The Winning Continues

Hi again family! It's been a couple weeks, I'm doing the best I can to set aside time to update you! So much to do...

So the last two weeks consisted of the last week of orientation and the first week of classes. Orientation wrapped up with an amazing dinner downtown at La Bistecca, which they had set up like gourmet buffet for our program. With made to order pasta and pizza and every type of steak imaginable, it was probably my favorite meal since I've been here. Aside from Gra's cooking, which seems to get better each and every day. Carne asada and different steaks, this ham egg and cheese quiche, milanesa...and always with some sort of dessert, usually fruit salad or something with dulce de leche, cake and chocolate. I'm truly roughin it down here.

Also during orientation we toured la Bombanera, the Boca Juniors soccer stadium. It was a pretty cool trip, even though I am now a diehard Riverplate fan (their rival)

the 12th man, supposedly rowdier than any fan section we've ever seen

press conference, river fans

Last Saturday was the Tiesto concert, which was without a doubt the best I've ever been to. Tiesto is known as the best DJ in the world, and he definitely showed why Saturday night. The concert was held at the Autodromo, a racetrack in Buenos Aires:

The actual concert was held on the huge infield, and was pretty much packed to capacity with what seemed like hundreds of thousands of people. We got there early, which was a great decision because it was the only way to get close. The combination of the music and light show in the outdoor venue was unbelievable, something I'll never forget. This is what he tweeted the next day: Tiesto Tweet

and here's some pictures

Monday morning my classes started, all of them in Spanish. In addition to my Spanish grammar and language class, I'm taking comparative government, foreign relations, social entrepreneurship in latin america, and a marketing class at a local university, UCES. This class is with actual Argentinean students, so it will be both challenging and a great opportunity. Although it's 5 classes, I anticipate the workload to be very manageable considering the difficulty of classes at Michigan. Or so I hope...

Monday night we went to "la bomba", which is a drum show downtown. It's every monday, and one of the best things to do in town. I'll definitely be a regular. Check out the videos and pictures on their website: La Bomba

La Bomba

St. Patty's was Thursday, and we did our best as Americans to celebrate to the fullest. The locals, however, don't quite share our enthusiasm. After my class ended at 1, Jay and I decided to head to the Irish pub called Shamrock for some lunch and a beer, but to our utter disbelief Shamrock was not yet open. The bar is called Shamrock and it's not open at 1pm on St. Patty's day. Unbelievable, South America. So we tried another bar Sullivan's, which worked perfectly. We saw a couple other American guys sitting next to us and started talking, and it turns out the one guy went to Jay's high school and they could literally "throw a baseball from his backyard to mine". Such a small world. They graduated from college about 4 years ago, and couldn't get over that "Wait, you guys are in Argentina for the semester and then are going back to college for another year?!?!". Living the dream. They repeatedly told us to "cherish it" and "stay as long as you can!" a la Billy Madison. They were great guys, and insisted on picking up the tab.

Friday we went to the Alamo, an American bar, to try to watch the Michigan game. Apparently the game was on the only channel we don't get, so we sat around a computer and watched the score change on espn.com. Not ideal, but the fact that U of M won by 30 POINTS made it all better.

I also met and befriended a club/bar promoter, so now my friends and I get free entry and VIP access when we go out, which will save me a bunch of money considering the most costly thing in the country appears to be cover fees.

Things are going great and I'm having a blast, but I definitely miss home. The only thing that could make things better is if you guys were here to share it with me. Love you all.