No more teachers! No more books!

Brent and I rapped up our final week of school today! I think the American Turkey God was watching over us during our tests because we scored a 97 and a 93! I'll let you decide who got what, but keep in mind Brent eats a lot more turkey than I do. This is the first of several holidays coming up where we will be far from home and our many traditions. Tonight we are going to grill out hamburgers and do a general cookout with the roomies and anyone else who cares to join. Not quite Mom's stuffing and gravy but you do what you gotta do. We are out of this beautiful town on Saturday and I have to admit the quiet and the scenery have grown on me. I am sure I will miss this place especially compared to the heat and noise of BA. Brent may attempt some fishing tomorrow before we head out  and I may go climb one more mountain. To everyone- Happy Thanksgiving! Don't forget to truly be thankful for what you have, but don't stop dreaming about what could be!

Off Road Ralley's and Goin' Gaucho Style!

Are you serious? Really? No, I'm not joking here! All I have to give you is $60 and promise to pay you $2,500 US if I wreck it? Fran and I rented a car in Bariloche this past Saturday to drive around the "seven lakes" area and do a bit of site seeing. The rental car guy showed us the map of the area and suggested our route. " If you take this road, you will spend about two hours on the dirt road through the mountains and lakes." For me, it translates like this - " Give me $60 and you can race our car cross country, in an area with fantastic views, on dirt roads, with no police and no speed limit. If you wreck our car and don't die in the process, you will owe us $2,500." Here is your money, where are the keys!!

The trip was truly breathtaking. The scenery went from jagged mountains and rushing rivers, to rolling hills and green pastures to desert areas with rivers. We saw cows, horses, and sheep just roaming around on the roads and roadsides. Made me thankful we were not traveling at night! In the desert section of the trip we saw pink flamingos and three huge deer. The total trip took us 6 hours and the last section back home there are good roads and no speed limit. I got to race some locals. By the way, we named our little rental car the Chevy "Chipmunk" because of it's size, but it could move buddy!

On Sunday, we went horseback riding on an "estancia" that raised sheep. Fran was in heaven!! We were part of a group of about ten and we rode for about 2.5 hours through some cool terrain. We saw huge rabbits, a fox and two deer that were, no joke, both 10 pointers or more. We had lunch of lamb shank and lamb sausage included with a bottle of wine too. We met some great dutch girls we will likely go out to dinner with this week. All in all, a very good weekend.

Help! I'm trapped in Granola Land!

We have been in Baraloche for three days and I feel like I must have climbed Mt. Everest about 10 times- and that's just getting to and from school. The brochure says that it is a short walk from your lodging to class they just don't mention that it is all uphill! Although I have to say that most of the students here don't mind the hills at all, in fact after class they generally go in search of even more strenuous  hills to climb just for fun. The views here are really stunning and we have been lucky with the weather. This weekend we will try to explore the area by horseback, I say let the horses do the work! We are also looking into renting a motorcycle to tour around the surrounding mountains, and possibly going fly fishing.

The students here are very nice but all seem to have that serious save the planet, I'm going to raft every river in the world, climb every mountain, speak multiple languages, and in my free time teach indigenous people to read kind of vibe. Surprisingly it is a pleasant change from the party every night, see how many clubs and discos I can go to, how late can I get to sleep mentality of Buenas Aires students. I just don't want to drink to cool aide, I like being a city girl! 

Class here seems easier and I hope I am learning as much as before. Brent thinks it is easier because he can finally understand the teacher's direction. Tonight we will go with the school to a micro brewery (that's more my type of activity) to sample some local beers. It will involve riding the bus which could be a challenge but since there are only 3 routes (non of which go by our house) it shouldn't be too scary.

Also, sorry about the lack of new photos. We have had a few technical difficulties, in other words, I forgot to recharge the camera so we could get the photos downloaded. 

Hasta luego!

We made it to Bariloche!

Wow, a lot has happened in the last few days. We had our test last Friday. Guess who received the higher score, Brent or Fran? I'll tell you at the end. Anyway, after our test I hung out with some classmates and had a few beers while Fran went to visit the Eva Parone museum. The museum was closed so Fran, a classmate Jo, and our roomie Penny went to Puerto Madero instead. I think they just had a few drinks too. Fran met me at the bar where we were having happy hour, all the cervesa you want from 6pm to 9pm for 20 pesos, less than $10! Unheard of in the states. Needless to say, I had more than one. We then went back to the apartment for a quick shower and we were off to San Telmo to meet some people from the school for a birthday party. The instructions we got before leaving were to meet at a disco between 11pm and 2:30am. We got there around 11:20 and were then told the party did not START until 2:30am. So Fran and I went to a little club with live music and talked until 2:30 and then went to the disco. We did a little dancing, a little drinking, and ended up getting home around 5:30am. I was in rare form according to Fran. Reference the picture we put up tomorrow.

We happily woke at 9:30am on Saturday to pack our bags for the bus trip to Bariloche. We brought so much CRAP that we had to pack TWO bags to leave with our friend Jo in Buenos Aires. Jo, if you are reading, thank you very much! We will see you in two weeks. So we made it to the bus terminal, 5 bags and a garbage bag full of clothes in tow, in plenty of time. The bus was phenomenal. We each had seats on the top level of the bus, and our seats reclined totally flat and a leg rest came out at your feet, so we could recline with our feet up the whole way. They served snacks, wine, champagne, whiskey, hot meals for dinner all while truckin' it across the Argentine countryside. They showed three movies and had excellent service. I think we could make this business work in the US! A party bus from Atlanta to Vegas, you party when you leave Atlanta, you sleep at night when there is nothing to see, and then you wake up in Vegas. Our tickets cost $100 American.

We got into Bariloche at 10:30am and we got into our house at 4pm. We had to leave all of our bags in the back yard because all the roommates had gone away for the weekend. A father and his two sons had gone to Chile for the weekend, two Swiss guys had gone trekking and camping for the weekend, and I don't know where the girl was. The house is big and nice with a nice back yard, living room, etc. Since the majority of the tenants are young men, the place is not as clean as it could be, but our room is clean, the bed comfortable, and the company is pretty good.

Our Spanish class is Bariloche is small. Fran, and Swiss guy name Beat, and me. Our teacher is very nice, very enthusiastic, and I think we will learn a lot here. The school is much smaller, the classes are all in the morning from 9-1, and it is a lot less hectic in general in Bariloche.

We will describe the town, post some pics, and talk about our way to school tomorrow. Fran got a 79 and I got a 79.5 on the Spanish exam. World scholars we are!

What the hell is a hippodrome?

If you don't already know what a hippodrome is then I will give you three guesses and tell you the right answer at the end of the post for today. Your guesses are: the area at the Buenos Aires zoo where they bathe the hippos, a horse racing track, or the name of the "all you can eat" buffet also near the zoo?

What ever your guess is, we walked by it today when visiting our favorite neighborhood to date. The barrio is called Palermo Viejo and I will give the three reasons it suits Fran and I best. #1, it is where the polo fields are, #2, it is where the golf course is, #3, they have MASSIVE parks that go on forever there! Oh, and the zoo is close by, the horse racetrack is close by, and there are plenty of restaurants and bars there too! Dios mio, I hope we can find an apartment in our budget. A round of golf on a weekday, after 2pm is twenty pesos, that is less than $7 folks, and the course was beautiful! I cannot wait to play it, take some pics and show you where I will likely spend a good deal of time when I get back here in December. I may even play golf on Christmas if they will let me, ooh, Fran may have to approve that too.

I think I may have come up with the perfect plan. Perhaps I can become a golf instructor here in Buenos Aires from November to May and then back to the states from May through October! Fran could do the same and become a riding instructor! Could we make enough money? Do they need a rep for Mizuno in Bs.As.? Anyway, Fran and I walked through a lot of the parks today and guess what we saw in plain sight? A hooker striking the classic pose where a car drives by and she slides the skirt up her leg! It was perfect until Fran said we may be walking through an area of the park she read about that was populated with transvestites. So, since Fran would not let me get that close, I really don't know if it was a woman or a well dressed tranny. Funny none the less! There were tons of people exercising, running, doing yoga, martial arts, running little training courses set by their personal trainers, using stretchy things to strengthen their muscles, rugby guys giving piggy back rides to each other to work their legs, it was amazing. It must be were everyone that exercises in Bs.As. goes to do it, because I feel like a freak running around the small park close to our apartment. No one else is exercising in our park and here I am trudging around the park 10 times. Anyway, that is probably enough for one day. We have a Spanish exam tomorrow. Fran is studying, I am blogging and drinking beer. Tomorrow will suck for me! I may skip the exam and go bet on the horses at the hippodrome.

Trials and Tribulations

The last two days were somewhat mundane except that Fran had a particularly bad day at class. We started a new section of verb conjugation called preterit imperfect and it is a little confusing as to when you use it and when you use preterit idefinito. We also had to go to the travel agency 3 times to get our tickets to Bariloche, all our fault. One day I did not bring the credit card, the next time Fran forgot her passport, and the third time was the charm.

We went to a new section of town for us called San Telmo. It is the heart of tango, has many markets, a nice park, and some really great antique shops. We thought is was a little "close" for us. The sidewalks are very small, the streets were small, and everything just felt a little to close together for us. We prefer a little more space and air. I think we have decided when we return from Bariloche we will try to get a place in the Palermo area of town. It is close to the polo fields and many great parks.

Overall, I think we are becoming a lot more comfortable getting around, grocery shopping, telling cab drivers where we want to go, ordering food and making small talk with the waiters. We still have a long way to go and may try to get a private tutor a couple of days per week when we return to BA. I am missing football a little bit. I have not taken the time to see if the Dawgs are doing ok. We had an opportunity to go to a bar for half price beer and Monday Night Football, but the game would have run from 11pm to 2:30am, and I am not THAT big a fan.

I am looking forward to the trip to Bariloche. It is 20 hours on a bus, but get this, the buses down her have a class called "super cama" because they have full size beds that lay completely flat, serve hot meals, have dividing curtains, etc. I wonder if they serve adult beverages? I may have to pack a cooler!

Later!

Consulea kidnapped!! along with my purse.

Well as it turns out we had another beautiful day this Saturday with the forecast rains no where in sight. We both began the day with a run and then took the computer down to the coffee shop to start looking up apartments to rent. It looks like there are plenty of nice ones available in either of the two neighborhoods (Recolleta and Palermo) that we are interested in. We found many listings on Craig's List AR. Since it was so nice we decided to do the tourist thing and go to the Recolleta Cemetery.  The place is huge and I'm sure our photos do not do the many mausoleums justice. Apparently each family has their own building where they intern the caskets. Then the surviving family members bring flowers and go inside and hang with the dead. I told Brent, "Once you are placed in the coffin you are dead to me. There will be none of this going and spending a perfectly good Saturday sitting next to a dead guy!"

After the cemetery we strolled around the area and looked in some shops. Afterwards, we (imagine this) sit at an outdoor cafe and enjoy the day. One of our classmates stopped by with some of her friends for a snack and beer. She is from Amsterdam so we were interested to talk to her about her home since that is where we would like to live next.

We decided to go get some real dinner so we headed towards home and stopped at a pretty fancy asado (restaurant where they grill meat) and ordered a mixed grill. The restaurant was outside on a patio. Brent and I ate some weird and overall tasty meats last night. The only thing I didn't like was this thing called blood sausage. The texture on the inside was just a bit to creamy for me. Tripe, on the other hand, was really good and crispy.

Anyway, we finish dinner and we get our check and alas! my purse holding Consulea and few other things like my credit cards is nowhere to be found. I am sure the criminals only took the credit cards because they were in the way. I know their true target was Consuela and I am awaiting the ransom note! Brent decided to go ahead and cancel the credit cards anyway just in case. They will be sending new cards to the school Wednesday.  

El fin de semanna! (the end of the week)

Wow, we have made it through our first week of class and we had to celebrate with our first nice dinner since arriving in BA. After class today we headed home to make a call to Fran's parents via Skype. I still think Skype is the coolest thing! We spoke with Fran's parents for a little while describing the tango show and how things have been going and then our internet connection quit. Since we are getting it for free from the business below our apratment, I guess we cannot complain. Anyway, after the call, I slugged out on our very short and uncomfortable couch while Fran went out to shop. I began to get concerned after about an hour, since she only went out for running shoes and she knew exactly where to find them. (By the way, she thought she packed her running shoes, but only found one when she got here, hee, hee). Well when she returned she had running shoes, some fancy brand of flip flops and some note cards(to make flashcards for spanish vocab and verbs). Well, when we went out for dinner, I find out she went into 3/4 of the shops between our apartment and the restaurant too.

Our dinner. It was the first nice dinner we have had since arriving in BA. All the other nights we have had a sandwich, pizza, or an empanada while we drank beer and people watched. So to celebrate making through the first week of class we decided to splurge a little. We found a well lit place that was well decorated, had many tables with comfortable looking chairs and was fairly well packed. The menu was huge, but we both knew pretty much what we wanted. I wanted one of the famous Argentine steaks and Fran wanted something close to weinersnitzel. I had what they call the bife de chorizo Buenos Aires and Fran's was called Milanesa Italiano. The service was slow to start. We ordered draft beer, called Chop in BA. It took a while to come out so, as expected, we went through them pretty fast. We quickly order a litre of Stella asap and they bring out special glasses and put this huge bottle of Stella in a bucket of ice to keep it cold. Nice. So my steak comes out with two pieces of bacon and a fried egg on top with a grilled half onion and tomato along with sauted onions, small boiled potatoes and a delicious banana pepper on the side. Fran did not have as many side items, but the portion was more than she could finish. We made bets on the total bill while enjoying dinner and each other's conversation, asking the words for knife, fork and spoon and were surprised when the bill came. Fran bet $240 pesos, I bet $160 pesos and the bill was $124 pesos. So with tip we spent about $40 American(what we usually spend just on drinks in Atlanta). It was a nice dinner and a good night.

So today, Saturday, we don't have class and Fran has already gone for a run. I am next. We then plan to make our flashcards and maybe see a movie as it is supposed to rain later today.

Hasta manana!

I am now a genius.

Brent and I have completed our first and hopefully hardest week of school ever! I have learned so much it is ridiculous and I still can't speak. I don't know how my brain will be able to continue absorbing so much without molting and getting a bigger shell! 

Last night we went with our classmate Jo (an unfortunate name for a proper twenty something girl in a land where they pronounce their J's like an H) and our roommate Joespf to Cafe Tortino. This place was amazing! The building was about 100 years old, all marble and very French looking, or very much in the Vienna Style if you believe Josepf - who is from Switzerland, is older, and definitely knows more about these things. The show itself was more like a play, or a variety show with a theme running through it. There were dancers and singers. There was a 5 piece orchestra. There were even 2 guys who had long strings with golf ball sized balls at the end who stomped while they swung them! Overall a riproaring time and I am thrilled I went! 

I knew I was gaining confidence today after class when I told Brent I was going shopping for replacement running shoes, and when he said he didn't want to go I was relieved. It was a very successful solo outing. New running shoes! In the right size! Surprisingly, the sales girl was much less intimidating than the sales people in Buckhead. Since Brent was not with me I also popped in to a few other stores and came away with some new Havaianas flip flops for around $10. I have mastered "Por favor, puedo uso una tarjeta de credito?"!

small victories

The first thing I have discovered since moving to another country is that you have to celebrate the muy pequeno victories during the day. My first may seem like a walk in the park, but for me big deal. Brent stayed at the apartment while I did indeed take a walk in the park, and then.... ta da!... I went and bought a hair dryer and some diet coke! I know it seems small, but trying to understand that I had to buy the diet coke first (this was in a grocery store/electronics store- I know, go figure) and then the hair dryer took a little doing.

Our second small victory happened in class today. We broke into groups of two and had to pretend we were interviewer/interviewee for a magazine. Brent was George Bush and we actually made it through the exercise sounding somewhat proficient! I can only guess at what great accomplishments we will have in the future.

Before class we took a long walk through the city and ended up in a section called Puerto Madero. It is beautiful, with tons of restaurants and kicking condos right on the water. It was probably 4 miles from our pad. During the walk I saw nothing scary or even unpleasant. We passed by about 5 parks which were all great and way cleaner than ours in the Atl.

I will rap this up with a random aside. Brent and I are both having strange dreams. I mark it up to stress but let me know your interpretation.  Brent was part of a think tank for the world economy (remember this was a dream) and he would have heated discussions and then fall asleep, only to wake up in the middle of a conversation. He then looked at his arm and found evidence of being given a shot. I don't have a clue. Mine was a little more realistic. I dreamed that me and a bunch of my friends were at a bar and Chad (not his real name...oh who am I kidding) walks in wearing nothing but silk boxer shorts. What does it all mean?

Later!

Day 3 in BA

What a day! Fran and I went out for dinner last night at a little cafe close to our apartment. We brought our spanish homework and did it over beers. Our dinner came, a mozzarella, olive, and onion pizza and we just chatted about how hard the classes are, the numerous people walking their dogs along the park across the street, and various passers-by. Today we woke up a little late and just did things around the house until it was time to walk the 20 minutes to school. Class today was tough! It is a "sink or swim" system and they do not speak ANY english during class or after. We are a little overwhelmed and had homework again tonight. So, as I think will be our pattern, we went directly from class to an outdoor cafe for happy hour, 2 beers for $11 pesos(<$4 american) and did a little homework and relieved the stress of class. Then to the supermarcado on the way home for a bottle of wine and a variety of six beers to put in the fridge. We freshened up and actually turned RIGHT out of our building(every other day we went left) and walked to one of the major boulevards (12 lanes of traffic) and sat at another cafe to finish our homework, eat baked chicken and potatoes, and two more tall Heiniken. It was very pleasant outside, we have a great view of the boulevard and a nice walk home. We are 3 hours ahead of the states, so the results are not in for the election. We have been discussing politics with our 2 roomates who are from Switzerland and Germany. We get american CNN on the tv, so we are watching the results and discussing the repercussions with our roomies.

We also got our AC fixed today, so I expect to sleep well tonight and go for a short run tomorrow. It is getting humid here, so the AC is welcome. Talk to you soon!

We made it!

After a 12 hour flight that was only slightly dampened by the knowledge of UGA's performance and the intermittent snoring of the balding man sitting behind us, we are finally here! We were picked up at the airport and whisked to our new digs. The drive into town took about 20 minutes and the views outside were nice. Lots of horses! I don't know if we drove through the bad part of town or not, but it was nowhere as bad as Atlanta's bad parts. Mexico this is not! After meeting with our school rep  to learn the rules (apparently they expect a much younger crowd as rule #1 was no alcohol abuse ie. drinking games, and rule #4 was no spend the night parties) we took a nap.

Fully refreshed we went out to get some grub (fabulous pizza with olive and egg) and do some exploring. We ended up at this huge park where they were having a spring festival with an artist market, puppets, a band and all kinds of food. Brent and I sat on the hill listening to the music. As a guy came around selling icy cold beer by the bottle, I looked at Brent and said, "We are 5000 mile from home and I couldn't be happier!"

Later!

Later Gator!

Today is the day! Brent and I spent yesterday running last minute errands and packing. We spent probably an hour out on the porch smoking cigarettes last night going over worst case scenarios. I know that sounds dreadful but it actually was nice to hear that Brent does freak out sometimes. While it is nice to have a partner who appears unflappable, it kind of sucks to be on the side of the equation that is always flapping! As far as our doomsday predictions went I think the winner was that we would spend so much time together that we would realize we can't stand each other and then would get mugged on the way to the lawyer for a divorce. Then because of lack of money we would be forced to stay together camping in the wilderness and both be bit by rabid bats since that is the only disease we did not get shots for. Anything short of that scenario will taste like victory!!

Well, wish us and the Georgia Bulldogs good luck. Hopefully we will be boarding our plane as UGA is running in the final touchdown to win the game!
Later!