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Published: February 22nd 2006
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Tigre boat ride
I went with Sarah, Christopher, Mike and Aurelie It was finally a normal weekend, no extravagant craziness. I know you're disappointed, but living a vacation life for so long sometimes gets old. Yes, I'm feeling alright.
Thursday, after I enjoyed a lonely happy hour of two beers for 6 pesos while waiting for some friends, a group of seven of us went to see 'Derailed', the "new" movie with Jenifer Aniston and Clive Owen. There is a cinema in Recoleta Village a few blocks from school, and it's super classy. It has four levels, and it's really like a shopping center. We found this out afterward, but it's the most expensive cinema in Argentina. At 14 pesos, what a ripoff! And for the first time in my life, I had assigned seats in the theater. The lady showed us a seating chart and we were able to pick what area we wanted to sit in. SO neat. The movie was intense, if you haven't seen it. It made me nervous, it ripped my heart out, and it felt like I was frowning in anticipation throughout the whole thing. I guess I recommend it.
Friday, after the weekly BBQ on the school roof-terrace (no meat for me this
Tigre houses
These were some of the cute houses alongside the river time!) we went to a friend's house for a little house party. This was the day that her fan and air-conditioning ceased to work, so that was a sweaty, shiny kind of fun time. Didn't stay too late and was in bed by 2.
Saturday, I met with four others at the train station and we took the hour train ride to Tigre, a province just outside of Buenos Aires that has a river (suprisingly called El Tigre) running through it. I can say that this was the cheapest transportation I've ever heard of. A roundtrip was 1.90 pesos. Yeah. When we arrived, it was like stepping through a country portal. The city was gorgeous and quaint. It reminded my French friend Aurelie of her hometown (northeast France), and it was so green and there were no barreling buses coming at you spitting black fumes. We walked around for a bit and decided to take the hour catamaran river ride for 12p. There was a bar on board, so we sipped white wine while admiring the pretty atmosphere. The water itself is the exact opposite of pretty, it looks as it's downright disease-ridden, but there were areas where there
Boating Accident
I think someone had an accident... were actually swimmers, mind you. We rode up the river and saw many campgrounds, which has given us some ideas, and some very cute houses built all along the banks, with each one having it's own dock in the front. The weather was beautiful and it was a terrific ride. Afterwards, we explored the town a bit more and came upon El Mercado de Frutas. Well, we explored for a good 30 minutes and didn't see any frutas, so it may be some metaphor for all the artisanal crafts that were being sold...ie the fruits of their labor. We found a good restaurant serving abundant eats and the two girls split an enormous 'parrilla' of assorted animal parts like kidney, sausage, intestines, chicken leg, blood sausage. It wasn't the most fun to watch, but I really enjoyed my ravioles al pesto, which came served to me in a cast iron dish on stilts with two candles underneath to keep it warm. Lots of basil and chunky garlic, hhmmm. After stuffing ourself, we walked alongside the river, past many people hanging out with their families, drinking mate. To tell you the truth, there were only about 5% who weren't drinking mate. No matter how hot it is, they will always drink this hot beverage. The sun was hot and we were pretty tired from having started the day rather early, so we were on the 6pm train. It was a mini vacation from my grande vacation. I know, you're telling me to stuff it, but sometimes it's nice to get away from the madness and attitude of the city.
Last night, after taking me 1.5 hours to find them (due to buses that wouldn't stop to pick me up, and the bus driver telling me to get off way far away from where I want to be) I met some girlfriends for dinner and afterward we went to a quiet, dark bar and just talked until 4 in the morning. It was a huge change, because normally there are so many people who are coming and going, no one really becomes close. I was fortunate in Montpellier to meet a wonderful group of people that I was able to get to know and really call my friends. So last night we had lots of fun girl talk and life talk and it made me miss my friends, but it nice to have that chance to meet some great girls. They (Aurelie-French, Jacquis-Scottish, Marie-American, Antonia-Swedish) have been here since I've been here, so we have gotten to know each other. Marie is from Frisco, but she is moving down to San Diego at the end of May, so that is kinda neat. Aurelie and I speak French sometimes, and always text in French, but in group we always speak English. It was amusing, we were in the movie Derailed and there was one part of the movie that is not translated that is in French, a funny dirty part, and we were the only ones around us that were dying laughing. It's nice to have her here.
Tonight I believe we are going to try a Mexican restaurant and then a gay club. I will let you know how that goes!
Will post pictures soon, I think I will sign up for a travel blog website, so that way you can look at the website on your own time and you won't receive so many emails in your inbox (yeah, like I would ever write that excessively).
I learned a new phrase - "¡Eso es el colmo!" (That's the last straw!) Don't really see myself using it here, though
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