November 30 to December 4, 2010
The rest of the week becomes a blur of spanish classes and walking and checking areas out, looking for motorcycle parts and buying groceries for lunches. Gus has gotten over his pickpocketing experience and back on track with us to Viedma. Undetoured from this experience, we follow Gus through the Subway system to another walking street area of the city to go shopping for new runners, as mine are worn out and falling apart. This evening Gus, and Dorien from class are talking about going to a show near the city central Cemetaria and we invite ourselves along. Meet them at 9pm after taking a different bus and went to get tickets but they were sold out. They went, we went home. Got tickets for Saturday night show. We are looking forward to checking out the old cemetery and area in the light, before the show that starts @ 10pm. Michael says he now understands why Gus likes this city so much. Because every night of the week, there is so much going on, you can choose to do anything you want and have at least 5 choices different choices to your choices. This may be an exaggeration, but there is always something to do. The locals have been friendly and helped us out on the buses, a few times. Weather has been very comfortable this week with temperatures in the 20ºs. We are told this is unseasonably cool, but we are not complaining as the 34º temperature when we arrived was to hot on the bikes.
Michael and I have been placed in this Spanish class of 6 students, Dorien from Holland, Jason from Minnesota, Patrick from Ireland, Jane from California from Australia and us from you know where and finally, our teacher, Emilia from Buenos Aires. She has been great and taught us a lot. Michael is absorbing this and keeping up to the teaching. Me, I am struggling. It isn't coming as easily to me, but I have learnt more than expected. I am looking forward to review the material this weekend because we have decided to take 2 more days of spanish on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday is a national holiday here so school will be closed and we are going to take 3 days to ride to Viedma.
November 29, 2010
Today we start Spanish classes. Took the bus. Ingrid (from Vamos Spanish) gave us great bus directions and we arrived an hour early. They started us out in a beginners class which was good for me. Michael was feeling pretty confident. We met up with Gus at coffee break and he informed us that he was pickpocketted in the subway this morning, loosing travellers cheques, bank cards, credit cards and most importantly, his driver's licence. Very upset, he leaves classes for the day to deal with arrangements to have these replaced. In his violated state, he didn't know if he would be able to ride with us to Viedma for the HU meeting. After classes at 1:30pm, we head for the street Javier told us about for motorcycle shops and find one that sells Givi pannier bags, so that we can order a latch that Michael broke on the road from Potosi to Uyuni. then back to the hostel to study our spanish.
Notice 5 streets in either direction, there are 2 more streets on either side of these with 3 more lanes. Consider the traffic and then consider motorcycles splitting these lanes between cars, taxis and buses...
We are learning that locals have siestas and shops close mid afternoons. Stores reopen later in the day and restaurants reopen after 8pm in the evening and locals like to go out until late (1am) thats why they need their siestas, I guess. We also learn that Buenos Aires has the most extensive Bus system, maybe the best in the world. I can't confirm this, but we were told that Mexico City is studying their bus system and implementing many of the efficiencies. Bus fairs cost about $1.00 to $1.25pesos ($.25-$.30 can) per trip. The fairs in South America are so reasonable that many people use the bus systems extensively, many not owning cars because they aren't needed or aren't affordable. We have seen numerous people on the buses doing deliveries. During the day, you are able to catch buses on the major routes every 3 minutes.
November 28, 2010
Got an invite from Gus to check out San Telmo Market.Talked to Gus in the morning an Gmail video chat and he remembered other things needed doing and was not able to meet us. Michael and I walked about 12 blocks to it anyhow. This area is huge and has hundreds of Antique shops full of everything you can imagine. On the streets were venders selling everything too. The streets were closed and for 20 or 30 blocks vendors lined the sidewalks, including many off streets. Michael and I walked for about 5 or 6 hours. Amazing, and a beautiful clear day. By the time we got back, cervesa was a welcome refreshment.
November 27, 2010
Chatted with the residents this morning, Bob, Jeff and Guido, the owner. Nice guys but got warnings about pick pocketters. reminds us to be very careful. Took the day and just relaxed and caught up on our blogs for most of the day.
