The heat is making CJ crazy

¡Hola amigas!

We have now been in Buenos Aires for a week. City hot is so different from country hot. CJ sort of started losing his mind yesterday and seems to need to get out of the city to recuperate, so we are hoping to go to an estancia in the country on Saturday to ride horses and barbecue and be near some trees. That said, Bs As has been super fun and maybe a little irresponsible and debauched. I think we have turned over a new leaf as we left the hostel yesterday and rented a room in a house in San Telmo along with three Brazilian students and two friends from the hostel, Elsemike and Andreas. It´s a beautiful apartment style house, reminds me a lot of France and San Francisco as all the houses are more vertical than horizontal and just look like doors on the street, but inside it´s all wood and white paint and we have a big rooftop terrace which I am excited to dine and drink and draw on.

We have been doing a nice mix of touristy things and just hanging out...explored the Recoleta cemetary and La Boca, a rough port town where all the buildings are painted a rainbow of colors from the old ship paint. Here you walk around with a thousand people hocking paintings and tango memorabilia and there are tango and bandero performances everywhere you look, which is fun for a few hours. We had a really expensive beer and then napped for a while...the heat here really takes it out of you. Happily the ankle is better and not keeping me down.

Yesterday we bought a soccer ball and played futbol in the park with a very international team: Brazilian, Colombian, Danish, and us Norteamericanas...I was awesome, I have to say. Everyone was surprised that I didn´t royally suck :) :) It was a sweaty endeavor, we were yelled at by an angry Argentinian poppa who thought we were playing too close to his baby, heckled and then joined by a gaggle of young boys, and serenaded by an impromptu drum group. Speaking of which, we went to the most incredible show a few nights ago called La Bamba del Tiempo, which was in an outdoor auditorium packed with young people. The group consisted of multiple hand drummers, different rhythm instruments, a vocalist, and a crazy conductor...everyone wore red jumpsuits and got DOWN. It was super fun. We had a whole evening of Argentinian music that night and a little classic rock. After the drumming we hopped in a cab and careened through the streets to the sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival on our way to a Pena Folklorica, where we heard a young man from the campos in Cordoba sing songs about mother earth or ´pachamamma´while strumming away on his guitar.

We´ve been spending a lot of time with Else and Andreas, wandering the streets at night finding music, drinking wine and getting to know each other. I didn´t expect to meet folks we would have more than a few days with and I´m happy they will be my housemates after Cj leaves. I take a placement test for my spanish classes tomorrow evening (eep!) and start classes on Monday.

Superficial Lessons from Argentina:
1. One does not put toilet paper in the toilet. If there is paper, it goes in the trash can.
2. Don´t try to do anything during siesta time except maybe drink a coffee.
3. Vegetables are not available in most small towns. You will eat bread, cheese and ham.
4. Shaved heads with a mullet/mohawk are super hip
5. Pants that wrap around leaving a big hanging flap in the middle that looks like you are carrying a load down to your knees and then tighten around your ankles are super hip
6. Gladiator boots (thong toes, boots to the ankle?) = super hip
7. Short hair with one long dreadlock = super hip
8. Drink water but only with tang
9. Fanny packs
10. Long, gorgeous, thick, dark curly hair. Don´t cut your hair. Don´t have short hair.
11. Scrunchies
12. Claw clips like from 1995 = super hip way to hold your long curly hair
13. Pregnancy
14. Cigarettes
15. Chocolate

Today we are on operation find water in which to swim!!! Tonight, a milonga to practice our tango moves.