Blog Siesta

Ready for a weekend in BA and then off to Salta for Semana Santa.  Will update after Easter.

Looking forward to seeing this next week!

A little experiment

I never thought I would like blogging, but it can actually be a bit addicting.  Thus, I have decided to expand my experiences in the blogging world whilst doing so in the physical one.  So check out my new blog, All Things Bookish.  It's still in the works, but it's going to be devoted to literature and pretty much anything I love and might relate to books and writing.  Feel free to leave any ideas or suggestions you might have (including a new title maybe?).

"Did you just clap like you KNOW me?"

I heard somebody clapping very aggressively outside the boarding house on Saturday night.  Freaked me out a little bit, so I ran into the common room towards the front door and all the boarders were just sitting there, like nothing weird was going on.   I asked the woman in charge if she heard the clapping and she was just like "oh yeah, that's the man delivering the ice cream."  No big deal.   Apparently if you can't find a bell to ring you clap your hands instead of knocking on the door.  Weird.  Also, apparently you can get ice creamed delivered to your door? GENIUS.  Touche Argentina.

And is it sad that all I can picture right now is about 3000 bookpeople clapping at Mrs. Jones' front door?  This actually might eliminate the whole 3 steps back maneuver and speed things up a bit: clap clap clap...turn to the side, wave to a nonexistent person, and wait. 

San Isidro and Florida

This past week went by fast.  Just school, spin, etc.  I keep forgetting to tell you all about the pastry guy in the cafeteria.  So this guy brings pastries and food to all the staff rooms on campus, which is fairly large.  And instead of pushing the cart like most people, he gets on his bike and rides it while holding the cart beside him - maneuvering over speed bumps, dodging potholes, breaking world records, etc.  I am so impressed. I always want to ask if I can ride on the cart too, just to see if he can do it still without spilling everything.  What a champ.

I hung out with the boys on Friday night.  And I wasn't the only girl because Rosario came to town for the Muse/U2 concert.  And then on Saturday I went into capital and did some shopping on calle Florida.  Got some cheap knock off shirts.  I walked by this helado place so, of course, I stopped and got some.  And there I was just minding my own business, enjoying my ice cream, when this random guys yells across the store in Spanish asking me if I like the ice cream.  Of course I like it, it's ice cream, even when it's bad it's still good.  So I tell him yes in bad Spanish and he's like "Okay cool, I made it myself. I work here."  Oh really?  I tell him good job and turn back to my ice cream but then he asks me if I'm "from Brazil" ?  Okay, I may not look like I'm from Argentina, but I most definitely do not look like I'm from Brazil.  I mean, I wish I did because Brazilians are beautiful, but come on.  I guess it just means I'm moving up the old cultural chain.

After I was done shopping I made my way to the train station to go to San Isidro to see Manu.  On the way though, I had to pass through this park called San Martin, which is beautiful.  But there's this part where you walk down these steps to get to the train station and there's a patch of grass on the incline where everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, on it (and it was quite populated) was making out.  A little lover's knoll.  I really wish I had my camera with me.  Brought back memories of Madrid where people would just start sucking face on the street corners or outside a shop in the middle of the day.  Wow, I miss seeing that. I still don't understand how it's considered rude to stretch or yawn in public, yet making out and picking your nose in front of everyone is no big deal.  Nbd.

Manu picked me up from the train station and brought me to his house.  I finally got to meet his family,  they're so friendly and welcoming.  I pretty much want to be his mom.  She was a teacher and then got into writing professionally.

We had to go get groceries so we went to Walmart specifially so I could get some peanut butter because they're the only place that carries it.  But of course the one Walmart we went to didn't carry it anymore.  I give up.

After dinner we went out with some of his friends and his sister's friends.  It was fun, but of course I fell asleep again.  And, OF COURSE, Manu documented it with a picture.  Thanks for that.  And I learned he has been lying to me all along!  He always told me I was his favorite of EA's friends, but alas, he tells that to everyone.  Mentiroso. The truth is out.

Came back to Quilmes Sunday afternoon, but I took the wrong bus.  I still ended up in Quilmes, but it took 3 times as long and the bus went through some...interesting places.  Not going to make that mistake again.  Other than that, not a whole lot different than before.  Might go see the Flaming Lips tomorrow night, so I'll keep you posted.

La vida facha.

I finally made it into capital during the day.  Victory!  I took a bus to San Telmo, a neighborhood that hosts a “fería” on Sundays.  It’s kind of like a flea market or a smaller version of El Rastro in Madrid.  I picked up my own personal mate, a scarf, and some great boho earings.  Such a buyer...

Hard at work making orange juice.

There was also this cute little old couple selling freshly squeezed orange juice and I couldn’t pass that up.  I managed to snap a photo of them at work.

The head girl from St. George’s, Mary, met up with me and showed me around a bit.  Then she took me back to her home in Recoleta which is another neighborhood in Buenos Aires.  I had tea with her family and they showed me some places I need to go visit while I’m here in Argentina.  So much to do!  After that, we caught a bus back to school with the other boarders from capital.

Cricket is a sport that I’m not very knowledgeable about because it’s not very big in the U.S.  I think my previous experience with it didn’t go very far beyond a brief scene of it in Bend It Like Beckham.  But, being a British style school, it is very big here at St. George’s and I got the chance to watch a match.  Never again.  I’m kidding, it was fun, it’s just that the matches are a bit lengthy.  I’ve heard that some games can even take as long as 5 days.  Rugby is also popular here.  I didn’t realize how big it was outside the UK since our sports sphere in the USA are dominated by football and basketball.  There's even a rugby world cup.

St. George's cricket match.

I’m trying to remember what else I forgot to update yall on since I was sick last week.  Oh, apparently when you’re sick, there is a specific diet here that is a cure all for I dunno, umm, everything.  They told me to eat cheese, meat (which means beef here), chicken, and apples, no potatoes!  I followed it until I overheard them telling that to about 12 other people with completely different calamities.  That was comforting.  But I did discover that antibiotics are ridiculously cheap here.  Plus, you don’t need a prescription.  I think it cost me $4.50 for mine.  Well done, Argentina!  Too bad they made me throw up. 

Had some awesome gnocci last night.  It's tradition here to eat it on the 29th of ever month, although no one seems to know why.  So I did the bus/subte/train combination up to San Isidro last night (quite a feat), and met up with Manu and his cousins for dinner.  His cousin is a chef and made what might possibly be considered the best spinach gnocci in the world.  I just wish it wasn't so difficult to get there and back during the workweek.

Still not used to the night life here.  We usually hang out at someone’s place until 3:30am and THEN go to the discotecas.  We leave those around 6/7am and head back to someone’s house to continue on until 10 or 11am.  Because of this I am proud to say that I have now mastered what I like to call the night nap.  I sometimes fall asleep between 12am and 1am and then have the boys wake me up before they leave.  It’s very hard to get up at that point, but so far the night nap has proven successful.  Well, only if you ignore all the crap I have to take from the guys for falling asleep and being lame.  Now, it’s the mid-morning nap that's a toughie (8-10am nap).  And as far as music goes here, they listen to pretty much the same stuff we do, plus lots of Reggaeton.  Mmmm Reggateon...

Some early morning rockband.

And lastly, I get made fun of a lot.  So I guess not a whole lot has changed since I moved down here.  They're more used to having people from the UK, South Africa, or Australia here, so my "American accent" is deemed horrendous…and apparently very fun to imitate...y'all.  And also, everyone calls me a yankee.  Of course I correct them because I'm more of a redneck (thank God?).  Yankees are from New England.  Like my mom. Nobody likes Yankees, sorry mom.  Also, the Argentine people get pretty offended if someone from the USA says they’re American because Argentina is also part of the Americas.  Fair enough.  I try to cut us sillies some slack and tell them that while they can say they’re Argentine or Argentinean, we can’t really go around saying we’re United-States-of-American because it sounds absolutely ridiculous; so we shorten it to American.  They don’t like that either.  So I always try to avoid it and say I’m Texan or from The States. But Barrett made a fabulous point the other day: While Argies can claim to be from America, us staties are the only people from ‘Merica, the one and only.  Born and raised.


Here are some more pictures from Argentina:

Plaza del Mayo

La fería in San Telmo

Scarves, or bufandas, at the fería.

walking to the beach in Pinamar

La playa

And I’d like to give a quick SHOUT OUT TO JOE WELSCH!  Again.

Food. Warning: it's a long one!

Sorry that it’s been so long since I’ve updated everyone on what’s going on in Argentina.  I wasn’t feeling well all last week so I wasn’t too keen on sharing the details.  But there’s nothing a long weekend at the beach can’t cure!  I went to Pinamar again because it was probably one of the last weekends it will be warm since fall is now here.  It’s a bit weird for me since it’s usually getting warmer this time of year in Texas.  It will be a bit of a shock when I leave winter here in July and head on back to good old 100 F Dallas. 

Anyway I realized I haven’t really shared much about the eating habits here which are quite different then the U.S.  First off, they don’t really eat breakfast like we do.  A cup of instant coffee and a banana or some bread is pretty much the extent of that.  While I don’t mind the coffee, I would kill for some scrambled eggs and bacon, but I guess I’ll manage.  Actually, it’s probably best since they eat more than 3 times a day here, I don’t want to surprise my parents with “a little extra Bridget” like I did when I came home from Spain.  Oops…

Here’s a typical eating schedule:

Breakfast 7:30AM: Coffee and a banana or yogurt.

Staff Break 10:25AM: Coffee or Mate and usually some alfajores or some sort of pastry.

Lunch 12:25PM: they’re pretty good about only letting the students have water here, unlike the US which feeds them milk and cokes.

La merienda (afternoon tea):  Either tea or mate and some banana milkshake!

Dinner 8:00PM: They eat much later here than we do in the states, and I think 8PM is even a bit early for them. 

So as you can see it’s really hard not to have gained 20 pounds at this point, and that’s even with me skipping the second staff break in the afternoon! I guess that’s why I go to spin class.  Well, sometimes ;)

Here's some traditional stuff:

Beef, or lomo, is very common here.  And they cook it quite different than in the U.S.  It’s also very common to have “un asado,” or barbeque here.  But you’ve got to pace yourself because they bring you all these delicious sausages (morcilla, etc.) and so of course, you put it on your plate and eat it, but then they bring you another round with pork and you want to try it, even though you’re getting pretty full.  And then they bring another round, yet again - Café de Brazil style - and it just doesn’t seem to end.

Some other popular things are Alfajores which are a type of cookie.  They’re like a dulce de leche sandwich with a chocolate coating on them.  Dulce de leche is also huge.  They put it on everything: bread, cookies, cake, bananas, ice cream, etc.  Tasty.

A traditional drink here is yerba mate, which is almost like a tea, but it’s more of an herb that everyone drinks.  I think it gets its name from the cup they drink it from which is called "a mate".  It has this straw that has a spoon shaped bottom.  They put in the yerba, add some hot water and pass it around.  Not the most sanitary thing, but it can’t be worse than communion at a Catholic mass. 

Looks a bit like you're drinking pot doesn't it?

Fernet is also very popular.  It’s an alcoholic drink similar to Jagermeister but not quite as gross because it doesn’t taste as much like black licorice (sick).  They usually mix it with coca cola to dilute it a bit.  It’s pretty good, you just have to be careful how much you drink though because Fernet used to be used as a cure for digestive problems.  My favorite drink here though, don’t laugh, is their Manzana flavored Gatorade.   The best.  It tastes like apple juice, but better.  I don’t know why the U.S. hasn’t caught on to this one because it is so much more refreshing than nasty G2 artic glacier freeze chill or something ridiculous like that. 

Oh, and kind of random, all the boarders eat frosted flakes here, but instead of putting milk in, they put vanilla yogurt in their bowls.  I mean, I guess that’s not too weird because we put granola in yogurt, I think it just throws me off because it’s not like they’re putting cereal in their yogurt, they’re putting yogurt in their cereal. Hmmm?

For the most part the food is good, I do miss a few things though, like a peanut butter.  And a proper hamburger!  If you order one here they give it to you one way, and one way only.  You can’t choose your temperature, cheese, topping, mayo/mustard, etc.; I miss the mushroom swiss burger (and you too Aaron Denney!).  Pizza is a bit of a disappointment as well.  Very different, don’t really know how to explain it.  But they do have empanadas which are delicious!  So good.  And I really miss some good old, fresh, whole milk.  It might just be me, but I’m a bit skeptical about drinking a glass of milk from a carton (or bag! (?)) that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. Dicey huh?

I think that’s it as far as food goes.  I haven’t made it to Mendoza yet for the wine, but I’ll let you know when I do because it’s supposed to be wonderful. 

Anyway, sorry this one was a bit boring, I just wanted to share a few of the differences I’ve noticed so far.  I like some of them, but it’s still so hard not to miss things like peanut butter and freshly brewed coffee.  But I guess that’s part of the fun of traveling! I'll update again in a few days with some more exciting pictures and stories from the beach.

Oh, and lastly, I want to give a big shout out to my friend JOE WELSCH! Hi.

Favorite YouTube Videos

YouTube is by far the greatest thing ever created for people who want to procrastinate.  So instead of updating you on what I'm doing in BA, I'm gonna list my 7 favorite YouTube videos.  Here they are off the top of my head, keeping in mind that anything originally found on TV was not included in this.  Nor was Antoine Dodson (perps aint allowed on this blog). They are listed in order of preference.

7. N64 Kids Thank you Santa.
6. Leprechaun This embodies everything that is wrong with Alabama.
5. David After Dentist This is for Philippe.
4. Drunk History The title says enough.
3. Self Defense "...the first thing you're gonna want to do is climb in through the window because he's probably locked his door."
2. Worst Beer Run Ever  Best beer run ever?
1. Proud Dog Owner "This dog, he minds so good."

Honorable Mention:
Ninja Cat Didn't make the final cut because cats are vile creatures.














Also, I apologize for video 3.  I just really wanted to Rickroll Even Brewer.  Here is the real link:  Self Defense.





Suckas...Haha, just kidding. Here is the real one, for realzies: Self Defense.