To say the least, the last few weekends have touched the extremes of both chaos and total relaxation. Today is Sunday, the end of an eventful 4 day weekend and the first day of my last week in Buenos Aires, which until about 10 minutes ago, I hadn't realized.

Well, where to even begin? Since I've last written, a lot has actually changed. To start, I slowly shifted from being one of the newer people in the house to being the senior, despite feeling that I just got here myself. All the Australians have made their way up the Western side of South America in the direction of Chile, Bolivia, Peru and while keeping up with them and their adventures, still think that Brazil was the direction that best suited my likes and desires. The demographic of the house has shifted, and we're now mostly Brazilians and Americans (so that I'm no longer the lone one) and a mixed variety of Europeans.

The people in the house are really incredible people, I'm learning a lot from almost everyone about where they're from and what they do its all very interesting. Despite this, and while I'm not typically patriotic, I'm so glad to be an American. It could be that we (wherever we are from) grow accustomed to the comforts of home, the routine of our own daily lives and peoples' social etiquette, but I think Dorothy got it right when she said "theres no place like home."

Around Thanksgiving time that I realized how much I've started to miss my family, and while I'm not ready by any means to make my way home, it is a welcome intrusion to hear from everyone (HINT HINT). Speaking of Thanksgiving, that was a treat all in itself, I perused the internet to find turkey in this city (one of several hard to come by items I miss from home, along with sourdough bread, real bagels, proper peanut butter, free water, and free refills) and found a butchery that prepares turkey sandwiches. And so I planned to go there after work that day. After speaking to my parents, who encouraged me to find a legitamite thanksgiving meal, I went with two friends, an Australian friend named Ingrid, and my Dutch roommate Juanitto to an American bar that prepared thanksgiving dinner with all the fixin's. It was nothing worth writing home about, but it was nice nonetheless.

To backtrack, I mentioned that today was the end of an eventful 4 day weekend, so lets walk through what happened. My new dutch friend Nick, and I decided to get out of Buenos Aires for the weekend go to the second largest city in Argentina, Córdoba. I will preclude the rest of this experience to say that all in all, Córdoba was boring, unfortunately so. It was hot and I was tired, and I winged a bit (shocker, right?) But none of thats to say it wasn't a great weekend.

We look an overnight bus from Buenos Aires to Córdoba in the most comfortable bus I've ever been in. The overwhelmingly cushy seats reclined to completely flat, we were fed twice and between the two I slept, and we were happy. We laughed at almost everything and everyone it was good. When we arrived in the morning, we walked to our hostel, feeling ambitious as the weather hadn't gotten too hot yet, and took the morning to go to a museum, and meet some people and walk around the city (which seemed more like a town), and some unbelievably beautiful cathedrals and see the house where Ernesto 'Che' Guevara grew up. The heat started to settle in, so we went back to the hostel to vegetate and relax a bit and ultimately stayed in for the night.

Earlier that day, I was told that there was a group of Israeli girls and to no avail, I couldn't figure out who they were. BUT, that night as I was laying in my bed, I heard girls singing Shalom Alechem outside, I sprung up, put on my glasses just to take a peak. With equal surprise and confusion, the girls were black (bare with me here)! I was fascinated. The next day I spoke with them a bit, and learned that they're all Ethipoian Jews whose parents moved to Israel. These girls had just gotten out of the army and doing the typical South American trip. I practiced my Hebrew with them a bit, all the while still in awe that they spoke Hebrew and that they were Israeli. I definitely learned something new. One of the girls told me that they keep strictly Kosher. As they told me they were coming to Buenos Aires, I gave them my email so that they could contact me and I could get them a list of Kosher restaurants here in BA.

All in all, Córdoba was a great experience for meeting new people, seeing beautiful cathedrals, and just a riot to hang out with Nick. We decided that in the two full days we were there, we had seen almost everything we needed to, and thus came back early.

Life is good, ladies and gentleman, life is good.

Fun stuff aside, the LSAT is now officially over, now all thats left is to wait for my results, which I hope will be to my liking and submit applications! Work has essentially been status quo, I wrapped up a project last week before the weekend and so hopefully I'll have something to do tomorrow when I return.

Travel plans have changed semi-dramatically since my last blog, so as it currently stands here it is:

This Friday, I'm leaving for Bariloche in the South of Argentina, by bus a quick 22 hour ride.
After a couple days there, will take another bus back up to Mendoza.
From there I'll fly back to Buenos Aires for a night, collect my life and things, and head off to São Paulo Brazil.

Plans, from there, are at a complete standstill. Not sure where I'm going to go in Brazil because there are too many good options, but will plan along the way.

Plans to see Kesha and Kevin in Greece are now confirmed, though we're unsure exactly where we'll go and my cousin Farril and I are trying to plan a weekend in Kruger National Park at the end of February.

That's it and that's all folks. You know as much as I do now!

Please leave me a comment or write me back an email so I can hear all the things you're doing and accomplishing too.