ARGENTINA

After 10 days at sea, I was so excited to get off the ship. The day before we arrived in port, 13 friends and I decided to book a house in Buenos Aires. It was a lot cheaper than a hotel and was in a great location. It was a SWEET house with a pool on the roof! Living the sweet life in Buenos Aires. The first day we walked around downtown and did a little bit of shopping. Buenos Aires really reminded me of New York City. There were a ton of people, little shops, and street vendors. Maybe I'll move to Buenos Aires instead of NYC after I graduate from Chapman! ....just kidding mom and dad, I definitely wouldn't be able to live there considering the fact that my spanish sucks. One of our friends on the ship knows someone who is studying abroad in Buenos Aires and told us to go to this famous pizza place called Cuartito. The BEST pizza I've ever had. Later that night we went out to a bar and then a club. Buenos Aires is actually insane, no one goes out until 3am. By the time we left the last club, it was light out. That was definitely a shocker. 

After only a few hours of sleep, we woke up and got ready for a Gay Pride Parade.  Once we got all of the glitter on our faces, we realized it wasn't until next week. We decided to head over to La Boca instead. La Boca is a beautiful town full of different colors. There were a bunch of different street vendors and little markets. All of the buildings were full of tradition and each restaurant had either singers or flamenco dancers performing.  Later that day a few of us went to the shopping district which was close to our house. All of the stores we passed were a mix between Anthropology, Free People, and Urban Outfitters. Everyone in Argentina has great style and are so hip! Three other girls and I went for a late lunch/early dinner downtown and then headed back to our house. We got ready and went to a local bar where other SAS kids were. There were a group of parents there visiting their kids! It made me sad that my parents weren't there with me but then made me more excited to see them in Florida. We left the bar to go to this club which had 7 different sections and was on the beach, it was crazy and overwhelming! Some SAS kids bought a VIP section which was outside. We all saw the sunrise and then headed back home. 

 The next day everyone was moving very slowly. We went to lunch with the whole group but decided to split up because everyone wanted to do different things.  A few other girls and myself went to the city central and saw the Government buildings and came across a festival celebrating Buenos Aires and their traditions. Later on we saw a bike riot...well, it definitely wasn't a riot; it was just 400 people on bikes blocking the roads and causing delays. Our cab driver was so confused and didn't know what was happening. I thought it probably had something to do with decreasing the use of cars. That night our group decided to make dinner. It was a really nice change of pace and definitely took a lot less time. It always gets confusing trying to figure out the bill with such a big group of people. We made pasta and steak. It was a really fun "family" dinner.

The next day a majority of our group had a field lab for one of their classes on the ship. The rest of the group went to this famous cemetery. It was incredible! The amount of artwork and time that people put into their graves. It wasn't even a grave, it could have been a house. The cemetery literally felt like a town that (dead) people lived in. There were just rows and rows and rows of different style tombs. We didn't have a tour guide but every so often I would hear a person telling a story in English and I would listen in. Some of the stories I heard were incredible. There is a HUGE wait list to be buried in this cemetery. The last person who was buried there I think was in 2007 but I could be wrong.

Everyone met up around 7 because we had a bus coming to bring us to a soccer game! We were all so excited to go. They said that it would have been very dangerous if we went without a guide. The security at the game was ridiculous! There were 4 check points and you had 3 tickets to get into the game....not only that, but they didn't serve alcohol in the stadium because some crowds get "too rowdy" and people have DIED before! CRAZINESS! Anyways, our team lost but we all still had a great time!