The Argentine Scene: ¡El Primer Fin de Semana!

We've had a pretty great first weekend! All of our weekends here are three-day weekends...we are usually only having class from mon-thurs, but this Monday was a national holiday, so we had class Friday and no class today.

We went out Friday night to an area called Palermo, which has a lot of bars and clubs. Funny story - we ordered a thing of wine, and it was called something along the lines of Vino de Pinguinos. Someone asked what pinguinos meant, and I said that I thought it meant penguins. Everyone just laughed, but as you can see from our picture, it WAS penguin wine! I was quite proud.

Later we went out to a club for dancing...we got VIP wristbands, which included two free bottles of champaign (between the five of us, not per person...don't worry), and allowed us to sit in the cool VIP section. The music was pretty great - there were two sections for dancing, and both played an array of music, from techno, to rap, to the Backstreet boys, to ACDC, and lastly, some 70s funk!

Saturday was mostly a day of rest for me. My host mother felt the same way too...I don't think either of us changed out of our pajamas all day, until I went to dinner at around 9:30. We both agree that sometimes it's great to have a day to do absolutely nothing. I had a lot of sleep to catch up on, considering we've just been going strong since we arrived! However, I apparently missed out on some interesting times...some people ended up at a Couch-surfer party...that was goth themed!

The people here are crazy when it comes to sleep! When we went out on Friday, places didn't start to get crowded until around 2 or 3am! I got home around 5am and everything was still hoppin'. Sometimes people are out until 8 or 9 in the morning! LOCOS!

Monday (today) the 25th is May Revolution day. I believe July 9th is the actual day that Independence from Spain was declared, but May 25th is the day that they formed their own government. I believe today celebrates 200 years of independence! It seems that in celebration or this day, everyone partied last night/into the morning, and tonight will be more of a night of rest and enjoyment of the holiday. My host mother made us empanadas for dinner and for celebration, which where were delicious! The chicken ones tasted a lot like the chicken patties you can buy in Jamaica. Mmmm

Yesterday I went to a street fair with some friends in the late afternoon, which was pretty cool. There were all kinds of stands and street performers. The street musicians here are REALLY GOOD. They aren't just the lonely guitarist strumming a few songs to a raspy old voice...they are usually groups of three or more really talented musicians, playing really lively and exciting music. One group I really liked yesterday had drums, and accordion, a guitar and a clarinet (or something like a clarinet), and they played some really neat gypsy-sounding music. Another group that was at a cafe had drums, guitar, piano and saxophone. There was even a guy on the street that was just playing a piano (it had wheels). I took pictures at the fair, but I forgot to put the memory card in the camera, so they are saved on the internal memory and I can't upload them right now...whoops.

Also there was a ping-pong table set up on a street corner, and some people were playing a pretty intense match!

There was a HUGE concert last night in Nueve de Julio Avenue, which is the widest avenue in the world, with six (I think) lanes going in both directions. Before we went, Harry, Brady, Charlotte and I went to a French restaurant, which was realllll good for realllll cheap!

Then we walked to the concert, which was INSANE! It lasted fom 8-12 but we were only there for the last thirty to forty minutes. There were all kinds of music that was played there...It was live on television before I left the house and there were about 15 people playing drums on stage. When we got there they had upbeat Tango music. Tango music, for the record, is SEXY. As is the dance itself.

Also, at midnight, when it became the 25th, the National Anthem was played. The words were on the screen, so we sang along to part of it. You may be able to hear my beautiful singing towards the end of this video below.

Also, they played this song twice...once for the encore. This is probably our favorite song here so far...it's pretty sweet, and seems to be pretty popular.