***Note - None of the photos in the Blog are mine, they are taken from today's newspapers. I have removed this blog. Something else will be up shortly, ... maybe. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Not a lot to say, other than things are going well. Laurence and I have been out and about enjoying all that the city has to offer. Next week, Laurence and I will be heading to Puerto Iguazu to see some incredible waterfalls in a subtropical region of Argentina. Should be fun! Hope everyone is well back home and enjoyed a great long weekend and some turkey dinner. No chance of turkey down here, only steak, pizza and pasta. Ciao Jason [View Full Entry]

---

---

After spending an amazing day in Puerto Pyramide visiting the whales of Golfo Nuevo, I spent my next day in Puerto Madryn relaxing and enjoying my time away from Buenos Aires. I slept in late, drank my morning coffee leisurely and wrote in my journal all the while trying to figure out a way to travel a little further south in hopes of seeing the elusive Magellan Penguin colony of Punto Tumbo. I had considered an organized tour but felt that it was incredibly overpriced; I was determined to find another way. I had enquired about renting a car and found [View Full Entry]

---

---

After a long and arduous 17 hours journey by bus, I finally arrived in Puerto Madryn; this bus, which for whatever reason stopped in every tiny town all night long couldn’t have been worse. Not only was the heat cranked all night long, yes, I was a sweaty mess, but I was also sitting beside this old Italian guy who really wanted to talk with a Canadian kid. Trouble was I understood about 20 % of what he was saying, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Needless to say, I was happy to see the entrance of the Puerto [View Full Entry]

---

---

After nearly a month in Buenos Aires, with no sight of the ocean, it was great to arrive in Mar del Plata. A resort town located about 5 hours south of Buenos Aires, this place is where the porteños (Locals from Bs.As.) come to play. The town is full of fancy restaurants and bars, nightclubs and many hotels. Tourists and Argentineans alike come for one thing... the sun and the sand. The beach in Mar del Plata is pretty sweet, stretching for a couple of kilometres and winding its way around many points and bays. The sand is nice and the [View Full Entry]

---

---

After a late night at the Peña, I awoke the next morning to smell of fresh croissants and the sounds of bacon and eggs sizzling on the grill. It seemed that the birthday weekend would continue and that Laurence was busy preparing a wonderful breakfast. After breakfast was finished, we headed out for an afternoon coffee, after which I was heading to a rugby match that was being played in the Belgrano neighbourhood. I headed north in the subway along the D’ line and emerged in a very posh neighbourhood filled with foreign embassies, mansions and beautifully tree lined boulevards. You [View Full Entry]

---

---

The last couple of days have been filled with incredibly wonderful times and experiences. It began on Friday when Laurence proposed something ‘new’. She had told me that we were going to a ‘peña’, which was a place where folkloric music was played. She had been invited to this place by one of her co-workers whose cousin was playing guitar in the band. When I asked if it was a bar or restaurant or some sort of dance hall, Laurence replied that she didn’t know, all we knew was an address and a time. At 10pm, we were dressed and ready [View Full Entry]

---

---

Last Saturday, Laurence and I headed out to one of Buenos Aires most famous neighbourhood’s, La Boca. We started our adventure on one of the cities thousands of buses that operate on nearly every street in this gigantic city. The buses are all different colour patterns and indicate which company they are owned by. I saw a sign on one bus that basically read, “ Cost of a bus 80,000 Canadian dollars, at that price you can fix it so that it looks better! Let’s just way that I’ve been in worse but there still not that pretty. Over the past [View Full Entry]

---

---

Last week Laurence and I managed to get out and explore some of the city’s amazing parks and plazas. This was a great opportunity for me to see some of the city’s best examples of urban design since it would be these public spaces that I would be studying during my time here. To be honest, I still haven’t quite figured out just how I’ll be ‘studying’ these places but I’m sure it will come to me over a coffee or mate. We began by taking the subway to the Plaza San Martin, supposedly one on BA’s best urban parks/plazas. The [View Full Entry]

---

---

I forgot to mention that during our plane trip from Lima to Buenos Aires, we met a man named Reuben. Our encounter began by Reuben explaining to me that I may be in for a surprise in my shorts and short-sleeved T-shirt when we arrived in BA. He explained that it was winter in Argentina and that my tropical summer clothing may not be adequate for our 3am arrival. After this we swapped introductions and began to prod and tease out information from a seemingly genuine and honest man. We spoke about the generalities of the city, about specific neighbourhoods [View Full Entry]

---

---