Colonia, Uruguay in 12 hours

Leaving Buenos Aires for the second time was for a trip to Colonia, Uruguay to renew my 3 month tourist Visa. Kim and I booked a 3 hour cruise on Buquebus and floated across the beautifuly brown Rio de la Plata and spent the day walking around downtown Colonia. All in all it was a very touristy experience. In good Jessie and Kim form we slept for most of the 3 hours on the way there and 3 hours on the way back, we got lost going to catch the boat and once we got there we spent most of our time sitting in a cute restaurant reading, and listening to Jazz covers of 80's hits.

Argentina v Ecuador

So this was my second fútbol game, but it is the first BIG game I've been to. Fútbol stars like Messi, Rodriguez, Riquelme ( I really have no idea who they are...jaja).It was a world cup qualifying game and they tied 1-1. The fans were generally well behaved because the game was relatively boring. No matter how boring, there's never a shortage of profanities. In fact if you want to learn all the wondefully bad words and phrases all you need to do is buy your entrada for the game and in a matter of minutes you will be on your way. Those who wish to know some of these phrases and are of the appropriate age are welcome to inquire via email. Although I am discriminating by age, these Argentines sure don't. If you can speak you can scream profanities. 

Desaparecidos

Like gravestones, plaques will mark the places where almost 30,000 people in Argentina were "disappeared" in the 1970s. The weekend I arrived was not only Easter, but the anniversary of the overthrow of the regime that was responsible for this Dirty War

This occasion was used to do times 20 what Argentines do almost everyday: protest, strike, and  bang pots and pans in the streets. Almost everyday there's a union striking for something. Beer factories, dishwashers, and the most pressing issue at the moment: farmers will be marching with "caserolas," holding signs, blocking roads. This day was by far the most impressive I had seen at the time. It seemed as though every union in greater Buenos Aires was using this day to march, and to exercise the freedom that the "disappeared" were killed for.

Walk of shame

The morning after my first and (as of now) only Argentine classic rock cover band. I woke up relatively early (for me) with the exciting thought of walking all the way back to mi barrio. At the time I was living downtown near the Congress Building and happened to be about an hour and half by foot from my delightful student residence. There was a lot experienced in the hour and a half. It started out with a slightly sketchy train track, then there were ample photo-opps of quaint Palermo Houses and finally (right before I gave up and hopped on the Subway(subte), I did a lap around a park overpopulated by stray cats and one too many random scents of urine.

Welcome to the Jungle..I mean Buenos Aires

Imagine: first night in Buenos Aires, Makena club in Palermo Hollywood (yes Hollywood), an attractive Argentine band covering you name it rock band. ACDC, The Boss, of course The Stones, Bowie...

I couldn't have asked for a more perfect welcome show. What's more is I went with two girls from Texas: Kim (an ex-girlfriend of a high school friend) and her friend Lauren. The fact that I managed to unite with two texans isn't all that unusual. Christian and Megan could probably vouch for the fact that ex-pats escaping the drone of the US will find each other and huddle together like a scene straight out of March of the Penguinos. One of the biggest struggles is to keep them at arms length much like you might hold off a very hungry zombie.

To live and learn

Things I Should Have Thought More Deeply About Before Coming

1. Argentine's pronounce everything with a ll or a y with a "sha." PLAYA is said "PLY-sha"
2. There's always some major industry going on strike to throw a big fat wrench in your plans
3. Winter is cold. Cold and rainy.
4. The typical Argentine eats, sleeps, breathes, and lives to consume Argentine Beef

Looking back on my reasons for taking this trip was to live and learn Spanish (at least thats what I tell at least 5 people a day). People ask "what are you doing here?" and after a while I started to really understand why I had come. I'm not on vacation, I'm not taking classes in Spanish, estoy viviendo. I arrived, I got a job, I got another job, I got an apartment and as of now I work for 3 English institutes and teach 13 classes a week in 4 different parts of Buenos Aires. I hope to travel more in August, but for now these photos and this blog will mostly consist of things that I have wandered upon by going from class to class or getting lost as I tend to do no matter what country I'm in. So far BsAs has shown me all the things I thought it would and more. On the other hand, it also leaves me longing to travel the rest of South America and see something that doesn't look like a city...