Ciao Buenos Aires

After two and a half weeks of being in Buenos Aires, I have decided that I am ready to move on and get to Peru to hopefully begin working in a clinic. Its been an incredible time with so much to do so if you ever have the chance to go to BA, do it. Its an amazing city. So a recap on the week.

Monday I went with Tyler to La Bomba del Tiempo. Its a drum show outside that was SO cool. Lots of people and super loud. It felt like the music was inside you as they played and everyone was loving it and dancing around. Very cool.

Tuesday: Skyped with Colin, Carey and Katherine so that was nice to see all of them. Always good to talk with people from home

Wednesday: Went to the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires (MALBA) which was ok but art museums and I just dont get along so I was there for only a little bit. While falling asleep a huge explosion went off down the block and I thought it was a bomb but it turned out that a gas tank had exploded. It blew out an entire wall at the bottom of the apartment. Pretty crazy

Thursday: Went to the Belgrano neighborhood and that was pretty chill

Friday: Went and toured around Palermo and had an amazing steak dinner for under 20 US dollars. So cheap

Saturday: Went to Tigre, which is a group of islands in the delta of the river. Popular place for locals to go chill. Took a shuttle boat (crazy good drivers) to a island recommended by the locals to hike around. Ended up taking a bridge to another island by accident and kinda got lost. It was pretty cool besides all the bug bites. Eventually talked to some people for directions and they laughed at us stupid americans. whoops

Sunday: Tried to go to the Boca game but it was sold out so we toured around Camilito and watched the game from a nearby bar. Meet some pretty fun guys from norway and london. They were shocked that I knew so much about soccer. They thought all americans hated soccer.

By the way, I posted a lot of my pictures in an album online. If you want to look at them, click on the link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123326&id=7304822&l=94f10873b8.

Quick recap of the week. As i said, its been a great time here but I am ready to move on. My plan is to bus it to Peru. I will be stopping in Cordoba, Salta, Uyuni (Bolivian salt flats which I heard are cool), Lake Titicaca and then finally getting to Cusco around March 1st. that is the tentative plan but who knows where my adventures will take me. should be a fun, quick couple weeks

Got a picture of me next to a motorcycle. If you have seen Motorcycle Diaries, it is pretty much a dream of many people to ride one of these north like Che Guevara. Thought it would be a funny picture to send to my parents :)

Week 1

So much to talk about just in the first week alone but I will try to keep it to a minimum since I always hated long emails from people who are abroad because i always wanted to read them but never had the time. Here are the adventures so far

Sunday: Went to the famous Recoleta market and was pretty cool. It was fun but was pretty similar to every other market that I have been to. Nothing too crazy. there were a group of students raising money for haiti with a campaign "Abrazos por Haiti," literally means Hugs for Haiti. We then went to the game early to go experience the culture but River is actually a pretty tame team. They are liked by the middle and upper class so they had a lot of security, probably more security than fans. Unfortunately they lost but the fans for River never stopped once. They were crazy the entire time. Really glad I was able to go to that game

Monday: Had my first day of classes and then moved in with the family. I got to my classes and my group consisted of a 69 year old female from Canada, 44 male German, 27 female brazillian, 22 female french. Quite a diverse group so knew the week would be interesting. As for my family, they live in the Recoleta district and are SUPER nice. They live in a really nice place. The dad is a fighter pilot for the argentina air force, mom, 20 year old daughter and 14 son. They have two other daughters but they are in the US. I have my own room but unfortunately, it is in a loft that does not have air conditioning. So that was kinda rough the first couple days but is fine now.

Tuesday: Pretty chill day. Just class but got a chance to talk with my parents and Katherine via Skype so that was a nice piece of home that I have been missing


Wednesday: This day was the day for Boca. Juniors. Class was getting better but still tough. Trying to remember spanish and be at a good level is going to take some time. Wednesday night, Tyler (friend from hostel) and I went to the Boca Juniors game and let me tell you, it was SO awesome, way better than the River game. It was much more active and there is no track that goes around the stadium so the fans are right on top of the field. When people say that the Bombonera has its own heartbeat, i could definitely feel it. The only problem was that it was pouring rain like i have never seen before. We were soaked before the game even started. So the play wasnt the best but the experience was pretty unreal.

Thursday: Got a chance to go to a Tango show tonight which was also really cool. They move their feet and bodies so quickly its pretty unreal. It looks to be a mix between salsa and waltz. They had younger dancers performing the more passionate form and then had older dancers showing the class. Very well done.

Friday and Saturday: Just spent most of the days chilling and getting to know the city a little better. Going to head out with my host sister pretty soon to see what the younger crowd does on the weekends.

So far I say the trip has been a great success. I have dont many of the tourist stuff in Buenos Aires so that is good. Now I just need to keep working on my spanish. The family is really helping with the day to day conversational spanish and the classes help in grammar and verbs. Probably going to leave Buenos Aires in a little over a week to start heading to Peru although all of that is still up in the air. Only this next week will tell