Feliz Cumpleanos a Charity!
Today is very important day: it's the birthday of one of my best friends , Charity Elizabeth Romano. Since I am not at home to celebrate with her, I wanted to send her a little birthday shout-out from Buenos Aires, and let everyone else know why she is so cool!
She is beautiful outside and within - actually, I think that we will all agree that she is HOT! (And still single, guys!)
She is adventurous, brave, and is always willing to try new things!
She is an amazing cook, and can whip up anything from practically nothing. 
She is goofy, crazy, outgoing, loves to have fun, and is a blast to be around!
She is athletic, outdoorsy, energetic, and loves to be outside enjoying God's creation.
She knows how to get down and shake her groove thang!
Looks like we didn't impress Rich that much, though!
She is super artistic and creative. Check out an example of her artistic side - she took this sunrise photo in Panama. 
She is an adoring, loving, and supportive sister and daughter.
Last, but certainly not least, she has been an amazing friend and sister in Christ, and a blessing to have as a roommate. Charity is always there to laugh with, cry with, and pray with, and is an indescribable encouragement, support, teacher, and buddy to all of her friends.
Happy birthday, Charity! I hope you are having a birthday that is every bit as special and incredible as you are. I miss you tons, and I am so thankful for your friendship!
Thanksgiving in the Andes
My friend Emily, a way cool missionary girl living here in BA, invited me to spend Thanksgiving weekend with her in Mendoza, a desert town at the base of the Andes, where a group of missionaries has a Thanksgiving celebration. So Wednesday evening we boarded the bus for the 12 hour ride to Mendoza. However, buses in Argentina are much nicer than any in the States, and are actually more comfortable than sitting on an airplane. We were traveling coche cama class, which meant our seats almost fully reclined, we were given a cold dinner, a hot dinner, breakfast, and a movie! With its two levels, meals, sleeping passengers, and gentle swaying, it reminded me of The Knight Bus from Harry Potter.
We arrived in Mendoza Thursday morning, and because we were not celebrating Thanksgiving till Saturday, headed to
Cacheute, beautiful hot springs up in the mountains. Friday we went
white water rafting on the Rio Mendoza, which was a blast. Saturday we loaded up two vans with about 24 people to head up to a cabin in the Andes, where Thanksgiving was being held. One thing I have learned since being here, though, is that everything is an adventure. En route to the cabin, a large semi in front of us insistently motioned for us to pass him, despite th
e fact that it was a double yellow line. As soon as we did, however, both vehicles full of hungry
extranjeros were pulled over by a group of police waiting on the side of the road. The two dads spent a tense 40 minute trying to convince them not to make us go all the way back to town to pay the ticket, and trying not to give in to the temptation to bribe the officers, which they had hinted was a possibility. However, the officers finally showed us grace and let us go. Thanksgiving itself was amazing. There were about 40 plus people there, almost all missionaries serving in Chile and Argentina, and was incredible to hear about their experiences and eat turkey at the base of the Andes.
We are excited for Thanksgiving dinner and to see the mountains!
Amazing, huh?
Turkey! 
The start of our post-turkey hike 
Lauren, a fun missionary kid growing up in Argentina, and I at a Jesus statue overlooking the mountains and the valley below.
Los Colectivos
Buenos Aires's public buses are called colectivos. They are loud, dirty, emit noxious amounts of foul-smelling exhaust that send me into spastic coughing fits as they pass by, and are a constant threat to pedestrians crossing the street, but I love them. I love their history with the colorful porteno art style called fileteado. I love that even though I ride the colectivos at least twice a day, I have never seen another American, or any foreigner for that matter, on a colectivo. I love that the name for the bus driver, colectivero, is also what they call a mullet here, which should lend some insight onto the hairstyles favored by the colectiveros. I love that I can now locate the appropriate bus in the Guia T, the amazingly complex guide listing all 200+ colectivo's routes (which at first I called the "Get You Lost T"), in a mere 15 minutes - quite an improvement over my original hour.
My first experience with the
colectivos was almost enough to swear me off them for the remainder of my stay in Buenos Aires. I had taken one successfully downtown on my second day in the city to meet a friend for ice cream. In order to get home, I hopped on the
regreso, or return, of the same line. Because every other street in Buenos Aires is one way, the
regreso went on a street that I was not yet familar with, and because I didn't recognize the
neighborhood, I missed my stop. By the time I realized I had passed my house, I had no clue where I was, and spent the remainder trying to figure out where I was on the map to call a taxi, and wondering why in the world I was not safe at home in the Shell Shack. However, I soon realized I was the very last person on the bus, and worked up enough nerve to explain my predicament to the
colectivero. He rolled his eyes, told me that the neighborhood I was in was too
peligroso to get off in, and took me back to the bus station, and put me on the next bus, where the driver dropped me off safely at my corner.
My favorite colectivo experience, however, is from a couple weeks ago, when my friend Emily and I were waiting to cross the street, and the passing colectivo whistled at us. Not the driver - the horn of the bus itself made a cat call whistle, while the driver leered at us with a "hehe, my bus just whistled at you" smirk.
Mi Casa
I love where I live in Buenos Aires! I don't think that I could have gotten a better place. I live in Palermo, the largest barrio in the city with a population of 240,000. Palermo is then divided into smaller sub-barrios, and I live in my favorite area in all of Buenos Aires - Palermo Viejo, so called because it is the "old" part of Palermo (duh!). Palermo Viejo is further divided into Palermo Soho, because it is becoming a very trendy locale with lots of botiques and posh restaurants, which is the part of Palermo Viejo I live in, and Palermo Hollywood, due to the media businesses that are based there. I love Palermo Viejo because every other street is cobbled, there are no skyscraper apartments but only old houses that have been restored, and it doesn't feel like you are in a city of 12 million when you walk around the neighborhood. My apartment itself is great because it has a garden, which is pretty much unheard of in the city, plus a terrace, a washing machine, and I have a huge room with Internet. I share with a cool Argentine art student named Loli and her cat Nina. 
My building from the outside.
The open living room and kitchen. The stairs go to Loli's office/studio.
The
jardin. The open door is to my bedroom, and the spiral stairs go to the terrace above my room.
My bedroom! My bed is tiny, though, and sags in the middle like a cot.
Me on the terrace! Can't you just imagine all the great parties the Shell Shackers would have here?
Charity, this post's for you!
One of the readers of this blog has been requesting pictures of me dancing tango. Since there are no pictures of me dancing tango and there are unlikely to be any pictures of me dancig tango, I thought I would post pictures of real tango dancers, which is actually a lot more fun than seeing me dance tango, plus pics of all the other dance styles I have seen here in Argentina. And while we are on the topic of tango, it came to my attention that said reader has been telling people that I have been learning tango, and that when I come home we will all go tango dancing and I can teach people. For the record, I have had a total of 1.5 tango lessons, and it is unlikely that in the four weeks remaining I will not master the tango. So please people, do not expect any crazy moves. I am happy to stick to line dancing. And to said reader - I miss you! Let's go take tango lessons together when I get home! Countdown to Operation Shell Shackers Reunited: 29 days!
break dancing at a percussion band concert
Scottish dancers at a Anglican church event.
Greek dancing at a Greek Restaurant. We got to throw plates on the floor!
Buenos Aires by Numbers
Time Out Buenos Aires, my other Bible while I am here, has this interesting article on statistics of the city.
- 39 million Population of Argentina in 2005.
- 12.3 million Population of metropolitian BA in 2005 (2.9 million in the capital).
- 12th BA's ranking in list of world's largest cities.
- 142nd BA's ranking (out of 144) in list of world's most expensive cities.
- 4th BA's ranking in list of world's noisiest cities.
- 1:30 Ratio of psychoanalysts to population in Argentina.
- 1:100 Same ratio in developed nations.
- 1 in 30 Number of Argentines who have undergone plastic surgery since 1970.
- 1 in 10 Number of adolescent girls in Argentina suffering from an eating disorder.
- 40 Percentage of Argentinian population living below the poverty line in 2005.
- 3 Number of presidents since 1914 to complete a full term and hand power to an elected successor.
- 6 Number of Argentinian presidents since the 2001 crisis.
- 20 Percentage of Argentinians who are practising Roman Catholics.
- 15 Age of sexual consent in Argentina.
- 1986 Year that divorce became legal in Argentina.
- 2003 Year that same sex civil union was legalised in Buenos Aires.
- 14,000 Number of left-wing dissidents that "disappeared" under military rule from 1976 to 1983 according to official reports.
- 30,000 Number of left-wing dissidents that "disappeared" according to most human rights groups.
- 1st Argentina's world ranking for soy meat and soy oil exports.
- 4th Argentina's world ranking for beef exports in 2004.
- 60kg Amount of beef consumed per capita per year in Argentina.
- 7th Argentina's world ranking for wine consumption.
- 92 Percentage of Argenine households in which mate is drunk
- 50,000 Estimated number of tangos composed (and counting).
- 20 Percent of city streets still cobbled. (Hence my pic of street performers on a cobbled street, since all of my other photos are actually quite boring)
All About Trash
One thing that is interesting here in Buenos Aires is the trash. For some reason no one has large trash cans anywhere in the house, not even the kitchen, but little bathroom-sized cans. Of course, this means they fill up quickly, and so the cans are emptied often and trash pick-up happens every weeknight in city. Unlike in the States, where we have large trashbins at the ends of the driveways, here they just set the trash out on the curb right outside the door. Well, last night I was walking to the parada, or bus stop, and as I passed by my neighbor's front door, she opened the door and threw her trash bag out, without even checking for any pedestrians on the sidewalk. As I dodged her trash, I reminded myself that it could have been a worse object to be nearly pelted with - at least we are no longer living in the Middle Ages, and it wasn't someone's slops being tossed out the door.
Today is very important day: it's the birthday of one of my best friends , Charity Elizabeth Romano. Since I am not at home to celebrate with her, I wanted to send her a little birthday shout-out from Buenos Aires, and let everyone else know why she is so cool!
