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