Felices Pascuas, Helado and Mad Men...Days 30-32

Felices Pascuas! Or Happy Easter for those of you who have no idea what that means :-) I didn't really do much to celebrate easter, except for eating some very delicious helado for dinner. I figured if I wasn't going to participate in some Easter Dinner action I should at least treat myself to some ice cream. So I did. And it was fantastic. I took the below photo outside of one of my favorite cafeterias/bake shops near my place. The family loved it while they were here too. Especially Thomas I think! They have this drink, cafe con crema where they bring each individual person their cafe and then a container full of real authentic whipped cream. It's absolutely amazing. And I'm not really a coffee person!

Truthfully, I didn't get a ton accomplished over this long weekend. I walked around a bit as always. Studied Spanish by many different methods - Rosetta Stone, Tutoring, and my Spanish Homework. I keep thinking the more ways I study, the more chance I have of it actually sinking in. The below is a photo of what every Saturday and Sunday morning look like for me, sitting outside, drinking tea and going between studying Spanish and reading my kindle. Its one of the best parts of my week!

I also attended a fun pre-pascuas dinner last night which was great. They cooked Philippino food and it was amazing. It was nice to hang out with friends honestly. Really nice. I've been a little lonely, which I hate to admit, but it's just true. So the company was well, wonderful!

I also watched the first two episodes of madmen this weekend. Holy crap do I love that show. Or rather Don Draper. I mean, wow, just wow is all I have to say. Love love love it. And even though I have to pay to watch it here, since things like Hulu are banned, I'm happy to pay every single episode!

Lastly, I've been missing this little guy a lot:

I know he's having a ton of fun at doggie heaven with Linda and T and all of his friends. But still, chilling out and watching TV just isn't the same without him snuggled up to me. See you in 8 weeks little buddy!

Spanish Lessons, the Gym and Gratitude...Days 26-29

One of the days when my family was here, we all had our passports out and my sister looked at mine and said "yours looks so worn and well used, the way a passport should look." And you know what? She's right. My passport is worn and well used! And I love that. I was thinking today of all the places I've been in the past 4.5 years (since I got a new passport) and it made me feel very grateful. Since November of 2007, I've been to Athens - Greece, Budapest - Hungary, Roma, Milan and Venice - Italy, Bangalore, New Delhi, Agra and Mumbai - India, Buenos Aires - Argentina and Colonia - Uruguay. Pretty neat. I wish I'd kept a better record of the trips, but I suppose it's better late than never eh?

I hope that I can add a few more countries and places to that list before I leave here. Chile and Brazil come to mind. I've got to get to Santiago and Iguazu Falls before I leave. I'm trying to convince my sister to come down again to travel around with me, but we'll see, it's really really expensive to come down here so we're still trying to figure out if we can make it happen.

This week is the first week I've really hit the Spanish studying hard. Sure, I've done my Rosetta Stone since I've been here, but that only gets you so far. It took me a little bit to find a tutor, get our schedules to meet up and actually start real lessons. I've had two so far and I love it. Sure, it's really hard, but it's so helpful to have a teacher. And it's kind of fun to have homework again. Even if it involves writing the same thing over and over again - if it helps me learn, I'm all for it.

Just a little photo to show you how I spent some of my time off today. Did I mention that for Easter (or Pascuas as they call it here) we get two days off? Which means I have a four day weekend? Yeah, I do. And it's great. And I promised myself that I would study a lot of Spanish over that time, and so far, so good.

I also promised myself I'd go to the gym since I finally have a membership. And I did that today too, although it kind of sucked. I'm hoping it's just the particular location I tried out (there are many many locations of this gym) because well, it wasn't really great at all. They didn't have a single elliptical machine, which considering the fact that it is the only real type of cardio machine I can use, well, yeah, I wasn't thrilled. (yes, my running injuries are still plaguing me, no, I don't really want to elaborate!) So my fingers are crossed that the bigger locations have better machines and more friendly weight areas. I did walk on an incline though and did my PT exercises, so it wasn't a waste though, so I suppose that counts for something right?

San Telmo, La Boca, and Protests...Days 24 and 25

Days 24 and 25, the last two days with my family and Thomas. Sad! It was so nice having company, the week they were here flew by, andbefore I knew it we only had two days left and it was time to make sure that we saw everything that they had wanted to see. The things left on their list? Go to the Sunday market, see La Bocaand go back to our new favorite restaurant Cumana. And I'm happy to say that we accomplishedallof those things, plus we got the bonus of seeing a protest right outside my hotel the day they left. Apparently protests are quite common here, so it was kind of neat to see as weird as that may sound.

But first up, was the San Telmo antique market on Sunday. Every Sunday, year round, there is a market that lines the street for what feels like miles. I don't actually know how far it is, but it felt like it went on forever. It was incredible. Definitely something you need to see if you come to Buenos Aires. The pictures don't really do it justice, but I did my best!

It was so incredibly colorful.

The crowds were insane, it reminded me a little of times square in that way.

There was even live tango going on in the street! I'm pretty sure this was my mom's favorite part of the whole trip.

Next up was La Boca. Unfortunately we made it to La Boca a lot later than we had intended to, so we missed a lot of the vendors. But on the bright side, it was a lot less crowded by the time we got there, which was a welcome change from San Telmo.

The buildings here were so colorful and fun.

It was a charming little area.

Unfortunately, it's also not a very safe area after dark, so as the sun was setting, we decided to hop in a cab and head back towards our neck of the woods. After a little bit of resting, we headed out for our last dinner of the trip (sad!) Luckily, our new favorite place didn't disappoint. It was just as incredible the second time. And cheap! There is nothing better in this world than wonderful, cheap, authentic food. And that's just what we had.

Their last day here started out like most of the other days. The difference was on the way home, we heard something going on towards the main street, so we decided to check it out before heading back to the hotel. As it turns out, we were right, something was going on. A protest surrounding the Malvinas. We saw it right at the beginning, but it eventually ended up at the British Embassy.

At with that, the week of visitors came to an end. I was really quite sad to see them go. It was so much fun to have company and explore the city with them. Exploring with other people is just so much more fun!

Uruguay...Day 23

One of the great things about Buenos Aires is it is so easy to travel around to different countries. We decided to take advantage of this on Saturday by taking a boat across the river to Colonia, Uruguay. Truth be told, I had no idea what we were doing, I knew there was a boat, and that you could take the fast boat, or the slow boat, but that's all I knew. So I looked it up online, tried to buy tickets only to realize that I don't have a printerand there was no way for me to print them out.So we decided just to show upand take our chances that the tickets wouldn't be sold out.

Our original plan was to head over to the ticket counter really early, just to ensure that we got on A boat. However, due to some faulty alarms and some trouble getting a cab, we didn't end up getting there until oh, noon. The only feasible boat for us to take was at 12:30, and wouldn't you know it was sold out. UGH. Except, they had a waiting list (or a list of "hope" as they call it in Spanish) and they asked if we wanted to be on it. Of course we did! Granted, we were 25 down on the list, but we were already there, so we figured we'd wait. And wouldn't you know we were the very last people to be let on the boat. At boat that is crossing international waters mind you so that meant we had to run to the customs booth, and then run to the boat. Luckily, they didn't take off without us and we were on our way.

The ride was quick, only an hour, and honestly it was very easy. A good way to travel in my opinion. Maybe I'd take some drammamine next time, but that's really the only change I'd make. As it turns out, showing up late for tickets also means you get cheap tickets - we saved almost half by accidentally showing up so late. So word to the wise, if you are willing to gamble, showing up late is the way to save some cash.

Colonia is an absolutely charming little city, and I'm pretty sure we saw every inch of it. It's quite small and we only sat down to eat. The rest of the time we were on our feet, exploring. One of the first things we checked out was a local artisans market - which had really neat stuff, but nothing any of us couldn't live without. Well, my mom almost bought a shirt that said URUGUAY on it, just to prove that she'd been there, but my sister and I convinced her that wasn't the best idea.

Next we went to a park, and took note of the interesting use of old oil barrels.

Every residential street pretty much looked like the below photo. They were just adorable.

As the sun started to go down, I had a lot of fun playing photographer. I might not know how to use my camera all that well, but I do enjoy taking photos. I loved the light in this street.

The below is a picture of the art gallery where my sister bought a lovely print. Again, loved the street. It was just so quaint and lovely.

The last photos I took were of the sunset. Watching the sunset on the ocean is one of my all time favorite things in this world. Someday, I want to own a house where you can watch the sunset every single night. I don't think it would ever get old. I took an embarrassing amount of photos, so I'll only show you one of my favorites.

And that was it for Uruguay. We took the last boat home. Ate the most expensive can of Pringles ever (TEN american dollars for a can of Pringles!) and we were back in Buenos Aires, complete with more stamps in each of our passports.

Spanish, Plaza de Mayo and Hunger Games...Days 20-22

We packed in quite a bit of activity over these three days. One Wednesday while I was at work, my three visitors walked around the ever lovely Recoleta - an excellent choice. They even made it to the famous graveyard there, which I am told is something not to be missed in Buenos Aires. And judging by their pictures, it indeed looks like something not to be missed!

Once they were done with their exploring for the day, they met me in Palermo where I had my first real Spanish lesson. Stephanie even got to sit in, and I will give her credit, she tried really hard to not laugh at my bad Spanish. So I appreciated her for that! But I think it was fun for her to see how I'm trying to learn.

After that we had intended to go to a highly recommended steak place, but unfortunately they wanted a reservation and we didn't have one. So we went down a few blocks and found a hole in the wall place that made amazing pizza and empanadas - it was perfect. Completely perfect!

The next day was a busy one! We had a big day on tap thanks to Thomas and his fantastic planning skills. We trekked into the middle of the city to see the Obelisk, which to me looked very much like the Washington Monument, but still cool! Here is a photo of us in front of it - doesn't really capture the whole monument, but you can see part of it :-)

Then we were off to another monument, this one I'm blanking on the name of right now, but I'm hoping that if I can get Thomas to read this blog he'll be so kind as to remind me, but the photo is below, it was very neat:

And lastly, we found the end of Florida street andwalked all the way down it until we got back to our park. Florida street isn't really a street, it's more a street paved with tiles that people walk down with any shopping option you could ever think of. It's insane. And crowded. And a must do once while you are here. So we did it.

And then we ended up back at our park. Which was a good thing. Because we'd been walking for miles and we were exhasuted and hungry and looking for some good food, which of course, we found. You know how we know it's our park? By the massive beautiful tree below, it's breathtaking in person:

The BIG 3-0...Day 19

Well my birthday has come and gone. I turned thirty and lived to tell about it. I thought maybe the earth would stop spinning on its axis just for a second to mourn the loss of my twenties, but turns out, I was the only person mourning anything yesterday!

My coworkers were incredibly sweet and decorated my cubicle for me so that when everyone walked in, they knew it was mi cumpleanos. And there were many hugs and many kisses. So so so sweet, and different than any office birthday I've ever experienced in the states!

After work the family (plus Thomas!) headed out to dinner at a place called DF - not really sure what it stands for, but it's was a Mexican place that came highly recommended and that was good enough for me. What wasn't so good? My address writing down skills. Lets just say that it took us about an hour longer to get there than it should of. And I may or may not have had a tiny mini melt down in the middle of trying to find the place. But there are only three people who know whether or not that happened and they aren't telling.

So yeah, the place ended up being excellent and well worth the trek. The drinks were good, the food was better and the service was even good. Mom even practiced a little Spanish. I was so proud! Of course, as is mandatory in every Mexican restaurant I've ever been to, when you celebrate a birthday, you must wear the sombreros:



And then we all had some delicious post dinner drink, and shared a brownie con helado. It was delicious. It wasn't birthday cake (AHEM mom), but it was better than nothing. (Just kidding mom...mostly!)

And of course the finale of the dinner, the wish:

I can't tell you what I wished for or it won't come true. But I can tell you it was a good one!

We ended the night by all piling onto my bed and watching the Friends episode where everyone turns thirty. Steph, mom and I laughed a lot. Thomas well, he suffered through. But honestly, I think you had to grow up in my house to truly appreciate Friends the way that we do.

All in all, it was a good day, filled with friends, family, good food and only one alleged meltdown - I'd consider that a success in my book.

Los Perros, Family and Last Days in my 20s...Days 13-18

Hola! I was a bit lazy the last few days and didn't feel like writing, so I didn't. I also didn't feel like doing much productive, so instead I read about 3 full books, and watched episodes of Six Feet Under over the weekend. Sometimes you just need a lazy weekend I think! I did of course spend a lot of time walking around exploring my neighbrohood, but that was about it as far as activity goes. I needed to rest up since I have company for the next week!

One of the things I have noticed here the most are the dogs. Or los perros. Granted, I'm a huge dog person, and missing my little dude like crazy, so that's probably part of it. But I swear, they are everywhere! In huge packs, with their walkers. Who knew Argentina had dog walkers? I certainly did not! But the thing I notice the most isn't the fact that there are dogs, but that they are so well behaved. A single dog walker will have 20 or so large dogs and will either be walking them around, barely holding onto the leashes not having a care in the world. And it works! They just walk along as they are supposed to, not pulling or jerking or anything. It's amazing (at least to me, who has to struggle sometimes with my 15 pound dog to keep him walking beside me.)

But what's even more crazy to me than that is that when the walkers are just hanging out at the parks with their dogs. ALL off leash, no fence, just hanging out. And they don't run away! They just play and hang out and people come up and pet them and it's OK. Like it's no big deal for a person to have 20 large dogs, of various breeds, many which we would consider "dangerous" in the US wtih absolutely no way to control them if they were to say "go after" someone. Except they don't. They just chill. It's the coolest thing. It makes me wonder what we need to learn from the Argentinans on how to train dogs! Below is a photo of the dogs I see every day when I walk in the park after lunch, they are the sweetest most well behaved bunch, I look forward to seeing them every single day:

And this laid back attitude towards dogs kind of is representative of what the culture here is like. I can't figure out the right words to describe it exactly, but it is much more laid back here. In so many different ways. I really like that part of living here. Now granted, it has it's downsides, laid back can sometimes mean that the service here isn't what I'm used to in the US. But for the most part the laid back atmosphere is something I've come to enjoy very much.

In other news, my family arrived on Monday! Or part of my family at least. My mom, my sister and her boyfriend Thomas. I am thrilled that they are here and I get to do my best to show them around this city, and hopefully another city or two while they are here. Exploring is so much more fun when you have people with you to explore with! We've already eaten one fantastic meal, and I introduced them to the ice cream here, and I think it's safe to say they enjoyed it. So kudos to my mother for getting a passport and white knuckling it through an 11 hour flight, hopefully she'll think it was worth it by the end.

These past few days officially wrap up my 20s. I'd love to write that I'm handling this with all the dignitiy and grace in the world but that would be a flat out LIE. Mostly I'd like to drink myself into a stupor and pretend I am NOT turning 30. But since that won't do much other than give me a hangover, I'm going to have to come up with a better way to ring in this milestone birthday. Thank goodness I have people here to do it with.