This has been a busy week or so!
Last Tuesday I look my first formal Tango class, which was very exciting. On the Calle Florida there is an enormous shopping centre called the Galerias Pacificos which has an enormous Tango school on the top level. I found this to be very strange but I went and gave it a try! My teachers name was Chiche and he was this a little old cute Argentine man. There were about six girls in the class and four guys so we had to rotate. I really did not know how to do much and the first thing the instructor asked me when he saw me dance was... what other types of dance do you do? So of course, I had to tell him that I had 13 years of classical dance experience, which really hindered my tango abilities. But, I did get some of the steps in the Tango class and I have three more to take before I leave so we shall see how that goes! After dinner on Tuesday night, Jeremy and I went to Jobs where we hung out with some of the people from his program and enjoyed the 2 for 1 drink specials.
Wednesday I just hung out around the house and continued to read all of the interesting articles that Jeremy has from his Latin America classes. Thursday night we went out to a really cool bar in Las Canitas which is the next neighborhood over from Palermo. It was a bar that was not in my guide book, but I was lured in because they were playing David Guetta- The Love is Gone, which is one of my favorite songs to party to, so I figured por que no? We happened to stumble in on another 2 for 1 drink special. I had two for one Daquiris which were amazing! I am going to go to that bar many more times.
All of the nights in this week can not even hold a candle to Friday night. Now, of course, this is the night before I am going to hang out with Jeremy's mother and sister before I tell the story. Jeremy and I started drinking after dinner and I bought this awful Argentine rum that was the most horrible thing I have tasted in a long time. After a few of the fire water drinks that I was drinking we went to a local bar in Palermo and had a few long island iced teas. And then at about 3 I started being attracted to the Corona's since I haven't had one in so long, this lasted until about 4:30 when we finally decided to try the infamous Club Amerika that we had heard so much about. And Club Amerika did not let us down. Club Amerika is one of the best gay, trani, straight clubs in the city. We paid 50 pesos ($13) for entrance plus an open bar. At this point we were already doing very well but then proceeded to have 5 more cuba libres each. We danced a lot and the guys were very aggressive at this club, if Jeremy walked too far in front of me, they would attack like vultures. Our friend told us not to go into the tunnel part of the club, which of course made me want to go in more, so we went. In the tunnel people were having sex on the floor of the club which reminded me of what Ibiza would be like. We then decided to leave the tunnel so we did not have to watch gay and straight people having sex and danced at the club. We kind of lost track of time because we walked outside and it was light out. It was 9:30 am. Now, in all of my partying escapades, I would say that this was one of the latest nights I have ever had. The only unfortunate part, we had to meet Jeremy's mom and sister in 3 1/2 hours! So we crashed at got up to meet up with them!
Also, our friend Adam from GW was in Buenos Aires so he came with Jeremy's mom, sister, and I to La Boca. La Boca is a very touristy part of the city that is also home to the Boca soccer stadium. We wandered around Boca for the afternoon and then headed back to Recoleta to have coffee where Jeremy's mom was staying. After we finished coffee, we headed out to the suburb of Lanus to have an authentic Asado with Jeremy's language partner Natalia and her family. Lanus is about a hour and a half outside of Buenos Aires. Natalia's family is very nice and we had so much fun eating all of the wonderful food that her parents prepared on the grill. We ended up staying until 2 a.m. visiting with her family.
On Sunday, Jeremy's mom invited me to go to the San Telmo Market with them so I brought cash this time and bought some souvenirs. The market had a bunch of wonderful things! I bought an Alpaca sweater which I have been eyeing for weeks, a mate tea cup, and a very cool necklace. I also helped Jeremy's mom shop for gifts for their family friends. We stopped for lunch at a wonderful Parilla and I ordered Arroz con Pollo (Rice with Chicken). It was amazing! Then we continued to wander through the wonderful antique stores of San Telmo. We wandered around San Telmo for the remainder of the day and dined in an amazing steak restaurant called La Cabrera for dinner. I had my first rare steak because they switched Jeremy's sister and my plates by accident, and now I am never ordering a medium steak again!
On Monday, Jeremy's mom and sister left and we went out to a all you can eat Parilla for dinner! It was amazing! What I didnt realize was that I had accidentally picked up a counterfeit $20 at the San Telmo market the day before. So we tipped for dinner with the fake $20 pesos and ran out of the restaurant quickly.
On Tuesday, we went to the Jobs bar again with Adam which made Jobs even more fun. Adam and I played a game of pool that we lost by a lot of balls and we enjoyed the 2 for 1 drink specials.
On Wednesday, Jeremy finally went to eat at my favorite restaurant, Kentucky Pizza with me! He can't eat much there because he is allergic to milk. But we enjoyed our meal and then went to meet up with Adam again at the MALBA museum, which is the modern art museum. I really enjoyed all of the artwork but my favorite was a Frida Khalo painting that I saw! It was my first Frida Khalo painting that I had ever seen i person. I also saw a very impressive Diego Rivera painting too! After the museum, we went to Freddo, which is Argentine designer ice cream, and had some of the best ice cream that I have ever had. It was a very fun day!
On Thursday, I went to my Tango class with Chiche again. This time there were way fewer girls than guys, so I had to dance the whole class. I was still horrible, but I was much less horrible than before! I finally began to throw my ballet background out the window and started to move a little better in the Tango style. I really enjoyed the class and I still have two more to go! Other than Tango, I came home and had a nice dinner with my host mother. I decided to take it easy so that I can have fun this weekend!
Until next time,
<3 Jacque