Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Total Eclipse of the Goon

Last night in a (semi-frantic) search on the world-wide-web to find cool things to do before I leave Buenos Aires, I came across an interesting page. Keep in mind this is about 1:30 in the morning. TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE HAPPENING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 22 MONTHS! COME SEE IT AT THE PLANETARIUM IN PALERMO!! Holy smokes, I thought, and set my alarm clock for 4:00 this morning (the total eclipse would happen at 4:41). When I woke up, however, I had a strange feeling that something was wrong. I googled the page again. Turns out this event had already passed in December of 2010. I was so excited I didn't bother to correctly verify the date. Unfortunately a friend of mine bothered to get up, too, thanks to trusting my word about this non-existent event. I told her through text about 30 minutes ago that it wasn't happening because it's too cloudy. Whoops! I'll tell her the truth tomorrow in class....

Anyways, seeing as I'm already awake, I may as well do a little update.

1) Failed at the blogpost everyday thing. It's hard! Oh well, I'm already over it....
2) Thursday night I went out for drinks with this nice musician dude I met randomly. He was really nice but the downside was he thought it was a date and I clearly had not been given the memo. How many times must I remind myself that men and women simply cannot be friends in this country? Or maybe my gorrilla mask would help for any time I leave the house.....?
3) On Friday we went on a class day trip to San Antonio de Areco, about 2 hours outside the city. To sum up the bus ride briefly, it consisted of a lot of singing with a Minnesotan accent. "Baby Got Back" has never sounded so good,
donchaknow? Anyways, here are some pictures from this incredibly beautiful estancia....

This is where we ate lunch

Being sung old folklore by an old gaucho (Whatta mustache!)

This is Pablo the horse whisperer. He made a horse lie on its back and made every girl (and several boys) from my program fall in love with him.

We all rode horses..... ate a ton of great food..... I fell asleep in a field...... fresh air! (What a treat!)
All in all, it was incredible. Everyone was really sad to leave.

4) On Saturday, first I went to do my service learning. That was the first day my helping with this boxing class for kids actually worked out. The kids were adorable. (And one of the little girls guessed I was from Spain which is all sighhhh complement.) I'll write more about this another day. Afterward, I returned home, packed up some stuff, Sarah and Tasha and I went to Retiro Station, and we took a train to Tigre.

The night before I had hauled my butt over to Olivos (after getting back to BsAs from the estancia) to pay for a cabin for one night on an island in Tigre. We took the hour-long train ride there, and got to Tigre at about 4:50 in the afternoon (the last boat out of the day leaves at 5!) Quickly, we bought a bunch of water (the tap water there is virtually undrinkable) quickly bought our boat tickets, and made it with about 3 minutes to spare. Three creative but poorly organized girls? I'm surprised we made it at all. The boat ride was about an hour and 45 minutes, which is considerably longer than the last time I stayed the night over there. The details of this beyond perfect experience and pictures..... are for another day.

It's now 6:05 in the morning and I think I can get back to sleep now. Before I go, though, let me do a quick recap of some other things....

5) Arrived back to the city on Sunday night at around 10pm, exhausted, shoe-less (I'll explain later), and happy.
6) Today wasn't too exciting: class from 11:30-6:30, some window shopping with Cody, Photoshop lesson in Spanglish with my friend, Kiosco. Got to bed early.
7) Finally no longer sore from my last boxing class. I was limping for a little bit/going up and down stairs like an old lady with hemorrhoids. I think I'll be ready for some more ass-whoopin' by the Wednesday noon class, though....

Got a calendar FULL of things to do every single night, but we'll see if energy and homework allow for it. I think this is our last week of class before finals which is SO WEIRD. I feel like I've been here forever, yet there are still quite a bit of things I want to do before I leave..... or more people I want to see, rather. I suppose all I can ask for is some sort of closure? Anyways, much love to all, and remember to always check the dates of astrological events before suggesting to friends to wake up at 4 in the morning!


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