I'm sorry I'm the worst blogger ever!

I’m sorry that I haven’t blogged in so long! After several weeks of trying at classes I think I’ve finally decided what I’m going to take: Contemporary Argentine Film, Urban Politics and the theme for my Spanish class is Popular Argentine Music. I’ve continued to do a little bit of sight seeing the last couple of weeks. The other weekend I went to El Museo of Bellas Artes (Museum of Beautiful Art) which probably has the largest art collection out of all the museums in BA. There was a large variety of the type of the art there from Renaissance art to modern art. I preferred the modern art part and the exhibits that featured two Argentine artists. I also went to the weekend fair in neighborhood in San Telmo. The fair was huge and consisted of booth-lined streets selling types of souvenirs and antiques. There were also people dancing tango and we stopped to watch a couple who were absolutely beautiful dancers. I will definitely be going back sometime soon!

This past weekend I went to Puerto Iguazu to visit the incredible Iguazu waterfalls. The bus ride was about 18 hours, most of which I was able to sleep through. We arrived around midday and took the local bus to our hostel. The town of Puerto Iguazu is a rather sleepy town. The hostel we stayed out was great and popular among young travelers. There we meet up with a bunch of other people who were staying at the same hostel. The first day we sat around the pool and relaxed. Lauren and I also went on a walk through a nearby sanctuary of some sorts. That night we went to dinner in the town at a restaurant called Tio Quierdo which was absolutely amazing. I had chicken and beef skewers with onions and red peppers with chimichurri sauce, the first chimichurri sauce I’ve had since coming to Argentina! The next day we woke up early around 7 to get an early start on our day at the falls. There are several paths to take to see the enormous waterfalls so we decided to start on the upper circuit. From there you are above part of the falls and have an amazing panoramic views of the rest. We then went to the Devil’s Throat which is where the biggest waterfalls break over cliff. The view was absolutely break-taking and almost unbelievable. Afterwards we went down to the lower circuit to get another view of the falls. There we took a boat ride underneath part of the falls. We all got soaking wet but it was extremely fun and exhilarating to be right under the falls. It’s hard to describe these incredible falls, basically they’re one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I will try to steal pictures from someone to post soon!

That night we had great asado (barbeque) at the hostel for dinner. The day after Lauren and I returned to the park before we returned to BA. We went on a hike through the jungle until we reached a beautiful, small waterfall. It was nice and sunny so we laid on a rock and soaked up the sun and the mist of the waterfall. On the way back we saw an adorable family of monkey climbing through the trees! The weather was great that day so we sat around the pool at the hostel and then caught the bus back to BA that night. All in all it was an absolutely amazing and relaxing trip and a great break from the bustling city! I promise I will be better about posting more often from now on!

Hello all! Sooo this weekend when I had a break from classes stuff I got to do a little sight seeing around the city. On Saturday I went to the local weekend market with Norma and bought some stuff for lunch. I bought a red pepper and two small onions and it was only 2 pesos which is about 50 cents! I have been a little bit frustrated trying to figure out what to make for lunch here because there are so many things that they don't have here! But Norma told me Chinatown is the place with the most international food in the city so afterwords we went to Chinatown to do a little more food shopping and to look around. We looked through all the supermarkets and I was extremely excited to see particular food such as salmon and soy sauce while Norma was mostly grossed out by everything haha. I ended up only buying peanut butter and soy sauce but I think it will definitely be a place that I shop for food. I also went back to 3 de Febrero Park and went to the Japanese garden which I thought was a little overrated but everyone here seems to love it. That night me and a couple of my friends went to a parilla that Norma recommended called Club Eros. She told me it was very Argentine, cheap and a lot of locals went there, basically everything I'm looking for in a parilla. When we got there there was some sort of birthday party going on so when we walked in everyone turned and stared at us haha. It was a real hole in the wall kind of place but the food was great, authentic and really cheap!

Today is El Dia de Nino which is basically the day that celebrates children. They have a day for celebrating almost everything from Dia del Amigo (celebrating friends) to Dia del Abuelos (celebrating grandparents). Norma and Charlie both went to visit their grandchildren so I took the bus to the MALBA which is the Latin American Art Museum in BA. I rode through the 3 de febrero park and it was packed with families and children. Even though the museum was a rather small I really enjoyed the exhibits and I was even able to tag along on a tour and I could understand almost everything the tour guide was saying! I then took the bus back to my neighborhood and I have to admit that I went to Starbucks! Being the Seattle coffee snob that I am, I'm not a huge fan of the coffee here. It'ss like New York coffee-- a very weak coffee taste and just a lot of milk and sugar. The other thing is that very few places that do coffee to go, it's almost impossible to find. At Starbucks I got a dulce de leche latte which was delicious but I didn't exactly get my good coffee fix. I think I will have to go on a mass hunt for good coffee.
I think next weekend I may do a little bit of traveling but I'll keep you all updated!! love love

Soooo it's been quite a while since I last posted but there's not too much I have to cover. I'm finally done with orientation stuff which is great, but now I have to task of trying to figure out what classes I'm going to take for the rest of the semester. So this week and next week I will (and have been) running around the city testing out 13 different classes! All of which are about 45 minutes away from my house. Even though I haven't gone to all of them I think I will end up taking a contemporary Argentine film class at Di Tella, which is a private school with small classes and one at Universidad de Buenos Aires. Quite the opposite of Di Tella, UBA has 300,000 and is free for Argentines. However the class that I will most likely be taking is a politics seminar that will be smaller. I have been taking numerous subtes and colectivos and have been walking everywhere! On Thursday some of my friends and I walked to Plazo de Mayo. Even though it's not the most exciting place it has the Casa Rosada which is a huge PINK government building on one side. It's also famous for the Madres de los Desaparecidos which means the mothers of the disappeared. The are the mother's of people who disappeared when Argentina was controlled by the military. While the mothers were not there the day we went, there was some type of socialist protest going on but that type of thing is not exciting out of the ordinary.

During the weekend I went out to dinner with friends and went to a couple bars. I had squash ravioli with a cream sauce but like a lot of the food here, it was a little too salty for me. I have to remember to always ask for less salt, they really do love it here! We also went to a really cool bar called Post in Palermo Soho. Palermo Soho is kind of an epicenter for eating and drinking among the more hip, younger crowd of BA. While the main part Plazo Serrano is a little more touristy, Post is a couple blocks away and was great. Not only was it cheaper but the inside was covered in graffitted caricatures from Pinky and the Brain to Jimi Hendrix. I went with a bunch of my friends and we all loved it, definitely one of my favorite places to eat/drink so far.

On Sunday Cate and I walked to the 3 de Febrero Park which is a huge park in the middle of the city. It's basically physically impossible to walk the whole thing and has numerous attractions. In the middle there's a lake, a Japanese garden, a botanical garden, the zoo, etc. Even though it was rather cold it was a beautiful sunny day and the park was packed with people.

Besides that I have just been running around the city, going to classes, running errands so it's nice to have some down time. By the end of the day I am always utterly exhausted from walking everywhere and constantly having to listen to and speak in spanish. I'll write more very soon! Ciao!!!