3 days.... me gusta....

It's been a little bit crazy... I've been here for three days and haven't had a ton of free time to update this or I did, but I was trying to catch up on some sleep because of jet lag.

DAY ONE:

I got into the city and at my apartment around 10am. I met Ernesto, the owner of the apartment where I'm living... I got settled in sorta, haha and then I called Jessi and met up with here a few blocks away from my apartment, we went and got my cell phone hooked up.
After that we went for a Frappe (think Starbucks Frappucino) which are REALLY popular here.. especially now because it's really hot.. its summer here.  Then we decided to head out to Tigre, the river delta about an hour and a half from Buenos Aires on a train. It was an awesome trip but I was half asleep the whole time.

Tigre

After we got back I crashed for about an hour and a half at Jessi's apartment before we headed to their friend's from her program to have an asado on the roof. It was delicious! But I was still dead tired!
I ended up getting home and crashing until 9:30 or so the next morning.

From the roof where we had the asado

Asado

DAY TWO:
Jessi had to be out of her apartment at 10am, so she came over and put her stuff at my apartment and we headed out to Retiro to buy her bus ticket to Cordoba. Retiro was crazy, it reminded me more of Mexico city, it was a lot more run down and there were poor people and illegal immigrants from the slums selling some cool stuff on the street out front (the villas or slums are right across the tracks). After that we walked from there all the way down to the water front... called Puerto Madero... which is the nicest-richest area of the city... it was a cool boardwalk area with fancy restaurants and hotels and apartment buildings.. and yacht clubs:

We worked our way up the road to the government House, called Casa Rosada or Pink House (Argentina's version of the White House) and did a tour, it was pretty cool, saw some stuff, like the main plaza of Argentina and the famous balcony where Evita talked to her peeps (see the Movie version where Madonna sings "Don't cry for me Argentina" to the crowd below), and we also saw the current president's office (Argentina's version of the Oval Office) she wasn't in the office today so we got to see where she works and stuff....

The office you see above is the President's office, the picture of the picture of the couple... the woman in the picture is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the current president of Argentina, the man is Nestor Kirchner, the former president and husband of Cristina. Cristina was elected after him in 2007, sadly (weather you like them or not politically it's still sad) Nestor passed away in late 2010 so Cristina is now a widow.

After that we walked up the road to Calle Florida, the main shopping district where we saw a lot of cool stuff and saw Galerias Pacifico a huge really, really fancy full of name brand stuff I could never afford.

 

 

 

 

 

Galerias Pacifico

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later that night me and Jessi decided to head over to the barrio of San Telmo before she took off and we got the chance to meet up with Pablo, a cool Argentine kid from the other side of the country, here to study at the same University as me. We got some Dulce de Leche ice cream and Jessi got some pizza, which I ate some of and we had a Quilmes (my first) haha not a huge fan of beer, but its THE beer of Argentina. we sat in Plaza Dorrego which is a really awesome plaza in San Telmo which is very Bohemian styled.  Its also the same place where the Bush daughters got robbed when they visited Argentina in like 2005 or 06 hahahah :)


DAY THREE:

Today I had to go out and refill the minutes on my phone because I ran out! then I went back to the barrio of Belgrano to pick up the concert ticket I'm going to in April....

On the way back I picked up some empanadas to eat which were delicious I'll take a picture the next time I get some...

I got home and met the cleaning lady, Cristina, she was a nice and cute little lady hehe...

After that I went and met up with Liz, Jessi's old roommate in Plaza Francia, which is a nice park outside Recoleta Cemetery, we chated for a while before heading home... on the way back I started texting with a girl I had met on Lonely Planet forum and on Facebook who is studying here from the states and we went and had coffee... and now I'm sitting at home skyping and getting ready to go find a bite to eat.

Cafés all over the place.

Plaza Francia

Cemetery of Recoleta

Atlanta, GA - Not exactly South America, but still south!

So due to the awesome freak snow storm that shut down the city of Spokane yesterday, my flight was delayed 3 hours to Minneapolis, which caused me to miss my flight to Atlanta, which caused me to miss my flight to Buenos Aires. I got a later flight to Atlanta, and that is where I am currently. I had to stay the night in a Hotel here, and due to the fact that Delta only runs one flight to Argentina a day, I have to wait until 7:50pm tonight to catch the next flight (that's East coast USA time). I have 4 meal vouchers! So I'm headed to hang out at the Giant, Art exhibit like Airport today.... Also, something curious I noticed about the Atlanta Airport. There are more signs in Spanish than in English, I only realized this when I was following the signs that said "Reclamo de equipaje" all the way to exit the airport. These signs didn't even have an English translation underneath (or above). Yes of course there were signs in English saying the same thing, but they weren't as common, and they weren't on the same sign, and now in my room, I have Univision turned on and it was the local news in Spanish... who knew that Atlanta was such a Latino city? haha

Anyways, next check in: Buenos Aires, Argentina!

¡Se viene acercando! 5 días. Plus I have my apartment now.

I have 5 days now, basically four, not counting today.

I confirmed and paid to reserve my apartment (see picture of my room below). I will be living in the Barrio of Recoleta it turns out. It's about 25 minutes to school everyday, riding the Subway and walking a little bit. I'm just trying to get all of the things finished and taken care of before I leave, seeing family and friends, getting all of the things I'll need down there, passport copies etc. 

Well, just gonna leave for some Karaoke at some Mexican restaurant. adiós.

Flights Changed!

Buenos Aires, I will see you bright and early on the 25th of this month.

17 days.

Hoping to get in some Carnival or Beach time before classes start and the Southern hemisphere summer ends.

Break out of Spokane earlier?

So I have the chance to change my flights without any fees to leave earlier to Buenos Aires...

I'm considering leaving to get there earlier to enjoy the Argentine summer a week longer before I start classes in earlier/mid March.

Now I'm contemplating if it'd be the best thing. It'd be a nice vacation........


I guess I'll decide within the next week.

Maybe I'm just too anxious to leave?


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