Last weekend was an eventful one (yes, more than usual, it’s possible).
Thursday and Friday night, Alexa, Jaimee and I went to bars to experience the night life of Buenos Aires. We learnt that people don’t go to boliches (clubs) until about 2 or 3 a.m. (Remember everything is super late here?). We did not stay out that late but we still had fun at the bars. We met a group of Americans from Texas who were traveling around in South America, and when holding a conversation with them (they did not speak Spanish), I realised I was losing my English a little bit, or rather I was speaking Spanglish (good thing?).
The next morning, we went on a trip to Tigre, a town in the Buenos Aires Province. It was beautiful!
The Paraná Delta in Tigre
Did we go on the river you ask? Yes! We had a 2-hour long boat tour on the river on which we met a Brazilian tour guide on vacation. He spoke no Spanish and we spoke no Portuguese but somehow conversed about where we were from, and what we were doing in Argentina. He proceded to invite us to Brasilia, gave us his phone number and promised he would drive us around and give us a tour of the city if we stopped by (at least, that’s what we think he said).
Our new Brazilian friend, Francisco and his granddaughter
We also walked around in the town, went to Puerto de Frutos, which is an open-air market with tons of hand made crafts, paintings, clothes (lots of fur and leather), and food. Additionally, there was, in the middle of Tigre, a park lined with a LOT of flags. I want to say that there were flags from all over the world, because guess what? I found Mauritius’ (tiny island off the East coast of Madagascar, the one I’m from).
Some country pride (There was a US flag too, in case you were wondering)
As you can see, it was sunny and it felt great! However, Sunday was even better! When I say better, I’m talking short sleeves. (Fine, I did get some looks from locals, basically saying “where’s your jacket?!”, but it was 65 F and sunny, which is shorts weather in South Bend). That day, we took the colectivo (bus) to Caminito, a region of La Boca, which is a beautiful, but dangerous, neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. After the sketchy walk there, I understood why people recommended to go there early in the day, but once there, there was a bunch of other people. I can only explain what La Boca is in pictures:
Caminitio, La Boca
Colourful buildings ft. street art
It is very common to find graffiti and postgraffiti in Buenos Aires
I was told I was a bad tourist for this (by my roommates nbd), but it was worth the picture
We had lunch at La Boca and the waiter, who I believe was Argentine, spoke English. Nevertheless, we replied and ordered in Spanish. He was very persistent (maybe he wanted to practise his English), but the problem was we understood his Spanish better than his English (not trying to be mean here, but we were hangry). After a conversation full of misunderstandings, we got our food, he took a picture of us and we had a really good time overall.
This week I have my big oral presentation at school and a 4-day weekend, during which I will be going on some new adventures.
¡Hasta pronto!