Its Hard to Describe in Words

Nothing I can put in this blog could begin to descibe my experience down here so far. This city just has a vibe about it that grabs you from the start. Im approaching the end of my first week in BA and I must say this has been by far the best vacation I have ever been on and possibly one of the best weeks of my life. Ive almost come into a bit of a routine between spanish class, working out, and going out of course. I havent missed a night since I have been here and most of them have gone well into the morning. And though it all I have somehow been able to pull myself together for classes every morning at 9.

As far as my spanish goes, it doesnt. Im picking it up in class, but as soon as you leave all of the psople I am around from the school speak english. This makes it really difficult when you are jumping back and forth between languages. My rommie who I have been hangin out with alot is leaving this week so Im going to try and stay away from anyone who speaks english for one week and see what happens. At this point I am commited to learning this language over the next year one way or another.

Over the course of the first week I have been hangin out people from all over the world. Germany, Norway, Finland, Brasil, France, Austrailia, England, and the US. Everyone is really friendly and all looking to meet new people on there travels. Its really fun to hear the stories of where everyone has been and where there going. Everyone is really passionate about there voyage through the world and its alot of fun to share stories about all experiences. During the week we went out to a bunch of local pubs that were reallt similar to a irish pub in the states. For the most part it was really chill, but we still seemed to find ourselves there until 3-4 in the morning. Im not really sure how many people under 30 work in this city because when were leaving some of these places they are still coming in and staying until 6 in the morning during the week. This weekend we went to one of the best clubs in South America and it lived up to its name. Basically its Huge, right on teh water, has a removable roof, 5 different rooms with different music, and more beautiful women from all around the world than you can imagine. Both friday and saturday night we were there as the sun was coming up. I can honestly say I have never had the desire to party that late before, but down here its just different. Check out the video of the german guy dancing. We got a pretty good kick out of it before we went home.

One of the best advantages of coming down here is the price of the food. You can literally have a first class dinner with wine for under 10 bucks. The equivent of a 50 dollar meal in the states. I have taken advantage of this having some unreal steaks and wine at a few nice restaurants. The best ones dont look it from the outside and rather look a little dumpy, but the food and service is out of this world. Its sure nice to be able to eat tenderloin as much as you want for the price of a meal deal at mcdonalds.

Sorry for not putting many pictures on here yet. I am having problems with my camera and cant get them downloaded at the moment.

On saturday I met up with a couple locals who work with one of my friends back in Ohio. I pulled some new york style travel going from subway to train to get outside the city to the suburbs. The beauty of this area really show when you get away from the central area where I live. It seemed to be a really high class area along the river. There were alot of nice restaurants and shops all over. Omar and Naty took me out to eat with there kids to a very unique bbq place. There were constantly cooking every type of meat you could imagine in like 3 different rooms (pics to follow). Thoughout the meal you just order whatever you want to try and they take it right off the grill and you have it within a minute. The suprised me with a couple of unique items such as intestines, Blood meat, and kidney. Of course I had to try it to get the full experiece and the jury is still out, on most of it but I dont like kidney. After sampling some of the local treats, we ordered ribs or cow and lamb which were unreal. They have this gelatin style sauce which is a great addition to any type of meat. I was putting in on my fries, bread and meat. After we went to eat we took a tour around the area. We saw a very old church that is being renovated and then went to a shopping mall to check out the scene. The river from the ocean comes right by this town and t has a really nice boardwalk on it where everyone is laying out fishing and out baoting in the river. The marina is just like something you would see at any major lake or river in the states. Being a fisherman I was curious on what all the guys were fishing for. I soon found out as I saw a guy pick up his stringer with 2 nice carp on it. I told Omar that carp are a junk fish in the states and he couldnt believe it. I guess they love it down here. Gross¡¡ After the river we went to Natys mothers house to pick up there daughter. We hung out there for awhile and shared some Mate. Mate is kind of like a tea served in a hollowed out piece of wood and drank through a straw. Its a very traditional drink down here and is only enjoyed around friends as you pass it around to all in the group. I had a unreal expereince getting to spend the day with them as they were great peopel and treated me like part of the family. Im going to get together with them later on my travels to have dinner at there house. Im looking forward to it.

Sunday started around 2 in the afternoon for Tom and I as we didnt get to bed until 8 in the morning after enjoying a great mcdonalds breakfast with the brazilian girls. We walked down the an area in San Telmo where they have a flea market style set up down one of the main streets. There were alot of street performers and great places to eat and get some fresh squeezed orange juice which I really enjoyed alot. We even attempted to go to a catholic church for mass, but we thought it started 2 hours earlier than it did. Later in the afternoon we met up with a couple local girls we met earlier in teh week and went down the the historic neighborhood of La Boca which is home to one of the best soccer teams in Argentina. Its known to be a extremenly poor area which was clear as we drove in and saw some of the shacks that people live it. The area did have a nice little tourist area with similar shops and vendors to earlier in the day. We sat down for a lunch with them and then headed for home.

Well that is the basics of my first week down here. I should be able to figure out how to get all the pictures on here to better describe all of this soon. Chau¡¡¡

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Videos from "Its Hard to Describe in Words":

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