My last couple of days in Bell Ville were very chill like expected. I got some good exercises in since I have been slacking lately. The gym is definitely missed by me and my flabbier muscles. The last night in Bell Ville several of us went to the center to eat pizza and have ice cream. Friday afternoon Elisa and I headed over to Córdoba. The bus company sold more tickets than it did seats, so we had to stand up for the first hour until we got to the stop in Villa Maria. Luckily I had my iPod and Elisa has never played the games before, so it was really fun teaching her all of the games I have. Naturally, Angry Birds was her favorite.
Finally in Córdoba I went to my friend, Facundo’s apartment. I made friends with the taxi driver on the way there. I love how everyone here is so friendly and not afraid to “talk to strangers.” There are so many more good conversations when you actually talk to people. I got to my Facundo’s apartment and we ordered a pizza and listened to Argentine folkloric music on his upstairs patio wile we ate. I felt so Argentine.
Saturday he had to work until 1pm, so I got to make lunch! I walked over to a little vegetable shop and bought carrots and broccoli. Then at a meat shop I bought some chicken. It was quite the adventure to cook not only in someone else’s kitchen, but also in a whole other country. First I had to figure out how to peel the carrots. I have never done that before, and it was really hard with an almost butter knife. After about 30-45 minutes I finally got the three carrots peeled and cut into small pieces. The broccoli was easy breezy. Normally I would use Extra Virgin Olive Oil and sea salt to roast the veggies, but regular olive oil and normal salt did just fine. Then I grilled the chicken. I had to improvise the seasoning with what I could find in the fridge: oregano and onion. Not bad I thought. Also, the stoves here are all gas. So I had the fun time sticking matches in the stove praying that it didn’t blow up. Facundo thought I was really funny being so nervous to use the gas stove. After lunch we watched a movie and that evening we went to the hippie fair that happens each weekend in Cordoba. There were so many things there that I wanted to buy. Luckily I only brought 50 pesos with me. I am going back this weekend though…with more pesos. ;) After the fair, we went to one of his friend’s house to have an asado (bbq). I loved it when the guitar got brought out and we had a sing along.
Sunday we hung out at his house all day talking about how to save the world and so on. We spent about an hour searching for somewhere to eat dinner. The first place he wanted to go was completely full and so was the second. At the third place we went to he changed his mind once we got there, so continued on the search. We drove for about 15 minutes to a bowling alley where he though there was going to be karaoke. However, it was Sunday and there was no karaoke. We got to play pool though, so that was nice. I lost.
Monday I packed a smaller bag to take with me to the hostel I went to the week before. I immediately met lots of cool people. I put on a little concert on the patio with my ukulele. I tried to charge them 20 pesos, but no one wanted to pay. I went to have coffee with a guy from Austira that I met when I was here last time and a new guy from Germany. Sadly, the guy from Germany and two girls from…Ireland, I believe, were leaving that evening. However, one guy, Sam from London-ish was staying for that night. We went to eat some pizza and French fries (chips, as he calls them…and he said that cookies were biscuits) at a little café. When we were almost finished eating, a guy I recognized from the hostel walked by. I waved at him, but I don’t think he recognized me. Haha. I had to tell him that I was staying the Link hostel too. But we exchanged phone numbers so he could meet us later on that night. Sam told me all about his most amazing travel life, and I must say that I am a bit jealous. He met a girl from Argentina in India a while back, so we went to meet up with her and some of her friends for drinks at a place called Bonanza. We did end up walking around Cordoba for about 30 minutes or so semi- lost. We could not figure out where the correct streets were! The people here are so helpful and they helped us get pointed in the right direction, but we ended up just having to take a taxi to get there. It turns out, that at one point we were just one street over. All of the friends there were all really cool, nice, and funny. The girl’s boyfriend is from Australia, so there were some funny times discussing the proper way to say different words. For example: banana. Australia they pronounce it as bah-naw-naw. In London it is more like ba-nah-nah. And in the US it’s like…banana. ;) After Bonanza, Sam and I headed over to a cool bar type thing called Indi. It was all India themed and there were people smoking hooka, the decorations were awesome, and the music was really cool too. Basically, I wanted to steal all of the lamps and tables to put in my not-yet-existent-apartment. The guy that we saw when we were eating came to meet us at Indi. He is from Chile, and he brought his other friend from Chile with him and a couple from Australia.
Tuesday, Sam and my Chilean friends left, but my friend from Austria told me about a thing called “English and Maté.” It is an organization where people who want to practice their English meet up and just talk in English and drink maté. That night was joke night. So if anyone knew a joke in English, they were supposed to tell it. Of course, I told my favorite joke: What washes up on tiny beaches? Microwaves!! And I got the same reaction that I get every time I tell it – polite chuckles. Whatever, I love that joke. After “English and Maté” was “Espanol y Cerveza” which means “Spanish and Beer.” On the walk over to a little bar some of us stopped to get hotdogs. In my opinion, the hotdog looked way more like it belonged to the US. It was just so big!
I had some good conversations at the little bar. I was even told that I speak very well. It was a definite confidence booster!! When I got back to the hostel, I met two girls from London who just arrived. I was also told that my request to go on a hiking trip the following morning wasn’t going to work out because not enough people signed up for it. I was the only one and they needed two people. Darn. However, the girls from London, Sofia and Lulu, said that they were going to go to Mariamaria later on that night because it was salsa night. So we sat around and chatted for a while then at about 1:30am we left to go dancing. It was super super crowded, but it was fun to watch the people dancing and listen to the music. Sophia and I both agreed that the singer was very cute, but were disappointed when we saw him later with his girlfriend. At least we assume she was his girlfriend, they were acting like it.
Wednesday morning I slept in, worked on this blog post since I knew it would be forever long, and bought a new swimsuit. Part of the reason I wanted to get a new swimsuit was because of the name of a store I saw: Kendall. Can you blame me? I asked the lady working there if I could get a discount since they used my name. It didn’t work. But it was less than $30, so it’s all good. She told me that they when the store was created they wanted to have US type clothing and so they searched for a US name. It is funny that they choose “Kendall” because it is so difficult for them to say it. A little while later my two London friends came back from exploring Córdoba. We went up to the patio on the second floor and then my roommate and his friend joined, the manger of the hostel joined, and a few others. It was probably one of my favorite times I have had here in Córdoba. The conversation felt like it was one between long time friends. My roommate, Jacobo, and his friend, José, and I went to Subway to grab dinner. I should have taken a picture when I went inside. It was one of the strangest feelings. I had a moment when I questioned if I was even in Argentina anymore. The place even smelled like the Subways in the States. There were a few changes on the menu. There is salami that everyone loves to eat that was an option, but I just stuck to my normal turkey sandwich. While we were eating we had a conversation about fútbol versus football. I still think football is more interesting, but I couldn’t convince them. When we got back to the hostel, Jacobo and I chatted it up in our room for the remainder of the night. He is a Youtube star in Mexico, so he told me stories about how he got started with his Youtube channel, how he makes the videos, and so on. He has 122,000 fans on Facebook too! My ukulele is going to be in one of his videos. He held it and tried to play it while he was talking for a clip. It was really interesting getting to hear stories from the other side of Youtube. If you want to check out his videos go to Youtube and search Jacobo Wong. Note: they are in Spanish, but they are really funny.
Today I was supposed to go to the river with two other girls I meet from London, but they changed their minds and decided to go look around town. Lame. But I got to finally finish my blog post of the century. I hope you enjoyed it!!
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