My friend nick and I hangin at the beach!
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Last weekend a large group of us went to Mar Del Plata, a tourist destination south of Buenos Aires. Since it is about a 6 hour drive, we took the midnight bus and slept on the way up. The bus was actually very nice and cheap, so it is now definitely my prefered way of traveling. The large seats recline almost all the way, there are footrests, and thick curtains to keep out the sunlight. We arrived around 6 in the morning, and since we couldn't check into the hotel until noon we grabbed our stuff and headed to the beach! We spend the morning relaxing and taking in the ocean view. We met a cool surfer from California who said he could tell we were Americans even while he was far out in the water, so I guess we are not blending in as well as we would like. It might have also been our large amount of luggage since we had no where to go...
Hey guys! Sorry I haven't updated everyone in awhile! I have been doing a lot of things and having a lot of fun, so this post is a long one!
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Friday and Saturday were spend lounging on the beach without a care in the world. Mar del Plata is a very tourist driven city, but since school has started here the young people weren't around and it was just a bu
nch of elderly people, very Atlantic city-esque. The ocean was very cold but safe to swim in, although my host brother Marcelo warned me that they do have sharks. There were beach side vendors selling everything you could think of; jewlery, pirated DVDs, balls, underwear, clothes, anything. We bartered things down and ended up getting some cute jewelry and headbands, while our friend Alex bought a Power Rangers kite and entertained himself (and the rest of the beach) for a few hours (picture, spot the gringos!). We ate superpanchos (hot dogs) and delicious pastries called churros from beach side vendors all day. At night, we went to a very nice seafood restaurant and took over the place when we asked for a table for 15. The food and wine was delicious and we ended the night at a huge but expensive dance club where there were different rooms depending on what music you wanted to listen to.
nch of elderly people, very Atlantic city-esque. The ocean was very cold but safe to swim in, although my host brother Marcelo warned me that they do have sharks. There were beach side vendors selling everything you could think of; jewlery, pirated DVDs, balls, underwear, clothes, anything. We bartered things down and ended up getting some cute jewelry and headbands, while our friend Alex bought a Power Rangers kite and entertained himself (and the rest of the beach) for a few hours (picture, spot the gringos!). We ate superpanchos (hot dogs) and delicious pastries called churros from beach side vendors all day. At night, we went to a very nice seafood restaurant and took over the place when we asked for a table for 15. The food and wine was delicious and we ended the night at a huge but expensive dance club where there were different rooms depending on what music you wanted to listen to. -
We got back late Sunday night just in time for me to get a full nights rest before a week of class. I tried out a bunch of new classes at different universities this week. The public university, Universidad de Buenos Aires is very interesting. Since it is free, they don't have a lot of money to pay for nice desks or supplies of any kind, so I am defintely opening up my eyes to how the rest of the world lives, even in a nice country like Argentina. There is grafiti all over the walls and since smoking in public is legal there are cigarette butts everywhere. My first class is about pop culture and started with us watching about 20 min of a video of a Elvis impersonater- I still don't know what that had anything to do with the class. The Universidad del Salvador is very nice but very far away, plus the classes I want to take have a maximum number of foreign students that they will accept so I'm going to have to keep attending multiple classes in case I can't get into my first choice.
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On St Patricks day the American students piled into the few Irish Pubs in the city. Argetines don't really celebrate St Patricks day, but since it is another reason to have a night of drinking and socializing they try to get into the spirit. The first pub, called Shamrock, was packed with people drinking green beer and doing irish carbombs, and the bartenders were all from Ireland. After that we headed to an area called Reconquista where the street gets closed off and people just hang out and wander between the many bars on the strip. It was very weird talking in English to most of the people I met that night, but I met some cool people from all over Europe and some Argetines who like to tell the American girls they are from Dublin, as if that will score them some points. St Pattys day in Argetina felt very much like it usually does in the states, but surrounded by people that are better dancers than Americans.
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My friend Delaney and I had our first day of shopping here in the city, and the stuff here is absolutely adorable! I bought a cute pair of sandals (since flip flops aren't allowed at the catholic university and its way to hot to wear my boots) and some cheap jewelry. The accessory store we went to was amazing! It had tons of bright jewelry and bags, sunglasses and headbands. And it was all ridiculously cheap. I could get myself into trouble if I stay in that store too long... We chatted with the people working in the little shops and I keep being suprised by how warm and receptive they all are towards us! Haven't encountered much animosity yet, knock on wood!
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Since we have all been blowing through our money like crazy, we decided to take a day trip to el Tigre on Saturday instead of travelling for the entire weekend. El Tigre is a town with tons of rivers and (as we were told) lots of pretty beaches. We hopped on a 45 minute train ride for 3 pesos (less than $1US) and arrived in the cute city where we paid 17 pesos for a river taxi to take us around the islands. The river is definitely NOT swimable, it is brown and gross with a shocking amount of weird catfish-looking fish. The river taxi made many stops at different islands and people were hopping in and out at random, so we picked a spot that looked good and hopped out. There are definitely no beaches that we could see, so we went on the deck of a restaurant overlooking the river and hung out for the day. It was definitely a learning experience and we want to go back and try to find a beach next time, but it was a well spent day of relaxation and easy on the wallet too!
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This week was the start of the NCAA playoffs for college basketball. Since we have about 25 kids from Madison on my program, we all went to a very American sports bar right by my house to hang out and watch the game. Decked out in red badger gear, we were suprised to walk into the bar, called El Alamo, and see not only lots of other badger fans, but that the bartenders were wearing badger gear as well! Watching the game was so fun, we felt very much like we were back in Madison. There were a ton of kids from Wafford (our apponent) from another program at the bar with us so it got pretty rowdy. After our win, we huddled around and "jumped around". It was defintely one of the highlights of my time here, and although it made me feel like I had briefly stepped back into a Madison bar, I was happy to leave and go back out into the city of Buenos Aires that I am starting to love. Although we lost today, we went back to the same bar and hung out with many of the same people and met some new ones too. We met a very nice guy who works as a pilot for American Airlines who bought a huge pitcher of beer and refused to let us leave until we finished it "like true badgers" and made up for our teams loss. On Wisconsin!
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Last night we went to our first ever house party here in Buenos Aires. The people who live in the house are students from England, and their place was absolutely gorgeous. For about $450US a month they get to live in this beautiful house in downtown Buenos Aires that has marble floors, granite counter tops, and a pool and patio out back. I tought an Argetine how to play flippy cup (a team game where you have to flip your cups quickly before the other team) and he went nuts! He thought it was the funniest game and was so excited to teach all of his friends, so although I am learning so much here at least I have now left a small mark of American culture on this city :)
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I continue to be so happy in my host home, Sara and I watch televison every night together (usually the show House or Two and a Half Men) and have had conversations in which I have to improvise my spanish. Recently I had to explain to her the difference between Lutheranism and Catholicism in our beliefs and also the US policy on abortion. I have learned how to think on my feet in Spanish and have had very little trouble communicating with locals. I have even been asked for directions and help on the subway a few times! I survived a weekend at the beach without getting sunburned (thanks to lots and lots of sunscreen) and am settling into a ruitine for my class schedule. It is strange how at times I feel like I just arrived to this city yesterday, but how at the same time I feel like I have been here forever. The kids on my program are awesome, we feel like we have been friends for ages and already have plans to go visit each other at our respective universities. With semana santa (the holy week surrounding Easter) coming up, many students have parents here or ones that are coming soon, so I am definitely getting antsy to see my dad on Sunday! I wish more of you were visiting (especially my mom and brother) to see this amazing country, but I will continue to take pictures and (hopefully) get them up on facebook soon! Love you all! Besos!
