The First Week....

The first week here in Buenos Aires just flew by. I went to the Rio de la Plata, which is the very large river where you can go kite surfing among other things. It is a really chilled out place, since they have lounge chairs, and just relaxing music playing. However when I wanted to go last Saturday they tried to sell me the "official tourist ticket", which costs 3 times as much....so I did not go for it. Yesterday was my first official night onto town and it was awesome. It started off with going to the Four Seasons Hotel here in Buenos Aires for a Tango show. Thinking that the trip from Olivos (where I live right now) would take much longer, I arrived early and had an hour to kill. So I had some Tiramisu and a glass of Argentinian red wine, which delicious but overly overpriced. Then my friend, who I actually met on teh airplane here arrived and we started watching the Tango show, which was well what should I say, let me just say that I was not impressed. So we decided to go to Milion, which is french inspired bar in an old mansion (really cool). There we had a couple of drinks and I accidently bumped into my friend there. At around 3 am, which then headed to Opera Bay, which is a club with 5 dance floors (each with different music), and probably about 1500 people. It was brilliant. And so we all danced into the morning hours on the open air dance floor as the sun was rising at around 7 am. After that a quick breakfast in town, followed by a bus ride that seemed awfully long, and a well deserved couple of hours of sleeping. Today I just relaxed, and I am trying to recharge my bateries for the next experience. I will be living in Olivos for one more week, and then I will move to my sisters apartment in Caballito (pretty much in the middle of Buenos Aires).

Buenos Aires

I arrived well in Buenos Aires two days ago. Everything here is very new and exciting for me. When I first arrived I met up with my friend Michael, and right now I am living at his mom's house together with him. Yesterday we went to Recoleta, which is pretty touristic but still kind of fun. We went to the famous cementary, which nearly looks like a city in itself. People can buy land there and build little houses to house the whole family after death. In some of them you can even see the casket, which is a little creepy. After walking around for a while, we had some empanadas (fried filled dough triangles filled with beef or chicken). Then we went to the movies to watch an Argentine movie "Terapias Alternativas". At first I had some trouble understanding it, but after a while I unnderstoon most of it. Then we went to the Avenida Florida, which is the main shopping street in Buenos Aires and I saw Avenida 9 Julio (worlds widest avenue). After all that we took the subte back to the house and I was really tired. You can see that I am always up to something. Today I am just relaxing and watching some Spanish movies to hopefully get a hang of the Spanish language.

Ashland - Portland

Today was the day that I left Ashland and left my wonderful house on Liberty Street for another person to continue where I left of. This morning I had to pick up a rental car, and like always there were some unexpected surprises.

Enterprise Car Rental

Airport Dro-off fee: $75 extra (They must be out of their minds)
Insurance: $27 extra

.....The experience of soon being in Argetina....PRICELESS


So with all set and done I only had to take care of the last few things in Ashland, like getting rid of about half my cloth at Goodwill. Then cleaning and seeing my friends for one last time . Then the moment of truth came with a split face I left my apartment and my friends in Ashland. On the one hand I was really happy to moving on, but I am also a little sad that all that had to come to an end and I know that I will miss my friends in Ashland. So after a long drive, and a stop in dodgiest gas station I have ever seen I made it to Troutdale where I will spend the night at the house of the parents of a friend of mine. I just met them today, but I am blown away by the hospitality. So tomorrow morning the true trip will start and I hope that I can post some pictures, movies and comments soon.

The Trip Begins

With only about 10 days here in beautyful Ashland, OR I am starting to prepare myself for the trip to Argentina (15th March). I am super excited to have change in my life again, as Ashland has become awfully small in the face of not being a student anymore. What are my expectations? I hope that I learn Spanish again, and I would love to learn how to Tango, travel around a little bit and really soak up the Latin American culture. Today was the first day when it really kicked in that I am leaving. There are still loads of things to be done, such as selling some more of my stuff, but I think in the end all ends will meet. It feels darn good to get rid of stuff, sort of liberating. Check back for more news, and what I am up to in Argentina.