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!