There's a breeze in my apt at last...

I’ve got pictures, people. I haven’t melted into the city sidewalks. I’ve managed to stay somewhat hydrated these past few days, and I’ve faithfully documented my activities for your visual entertainment – although assuming you are entertained might be a bit presumptuous of me...

Ok - here we go. Last weekend I went to my cousin Max’s house .Here’s the coolest picture – its baby Ramiro making a really great face. With a look like that I’m fairly certain he’s going to take after our side of the family. He’s a great baby – and I think he has a future as a tenor. His cry actually made me FEEL MY EARDRUMS VIBRATING. I didn’t think that was possible. There was a moment where I contemplated lightly putting him on the floor and just sprinting as far away from that sound as I possibly could. I wouldn’t even leave a note because I think everyone would understand why I was gone.

Had dinner with Gabriel at a restaurant called Green Bamboo. Verrrry cool place. Great food - actually convincing Thai/Chinese cuisine. We were relieved. You’re never going to get the kind of sushi you could get in LA or NYC, so I thought a place that offered other kinds of asian fair would be a good bet. Here's the main roomand the smaller room we ate in...

I don’t have pics yet but I also went to my first guitar class last week and I started up a new art class. The teacher is very enthusiastic about abstract art so in an effort to steer the class in another direction I raised my hand and told her I actually wanted to learn more technique. She had us take a vote - out of 25 of us, 19 others raised their hands to agree with me. The prof was disappointed – but hey – too bad lady! Its intro to art for crying out loud. I love abstract, but please just teach me how to make an ear look really convincing please. Thanks.

Here’s me after horseback riding class last week…that was on Friday. While you are on the horse its not so bad, you’re galloping and whatnot. Once you are off – you are drenched in sweat and you have that lingering equine aroma. Not pretty – but I figured I should have an intentionally unflattering picture of me in this blog. I look like a guy there – yikes.

After class I was walking to the subway and I saw this ad for FoxLife - it says “The best way to make your belly go down is to get your boobs done.” Gotta love it here. They just say it. No bones about it. Its understood here that everyone wants to be thin, so people are really frank about it. To sum up the attitude - Thin is better, end of story.

What's this? Are we outfitting a nation of young nuclear physicists here? These are just public school uniforms and here they are in large store. Little kids in lab coats will be littering the city soon and I’m going to take pictures when they do.

Saturday Flurina and I went to the race track. Loved it. To begin with, its a glorious building - and the bonus: there's air conditioning. The humidity WONT LET UP, PEOPLE!!!! Bonus #2 - women get in for free. Men pay 10 pesos though, so its not too bad. The crowd is 90% older men. It occured to me that being the only two younger women there made us look like prostitutes. Here's our view from the upstairs restaurant - I got some better pics of the horses when we walked up to the track a little while later. The horses were gorgeous, the pro-atheletes of their kind after all. The only downer is that they dont serve alcohol on race days, which is too bad because I wanted champagne. The crowd there gets so worked up over their wins and loses though, that I could see the motivation behind not having alcohol in the equation. Some of these men were about to combust with joy/anger. Fortunes won and lost? maybe. Our waiter explained to us the betting procedure. We bet on two races...
the winning ticket perhaps?
It was a loser....we lost a total of 20 pesos that day. booo!

Went to a Mexican restaurant this weekend –it was alright. Cute place though, and great Tres Leches dessert. Good margaritas. Here’s a great skull with a hat – kind of Pirates of the Caribbean meets Dia de Los Muertos. Here’s a little girl that I bought a cell phone charm from. She was so cute. Its funny, she wanted a bite to eat – she asked for some tomato from my salad, I gave it to her. I offered her some of the Mexican food and she said “Me da cosita” - meaning “it weirds me out a little”. Argentines, even when they are poor and hungry – they are still finicky.

Yesterday was a trip to my cousin Billy’s house for his dad’s 60th. Here are some cute pics. Good times - except for the MOSQUITO BITES. Three on my left foot alone. Then a couple on my right leg, another 3 on my right arm, and the rest are scattered. I'm here again today - but this time armed with a spray bottle of "OFF!". Bastards....

In addition, as you can see in the picture below, some random neighborhood chick named Luciana was also having a birthday! Upper-crusty types don’t do this sort of thing – but its pretty common everywhere else. They string up these signs on birthdays and other events where congratulations are due. Can you imagine the possibilities for playing jokes on people?!? Amazing….I told Billy we should make one for his ex-girlfriend “You’re a class act!!” or something and have it hung up right in front of her house.

Here’s an interesting photo related to the whole Danish cartoon fiasco. These are women who cant show their faces, they have to walk 5 paces behind their husbands, they usually cant go out without being accompanied by a male relative - and here they are very publically protesting. Sad to think that only on occassions such as these can they gather and voice their opinions. Defend Islam all you like, but you can't defend yourself.

Just needed to throw in a touristy shot of the famous obelisk. I caught the bicycle guy just in time - made it a little more personal, less postcard, no?

Another touristy shot...Actually this is one of those hotels where you can rent out the rooms on an hourly basis. They are called "Albuerge Transitorio" or "Playa Privada". Basically a "temporary room" or a "private beach". Its bizarre to walk through neighborhoods and suddenly spot one of these signs (they are usually pretty small). You know what goes on in there...if you dont, then take a guess.

all right, thats it!

GOOD LUCK TO BOBBY G!! TODAY IS DAY ONE OF THE BAR EXAM. SEND OUT YOUR POSITIVE VIBES TO HIM. C'MON BOBBY!!! WOOHOOO!!! YOU ARE MIGHTY! (please check out www.roberto.gorostieta.youaremighty.com - for those of you that know him, you'll see that it describes him to the T!)