Happy Halloween everyone!

Yes, today is the 31st of October. We have officially survived two months in South America! Unfortunately, there isn't much of a Halloween here in Argentina. We have seen the odd pumpkin with a carved face or child dressed in a costume... but nothing more. Fortunately, we had a couple of friends (fellow travelers), who dressed up with us for the occasion. Rhys, a friend from England, and Andrea, from Italy, dressed up with us on the weekend. Rhys was Diego Maradona (THE Argentinian soccer idol whom everyone here is obsessed with!) and Andrea was "a guy from he 70s". Tova and I dressed up as........TWINS!! We wore all the same clothes and jewelery and did our hair and makeup exactly the same. We went out to a costume party last night in our outfits, only to find that "costume pary" is a term taken lightly here: we were the only people in costume! We were just glad that we hadn't gone with one of Alice's ideas like "hula girls in bikini tops and leys" or "mummies" wrapped up in tons of toilet paper!! How embarassing THAT would have been!!!

We are experiencing a British invasion here in Agentina, having made friends with three Britsh guys in the last few days. They are a lot of fun and so easy to talk to, considering we either struggle to speak to our friends in Spanish or speak very diluted, slow English. In fact, one of the British guys actually goes to the same gym as us and had noticed us before. He even knew a lot of creepy facts about our workout routines, like what machines we use and for how long and that I listen to a discman etc...

On Friday, this man in our Spanish course at the University actually came to class drunk, like totally smashed!!!! And this is a ten person class, so it was totally noticeable. He was slurring all his words, answering everything in English (he's from England), was ranting and raving on topics that had nothing to do with the class and was really rude to everyone, including the teacher. Unfortuantly, she just put up with it instead of giving him the good ass-kicking he deserved. It was funny at times, but mostly just annoying.

On Thursday night Tova and I went to another one of our friend Lucia's Bossa Nova shows. It was at a bar, "Ironica", just a few streets from our Hostel. We decided to bring two friends, Benjamin and Filipe, who we had met the week before. (In fact, the story of our meeting is rather funny: our friend, Mavi, who is entirely unreliable, arranged to take us out to a bar with some of her friends. However, when her boyfriend got "sick", she asked us if we would mind entertaining her friends (one of whom speaks no English) for the night instead. We actual got along amazingly and kept in touch!) We had a really good time, except for the fact that they were almost an hour late picking us up!!! But that sort of thing is somewhat acceptable here.

On Saturday we went to our friend, Pablo's birthday party at a bar/club. They have a really weird system here at many bars and clubs where you don't actually pay to get in, but get a ticket with the word "entrance" on it when you enter. The point is you must buy a drink in order to give the bartender your "entrance" ticket and receive an "exit " ticket in return, which allows you to leave when you wish to. And if you loose either of the tickets, you have to pay a fine. Its a little strange, but it ensures drink sales I guess.

Another funny thing we have noticed here is that people have no change. If you go into a shop and you don't have almost exact change for something they just won't sell it to you, or a cab won't drive you if you don't have the right change etc.... If you want to buy a 1 peso chocolate bar and you only have a 10 peso bill, the shop will refuse your business!!! It is crazy. We have asked many people why this is, and the best answer we have been given (and one we certainly had figured out ourselves already) is that people here are lazy, and you actually have to get off your ass and think ahead to get change.

Well, that is enough of our ranting and raving for now. Enjoy your trick-or-treating, handing out candy or attending your halloween parties tonight, we shall be thinking of you all with just a hint of jealousy.

love,

Alice and Tova