Homework? Wait a minute....

Hola todos.  This week has been pretty laid back if you can believe it.  We've had class everyday so things are starting to settle in.

We went to a drum circle show on Monday.  There were probably about 2000 people there in this big outdoor theater and about 15 people on stage with all sorts of percussion instruments. Obviously I loved it.  I'll post a short video below, but you can find tons of them on youtube.  Search "La bomba de tiempo".  After the show we went across town to San Telmo to meet our friend's cousin. About 150 people showed up with us- there was a bar crawl that night.  The Puerta Roja probably doesnt want to see another American again.  Highlight of the night- meeting a Colombian guy named Julian wearing a Yankee hat.

Besides school we've just been hanging, doing homework :(, and apartment hunting.  We found one place that we're hoping to get that is huge and has a view of the entire city, the river, a horsetrack and polo fields, and you can even see Uruguay from the balcony because its one of the taller buildings in the city.  Its really incredible.

We've made some friends from class and hung out with them a bunch.  The French kids are ok, very French if you know what I mean.  There's a guy from Torin, a couple people from Norway and Sweden and Amsterdam, and 2 more from the US.

I'm out of things to say, mas photos!

Cool view of the residential area in Colonia.

You can see the church above the trees to the top right.

Cool pickup truck we found near the port in Colonia

One of the Punta del Este beaches

 Julian, The Man

Out with the Frenchies

That video of La bomba is taking forever, so just youtube it.
Plans for the week: Class, homework, explore new stuff (The Rosedal, Museum of Fine Arts, the zoo, etc.), Chinese New Year tomorrow, ???.  Talk to you soon.

Vacation on vacation Part 2

Yes we passed out the entire way to Punta del Este.  How could we not after that super long day.  We arrived and wandered around lost in the big city trying to find our hostel.  We checked in and headed right for the beach.  Beach was not very crowded because it was a little overcast, but gorgeous nonetheless.  We all got sunburned then headed back to the hostel for showers for the first time in a couple days (I counted the rain in Colonia as a shower but others did not).  We hung at the very cool, hippie kind hostel for a bit then got ready for dinner.  We walked to a bustling, rich area of the city (the whole city is super rich for Uruguayan standards) filled with people at bars and classy restaurants, with live music all over.  We found a nice seafood restaurant and sat for a few hours.  Afterwards we walked around the city for a bit, its like a beach town on Fire Island or the Cape, except in city form.  Sounds controversial but it really is just an enormous beach town, with ice cream and surf shops everywhere, people in flipflops, lots of music, tons of restaurants, craft fairs, etc.

Sunday we checked out and headed back to the beach.  The weather was picturesque until about noon and it started pouring.  We went back to the hostel to grab our stuff then grabbed lunch and headed home.  Got back to BA around 1030, just in the middle of that light show that The Who played in front of.  We found a bar called Krakow with a bunch of Americans in it and grabbed dinner and watched the Saints fulfill my prophecy.

Today we had our first day of Spanish class.  We took a little questionnaire to test our Espanol, got lunch with 12 new foreign friends from class (almost all from France, but with a few French Canadians, a Dutch girl and an Australian).  Class was great, teacher is nice, students are all about at my level of Spanish, with a few superstars and a few hopeless ones.

Mas photos:

 

Bad picture of a small part of Punta del Este

 
 

Bad picture of the cool hippie room in our hostel

 

BC students in Punta

Sorry a lot of these pictures arent the best and that I have very few pictures of the cool stuff we do.  This weekend I wore board shorts the entire time and they have one pocket for phone and wallet, so camera was sacrificed.  The girls always have their cameras and take pictures nonstop, so as soon as they post them, I'll steal them and share them all with you.

Drum circle show tonight!  Estoy excitado!  Talk to you soon.

Vacation on vacation Part 1

Que pasa?  I'm back in BA now, just hanging out finally.  So Friday morning us BC students took a ferry to Colonia, Uruguay.  Colonia is a quiet, old city/town right on the coast directly across the river from BA.  The weather was pretty gray when we arrived so we just checked into our hostel, grabbed some food, then just sat on the docks in the harbor and chilled.  It was pretty fun.  Then things cleared up a bit and we walked for a bit down to a beach and went swimming in the river (the widest river in the world).  We headed back into the town and searched for a place to rent go karts or scooters or something of the like.  Me and Dave and 2 girls got a golf kart and explored the town for a bit.  Theres a church from like 1650 or something like that, extremely old for South America, a cool old lighthouse, some cool little houses on cliffs overlooking the water, etc.  Then we headed back to the hostel and took a nap.  The guys the went out for dinner and found this cool little pub on a side street.

Uruguay is cheap.  I mean really cheap for Americans.  In this little pub we (4 guys) ordered 4 pizzas, a salad, a steak, sausage, 2 bottles of water, a coffee, and 9 bottles of wine (I honestly only had 3 glasses, mom) and it cost us $9 US each.  For 4 people.  Thats 9 dollars, nine dollars, nueve dolares, however you want to say it.  Makes you want to say hooray for the American economy we love to complain about so much.  I guess us gringos really are spoiled.


Then we went to a dance club because no matter how tired you are in South America, sleep isnt an option.  Just after we returned the golf cart it started pouring rain and continued monsoon-like until we left the next morning.  So in this dance club the ceiling leaked, just like every other roof in Uruguay, no joke.  We got to the dance floor and ditched our shoes and frolicked about in 2 inches of water, as the ceiling rained on us.  Normally this wouldnt be fun but we were entirely waterlogged from the day already (including clothes).  We danced for a bit then realized we needed to catch our 530am bus to Punta del Este in an hour, so we ran out real quick.


Stop at hostel to grab clothes, run to bus station, begin dance party.  I'm sure the ad hoc dance party at 530am in the station annoyed a few locals, but we just wanted to make sure we wouldnt wake up during the 5 hour bus ride.


Picture time, click to view full size:

 Brendan and Dave

Lots of people salsa dancing

Upon arriving in Colonia

Courtyard in our hostel

Sunset from Colonia

Salsa dancing is not easy

Hola todos! I'll try and keep this one a little shorter because I seem to be giving a bit much detail.


Normal day yesterday, nothing too exciting. Last night was unbelievable, seems to be a trend.  We went to a place called Terrazas del Este on the river with some friends of friends.  It seemed like a 5 star tropical resort which was actually a nightclub.  When we pulled up there was a massive line of cars and tons of people walking towards this place.  Its what they call here an "after office party" starting at 7pm, about an hour or 2 before normal dinner time.  Dress code was pretty strict, dress pants, shoes, belt, shirt, etc, or no admission.  We sat until about 830 getting some food and talking with new people, then suddenly people started walking out the door.  Where could they be going?


One of the many massive dance rooms in one of the other joined buildings or patios or decks, of course.  This place was so big that they had about 6 live djs.  Each room had its own music style- reggaeton, salsa, techno, more salsa, etc.  There were about 5000 people there (about one to two thousand less than normal because it was raining) and every single one of them was dancing.  I've never danced that much in my life, or seen that many people dancing.  Around 130am we couldnt move from exhaustion so we headed home.


Today we hung out all day until a quick little interview with our history and culture professor.  At 7 we had tango/salsa lessons.  We went to this cultural center/restaurant and arrived as tango started.  Two instructors gave us step by step instructions on the basic moves of tango.  Tango is really hard, but really fun.  Then after that a few new instructors came out and gave the same thing but for salsa.  Salsa is really really hard, and really really fun.  We sweat like crazy and danced for a while, then ate dinner and watched everybody else dance for a while.  Around maybe 11pm all of the tango instructors cleared the floor and put on a show.  Watching professional tangoers tango is sooo cool.  Its crazy that they dont get their feet tied up and can stay together so perfectly.  Its a super beautiful dance too.


Afterward we headed right home because tomorrow morning (actually in about 7 and a half hours) we are headed to Uruguay.  We're taking a high speed ferry to Colonia and spending the day and a night there, then Saturday super early we're taking a bus to Punta del Este.  Saturday night is there, then back to Colonia and BA Sunday night.  No internet there, so I'll update with lots of pictures and videos from tonight on Monday.  Hasta lluego.

Another marathon

    Yesterday was another super long day.  Woke up late, ate breakfast, headed out to catch a tour with the BC students.  The tour started in a super cool area like a gigantic outdoor mall.  It was a giant grid of narrow sidewalks with stores forever.  We sat for a bit waiting for the bus and discussed everybody's travel plans.  Then a coach bus took us around the city showing us all the touristy stuff like parks, monuments, important buildings, etc.  I'll attach a few pictures finally.

   We stopped at the section of the city called La Boca.  La Boca is famous for its bright colors, soccer fanaticism (Boca Juniors is like the Red Socks, really good but looked down upon because its fan base is lower class), and poverty.  The area called Caminito is sooo cool.  All of the houses are painted a million different colors, and everything, literally everything, is dedicated to the Boca Juniors.  Google image-search "caminito".

    After the tour, me a Dave came home for a quick dip in the pool with the whole family again, then dinner.  We showered and napped, and headed back out to meet up with everybody.  The tour was just with the Di Tella students (my university) so we wanted to go out with the BC kids studying at UCA.  We went back to Madagascar and sat outside at a table, then played some pool at Tazz again, then got pizza, then went home around 530am again.  Long day.

Here's some pictures from yesterday:
 

 Cool outdoor mall

A street in Caminito in La Boca

 

Di Tella students in front of the Casa Rosada,

the Argentine version of the White House, except pink

 

The Obelisk in the middle of the widest avenue in the world.

Its like 18 lanes wide, you just cant tell here.

My room

  That's all for now.  No plans til Thursday night when we have tango lessons.  Stay tuned.

Que paso?

    After dinner, around midnight, we students wandered through the city looking for a place to go, aiming for the area around Congo where there were a lot of bars.  We found a place called Plaza Serrano, aka US college students Mecca.  It was a big plaza completely encircled with bars and clubs, and completely filled with people from 18-35.  We went into a place called Madagascar and found a table in the back.  We ordered some drinks and a bottle of champagne and watched a girl of about 25 sing live on the stage we apparently were sitting on.  She sang a couple of popular American songs (not uncommon here, neither is 80s pop music) and danced around.  The crowd sat for the most part, until one song came on.  Suddenly, in unison, the entire place stood up cheering, cleared every chair and table out of the way, and began dancing.  For the rest of the night the entire place drank and danced.  It was an incredibly fun time.

     Around maybe 230-3am we left Madagascar, can't remember why.  We started walking in search of a discoteca (dance club, although we were kinda at one).  After a few minutes of being lost we asked some guys who looked like locals if they knew where one was.  They replied that they were also looking for one, they were from Colombia.  We walked and talked with the Colombians for a bit and found a club called Kiwi that was literally, no exaggeration, entirely empty except for a bartender and a dj dancing fervently to his own sweet jams.  So we went in and ordered a round of tequila, and continued to learn about our new friends.  When it hit us that the 15 of us were alone in this creepy club, except for an eager young lady that had walked in, we headed back towards Plaza Cerrano.


   We got lost for a bit more, and found ourselves safely back in the plaza around maybe 415am.  The plaza was still packed with people, it was crazy.  There was a pool hall called Tazz selling 8 peso games and 20 peso liters of Stella Artois. Sold.  We drank plenty and talked plenty more, trying to improve our Spanish and the Colombians' English.  Around 530am all of the day's activities, drinks, parties, dancing, spanish-speaking, wandering, etc hit us like a train.  We exchanged numbers with Diego, the 23 year old Colombian who has been living here for 2 and a half years (his friends had taken a 20 day bus ride all over South America to stay with him for a week or 2) and said our goodbyes.


    Around 6am Dave, Brendan, Malcolm, and I piled into a cab and headed home.  To our great delight, the taxista was a huge fan of ACDC.  The 5 of us blasted the music and screamed the words to such hits as "Back in Black", "Hell's Bells", and "You Shook Me" the entire way home.  Me and Dave got out and walked a few blocks home in the daylight.  We got to bed around 615-630.  What a night.

Catching up

    Hola a todos!  Its been 2 days since I last wrote and so much has happened I don't even know where to begin.  There's a lot to tell, and some other stuff I just kind of want to write that isn't a story, so I'll break this up into 2 or 3 posts.  This post will be long, but trust me, its good.

    Saturday night after I wrote, me and Dave went to a bar called Congo in Palermo, the young, rich, trendy part of the city.  We met with all the other BC students and got to know each other a bit. The bar was very cool, with a big back patio looking like a jungle (Marie would love it).  We got pizza and headed home exhausted around 4am.

    Sunday we woke up late, ate, and headed to Ann Glotzbach's house, she's the resident coordinator for BC.  There we sat with a porteno friend of Ann's (porteno is a citizen of BA) and learned about Argentine customs, traditions, and received advice on every aspect of living here.  We had yerba mate, a common tradition here.  Mate (pronounced mah-tay) is a strong, bitter tea that you drink out of a dried gourd with a metal straw.  There are a lot of rules and customs with drinking it that I don't want to write about, so read the bottom section here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mat%C3%A9


   Afterwards, we went to dinner at an all-you-can-eat restaurant (here called "tenedor libre" or "fork-free") with one of our professors, Sergio Serulnikov, and his wife Silvana, another coordinator for BC.  We sat for 4 hours talking (in Spanish almost all the time except when its just the BC students) about everything imaginable.

I'll continue this in a new post.