Back in the land of the living........

At least for a while, or long enough to write here :)

Hola amigos!

Health update:

Well this was unfortunately a bit of a bust week for me.  I missed classes on tuesday and thursday because I was so sick.  And on the days I did go to class, I came home immediately after.  It's a tad depressing since I sort of did the same thing at the end of last week and I wanted to get back to being social and seeing as much of the city as I could.  But no such luck unfortunately.  I finally went to the doctor (that spoke english at the "German Hospital." weird huh?) and she said that my lungs sounded fine and that it looked like a post viral infection.......yeah, sexy, I know.  they are supposed to last anywhere from 2-4 weeks which I'm a little sad about, it sucks not being able to do anything.  Although all the sleep I'm getting is a nice change of pace (see, there's the silver lining) :)    So I'm using an inhaler and some sort of weird alka-seltzer type thing.  I don't know what that does in America, and I sure as heck don't know what it does in Argentina, especially since I don't completely understand the label had my homestay father help me out with it.....wow this is beginning to sound REALLY unhealthy isn't it?   

Spanish Lession Update:

This was also a light week with the spanish study.  Since I was out of it so much, it became even harder to understand what people were saying to me.  Looking forward to getting back into and hitting the books hard again.  My class is MUCH different than my first 2 week session.  There's only 4 of us in class now and my teacher is very nice, but very "tranquilo".  I was spoiled with my last teacher Leila, who was very excitable, funny, and engaging.  I know I need to buckle down so I can pass my placement test at the end of this week.  Luckily Beginner level 2A (the one I'm in) is WAY more about vocabulary than grammer.  I'm much better at remembering that an "hombro" is a shoulder than remembering the conjugation of an irregular verb in the past tense.   

Friend update:  

In the friend department, it was.......drumroll please.........a light week.  Noticing a theme yet? :)  Yeah, since I didn't do any of the evening get-togethers or excursions.  I pretty much kept the same close circle of friends.  That definitely isn't a problem at all,  I just like getting to know people and I'm just weird like that I guess.   It's definitely been different being such a recluse, but at least I have a good excuse :)  I figure I may as well take the time to put some faces to the names you've been hearing for the last couple of entries.  This was originally going to be a "Person down here of the day" but that obviously didn't happen.  Maybe in the future.  We'll see.

Anywho, these are the people that i've been hanging out with down here in Buenos Aires :)  (pictures taken from Facebook since this site still doesn't like my picture files enough to accept them. it's either really tiny pictures or really large pictures.)  

   Nadja -  She grew up in Germany, but has spent the last 6-8 years in Australia.  (Yes, really cool accent :) )  She and I were almost always together the first 2 weeks until I started getting really sick.  Early on in week one, she said we are so alike, we're like twins.  Which I took as a HUGE compliment, considering how she is SOO much nicer than I am.  :)  She left at the end of last week.  It was definitely a sad day in BA for me.  Whenever I go down to the land under, I am definitely going to hang out with this amazing chick!  

 Mathias - From Denmark.  He's studying to be a doctor and speaks more languages than I can remember (I'm noticing that a lot with people from Europe).  Around the middle of week 1, I invited him out to lunch with the group.  I'm really glad to say he accepted the offer and we've been good friends ever since.   He's usually the one with the good ideas of where to go and what to do and is also very funny.  He's definitely been influential in keeping my spirits up while I've been under the weather.   This upcoming week is his last week in BA and I will be very sad to see him go...       

 August - aka "Our Little Brother." August might have been the first friend I made when I came to Argentina.  August is such an interesting duck.  He's REALLY a lot like I was at 19, which is a little weird considering that wasn't long ago at all.  He is the most curious person I think I've ever met.  If you're from a country he hasn't talked to anyone from, prepare for about 200 questions on the subject. Lol.  Mathias, Nadja and I always talk about how we need to keep an eye on him because he seems to have trouble keeping focus on ANYTHING.  Hence the "little brother" label.  

   Siebe - From Holland.  Seibe was another interesting character.  He usually agreed to hang out with us, but sometimes I got the impression he wasn't enjoying himself.  It's possible it's just because he's a more introverted personality.  However, he was fun to have around.  Very smart individual.  He scored a perfect score on the test we took a week ago yesterday.  He moved on to ECELA (the language school) in Chile.  Another hard hit to the group to lose.  

Well, those are the 4 that I spent the majority of my time with.  I've already lost two (*sad face) and I lose another in a week (*another sad face).  That's probably going to be one of the hardest parts of the trip.  Meeting really great people and then having them move on to another location.  Obviously part of the travelers existence, but still sad nonetheless.  

Anywho moving on to my typical updates I know you've all been missing.  

Observation of the day-

  I have to say that I might be recognizing more music down here than in America.  Yesterday, I was in the grocery store and I recognized songs by Evanescence, Lionel Ritchie, and some 3rd one, Elton John perhaps.  It's really interesting to me.  

Person back home of the day.  As always, somewhat random.

Ryan Bayless aka Stumpy aka Muk aka MY BROTHER!

I can't stop being reminded of this guy since 1.  He did something very similar to what I'm doing out here and 2.  We've spent so much time together in 22 years being crazy, loud and amazing, it's hard not to be reminded of him!  I always think of how I always feel more driven to be more patient, loving, and openminded (which is hard since my mind is already pretty darn open)   Miss you dude!   

"Sneaky Sneaky sir"  " Where's the stalker?"  "I love you Rocko"  "Colonel Sanders may I speak with you please?"    We've got a million of these.  

Next time on Alex's Thought Bubble.

• Hopefully I'll be back in full swing of being crazy in BA and I'll actually get some cultural stuff to write about.  I haven't been taking my camera around much for fear of getting mugged.  

• I'm going to try and get a little bit more cultural with this thing since I'm sure that's what people would be interested in hearing about :)
  

xoxo