Hola famila!
I sit here at 3 am riding out a productive streak since my internal clock is so out of whack down here: dinner at 10, Que pasó ayer parte 2 (The Hangover 2) at 11:15 and hittin the homework grind at 1. I just finished 3 journal entries for Spanish class and an outline for my international relations essay, a great Monday! As the day of departure rapidly approaches, I can make no excuse to wasting a single day...ifsofacto I've been very productive and touristy.
Through my adventures I met my friend Laura who works at Google Argentina. The office opened in 2007, and at only 27 years old she's a resident senior. I could not be more envious of her job. The office is located on the beautiful Puerto Madero and as you can imagine from a company like Google, is complete with amazing break rooms, terraces, cafeterias and massage stations. Besides the actual office, her job consists of her traveling the US, Mexico, and South America selling ad space for Google...not bad. She has no preferential language between English and Spanish and is on the hiring team, hopefully opening doors for yours truly down the road.
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view of Puerto Madero
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| UMich love worldwide! |
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| crazy break room |
We made the trek last weekend to Lujan Zoo, one of the most controversial in the world. They let you go in the cage to pet and hold lions and tigers! It was wild to say the least. Despite being in amazement that you were actually touching these HUGE animals, you couldn't ignore the extremely negative vibe from the place. The animals you get to interact with are drugged out of their minds, which is really sad to see. Also the workers looked like they did not want to be there at all, giving us dirty looks the entire time. Oh well, it was still an amazing experience and I got some pretty incredible pictures.
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| zonked out...sad |
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| eating apples right out of my hand! |
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| Simba! |
Other highlights:
We had a class cancelled a couple Thursdays ago, so my friend in my class and I decided to seize the day and get touristy. We went to the Plaza de Mayo which is where the Casa Rosada (like our white house but pink). There are constantly protests and rallies going on and it's a really cool place to be, the center of activity in the city. We also walked around Puerto Madero a bit.
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| La Casa Rosada |
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| Puerto Madero |
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| great graffiti, its truly everywhere! |
Went shopping in Alto Palermo, biggest/newest mall in the city, where I got a jacket to wear to my second Riverplate soccer game the next day. That night I actually was refused entry to the bar because I was wearing it and the bouncer was a Boca fan! Too funny...Vamos River!! I went with Juliana and her visiting friend, and this time I learned 3 songs by heart beforehand. My entire host family was there and they LOVED that I could sing along with them. CANTA GRINGO CANTA!! (sing Gringo sing!!) haha
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| River...MI BUEN AMIGO!!! |
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| Long day of shopping at Alto Palermo? haha |
Right from the River game we went to Club1, which was the coolest bar/club I've ever been to. 3 levels of dancing with a huge, 3 story LCD screen behind the DJ. Not a bad little Sunday...
Big ups to Dave "The Freakin' Man" Smith for a big promotion...this guy is killing it! Can't wait to get re-americanized with you with some good ol' golf and Tigers baseball.
I can't believe I'll be home a week from Sunday...WOW. These 4 months have truly been a blur. It's gonna be extremely hard to say goodbye to my friends, some of the best people I've ever met. But I also can't wait to see Mom, Dad, Jesse, Grandma and Leo! And the rest of you soon after!
Un Abrazo
