Monday, October 27, 2008
break down
hi everyone, the blog is having some problems right now, but we're working on it. check back soon for exciting updates including kelly's trek to iguazu falls and leah's teaching and bartending escapades.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Time Bomb
One great thing about this hemisphere is that we still celebrate the ravaging of the Americas by Columbus, so I didn't have to work! Meaning I got to experience la Bomba de Tiempo for the first time, which, as Kelly has mentioned, is every Monday at 8 or so in Konex. It is a drum circle of some of the best musicians in the city, plus several hundred crazed (and surely drugged) fanatics gyrating and jumping and going to any length to try to identify with the beat. It is impossible to explain. I had somehow convinced Carolina and Andrea, two of my bartender friends from Sugar, to come with us, and we were all completely soaked through with sweat by the end, so naturally, we got pizza.
The pizza was fabulous...the experience, a little off-beat. Halfway through the meal the lights went out and the black crushed velvet curtains parted to reveal...a puppet show. That might have been funny, I don't know, I was too distressed to pay attention to the Spanish. So we called it an early night and returned to our bunk beds.
In other news, life here is good. The new house is relaxing and we're getting used to it, lots of interesting, cheap restaurants nearby and a much more bohemian feel in the neighborhood. My Spanish is improving rapidly thanks to working at the bar and going on a few dates with a Peruvian who speaks 0 English. I've picked up more hours teaching English and still enjoy that, but I'm thinking about possibly going back to taking a Spanish course for some more practice since I have more outlets to use it now. Or picking up Portuguese. We shall see.
The pizza was fabulous...the experience, a little off-beat. Halfway through the meal the lights went out and the black crushed velvet curtains parted to reveal...a puppet show. That might have been funny, I don't know, I was too distressed to pay attention to the Spanish. So we called it an early night and returned to our bunk beds.
In other news, life here is good. The new house is relaxing and we're getting used to it, lots of interesting, cheap restaurants nearby and a much more bohemian feel in the neighborhood. My Spanish is improving rapidly thanks to working at the bar and going on a few dates with a Peruvian who speaks 0 English. I've picked up more hours teaching English and still enjoy that, but I'm thinking about possibly going back to taking a Spanish course for some more practice since I have more outlets to use it now. Or picking up Portuguese. We shall see.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
New Diggs
So Sunday Leah and I moved into our new shared house. We previously lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in the city, but it was more residential and had an older crowd than we wanted, so we moved to a younger neighborhood. Unfortunately for us, the the previous tenant of the room Leah is moving into was a moron and kept the keys with them, so we have to share a room until they are fedexed to us. Also unfortunately, there is only one key, but so far that hasn't been a problem.
The house is very cool. There is a living room, thousands of bathrooms, and a huge basement kitchen. I was just downstairs making coffee when I ran into a roommate. We talked spanish for a minute, but he was talking waaaay too fast for me, so we switched to english. He goes to BC and promised to teach me how to cook, so I'm already benifiting from this move.
We also had to say goodbye to our old landlords, which was a little scary. I personally was terrified they were going to find something broken or wrong with the apartment, or at the very least realize Leah had stolen tuberware and I had taken an adaptor. Thankfully, they noticed nothing and we got our deposit back.
I'm now off to study spanish and then go meet up with people at taco night. Thats right, every Tuesday I go to the most American restaurant in the entire city and pay 1 dollar for tacos with the other US-food deprived ex-pats. Hasta luego!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
3 more months!
Tuesday Leah and I had to go renew our tourist visa down at the immigration office. It was definitely one of the more insane mornings I've ever had. We got up around 8 am and took a bus over toward the general direction of the office, having no real idea where we are going besides our bus driver's vague gesture towards a cluster of buildings. We chose to enter a random blue building and entered a huge courtyard and proceeded to get halfway across it before 3 men in uniform chased us down. Apparently we were trying to enter the high security coast guard building. Oops.
We found the right building and wow, was it crowded. We forced our way through people and asked a woman handing out numbers what we needed for our visa. Money, passports, and copies of our passports, which we could make on the second floor. We headed that way and asked a security guard where the stairs were and he just laughed at us and told us we had to walk 6 blocks to the nearest kiosk because the copier was broken and probably never going to be fixed.
30 minutes later we were back and had our numbers, 25 and 26. At this point it's around 10:30 and the sign says you can't take numbers past 11, so we were glad we made it in good time. We waited about 45 minutes and Leah went first. The delightful woman behind the counter took one look at what Leah had and was like "NO, you need copy of when you ENTERED country, not your picture!" Holy crap. We made copies of the wrong thing because the sign and number lady weren't specific enough and now we were basically being called idiots because we didn't understand it. We left the building pretty pissed off, planning on returning the next day.
Leah was literally in a rage. We walked away from the building and were in the middle of the street when she stopped, screamed, "No way, I'm not coming back tomorrow, these bitches are dealing with us today!" and turned around, heading back towards the immigration building. Turns out we could take numbers until 2:30 because all we wanted were tourist visas. The sign didn't explain that because apparently that would just be too difficult to mention. We each got a number, 43 and 44, and I stayed in the office while Leah ran to get copies of when we ENTERED the country. I also feel it's important to mention that as Leah was leaving she was on a rampage and was shoving people out of her way, including some old man who's glasses she smashed into and made him drop. I was left to apologize to everyone as she was already out of the building.
So my number was 43, they were on 27, there was plenty of time. OR WAS THERE? Suddenly, the woman started calling numbers. 37, 38, 39, 40...no one was showing up. I panicked, because Leah wasn't back yet and she had our passports and the copies and we were NOT getting new numbers again. 41, 42, 43. By the time they called my number, I was frantically calling Leah, who told me to stall because she was almost there. 44, 45, 46...51. They got up to 51 before someone else finally had a ticket. I ran up to the woman before 51 and waved my numbers around and kept saying un momento un momento, and she just stared at me like I was deranged, which at this point I probably was. Finally I saw Leah running from the other side of this giant room and I just stood in front of the woman waving my ticket until Leah arrived. She finally understood, renewed our passports, and 30 minutes later we were out of there.
We found the right building and wow, was it crowded. We forced our way through people and asked a woman handing out numbers what we needed for our visa. Money, passports, and copies of our passports, which we could make on the second floor. We headed that way and asked a security guard where the stairs were and he just laughed at us and told us we had to walk 6 blocks to the nearest kiosk because the copier was broken and probably never going to be fixed.
30 minutes later we were back and had our numbers, 25 and 26. At this point it's around 10:30 and the sign says you can't take numbers past 11, so we were glad we made it in good time. We waited about 45 minutes and Leah went first. The delightful woman behind the counter took one look at what Leah had and was like "NO, you need copy of when you ENTERED country, not your picture!" Holy crap. We made copies of the wrong thing because the sign and number lady weren't specific enough and now we were basically being called idiots because we didn't understand it. We left the building pretty pissed off, planning on returning the next day.
Leah was literally in a rage. We walked away from the building and were in the middle of the street when she stopped, screamed, "No way, I'm not coming back tomorrow, these bitches are dealing with us today!" and turned around, heading back towards the immigration building. Turns out we could take numbers until 2:30 because all we wanted were tourist visas. The sign didn't explain that because apparently that would just be too difficult to mention. We each got a number, 43 and 44, and I stayed in the office while Leah ran to get copies of when we ENTERED the country. I also feel it's important to mention that as Leah was leaving she was on a rampage and was shoving people out of her way, including some old man who's glasses she smashed into and made him drop. I was left to apologize to everyone as she was already out of the building.
So my number was 43, they were on 27, there was plenty of time. OR WAS THERE? Suddenly, the woman started calling numbers. 37, 38, 39, 40...no one was showing up. I panicked, because Leah wasn't back yet and she had our passports and the copies and we were NOT getting new numbers again. 41, 42, 43. By the time they called my number, I was frantically calling Leah, who told me to stall because she was almost there. 44, 45, 46...51. They got up to 51 before someone else finally had a ticket. I ran up to the woman before 51 and waved my numbers around and kept saying un momento un momento, and she just stared at me like I was deranged, which at this point I probably was. Finally I saw Leah running from the other side of this giant room and I just stood in front of the woman waving my ticket until Leah arrived. She finally understood, renewed our passports, and 30 minutes later we were out of there.
Amazing Video
Okay, I've watched this about 4 times and it keeps getting funnier each time.
See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Sugar Sugar
You can now all consider yourselves friends/family/acquaintances/admirers of Leah Alexander: bartender and waitress extraordinaire. I know what you're thinking: is she qualified for this position? And in response to your reservations, I must pose a parallel question: was I qualified to teach English? No. But I can speak English, and have been successful. Therefore, by some kind of transitive property, I will be a successful bartender thanks to my ability to drink. Pretty sound logic if you ask me.
I started last week at Sugar Bar in Palermo and I'll be working Friday and Saturday nights from 9 pm til 6 or 7 am. This pretty much eliminates social options on the weekend, but it's nice to be making money instead of spending it. It is extremely painful and hurts my back and legs and feet like nothing I've ever done. The pay is minimal, but we all got bonuses today since it was apparently the best night we've ever had (I like to draw a correlation to me joining the team recently, but I somehow doubt that's the only factor). But the music is excellent, I get to dance and socialize all night, practice my Spanish, drink and eat for free, and hang out with my coworkers who are all awesome and fun.
I'm still teaching English during the week and enjoying that. It's difficult because the hours are so haphazard, it's always part-time so I never have a regular income. But we're moving next week to a shared house in a cheaper neighborhood, so that should benefit me.
I started last week at Sugar Bar in Palermo and I'll be working Friday and Saturday nights from 9 pm til 6 or 7 am. This pretty much eliminates social options on the weekend, but it's nice to be making money instead of spending it. It is extremely painful and hurts my back and legs and feet like nothing I've ever done. The pay is minimal, but we all got bonuses today since it was apparently the best night we've ever had (I like to draw a correlation to me joining the team recently, but I somehow doubt that's the only factor). But the music is excellent, I get to dance and socialize all night, practice my Spanish, drink and eat for free, and hang out with my coworkers who are all awesome and fun.
I'm still teaching English during the week and enjoying that. It's difficult because the hours are so haphazard, it's always part-time so I never have a regular income. But we're moving next week to a shared house in a cheaper neighborhood, so that should benefit me.
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