The only person that showed up at friday english class was Bibi (short for vivian), who is my age and lives in my neighborhood and we have become friends. we chatted for a while and then decided to take english class to the streets, and we went shopping! i didn't find anything though.
but sunday i had more luck. i went to a salvador dali exhibit in the jorge borges cultural center, which happens to be located in a fancy mall downtown. the exhibit had a ton of stuff, but didn't explain it well, and kari and i didn't have a good idea of what we were looking at. there was a tour going on with a guide in black leather pants and a ear clip-on mike like in Rent, but we couldn't understand a word she said.
then edgardo and kari wanted to have language exchange hour, so i went shopping. i bought a gorgeous gray coat with mauve ribbon accents. it was expensive but you know...pesos.....
later that night i went with bibi and her husband to a peruvian restaurant. pisco sours, delicious ceviche, so cheap, plus they had salsa videos playing all night! i was in heaven.

the new york times frugal traveler comes to buenos aires. you may need a password to read that. but the neighborhood she talks about, palermo viejo, that's where i live.

monday i went down to san telmo with mark and his roommate Liam, we saw an antique car show, which bored me to tears, the modern art museum, which was worse, and finally ended up at a brewery which cheered me up immensely. last night i took the guys to my wednesday salsa place, very very fun. i came straight from cooking class so i had containers full of strawberry mousse, chicken, etc.

this week edgardo and i went to a cool scenester-type moroccan place for dinner. when we go to an ethnic restaurant, i have to order for both of us, and he orders the wine. but the wine was really expensive so we got juices - i got tangerine-fennel-apple and he had banana-honey-almond. we ate cous cous with lamb and chicken tagine. yummy!

i saw ´calendar girls´. it's great!

oh, and the trip to san antonia de areco was canceled due to weather. too bad as i am kind of itching to get out of the city. there's a trip to mendoza being considered for mid-july. i really, really want that to happen.

well, i went to a salon and got a very portena, fashion-forward haircut. i love it! i don't know any of the words like bangs, or ends, or turn up, or layers. so i just got a photo and showed it to the guy. i am very happy with it. i'll try to post a pic.
last night i went to a pena with beth. a pena is a traditional bar where they serve argentinian food like grilled meat and empanadas, and they sing folklore music, and everybody sort of joins in because they all know the songs. we were with beth's teacher and her crazy classmate, british jude. lots of fun.
this weekend:
tomorrow i'm having lunch at the hard rock cafe (don't make fun) and then seeing an exhibit of piven, this israeli cartoonist. sunday i am hooking up with a group that is going to a town in buenos aires province, 2 hours away. it's called san antonio de areco. looks cute, i'm excited. some people rented a bus to go for the day and posted on the lonely planet website if anyone wanted to join them.

today i met mark, an american guy who wrote me on friendster. a self-professed "nice jewish boy from chicago". (glencoe even! imagine it). it turns out we lived a block away from each other in dc. we went to a fancy restaurant in palermo that had a great lunch special - appetizer, entree, beverage and coffee for 10 pesos. the food was delicious, we both had the quinoa salad with goat cheese and the steak with tomato confit. i didn't finish my lunch. i think that must mean something!

i have been in a really good mood lately and i don't know why. yesterday at my gym, i was doing the treadmill with marc anthony blasting on my cd walkman (thanks dad!) and i was singing the lyrics aloud in my broken spanish. i did some machines and made loud grunting noises to make the people around me laugh.

then off to the arabic restaurant, for dinner with my sex and the city girlfriends. more fabulous fun than i expected. 3 expat americans and 2 argentinians that work at the public library, and 100% fun, plus one of the best meals i've had here. hummus, falafel with a delicious sauce, stuffed grape leaves, kefta kabab, yellow spiced rice with almonds, raisins and chicken, moussaka, and lots of wine. after dinner they gave us small cups of sweet turkish coffee. when you're done with the coffee you turn the cup upside down, and a woman reads your future in the grounds. she gave us eerily accurate forecasts, except for amanda. she was way off with amanda.
for me she told me that i have a new love, that it is really good and i will be really happy. she told me that i don't care about money, and she doesn't see work as a big part of my future. she said i will soon have to deal with some documents or legal papers. she said i have passed through a time of sadness or trouble, and from now on i will be really happy. isn't that nice!

today i checked out a feria near my house. the booths were set up in a circle around a park, like madison farmer's market, sort of. i bought a cute gray knit hat with colored yarn accents. it's adorable. it's cold here!

this week i had a blind date engineered by the well-intentioned women of HIAS where i volunteer. it went much better than other dates they have set me up on, the details of which i will not go into on this public forum. his name is julian, he has red hair and he is such a policy wonk, he even lived in DC for a year. so it was definitely familiar territory for me, we had lots to talk about. we had mexican food (not the same, not even close) and ice cream. god knows i could use some more acquaintances here. sometimes it's a little lonely.
last weekend we could only find harry potter in spanish and i refuse to see it dubbed into spanish. hopefully this weekend, pitufino.
tomorrow night some friends of mine, american and argentine girls are going to an arabic restaurant for dinner. i'm excited. maybe they can be my crew, we can get together and drink cosmos and discuss, um, sex and the city?
speaking of sex and the city i am SO excited for mark and j-lo! i have E Entertainment television on my cable so i know all the details of her wedding ring, etc.
big huge soccer game tonight, the boca-river magic combination. "superclassico". they were matched up a couple of weeks ago, and walking around that night the streets were EMPTY. one guy was walking his dog and he had headphones on so as not to miss a minute of the game. and the security guard at the restaurant on the corner had some surreptitious looking wires coming out of his ears as well...hmmm....