Getting Acquainted.

I'm realizing there's no way I'll be able to write down everything I do, or I'll spend half of my time here on this blog, but here's my shot at the last few days. It may be kind of boring, but it should help me remember all my happenings-I'll work on highlighting the best parts in the future to keep it entertaining for you...

FRIDAY:

After waking, Molly and I excursioned around Palermo to check out our neighborhood. Went down to the Italian Plaza, passed the zoo, walked for hours. We stopped at a market to pick up some groceries as we plan to eat all of our meals at home to save money. There's a market on pretty much every street corner and things are cheap. We bought a lot of fruit and vegetables and and beer for about $10, much better than in the States. Some things are more expensive, a jar of Jiffy is almost $15. We've put ourselves on a budget and so far we're doing well. Neither of us are that great of cooks, which poses a problem, but we'll learn. 

Friday night we met up with Laura and her boyfriend, Alberto, but they didn't come over until 1AM. It's going to be tough adjusting to this. People don't go out until 1 or 2AM, then stay out until 5Am...We had a drink here on our terrace with Adam, the roomie, played some cards, etc. Then walked a few blocks to a bar where Alberto's friends were waiting. 

We waited for half an hour outside the bar b/c some girl needed an ambulance. The EMT response time was awkwardly slow. Drank some beers on the rooftop terrace, where they played MGMT, didn't expect to hear that in BA. I practiced my Spanish, or castellano as they call it here, but there's no telling if I'm following the conversations correctly. 

I'd be really interested to hear a translated version of the conversations I've had thus far and see how far off my interpretation of what we're talking about is... Molly and I decided it was time to leave around 5Am-we just couldn't hang anymore. We ran across the sketchy train tracks to get home and made it safe and sound and exhausted.

SATURDAY:

We wasted most of Sat. Getting home at 6AM makes it difficult to be productive the following day. We ran a couple of errands and that was about it. Alberto and Laura came over again Sat night to continue celebrating his birthday weekend. We went to a bar that was next door to the bar we were at on Friday night. Best Mojitos ever, hands down. It's very bohemian here. I love it-people are so laid back. All of the people are beautiful. All the girls are TINY. From what I've experienced so far, girls are super fashionable, but casual, they go out in sundresses and flip flops, guys are in t-shirts. I practiced castellano again with Alberto's friends and decided I'm definitely going to take Spanish lessons while I'm here. It's frustrating not being able to express myself.

SUNDAY:

I was supposed to get up at 11 Am for brunch with Laura and Alberto but slept til 1PM. I'm getting very tech savvy here. I don't have a cell phone yet, so I've been calling Laura via Skype. Whew, technology these days...

Excursioned with Molly again on Sunday. We ventured to the subway, "subte", for the first time and took it to San Telmo, where there's a huge outdoor market every Sunday. We walked down the stairs of the subway entrance and bought a 10 trip pass, following the instructions of my tour guide book and thinking we were so ahead of the game. However, we soon realized the subway on our side of the street was going the wrong direction. We explained our dilemma to the guy behind the

 ticket counter and he told us to just walk upstairs, re-enter the subway on the other side of the street, and tell the woman at the opposite ticket counter our situation. So we did. And she said OK. But we looked at each other somewhat confused on how we would get through the locked railings. A local gentleman interrupted us and started asking us if we needed help, meanwhile, he's grabbing Molly's subte pass and showing us how to run it, so we were minus one trip. Then he explained that we had a 10 trip pass so it didn't matter if we ran it again, so he showed us...again. Down two trips. Then ran Molly's for a 3rd time, apparently so I could go, but I was thoroughly confused why he was all of a sudden taking control of her pass, so I swiped mine in another line. Danggggg. We're now down 5 trips and haven't even seen a train yet.... smart americans. go team.

We got off the subway downtown and came across a huge movie set. They were filming a movie right downtown-hence the picture with all of the pink and red petals in the air. It was pretty awesome, I've never seen a big production like that before and there had to have been hundred of people involved in the production. People were walking around with walkie talkies and there were tons and tons of these petals flying around downtown. Really cool. We proceeded to the Sunday market that we've heard about. It was crazy. Huge, busy, etc. Hundreds and hundreds of people. A lot of tourists and people selling everything from vintage clothes to barbies. It was really amazing and at times really overwhelming. I'm not a huge fan of big crowds. Ummm, I can only handle NYC for 3 days at a time and BA is 1.5x the size. oh boy....well, more details to follow...hopefully my blogs will be short and sweet next time around.