Well, I now have 23 days left in Argentina. Just typing that made my eyes well up with tears. I am writing this entry in tears. How can you not love this country? Ryan and I went to Mardel with Camila and stayed with her family this weekend, and it made me so sad because I had to say goodbye to Camila this morning since she's staying at her house until the end of July for winter vacation. After a very tearful goodbye at the bus station, we were off. Camila said she wasn't going to cry because she was sure [View Full Entry]

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Ok, this is my second try at this. Last time I finished writing and went to save it and lost the whole thing. But anyway it has been a pretty busy last couple of days. I finished the class on Thursday along with the rest of my classmates so we went out to celebrate. It was at Plaza Serrano which was a pretty good distance from my house so I took the subte(subway) for the first time. It was pretty nice, but I still can’t get the ticket to work the first time I put it in. It’s always packed though [View Full Entry]

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The Argentinians are a resourse responsible species. This may be a result of the the localised financial crisis of 2001 when the government froze (and spent) the personal savings deposits of its citizens in last ditch attempt to circumvent bankruptsy. So long as an item is functional, (and I use that term very loosely), it appears that it will not be replaced. An example of this would be the toilet seat in our Aparto in Mar Del Plata. Due to a broken hinge, plastic jaws would literally bite you unsuspecting on the trusero! There was also the case of the majic [View Full Entry]

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Camping our way through South America was not quite what we had planned for our gap year before nuckling down and getting serious about life, but when the global financial crisis catastrophically eroded our expected bonuses, we decided to go ahead with our plans, albeit on a much tighter budget! [View Full Entry]

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Theoretically, South America is the perfect place for your body to have to get over jet lag: lunch at 3pm; dinner at midnight; where the nightclubs don´t kick off until 2am; and afternoon siestas are a way of life. The reality, however, is quite different. Waking up any time from three in the morning, I find myself staring out my bedroom window hoping to see the faintest of light approaching the horizon, but there is none. After pretending to sleep for an hour or so more, I have by now woken Geoff, and we decide to grab some breakfast. We walk [View Full Entry]

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The Argentinians have the art of relaxation down to a mate. Sometimes, this can take the form of taking a chair and sitting on it, be it on a rock ledge overlooking the Atlantic, out the front of a private barista, on a patch of grass, or even in a car park. The chairs ocupant, if male, invariably cradles his proud paunch framed by skin long deflated and cured by the assult of the sun. The women claim their chair beside him, prone, and undaunted by the sharpness of the sun, basking, barely clad in a leopard print bikini with bottom [View Full Entry]

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Like I said in my last post, Ashley and I just caught our flight to Buenos Aires and were off on the next part of our South American odyssey. We arrived in Buenos Aires around 10:00 pm and jumped on a shuttle that took us into the downtown, about 45 minutes from the airport. From the shuttle’s central office we grabbed a cab that took us to our hotel, The Grand King on Lavalle Street, one of the main commercial areas of Buenos Aires. We checked in and tried to orient ourselves a bit, then just decided to wander the streets [View Full Entry]

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Enfin la plage!!! :) Tout le monde nous trouvait folles de passer 12 heures en autobus juste pour aller à la plage (5-6 heures aller et retour) mais ca l'a fallu la peine. Sauf peut-etre pour les coups de soleil qui ont été douloureux pour quelques jours.... We went to the beach for half of the day. It was really nice to fall asleep under the heat of the sun, but we were constantly avoken by the saleemes of any kind, selling swimsuits, mate, sunglasses, gold chains, some kind of a wistle that is supposed to be like a bird but [View Full Entry]

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A todos los niños de la casa nos gustan los parques de diversiones. Si el parque tiene toboganes de agua, nos gustan más! Estuvimos en el parque de Dubai, en el de Bruselas y ahora era el turno de Aquasol, en Mar del Plata! Nos tocó un día espectacular, así que pudimos aprovechar todos los toboganes y la piscina con olas. También, con Gastón y Tomás, nos tiramos del tobogán rojo… el terror del parque ja. Los enanos estuvieron jugando con los abuelos, en los toboganes pequeños y con los flotadores. [View Full Entry]

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Como habíamos arreglado con los abuelos, nos fuimos a Mar del Plata 10 días durante enero. Mar del Plata, más conocida como “La Feliz”, es un importante puerto y la ciudad balnearia más clásica de Argentina. Queda a 400km al sur de Buenos Aires por la autovía 2. Aunque el agua del mar es bastante fría (sobre todo este año), el clima estuvo muy bueno, así que disfrutamos de la playa un montón. Como las playas del centro de Mar del Plata están abarrotadas de gente, desde hace un pa [View Full Entry]

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