BA BA BA BA BA!! I LOVED Rio de Janeiro, but Buenos Aires is a city that I unexpectedly fell in love with! I can't even understand it myself, how I came to enjoy the city so much, but I think the combination of people, beauty, experiences and history in the city really just made for the perfect combination.
Right...so I wrote that paragraph about 3 weeks ago, and I can barely remember all of the things I wanted to write about this city!! Arghh! I'll try my best to remember what I can about what I did..
Friday:
Got into the city after a ridiculously long bus ride that actually played some good movies (Crossing Over or Crossing Borders is a recommendation I have--it's just like Crash except it has to do with immigration). Got to my hostel and after settling in to my dorm room where I was the only english speaking person, I realized that Coldplay was in town and I could still get a ticket!! A miracle!! I bought an insanely expensive ticket from my hostel and ended up convincing a Brazilian guy, Vinny, to get ripped off as well and he came along with! An amazing night minus the fact that I could barely see the band unless I watched the screen or Vinny picked me up! I do think that Coldplay needs to step it up a bit though since the show hasn't changed much since the last time I saw them.
Saturday:
A day of shopping on the famous Florida Ave. Not very impressed but I managed to buy some things and all at great prices since the currency exchange rate is amazing here. I spent the day on my own just walking around, taking in the sites and sounds of the city. At night I met a great group of friends--2 americans, 2 english, 3 israelis and 2 aussies--to go out with for a night on the town in the famous BA. Unfortunately for us, BA actually enforces building code regulations and the clubs we tried to get into were full. So no crazy night out for me.
Sunday:
Spent the day with two californian girls I met in my dorm room in the posh neighborhood of Recoletta. We hit up a hippie market for the afternoon looking through stands of hats, pants, matte cups, shoes, and every other kind of trinket available in the world. After that, we went to this huge metal flower that opens and closes with the sun! Pretty neat, except I think you would have to sit around all day to watch this thing open and close, and I am not sure I have the patience for that. Then we went to this huge cemetery that was basically like a neighborhood of coffins. Creepy but cool in a way. But also a huge waste of space. I really think cremation is the way to go. Wasn't a huge fan of these girls from Cali. They tried to pretend like they were European too much. SO ANNOYING!! Just accept it ladies: you're American. No cool accent or funny ways to talk. Just plain old American.
Monday:
My first day of Spanish classes started today! I signed up for one week of class to try to pick up the language. First class went really well. I am definitely the star pupil in the class. =) After class, I just relaxed a bit and caught up on some picture transfers and I got a ticket to go to a show called La Bomba de Tiempo. Super cool drum show where a lot of people were most certainly getting high, but the beats were awesome and it was definitely a good time. The hostel provided a crazy party bus back and there was party that night, but I ended up missing it bc I booked my Inca Trail trek that night!
Tuesday:
Second day of class--one of the German girls has a tattoo of two squiggles on her finger that look like a mustache when she puts her finger under her nose. WOW. I just had to share that. Not sure why someone would get that kind of tattoo, but then again I have heard of worse (i.e. a Lays Chip on a shoulder..chip on your shoulder..get it??) After class I headed down to Puerto Madero and walked endlessly and in the relentless sun basically wanting to fall over and die because I thought I would melt. The port had a cool retro looking ship, and if I had waited to go by a day or two, I would have seen a lot more bc BA was celebrating it's 200 year anniversary. While doing my homework that night I made my new best friend for the week, a guy named Daniel from Australia.
Wednesday:
Today in class my teacher told me not to talk during an exercise. Seriously? Yup. She wanted to give the other 3 girls in class a chance to answer the questions. Not cool. She was totally holding me back. After class I met up with Daniel and he took me to San Telmo, another cool neighborhood of BA, and he took me to some great shopping places!! Oh this city totally made me go broke. haha. Spent the afternoon walking about the neighborhood shopping, and just hung out at night. It's too hard to go out at night when you have to get up for class in the morning. What was I thinking??
Thursday:
Another day in class. But I've made a friend from a different class who I might hang out with later. Spent the day with Daniel again in San Telmo. I really like this neighborhood even though I heard of some people getting robbed here. We spent a lot of the day just trying to find an ATM for him to get some money out of bc he wanted to buy a painting. A waste of the day for me?? Kinda. But I didn't mind. It's nice to have someone to hang out with. Decided to go out on the bar crawl my hostel was advertising. Omg. Met up with my new spanish class friend, but he was definitely interested in me more than I was interested in him. So the night was mostly spent artfully avoiding him or trying to hang out with as many people as possible, which was do-able since we met this great group of Aussie girls who managed to rescue me anytime I needed it. Got home in time for sleep for about 2 hours before heading to spanish class.
Friday:
Last day in class was a nightmare. I could barely stay up and I'm pretty sure everyone could tell I was a little hungover. Or just extremely tired. What a bad day to not bring my A game to class--we were learning the verb 'tenir.' haha. After class I realized that I only had one full day left to see two more neighborhoods in this amazing city so I skipped the nap and headed straight to the super ghetto neighborhood of La Boca. Ghetto because if you walk of the one main street you are pretty much guaranteed to get robbed. That is why there are police at every side street telling you not to go down the road. The main street is awesome though! The buildings are so colorful and beautiful, it's hard to imagine that every other street is so crime ridden. Sad. After that, I hopped on the subway and headed to Palermo, the land of beautiful parks and good shopping. I got off the incredibly hot and sweaty, non-airconditioned subway and walked into the first park I saw. I was met by an entire population of stray cats that scared the crap out of me and a swarm of mosquitoes that basically ate my alive. The mosquitoes here are rabid! I swear! They are HUGE and I was killing them while they were biting me!! So horrible! I basically ran out of the park only to see a sign about Dengue Fever at the entrance. Fantastic! I basically upped my chances of getting Dengue fever and have no vaccination for that. I got back to the hostel bitten up thinking about the relaxing evening I was going to have, but somehow got convinced to go out with two of the guys who worked at my hostel and their friends. So I hop into a car with these two guys and their friends and the driver is doing some questionable things while driving and I am not so sure about what I've signed up for since the other 3 ppl invited from the hostel are in cab, but we manage to make it to the club in one piece. After a night of dancing the guys, Guestan and Ale (short for Alejandro) took me to the park next door to the club where I managed to get 65 (not exaggerating at all) mosquito bites in 15 minutes. Probably the worst ending to my stint in BA, considering I already had 10 dengue fever bites from that evening. I got back to the hostel in time to shower and hop into a cab to catch my flight to the next part of my trip which was El Calafate in Patagonia.
Even though I basically almost got dengue fever or malaria or yellow fever (extreme exaggerations) from my time in BA, I still loved it there!! I didn't blend in as well as I did when I was in Brazil, and old Argentine men were quick to tell me they thought I was pretty...ew. Don't they have wives?? But I learned some espanol, and I met some amazing people, and I definitely got to experience what Buenos Aires has to offer. I am happy excited to see a new part of South America though when I go to Patagonia. No more cities and pollution..just nature. It's supposed to be like another world. Can't wait!
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