bicicleta de viaje a tigre

Continuing to post photos from december-- a group of us took a marvelous bike trip up to Tigre, 17 km or so north of BsAs. Tigre has a lovely riverbank to bike along, which we did at sunset.  We trained to a midpoint, then biked up, then trained back.  Our tour guides, Maria y Julian, are highly recommended by me.  Bikes, helmets, water, and a mid-trip maté were included. As was about 5 hours of biking around beauty.  They just started their own company, definitely check it out if you visit here:

http://www.bikeit.com.ar/

boca juniors futbol fotos

On 13th December, we attended the final Boca Juniors futbol match.  Even though the rankings were already determined, the fans were still highly enthusiastic ("we are Boca Juniors, we have to win").  During certain songs, the entire stadium would vibrate with energy.  Interestingly, no alcohol is served in the stadium. Shocking!

L.I.F.E. as we now know it.

i have been remiss with the posting. i haven't posted on permanent beta (though i will soon), and this is my first post here. hello everyone.

cat and i signed up today to volunteer with an organization called L.I.F.E. (which stands for "luchemos para una infancia feliz y con esperanza," or "we strive for a childhood with happiness and hope.") our orientation guide talked protocol and showed us videos, much like dr. pierre chang from LOST, except that his name was ola and he was from tallinn, estonia. cat and i told him we'd been to estonia last summer; he wasn't as excited as we'd have liked him to be, not even when we told him we'd been to the estonian islands saaremaa and hiiumaa, though i thought i saw a faint upturn of his lips when we told him we liked tallinn better than riga.

the orientation lasted over an hour. the topline: sign up, show up, and wear the "L.I.F.E." t-shirt. we will be going into the villas, or slums, of buenos aires, where, according to ola, they smoke a lot of paco (don't do drugs, kids). ola also lit upon something incredibly sobering: the children there, he told us, go to school not because they want to be ballerinas or astronauts, but because school is the one place they can reliably eat one good meal a day. more to come on this front. we're looking forward to working with the kids. our first day in the field with the dharma initiative is wednesday.

in other news, i might see if i can do 10-15 hours of one-on-one tutoring every week, in lieu of spanish classes (cat has already decided to get private lessons). the classes at the schools have a decent structure, and the teachers have been more good than bad, but i'm not getting nearly enough practice speaking, and the two schools i've attended to date seem far more concerned with receiving payments than with making sure the students are learning. we'll see. i might try one more school before i officially jump ship.

also, i've yet to check out the casino at puerto madero, which i'm told has poker, but it is next on my list of things to do. i'm very excited about the potential to play live a few days a week.

el primero clase de tango

We went to our first tango class last night where we learned the basic step and I attempted to master el ocho. We were immediately informed that the man must lead, the woman must always wait to be shown what to do by the man. Justin was entirely pleased with this information.  Learning tango will be an exercise in surrender for me.  I always want to lead!  (There are emerging tango schools which abandon the heteronormative traditional roles, esp. given strong gay community here in BsAs, but we are just going with it for now).  The space we went was called La Catedral and was a big lofty warehouse with the dancing in the middle.  It was on the casual side and I felt comfortable in my sneakers, though proper shoes clearly will be necessary. The teachers were very patient with us given it was our first class.  We learned about the abrazo, or the embrace, which is the frame created by the dancers' bodies.  This prompted multiple "spaghetti arms" quotes throughout the evening.  Definitely check out this place, they have multiple classes (20 pesos each for 90 min) and milongas nightly. 

http://www.lacatedralclub.com/

inaugural post

It has just taken us approx. 14 hours to set up this blog. This does not bode well for frequency of future posts. Expect next post to coincide with wedding of Middleton and Prince of Wales. I plan to wear a special hat for the occasion.  Since we are dreadfully delayed in setting this up, there will be flashback posts to December.  Flashbacks and dream sequences.

photo teaser

we are going to get photos organized, so in the meantime here we are at a boca juniors game