A Year of Summer: November 2011

I had to travel back to BA last weekend and then on to Uruguay to renew my visa. I could’ve renewed it at an office in BA but apparently the wait time is ridiculous and it’s really more fun to go on a trip. The bus to BA left Los Toldos at 2am, we arrived at 8:30am and then I took the ferry to Colonia, Uruguay at 12. Uruguay is BEAUTIFUL. I loved it. Ines (a lady from Rotary) and I spent 3 or so hours wandering around and having lunch. It was really lovely, I really enjoyed it J. Back in BA, Norberto and I spent the night at his cousin’s house and then caught a bus home the next day at 4pm. It was another 5 hour bus ride home, for most of which it rained, but that didn’t stop me from going out that night and coming home at 6:15am (oops). Anyways, the successful trip to Uruguay means I have 90 more days here in Argentina!!

In other news, I am sick and tired of school. Not only is it horribly boring, but the school is now insufferably hot AND the dress code does not allow shorts, tank tops, open toed shoes or skirts. WHAT THE HELL I'M 18 LET ME WEAR SHORTS TO SCHOOL. It's awful, I don't know how these kids do it. It's 30 degrees here with humidity; wearing jeans is basically child abuse. Luckily it will all be over muy pronto. I can't wait. We filled our little pool up yesterday afternoon and I used it this morning after my run. A frog was using it so Norberto had to come remove it with a rake haha. Other than school, I'm still running almost everyday and I go to the gym every evening. Hockey season seems to be winding down, but I still practice every now and then. Also, I am changing host families in just over 2 weeks. I'm a little nervous since I've really settled into my life here with the Rossi's. But then again it's just another step in my adventure in Argentina so I intend to embrace it.

we got a cake... with our faces on it.

All the inbounds headed to Buenos Aires last weekend to spend some time together and to visit the big city. It was an AMAZING trip. Our inbound coordinator, Miguel, was nice enough to let us all stay at his house in a suburb of BA, so we got to be together all weekend. I took the bus to BA with two other inbounds, Pacome (France) and Anina (Swizterland), who both live about 45 minutes away from me in Junin. Friday was mostly a travel day, we didn’t arrive at Miguel’s until past 9pm. Everyone else was already there, we had dinner and chilled in the enormous rec room/garage. It was like a North American basement rec room with a pool table, fuseball, ping pong, darts, a sound system.. the whole nine yards really. Saturday was our Buenos Aires day. It was a longgggg day; we left around 9:30am and didn’t get back until 11, but it was also extremely entertaining! We started at la Boca and then made our way back through town. Some of the places I’d already been, like the Plaza de Mayo and el Calle Florida, but it was the company that made everything so enjoyable. Around mid day we started to meet up with more and more Rotexes (rebounds). They took us to the oldest cemetery in Buenos Aires, which, trust me, looks nothing like a Canadian cemetery. However it did remind me a lot of the cemeteries mum and dad dragged Tess and me to when we were living Mexico. The graves are more like small housesand I swear half the homeless population of BA could be housed in this cemetery. A number of famous people are buried there, including the great Evita Peron although it was hard to get a good look at her grave/house because it seemed to be the most popular one there. After the cemetery we headed to the Buenos Aires Hard Rock Café, on route to which IT happened. IT is referring to Austin (USA) getting lost. It was a worrisome 20 minutes while the Rotexes frantically searched and called people. But the good news is they found him! He was a little shocked but fine; he’d accidently started following someone he thought was Elise (Belgium) and ended up going the wrong way. So with that panic over, we made our way to the faculty of law (I’m not sure which university it is a part of or if it’s its own school) and then to see the giant metal flower which has solar panels on the inside and closes at night. After another photo shoot at the flower it was on to our last activity of the day – TANGO LESSONS! I must admit I was not stoked in the least. Dancing terrifies me at the best of times, and by this point in the day I was tired, sore, sunburnt and really just wanted to take a nap. However, I ended up having a ton of fun goofing off and learning some basic tango steps. I’m not saying I did them well by any means, but it was a great experience to try something that Argentina is known so well for. The next day we wrapped up the weekend by having an asado (like a bbq) at one of the Rotex’s house. He had a pool so we got to spend the day lazing around, chatting and drink tereré (mate made with cold juice instead of hot water, SO GOOD). It was the perfect ending to end awesome weekend. I fell in love with Buenos Aires and I can’t wait to go back there and spend more time.