Almost December...

Wow, we have been here almost three months now! So here is the weekend. First of all, we have been experiencing some power problems in Buenos Aires. The power totally shut off for the last 30 minutes of our class at the University on Thursday. We just continued in the dark... And then when we went to take the Subway home, it wasn't operating either!!! We had to take the bus, which took forever!! Just so you know, unlike Toronto, none of the buses or trains are air conditioned here, so they are really hot and sweaty the whole time, and they are PACKED ALL DAY! To continue the story... on Friday, we were riding the subway to school, when the train shut down a couple stations from our destination. And when I say shut down, I mean pitch black in the train and the station, like the power entirely cut off, and they don't seem to have any backup here... and we had to walk for about 40 minutes just to get to school.

On Saturday night, we went to an impov comedy show. It was pretty funny, from what we could grasp, though a lot of the more subtle or local humor was certainly lost on us. After, we went out with some friends for Japanese food, which is somewhat of a rare treat here. We were going to go to "Opera Bay", a really amazing club, but when we got there, it was closed (and no one seemed to know the reason). So we ended up going on kind of a double date with these two guys... Ok, here is the full story: One of the waiters from a restaurant that we love and go to a lot came into the gym on Friday while Tova was working out. He came over to say hi and they ended up talking for a few minutes. She thought that he asked her out for coffee and that he said he would meet her at the gym the next day. But on Saturday, when we went to the gym for our usual 11 a.m. aerobics class, he wan't there. However, that night, we were walking by the restaurant where he works at about 1:30 in the morning with a guy that Alice is kind of seeing. So the waiter started talking to us, and kind of invited himself along when we told him we were going to a bar nearby. We ended up staying at the bar until 4:30 in the morning (the bars are open all night here, it was still packed when we left!!). However, this guy was a total fool. He was really into himself and thought he was funny when he wasn't and was kind of rude at times. And he talked about us when he thought we weren't listening, or maybe he thought we would n0t understand or something.... And he spilt his drink all over the table!!! Tova was pretty pissed, and was telling me how much she hated this guy right at the table in front of him because she knew he wouldn't understand... it was kind of funny. So we went home and got a total of two and a half hours of sleep because we had to wake up at 7:30 the next morning to go to Uruguay.

We had to go to Uruguy because we only have a 90 day visa to stay in Argentina and need to leave the country or pay a 100 peso fine. So we took the "Buquebus", essentially a really big boat, to Colonia, which is a small colonial town, and very close to Buenos Aires. The boat ride took about three hours, and the chairs were so comfortable that we were able to make up some of our lost sleep on the journey. We spent the day in Uruguay. We climbed to the top of the old lighthouse and took in the view, had a nice lunch, went to the beach for a few hours, and walked through the old cobblestone streets. It was very relaxing. However, the entire time we were there we never realized that Uruguay is one hour ahead of Buenos Aires. So we arrived (thank God) an hour early to catch the LAST boat back to Buenos Aires, only to be told that it was leaving right at that moment. We had to race to the proper port and fly through customs just to catch it. The Uruguayans thought we was pretty funny... And on the boat back to BA, we met a guy from Montreal who just happened to be sitting beside Tova. He is here with an exchange from McGill and is one of the only Canadians we have met in Buanos Aires so far!! We took the bus home and had a really long night sleep to make up for the night before.

Bye for now...

Alice and Tova