Argentina Trip: Day 11 &12

I'm lumping these two days into one post, partly because not much happened and partly because I'm lazy.

We woke up and got a ride with Miguel Angel and his business partner Franco downtown.  We stopped near the cost to take some pics.  We then went to a money exchange place and was able to get pesos for the "blue" price. Meaning instead of the official $5.50 pesos per $1 dollar, we got $8.60 pesos.  We then walked there streets a bit, ate some crap food in a shopping mall, bought some baby clothes for Fermin (Miguel Angel and Sheila's baby boy) for día de niño.

We grabbed a taxi back to apartment and then Miguel Angel dropped by again around 5pm and we all went to the bus depot to pick up Patricia who was visiting for the weekend.  We went straight to the Fernandez homestead and drank mate while we waited for Germán to pick us up and take us to his house to eat.  Germán is a family friend and one of Miguel's business partners (WowPC).  We had an enjoyable evening with German, his wife and daughter.  He and I have some similar interests and we ate empenadas so it was pretty hard for anything to go wrong.  After dessert, he gave us a ride back to the Fernandez homestead and after dinner quick mátes called a remise and went home.

Today, we got up, called a remise and hung out the Fernandez homestead all day.  We took some pictures outside and ate ñioquis.  I feel asleep on the sofa while all the woman in the house left to go downtown.  I woke up an hour or so later and played some Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 on their PS2.  I got to meet Nahuel's girlfriend and Carla (Maxi's fiancé) showed up a some point.  Eventually the women all arrived with Leandro and we ate empenadas and pizza with a variety of ice cream for dessert.  Leandro and Maria gave us back to the apartment.

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Argentina Trip: Day 10

I woke up around 10am today.  Cynthia was up and Maria and a friend were here already.  Cynthia was getting her nails done and that lasted for another 4 hours.  I spent that time getting my cell phone finally figured out and now I can make and receive calls and texts.  I ended up having to ditch CyanogenMod.  It may be compatible, but switching ROMS did the trick when messing with the settings did not.

For future reference, I'm using a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4.  This phone is not unlocked.  I was able to procure a SIM with a prepaid plan.  I pay 2 pesos a day for internet...  The exchange rate is 5.5 pesos to 1 dollar,  so it's pretty good.  The internet isn't very fast, but it's good enough.  I am not using the stock Verizon/Samsung ROM.  I am using a ROM ported from the Samsung Galaxy S4 sold via the Play store.  I needed to create 2 APNs (one for internet and one for MMS).  I used an app (Tweakker) to get the APN info, but it was easily found in an XDA thread.  I put $80 pesos on the SIM card and got a $40 peso credit in addition due to a promotion.

Anyway, Mabel stopped by around noon or so and after the manicure was complete, we ate a quick lunch of milanesa, puré de papas (mashed potatoes) and rice.

After lunch, we stuck around until Miguel Angel stopped by to pick us up.  We drove by his work (he needed to give something to a fellow worker) and we checked out the golf course from the club house... in the dark.  So not a lot.

We soon drove towards the Fernandez homestead, stopping at a small shop, and then arriving in time to see the Patania family for a brief moment before entering the house to hang out.

The evening consisted of some light video gaming, messing with cell phones, talking, and eating some awesome pizzas.  We left around 11pm.

So not a whole lot happened today.  But it was super windy so going out wasn't very appealing.

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Argentina Trip: Day 9

Around 4am Cynthia woke me due to her having nightmares (a regular occurrence) but I was wide awake afterwards (not a regular occurrence) until around 7am.  It was not the best start to the day.  I kicked back all morning while Cynthia and Maria did makeup stuff.  Leandro showed up around noon (I think) and I messed with the iPhone 3gs that was to be Maria's (it needed to be wiped and contacts transferred-which were stored on the SIM card and to get them off the old crap phone was a pain.).

We went out around 2pm, walking along the coast to go eat lunch.  It was really nice out,  the sun was out and there was no wind.  There was a whale lounging just beyond the shore break.  Pretty cool actually.  I tried to get some pictures but it never really exposed much of itself and was too far away.  There were a lot of surfers out... that water must be freezing.

I ate a milanesa sandwich, the rest are some type of fish.  We were there for an hour or so and then made our way back to the apartment.  We drank máte, ate facturas, and messed around with our respective electronics/makeup.  Miguel Angel shower up around 6pm and we stopped by his new workshop.  He wants to be able to quit his job in 6 months or so and work full time with two other partners running an IT shop.  They just finished building the work area.  It's fairly small but perfect for their situation.

Afterwards we went to the Fernandez homestead.  This house looks so small and unassuming from the outside, but is roomy inside.  It is three stores, which is not very common here for a house, but I think it pretty awesome.  They have plans to expand later.

I spent the next hour or so still trying to get the contacts off of Maria's SIM card via her craptastic Samsung"feature phone" Samsung's own software couldn't/wouldn't connect so in the end we sent all the contacts to Maxi's android based phone via Bluetooth and then transferred all the vcf's to a laptop and imported them into Maria's iCloud account.

Mabel arrived and made from scratch the best raviolis I have had in my life.  They were incredible. I should have snapped a picture.

We stayed a little bit longer (Maxi and I took turns playing Quake Live) and then we came back to the apartment and crashed.  It was around 1am.

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Argentina Trip: Day 8

Today we woke up around 9 or 10am.  Maria showed up followed by Miguel Angel, Sheila, and Fermin.  Miguel brought a ton of facturas and we broke our fast on a variety of pastries and máte.  He also brought the SIM cards for our respective phones.  Cynthia's is locked (iPhone 5, but I had hoped it would not be locked once we were out of the country) and we can't use the SIM we got for it (oh well), but my S4 (also locked) allowed the SIM and after some tweaking, I think everything is working.

We went over to the Fernandez homestead and had a nice lunch.  Meat, of course, sweet potatoes, carrots, and potatoes.  We spent the afternoon conversing; Cynthia did make up for Mabel and Maria.

In the evening, Leandro arrived and we (Me, Cynthia, Maria, and Leandro) went out to a restaurant and had some hot milk with chocolate and some slices of a cake.

Afterwards we drove and parked on a street with a lot of shops.  Leandro showed us one of his Skate/BMX stores.  Afterwards we stopped by an ice cream shop and got ice cream (of course).

We came back to the apartment and had some soup and then called it a night.

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Argentina Trip: Day 7

Woke up just before we got to Buenos Aires.  We got a couple of croissants (one plain the other sweet) and some juice.

We arrived around 9am.  Once off the bus (which was pretty nice; the seats converted into beds and each seat had a LCD display with on demand movies and TV shows) we got seats on a bus to Mar Del Plata for 9:30am.  While not as plush, it was still better than the Greyhound back home.

Once on the road, we both popped a Dramamine and I loaded up my Pinback playlist and promptly fell back asleep.  I had some weird dreams, kept waking up but slept most of the 6 hour trip.

We arrived 30 minutes early and no one was there to meet us.  Cynthia's phone was dead (had all the phone numbers) so we looked for a place to plug it in.  We found one but not even five minutes later, Maria, Nahuel and Leandro showed up.  Mabel soon showed up followed by Miguel Angel.  We hugged it out for a bit then Cynthia and I got into Miguel Angel's and met Sheila and their baby boy Fermin.

The weather here is much colder and damp.  Very different from Resistencia but hopefully it will dry out a bit.  Either way we'll enjoy our time here.

We drove via the coast to Mabel's house and had an awesome lunch/dinner of good old fashioned Argentine potato salad and milanesa.  We also met Maxi and his fiancé Carla.

Afterwards, we drank máte (you see a pattern here?) and then Maria and Leandro drove us back to their apartment where we are staying.

So today was a bit shorter thank normal due to the traveling, but we got more time to relax.

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Argentina Trip: Day 6

We finally got up in time to eat  the breakfast they serve at the hotel.  After packing things up and checking out, Patricia picked us up around 10:30 am and we went to her house for second breakfast (máte and facturas). About an hour later, we went to Emilio's house (uncle on mom's side-Are) and ate lunch.  Walking through the front door was pie comedy;  there was literally a line of about 6 dogs and puppies and 4 cats.  Just waiting there.

Lunch consisted of around four courses of pork.  It was delicious.  People kept funneling in as we ate.  They have three or four kids, plus a couple friends, Miguel showed up.  Cynthia's grandparents appeared, another uncle.  It is heartwarming to see family so open and welcoming.

We stayed and chatted for a while and then walked back to Patricia's.  We spent the afternoon sitting in the front yard driving máte and sharing stories.  The sun was out and it was a beautiful day.  Cynthia and I took turns driving the moto scooter.  She because she wanted to, me to prove I could.

We wandered inside Patricia's house and the women painted fingernails and Miguel and I watched golf.  Cynthia came and got me later to meet the father of one of her friends.  He was really nice, everyone was, really.

We eventually made it to the bus terminal and there met up with the Gervazoni family, Emilio's family, and pretty much all the relative near Patricia's house.  We took pictures, said our goodbyes and got on the bus.

I'm going to miss these people.  A week ago I didn't know them.  Cynthia talked about them, but when we were planning on taking a trip to Argentina, we didn't really plan on making a stop in Resistencia.  What a mistake that would have been.  If we could do it again, I would have planned for a full week here.  Even though my head hurts from speaking Spanish so much, meeting so many new faces and trying (failing) to remember names,  it was such and awesome past few days.

I do look forward to relaxing in Mar Del Plata tomorrow,  but there will probably be a lot less memorization as I know a lot of the people already.

Right now I'm a little sick from reading subtitles on the movie playing here in our VIP seats on the bus, so until next time.

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