vaca, which is one of the famous all you can eat parillas in Buenos Aires. As always it lived up to the hype and we had a great couple of hours diving into the monstrous salad bar and then the vast assortment of meats. I think my dad and I managed to thoroughly disgust my sister and mom with the amount of meat we consumed.

     From Siga La Vaca we headed to the milonga Parakoultural. This was the same milonga I took Erin too. It’s a regal milonga, with poished dance floor and sharp looking dancers. However it is a little stiff and formal and I don’t think everyone was blown away until the show started. In BA there are milongas which are dance halls where anyone can dance and then tango shows which is like going to a theatre to watch professional tango. However most milongas like to do a tango show for about 20 minutes in the middle of the night. The two dancers tonight were very interesting. The woman looked to be 7-8 months pregnant but she did not let that slow her down. They were amazing!! I have never seen tango like that. The intricacies of their steps and the speed, it was incredible. And how that woman was able to dance like that, being so pregnant I have no idea.

     Knowing that was the peak moment of the night we left as soon as the show ended but are planning on visiting another less traditional milonga tomorrow.

Day Eighty One

     The family arrived here today! Of course though last night was Sally’s last night in Ba so I had to go out with everyone. Nothing like leaving for the airport at 8:30 after going to bed at 6:30! However it was great to see them and I forgot completely how tired I was.

     After getting them back from the airport we went and grabbed lunch at an all you can eat vegetarian buffet. We didn’t know it was vegetarian till we had already gone in and it was to late. However it was all pretty gourmet and really not half bad. It was funny though to take them to a vegetarian place for their first meal in the Beef Capital of the world.

     After lunch they all wanted to nap and so I went to Florida Street to exchange some money for everyone and ended up stumbling into a giant festival that Christina put on to try and calm the city and gain popularity.

     After wandering through all the streets filled with people dressed like that and even weirder things I finally returned home. For dinner we went to El Cuartitos my old pizza spot next to where I had lived for my first two months in Buenos Aires. Huge hit with the family and a great way to set the bar for dinners while they are here!

Day Eighty

     Well today was Sally's last day in the city. She is headed to Chile, then Boliva, then Peru before flying back to Canada. It has been great living with her the last week and I think we both had a ton of fun. I think I might meet up with her in January or February either in Bolivia or Peru if I can swing it.

     We had a small going away party for her at our (soon to be mine and the family's) apartment. From there we headed out to a club. She initially wanted to go to Terrazas again but none of us really had it in us so we went to a different club that was close by. Jeffery is the master at somehow getting whatever he wants so for about $10 a person we soon found ourselves at the best table in the club. I happened to meet some local girls almost immediately afterwards and started dancing and next thing I knew it was 5 in the morning and I need to go seeing as how my parents were landing at 10:20 and the airport was an hour away. I found this tree on the way home wrapped in yarn which I thought was pretty cool as well as saw a street fight between some drunk machismo groups of men.

Day Seventy Nine

     Today was Frank's Bar's Anniversary party. I managed to get us guest listed for a party of 7 for the event. In case you are just dropping in on this blog, Frank's Bar is a 'secret' bar in Buenos Aires modeled of the secret prohibition bars in America in the 1920s. So naturally we all dressed up to the best of our abilities for what we had on hand and headed to Franks.

     The party was even better than imagined. I thought I had gotten us onto the guest list which was needed just to gain entry, but in reality we made it onto the VIP list. What was supposed to be an expensive splurge of a night just turned into a free one. We spent a few hours there sampling all the food and all the drink before finally leaving to go to the roof bar to say goodbye to a few friends who were celebrating their last night in Buenos Aires. Needless to say we turned a few heads when the group of us rolled into the super casual Roof Bar.

Day Seventy Eight

     Today was Jeffery's birthday, but I didn't think I would be able to go because it was also Franks Bar's Anniversary party which I had gotten tickets to over a week ago. However then your tipical Buenos Aires day happened.

     It was pouring rain. Let me emphasize POURING. Belgrano, Zack's neighborhood, was flooded in more than four feet of standing water. This of course closed the Subte, and as well led to a few power outages. But on the other side of the city two trucks crashed into one another I guess due to the rain, however one was an insecticide truck with a giant tank filled with the stuff. The truck exploded in what is being dubbed 'the insecticide bomb' or the 'insect cloud' because apparently it actually had a  mushroom cloud. Imagine, every breath was filled with poison. I actually had some friends in that neighborhood who were in school and were stranded in the school until the police came with gas masks to evacuate them.

     So between the flooding, power outage, and insecticide Franks moved their party to tomorrow night, and I got to go to Jeffery's birthday party. We went to a milonesa restaurant and somehow they had a table that fit all of us:

(Jeffery is front center in the orangish shirt)

     I don't know how between this dinner, the asado and the sushi I haven't gained like 15 pounds this week. It's been a terrific food week and I'm sure it will only get better once my parents get here on Sunday!

Day Seventy Seven

     Woke up feeling quite sick and decided to stay home from class today. I'm almost positive it was because I slept with the AC on all night as for some weird reason it makes people sick here. I've never heard of that in the states but here people say "don't sleep with the AC, you don't want to catch a cold" just like we would say "make sure you take your jacket, you don't want to catch a cold." Anyway, I drank a lot of tea and spent the rest of the day catching up on family emails and the like. 

     By the evening I was feeling quite better so I accepted an invitation to my English mate Sam's house for a little asado. He lives with some porteños and the one named Fernando was in charge of the preparation and cooking of the various meats purchased for our meal. He did an amazing job and we ate till we were stuffed. I wanted a pic of the day but didn't take one as the environment wasn't right for it. It was Sam, myself and these three locals who were all lounging shirtless displaying their finely shaped bellies that indicated that this sort of asado for dinner was common place among the group. As great a pic as this evening could have provided I wasn't comfortable coming into their house and taking a picture the first night I met them. Next time though, for sure. 

Day Seventy Six

     Great Day but when is it not in this city? Woke up to Sally cooking breakfast for me as a thank you for me offering to let her crash here for the week. Daria spent the night too after the scary movie we all watched the night before so the three of us all enjoyed a nice breakfast of toasted egg and cheese sandwiches. Afterwards I headed off to class for my second four hour class day. That extra hour each day this month is brutal. Such a large difference between 3 and 4 hours, I leave class mentally drained now. However I wasn't physically drained. Zack and I are getting back into the gym big time this week, after essentially a nice two week break. Got a great workout in and made it back just in time to shower before the dinner party.

     Kitty and I had decided we were going to have a little sushi party tonight. We invited the rest of the English crew and ordered enough to feed 4 or 5. However when everyone came they informed us that they had all eaten already.. So Kitty and I were left with a feast on our hands.

     I also had done a little sleuthing around the city and managed to locate the wine we had been drinking in Puerto Madryn so we opened a bottle of that to accompany our feast.

     After dinner we stayed around the table for awhile playing cards and swapping stories in four wonderful English accents and one very lousy English accent. It's alright though, one day I will master it.

     I really didn't want to go, but they convinced me to go out with them to the club Kika. After being at Terrazes this weekend it was almost impossible to enjoy the hot and crowded Kika. The music was good, I will give them that, but still wasn't enough to make me stay. I called it a night relatively quickly and headed back to the apartment.

Day Seventy Five

     Today was the first day of new level of classes. It was also my first four hour day. I enjoyed the 4 hours as  I can learn a lot in four hours, but I won't lie, it as quite fatiguing. Every month we have two different teachers. Todays teacher I had never seen before, her name is Marcela and she was quite good. It is rumored the other teacher will be Julieta from my first month here. If so, this month will be great!

     We also have 4 new students. One girl from South Africa, and three men from Canada, France, and Italy in addition to Laeticia, Amelia, Kitty, Natacia, Caroline, and myself from last month making ten students in total.

     Sally, who is one of my friends that I made right away when I got here didn't have a place to sleep this week so I said she could crash at my apartment till my parents get here. It seemed unreasonable not to offer with 3 open beds. She is also good friends with Kitty and Daria so after class I hit the gym with Zackary and then came home to find Kitty, Daria and Sally all hanging out. We ordered some pizza for dinner and then afterwards put on a scary movie. I felt like I was 12 again haha but there is nothing wrong with that from time to time!

     Pic of the day is your first look at the new apartment. It's huge and this shows only one room but it will suffice:

Day Seventy Four

     I've made it seventy three days without lying so as much as I would like to about today, I can't start now. I didn't do anything today, today was solely a rest day after last night's adventures. I slept in later than ever before in my life. Notables for today was now that I have a kitchen I can use I cooked my first meal in Argentina:

     After that it was was just a movie or two and off to bed to get ready for the first day of classes tomorrow!

Day Seventy Three

     What a day. I woke up at 10 after only three hours of sleep because today I had to move out of my place. What a great place that had ended up being, I thoroughly enjoyed my two months there. But now its time to move on. I had put a down payment on a new apartment but haven't seen it, something I was slightly nervous about. I managed to make it there by the the scheduled 11:30 meeting time, to find the three Germans who had been living there the last four months still packing up, while the maid was cleaning, while the owner was sitting at the dining room table was sitting at the main table drinking Maté. Utter chaos.

     The place luckily turned out to be quite nice. It is giant by BA standards and it is in a fantastic neighborhood, probably the best actually, right next to the parks and the best restaurants. It is perfect.

     I was to tired to efficiently pack and move all my stuff in one trip so I spent the afternoon slowly packing and taking a couple trips between my old house and the new.

     That evening I had some of the friends over to show off the new place. After dinner we got ready to go out and decided we would break away from our usual club area and go to the bigger clubs which are on the outskirts of the city, none of which we have ever gone to before. We went to Terrazas one of the most talked about clubs in BA. Don't know why we haven't gone before!!

     This club was nuts. It just kept on going and going. I think we finally decided that there were 7 different dance floors with tons of hallways and porches in between. And half of it was outside. Terrazas is spanish for terraces, aptly named since the last and largest dance floor was outside and right over the river which is so wide as its about to enter the Atlantic that it looks and might as well be the ocean:

     We did it as real Argentineans do and stayed all night. Actually we stayed there later than I have ever stayed at a club before. This was taken at 6:30, the crowd had thinned out some but was still going full force. Remember this is just one of the 7 dance floors:

     And while I have been awake for many sunrises in this country, this is the first time I have actually witnessed one over the water like I did here:

     Fantastic club, I will be back, and I am definitely bringing Lucas here when he visits in January!