The Best Night Ever

So it's getting near the end here. I've got about two weeks left. Tomorrow we leave for Brazil, where I'll be presenting a poster on my research, and when I get back next wednesday, I'll have about a week until I leave.

So we're in a rather celebratory mood. Last week, the guys at the pizza shop invited me to asado (Argentine BBQ, but much, much better than US BBQ). At the same time, the girls invited me out to dinner at a buffet near the university. What to do?

Both, of course! Dinner with the girls was at 8 PM and asado at the pizza guys place was at 11 PM, so two dinners for me. I prepared by not eating all day, I just had 6 cups of coffee over the course of the day. Despite this, I felt okay, and it made my dinners even better.

First, at Siga la vaca with the girls, I had some good food and plenty of wine. The buffet included a bottle of wine per person! Needless to say, we didn't make it that far, but five of us (there were six, but Jen declined wine) polished off four bottles of wine. Not a record (certainly Dad and I have done a lot more ourselves), but respectable. We also had a ton of great meat as well as an all you can eat salad bar.

That was great, and I showed up to asado at Te Pizza El Gallo at 11:30 in a slightly inebriated state. The guys at the pizza shop were quite happy to see me, and they quickly closed the shop. They used some of the grills they normally cook pasta on to cook asado, and it was incredible. Excellent food, really. They also provided me with an entire litre of beer and a really unique desert, which was a nearly ice-like vanilla icecream with strawberrys and apricot sauce. It sounds a little odd, but it was really delicious, and I don't even like desert. That said, my desert (despite TWO dinnners!) disappeared with no delay.

On top of that, there was great conversation in a mixture of broken english, spanish, and french. Actually, the french was the only real complete sentences I was able to use and get my point across, but I digress. Anyway, it was incredible fun, and I have to say, this night stands not just as an excellent night in itself, but as a testament to the value of friends, regardless of language barriers. Despite minimal 'normal' communication, my friends (and it was just the five employees of the pizza place and me) and I shared a really great night, with all the food, drink and conversation one would expect of an incredible night with friends, despite language difficulties! If that's not a life experience, well, I don't know what is.

Anyway, I return to the States in about two weeks, so wish me luck in my last few weeks here and in Brazil, this adventure is almost over, but the stories will certainly last a lifetime!

James

The Pizza Guys; Mom makes a friend

So I eat at this pizza place down the street almost every day, mostly because the guys who run the place are really cool. At last, I have a photo of them:


Earlier in the day we went and saw the giant flower sculpture in Buenos Aires, where Mom made a friend as seen in this picture.

He came up on his bike and stopped at the edge of the frame until I took a picture, then pedalled over to this spot when I went to take a second picture. As soon as I was done, he rode his bike off.

JC

Witness the Awesome Power!: Some pics from Iguazu

Last weekend we went to Iguazu falls. It was pretty freakin' cool. Here's some pictures.


Here's the group except for Katie, who's taking the picture.


Here's everyone in front of the falls.


Here's the falls (well, part of the falls). See that big waterfall on the left side? Yeah, we went through that on a boat.


Here's me with a butterfly trying to eat my jacket.



Another view of the falls.


Here's the view from atop "the Devil's Throat", the largest part of the falls. Yeah, that's only part of it, it keeps going for a bit.

That's it. There's nothing to say about Iguazu. There's just no right way to express the falls in words. Even the pictures hardly do justice. You really have to go to understand the immensity of the place.

JC

A Solitary Photo from Bariloche

Because I'm clearly doing a poor job of getting around to actually organising the information about the various trips I have (and will be, Iguazu falls this weekend) gone on, here it a quick data point from our trip to Bariloche.
Here's the lot of us, including two guys from our hostel that we ran into on the way to the port the day before and ended up adventuring with for a few days. In any case, if you look toward the upper right of the land, you'll see a hill with a large building. This is a really nice resort hotel, and gives a good idea of how far and how high we biked. We were at that hill (at the top) a few hours before we took this photo. That is, we biked from that hotel all the way around and up the hills to where we're standing in the photo. And we actually set off about an hour prior to reaching that hotel, so there's a bit of extra distance that we covered before that.

I guess it goes without saying, but it was a pretty long trip. Incredible, really, and we saw a ton of cool things on the way to the top.

Did I mention that it's cold?

The current weather report for Bariloche: -3 Celsius, overcast.

It's cold. I'm wearing a sweater and a jacket indoors! (And a hat...)

The Next Plunge

Bariloche has been fantastic. I am posting this from the hostel on our last full day here after getting back from horseback riding in the foothills and desert region east of Bariloche. We have taken tons of pictures and had a pretty incredible week, while meeting some great people as well. After coming off the mountain yesterday, I sat in the common room swapping stories with two guys from NZ, a girl from Ireland, an Australian, and another fellow from Ireland. Great fun.

Anyway, to add to the excitement, I've also officially signed up for Hungarian in the fall and started the process for the Fulbright application. With any luck, around this time next year I'll be packing my bags for a nine month trip to Budapest for an intense course of mathematics and (more) culture shock.

It never ends, eh?

-James

The Long Delay

Is going to get longer, sorry!

I haven't had the time to collect my pictures and stories from Mendoza yet, my apologies. Work got crazy as soon as I got back; my seminar went well and since then Adrian has had a lot of ideas and it seems that we're on the edge of finding something new; hopefully that will mean publication! In the middle of this, my friends decided we should go to Bariloche from Thursday through next Tuesday, so we're in Bariloche after a 23 hour bus ride. Long as hell, but worth it, as this place is incredibly beautiful, and it snowed last night! Just a little.

Anyway, real updates, well, when I get around to it. At least the delay is for a good reason (good as far as I'm concerned anyway!)

-J