Tova's Bithday Party

Zack, what's up??

Sha, you so crazy

Henry in the love sandwich

So much love for Tova
Mariela and Lucia
Mavi and me

Juan Pablo and Tova
Masao (the Origami Master)
Juan Pablo, ME and Sha

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Well, today is Tova's birthday!!! She is 21 years old... or young, depending how you see it. We had a big birthday celebration for her on Thursday night. We went to a bar near our house called "Mundo Bizzaro" with a group of friends for some drinks. Then we went out to a hip hop club to dance until 4 a.m.!! It was an amazing time and a lot of people came out to celebrate. Tova took about 100 (I am not kidding) pictures... but we put only a sample on the blog.

Yesterday we went to a pool with our friend Lucia. It was extremely hot and sunny, and we were all about to die of a heat stroke by the time we got there. But we had to wait about 20 minutes just to get into the pool because we had to go through this huge medical inpection. They make you shower (but you can't wet your hair), and then you have to stand before these women while they inspect between your toes, your underarms, and your scalp. eeew!!! And then, if you pass the test, they give you some certificate that says you aren't completely disgusting, which you must give in at the pool entrance. But it was worth it!! The pool was incredible, completely outdoors and absolutely massive and FULL of people (it is summer holidays here). There were water aerobics, contests and karaoke, and then they just started blasting latin pop for hours. It was so loud that you couldn't listen to your own music or read or anything because all you could hear was Ricky Martin or Marc Anthony. But it was a lot of fun, and a good way to beat the heat.

Today is Tova's actual birthday, and tonight we are going out for sushi (not so easy to find in Buenos Aires) and then out to a club in San Telmo with dome friends. We will let you know all about it very soon.

love,

Tova and Alice

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOVA LOVA

Damian, Mavi and AliceJuan Pablo, ME, and Sha on my birthday doing Tequila shots!

We would like to start by expressing our deepest apologies to those of you who have eagerly been checking this site for new updates the last two weeks. We are really sorry, but we have been busy and, to be honest, forgot. But here it is....

The last two weeks have been relatively uneventful. We started our new Spanish class at the University almost two weeks ago, which has occupied us for fifteen hours a week (PLUS homework!!!) Veronique and Ben left a few days after the course began, but it was lovely to have them here, and we had a wonderful goodbye dinner the night before they left.

The weather here was horrible for about a week straight. It did not stop raining!!! Day and night, it just rained and rained. The streets eventually became like rivers, uncrossable in places. Also, the roof of the supermarket was leaking in about 15 different spots, so there were buckets all over the place, and we couldn't do our laundry because we need to wash and hang our clothes outside!!! On top of that, the hostel we live in is very "open", meaning we have to walk through the rain to get from our room to the bathrooms and the kitchen, and the kitchen doesn't even have a door!! All in all this city is really not equiped for heavy rain (we didn't even own an umbrella until a few days ago!!!)

Well, despite all the rain Tova and I managed to discover a really cool bar named "Bizarro", where Tova is gonna have her birthday party this coming Thursday night. She is inviting about ten or fifteen friends to the bar, and then we are gonna head to a club and see what happens from there.

Last Saturday we visited our friend at his house in the Buenos Aires "ghetto", which is ghetto beyond belief when you consider we are living in an amazing neighbourhood and we still have cockroaches and kitchens without doors!! To put it in one sentence, their "corner store" was the back of a broken car.....

Saturday night we went to a club called, rather ironcally "Amerika". It was kind of a gay club, but we had a really good time. It was all you can drink AND they had an incredible foam party where foam was POURING from the ceiling for about half an hour straight!!! Everyone was covered... it was the closest to a Toronto winter we are gonna experience this year for sure.

Tova is still working with the origami company and Alice just got a new job with an English school teaching conversation classes. Oh, and two of our friends, Pablo and Renata, just got engaged!!! It is so exciting, and we hope to be back for the wedding next June!!

Well, that is all the news for now, but next weeks gonna be exciting with Tova's birthday (hint hint, on the 28th of January, don't forget!!!!), so we will talk to you then!!!

Tova and Alice

Alice and Felipe
Ben!
Sha and Chiquito

Our Sky Flying suits
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Rides!

Bumper Cars

On New Years with Tova's mom and brother Happy New Years
Masao's origami lantern

Happy New Year 2006

It is 2006!! Happy New Year to everyone at home. We spent the better part of the week after Christmas searching for a nice, cheap outdoor pool close to our house where we could beat the heat. We have finally found one, after spending the better part of a day wandering around in the scorching heat trying to find this elusive pool!!! So we may finally have some relief, as we don't have air conditioning and it is about 40 degrees right now. Tova's mother and brother arrived on the morning of New Year's Eve and are staying until next Wednesday. We have been showing them around the city, and showing Ben some of the nightlife here in Buenos Aires!! On New Years Eve we had a lovely meal at Veronique and Ben's apartment and then sat on the terrace of our hostel to watch the fireworks and enjoy dessert and champagne. Then Tova, Ben and I took off to meet some friends at a party. A few days ago we all took the train to Tigre, a small town just outside of Buenos Aires, where there are tons of rivers, nature and an amusement park. Of course we went to the amusement park, and enjoyed lots of rides, including one that was a clear copy of "the Bat" and another of "Top Gun" from Canada's Wonderland. And we payed a little extra to go on this skyflying ride, where they put Ben, Tova and I in suits, hooked us up to a giant cable, pulled us really high, and then dropped us. It was really scary and really fun... and probably the closest any of us will ever get to bungee jumping!!! Yesterday we returned to the university to sign up for the next level of our Spanish course, and met up with some old friends we hadn't seen in a while. In true University of Buenos Aires styles, everything was incredibly disorganized, and we had to wait in a total of four lines just to sign up and pay for the course! And the lines were incredibly slow (probably due to the fact that some of the administrators were too busy on MSN). Happy birthday to Jamie, who is 21 today, and a belated birthday to Lauren, who turned 20 on the 31st.

love,

Tova and Alice