Winter Adventure: Onward to Argentina
Ok, let's see... I need to fill you in on a) the rest of my trip in MD and b) getting to Buenos Aires and the first couple days here. I've done a lot, so sorry I haven't been more consistent with writing this up. I'm not really fond of writing... anyway, I cut the text so you can skip it if you like, but essentially, I'm having lots of fun.
a) Essentially, I did all the things I always do when I go to MD.
- A day spent in DC at museums/monuments - this time around, a few art museums and the new Native American Museum - they have an awesome cafeteria divided up by region (south west, north east, etc). Lunch consisted of sampler platter that we shared including buffalo steak and salmon and some veggie side dishes (mushrooms, wild rice, etc). It was impressively good, if a little pricey.
- An evening in Baltimore visiting someone I don't really know.
- Watching movies at my parents' house. This year I promised myself I'd spend less time watching movies than normal, and I did.
- Hanging with my siblings.
Plus, a few things I don't normally do.
- I made a new friend. My parents rent a room to a young couple with a 3 mo. old baby. The wife/mother (Simone) is the younger sibling of someone I kinda knew when I was growing up. She was a lot of fun to get to know, and I had fun playing with the baby. Kailani (who's grandmother is Hawaiian) was really cute, and I got on well with her. There was a time I thought I got on well with all babies, but then I started holding infants that I just didn't know what to do with. This one, though, I clicked with. Maybe because I think Simone and I are somewhat similar. Simone and Kailani went to the museums with Alice and I, which was interesting.
- I went salsa dancing. Last year at christmas I went dancing with Alice, this year Alice, Simone and I went to find some Salsa. Thank you internet for all your guidance, though we initially went to a small bar with a little bit of dancing that kinda sucked. We tried to make the most of it, and one of our new friends let us know there was a much better place to dance just a couple doors down the street and if we said that he sent us over, they wouldn't charge us cover. That was nice. What was nicer was that after we realized Alice didn't have her ID on her (they were carding at the door) and she had convinced us that she'd wait up to an hour for us to go dance, the guy at the door let her in any way... I guess because a) we were all cute young wimmins and b) he was impressed/felt sorry for Alice. It turned out to be crowded, but fun, and there were even a few really good dancers we got to dance with. The one oddity: if you started dancing with a guy, he often wouldn't stop dancing with you until you extracted yourself. Three, four songs could go by and he'd expect you to just keep on dancing with him, no questions asked. Weird.
- I ran every day... for the first 3 or 4 days. Then I got sick and that stopped happening. The last day, still sick, I'd wanted to go anyway, but I wound up getting ready to fly to Argentina...
b) Which brings us to stage two of my adventure: Buenos Aires, Argentina visiting the lovely Beatrice and Kragen.
I got on the plane on New Years Eve at about 8:30, watched a bunch of movies as the New Year quietly snuck in (since there's a 3 hour time difference between DC and BA, I'm not sure *when* I should have celebrated the new year anyway... quietly watching silly movies was actually quite pleasant, though). I landed at 8 am BA time and met up with Kragen. With neither of us having slept more than an hour or so, we took a 2 hour bus ride (instead of the 45 minute cab ride) to get to his house. At first, I paid attention as Kragen pointed out interesting things that passed us by, but by the second leg of the bus ride, I was starting to doze off no matter what I did. A nap was definitely in order once I got to their place.
They very nicely have given me the extra room. I like having some personal space. After a nice nap, we went out to see some kittens that were born on Christmas day at a nearby youth hostel - Beatrice has now claimed 2 as her own in a couple months. Then we went in search of an open Cafe. Just about everything is closed on New Years day in Buenos Aires, or so it seems. Apparently most of the population was home sleeping off the previous nights festivities. It took us a while to finally wander over to a more touristy section of town and find an open cafe, then wander back home. Grocery shopping, however, was off the menu. Back at home I took another, longer nap in the muggy afternoon sleeping right through K&B drilling holes in the walls to put up some curtains. Then we went out to find some dinner. The local restaurant was closed, so we got some take out in the form of Empenadas. Yum.
That night (last night) they had a second guest, Vinicius, from Brazil - finally, I have a reason to open up Orkut again! They know him through a couchsurfing group Beatrice is a part of. He spoke some English, so we could talk a bit, but he kept mispronouncing words in odd ways. "Won't" sounded oddly like "want" in a way that made him sound like he was saying exactly what he didn't mean to say. He had some suggestions on where I should visit while I was in town, to add to what my cousin had said.
This morning, K&B went out to run some errands while V and I got breakfast at the local supermercado. When K&B got back, K&I went in search of some ice (did I mention it's rather hot and humid here). In an attempt to fully recover from my cold, and to acclimate to the new weather, I spent most of the day lounging about napping and reading (I will finish Wind-up Bird before I return...). Then, B&I went for a swim to cool off once the pool was out of the sun. V left while we were swimming. It was so nice. We were actually chilly when we got out of the pool, and it's been decently cool since. It even rained, and we walked over to the restaurant that was closed last night in the rain. B&I split a steak sampler plate. It had so much meat we didn't even finish it - once cut of pork and 4 or 5 cuts of beef. We finished dinner off with a chocolate mouse that tasted just like my mother's chocolate icing only lighter so you could keep eating the deliciousness. Yes, I like to eat my mom's chocolate icing.
The plan is to go to Chinatown tomorrow (all of two blocks long, I hear) and then make veggie and left-over-steak sushi tomorrow for dinner. The worst thing right now is that the cooling rain has seemed to bring out more mosquitoes. I hate mosquitoes.
a) Essentially, I did all the things I always do when I go to MD.
- A day spent in DC at museums/monuments - this time around, a few art museums and the new Native American Museum - they have an awesome cafeteria divided up by region (south west, north east, etc). Lunch consisted of sampler platter that we shared including buffalo steak and salmon and some veggie side dishes (mushrooms, wild rice, etc). It was impressively good, if a little pricey.
- An evening in Baltimore visiting someone I don't really know.
- Watching movies at my parents' house. This year I promised myself I'd spend less time watching movies than normal, and I did.
- Hanging with my siblings.
Plus, a few things I don't normally do.
- I made a new friend. My parents rent a room to a young couple with a 3 mo. old baby. The wife/mother (Simone) is the younger sibling of someone I kinda knew when I was growing up. She was a lot of fun to get to know, and I had fun playing with the baby. Kailani (who's grandmother is Hawaiian) was really cute, and I got on well with her. There was a time I thought I got on well with all babies, but then I started holding infants that I just didn't know what to do with. This one, though, I clicked with. Maybe because I think Simone and I are somewhat similar. Simone and Kailani went to the museums with Alice and I, which was interesting.
- I went salsa dancing. Last year at christmas I went dancing with Alice, this year Alice, Simone and I went to find some Salsa. Thank you internet for all your guidance, though we initially went to a small bar with a little bit of dancing that kinda sucked. We tried to make the most of it, and one of our new friends let us know there was a much better place to dance just a couple doors down the street and if we said that he sent us over, they wouldn't charge us cover. That was nice. What was nicer was that after we realized Alice didn't have her ID on her (they were carding at the door) and she had convinced us that she'd wait up to an hour for us to go dance, the guy at the door let her in any way... I guess because a) we were all cute young wimmins and b) he was impressed/felt sorry for Alice. It turned out to be crowded, but fun, and there were even a few really good dancers we got to dance with. The one oddity: if you started dancing with a guy, he often wouldn't stop dancing with you until you extracted yourself. Three, four songs could go by and he'd expect you to just keep on dancing with him, no questions asked. Weird.
- I ran every day... for the first 3 or 4 days. Then I got sick and that stopped happening. The last day, still sick, I'd wanted to go anyway, but I wound up getting ready to fly to Argentina...
b) Which brings us to stage two of my adventure: Buenos Aires, Argentina visiting the lovely Beatrice and Kragen.
I got on the plane on New Years Eve at about 8:30, watched a bunch of movies as the New Year quietly snuck in (since there's a 3 hour time difference between DC and BA, I'm not sure *when* I should have celebrated the new year anyway... quietly watching silly movies was actually quite pleasant, though). I landed at 8 am BA time and met up with Kragen. With neither of us having slept more than an hour or so, we took a 2 hour bus ride (instead of the 45 minute cab ride) to get to his house. At first, I paid attention as Kragen pointed out interesting things that passed us by, but by the second leg of the bus ride, I was starting to doze off no matter what I did. A nap was definitely in order once I got to their place.
They very nicely have given me the extra room. I like having some personal space. After a nice nap, we went out to see some kittens that were born on Christmas day at a nearby youth hostel - Beatrice has now claimed 2 as her own in a couple months. Then we went in search of an open Cafe. Just about everything is closed on New Years day in Buenos Aires, or so it seems. Apparently most of the population was home sleeping off the previous nights festivities. It took us a while to finally wander over to a more touristy section of town and find an open cafe, then wander back home. Grocery shopping, however, was off the menu. Back at home I took another, longer nap in the muggy afternoon sleeping right through K&B drilling holes in the walls to put up some curtains. Then we went out to find some dinner. The local restaurant was closed, so we got some take out in the form of Empenadas. Yum.
That night (last night) they had a second guest, Vinicius, from Brazil - finally, I have a reason to open up Orkut again! They know him through a couchsurfing group Beatrice is a part of. He spoke some English, so we could talk a bit, but he kept mispronouncing words in odd ways. "Won't" sounded oddly like "want" in a way that made him sound like he was saying exactly what he didn't mean to say. He had some suggestions on where I should visit while I was in town, to add to what my cousin had said.
This morning, K&B went out to run some errands while V and I got breakfast at the local supermercado. When K&B got back, K&I went in search of some ice (did I mention it's rather hot and humid here). In an attempt to fully recover from my cold, and to acclimate to the new weather, I spent most of the day lounging about napping and reading (I will finish Wind-up Bird before I return...). Then, B&I went for a swim to cool off once the pool was out of the sun. V left while we were swimming. It was so nice. We were actually chilly when we got out of the pool, and it's been decently cool since. It even rained, and we walked over to the restaurant that was closed last night in the rain. B&I split a steak sampler plate. It had so much meat we didn't even finish it - once cut of pork and 4 or 5 cuts of beef. We finished dinner off with a chocolate mouse that tasted just like my mother's chocolate icing only lighter so you could keep eating the deliciousness. Yes, I like to eat my mom's chocolate icing.
The plan is to go to Chinatown tomorrow (all of two blocks long, I hear) and then make veggie and left-over-steak sushi tomorrow for dinner. The worst thing right now is that the cooling rain has seemed to bring out more mosquitoes. I hate mosquitoes.