Tigre

Here's some pictures that should have been with the last post but weren't for some reason.
Cool mural I walk by everyday to school, love the pandas.
A crazy statue depicting Prometheus(s), i think, and some of the BC group plus our adopted frenchie Max.
The outdoor market and church in the background where the Argentinians repulsed invading English in like 1805, there's still cannonballs in it.
An old ornate cathedral and the wackest Chinese New year. (An embarrassment to your people Kevin and Warren.

Assorted crap.
Another mural, not really sure what this is trying to accomplish but it is interesting.

This past saturday night we went to a rooftop barbecue which was a lot of fun. We got to eat all the steak we wanted for 10 pesos ($2.50) and met some other foreigners. After that I went to meet up with some BC kids who were visiting from Chile which was pretty cool, I randomly met Jackie, a good friend from BC in an art museum...It was definitely a wtf moment. After a couple drinks we headed to a rugby club that was throwing a huge party. Trying to get in was one of the craziest moments of my life. There were 50 people all shoving and elbowing trying to get to the gate which was about 5 feet wide. At the entrance there were 3 people pushing everyone else back into each other. It was like a mosh pit with no music and intermittent fights breaking out. After pushing drunk Argentinians out of the way for 20 minutes I finally made it to the front and was let in. You may be asking yourself why I would go through this to get in anywhere, but the place was huge, all my friends were already in, it was 5 blocks from my house, the drinks were cheap, and there were hundreds of Argentinian girls who were enthralled with the tall Americans. Unfortunately, they were all about 16 which would have been great for my little brother, but not so much for us. It was still fun and enlightening to talk to them though.

We stayed there entirely too late especially since we had to meet up at 10 to catch the train to Tigre. I of course missed my alarm and was woken up at 10:20 by the director calling me. I jumped outta bed and luckily made it, which is more than I can say for Brenny the mariposa. The ride was one of the longest hours of my life as I wasn't feeling so fine and the train was really loud. There was also a man who was horribly amplifying the noise by banging on some drums to the same rhythm (something like tap-taptaptap-tap) over and over. It was not what I was trying to hear on a sunday morning after 3 hours of sleep. Tigre is a town about an hour up the river from Buenos Aires that is essentially a residential Venice. The main town is on land, but a lot of houses and many restaurants are only accessible by boat. This was one of the most peaceful places I've ever been as everyone and everything seemed to flow at the pace of the meandering river. There were tons of little canoes and kayaks around, which we didn't get to take, and lots of reserved houses on the bank flanked by overhanging trees.
The cafe colored water and some canoes.
Old buildings on the water.
Our water taxi at dock.
Some residential "streets" in Tigre.
The restaurant where we lunched, it has its own dock like every other building by the river.
I wanna live there.
House on stilts.

All of us were quite hungover/still drunk/sleep deprived, but still in good spirits. All in all we were happily delirious and lunch represented this well as it was full of laughter and mishaps. After lunch we took a water taxi back to town and wandered around another outdoor market that was selling all sorts of things. I bought another poster, this time an old map of Africa, and all the girls got prettttty jewelry for super cheap, like 2 dollars. It was a great day and the train ride back to BsAs was much more enjoyable than the first one. That night Dave, Dan, and I watched USA beat up on canada in hockey which was very entertaining and the first olympic action I witnessed here in the Southern Hemisphere. The bar we went to was called The Alamo and was thoroughly American. The place was packed with Americans and Canadians, and our waitress spoke english but not spanish, a refreshing reversal. We ordered hot wings, nachos, pepperoni pizzas and a beer the size of a bucket that took us a long time to finish. It was a very American night, and we all enjoyed the sh** out of it.

So things have settled into a routine here with the beginning of my spanish class every weekday for 4 hours and my knowledge of this humongous city expanding every day. Things are gonna get turned upside down next week though as Im moving into an apartment (22nd floor, penthouse style) and we start real classes at my university. Variety is the spice of life though, and I think these two changes will be improvements on my current situations. Right now class is a mile and half walk from my homestay, and its a tought 30 minute walk weaving through the bustling streets. I'm pretty sure this is the most walking I've ever done-pretty sure I average 5 to 6 miles a day. Its all good though as the weather is usually perfect for walking and I've always enjoyed a nice long romp.

However, when the weather is bad it gets real bad here. Apparently, the drainage system in this city is not the best, and whenever it rains heavily the streets flood. This happened several times last week and there were pictures of people wading through waste deep water in the paper. I was lucky enough to be home the first time, but this past friday it happened again. We left class and were greeted with pouring rain and the streets flooded by water a foot deep. The cabs were backed up, and there was a 2 hour wait for one, so we decided to tough it out and trek through the rainstorm. It was quite the adventure, and it took Brenny and I 45 minutes to make it home. At one point we had to wade through water that was almost up to my knees. We made it home and miraculously my computer, which was in my backpack the whole time, survived. Some of the girls who live in the center of the city said it took them 3 hours to get home when it usually takes 30 because the subte was flooded and the buses barely movable.
Some pictures of the devastation wrought by the rain on BsAs.

Last sunday most of the group went to an open air flea market type thing that comes to the center of the city every sunday. It was pretty fun and interesting to see the assorted things for sale by the Argentinians. Items ranged from knives, to clothes, music to fresh squeezed orange juice, and everything in between. I bought an Easy Rider poster for 15 pesos, not really sure why but I liked the look of it and felt obligated to buy something. After that we went to China town for Chinese New Years, which was quite lackluster. I guess we shouldn't have expected much from a Chinatown in Argentina, but we were hoping to see dragons and fireworks but were instead treated to masses of people and vendors eagerly selling crap. We left and went to see El Secreto de sus Ojos, a really good Argentinian movie that's nominated for best foreign film. I recommend it to everyone who gets a chance, but watch it with subtitles so you can understand more than the 30% I did. All in all it was a pretty good sunday, but it was second to the one we had two days ago.

Uruguay!

First of all I wanna apologize for the weird format of my last post, google randomly changed my settings to spanish and I can't fully understand everything yet. Hope yall didn't get to confused. So this past weekend all 10 of us went to Uruguay for a mini vacation. We took a one hour ferry to the town of Colonia that is across the river from Buenos Aires. Colonia was established by the Portugese to smuggle goodies into BA back in the day. Now it is a small quaint historical town that is actually a Unesco World Heritage site because of its tree lined cobblestone streets and old buildings.

That Friday was probably the best day in South America so far. We checked into our hostel, had lunch, but alas, it started to rain. We were pretty sad that we came all the way to the beach only to get rain (there are no swimmable beaches in BA cuz of radioactive waste and other nasty stuff). So we were walking along the pretty streets wondering what to do when we realized that the best thing to do in a foreign country when its raining is enjoy a couple choice cervezas. Dan scoped out some random store and we found some local beer called Pilsner that cost 2 dollars for a litro. The offer was too good to resist so the guys bought a couple each and we trekked down to the dock to do some good old fashioned seaside rain drinking. We had a blast hanging out, chatting, and listening to American pop music. The only downsides were the gnats and lack of sun, which were succinctly summed up by Dan with his classic quotes
"What's with these gnats bro" and "Whats good with the sun?"

However, as soon as were done playing Eduardo Pilsen manos, the clouds dissipated and the sun broke through. It was a sign from Apollo validating our clever choice to drink in the shade. We strolled to the beach and waded in the waist high water for about an hour before we realized that the little green floating things maybe wasn't algae but possibly something more sinister. So far no mutant side effects so I think we're good. After drying off we decided to tour around the town. We wanted to all rent scooters and form a tourist scooter gang, but a motorcycle license was needed so 4 people settled for a golf cart and the rest of us copped some free bikes from our hostel to view the historic district. I'll let the pictures do the talking for this part.

Our hostel in Colonia

Typical street in the town
The dock where we played Eduardo Pilsen manos
Madeleine's hair sticking up due to lightning in the air and Brenny making a funny face.
Dan broing out, Brenny being a clown.
Dave doing some swimmer pose. This is what a typical street looks like in Colonia, so beautiful.
Yea we're pretty sweet.
Notice the lighthouse in the background.
M and M cruisin.
View from atop the lighthouse
My attempt at a panoramic picture from the lighthouse, this is essentially all of historic Colonia.
La calle de los Suspiros-the street of whispers-looks like its straight out of the 16th century.
This is the old town wall of historic Colonia complete with drawbridge. Also, that's a nice tree back there.

So after the tour of the town we retired to our hostel and the guys had a group nap. We woke up and went in search of food. Our quest was fulfilled with resounding success as we found a small restaurant off the beaten track where the four of us got 3 personal pizzas, a salad (mine in an attempt to eat some greens), a steak, a sausage, and about 9 jugs of wine all for about 9 dollars each. It was one of the best and cheapest meals Ive had, and fun too as we sat there for about 4 hours joking and talking. A really nice thing about South America is that there is no rush to leave a restaurant after you are done eating. One is perfectly welcome to sit there for as long as you like, which is a nice improvement from the rushed feeling you get at places in the US.

While we were eating a torrential thunderstorm had started and it was pouring rain when we finally decided to leave to meet the girls at a club. Once we started getting drenched Dave and I decided to run to the place and we took off sprinting through the rain, a liberating feeling especially after too many glasses of wine. We got to the club panting and smiling, and discovered that it was a bit run down, as it was still raining inside. The floor was drenched, and there was one spot where no one was dancing because there was an inch deep puddle covering the floor. Everyone took off their sandals and we proceeded to dance in the puddle for the next 2 or 3 hours to the amazement of the locals who simply watched us. I gotta say it was a damn fun dance party, and I'm not sure any of us will ever salsa in a puddle again. We left the club around 4:30 and caught our 5:30 bus to Punta del Este, a five hour ride that we were all unconscious for.

We got to Punta, and after dropping our stuff off at the hostel went to the beach to enjoy the sunshine we were blessed with. The day was spent lying in the sand and playing in the waves; it was glorious. For all you east coasters I think there was a massive snowstorm that day to put things in perspective. That night Hannah and I witnessed a beautiful sunset, and we all went out to a really good seafood place where we feasted on paella (chicken, mix of seafood, and rice). We wandered around Punta del Este playing would you rather until we returned to the hostel bar/common area to chat into the morning hours.

The next day we enjoyed another couple hours at the beach before it started to rain again and we had to catch a bus back to Colonia for the ferry. Everyone but Brenny and I made it back in time to catch the super bowl, but that wasn't too big a deal as my awesome weekend made up for the fact I missed seeing Manning blow it. Anyway that essay details one of the funnest weekends in my recent memory, and here's a couple more pictures to show off Punta del Este.

Inside the hostel.
Outside the Hostel.
Catching some rays on the beach.
The two previous pictures were taken from the same spot on our hostel's street, one is the view up the street, the other down. Notice how there's water and beach in both directions.

Beginnings of the sunset from my room's window.
Punta del Este at dusk.

Its starting!
Oooooh.
Aaaaaah.
Chilling in the common area after a fantabulous weekend, look at all those happy faces.