Pictures

Hi Blog, sorry I haven't posted anything for awhile. The only news I have is that my Mom and Sister are coming to visit me in October. I found a picture of my building from skyscrapercity.com. My street is the second one from the right on the bottom (the one most visible) and I'm the second building from the park. Not sure if that made sense. Anyway Buenos Aires looks big in this picture. Also took pictures from my balcony. One looking towards the park and the other away from the park.

New Apartment

Reserved a new apartment for next month in Buenos Aires. Map here. The apartment I'm in right now is really starting to get to me with all the noise. Im looking forward to my new one a lot. I tried to choose the quietest one possible (7th floor with big shutters for any noise). I chickened out on moving to Rosario. Not sure if my Spanish is good enough to move to another city. Spanish has been super frustrating lately. I don't feel like I'm getting any better at speaking from just 4 hours of lessons a week. My comprehension is actually very good, but not knowing how to convey your thoughts into words when you want to is really frustarting. Not too much else going on down here.

Rosario

Went to Rosario with my friend Juan and Bahram yesterday. Juan's Dad agreed to drive us and let us explore the city while he was at a meeting. It was a really fun time. I really like Rosario. We rented bikes which happened to be bright purple ones with a basket and a bell. We rode through parks where it seemed all the locals laughed at us. Did I mention Rosario is famous for it's attractive women? At least they noticed me, haha. After we were done riding bikes we went to a famous restuarant called El Cairo and had dinner with Juan's Dad. Stayed at a hotel last night and drove back today. I'm seriously considering moving to Rosario next month.


Lunch by the water.
National Flag Memorial
After carrying our bikes up a bunch of stepsView over river and the purple bikes
Another viewPost bike ride drink on Cordoba St.

Garden

Did something kind of touristy today. Went to the botanical gardens. I even took a picture! It's probably better when Spring comes around.

Saturday

Took a picture from my friend's balcony last night. Sorry for not posting in a while. Been pretty lazy lately.

Saturday

Went to a working class disco last night called Palermo Club. No tourists in there, haha. It was pretty interesting. You have to be patted down by the police when you go in. Other than that it was just a normal club full of Portenos. I still cant figure out how to type accent marks on this computer. There's suppose to be a squigly line over the N in Portenos. Anyone have any tips?
Oh my Spanish teacher gave me five pesos in coins my last lesson. Score! She said "I'm giving you gold, you know?" She also told me how people sell the coins for more than they are worth or something like that. I didn't understand her completely. Basically some type of corrupt activity. There's lots of corruption here I think. It's rumored that the bad Swine Flu numbers were made up here. People would die in a car wreck but they had Swine Flu and they would count it as a Swine Flu death. It makes sense because all those bad reports came out right before the election. I'm not sure if I should feel better or worse about that. Also all city construction seemed to stop right after the election too. Good for me, no more jackhammers. My apartment is still noisy though. Whenever a bus comes by it sounds like the smoke monster from Lost. I never moved to a different apartment mostly because I'm lazy and I figured I would get used to the buses, which I have.
Yes my maid does a very good job of cleaning my apartment, Mom. She also does all my dishes too. I usually feel bad though and do most of them the day before. I feel kinda weird when she's here too, so I go out and run errands. Not sure if that's normal. Ya Summer, I can't believe it either, the internet is a crazy thing! And yes there are a bunch of players down here, there is even a Tuesday night dinner at a different restaurant each week. Hi Carol! Thanks for making my followers an even ten. My blog is an internet sensation!

Coins are valuable!

When I first got here I didn't understand how important coins were. They are good for all kinds of things like buses, subways and not making the vendors mad. There is like a coin shortage here. Someone is stealing all the coins! I would kill for a peso coin right now. It makes life so much more enjoyable when you have a pocket full of coins here. It's like Christmas morning when the vendor sees you have perfect change. Or when you can quickly pay for your bus/subway trip across town. When I first got here I had a dish full of coins because I would just pay with bills and decline giving the vendors perfect change. I don't go to that store anymore. My maid must have thought I was super rich with all the coins I had. Now I try to help out the vendors because I know they struggle to keep enough change. I was wrong to think however that my supply was endless and now all I have is about twenty of the 10 centavos coins left! Literally people will steal change from tables at restaurants and leave more money in bill form instead.
I can write about mafias, supermarkets and political corruption here if you want. Or at least what I have heard about them in my next post. If anyone is interested comment because I don't want to type unless there is a demand for it. Sorry for the coin rant but I think it's weird and I want to know where they are all going!