Well it is 12:20 am on Thursday the 12 and I am at a person’s house who I met probably about 10 hours ago. But wait, before you start yelling at me for being at someone’s house who I just met let me explain. Well, actually let’s start back last Sunday. Sunday started out a normal good Sunday, except for the fact that all ACA people were super super excited about going to Buenos Aires for a few days. Also, everyone was excited that that night was a banquet. It was a costume banquet and I was supposed to go, but I didn’t have any ideas as what to go as. So all day I was trying to think of something, anything to go as. The theme was supposed to be a super hero theme, so I was trying to think of things along those lines when I realized that not every person was going to as a super hero. So with that in mind I still had no idea what I was going as. I talked to a few people…..nope nothing. I was however, able to convince Nolan to go, but like me, he had no idea what to go as either. As the day turned into evening and evening into banquet time, people were running all over the dorm getting the last things they needed, Nolan and I were sitting in my room, watching a movie, “trying” to think of something to go as. As time kept getting closer and closer Nolan and I had thoughts of not even going. But I really wanted to go, especially because I heard that they have good food there. So Nolan and I were able to come up with something to go as, he went as a nerd (most people thought he was just dressed normal) and I went as a surfer (I got a few laughs but not from a lot of people). The food wasn’t all that amazing, but the costumes were great. Transformers, Wolverine, Men in Black, Superman, Cat Women, Tinker Bell, you name it and it was there. I was very impressed with the costumes, people here go crazy for things like this, I wish it was the same back in the states. The party got done a little after midnight and most everyone’s thoughts were…….”must have sleep, I need sleep!!” that was not the case for Nolan and I. The bus that we were to take for Bs As (Buenos Aires) was to leave at 5 am in the morning, and I hadn’t even begun to think of packing. So Nolan and I went back to my room, finished watching the movie we had started before then watched another one. At that point it was about 3:30 so we both decided to go and start thinking about packing. Soon enough everyone was at the bus stop getting ready to take off for Bs As. Ok I’m super tired so I’m going to go to bed and I will continue this tomorrow.
12:30 pm. It is now just about 12 hours later so I’m going to continue my blog. Ok so we left for Bs As. Since it was about 5 or 5:30 am most of us found a seat and just about died. Most of us hadn’t slept the night before (me) so we were ready to sleep for most of the 6 hour drive to Bs As. When I finally woke up, we were just passing the Boca stadium, about 30 minuets from the hotel that we were staying at. When we pulled up to the hotel we could all tell that this was going to be a nice, nice hotel. The problem was that when we all first got there our rooms weren’t ready yet. So we had to leave all our luggage in a random room and leave for lunch (at this point it was about 12:30 or 1 in the afternoon). We ended up going to the same Adventist buffet we went to our first day here in Argentina almost 2 months ago (man it has been almost 2 months!!!!). After which we went to a Plaza that was close to the hotel. We couldn’t spend to much time there because soon it started to rain so we all had to run back to the hotel. That night we went to an opera like thing. Only it wasn’t in an indoor opera house, it was an outside live action thing with horses and people doing all sorts of things. It’s hard to explain but it was a history of Argentina in opera form with singing and all those things but at the same time it wasn’t a standard opera thing. It was in a big corral thing and they would have people come in on horses and act out battles and have people dancing and all sorts of other cool awesome things. When that got over we were all given permission to take off until midnight to go get food, or to do whatever we want. I went out and got food with a few people and just enjoyed the very nice warm evening that we had that night. When we got back to the hotel we watched a movie then went to bed. Now this was when I had the biggest problem that I experienced at the hotel. I was staying with Nolan and Erich (no they weren’t the problem) and right outside our window was the street. Now I didn’t think about this until I tried to get to sleep that night and realized that about every 9 seconds a bus would pass by the hotel and our window. Now usually that wouldn’t be a problem but cars and busses here don’t have mufflers, and if they do then they are all rotten and used up. So at about 3 in the morning I woke up to hear a bus driving by sounding like a train about ready to blow up or something like that. It was pretty bad, I couldn’t get to sleep for over a hour. The next morning we all got up and took for the La Boca. La Boca is a super cool place to go. I really cant describe it, I will have pictures up so you can look at them. But all the buildings are painted really cool and different and they are all just cool looking buildings. After we left La Boca we went to a Cementerio de la Recoleta. But this isn’t like an average cemetery. This cemetery is for the rich and famous. At this place you have small mansions as peoples tombs. The whole place looks like a small city with all these tombs all around you. All this place needed was someone to give you a map at the entrance and street names along some of the tombs and you had a small city…..of dead people, kind of a weird thought. Well while I was wandering around this place taking pictures I realize that I have no idea where anyone of the ACA group is. I ran to the entrance and couldn’t see anyone so I ran back inside and started to scan everywhere and I still couldn’t find anyone from the group. Finally I was able to find a few girls who were with one of the leaders. From the cemetery we went to a museum that was about a 5 or minuets from where we were and that was ok. I’m not a huge fan of art museums. I did think that the stone tablets they had from Mexico was pretty cool, but other than that I didn’t really like it. After the museum we all piled back into the bus and went to one of the nicest parks I have ever been to. It was pretty big and had a wonderful rose garden in it. I have a few pictures from the park but I was getting to sidetracked with everything there that I didn’t take very many. Actually now that I think about it, it was the park before the cemetery but I don’t want to go back and change all that so you can just imagine that’s how I wrote it. Anyway, after we got doing those things Nolan, Anna, Eline and I went out to get some food at an Indian place. It was so weird to see people from India, who look like they just got to Argentina from there but who spoke perfect Spanish, it just kind of threw me off a little bit. The food was pretty good, I had a chicken thing that was pretty amazing. When we got done, we went to go see a movie. Being in Argentina we figured it would be appropriate to see an Argentine movie, so we did. El Secreto de sus ojos, or something like that. It was pretty good. Before the movie started I was thinking, ‘ I think I know enough Spanish to be able to get the jist of what’s going on.’ I was wrong. Well in some aspects I was wrong. I was able to keep up with what was going on, but barely. There were times where all 4 of us just looked at each other with looks of stupidity, confusion, and curiosity. The movie was about a detective who was trying to solve a murder/rape and it kept jumping to 25 years in the future where he was writing a book about the same murder/rape. It was pretty interesting but it was a little weird sometimes too. But our movie cravings weren’t done yet. When we got back to the hotel after the movie was done, we opened my laptop and watched another movie. When that ended we all went to bed. The next morning we all had to pack our stuff up and check out of our rooms and head to this building that is a replica of some other building that I can’t remember the of. (yes dad I did just end a sentence with a preposition and I don’t care J). Well at the end of that tour the group was free to do whatever they wanted until the bus left at 11 that night. I had taken the liberty the week before to fill out a leave slip, allowing me to stay in Buenos Aires though the weekend and my cousin Bri has a friend of hers who is Argentinean and he just so happened to be in Buenos Aires for a few days. So I called him up and I jumped on the train and headed north. Riding the train was a bit of an experience. I have ridden trains before but the trains I have been on are usually fairly quite and the stations are never very full. Well this station had probably 1000 people walking around or standing in line and the train always has entertainment. People are trying to sell you stuff and playing different instruments to try to convince you to buy a CD or something else. After waiting in line for about 20 min to find out that I was in the wrong line, moving to another line and finally getting my ticket, I was on the train headed north. About a half hour later I met up with Ariel. We walked from the train station to the house he was staying at where I met some of Ariel’s friends ( I don’t remember some of their names and the ones who I do, I have no idea how to spell them). Now this is the house I mentioned at the beginning of this small book I’m writing. The lady was on the phone when we got there so we had to be super quite. Once she got off the phone she introduced herself (don’t remember her name either) and asked me where I was staying. Not having time to figure that part out yet I told her I didn’t have one yet, and that I would find something later that night. I thought she was going to laugh at me as she told me that I was going to be staying at her house that night.. Shortly after, 6 of us headed out back to the train and went north to Tigre. In Tigre we went on a tour of some of the islands around the delta that Buenos Aires is built next to. It was super pretty and super fun, that is where I also finally bought my first Mate cup. We also did a little bit of shopping and walking around. That day was one of Ariel’s friends’ birthdays, so we all went to a wonderful restaurant to celebrate his birthday. Dinner was amazing, I love steak here it is amazing. At this point it was about 9:30 or 10 in the evening (which is a normal time for people in Argentina to eat dinner) and we started to walk to another friends house and of course on the way we stopped at an ice cream shop and got ice cream. When we got to this other persons house we were all invited in and given coffee or in my case tea because I don’t like coffee (although I have been getting used to it). At about midnight we went back to the house and that’s where I wrote that little bit from before. The next day I went to coffee with Ariel and packed up my stuff and he and I went to the bus station so he could look at tickets to Chile and I could look for a ticket back to the school. When we arrived at the station we said our good-byes and went our ways. I looked around for a ticket but didn’t have much money on me so I left in search of a bank and a hostel. I looked at probably 3 different places before settling on one in the San Telmo district ( I think I walked a good 5 miles or so around town looking for some place to stay). When at the hostel I met a nice girl who had just arrived to Argentina. Her name is Josee and she is from Calgary, Canada. She is spending the next few months in South America traveling around. Well this made me excited because now I had someone to travel around with. The first afternoon at the hostel she and I went and got some pizza. After which we went back to the hostel and hung out and a relax full evening talking to a guy named Craig. Craig told us about all these hikes and adventures he has had all over the world. This guy is crazy, he has been to New Zealand I don’t know how many times, hiking all over the islands there. But its not just New Zealand he has been to it like 30 some odd other countries he has been to. It was super interesting to hear his stories. The next day I went back to La Boca because I wanted to spend more time there then when the whole ACA group had before. While there it decided to rain, but not just rain, pour like none other. I think it rained like 6 or 7 inches in about half an hour, it was quite incredible. When I was done sight seeing I jumped on a train back to the hostel and from there to find some food. After a nice little something, Josee and I had a nice night out on the town walking around and having a wonderful time. The next day I went back to the bus station and bought my ticket for the trip back to school and did a little bit of looking to see about how much a ticket is going to cost from Barilochie to Buenos Aires so I know for when I go to Patagonia for Christmas. Then the rest of the day just walked around the city looking at different areas. That night was pretty cool though. Saturday night was The Night of the Museums. It is a world wide event where tons and tons of museums open their doors until 2 am and have free admission. So Josee, myself and a couple of people we met from Austria went out and started to look at museums. We actually only went to one, the Tango Museum, which was super super cool. They had live music and it was awesome to read about the history of tango. On our way to another museum we got side tracked by some of the local music that was going on everywhere in the city. Buenos Aires alone had 150 museums that were open and almost all of them had some sort of music or show going on. At about 12 we decided to head back because most of the lines were several hours long and none of us really felt like standing in line for that long, and it was also starting to get cold and windy and I was just in shorts and flip flops. Well needless to say Sunday my adventure had to come to an end. I slept in a little bit charged my laptop packed up and left the hostel. On the way I ran into a farmers market like thing where they were selling just about anything you could think of, from silverware to alpaca ponchos to pots and pans to anything. All the people there were dressed up and it was very cool to look at all the costumes and things that people were selling. This place was also huge, it took up several city blocks and it was packed in there tight, most of the isles were just big enough to fit 3 people in it. Unfortunately when I left that market thing I was a tad bit confused on where I was, and spent about an hour trying to figure out where I was. Fortunetly I had given myself plenty of time to do whatever I want so once I found out where I was it was easy walking another 3 miles to the bus station. Well I think that’s about it. Right now I’m on the bus headed back to school. I have about an hour and a half left till I get there and my laptop is about to die. I know I did more things than what I have written but it’s hard to remember everything and I don’t want to write every little detail that I did. I hope that all of you are doing well and if you have any questions don’t be afraid to ask!! I love you all and I miss you!!!
lars
