to crawl?

last night we went to dinner at a restaurant on Santa Fe. I decided to get all the vegetable that i havent been getting and ordered a massive salad. Nicky is going all buenos aires and got the steak and a bottle of wine (to share with us). The meal was great and slow but not annoying, everything here is just slower. The only time the lack of organization/efficiency has been annoying was yesterday when we went to the grocery store and i bought what i thought was an eight dollar baileys but it ended up being a little under fifteen because it was mislabeled (still not that bad though). at dinner the wine was a little heavy so we had to start doing toasts to incentivize ourselves to finish it (as nikki does not enjoy the taste as much). toasts went to: safety, hucks and headshots, will spiva, guillermo, there were some others but i cant remember.
today at school i moved up a level into nicky's class and out of nikki's. The teacher was hilarious. She made fun of anything and everything that was not from Buenos Aires. All the spanish speakers especially brazilians, and constantly was correcting our pronunciations into the form spoken here. She actually got a little mad when i joked that kaka was a better footballer than messi. But she liked me because i was the only single guy in the class, and according to her, the only smart one. Surprisingly she was not a fan of siestas, and right after class we walked back and took one. I woke up after about and hour and a half and have been eating and reading around the apartment. Nicky woke up and took a second siesta (its getting out of control).
We are probably going to go on this touristy pub crawl tonight but we arent sure yet.

here is a picture of my dog

siestas

today was the first day of school so we (nicky and I) woke up at seven thirtiesh (five thirty central time) and walked to class. School usually starts at nine, but the first day you have to go at eight. Sadly enough, my spanish was so bad/rusty at the test that I got put in level two of six. We spent the day learning things i already knew but had not looked at in a while. So I dominated all the games and felt like a badass, and the chicos destroyed the chicas doubling their score in all the games. I talked to the teacher and am going to switch into a harder level tomorrow.

Despite the fact that walking around this city can be unfortunate as the motorists love running over people and weaving in and out of one another, the walk to school was very nice (30 min). The main road 'Ave 9 de Julio' is a sixteen lane road split into four sets of lanes. So the open space there is huuuuge. And its nice because I had only seen pretty cramped roads/areas for the first few days. We could actually see the skyline and a sweeping view of the sun and old school big architecture.

I just woke up from this siesta during the 10 minutes where there is not much light around right before sunset but you can still see very well. it feels really good to not wake up in total darkness (to avoid feeling lazy and see the sunset).
Sadly, the level of girl attractiveness at the school could improve.

Personally I want to keep our siesta to fiesta ratio below five but i dont think Nicky is having it, he is all about the siesta (Andy do you have any tips on how to control that).

rules of the apartment
1. wash hands upon entrance/exit and food (no swine flu/illness)
2. fully clothed in the main room (Nicky is the only one who breaks this rule)
3. 30 second cleanups randomly
4. keep siesta to fiesta ratio low

currently listening to "christmas 2008 mix" song "pinch me" . oh the 90s

Counterfeiting and 1st day of School

So after the game last night I tuve mucho hambre (I was really hungry) - Markham and Nikki were less so - but Nikki agreed to go out to dinner with me while Markham opted for the ice cream (strawnilla of course) + chocolate sauce route, a respectable choice. Anyhow, Nikki takes me to this sweet little place without any tourists where there were a bunch of portenos our age eating argentine food. They had a cool tablecloth that you could draw on, and most everyone was drawing. The empanadas were pretty delicious (they are like big dumplings with stuff inside; the one with mozzarella was quite heavy) and because they were out of tamales we got a calzone. They brought out the biggest calzone I have ever seen in my life. Skip to the end of the meal and I try to pay with a 100 peso bill I got at the airport and... it's FALSO! fake, anyhow the waitress was super nice (and attractive) and she showed nikki and I how to tell if bills are counterfeit - and I have a picture for you all of the bill. Anyhow - I think I'm going to have difficulty unloading it on anyone here because they all check - but I plan to get the airport back when I leave and change money to American dollars.



First day of school was good - even though we had to wake up super early (cerca 730) to take a placement exam (which was much harder than Nikki made out). Markham ended up in Nikki's class for the day, but is moving up a level. I was in a class with two other students (one owns a flower shop in Brazil, the other is from Germany) and a cute teacher (markham needs to take her out to dinner.) It was good - basically non stop spanish for 4 hours - and we took some serious siestas afterwards. (Nikki didn't nap because she has a real job.)

Anyhow that's what has been going on.

'second day'

late wakeup and adventures around. there is this incredible tree in a park that we need to get pictures of and put on later.
the soccer game started at 7:30 but before that we went into boca with the group. there was a street dance in front of the restaurant that put dancing with the stars to shame. these two dudes had a kicking dance off stomping the floor extremely loud. intense.
the boca juniors lost the game, but riquelme was clearly the best player on the field. he used to be this huge baller on argentina's international squad, but now he is old. so its awesome that he can still dominate younger up and comers. we had to wait around for an extra half hour after the game so the visiting team would have time to leave and not get beaten up. apparently things around here get a little much, so they get extra precautious
just finished gg season 1...
the back feels better and nicky thankfully didnt go natasha richardson on us

first day Struggle

so everything was going pretty smoothly - we got in, hung out, took a nap, then decided on a sweet place for lunch. It was a nice sit down pizza place about 20min walk that was very affordable - markham and i sampled the quilmo (argentine beer) and it was alright.

We get back, commence the second nap of the day, then decide to drag ourselves awake for frisbee. After a really long bus ride we get to Ciudad Universitaria and find some really nice people who we are ready to lay some pwnage upon. Anyhow a couple points of domination later we are both sidelined. I incurred a concussion - which was the weirdest crap ever, the whole day seemed like a dream trying to remember at first, and it was just weird/scary not remembering everything clearly. About 15 minutes later i remember everything, and when we get off the bus going home i am feeling solid. Nikki (EMT) also checked me out a bit.

Markham strained his back (lower back) which had been bothering him a couple weeks ago - it was bothering him so he stopped playing and nikki carried his backpack home. Anyhow we are super happy nikki is here to take care of us - and glad to be back in the apartment.

I think its gossip girl, food, and relaxation for the next couple hours before bed.

We also met this girl who is from memphis and goes to UTK with rose and notor.

atlanta and getting there

so atlanta airport we had way longer than expected. so looking back, we totally should have gone to the krystals, one last goodbye and stuff.
we walked through four gates of soldiers in uniform just hanging around everywhere. it was strangely normal in that they had laptops and were on phones and stuff. but were huge and could beat us up really easily.
the flight was not bad, no babies. watched a few episodes of gg and read this tight book 'confederacy of dunces'. slept a lot.
when we got into ba we were pretty obviously tourists and our spanish was rusty but we made it to the apartment fine. nikki had food waiting for us and the place is definitely nicer than i expected so it was just a great time to go to sleep.
now we are up and ready to run this city.

Arrival

Got to wear some thug face masks b/c of the swine flu in America - lines weren't that bad - got charged a bit too much for the taxi to the apartment, whatevers. Anyhow here are some pictures of the apartment. Also everyone loves telling this joke about things costing a lot. Like - can i borrow that pen - sure,... if you pay me a million dollars ; how much does the taxi cost? about 1500 dollars!