Urquiza Apart Hotel Rosario

... had room. I laid my bags down and grabbed a beer. It was hot and I really needed something refreshing. In the small courtyard out the back I soon learned that most of the people staying there were from Buenos Aires. They were very friendly and helped me find the supermarket for some food for dinner. We continued drinking in the courtyard till about 1am, before heading to the biggest night club around - Madame. Turns out that ...

... use it. 100 degrees is a lot, you might say. But they just shrug and say "That's spring in Rosario." SPRING. It's hot. So the elections were Tuesday. Our program paid for us to have a little "election party" at a local restaurant. It was basically the 40 of us going out to eat and watching the election updates on a giant TV. It was really fun. And the thing I was most excited about was the promise of the end of ...

... so they could really understand us. The kids went WILD. Some classes were well behaved and even a little shy, but seemed completely enchanted by our presence and genuinely interested in us, where we were coming from, and what we had to say. Others could not contain their excitement whatsoever, and were bouncing off the walls, screaming questions, asking for our phone numbers (thirteen year olds!!), and begging us to stay for the weekend so we could go ...

... little washer-outer thing next to the toilet) -Americans (because there´s so many Hugo Chavez-supporters here... which, ultimately, are not US-supporters) -American news channels -any channels (I only have 8 on my TV here... I watch a lot of classic movies on number 8, sometimes in English) -hot showers -milk -ovens with degrees on them (they only have high, medium, and low, on their ovens... how do you bake with that?) I guess that´s all I have ...

... it. I guess customer service isn´t im`portant here. And the empanadas taste so much better after waiting for them for 30 minutes. However, your bill (which can never be separated into 3 checks--- tooooo difficult) doesn´t get any better after you´ve been waiting for 30 minutes after finishing your meal. Oh well... it´s just not important here. By they by, did you know that the water actually DOES spin the other way when you flush a ...

... either place into level 1, 2, 3, or 4. I was sure I´d test into 3, but turns out I tested into 4. Don´t really know how that´s going to go, but I think I´m gonna be fine... as I´m finally with my family and I´ve been speaking only Spanish for the past 5 hours. Talk about a headache. But first, before our families picked us up, we had a short orientation... a run-through of how the program works and what to expect from classes ...

... beers before we left and by the end of the night I am ****ed. Needless to say I didn`t do very good with women although there were probably 500 hotties. The girls here are the best looking I have ever seen in my life but they aren`t nearly as cool as Brazilian chicks. But maybe my stumbling and slurring ass didn`t help the situation. Hah, I can only imagine how bad my spanish was being this hammered, I mean it sucks pretty bad as it is, no ...

... 4:30, at which point we quickly got a taxi back to the hostel. It was a crazy festival, lots of fun, better than I had expected. I should also mention that many of the spectators were wearing the typical gaucho clothes, which was cool. There really were not that many gringos at all. We saw what seemed to be a group of Germans, but otherwise I don't remember anyone who stood out as not from Argentina, or at least South America. OK, that's it for now, ciao.

... We had only just withdrawn money the day before so lost all our cash, a credit card each and Darren´s drivers licence. We both have other cards but our immediate concern was cancelling the cards that had been stolen, luckily we had some change so was able to catch the train to our accommodation and from there we hit the internet to cancel our cards. Then like all good travellers we went out and got ******!!

... and plants inside a park.. around that you have all the necessary buildings a community needs eg post office, church, town hall, hopsital, school, shops, pharmacy, restaurants, tourist office... quite cute. Day after I planned to walk along the riverside before my 19 hour journey to Buenos Aires. 8th: so indeed to pass a bit of time before my bus, I enjoyed a morning march along the shores of river Chimehuin making the most of the fresh country air.... Best ...