Argentina, Cowboy Style

  Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The past couple of days have been fun and very busy.  On Sunday night, my neighbor and fellow Roadie Catherine and I went to Alamo, a sports bar owned by an America who's lived here for years.  The reason? NBA finals! I cheered for the Celtics with her, as did most of the bar, though I actually don't care.  It was so strange to be in a bar where 95% of the people, including the bartenders, were Americans.  We had fun, though the Celtics lost and are now gonna have to play another game (tonight!).

The next day (yesterday, Monday), we had a holiday for Flag Day, or Dia de la Bandera.  Our program planned a trip for us to an estancia, or Argentinian ranch for the whole day.  We took an hour bus ride northwest of Buenos Aires to the ranch called Los Ombues, which is an interesting type of tree that's huge. 

An ombue (this one is in Plaza de San Martin)

At the ranch, we ate a LOT of food (meats of every kind: chicken, beef, chorizo (sausage), flan dessert, little cakes, salad), rode bikes all over the property, saw some very cute animals, and rode horses.

My horse was a bit of a revolutionary: he wanted freedom.  Twice, he walked himself to the gate of the ranch and tried to get out..It was very amusing! The boy that was walking the horses with us couldn't control all three of them at a time, so one of us was always lost somewhere.  Still, it was a lot of fun and hilarious.  Eva and I (a fellow Georgetowner) bonded and are planning on hanging out soon, so it's exciting. Especially since we can stay friends after this is over!

On the way home, Catherine and I talked about going to Uruguay this weekend... Colonia is only an hour away by ferry and Montevideo, the capital, is about 2 or 3 hours from Buenos Aires.  I'm gonna be quite the world traveller once this is all over!! :)

Instead of going out last night, I read a little and went to bed early, finally.  This was in part because I had to be at work at 10am today.  My job so far is good.  It's only about 15 minutes away by subway and the people seem nice.  Today I researched what the company does (an NGO that provides BsAs companies with international opportunities and a network of peer companies) and some of its partner companies (some interesting ones included a travel company, a publishing company, a manufacturer of medialunas, which is what they call croissants here).  My boss Diego also told me that he set up a meeting for me for Thursday morning with a technology company because he sent them my CV (resume everywhere else but the US, where it's called a resume) and they wanted to meet me.  So it may end up that I'll work for them part of the time and for Bairexport the rest of the time.  It would be nice if they paid me =\

Tonight Road is taking us to a milonga to dance tango! Yay! I'm pretty excited and hopefully will be good at it :)  Pictures definitely to come later.