Jesus Coming Soon!

A few weeks ago Gav, Losida and I went to "Tierra Santa" which is a Christian theme park here in Buenos Aires. There are no rides at "Tierra Santa" (translated to "Holy Land", but we refer to it as Jesus-Land), but instead there are replicas of famous scenes from The Bible. I pretty much know squat about The Bible, so I can't really go into details over this. (I really wish JL was there with me so he could explain everything to me.)

We took a collectivo (public bus) to Jesus Land. It was a 80 centavo (28cents USD) ride from our house to the park's location near the domestic airport. We were right under the path for the ancient Aerolineas Argentina's Boeing 737-200 (those jets are so old and loud!).

Everything in the park was made of fiber-glass and the people working there were dressed in middle-eastern garb. We saw a re-enactment of The Creation, The Birth of Jesus, The Last Supper and at the top and bottom of every hour, Jesus rises from the giant fiberglass mountain. Gav took a video of it. Check out the youtube video below the fold.

One of the best parts of the park was that they served beer in the restaurants. If that park was in the US, there is no way in hell (no pun intended) that any form of liquor would be sold. That's one of the beautiful things about Argentina: Abusing Alcohol is just not in their culture. (This needs to be written about in another post, but I rarely see drunks here. It's amazing.)

Our day at Jesus Land ended up being a whole lot of fun. We had a riot posing with the fiberglass people that populated the park. Oh good times.


Jesus Loves Us!



Jesus and the air conditioning unit

More Pics!

E.S.L (English As a Second Language)

One of the most rewarding (and definitely frustrating) parts of this trip has been learning a new language. Gav and I have been in Buenos Aires for over 6 months now and I am impressed by the amount of Spanish that he and I have learned. When I got here, I could only say a few words (which I only knew because I memorized them) and order another beer. I am by no means fluent or even conversational at this point in time (my problem is understanding Spanish when I hear it), but I am no longer scared to venture out by myself. I can now go shopping and enjoy a day on the city by myself. Talk about a liberating feeling!

I can't believe how many years I spent learning the Japanese language. I thought that I had a small grasp on the Japanese language, but after trying to learn Spanish and actually living in a place where you are forced to learn how to communicate, I realize that my Japanese was complete crap! Yes, I could read hiragana and katakana pretty well and I knew a bunch of kanji, but I could never survive in Japan. (Granted, if I lived there I'm sure that I could pick it up in a few months). Being thrown into a new surrounding is a giant kick in the pants. Furthermore I have this incredible urge to "feel normal" and thus communicate with my peers, so my drive to learn the language is pretty intense.

We've been taking language classes and I have various ways of practicing my nearly learned skills (I can hold my own in a chat room!). I am going to focus on spending this last month in Buenos Aires on trying to better myself.

I'm going to complain for just a second now and complain about why I don't want to blog. The answer is fairly simple, but its rather difficult for me to articulate my words into English because I've been really busy trying to think in Spanish all the time. Overall, I'm not too worried about this because I know that when I return to the US and get a job, everything will come right back. It's kinda like riding a bicycle, right?

Well, it's been a bit difficult for me to compose my thoughts and put them online, but I'm going to try really hard to do that right now. Besides, won't writing in my blog give me a great chance to practice writing?

Oh the hardships of living in a foreign city and trying to learn a new language.

Feliz Cumpleaños a Losida

Sorry for the delay in blogging, but yesterday was Losida's birthday. Who the heck is Losida, you ask? Well, she's a lovely gal-pal that we met here in Buenos Aires. No, she's not a former Mexican maid or the daughter of a Latin American Dictator, but rather a temporary ex-pat (like Gav and I) who is from the Grand Canyon State who has been here in the city with us for the past few months. We originally met at the first Spanish school that Gav and I attended (horrible school, but we met a lot of fun people).

To celebrate her birthday, we joined the German ex-pats Celia & Kata and had a fab dinner at swanky Bar Uriarte. I had veal ravioli (yes, I eat veal), Gavin had adado (Argentinean bbq) with grilled veggies and Losida had saffron risotto with braised lamb.

After dinner (and desserts!) we went to see the drag show at Sitges Bar. Gavin and Losida are completely in love with this particular drag queen and I have to agree that the show (complete with a VegasShowGirl type Argentinean woman) is great. Its always fun seeing drag queens a foreign place, especially when they are speaking another language. At one point in the show, the drag queen came down into the audience, threw her scarf in my face (¡la concha de la lorra!) and started to sing to Gavin and I. Figuring out that I didn't know what the song was about (Gavin claims that he understood "most" of the song), she stopped the music and asked if we spoke Spanish. (For those of you who have never had a drag queen stop a show and ask you a question, I can tell you that it's a terrifying experience. I can hardly answer a 6' tall make up wearing man in English, let alone Spanish! ¡Que terible!

We got home around 3am and stayed up for awhile discussing various topics pertinent to our socialite lives. I love birthdays. They are a fun way to tell your friends how much you value their friendship!


Quick! What do get when you throw two guys and a girl into a jacuzzi tub with lots of bubbles and champagne?

You have lots of good ole clean fun!

todavía estamos aca en buenos aires

Hola Chicos! Como estan?

It has been brought to my attention that I haven't updated my blog is almost 3 months (thank you JeffH, KathyK and JoeD), so I figured that it was about time that I got off of my lazy butt and did something. (In my defense, I've been busy going to spanish classes and other things that I'll tell you about later.)

We're are entering month 6 here in South America and we are still going strong. We have plans to be here until the end of May and then we're going to Peru to visit Cuzco and Machu Picchu. After that, the plan is to return to the US (via Washington DC and with a trip to visit Gav's fam in Norfolk) and then we're going to head west. (GO WEST! We saw the Pet Shop Boys live in concert here last month. So camp!)

I have so many things to blog about, so you'll have to excuse the mess if I start jumping around from date to date.

More to come.

The Boys of Summer

A few weeks ago, while Rich S was visiting Buenos Aires, he commented on the fact that the three of us have had three summers in 2006. We started off the year down in Syndey for Mardi Gras and then Gav and I spent summer vacation with JL and Rich in NYC and then here we are in Buenos Aires as the rest of the northern hemisphere is freezing.

We're such brats.


El Obelisco

Feliz Navidad

Christmas 2006 was spent in the beautiful suburb of Buenos Aires called San Isidro. Our friend Ezequiel invited us over to his sister's house (which he was house-sitting) to lounge around the pool and to have Christmas dinner with. It was great to get out of the city and to learn how Christmas is celebrate in Argentina. Here's a quick rundown of the holiday:

1) The whole family gets together and tons of food is eaten.

2) At midnight, there's a champagne toast and the kids open their presents.

3) After midnight, it's party time! The celebration lasts until dawn.

4) Fireworks, Fireworks, Fireworks. The city turns into a War Zone!

For dinner, we fired up the parilla, the Argentinean bbq, and grilled a few beautiful steaks. We drank copious amounts of fantastic red wine and enjoyed a mid-summer meal in the backyard. Not a bad way to celebrate Christmas!


"Ever-lasting" Christmas Trees are so much better for the environment than real ones.


Zeque firing up the parilla.


Gavin with a bottle of bubbly and the pan dulce.

Feliz Navidad