I swear, I´m alive =D

I have gotten 6 hours of sleep in the past three days... I have the complete inability to nap, but I seem to pack everything in and not even have time to sleep! I woke up at 10:15 and needed to check out of my hostel by 11. I am not moving very fast today. I´m going to take it slow and then take a bus and head to Mendoza. I think that I will periodically update, rather than sending one big update at one time. It´ll be easier for me to remember, and then easier for you to keep up!

I´ve seen pretty much all of Buenos Aires. My favorite part of Buenos Aires is Palermo. I could just walk through the parks and sit in a garden all day there. It´s absolutely amazing. The downtown city center is pretty crowded and always busy. The main street, Avenido Corrientes has a bunch of flashing lights and it´s crazy. Not my scene. But the rest of the city is pretty awesome. I´ve spent some time in the Cemetary, and at the feria´s. I´ve resisted buying a LOT of stuff. I´ve functioned in Buenos Aires so far on about 500 pesos... that´s less than 200 US dollars for the past five days. Not too bad I guess, but still more than I had planned on spending! What can I say, I´m cheap... or poor. Haha.

While I´ve been here, I´ve met a lot of teachers, a lot of single travelers, a LOT of brazilians (I might have already mentioned that), and a lot of people traveling together. The people I have met so far are great. It´s much easier to talk to people hwen you are traveling. I guess you have that idea that you are never going to see them again, so people just talk to each othere. There´s this guy John here from North Carolina. He just goes up to everyone and talks to them, which I think is the most amazing skill ever. He´s going to be living in Buenos Aires for most of the summer, and staying in the hostel the whole time. I´ve seen the group change a lot in the past few days at the hostel. The first group that I was hanging out with was a lot of fun. We were all around the same age, all spoke english, so that was helpful, and liked to do a lot of similar things. In my first night at the hostel, we went to a tango show, which was fabulous--- as the Irish girl says it, "It was CLASS!" I must admit, tango might not be my favorite form of dance, but the singing at a tango show is amazing. We went back and tried to get food... but we weren´t that hungry. Some people did a McDonald´s run, and others went to the local restaurant (there are restaurants on EVERY CORNER) and brought it back. Needless to say, we were up partying at the rooftop bar in the hostel until about 5 am in the morning, where Adam, this English guy I met here, and I walked to get Pizza. I didn´t go to bed about 6am or 7am in the morning... and woke up a few hours later. I tried to nap. I swear. But i just can´t!

I went to the Cementary here... it´s crazy. They have the craziest... absolutely craziest and beautiful buildings for the famous Argentines. Evita´s was, of course, the popular destination that everyone wanted to go to, but I must say, it wasn´t that impressive. There were some very very very impressive ones, and I took lots of pictures because I´m crazy about architecture. Then I just walked around Recoleta and went to the feria there. It´s pretty amazing traveling by yourself. I just did whatever I wanted. I didn´t buy anything, I had to resist. My bag is heavy, and I kinda want to leave stuff around here... but I´ll be back in Buenos Aires, and I guess that´s how I´ll try and buy things. SEND ME YOUR ADDRESS SO I CAN SEND YOU A POSTCARD!!!
That evening, I went to a Parilla, and had an amazing steak. I must say, I haven´t eaten that much steak here, and I am craving vegetables SO BADLY. They don´t eat a lot of vegetables here. We didn´t get to the restaurant until 11 at night, then we ate, went to a bar, where we met some Irish guys and a few other people. Then we went to this club called Club America. It was a gay club. There were guy go go dancers on the stage. Naked. It´s truly a different world out there. Cheryl warned me about the rape kiss. Apparently, it´s the thing they do here. I don´t even remember what time I got home, but many people at the hostel were making fun of me.

On Sunday I went to the San Telmo fair with the group I´ve been hanging out with in the hostel. The street fair was amazing. Lots of great music, random people doing random things (you will have to see my pictures of them once I can get them loaded...) and lots of cool stuff. I bought some cool earrings for 3 pesos-- only a dollar! Then it started raining, and I really needed some food after my night. So one of the guys I´d been hanging out with got lost from the group and we found some food. I went back to the hostel at about 6pm, and tried to sleep... but couldn´t again. Then I went and did something that I´d been fearing having to do-- eat by myself. I can do a lot of things by myself, but I find eating such a social thing to do that eating by myself was something that I did not really want to do. But I did it. I even ordered in Spanish and everything. I got caught up in my own journaling and watched people. It was pretty cool. I decided to take an easy night, so I didn´t go out that late, and pretty much tried to recover.

On Monday, one of the guys at the hostel and I went to the parks, but they were closed!!! We still walked around Palermo and it was cold, but beautiful. I was still in recovery mode, so I was quite melancholy all day. It was pretty beautiful. We then went to this ice cream place called Volta that Cheryl recommended to me. It was the most delicious ice cream I had ever had. It was apparently pretty swanky. We had to take pictures of the ice cream because it looked really awesome. I´ll put it up when I can. We continued to walk around and hang out at the hostel. Monday night, we went to a disco very close by. It was fun, they played 80s music instead of techno, so I had a decent time. But, seriously, the disco-club scene is not my thing.

On Tuesday, I headed out to the park again and then went to the Japanese Garden, which I absolutely loved. It was a beautiful day, so it was really nice to walk around. I walked around with a brazilian girl that I had met. It was pretty nice. I´ll definitely have to send the pictures. That evening, I finally met up with Tara´s friend and we went to a pizzaria that was a local place and it was amazing. I met a group of people from different places. All from America, so we walked out and it was pretty cool. one of the guys I met is from Piedmont. He lives like two blocks away from me at home. He´s here trying to find work for a few years, and then he´s going to head back. Facebook is apparently a big thing, so I´ve added a few friends via facebook. We´ll all be able to keep in touch. I´ve also met a couple from Texas who are teachers. So the group of us went out and then walked back. We were going to head out to a bar, but I ended up not, and we just sat at the rooftop bar and hung out and chatted and sat outside... which was cold. We all didn´t go to bed until about 6 or 7, and my roommate didn´t get back until maybe 10 in the morning because she went to a disco. I just couldn´t do it. So needless to say, I think I´ve maxed out my partying and will enjoy a much more relaxed pace in Mendoza. It´s been awesome talking to people and playing pool (i´m awful, but it works).

I was going to travel with one of my roommates Fabiani, a brazilian, for my trip. Then we talked to the travel agent guy, and she has such a short time here, that we would only be spending two days in Mendoza, two days in Salta and two days at Iguazu. I couldn´t do it. I´m going to be spending four days in Mendoza, six days in Salta, two days at Iguazu, and spend the last five days in Buenos Aires-- maybe go to Montevideo, since I´m so close. I heard it´s a great town. I decided to skip out on Bariloche because I heard it´s completely cold there, and there´s no snow. It´s also really expensive there because it´s THE ski resort in Argentina. Mendoza will be cold, so I´m going to go find a hat and gloves so that I don´t freeze.

So i´m heading out to Mendoza in a few hours on a cama bus... so I will be able to sleep the whole night and get into Mendoza, and maybe just do some sightseeing around Mendoza.

I´m pretty sure this is boring because the state of my mind right now is functioning off of pretty little sleep... I think I´m just going to update daily. I´ll have more interesting stories of the people I met when I talk to you in person. There are some cool people traveling.

I promise to write more soon.

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