buenos aires

yoga en la calle en Buenos Aires...


I can´t even tell you how long this just took me to figure out HOW to sign in to this site so I could write another blog. The entire page is in spanish, and as much as I would like to think that I can understand enough spanish to get by, apparantly I´ve been proved wrong. It took me 3 days worth of trying.
But, with enough trial and error, I´m back on. Now if I can only remember what I just did for future reference..
Well, I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina Wednesday morning. The flight was painless. They served a high volume of alcohol on the plane, which I happily accepted each and every time they would pass by my seat. (I really wanted to go to bed, and I figured the consumption of alcohol would be my best bet in order to succeed in that goal)
After a looong 35 minute cab ride to my hostel from the airport, I officially felt like I arrived into Buenos Aires. My hostel is in Palermo, one of the 7 sections of the city. It is beautiful in this area...lots of parks, cute little streets, and plenty of bars and restaurants close by.
I tried to acclimate myself to the area, and took a walk around my neighborhood. I made it as far as the first park which was beautiful with an array of botanical gardens, flower-ceiling walkways, and coy ponds. Than i noticed the cats. There were approximately 300 cats lounging around the park. I hate cats. So i decided to leave, they were creeping me out. At the time, i realized I was exhausted (it was only 1130am, but still..) so i came back to my hostel and took a nap.
That evening I met up with Lev Guter, who is also travelling through South America, and happened to be in Buenos Aires the same time I was. I had my first experience on the metro system here, which turns out to be incredibly convenient and I now have used the subway about 4 times a day. At the hostel, I participated in my first Tango class, where it was apparant that I have 2 left feet. Not that this is actually as suprise to me...for anyone who knows me and has seen me dance at flashbacks, my style of dancing consists of jumping around, in circles usually. so, i´t wasn´t a suprise that i had no rhythm..hah.
Going out to dinner is a treat. We went to a fabulous upscale restuaruant, had a full meal, and 2 bottles of wine; the total came to 10US dollars a person, and this was a nicer restaurant.

Thursday... I decided to conquer the bus system. Not quite as easy as the train system. The first ride was suprisingly simple, and i became confident. Bad move. We went to another part of the city, La Boca, where the football stadium is. Its a little seedy in La Boca, but the building are all bright flashy colors, and when you sit at the cafe´s for food or drinks, there are tango dancers that perform right in front of you which is such a delight! Like I said, the bus only took 20 minutes to la boca, so when we left, my new amigos were getting off at different stops than I was...my bus home took a good 75 minutes, and I was on the verge of falling asleep because of complete exhaustion. But I made it, and learned my lesson that confidence on busses only ends in bad things.
Friday we walked around the city center...a plethora of museums, churches, and goverment buildings. As I´m standing in the center area, suddenly a group of police and armed government people formed a barricade in front of the government house. It appeared I was in the middle of an area where a protest was about to start. Sweet. Before i know it, hundreds of poeple with signs ánd drums come walking around me, and I have to scramble so I don´t get stuck in it. Apparantly, these protests occur every wednesday and friday at 2:00, but I never got the memo.
Satuday evening my hostel has an asaña..a barbeque you could say. With so much beef. Ive never seen beef before like I do here. At the supèrmercados, the beef section is totally overwhelming...which may be because there aren´t other meat options, other than beef. At it is incredibly cheap. About 35 people in my hostel attended the barbeque and we had a great time. I went out to the discos on saturday. Except Argentines don´t begin to go the bar til 3am. My kind of town I guess. We went to a club called Opera Bay. It resembles the sydney opera house by looks, totally scaled down, and also its a club. But its right on the bay which is beautiful and the clubbing goes well into the morning when the sun is up. I slept in late today. Just in case you were wondering.
I´ll try to figure out which option on this allows me to post pictures, but I don´t have it in me to try right now.

Hasta Luego.