Our first day in our new hood, Tiff, Randi, Beth, and I walked around San Telmo and searched out a park where we hung out and watched the dogs play and the hundreds of cats stalk pigeons. We also found an amazing ice cream place where I discovered white chocolate ice cream (that  I went back for again and again) and I tried the beer ice cream. Yes, beer. Worth a try, but not a repeat.

We finally made it over to Shosha and Taylor’s apartment that they shared with eight other people. We walked in and were shocked at how beautiful and massive it was: high ceilings and hardwood floors, a winding staircase, a huge living room, and bedrooms that were connected by an outdoor walkway. We went to the grocery store and were finally introduced to the $1 bottles of wine (they’re $6 in restaurants), along with chunks of delicious cheese for the same price. We went back to their place, and the 6 of us feasted on our deliciously cheap appetizers.

Shosha and Taylor then took us to Bar Federal (on Peru and Carlos Calvo), a place that we returned to regularly. (Though as is customary here in Buenos Aires, they only gave the table one menu.) Not only did they have amazing salads (greens!) and hamburgers, but there was a pumpkin ravioli with a four-cheese sauce that was unreal. Of course, Randi, Tiff, Beth and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try the licuados.

The next day, we figured that we’d take advantage of our new $1 wine and cheese find, and have a picnic in the park. We bought fresh tomatoes and olives to go with our lunch and set up camp at a table overlooking the park.

We decided to take a small day trip to Tigre, a Venice-esque town set around a series of rivers. The 45 minute train ride there was a shocking 75 cents, and once there we sprung for a boat tour around the rivers to look at all the cute houses set along the river, with docks for driveways and water for front lawns. The river levels were extremely high, and many of the yards were flooded, and some houses were partially submerged. But despite this, most people in the community sat on the decks in groups, laughing, swimming, and taking time to wave at the passing boats.

We walked around for a little longer, sampling the local delicacies (like the largest cotton candy we had ever seen), before jumping back on the train to head home. Wanting a seat, I set out in a light jog to get ahead of the crowd and snag some as the train pulled in. When Tiff, Randi, and Beth caught up with me they said I had started a small stampede, and even an old couple had begun to trot, thinking that the train was about to leave. Oops.

Another fun train story, that had actually happened a few days before, took place on the subway. As the four of us were shuffling onto the train with the herd of people, I got separated from everyone else. Just as I was stepping on, a big, older guy turned around blocking my path. I tried to scoot by in somewhat of a hurry since l wasn’t fully on the train, but he held his hands up in a “what?” gesture as I tried to move this way and that to get around his huge frame.

I was still in the middle of the doorway, and starting to get panicked that the doors would close on me when I got more aggressive about getting around him. He still blocked my way. I started to get vocal, and then Tiff jumped in, grabbing his arm, and yelling, “Que Paso!?! Que Paso!?!” (what’s going on?). At this point, I whipped my arm around him and threw him out of my way (a bit dramatic, but hey, it did the trick).

Once we were on and all described the action from our different angles to each other, it became clear what was going on. His friend was behind me,  and as he held me in place to distract me, his friend checked my pockets. Luckily, he didn’t glean anything, since my pockets were empty.

On Tiff and Randi’s last night in BA, we headed out to a bar/restaurant with a bunch of folks from our hostel: the owner of the hostel, Amir, a guy from Israel, and a couple from Chile. Tiff and I practiced our Spanish while Randi and Beth took solace in their English, and we all feasted on the free gourmet pizza and 2 for 1 drinks.

We later walked a million blocks searching out a gay club, but got there and found the cover out of our price range. We headed back to base camp, and decided to hang out at the bar above our hostel (it looked more like a crack house than a “bar” to me….), and then wandered down the street to get super panchos (enormous hotdogs with several different salsas, or condiments).

While there, two 22 year old boys came up and “bought” us a beer that we ended up paying for in the end. I pretended to know less Spanish than I did so they would think we were more trouble than we’d be worth. As they were beguiling us with their original questions (where are you from, how old are you…), a very drunk man and woman got up and started dancing the tango, quite appropriately, to Credence Clearwater. During one spin, the woman got a little off balance and began staggering sideways, fairly slowly. She continued to stagger for several seconds, traversing the whole restaurant, somehow unable to find her center of gravity the whole time. She finally made it to the front glass door, smashing into it with full force. She sent the door slamming into the wall (and the light switch), and made all the lights go out in the place. It was quite a scene. We decided to head back to the hostel.

We headed upstairs to the crack house again and hung out for a while with all our new friends. Tiff had turned in early, but all of us piled into the room and onto her bed at 4am.

The next morning, we set out to get pumpkin ravioli with four-cheese one more time, and later sadly said goodbye to Randi and (a hung-over) Tiff.

Beth and I took a bus into the city to try to set up Spanish classes for the week, which we were able to do successfully. We turned in early, getting a good night’s sleep before school.

We took Spanish classes for the week at Buenos Aires Spanish Institute (http://www.basi-spanish.com/). We were set to take group lessons, four hours a day for Beth, and three for me. But since there weren’t other folks that week to take our classes, we got private lessons for the same price for one hour less than we had planned per day.

Beth started stringing together sentences by the third day, drawing strongly on her French. Unfortunately, Beth spent two days repeatedly calling her teacher a “bitch”, mistaking this word in Spanish with the word “but” (perra vs. pero). And I stumbled through a few conversations with my teacher, describing our travels, talking politics, and lamenting global warming. We got through one conversation about foreign aid to Africa, and I started to feel marginally better about my feeble Spanish abilities.

One great thing about the location of our Spanish school was that we stumbled onto Gourmet Empanadas (http://www.empanadasgourmet.com.ar/). These things were amazing. Each day, Beth and I got cheese and onion, blue cheese and ham, and alternated our third choice (the previous two being too amazing to sacrifice to try other flavors).

We also started tango classes. We somehow managed to find a gay tango school (http://www.tangoqueer.com/), and despite Beth’s severe anxiety about taking the class, we successfully made it through the first 2 hour class and practice afterwards without too much embarrassment. Taking on the lead part, I was way worse than Beth, and needed the teacher to step in frequently to take over my spot to show me the steps (I gathered that this didn’t bother the blushing Beth too much).  (BG: Hot. Argentinian. Tango. Teacher. Need I say more?)

Another night, Shosha and Taylor took us to Gibraltor, a pretty cute British Bar near our house. We ate hamburgers, drank the beer specials, and Taylor and I bonded over Roland of Gilead’s quest for the Dark Tower (Stephen King). We also  discussed Tolkien and TS Lewis, Taylor insisting that JK Rowling deserves a rightful place next to these master storytellers. I was considering reading “Dune” next, but I think (sorry, Marjona) that Taylor convinced me to give Harry Potter a shot despite all my initial it´s-a-kid-series-too-much-hype snottiness.

On Friday, we finished up our Spanish classes and then spent the night practicing tango. It was an odd combination of people, including one over six foot tall drag queen wearing heals and a tight tank top, and Beth and I felt a bit like we were in the Land of Misfit Toys. But our teacher was there, and that made Beth happy.

When we went home, we tried to get some rest. Beth’s best friend Bon would be arriving the next day to celebrate his 27th birthday with us and we were planning to sprint through Uruguay in the week he was spending with us.