Santa Rosa's coming... get the rain boots!

On Sunday for Felipes birthday, ( the guy in the picture) we invited a bunch of people over and had a huge asado for at our apartment. Bryans the grill guy and I was like wellll what am I going to make? I have to contribute something. So, I decided, "Perfect! An apple pie!" Very American and I love apple pie. I found a recipe that seemed legit, figured it wouldnt be that complicated... make some dough- cut it in a circle, throw some apples and cinammon in, put dough on top and stick it in the oven. Bam! done! So, I didnt bother to read the recipe before I started. Classic Elise cooking mistake, classic. There's always that weird surprise that pops up, like.. "let sit for 4 hours" or "tie with green fishing string" something weird like that.

It turned out wayy harder and way more complicated than I realized. Apparently I picked the recipe geared towards those that "love baking" so there were more special steps than usual. It was one of those recipes with all kinds of the hidden, "let sit for 2 hours" instructions. The only minor bump in the road was that we calculated wrong for the dough and didn't have enough at all. So.. our apple pie didnt really have a top, it was just a bowl of hot apples pretty much. haha. Me and Bryan were the only Americans, so no one really knew how it was supposed to be. This is the only picture I have of the "infamous A.P.," pre- crust and oven stage.

What else.. Bryan changed schools and degrees, instead of being at the smaller private school, he joined the big dogs at The University of Buenos Aires (UBA). Its #1 among Latin american schools and ranked higher than a lot of US schools. Go Bryan go! But hes one of those naturally smart people... you know the type. He changed to International Private Law, which is like if you live in Columbia and want to buy a house in Argentina.. Bryan would be your guy, something like that. His school is really intimidating looking.

My first week of real gradschool started on Monday! The summer school class counts, but not really. Im taking four classes and its going pretty well so far. Im the only native english speaker in my classes. There was a mexican guy in my class last night and I automatically felt like we were friends. Hey neighbor! haha. Everyone else is from Central or South America. My sports marketing and internet convergence in media classes seem interesting , but my core classes seem like they are going to be a draggggg. Administration of Human Rescources and Marketing... bummer.

Every year in Buenos Aires around the end of August, comes a big storm called "La Tormenta de Santa Rosa", its named after her because it coincides with her holiday (August 30th). The storm marks the end of the cold season and the beginning of spring! Woo! Anddd , supposedly shes coming this weekend... bum bum bum.. hopefully our apartment wont flood this time!

Oh! and Thursday, me sol bryan felipe and maria are going to Rosario ( 4 hrs north of Bs As) for the Argentina vs. Brazil soccer game! Were going to try and get tickets for the Brazilian side, just to be brazilian for a day. Plus, I think it'll be a lot easier to get tickets that way rather try and battle Argentines for a huge home game. Argentina vs Brazil is a big rival game, so, of course, I already have my face paint :)

Ok welllll, Ive gotta go to this meeting with a guy from EMI, to see if he'll give me a little job! Yikes! what to wear what to wear :)

Los Enanitos Verdes

In my summer school class, I met Horacio. He's super nice and always took a bunch of us home after class. One day we were talking and I told him how I was trying to work in the music industry yada yada and he was like "Great, Ive been in the industry for a long long time. I worked for Sony BMG and now I have a small music label of my own." ... very good person to know.

Last week he invited me to go on a media tour with one of his artists, Felipe Staiti, the guitarrist from Los Enanitos Verdes, (The Little Green Dwarfs). In the picture, he's on the left.

Apparently, Los En. Verdes is a huge band that has been around since the latter 70s, kind of like a mild version of U2 for the Latin music community. So it was real cool when I asked him, "Soo what kind of music do yall sing?" haha such a bozo. I had no idea who they were. Anyway, Felipe is coming out with his first solo album in November and was going around radio and TV stations being interviewed about the album. Before I met him I had no idea what the media tour was going to be like. Horacio just told me, "Go here, ask for so and so and they'll take care of you." Ok, easy enough. I showed up at Much Music (a music TV channel down here) and walked down this long hall where a man signaled me into a bright dressing room. Hello. I walked into the interview with the camera crew and bright lights crammed into this dressing room, Felipe was sitting in a chair with a microphone and there I was sitting two feet away on a couch while the interview was going on. I sat there like an idiot smiling as I started to realize that this guy was kind of a big deal. haha. After that I went with him, his manager and a guy from Horacios label to get some tea and then to a radio interview. It was really cool! Not because of who he was, but to see the whole process happen. I wanted to ask for a picture so bad! I had my camera with me and everything and at the last minute I chickened out, said bye and walked away like a coward! loser.

el día feriado de San Martín

Leaving the city! Argentina is known for their bbqs or "asados". Its like an all day event where food just keeps coming and coming and you drink wine with family and friends. Sooo luckily, we got invited to one on Monday! Monday was a holiday in honor of General San Martín, so 10 of us went down to Ro's dads house in the country right outside of Capital.(Buenos Aires is the name for the province and the city, but the people call the actual city, Capital Federal.)It was so beautiful!!

Their house is on this old estancia which is kind of like an old plantation- minus the slaves. Usually on an estancia theres an old mansion with a little side house for servants and horses on a huge huge piece of land basically, with trees and hills, really nice. Now, Its a gated country-club type neighborhood with a few houses spread out on the land. Very cool. Luckily the weather was super nice because the day before it had been freezing and raining, but now it was sunny with blue skies. They had tables set up outside on the terraza and the vines hanging above us provided a little bit of shade from the sun.

So... the food starting coming... all day long it came. First we started with Venezuelan arepas with ham and cheese. An arepa is kinda like a tortilla mixed with a biscuit made from special Venezuelan flour.

Then Ro's dad came home and lit up the grill. When I say lit up, its not like you have a little gas thing and you just light a match. But, theres this whole "make the coals" process and you have them in a pile on one side and then you move them to the other side to cook with and thats the side you put the food on. You put the food on the grill and you wheel the grill down towards the coles depending on how close you want the food to the heat. Theres a process to it. While the coals were heating up, we took a walk through the neighborhood and the fields. There was all sorts of nature going on- cherry trees, lime trees, pomegranite trees, kumquat trees.

When we got back her dad was ready to go, he had everything on the grill! Red peppers, provoleta with oregano (its really common down here to grill a big circle of Provoleta cheese), squash, sausage, vacio which is like the side by the ribs, filet mignon, morcillo- I have no idea where that comes from, there was pork, blood sausage- not a fan, and then sweet bread which is funky, its this weird texture and I think it comes from the glands of the cow. Oh! and I tried tongue!! Cow tongue - it was soaked in oil and some kind of herbs and you just pick one out of the bowl and thats it! Ew, it wasnt bad - just the thought of eating the tongue of a cow was too much to handle. So was the idea of eating cow glands- that was odd.

This is me, unsure about eating "the tongue":

He served us in rounds, started off with one thing gave everyone a little piece and then brought out the next thing as it was ready . Way too much food, most of us called it quits and just drank wine . But the dad loved Bryan so Bryan never told him to stop putting food on his plate haha I think he ate 3 times as much as I did. The bbq part lasted a couple of hours. I wish you couldve tasted the pork. Good is an understatement, great is too... Then we took another long walk. The asados really are just like all day eating events split up by long walks so your food digests easier.

We got back and sat around the fire in the living room. Thennnnn round 5 came and it was dessert and coffee. Mmm dessert. It was so good- since they're argentine, everything had a little bit of Dulce de Leche in it. Its like, when in doubt, add Dulce. After that Ro brought out this big box of old Argentine song books and gave one to everyone, apparently they sing a lot. It was like a book of Christmas carols, but instead of carols they were old old Argentine folk songs. Her dad brought busted out his guitar and we sang songs for a couple of hours. haha seriously, jammed. It was fun, intersting. The Baros family never sings in circles, so it was different Everyone knew the songs already except me Sol and Bryan so we just read the lyrics.

When I thought it was all over, round 6 came- mate and pastries. Mate (mah-tay) is a very popular drink down here. The people drink it allll the time, its very common. Its a hot caffeinated herbal drink that you drink from a hollowed-out squash shell. You put the herbs in the shell, put in your special straw that keeps out the leaves, add hot water and sugar.. thats it. One cup is used for the whole group, you drink your portion, add more water and sugar, and pass it to the next. The leaves have so much flavor that its pointless for everyone to get their own.

The asado was so much fun, a very very Argentine experience. haha I know everything Im doing down here is an Argentine experience, but the asado was a more traditional thing, ya know. Oh! and Winston got to come :) I think he ate more meat than I did and he ran free through the fields, so Im sure he probably had the most fun out of everyone. We went back later that night and I woke up still full the next day :)

This is a video of Ro's dad singing:

Chau Pekin!

My first class as a cool gradschool student is almost done! woo! One down, like 24 more to go. except, the rest won't be intensive or in english like this one. Real school starts Monday- lots of marketing classes (3) and a finance class. I figured, if I get most of my marketing classes over with at the same time it'll be good because they'll use kind of the same basic vocab words.. ya know. Rather taking all these different classes completely unrelated and having to learn a different basic set of vocab words for all of them... seems a lot harder. If that makes sense.

On Friday, I had a cold.. when am I not sick. Im convinced its because I bite my nails. Bryan thinks thats a dumb reason. Anyway, conveniently the cold was only bad in the morning and at night. So I didnt go out Friday night.

Saturday, I went to a concert with a couple of friends. Id been wanting to go to a concert but wasnt really sure where to find a low key one like an underground one. I mean I dont really want to go see a big band in a soccer stadium and pay a million pesos. My friend Katia, her sister's boyfriend's brother is the guitarrist for this band, Chau Pekin and they were playing a show in this hole in the wall bar. The singer was good, Manu Chau-ish.. kinda. There were like 9 guys in the band and it was like one day a guy got all his friends together and was like well... lets play some music.

haha. I asked Bryan what he though, and we was like " They're very South American." haha hellooo where are we? But anyway, it was a fun experience, seeing some regular guys who loved music and loved singing their songs play. It was more about the music than the show. I like that. That sounds super cheeseball huh.

The horns (sax, trombone.. maybe? Aubs, you were in band.. is this what they are?) were the best part I thought- they added nice little touches to the songs. And the picture above that one is (L to R) Ro, Katia, Bryan, Me and Sol. When we left the bar it was pouring, everyone went home except me and Sol. We went out to this bar Roxy to meet her "student" for the first time. This argentine guys girlfriend is from Norway and he wants to learn norwegian so he can talk to his gf... probably important. Solveig came to the rescue when she saw his ad on Craigslist and now shes going to tutor him. His name is Guille (short for Guillermo), pronounced like Gee but with the G like in "guitar" so Gee-sheh. He was there with a bunch of his friends and once again, we stayed out dancing until 7am. It was this tecno club so even the worst rhythm looks like you dance in style. haha its probably better if you have no rhythm to dance tecno, then you look like you belong. They probably shouldve bumped me to VIP. hahaha.

At the end of the night, I was waiting for my taxi outside the club (you call a taxi in advance to come get you, so you dont end up with some crazy guy off the streets. I think they had a problem with that a few years ago so now no one gets cabs off the street.) and this kid comes up to me and is like hey where you from, (he heard me talking to the taxi company) and I told him the states. Then he freakedd out and was like read my arm! read my arm! So I did, and he had the lyrics to Scarlet Begonias by Sublime tattooed on his arm- and I was like.. uh cool. Then he was like I love Sublime! Lifted up his shirt and he had the bands picture tattoed on his stomach, I asked him where Lou dog was and he almost peed in his pants he was so excited I knew who Lou dog was haha. Then he showed me his "favorite" tattoo.. a naked fat lady , not just chubby but large- and my initial response was ew, shes fat.. why.. would you have that tattooed on you? Its there, forever. I guess the tattoo just completely took me by surprise, I was expecting like a surfer or Jimi Hendrix' face or something. And he looked at me so serious , shocked almost I would ask "why" and was like I love the fat ones. Plus, he was this scrawny kid so that made it worse I think. I mean, whatever, he was happy about his tattoo choice, so thats good.

Sunday it was cold and rainy- soo that called for a Sunday Funday!! It was so nice because it was like I was almost forced in because of the rain. So Sunday Funday happened. Me and Bryan bought some bootleg movies off the street, got some icecream, came home- put on our pijamas, made the apartment really dark and watched movies and drank milkshakes all day with Winston! It was soo great! When was the last time you had a milkshake? exactly :)

Okay, well Im on the hammock writing this and its freezing outside! With the storm, came a cold front, so, Im going to go back inside...

Birthday Wishes

T minus three months and a half-ish until I come back to Texas for a few days :) woo! Wow, Ive already been here almost 4 months, seems so weird. Time goes by fast.

So the other day Winnie ate a bee - he loves catching flies for some reason and sometimes a bee slips in. So he spits it out and within 10 minutes he starts walking super slow and panting with this like "zooming" look in his eyes, it was scary. I was picturing it panning out kinda like a mild version of Old Yeller, butttt it didnt and I was just being dramatic. Who knows what Argentine bees are like... Anyway, we took him to the emergency vet- they gave him a shot and he was better. Thats the bee story.

Saturday we celebrated María's birthday. Bryan was in the kitchen almost all day cooking, he says its relaxing. When I go in to try and help when he's cooking, it just causes chaos, so I stay out. I spent Saturday in my pijamas "exploring", well discovering music on the internet since I can't download songs anymore. Limewire destroyed my Mac.. FYI in case you have a Mac.

http://kitsunenoir.com/blog/mixtapes/ This is a cool website to get kinda "free" music off of. Remember when everyone would record different songs from the radio onto cassette tapes... its kinda like that but online. This guy makes mixes that include anything from tiny french bands you've never heard of to songs by Bjork. Super cool.

Anyway, back to Saturday, María and Felipe came over for dinner. Bryan made up a recipe for eggplant lasagna and it was so so good! So much better with eggplant than noodles. Then we took a celebration shot of Absinthe. The taste isn't bad just strong, it feels like your soul is on fire. Yikes. And then your body temperature seems to rise 3º. When we went to Mendoza we bought it from a little man who makes liquor and chocolates in his kitchen.. its not as sketchy as it sounds. The Absinthe comes out on fun ocassions :) I feel like my spelling has gone to shit since I'm always surrounded by spanish. So weird.

After dinner, we had people over and then we went to this new bar "Going." María knew one of the guys and he reserved part of the top floor for her. It was so fun! I danced danced danced from 12am until 5am I think. Zero rhythm but so much fun! And at 3am they threw out neon necklaces to the crowd and made the club dark so all you saw was a sea of neon-colored fireflies.

haha and this is whats cool in Latin America right now... This song came on and everyone started doing the dance! Like when the Macarena was popular..

Very fun. So far, I really like living in Buenos Aires, it feels like home now. School is going good. I start "real" school on the 28th and this class Im taking now ends next week. One down 16 to go :)

.... anddd, last but not least... HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY SMORGSSSS!! Have so much fun tonight sweet girl (at midnight) and tomorrow on your actual birthday! Love you :)

today in B land.

Its starting to get warmer outside I think it got into the 60s today. So, I survived a real winter! haha I dont even think its considered a real winter, but for my winter standards, it is.

And our roommate is super nice, she loves winnie and she speaks spanish, no english!! So shes perfect :) Well, its her first day but she seems like a nice girl.

My class is really good- its just like an intense summer school course before the real school year starts, so it only lasts like 3 weeks. I think the title is Entertainment and Media in the US. My teacher has worn a huge bow-tie everyday so far and he loves his movies. He was like a big business guy in the movie industry in the 80s and 90s. So, he makes a lot of references to Barbara Streissand and old tv shows. Today he was talking about some show from the 60s, The Green Hornet...? No idea.

Its that time of the year again! Sh sh sh shark Week on the Discovery Channel! So scary but so addicting. I was so sad they weren't showing it down here, butttt I looked it up and they are! It starts next week, woo!

And thats that. Thats an update on my day :) very pointless.

Serious Spin Mode

Grad school starts Monday!!! Whoaaa, new school, new town, new everything ... what should I wear? haha just kidding. Its not going to be like the auditorium classes at UT where you can just fade into the background all year by not saying anything and just taking notes, I think the max number of students in my classes can only be 30. So I need to know my stuff. Ive been doing all kinds of stuff to get ready for the school year like with records and official documents for enrollment. Yesterday, I had to take a 2 hour placement exam in spanish ( no dictionary allowed) over statistics, economics, finance and marketing just to see where I stand. There was so much vocabulary I didnt know and it was soo long. You know, they kind of try to trick you to make sure you pay attention to detail, soo Ms Baros didnt do too hot I dont think. Ah, if it wouldve been in english or if I just knew what some of the terms were in english, not the definition, just the word, I think I wouldve done a lot better. But, I guess that completely defeats the whole purpose. After the 30th page- the words started becoming one windy sentence and nothing made sense. Tricky spanish overload. But no worries... in case you're worried, if I do terrible, it wont hurt me. It just means I cant place out of the class. I dont mind starting from the bottom though.

My class that starts Monday is the only english class Im going to have. The real school year really starts the end of August, but this is just like an intense summer school class that only lasts for 3 weeks. So I figured why not, plus itll be a nice transition into the school and how things work. The guy in the picture teaches the class, Al Lieberman, a professor from NYU. Hopefully he sports that same bow-tie Monday. I read his bio and he seems pretty good, before teaching he was the exec VP at one of the Young & Rubicam divisions... yikes. Im looking forward to his class, maybe he'll love me since Im a fellow American. Instead of an apple, I'll just leave the US flag on his desk and wink, gotta get those extra points right?

Umm what else, I joined a gym!! After 3 months of going running "sometimes" , you start to get a little soft. Its called Megatlon.. haha so meat-head sounding right. But, its literally a block from my apartment- I can see it from my balcony and it reminds me of Lifetime, so it's a little bit of home next door :) I keep expecting Pappy to walk by with his headphones and his work-out "uniform" on, but no Pappy. Its only my third day but it seems good. It's kind of intense though, my spinning teacher yesterday was on the Argentine Olympic spinning team! what! He was in serious spin mode the whole time. He chugged his water bottles and just threw them to the side just like they do in the Tour de France. Wheres Lancey? But it seems like every member worked out religiously before joining the gym. Its ridiculous, but its good. Since the Argentine girls are beautiful to begin with- well good genes, thin- you know, annoying, that plus working out, its like walking around a gym full of skinny barbies. They are my inspiration. One day , I keep saying. haha. I mean, Id rather be at a gym of squares, at the bottom of the totem pole and work my way up then be at a gym of circles and be kinda up there, yah know.

And we rented out our second room in our apartment! ... to an Argentine girl named Caro (Carolina) thats 26, studies architecture and loves amphibians and dogs... so we'll see. Im really excited to have a spanish person in the house though- me and Bryan speak english to each other all day. So with her, its going to help a lot! yes! The only picture I have of her is this one, her facebook picture. We've never met her, she's from a town called Corrientes. Bryan talked to her and said she seemed really normal and nice...

And! Our naked neighbor across the street, continues to walk around in a speedo with all his lights on and do lunges. His body isnt speedo ready. Plus, the whole side of his aparment that faces us is windows- so at night you can see everything. Just close the blinds, but I think he likes it. So far, this is what Ive gathered about Naked Neighbor:

-he has nice things and clothes

-his maid comes everyday

-no pets

- no ones ever at his apartment with him

- and hes always working or on the computer

hmm... my guess is hes a lonely bachelor, Bryan thinks hes gay. And he has a huge black light in his room, its so weird it looks like one of those mosquito attractors. Who is this Naked Neighbor? Its a mystery.