Chaska in South America

Yesterday marked 6 weeks in Buenos Aires for Matt and I. Time has gone by really quickly, but at the same time it feels like we’ve been here forever. Like I said last time, I truly feel like I’m living here now and have gotten into somewhat of a routine with work and life in general. At first the Argentinian Spanish was really difficult for me to understand, but I’m really feeling like I’m starting to understand it a lot better and am even starting to speak more like an Argentine. They honestly don’t understand me if I don’t pronounce my y’s like j’s, so I’ve had to conform!
Aside from yesterday being our 6 week mark here, it also happened to be my 26th birthday. As my friend Leeza pointed out to me, this is the third birthday I’ve spent out of the U.S.(I turned both 22 and 24 in Spain.) I had a really nice birthday yesterday. Although it was definitely one of the most random birthday celebrations I’ve had, it was a lot of fun and a great day. Just by chance, all my classes were cancelled yesterday, so I ended up having the whole day free. As I’ve told some of you, the shopping here in Argentina is awesome…the cutest clothes and shoes and at really great prices because of the exchange rate. Kristy or Nanette, if you read this, tell Maria Nodarse she was right about the shoes! Since I’ve been here I haven’t allowed myself to buy any clothes at all because I really need to save every penny for my future travelling and because I don’t have room to bring anything back anyway. Yesterday I let myself buy a few things, and it was great. Afterwards I went to dinner with a really random group of people…several of whom I met for the first time last night! It’s a long story, but there were 8 of us total and we had a really great time at an Italian restaraunt called El Arte del Mafia, which has an Italian Mafia theme. There were more Argentines than Americans, so we spoke Spanish the whole night…I’m so glad to finally be making Argentinian friends!
Aside from the friends from last night, Matt and I, very randomly again, met two really cool s last week–one American (from Burbank, CA) and one Canadian. We met up with them for the first time last Sunday and went out for a drink in San Telmo and then invited them over for dinner the next night. Matt made his “famous fajitas” (Madrid posse, I’m sure you remember these!) in our less than professional kitchen and we had a great time having our first dinner guests over. The s have both been travelling for the last couple months and left for Rio and Peru the day after our dinner party. The American, Maiko, will be back in Buenos Aires in a couple weeks and will stay through December. She’s really cool and we’re looking forward to meeting up with her when she returns.

Here are some photos. I hope you enjoy them!

Here’s the birthday dinner at El Arte del Mafia. The on my right is my friend Carina who is Argentian and teaches English for one of the schools I teach for. The guy across from me is Roy, one of my students. The across from Matt is an Argentinian English teacher who works with Matt (one of the people I just met last night!) The guy on the left side of the table at the end is Joseph. Joseph is from Kansas and teaches for the same school as Carina and I…the thing is, I didn’t meet him through the school. We met randomly met in the street last week! The next to him is his Argentinian fiance, and the guy across from him is one of his students (both new friends as of last night!)

This was an early birthday present on Wednesday. Matt surprised me with this delicious treat we learned about from the American and Canadian s we met last week. You all HAVE to try this. You cut up a strawberry and put it in between an oreo cookie. They’re called strawboreos and they’re amazing!!!

Here we are enjoying Matt’s famous fajitas. Maiko is the American and she’s the one in black. Kirsten is the Canadian and is sitting next to me.

Here’s Matt working his magic in our HUGE kitchen. The whole kitchen fits in a space that is smaller than my closet at home!

I wanted to update everyone on how things are going here since I didn’t really have the chance on my last post. I also have a few more pictures that I wanted to post. Well, it’s now been over a month since Matt and I got here. It’s pretty unbelievable. I definitely feel like I’m really getting to know Buenos Aires and I really feel like I live here now, instead of just visiting which is what it felt like at first. I just started subbing a couple new classes for a that will be gone for a month, so I’m now working 23 hours a week instead of 18 which I started out with. My students are all really cool people and I’m really learning a lot about Argentina from them…I feel like they’re teaching me a lot more than I’m teaching them sometimes! I just got a lesson on exactly what happened with the economy here in 2001 and why people are still out picketing on a regular basis (like every Tuesday and Thursdy right in front of our house with huge drums and megaphones!) I had an idea of what happened, but my student really explained it to me in simple terms and now I feel like I fully understand the situation, which is good so I don’t feel like an idiot every time the topic comes up! I’ll have to say that the generalizations about Argentines being stuck up or full of themselves that many of the travel books and people that I’ve talked with told me is definitely not true. For the most part the people here are so incredibly friendly and are really wonderful people. They love to talk and will talk your ear off if you let them, but that’s much better than the opposite. A couple of you wanted to know what the local people look like here in Buenos Aires. They look as different from each other as Americans do. Argentina is a country where people from many different cultures, primarily European, settled so the way the people look is really diverse. There are a lot of light skinned, light haired people as well as lots of people with dark features. The way people dress is really European, I felt like I was in Spain looking around at how people were dressed when I first arrived. The mullet is HUGE here! Just about every young guy has one and some have what Matt and I have started calling the “super mullet”, a really long, stylish one. Even young business guys have what we now call the “executive mullet.” It’s pretty funny.
Matt and I went to a travel agency the other day to change some dates on our tickets. As I’ve said before, I don’t think I’ll be able to stay down here for a full year like I had originally planned due to money. As of now, we’re staying in Argentina till December 9. We only have our apartment till the end of november, so we’re going to stop working then as well and spend the last week here travelling. December 9 we fly to Lima and will take a bus from lima to Cuzco, stopping several times in different towns. My good friend Leeza is going to meet us in Cuzco! I’m really excited to see her, and she may come with her boyfriend Pepe, who is from Mexico. We’ll all spend Christmas in Cuzco with my relatives, and then Matt has a friend coming to visit for a couple weeks just after Christmas. Matt and I will then be going to Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and finally Guatemala before coming home in mid April. That’s the plan for now anyway, but I may decide to stay a bit longer and change my ticket again. If I do, I’ll stay without Matt and leave him before going to Venezuela, but I’ll have to see how things go and if I can afford it. I’m really enjoying my time in Buenos Aires, but I definitely am looking forward to travelling and visiting smaller towns. Big city life is fun and exciting, but I can experience big cities anywhere in the world…I really want to experience some of the more traditional South American towns and culture.
Here are some more pictures of Buenos Aires that I didn’t get a chance to post before. I hope you enjoy them!

This is Congreso, the Congress building. It has a cool plaza in front of it, where I’m sitting in the picture.

Here is a really typical street scene in downtown Buenos Aires. There is lots of traffic all the time!

This is the Sunday street market in San Telmo that I told you about in the last post. There is a big outdoor antique market in this plaza and people selling things and performing in the streets all around.

Some street performers in San Telmo.

Tango is huge here in Buenos Aires and is all around. Here are some tango dancers, dancing in the streets of San Telmo near the Sunday market.

Here is the view from our apartment. The bank on the corner is where the super loud picketers set up every Tuesday and Thursday.

Here’s another view from the apartment. This was actually the day of the marathon, and the commotion at the end with all the people is where the finish line was.

Speaking of the marathon, here’s Matt coming in to the finish line. Just kidding, he’s actually running across Avenida 9 de Julio tying to avoid getting hit by busses or cars…I thought it was a pretty funny picture.

This statue is in the city botanical gardens. Matt and I thought it was hilarious. The gardens are actually really beautiful, and I wish I had more pictures. I’ll have to take more.

This is Sunday in a park in Recoleta, which is one of the wealthiest areas in Buenos Aires. They have a weekend outdoor market with a lot of really great jewlry, leather goods, and other stuff.

Antiques are a really big thing here and there are tons of shops and markets specializing in them. Here is an antique seller on wheels in an area of town called Palermo.

Ok, I finally have been taught how to upload pictures...wow, it's kind of a big ordeal! It's a lot harder for me to put pictures on my blog than it is for Matt to put on his, so it's ... [Continue reading this entry]

Today is a holiday here...it's called El Dia de la Raza, which means Day of the Race or something. Basically, it's Columbus Day. I didn't know it was a holiday till Friday. If I had known, I ... [Continue reading this entry]

Sorry to all of you that I promised to keep updated via this blog and have so far not written a single thing! I just haven't sat down at an internet cafe long enough ... [Continue reading this entry]