Buenos Aires: Day 13 (I think …)
Where did we leave off? I can’t even remember! Well I don’t think that I was able to tell you all about my wonderful weekend adventures, so let’s start with those!
Friday: Last Friday was our first day off, so naturally we slept in. Which in my case was 11 because I had a project to work on. :( Stupid school! I mean … I love school … Anyway then in the afternoon we pretty much walked all over the city. We walked from Retiro neighborhood to San Telmo (I think) which took a couple hours (given we did stop for a huge lunch at a monastery. THAT was interesting!) and then we took the Subte (subway) back home. It was the first time I’d taken the subway on our trip so that was fun :) Ish.
Saturday: On Saturday we started the day absurdly early, and to top that off we had straight up sugar for breakfast. I’m not kidding. We went to visit Café Tortoni, which is a very famous café in BA. (Let’s face it, what isn’t famous in this city?) Our teacher told us if we ordered chocolate con churros he would pay. Who am I to turn down a free ticket to diabetes town? Again, not joking. So we get our hot chocolate, and it’s the richest, chocolatiest (don’t judge my word making up skills), most delicious thing I’ve ever had. I had to put milk in it just to make it drinkable. And the churros were deep-fried heaven covered in sugar. Not powdered sugar. Just regular sugar. It was crazy. And afterward I felt TERRIBLE. That was the most sweets I’ve eaten in weeks! Then we went to the Casa Rosada which was AWESOME! I seriously loved it. Even though I know nothing about Argentine politics, it was kind of awe-inspiring to walk through so much history. I took a crazy amount of pictures (nice segue into “COMMENT ON MY PICTURES!). Then we went to lunch and I had the best empanada of my life! I’ve been eating a lot of empanadas because they’re all so cheap! When I get home I won’t even be able to look at one the same way.
Sunday: Sunday was definitely my favorite trip. We went to El Tigre, which is this humongous river delta, with over 100 rivers flowing into one massive one. It’s kind of like beach living, except (obvs) it’s a river, and to get anywhere the residents have to take a boat. It was a cool/completely unique experience. For lunch we stopped (by boat obviously) at this amazing barbeque-ish type place. The food was TO DIE for! It was all different types of meat smoked to our carnivorous pleasure, and the savoriest (did I make that word up too?) bread I’ve ever had. I know it sounds like I’m exaggerating a lot about food, but literally the food here is incomparable (at least by my standards. I haven’t really travelled a lot). I’ve certainly had food I don’t like, but for the most part everything is delicious! Anyway, that has nothing to do with El Tigre. The best thing was the relaxation, and ease of it all. We could do whatever we wanted for a few hours, the weather was perfect, we were right on the river - it was simply heaven. After a week of being in the city it was nice to breathe.
So Monday-Wednesday (we didn’t have class on Thursday because it was cemetery day) was a boring blur of classes. Wednesday night we did all get together to try Mate (it’s a type of tea that has a lot of interesting social properties) and we just talked for a few hours. It was really nice. Thursday I was sick so I stayed in all day until almost 10 pm when I got hungry and a few of us went to get pizza next door. Today, though, was an adventure!
We started at the Eva Perón museum, and even though I didn’t know much about her when I went I certainly learned a lot. She might just be my new hero. I definitely want to do some research on her when I get home. We were in a different part of the city, and the zoo was across the street so a few of us decided to go. As zoos go it was alright. There were some obvious problems - some animals were injured, you had to pay extra to see anything cool - but it was fun to do something completely on our own. It was an excursion that wasn’t planned, and it had nothing to do with history. Plus there were these cool rabbit/deer (I promise that’s what they looked like) that were running around everywhere and that was adorable.
Then tonight we went to this VERY STRANGE experimental play, and it was far across town, and I was sure I was going to die in the taxi, and the ride was longer than the play. But it was actually pretty funny. The real adventure was getting home. Now, if you know me, you know I hate walking. It’s something I’m getting over since we walk EVERYWHERE, but even so it’s not my favorite. And in order to get to the subte on time (because we had NO FREAKING IDEA where it was, and it stops running at 11), we had to walk VERY fast (okay fast by my standards). And it was cold. So by the time we reach the subte we’re pretty sure we’re not going to make it, and even if we do make it we just know we won’t make the connection. But we try for it anyway. And we miss our connection by two seconds. But actually it was okay because another one came 10 minutes later. BUT we were just SURE that it was the last train of the night. God heard my prayers :) So it may not sound as crazy at it felt, but trust me I was scared I wouldn’t make it home. Mostly because when we were looking for the subte we were in a pretty sketchy area and I thought we would die. But I’m making memories and that’s what counts :)
The positive of my adventures today is that I’m now pretty confident that I can navigate my away around the subte. That makes me very happy. To setting the world on fire in 2012!
P.S. If you read this whole thing you must love me A LOT! So I love you back :) But if you didn’t I hate you and I’m going to hire a zombie to attack you!
