"Always go better"

This is what my roommate Marie says. She’s from Germany and is basically the social butterfly of the residence. On her trip to Iguazu Falls last weekend (I’m planning to go in a few weeks) Marie started the ball rolling on a residence party that truly rocked. By the time this morning arrived, more than 100 people had been partying on our rooftop terrace, on a lovely spring night in the heart of Palermo Hollywood, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

After being out late on Thursday night, class on Friday definitely tired me out. We’re learning to use the past tenses in Spanish (yes, there are TWO past tenses, basically making it twice as difficult as English!). I expect that using the past tense will make my Spanish conversations much more interesting because I'll actually be able to tell a story, or talk about something other than the present. As of right now, I’m really only comfortable saying what’s happening right at this moment. I.e. I am Blair. I live in Argentina. I work at… etc.

The weather in Argentina has been steadily improving each day too. Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous so I was quite happy to squeeze in a run after work. Our party guests started arriving at 10:30pm so we had the evening to spend preparing food and drinks. Well, the night from there is basically a blur of Spanish/English/beer and wine. I invited a bunch of people from work too, and they managed to make it. We finally decided to head to a club at about 4am, which, of course, is about the right time in this culture.

The problem with the entire evening was that I was supposed to have a group meeting at 8-9:30am for my Certified Management Consultant program. The meeting is via the internet and the rest of my team is in Canada. My original plan was to squeeze in a few hours sleep and wake up for the meeting, but, as the night went on, I began to accept the wisdom of partying straight through till morning.

We left the club around 6am and headed to a restaurant. Argentina doesn’t really do the traditional breakfast of home, so, what we ended up with was the most incredibly massive steak sandwich at about 7am in the morning. That, coupled with two cups of coffee, left me sufficiently wired to attend my meeting.

Of course, immediately after the meeting I took a nice nap and rolled out of bed around 3pm today. I spent the remainder of the day apartment hunting. I’m planning to live with a friend of mine named Gideon from Colorado. We looked at a number of ads today – essentially for less than half of what I’m paying to this residence, we could have a very nice 2 bedroom apartment. One of them even had a Jacuzzi on the balcony. That’s the one I’m pulling for. Stay tuned.

And now, on to the pictures.

The first picture is a shot of the roof. Essentially there were people surrounding all sides. Lots of fun.

The second picture is of me and my colleagues at Deloitte. They're all around the same age as me and have been quite helpful to me in figuring things out around the office.