What the heck is that?....That's our party bus!!!

Last Friday, I met up with my best Chilean friend, Claudio, at the airport in Buenos Aires to go to Uruguay. There are many ways to get to Montevideo, Uruguay from Buenos Aires, but obviously we picked the cheapest way....plane. Our flight lasted a grand total of 25 minutes....I don't think we even got up to full altitude. It felt like as soon as we took off...we landed. Once we got into Montevideo, we changed our money into Uruguayan pesos. ((I paid for Claudio's plane ticket with my debit card and Claudio paid me back in US dollars. It was the first time I've seen a dollar in nine months.............another crazy fact....I haven't spoken a full day of english in 9 months!!!)) Claudio and I took a cab from the airport to our hostel, and the #?*%$# taxi driver ripped us off. I was so confused by the conversion rate that I didn't notice at first. He charged us $50US, when it should cost half that. However, we stayed in a really incredible hostel....$12 for 3 nights/each. The ladies that worked there were incredibly helpful and understanding...definitely the best hostel that I've ever been too. Our first two days in Uruguay, we walked around Montevideo and the beaches. It seemed like I was in Europe....I've never been to Europe but that's the feeling I got...haha. The first day, we ate at an incredible place that cooked your food on a huge grill right in front of you...it was awesome.

Sunday, we went to Punta del Este, Uruguay with two Brazilians that we met the night before named Eriston and Juliano. Neither of them could speak spanish, but Eriston could speak English. I finally found out how similar are Portuguese and Spanish. I had a rough time understanding it, but Claudio could understand them. Reading Portuguese is a lot easier for me. At Punta del Este, we enjoyed the day walking along the beach and learning about Brazil from our Brazilian friends.

We got back Monday.

I've been studying all week, so I figured I needed a break....so I decided to go dancing with the people I work with at LIFE. The plan was to meet up at a bar and then we would be taken to club. On the ticket I had it said to be at the bar at 10:30pm....so what time do I get there? 10:15pm....No one I know got there until 11pm. I actually almost left because I didn't think they were going to come. Three of them will be going with me to Misiones on Thursday. So we go into the bar and wait until we are taken to the club....we all heard rumors about a train/bus thing, but none of us were sure. We just talked and got to know each other which was really cool, but everyone was getting tired at 1am and the bus thing hadn't come yet. The thing came at about 2am. The best way to describe it is a bus/train thing. It looked like the back of a school bus was put onto the front of a train and it was covered in lights with a picture of Spiderman on the front. We all got on the bus and reggaeton music started to play. It was really insane....we danced in the bus all the way to the club. I can't imagine what the people that saw us last night thought when they saw us go by......oh I know...."That's so cool!"...haha. After about an hour, we get to the club and the energy just continued. The music was great and we just had a blast. I went to bed at 6am.

Nan Is Buying Me a Tattoo for Christmas

First of all, somehow I convinced Nan that she should pay for me to get a tattoo.....she caved pretty easily. I'm thinking about getting a water polo ball, but instead of it being yellow it'll look like a globe with North and South America to represent that I've played water polo in 2 continents (3 countries). I want to get it on my hip where the speedo simple is on a speedo.

Second of all...school. Nothing new really, I have to read a lot and for some reason one class was cancelled for three weeks in a row. I don't ask questions, I just listen to the Argentines.

Third of all....wopo. I had two games last week and my total playing time is a whopping 0 seconds. In the first game, when my coach told me to go in after a goal, I started to swim to the line and the ref kicked me out of the entire game......his explanation was that it wasn't a goal, so there was no stoppage in play. Apparently I entered the game incorrectly, and got kicked out of the game for it......that's what I call "Ref makin' up rules." In the second game, the coach never told me to go in. He looked at me a million times, but never said a word to me. I was the only one who didn't get to play. If they gave me just one chance, they would see how good I am, but they still haven't given me that chance.

Fourth of all...I joined an organization called LIFE....www.lifeargentina.org. Every Monday and Friday, I go to a really poor community and help a group of kids with homework, math, language, coloring and having fun. Yesterday, I taught Soledad how to divide, Alexander how to multiply two-digit numbers, and Cristo how to spell. I absolutely love the program.
With LIFE at the end of September, I will go to the Misiones region of Argentina to work with the Guarani (an indigenous tribe) for three days and then I will get to visit Brazil and Paraguay with the organization. Usually, US citizens need a visa which costs $150 just to enter these two countries, but since I'm with LIFE....I ENTER FO' FREE!!!!

Fifth of all....tango. I went to see a few competitions of tango and I'm pretty sure I would break my legs and my partner's legs if I tried to dance it....will that stop me? OF COURSE NOT!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying the end of summer as I hate...haha...the end of winter here....I can't wait 'til spring. Love you all and see you in 77 days!!! The countdown begins!!!

3-Tooth Willy

First of all, my mom informed me that I should put up the times of my classes. PS I'm an hour ahead of the east coast right now.

Monday: 6pm-9:15pm Argentinean History (Yeah, sucks!!!)

Tuesday: 3:30pm-5:30pm Tango

Wednesday: 2:30pm-4:30pm Tango Outing (We go to a show or watch a movie)
6pm-8:15pm Spanish Language

Thursday: 10:25am-12noon Basic Processes IV
1:30pm-4:15pm Argentinean Literature

Friday: Nothin'

Just to let all of you know, I've found a club where I can play water polo. It's called Gym and Fencing of Buenos Aires. To become a member, I need to get a health certificate from an Argentinean clinic. We'll see how that goes...because Argentina has universal health care. I went there today and they told me to come back tomorrow.

Getting your books here for classes is way cheaper than in the US because there aren't any copyright laws. All the texts are photocopied for the students. This is awesome, but it's a pain in the butt to actually get the copies. First, you need to find the photocopy place that the teacher uses and then wait until they have time to copy the materials. The first month of class is usually hectic because sometimes it takes awhile to get them.

Walking in Buenos Aires is like going through an obstacle course. First of all, there are 15 million people in Bs As. Second of all, there are the dangerous obstacles....the old ladies with broad shoulders, the millions of windowshoppers, the broken sidewalk, random construction, dog poop (seriously there's a lot), the people that hand out flyers (at almost every corner), the random liquid that drips from the apartments, the biggest pigeons I've ever seen in my life, the dogwalkers that are literally getting walked themselves, the runners, the bikers, the newsstands every 15 feet, and so on......I'm just saying that walking to school is at times interesting and frustrating.

So I guess you wanna know who's 3-Tooth Willy....well he's my history teacher. First of all, I'm going to say that he's incredibly smart and a great guy. Ok...so usually I can understand the majority of people that speak in spanish, but he's not in the majority. He's got three teeth and by the looks of it, at the end of the semester he won't have any. Remember....he's a great teacher...no joke! The way he talks and the sounds he makes with his mouth are just incomprehendable. I can get like 70% of what he's saying at times, but that's when he's talking clearly. Oh...I forgot....he has his doctorate for history, so he's Dr. 3-Tooth Willy.

Back to School

So I've tested out all the classes that I was interested in, and I've made my decision on the five classes that I'm going to take:

Argentine Literature (with 5 other foreigners)
Tango (with 10 other foreigners)
Spanish Language (with 2 other foreigners and 12 argentineans)
Argentine History (???)
Basic Processes IV (with 30 argentineans)


Basic processes is a psychology class for the second semester of the second year for psychology majors in Argentina. What am I doing taking the course? I have no idea...but seriously for my Global Studies major this class should be able to count for one of the requirements. At first it was a little overwhelming because I sat there surrounded by 30 argentine students, the professor and the auxillary teacher. However, everyone was really nice to me, even though it's hard for them to say my name.

I tried the class called International Negotiation but I didn't like it because it was pretty much a business class. I don't see myself as a businessman.

Everyone one of my classes meets once a week for about two hours and I have fridays off. Also, I don't have class on Mondays until 8pm, so I almost have a 4 day weekend every week. :)

I miss all of you so much!

Travelling in Argentina

The last few weeks I haven't been doing much. I was running almost everyday, but I developed shin splints so I've had to take some time off. A few of my classes have started and I love my class called Spanish Language because it is teaching me the little nuances of Spanish Grammar. It's a really difficult class, but it's great. I've also attended my Tango class and my Argentine Literature class. I will have started all of my classes by the end of next week. My classes seem really interesting now and I hope they stay that way. I'm really excited to go to my International Negotiation class tomorrow.

This past weekend I went to the waterfalls of Iguazu in the north of Argentina. I had an absolute blast. I went on a beautiful day and I took some great pics...they are all on facebook. I even went on a boat that went under the water falls and in the devil's throat (nickname for one part of the falls). I also went to the Jesuit ruins in San Ignacio. There, I was able to walk around a former village built by the indigenous people and the Jesuits. It was so incredible that I was left speechless. You really feel that you are standing in a holy place. A great movie about the Jesuits in South America is called "The Mission" starring Robert DeNiro.

To do list:
Open bank account to avoid all the fees from my bank in the US
Plan trip to Chile
Plan trip to Machu Picchu
Go to Montevideo, Uruguay with my Chilean friend
See a Tango show
Go to the theatre
Watch the Brazil vs Argentina World Cup Game on September 5th

He's Crazy...But I Understood Him

On October 11, I will be running 20 some miles in the Buenos Aires Marathon. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm doing it to prove to myself that I can....It's a mental thing. So I'm trying to run at least 4 days a week in the morning, and so far so good. Still, I haven't found a water polo team but I'm not too worried about it because I'm focusing on the marathon. This week I've just been walking around the city trying to get used to it. The other day I was walking down a street and saw a man standing in front of a pile of broken glass with a big crowd around him. He's know as The Crazy Glass Man...original...I know. He's on youtube. Type in El loco de vidrio. Well, this man is very charismatic and a crowd-pleaser. He throws the glass in his face and jumps and marches on the glass. For the final part of the show, he lays on top of broken wine bottle necks with a few people standing on him. So he chose a few guys from the audience. The were australian soccer players....wait, one problem...they didn't spanish and the crazy glass man didn't speak english...so the crazy glass man asked for an interpreter in the audience. I raised my hand and he chose me to help him. So, I explained everything to the guys that the crazy man said, and it went exactly as planned. The crazy man told me that my spanish was really good and that if I'm as nice to the people in Argentina as I was to him, I will make a lot of friends. The australians were really surprised that I could speak spanish. Another day this week, I went to a buffet with my friend from Mexico, Arturo. For about 12 bucks, we ate all the cow, lamb and pig we wanted with drinks and dessert. Argentina is world-renowned for it's meat and now I know why. The buffet was absolutely delicious.

Miss all of you guys!