Dear Diary,

It has been almost 5 months since I last wrote. Time flies. Re-capping everything that happened. Jenny is married. The wedding was a big event for us this year. Vita has moved in with Jenny. WTH? It's good, I just would have never thought it when I was in 7th grade this this is how it would all end up.

Catalina Island...hmm, it was a good trip, but now that I have been there, I do not feel an urge to go back.

Yikes, I turned 27. Definitely couldn't avoid that one. This year, it was good! I celebrated at Chuck Shepley's apartment, and a good crowd came out. It was not expected, and the Marriott rooftop was great.

The second half of 2009 is now almost over. Wow. What else has happened between June and now?

July - Partied in Hermosa with Naomi over July 4th weekend

August - Pam, Justina, Ting Ting came to visit. I'll never forget the trip. I hope it's a trip we will all always remember. It was the first time I saw my sister as more than my baby sister...about 18 years later.

We go to SF, LA - Universal Studios, SD of course

September - Labor day weekend rolls around, Smoskyfest turns out to be a great success, and we meet Kevin's good friends. It was definitely a BLAST. There was nothing bad to say except...then

Sarah and I immediately caught the swine flu. At a fever of 101 the following Wednesday, Kevin, Sarah, and I drag ourselves into PB Urgent care. $300 and no love later, it turns out, of course, I test positive for Influenza. Shocker.

But that's okay, because another day on bedrest, and I can stand again, and I am not sweating through my bedsheets so of course,

I am off to Argentina! After that, I think the worst is over, but then I land in DC and hear via voicemail that I'd have to take the rest of my flight without Meiji and Erica. I went to the bathroom at the airport, took a deep breath, and then tears started to fall. It was okay, I sucked it up. I think it was just the build up of a lot of emotions and excitement that I expected to see my best friends in DC...but no I had to wait 12 grueling hours more sitting on a stuffy plane.

Torturously, I wait at baggage claim. 3 very long hours later, M & E arrive, and ALL is GOOD. From then on there was nothing terrible that happened, at least not during the trip.

We were greeted by friendly Argentinians. A cab driver taxied us to our Palermo apartment at Billinghurst, we went up the smallest elevator, and found ourselves in a cozy little pad we made home for a week. OJ, tea, hanging our laundry, watching MTV, going on skype, researching our next destinations, just chatting like good old times.  It was great.

We are so tired, we can only get ourselves to the nearest bank, and then eat at the closest restaurant. Palermo Viejo has a nightlife, I'll say. Eating dinner after 9PM immediately became our routine. We stumbled into a really cute, quiet restaurant after we put our names down at a more chic, louder Italian/Argentinian bar/restaurant. It was a good stumble. Lamb, Steak, Salmon Ravioli, and wine. Delicious! I think it was then that I started to fall in love with Argentina.

The three of us just roamed. We became expert roamers. After just a bit of roaming Palermo, we roamed into a secret party! A young Argentinian invited us into his birthday party, which took place in a closed pizza shop. We met students of the Buenos Aires Tourism University, and they were fond of us Americans. There was someone from just about every South American country, and they were just funny. And, who can forget, the Argentinian Tony Danza. I can't remember if it was me, but whoever gave him that name, just made a mental memory that will always be part of the Argentinian experience. We were handed beers, we danced, we wore hats. What a merry time. It was a great first night!

Sunday we had to be tourists. We visited Evita's house. We went to the plaza. We walked to the city center. We went to the mall. We ate good mall food. I know, we were shocked by that too. I crave those empanadas. We continued on, and it started to get chilly. Meiji and I needed jackets. We did what any girl in that situation would do, we shopped. By the time we found our perfect little jackets, it was nightfall. Erica tried to haggle for $2 scarfs but since they were about $5, there was no deal. Again on our way, we just kept going and roaming. Theater Colon, which we wanted to go to turned out to be under renovation, but, we stumbled into a Tango Show. At only $20, it was an elegant, delightful evening. I think we tried to find a restaurant, and thought this area was much closer on the map than it was. We walked a ton, and after a while we were just happy to see a restaurant. We were adventurous because we had rabbit. We needed salad because women like fiber. Even though we walked there, we cabbed back. Cabs in Argentina are cheap, and so we lived pretty luxuriously. On our way back, we saw the street we missed. When our little tourist book said it was a small street, they weren't kidding. Tango dancing was magnificent. The place looked like it was Broadway quality, with a classy bar, very nice restrooms, and ushers that walked us to our seat. Plus, the lady who sold us the tickets had one of those big hats with a feather. C'mon, that is fancy.

Monday we ventured into San Telmo. It was our goal to try different cuisines, and we found a Japanese restaurant that looked good. We underestimated what good meant. It was awesome, and it was just lunch. We went to San Telmo market for quite a while actually, followed by more meandering. Too bad it was a Monday, because Monday is the day many shops are closed in Buenos Aires. That didn't put our mood down, but we could only imagine how the energy would be on a weekend.

So of course we wanted to go to La Boca because we were told that was where Tango started. The cab driver warned us that the neighborhood was not safe, and to only stay on the 1 street. We weren't there for too long. The houses were painted in vibrant colors, and the entire neighborhood was picturesque. If you ever go to Buenos Aires, it is a must-do. We, at least I, was a bit scared.

We left quickly...to Puerto Madero. Puerto Madero reminded me of Battery Park, which I never said to M & E because Erica also along the way, made up the stupidest rule ever. Well it was a funny stupid, and I love Erica for her creative charm. :) Anyway, we had to quack everytime we made an American or New York reference. Everything reminded us of something else from NYC. I think that is a common occurrence to refer to your home city because you relate much better. Anyway, I wanted to minimize the amount of quacking so I left the comment to myself.

Anyway, we saw the Women's Bridge from pretty far away, well I saw it, but I guess M & E didn't see it until we got closer. It was very modern, the entire neighborhood actually. Everything was new, the bridge was well lit, and somewhat of a modern marvel because of its shape. It looked like a harp or a fishhook. Well lets see...so we kept walking. Saw the restaurant Chuck recommended, but we were still so full by then we kept on going all the way to the end, and around, and back, and then head back towards the city centre. Erica was adamant about getting a subway trip in, and after looking at a map, we got on for a little adventure. Actually, before we get into that, we were sort of lost. We tried to figure out how we would get to Tigre the next morning, and decided we should ask a police officer. The police helped us and showed us where to go to get on the train (not subway). Then we just got into the subway for free because it was past some hour.

Erica and I thought the guy in front of us was sort of cute. We were obviously playing hot or not. Meiji participated in her own hot or not game because she thought the guy in front of her was cute. Erica and I disagreed. Two thumbs down. But it was a good time. We didn't have dinner until 11 that night. Again, found a delicious place. Now, this place reminded me Sambucas in Little Italy, NYC because of the outdoor patio environment. We were greeted by a very talkative waiter I'll never forget. He kept talking, funny guy, who knew quite a bit of English so it was easy to speak to him. He said he had a Japanese wife, and that he was a drunkologist, and kept pouring us wine.

Tuesday was Tigre/Delta. It was a 1 hour train ride each way. The trip was fairly quick, just headed out of the city, into the real parts of the country sort of. Well at least we passed through places. Tigre was very nice, it was a place where people like to go on weekend trips. We had a nice lunch, and took a 3:30 boat to the Delta/Tres Bocas. There, we did what we knew best. We wandered. We wandered into a school, into peoples backyards, and I wanted to follow some people that we believe were shopping for a little weekend home. The whole area is sort of interesting. There are docks everywhere, and the means of transportation is this boat that comes every hour and just loads people on and off. I guess its like a boat - bus. It operates like how I'd imagine a bus would, but a boat. Anyway, we went back to Tigre, and sat for a yummy smoothie. It was starting to get late, so we headed back to Buenos Aires. Well the waiter from the night before told us that Chinatown was located in Belgrano. We were on a mission to go there, so we had dinner in Belgrano Argentina. We had fresh fish, turnip cake, and other good  chinese dishes. Chinatown there was a lot more quiet than NYC Chinatown (another reference, I know). Meiji was so confused talking to the waiter. He was not Chinese, but he knew just enough to know the menu, so Meiji kept talking to him in Chinese to start a conversation, but halfway through she confused herself and started speaking English. Total fail. It was hilarious. I knew it would happen. We were so out of our element, because normally we were prepared to speak Spanish or if possible, English. We got to Chinatown, thinking we could speak Chinese, and when that was either hit or miss, we reverted back to English. Anyway, it was an adventure, and this is where the whole story leads to is just more adventure. The more adventure, the more fun, right?

Wednesday afternoon we fly to Iguazu Falls, which is our two day detour. We have another interestinc cab conversation. The cab driver talked about Patagonia, and tried to teach us a lot of animal vocabulary like penguin - penguino, and he moved like a penguin, so we got that one quickly! But then he said lobo a lot, and we were confused. I think he wanted us to say seal, but he kept saying lobo was a wolf, so we figured it was a seawolf = seal? Well, then we started talking about orco whales, like the one in Moby Dick he says. It was a very delightful trip because I remember laughing a lot. It was when I realized that not understanding a language could be pretty fun too. You can get away with a lot when you say, "No entiendo" followed by a gentle smile and giggle. Lots of giggling and chatter.

Airplane food was pretty decent. Maybe we just have low expectations. We got to Iguazu, and the first thing I noticed was the humidity. It was also rainy. That was fine, we got to the hostel, put our bags down, figured out the showe situation, which was like, kind of not so modern, because it was like a room with a showerhead and all the water just went down, the bidet was next to it, and the toilet next to that. haha. Adventure. So, we were ready for dinner. We wanted to find water, and find food. We found food. Then we got MORE food. It was obvious that we liked the food in Argentina.

Thursday was the big day, and we really lucked out with the weather. It was kind of cloudy at first, but it let up, and the sun came out. The circuits at the falls were great, and it just got better and better. The only unfortunate part was that our original boatride did not run that day because of the high water level. So we took the jeep tour, and it was awesome. We kept cheering, "One more time, one more time" on the boat. It was a large speed boat, and we headed straight into the falls. The locals called it a shower.

We wanted a good dinner that night and we wanted parilla. There was one known restaurant in the area so we went there. We basically ate for 3 hours at least. The liver, intestines, and blood sausages were not as popular as the other parts. The chicken was really juicy actually. Then, we still got dessert. Yum.

Friday, we had breakfast, and we went to the airport. It was kind of confusing, but luckily we didn't accidentally miss our flight. By the time we got back, it was sort of late, but we really needed to do something because it was our last night! Meiji picked out a really cool belly dancing restaurant. Yes, we were very international the entire week. There was a male dancer too, who actually creeped me out, and then he pulled me up to dance. We got some ridiculous pictures with the dancers. Good times.

We tried and tried to go to a club/bar...and failed...and ran out of pesos. LOL. We were the poorest people that night because we ran out of pesos. I knew we shouldnt have tipped that dancer so much!

Saturday we went to Recoleta Market and found souvenirs. We lost each other in the market for a while. Even that was kind of funny. We had Yerba Matte tea. I liked it. We bought Havanna chocolate. Oh, I forgot to mention, the entire trip we saw Havanna stores, which is basically as popular as Starbucks, and they also are known for the chocolates. Erica, again with the clever rules, declared that every time we saw the store we'd have to sing a song. We made up a song. Yes we did.

Singing to the tune of Old MacDonald, it goes, "Oh Havanna sells coffee, e-i-e-i-o". That's it actually. Short and simple.

Anyway, we had to go home to finish packing. The adventure was coming to an end, and Erica and I were not looking forward to work. I was not looking forward to heading back to SD myself. We parted ways in DC.

It was between the transfer that it seemed like things were not only coming to an end, it would be easy to get back to SD. I never mentioned it, but I got many bug bites on my feet Thursday night in Iguazu, and it itched like hell. But that was about it, it was just to annoying. By the time I got off the plane though, I could barely walk on my left foot. When I had time to really look at my foot, it had appeared an allergic reacion had happened, and my left foot had swelled to twice its normal size. I had a CANKLE.

The story basically ends here because I went to work Monday, and I had to take 2 days off. What a September!

Boy I am tired of typing - recap of October

I fly a plane, a Cessna 172

Sarah celebrates 27 at hardrock and Chuck's apt

Eric visits LA

Ed visits SD

Halloween is on the horizon (tomorrow actually)

More to come...

then Thansgiving back in NYC, for my first time!

then Taiwan, and who knows?

then it is 2010!