Yeah, RIVER!

What a wonderful weekend! This city is truly unique and there is always so much to do. Thankfully, our study abroad program gives us three day weekends so accomplishing everything and then having time to sleep it off is definitely doable. I've been trying to take advantage of every possible opportunity I've had to explore the city...Unfortunately, I haven't quite mastered the public transportation system yet and I have often found myself roaming the streets aimlessly and realizing that I am no where near where I intended to be. Oh well, there are 5 more weeks to go and I'm sure I'll be more well-versed with the city by then!

Our study abroad group hosted a dinner for us on Thursday night at a well-known pizza place called Los Inmortales. Pizza is EVERYWHERE in Buenos Aires...on every menu and every street corner. As I'm thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I've had pizza every day this weekend. Healthy, huh? Its been pretty easy for me to find food here, considering I'm in the meat capital of the world. I broke down and had a tiny peice of meat from my friend Jackie's steak the other night and was sick the entire morning after. It was delicious though and almost worth it! I guess thats the last peice of meat I'll have in a while....

A few friends and I went to a salsa club on Thursday night which was so much fun and unlike anything I have ever seen before. It took us all a few drinks before we could even work up the nerve to enter the dancing part of the club just because all of the people were incredible dancers. Acutally, "incredible" is an understatement--these people danced better than anyone I have ever seen before in my life. It was so fun to watch and so hillarious to try to emmulate them. Some (handsome--but that goes without saying) Argentine man took pity on me and my pathetic salsa skills and taught me some moves. It was a blast and I was so glad I went, but waking up in the morning for class was difficult...to say the least.

Friday night I went to a tango class with a bunch of people from the program and again proved to myself and everyone else that I couldn't dance to save my life. My partner wasn't helping either--he was about six inches shorter than me and knew less about the tango than I did. I decided it would be best to observe from the bar and recruited some friends to do the same....

I woke up late on Saturday morning and decided to do some shopping in Palermo Viejo, a neighborhood filled with adorable stores and restaurants. I thought it was a really safe part of the city but was proved wrong when I witnessed a real-live robbery. So, that was fun (joking). The woman being robbed held her own though, and the guys ran off--one with a ripped shirt--and jumped onto the back of a motorcycle that was waiting for them across the street. It was definitely a scary experience and reminded me that I need to be careful everywhere I am.

That night, we went to the theater and saw a play that no one really understood. It was more or less about the history of Argentina and although a lot of us are taking an Argentine History class, they spoke so fast that it was hard to understand what exactly they were saying. Sometimes, I feel like I'm really making progress with my Spanish (or understanding of it anyway) and then there are times like those when everything goes over my head and I become really frustrated. I guess that's why I am here, though, and have to keep reminding myself that learning the language is not going to happen over night.

After the theater, my friends and I went to this delicious restaurant in San Telmo and had a wonderful dinner. We didn't get to the restaurant until around 12:30 and it was PACKED...everything happens so late around here and no one ever sleeps! We had a couple bottles of delicious malbec wine, aptly named San Telmo, and head out to a boliche (club, basically) after our meal. We stood in line for a good 30 minutes to get into the club but it was definitely worth it...The boliche was packed, even when we left at 5:45 am. These Argentines are crazy!!

The next morning came quickly since I had to get up early to go to a real FUTBOL game with my friend Jackie. Her host parents got us tickets a few days before and we didn't realize until we got there that it was a championship game! We took a bus there, which was SO MUCH FUN. Everyone on the bus was going to the game and was singing and banging on the bus the entire way there. Argentines certainly love their futbol....There are two teams in Buenos Aires, La Boca and River and loyalty to these teams divides the city in two. Portenos (people from Buenos Aires) take their teams VERY seriously. We were told by our study abroad director never to wear jerseys in public because we would probably get beaten up. Awesome.

The game we went to was with River and a team from somewhere farther south in Argentina. The entire stadium was PACKED with crazy River fans and everyone was so excited when they won and became the champions (of what, i'm not quite sure). I've posted a video of some of the insanity, so hopefully it works!! It was such a fun day and I am so happy that I went.

Today was rainy and cold (like, 45 degrees!!) so my friends and I decided to go to a museum called Manzana de las luces. It was really random and was basically just a few underground tunnels used by the Jesuits back in the early 1800s...interesting, I guess? It was the only museum open on Mondays.

There is so much more that I could say about this past weekend and my experience so far, but I'm going to stop here... Unfortunately, I just remembered that I am also taking classes while I'm in this amazing place and have to do homework. BUMMER.