Happy Thanksgiving

Just like any other Thursday, this past Thursday I went to work, had my lunch in the park nearby and was planning on coming home to a laid back night and hanging out in the house.

That all changed when I received an email from my roommate that said " Is there anything I can pick up for tonights happy thanksgiving meal?

I wrote him back saying I wasn't really sure we were doing the meal.  I had mentioned it to my roomates in the first month I was here and had forgotten about it.

They obviously hadn't.

So I wrote him back and told him it was on and I'd be home at 6:30 and he'd better round up the troops to help chop and cook.  He was ready.  So I spent some time looking up recipes and figuring out what kinds of ingredients I'd be able to find here.  Obviously some things were out of the picture-pumpkin pie for example.

I decided on a menu and we put it into action at about 7:00pm.  By 12:00 we all sat down to dinner.  It was not exactly the most traditional dinner, but it was surprisingly close.  We ended up with no turkey, but chicken, and steak for our meat.  We had mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and a peach pie for dessert.

We spoke Spanish throughout the meal which wasnt exactly typical of a thanksgiving meal...We were a worldy group to say the least.  We had representation from the United States, Colombia, Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Germany, Argentina and Australia.

It was a great day!  We all helped out and I think I explained 10 times what the day was and why we were eating such a feast.

The one thing that was definitely the same this year, is we all ate too much!

Montevideo

Last weekend John and I had a three day weekend and decided to get out of the city and explore somewhere new.  We landed on Montevideo, Uruguay.

Buenos Aires is right on the Rio de Plata (the widest river in the world..eh eh) and it's the river that separates Uruguay and Argentina.  There's a ferry you can take from Buenos Aires to a town in Uruguay called Colonia in just an hour.  So early on Saturday morning we boarded the ferry and rode over to Uruguay.  Once we arrived in Colonia we hopped on a bus to Montevideo.  The bus ride was about 3 hours-I slept the whole time and viola we were there!

Once we first got there we were so impressed at how tranquil it was.  We were even considering spending some time there after our year in Buenos Aires because it's such a lovely place.  The architecture is quite similar to that of Buenos Aires and the streets seem to be laid in in the same fashion.

 When we got to the bus station in Montevideo we stopped at the local tourist info place to get a map of the city and directions on getting to our hostel.  It wasnt particularly far so we decided to walk.

It was so low key we realized how "break neck" Buenos Aires really is.  

We set out stuff down and started walking towards the old city-we walked along the beach.  Very pretty!!
 

Saw a HUGE display of strawberries.  A little under a dollar a kilo which is like 2.2 pounds...pretty good deal!  

On Sunday we went to a market in the middle of the city, they had EVERYTHING.  From Electronics (that probably didn't work) to household appliances to food to tiles to retile your bathroom.

We were really trying to find something to buy kind of like a souvenir but we didnt find anything...it was all either too practical or too old and non functional.  ha!  

The center of the city was really pretty!

Time flies

Wow! I can't believe I haven't written for almost a month!  Time seems to have sped up now I have a job.  

My job is really turning out to be cool!  I'm kind of working for two companies.  One is Gray Line Argentina and the other is Expedia.  They have both partnered to start a new program-a calling program.  Last year Expedia sold (I think) about 30,000 tickets from the US to Buenos Aires.  Reasonably thinking, a lot of those people want to do city tours, see tango shows, etc etc.  So the position was created for me to be their contact.  I think at the beginning of December I'll start to be trained on calling.  As I understand it, i'll be helping them make travel plans and tour plans.  I'm pretty excited about it!

In the meantime I've been able to write a mini guide of things to do and see in the city.  It's an awesome way to learn about the city and the 139+ museums that I haven't seen!

Additionally, I've had the opportunity to go on all the tours that Expedia and Gray Line offer to get a "first hand" experience.  I've had so much fun getting to see a new side of Buenos Aires.

One of the tours I got to do was a "Gaucho Tour."  Since the majority of Argentina is indeed just like Kansas and full of farms and ranches, a tour that travelers can take is to go to a farm outside the city.

I honestly expected it to be really silly but it turned out pretty cool.  It was so nice to get outside the city for a day and see some green and not hear the noise of traffic and people.

We were served a great lunch of a typical Argentine asado which was grilled over the fire.  Argentina is famous for their meat and for good reason!



The picture below shows chicken, beef and sausage on the grill.  Hard to see, but included in the grill is blood sausage.  John and I were daring enough (once) to try blood sausage and it's certainly not something I think we'll try again!

 The Gauchos showed off their skills and did lots of pretty cool and impressive horse tricks!

 I also had the opportunity to go outside Buenos Aires to a city called Tigre.  Tigre is on the Parana River and about an hour outside the city.

It's a really interesting place.  The people honestly live on the water.  All the houses are built on the water and rather than cars, they use motorboats.

This is someones house.  I guess a lot of people live in the houses year round.  Some, however, have them as weekend or vacation homes.  I think the more wealthy of Buenos Aires get out of the city and come to their homes here.

Because they actually live on the river they have market boats that bring them their goods.  This boat, for example, carries produce, meats and dairy, charcoal, wood, shampoo-etc.  They just buy directly from the boat.  How crazy!