Catching Up

So, yes, it's been a long time since I've written, but that can only mean that I've been dedicating ALL of my time to teaching. Right. Not exactly the case, but it has been hard lately to find time at school to dedicate towards blogging. Bad news for my friends and family, good news for the administration and kids! Rest assured, things here are going well. All of the girls are still driving me a little crazy, but I've pretty much gotten used to it. School has been pretty hectic, and a lot of the teachers, myself included, are in a sort of slump. February has been going by very quickly, which is good and bad (mostly good), but I think March will be a different story. However, I do have "Semana Santa" to look forward to (our equivalent of Spring Break). I'll be heading out to Orlando to spend some quality time with Kelly, Alain, Paige, Colby, and my mom. We're going to do the typical things, like Disneyworld and maybe a water park or two, but mostly this is an opportunity to help me remember what my niece and nephew look like, and to also remind them who "Unkie Ben" is. It's going to be a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to it.

Speaking of family, I recently had my mom and Mike here. They came on Wednesday the 14th and left this past Tuesday morning. We had a really good time together and did lots of things. I went to pick them up at the airport at 9ish, and waited nervously until virtually every passenger had exited the terminal. Finally, after asking the guard to go look for the confused looking Gringos, they came out. We went back to the apartment where I had a freshly cooked meal (by the maid of course!), a big bottle of red wine, and another bottle of Aguardiente in the freezer. I had initially though that we'd have a glass of wine, but it turned into somewhat of a party. Considering that we started at 11 PM, 1:30 AM was a good stopping point. My mom asked me, "Aren't you tired? Shouldn't you get to sleep?" to which I replied, "Nah, I'm not tired." Big mistake, and one you'd think that I had previously learned, but no. I woke up 5 hours later wishing I had put just a little more thought into the night before. They took off on a tour of Santa Fe de Antioquia, which was the former capital of this region. They were gone all day, and had a great time with their tour guides, two women who used to work at the school. We met up that night and went over to my neighbors' apartment, where we had "Fondue Night", which is always a treat. There was, of course, plenty of red wine and aguardiente being passed around which always makes for good times, but once again, the next morning was a little rough.

Friday, they both came up to school with me to hang out with the kids. As I've mentioned previously, the kids love visitors. They know that I won't bore my friends and family with a bunch of teaching that day, but rather group dance competitions, kickball matches, candy eating, and the like. I asked them to find some books that they could read to the class, and Mike chose The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as well as Pirates of the Caribbean. They both did a great job of reading to the class, and the kids enjoyed not having to listen to me for once. For lunch, we headed down to a restaurant called, "Sancho Paisa" which has great typical food. We headed back up to the school and finished out the day.

On Saturday, we jumped on the City Tour bus and drove around town. We were out for about 5 hours, and saw lots of parts of the city that were previously unknown to me. Later that night, we went to a very happy Happy Hour, that led to a great steak dinner at "San Carbon", which ultimately led to an entertaining night at "Mango's", which I think needs no explanation. I had left it up to them whether or not they wanted to do something that intense, but both were up for a little adventure. Adventure is exactly what they got. My mom, and she's tired of hearing this I'm sure, became a little infatuated with one of the dancers, while Mike also found his own little fantasy. I was, as usual, obsessed with the midgets. My mom got a little kiss on the cheek from the guy, Mike stole some pictures of the dancer's sidekicks, and I got handshakes from all the midgets. They are hilarious. As the night progressed, my mom and I got up from the table and did a little dancing. We have the most hilarious video clip of it all, but unfortunately, I can't upload videos onto this thing. Then again, maybe it's better if I don't show that clip to the world. I might later regret it.

On Sunday, we rode the Metrocable up to the barrios, where my mom teased the local vendors into thinking that she was actually going to buy something. They both seemed to enjoy their time up there, and I'm glad we went because it's a part of the city that tourists are typically afraid of. We pretty much farted around the rest of the day, walking through downtown, visiting the Walmart-esque grocery store, and finally, eating an XL Domino's pizza. Yum. I could eat that crap every day. I'd be 800 lbs, but I think it'd all be worth it.

On Monday, I took a personal day to go with them on another tour to a town called El Pinol. This time, we contracted with a local tour company and found out why their prices were lower. We got picked up in a little "Busetica", which is a miniature bus. I felt absolutely ridiculous in this thing and was only slightly concerned for our lives. Our driver was very socially awkward in the beginning stages. We were told that he spoke English, but it turned out to be very limited. Once he found out that he could speak Spanish to me and that communication was slightly easier in this mode, things got better. We toured a bunch of little towns and finally got to El Pinol itself, which is a MASSIVE rock that sits in the middle of an amazing series of lakes. We debated climbing the 700+ stairs that led up to the top, and then decided to give it a shot. It was quite a trek up there, but the view was one of the most amazing that I've ever seen. They left early Tuesday morning, which made it a pretty quick trip, but I don't think we missed a thing.

Other than that, things have been pretty tame. Oh, actually, last Thursday night wasn't tame at all. My Colombian friend, Jeff, and I went out to a club called "Babylon", which was a blast. Instead of hanging out in ultra-fake Parque Lleras, where a certain percentage of the women are made of plastic and silicone, we decided on this club in another part of town that I have not personally frequented. Needless to say, I got a hell of a lot more attention than usual. We enjoyed the situation until about 4 in the morning. Then, being the geniuses we are, we headed downtown to another sort of "clothing optional club", where I had nice conversations with some lovely ladies sitting out on the sidewalk. I'm not quite sure what they were doing there at that hour, or why they kept asking me for money, but they seemed nice enough...

I'm going to have Kelly post some of the better pics from the trip to help with the visuals. I'll try to do a better job in the future with the blog. Sometimes I feel like there's so much I have to tell, that I just don't bother. I'll try to keep them more frequent and a little more to-the-point. Don't give up on me!

Ben

Sunny Medellin

It's been a long time since I've blogged, and that's a little depressing because it means that life hasn't been all too exciting lately. It really hasn't. Things are pretty tame these days. I've found that a lot of the staff hasn't been very energetic lately. Plus, there's a whole bunch of drama around here. Lots of people have completely disengaged from Columbus School life as they are getting ready to head out on their next adventure or back to reality at home. In fact, I think this is the biggest hiring year that the school has ever faced. In elementary school alone, there are 15 vacancies. I'm actually really excited to see the new staff come in next year. As I've said to lots of other teachers, it really can't get any worse than it is right now. Most of the teachers in elementary really suck. They're just not really that fun. Some of them don't go out, period. How you can come to a country like this and not enjoy yourself is beyond me! Barbara, my boss, is out at hiring fairs in Canada and the US. It's amazing to think that almost exactly 1 year ago, I was being interviewed for this position. I remember time going by really slowly after getting the job, but it's been FLYING lately. It's amazing that it's already February. I have some events coming up that I'm really looking forward to...

Next week, February 14th, my mom and her friend, Mike, are coming down to see me for about a week. They come in on a Wednesday night. The next day, I have them set up with a city tour company so that they can familiarize themselves with their surroundings. They'll get to see some things that I probably haven't even seen! On Friday, they'll come up to school with me to see the kids. They have learned that when I have visitors, that's a minimum work day! Then we'll hang out for the weekend, and I'll take the next Monday off. They will probably come back 10 pounds heavier, but it'll all be worth it.

In March, I have a very unexpected visitor coming. My Aunt Kathy, who lives in Colorado, will be going down to Santiago, Chile to visit some family, and has decided to take a little detour on her way back. She'll only be here for a few days, but enough time to see a bit of the city and the school as well.

Finally, at the end of March, I'll be taking my Spring Break (AKA Semana Santa) in Orlando, Florida. It's my first chance to see my niece and nephew, Paige and Colby, since Minnesota last July. Also, not being one to miss the action, my mom will be there to enjoy the festivities and weather...

Speaking of weather, I wanted to mention something. But first, a little background. After I signed my contract in February, I got in touch with some of the teachers who were working at the Columbus School at the time. One of them was named Danny, who also taught 4th Grade. He was nice enough to take some time to email me with some important information about the school and life in Medellin. One of my favorite emails from him was one in which I asked him what his favorite part of living in Medellin was. He replied that he liked to drink beer on his balcony in the middle of February with his shorts on, and then call his friends to brag. Well, friends, that's what I'm here to do today. I spent both days this past weekend at the 5 Star Hotel Intercontinental sipping Bloody Mary's poolside. Both days were about 35 degrees Celsius, which is about mid 90's. We are smack-dab in the middle of our "summer" here right now, and let me tell you, it's wonderful. I'm working on my tan and loving every minute of it!

Moving on to other news, I was involved in a little bit of school drama last week, in two separate incidents. You see, we have a "no running in the hallways" policy that I enforce strictly. The 4th Graders know better, although every once in a while I catch one slipping and promptly give them a "warning ticket", which is serious business for most of the kids here. Anyway, I hear these footsteps coming down the hallway and jump out of my chair to go catch the offender. I see this kid from another class scurrying towards the bathroom and tell him that I'm giving him a warning ticket. He pleads with me that he really has to go to the bathroom and couldn't help it. I told him that usually we have a little grace period and that he shouldn't have to go so badly that he needs to run down the hallway. Feeling bad for him, I decide to let him off with a warning. I leaned in close to him and whispered, "Don't run" and gave him a little poke in the shoulder. Well, this kid runs home and tells his mom that Mr. Ben yelled at him and then made a fist and punched him! Not only that, but his mom actually believed him! I told our counselor what REALLY happened and she called the mom back. Mom said that it was just a misunderstanding, and that she understood, but then the next day, she calls back and says that she's really upset and wants to talk to the principal. So, I told the (substitute) principal the same story, and she called the mom back and told her that if she didn't believe me, that maybe this wasn't the school for him. It was great. I was relieved, but not deterred from busting kids from running in the hallway. 2 days later, we had our second installment of drama...

So, every day, I watch in disgust as the 3rd Graders treat their hallway like a race track. I have written emails to the teachers asking them to curb the running because it's not fair to the students in 4th. Finally, after not seeing any improvement, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided that I would spend a solid day picking them off and making them come up to my room for the warning ticket. I figured that if I wrote up enough kids, word would get out and it would stop. So, I proceeded to write up 10 kids that day. After I wrote up each one, I told them to tell their friends about it. Feeling rather proud of myself, I bragged that I must've set some kind of record. Word got out, and the next thing I knew, there was an Outlook meeting confirmation being sent to me from the counselor and Principal. I went in and told them very matter-of-factly that if nobody else was going to do anything about it, I would. Also, I told them that if they didn't want me writing warning tickets, then that infraction shouldn't be on the ticket. They told me that they understood, but that their concern was that the parents of kids in 3rd wouldn't want to have their kids in my class next year! They feared that there would be massive strikes, revolts, etc. I told the principal that I can honestly say that my class is 10X more fun than any other class, and that those parents would be stupid for doing so. She told me that she knows how I really am, but that I should back off of the 3rd Graders because some of them are genuinely terrified of me. I love it. I have also been told lately that some teachers use me as a threat, which makes me feel like I'm back at TCK again. Hey, at least I'm good at something...

I guess that's about it for now. I've been writing this during my nightmare Spanish class (where the kids screw around for 1 hour) with my iPod on, so I hope this whole thing makes sense and isn't too scattered.

Did I mention the weather? 80's, sunny, not a cloud in the sky. Too bad it's only Monday...

BK

New Cell Phone Number

Unbelievably, I lost my cell phone a second time while in BA. Here's the new number in case anyone wants to give it a ring.

011 57 3136937093

Hope that works and that maybe, just maybe, someone will call it...

Opera Bay

Nobody Was Supposed To See This One...

The Obelisk

Inside Opera Bay

Government Building

Guys I Met In The Hostel- Far Left From Australia, Nepal, and England

My Idol

My First Visitor

That's right, someone finally got off their ass and came down for a visit. John Boss, a neighbor and friend from childhood, decided to give it a whirl and spend a week in gluttony paradise. He was up in Costa Rica for the past two weeks, and extended his trip for one more week to see what this place is all about. Of course, he was put up in the finest accomodations (my spare), given fine linens (an old blanket and cotton ball pillow), and even got laundry service (my maid washed everything in his bag without being asked). I'm telling you, this place is luxury!

He got in on Saturday afternoon, and I was supposed to be there late that night, but we all know why I wasn't able to make it. That sucked, but I at least got there Sunday early evening, and was happy to find out that we had yet another "puente" which gave us the next day off. So, we decided to go out and hit the town. We went out for dinner, and off to a club called "Blue" for a little while. Now, John is a great guest for a lot of reasons, but primarily because he speaks incredible Spanish, so he's totally self-sufficient. Knowing this made me much more relaxed, so relaxed that I decided to let him fend for himself later that night. At some point, I decided to walk out of the club, without saying a word, in search of my weakness...late night grub. Yep, that's right, I ditched him in favor of a corn bowl and french fries. The next morning, shame-faced, I came out into the living room, and was greeted with the question, "Don't you know? You never ditch your wingman." He was absolutely right, it's a terrible thing to do to someone. I vowed to make it up to him, and the way I did that was with 6 straight nights of debauchery. Seriously, right now, I'm just at the point where my body has finally forgiven me (somewhat) for last week's complete lack of self-control.

The great part about the week, was that even though I didn't have any of my luggage, I did have the two 1-liter bottles of Bombay Sapphire, and you know what that means...good times. We went out on Monday night, after spending our afternoon at the gift-from-God Hotel Intercontinental pool (John especially liked the outdoor shower), to the local supermarket and found two items that were badly needed in my house. One was a set of shot glasses and a shaker, the other was a bitchin' set of 9-ounce martini glasses. We immediately put them to use. The night before I had tried to make martinis using a highball glass filled with ice and a plate as the lid for the shaker. I then, not so carefully, strained them into regular glasses and probably spilled more gin on the counter than into the glass. Martini glasses were a necessity if we were to carry on with these high-class drinks for the rest of the week.

So, that night we poured several and went out for dinner. Honestly, now I don't even remember where we went, but I'm sure it was damn good. I'm telling you, I could eat out every night in this city and never repeat a single restaurant. In fact, I came to a realization that really, there's not much to do in this city besides go out to eat, out for drinks, or out to the clubs. Oh, and then there's the righteous pool. Did I mention the pool? Yeah, the pool. God, I love that place. The next day, I had to go back to school, while he got to sleep in. There were no kids, so that meant a day of MySpacing, emailing, and shooting the breeze with everyone about their breaks. When I got home, we started right in with the martinis, naturally, and out for another dinner. We found this incredible sushi place down the street from my place and made it our regular spot.

On Wednesday, I went to school, and John set about to fix my doorknob that hadn't been working well since I moved in. He spent about 30 minutes the first night trying to get in, asking the portero (gate-keeper/security guard) and my neighbor for help before finding any success. There was a technique to it, which consisted of crazy jiggling of the key which I'm sure my neighbors LOVED, that I had pretty much mastered, but it was getting old. Apparently, when he asked my portero to help, the guy got so pissed off, he practically broke the damn thing. So, when I got home, I had a new doorknob and I was excited. We drank more martinis to celebrate, and then went out to dinner again.

On Thursday, he decided to come up to the school. I can't even tell you how excited the kids were because they knew that pretty much nothing productive would come out of that day, and they were right on point. Since John had played competitive soccer as a kid and up to his college days in Chico (ah, yes, now we get it...two Chico grads...the drinking makes sense), I hyped him up to the boys in the class and taunted them by saying that he was going to take on the entire class and beat their asses. That morning, we played games, had a dance competition (that we scored as the official judges), and did some small amounts of "work", which all led up to the high point of the day...John vs. The Class in a deathmatch of soccer. He schooled them for a while before finally having the class play against each other. He was on one side, but wasn't allowed to shoot the ball. He led off the game by throwing an ever-so-slight elbow into one of the kids that grounded him. The kids all yelled, "Take a picture!!!" and I said I would if Felipe wasn't genuinely hurt. When I got to him, he was crying with blood in his mouth. I could tell that he really wasn't damaged though, so I told him to go rinse his mouth out and come back, which he did. The other highlight would be John calling the kids "cabrons" which I'm pretty sure means "bastards". That was pretty funny. The game, and the day, were a success, so we decided to go home and celebrate with....martinis!...and dinner out!!!

Friday morning rolls around, and after leading his team to a loss, John was hungry for more, so he came back up to school again. It was another free-for-all day, and the kids loved every minute of it. After school, we hit the happy hour scene, where we had some great Sangria with friends from school. I had wanted to take nap, but because of him, I didn't get to do ANY sleeping. I pretty much blamed John for the drinking all week. It really was his fault. I don't normally behave like this. Instead, it was straight to martinis, and then off to the highlight of the week...Mangos!!! If you don't remember my early blogs about Mangos, it's the place with women and midgets dancing on the bars, and it's always a great time...

The next morning, we were convinced that we'd spend the day at the pool, come hell or high water. Even though the skies were grey, we were convinced that we'd enjoy our day. As soon as we got there, we had an immediate break in the cloud cover and were thinking how brilliant we were for taking a chance, but 15 minutes later, the clouds were back. Regardless, we ordered bloody mary's, a pizza, and then proceeded to fall asleep under the clouds for a few hours. Apparently, I snored quite loudly...classy. Oh, and there was a kid there named Daniel who had Down's Syndrome. He put us into a real predicament. He truly was the funniest kid I had ever seen, and was doing and saying some priceless things, but the dilemma was whether or not we laughed at him. Was it laughing with or at? We believed it was the former, so we went along with the comedy.

After that, hell, why not?, we went out for sushi for lupper and then back to the house for...well, you can probably guess by now. We threw down a few and headed out to dinner with my friend Gurgit. We were supposed to make it out to a "Pimps and Hoes" party, but all ended up passing out on the couch. John had to get up about 4 hours later and take a cab to the airport. Poor bastard.

Quite a week...who's next?

BK

I Thought It Couldn't Be Done

I really thought that after everything I had been through with LAN Chile airlines, I had seen the worst, but I was oh so wrong.

The next morning at the hotel, I got up at 530 becuase nobody knew when the shuttle was supposed to come. My flight wasn't until 1030, but I wasn't taking ANY chances. I had been asking the previous night when we were getting picked up, but nobody knew and they said LAN wasn't answering their phones...typical. When I got to the lobby at 600 AM, there was a shuttle just leaving and the driver said he'd be right back. In fact, he said another shuttle would be there in 15 minutes. What a joke. This Australian couple and I sat there for over an hour with no word. Finally, we jumped into a cab and went there ourselves. I waited for several hours and boarded the plane. So far, so good.

I got into Bogota and went to find my bags. I figured that since I was taking an Avianca flight from Bogota to Medellin, I should be able to pick up the bags in that airport, take them through customs, recheck them to Medellin and be on my way. No bags. I start to semi-lose it and went to find a representative. He said they'd be in Medellin when I got there, but I knew better. Long story short, I still do not have my bags. It's really just unbelievable.

I finally have a visitor from home! John Boss, who grew up across the street from me has been here since Saturday night. We've been having a good time. On Saturday, I took him to the pool, where he fell in love about 5 times. Too bad he's engaged! Last night, we ate sushi at this killer Japanese restaurant a few blocks away from my house. It was fantastic. I also bought a martini set that we broke in before dinner. I can't decide which I liked better...martinis or sushi...tough call.

OK, I really need to stop screwing around on the computer. I've been doing it all day!

I will ask Kelly to post some of my BA pics tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Ben

Hell...Revisited

I like summarizing by using one word, and this time I think I´ll choose the word...SCREWED.

Presently, it´s 840 Am, and I´m sitting in the Santiago airport when I should have been home sleeping.

Yesterday, when I got to the BA airport, I was told that my flight was canceled. I think I knew at that point what the rest of my trip would be like, and I was exactly right. I told the lady that wouldn´t be enough time to transfer my bags and she assured me it would, right before taking a personal call on her cell phone and ignoring me. Typical.

I figured I wouldn´t have my bags and I could deal with that, but when we landed, and after I ran to catch my next leg, the lady at the counter told me that my seat had been given up because I wasn´t there an hour early, but rather only 30 minutes early. She also proceeded to ignore me and a fellow traveler, a girl who teaches in the Dominican Republic. We went to the LAN Airlines office and they told us that it wasn´t their fault and that COPA Airlines were the ones who screwed up. To make a long story short, partly because I only have like 5 more minutes on this computer because Chile charges ridiculous prices for EVERYTHING, we ended up waiting for 5 HOURS in the airport before being told that we would have to take a flight tomorrow morning. We were sent by bus to a 4-star Crowne Plaza hotel, which was friggin´NICE (too nice) for the night. I woke up this morning at 530 to try to catch the supposed bus that was waiting for us, but after sitting there for an hour waiting, two Aussies and I jumped into a cab and drove here ourselves.

This has been a truly ridiculous chain of events. What kills me is that John Boss has been at my apartment since last night waiting for me and we were supposed to go hit the town. I am well beyond angry at this point and now have an immense hatred for all things Chilean. I will NEVER come back to this country again, and that´s good considering their prices for everything.

The only good news is that I found 1 liter bottles of Bombay at the duty free in BA for 15 bucks each. I bought two. I can´t wait to crack those suckers open when I get home.

I leave in two hours to Bogota and then a one hour flight to Medellin. I´m willing to bet that my bags aren´t there when I arrive. If they are, I might just have a heart attack on the spot.

That´s all.

BK

The Week In Review

Friday is here, which means my trip is nearly over. I leave tomorrow morning, early, and just pray that I don´t get nailed to badly because of my massive amounts of luggage. I`ll be up tomorrow morning at about 5 AM, so that means I`ll be leaving when some of the more adventurous of all of you are just going to sleep, or, right in the middle of the action (we`re 5 hours ahead of the west coast). I wanted to wrap up the week with a quick summary of events. But first, a couple of facts about the city:

Buenos Aires is HUGE. The population is about 14 million. There are 39,000 taxis I`ve been told, which is one of the highest ratios in the world. The city itself is settled on a river, and really has no beaches nearby, which is kind of decieving if you look at a map. Also, the economy took a really bad dive about 5 years ago. It used to be a really expensive city, but because of politics and a fleeing president, it crashed. It used to be that 1 peso was worth 1 dollar, but now 3 pesos are worth the same. That means that there are big city prices, but you end up dividing it by 3. For example, I`ll go and order dinner and a nice steak will be 30 pesos (10 bucks), a bottle of wine, 30 pesos (the same) and walk out with a bill that`s about 65-70 pesos, which should really be that much in dollars, but actually three times less in dollars. It makes it easy to justify filet mignon dinners every night...

The city is divided up into several sections, and each has its own feel. I first stayed in an area called Palermo, which itself has several parts. I was in Palermo Soho, which is much like any other area referred to as Soho, which I`m thinking means southern part? There`s also Palermo Hollywood, which has lots of restaurants and pubs. I had dinner there one night, and ate the best steak of my trip, a filet mignon called Lomo, which was slathered in Roquefort cheese. Then there`s a part of town called Recoleta, which is next to the downtown. This part of the city is famous for the Recoleta Cemetary, where Eva Peron is buried. I got the picture I needed, then got the hell out of there. However, I do have to admit that for a cemetary, it`s a pretty cool place. It holds the bodies of the very wealthy and prestigious families that have lived in the area. It`s also got lots of cool restaurants, one of which I just left. In fact, I had to stop there based on Kevin Meis`s advice. He told me there was a restaurant that served provolone cheese right off the grill. It was damn good. Thanks, Meis.

From there, we head into the downtown part, which is where I`ve stayed the last couple of nights. It`s your typical downtown, complete with lots of traffic and shopping. It`s a cool place, but you know how downtowns are. They get old fast. Moving along, you can find the area known as Puerto Madera, which is the old shipping part of town. It consists of an old port that`s not used anymore, but has lots of cool buildings, great restaurants, and it`s on the water, which is nice (even though it`s completely brown). It has a really famous bridge, which was a gift from Spain. It`s called something like Puente de la Mujer, or a rough translation, Bridge of the Woman. I don`t know what was woman-like about it. It didn`t give me dirty looks or argue with me, so I don`t know the deal with this one...

Then we get to San Telmo, which is the beginning of the seedier parts of town. It`s the supposed birthplace of tango, and it has a really cool street fair on Sundays that I got to see when I first got here. I got some great pictures there. It`s also where I went when I stupidly signed up for a tango lesson and dinner on Wednesday night. I went with two other people from the hostel (after I had checked out) and was disappointed that of ALL the hostels, there were only about 10 of us there. It was supposedly one of the hottest milangos (tango bars), but there was nothing hot about it, unless they were talking about the temperature. In that case, it truly was the HOTTEST place in San Telmo. We got there and had a very basic one-hour lesson. I really sucked, but not as bad as this girl from London...she was a disgrace. If I dance better than you, that means you are really shitty. The lesson wasn`t half bad, but dinner after was incredibly disappointing and I practically had to beg for a second glass of wine. After I was done badmouthing American politics, education, athletes, and the like, this Argentinian guy takes over and starts giving us this hour-long speech on the history of the country. I tried to pay attention, but my bitterness about dinner, my disinterest in continuing to tango dance after dinner, and boredom with his rant made me want to leave, and this guy wasn´t shutting up. So, being the suave and tactful person that I am, I started looking around the restaurant and reading things on the wall to give the impression that I was bored, but not going to leave. Then I pretended to see something that interested me outside. I casually walked out and looked around. I then moved far enough out the door that it made it look like I`d be right back, and eventually, I briskly walked down the street and jumped into a cab. That was the end of that.

Yesterday, I slept in really late, and hit the last destination, which is called La Boca. This is a funky part of town that is by far the scariest, complete with shanty towns. It lies on the working port and has lots of characters running around. What makes this a popular place is that it has a stadium and is home to a soccer team called Boca Juniors, who are on vacation right now. That would have been fun to see. Oh well. It is also well known because lots of the houses are painted crazy colors, which is supposedly because they used left-over ship paint on them. It was a pretty fun place, but I didn`t stay long. The cab driver insisted that I`d be raped or robbed there, or maybe both, so I did what I needed to do there and bailed. On the way back, this other taxi driver TOTALLY tried to rip me off. He was an idiot. It`s not like I`m a complete Gringo traveler, I mean, afterall I spoke Spanish with him the whole time. When we stopped, he tried to charge me SO much. I didn`t even get mad, I simply told him his meter was wrong and that I wasn`t an idiot. He ended up asking me for half of the fare. But c`mon now. If you insist that your meter is right and then settle for half, something`s not right. It reminded me of the time in high school when I bought a fake lunch pass, which I insisted was real (it DID look very real). They told me that they were going to suspend me for 3 days, and I argued relentlessly that they couldn`t because it WAS real. Finally, when they realized they had hit a brick wall, they told me that they`d just put me in in-school suspension for the rest of the day. More than satisfied with this result, I kindly obliged. It takes a liar to know a liar!

Last night, I got lucky in my hotel room. No, not that kind of lucky, I caught the last 5 or 6 episodes of The Surreal Life on VH1. You know, it`s the one with Janice Dickinson, Jose Canseco, Amarosa, and the others. It was hilarious. I could watch Amarosa and Janice go at it all day long. That kept me until about 930 PM, at which point I went out to the brewery for dinner and drinks, and then went to the Kilkenny Pub which was kind of a snooze. I went to sleep late, but slept in even later.

So, from here, I think I`ll go try and grab some last-minute souvenirs and call it a day. It´s been a fun trip, but I`m going to re-think my solo travel mentality. There were so many times that I wished I had friends with me. I think I`ll just have to try harder to convince them to take some time off and head down here. Speaking of which, anyone want to join me in Central America in June? Maybe Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, or the like???

Talk to you all later,

Ben