40. Leaving (B.A, Argentina)

I'm finally getting ready to leave BA. On one hand I'm really excited to leave as I'm finally going travelling, which is one of the reasons I came to South America. On the other I'm sad to leave behind my girlfriend who I've been with for over 4 months now, and the friends I've made here. The plan with my girl is that I'll return in January to see her again, and we'll see where we are then. She doesn't want me to leave and tells me every day, because she loves me. Well, she says te quiero which is more or less the equivialent of I love you but I'm not sure if it has the same meaning here, as she always says it to her girlfriends too. For what it's worth la quiero too.

Last week was my last week of work, I decided to be good and work through until the end of the courses even though I was sick of working and could have left earlier. So I had to give my students exams which was a royal pain in the ass, organising photocopies and then marking the exams, all unpaid work of course. I should have just bailed the week before like a number of other teachers did. But I didn't want to burn any bridges. Speaking of which, Hi to all my former students reading this (I gave them this website address).

My friend Thad (left) with Ryan (right) who recognised me from here

On another note, I was at a party at a friend's house the other weekend, and a guy came up to me and asked me if I was mattyboy - he'd recognised me from this webpage! That was kind of surreal for both of us, for him that he recognised me and that I existed, and for me too. So, way to go Ryan!

One for breakfast, one for lunch...

Operation Beefcake has come to an end. I'd been going to the gym and eating protein 5 times a day for the last six weeks or so and it seemed to work, I put on about 7kg of muscle which my girlfriend and her friends noticed and complemented me on. However, last week I was sick with stomach complaints, not sure if it was something I ate or I'd kind of poisoned myself with too much protein or something, but I couldn't eat much for 3 days, and ended up losing 3kg of the 7kg I'd put on :-( No doubt the rest of it will fade off during my upcoming travels.

One of these every week or two...

The other weekend we went to the Japanese Gardens here in BA, for the Tanabata festival. That's the festival where the Japanese write their wishes on a coloured piece of paper and tye them to a tree. Unfortunately the weather was really foul, cold and wet, so there weren't too many people or wishes tied around the place.

Japanese Gardens

Trent, one of my best friends from New Zealand, is currently in town which I'm really excited about. He came to Argentina for a year in 1994 as a high school exchange student, and now he's returned to visit with his parents. They're gonna travel through South America for seven weeks, unfortunately he's only in town for 3 days but we've caught up a couple of times which has been great. I took him to an asado at Juan's house and what was cool was we got to speak Spanish together for the first time. Ever since I've known Trent he's spoken Spanish but I never ever understood it in his company. And now we're more or less at the same level. That kind of validates the last seven months that I've been living here!

Nacho Diego Posse Trent Juan Me at Juan's

I'm taking Trent and his parents to one of my favourite restaurants in about 5 minutes, and then to a tango show which my student Diego (read story below) got us 4 free tickets for. Thanks Diego! So, I gotta run right now...
Update:

Tango Show at El Querandí, Perú 302

The Tango show at El Querandí was great. The restaurant was beautiful and the show was 5 acts which showed the evolution of the tango. Thanks again to Diego's wife Elizabeth, who is one of the professional dancers in the show, for the free tickets.