Happy Anniversary!

carnaval

more

again

one of my faves



Carnaval floats

They were all so unbelievable!

Group shot at pub crawl

"I survived the Buenos Aires pub crawl"

Beginning of the pub crawl


To me!
Yesterday I hit the one month mark of being in Buenos Aires!
Ok, so alot has happened in this past week. Take a deep breath - this could be a long one :)

I had the pleasure of a new experience as of last Sunday. I was lucky enough to get food poisoning from a restaurant off of their flan. Don't worry, it only lasted a few days and I only had to spend 3 hours in a medical clinic. Boy, oh boy was that fun. Clearly, there's not much you can do for food poisoning, but I had to get a doctor's note to give to the university for missing classes. With our final that upcoming Thursday, it was not a good time to get sick. I finally was able to push through it and go to classes, etc. I'm hoping that was just a one-time thing. For the time being, flan and I are taking a little break.

Last Thursday we had our final exams for our Intensive Month language class. It included a 2 hour written exam and an oral exam after that. The written part was difficult, but I thought I did alright on it. As for the oral exam, I'm pretty sure I may as well have been speaking gibberish. Maybe it was just because I was nervous, but I had a difficult time responding and was pretty sure I made absolutely no sense. But what was done, was done and I was ready to celebrate.
So celebrate we did!
That night we went on the Buenos Aires Pub Crawl (http://www.pubcrawlba.com/pub/index.php?lang=en) in Palermo. We had a blast - we all met in a plaza for beer/wine/pizza/empanadas and mingled for about an hour. I think there were close to 40 people on the tour. After that, we went to 3 different bars. At each bar we got a free shot and all drinks were 2 for 1. After the 3 bars, we went to a nightclub called Lost - our cover charge was taken care of and we didn't have to stand in line. We danced until about 5:30 in the morning and then decided to call it a night. All of this for 60 pesos (roughly $20) was so very worth it.
Friday I had class at 10 to go over the exam and find out our grades.
Yes, I did go.
As for our grades, I ended up with an A- in the class, so maybe I made some sense when I was talking after all!!!
Saturday (yesterday) a bunch of us got up bright and early and headed down to the bus station for a day trip. We all went to Gualeguaychu (pronounced Wally-why-chu) for CARNAVAL! http://www.welcomeargentina.com/carnavales/index_i.html
For those of you who don't know what Carnaval is, it's basically the Mardi Gras of South America. And it's amazing!
After standing in line in the hot sun for 3 hours to get our tickets (with the help of tasty, cold beverages), we all went to a grocery store and bought a bunch of food to have a picnic. We played in a park for a bit - yes you read that right - and then went to the beach for a while. All in all it was a pretty relaxing day. We finally went back to Carnaval around 10:30pm. People watching was unbelievable there - anything from elaborate costumes, hair and even dressing up as french fries to wearing almost nothing at all! We got tickets for the nosebleed section to watch the parade, but it was still amazing. The floats and dancers were so dressed up and everything was bright and big and sparkly and colorful! And the music was fun as well. So we watched the parade and danced to the music and just had a good time until about 3:30 am.
Our bus home didn't leave until 5:50am so we had a few hours to kill. We just went to a restaurant and wound down for about an hour - at this point some people were falling asleep at the table. We were all pretty tired.
Eventually we made the walk back to the bus station and waited for about a half hour. The minute, no probably the second I sat down, I was out.
Today has been all about the sleep for me. I slept until about 2:30pm. And I'm still tired. Definitely going to bed soon.
After I pack.
Tomorrow we leave for Calefate which is in the southern most part of Argentina in Patagonia. Technically, this is our Spring Break, so we get to go there for the week! This region of Argentina is alot colder than the rest (and it's even close to Antarctica!...kind of). We'll get to go to the glacier parks and maybe even hike one of them! My only problem: I have summer clothes, and only summer clothes. I didn't even bring a sweatshirt. Brilliant. And if you know me, you know how much I like being cold :) haha. I'm sure I'll figure it out. We'll be there until Friday - I'm sure I'll have another blog with our ice glacier adventures.

Whew! I think that's everything. For now.
Love and miss you all!