The Final Days

Days 114-121
It would be too hard to recall a day by day description of our time spent in Buenos Aires, so here is a list of highlights of the remainder of our stay in the apartment. We had many great nights out on the town and eventually realized that we prefer the bar scene to the club scene. Though many of the clubs were very unique, i.e. Niceto Clubs token Drag Queen night, they generally turned out to be a bit overwhelming for us. You can only listen to bad music and watch drunk girls embarrass themselves for so long.... Several nights when we attempted to hit the club scene, we fell back on our favorite American Sports Bar, El Alamo. We were always guaranteed good company and a few free drinks there.

kicking it with our friends in La Boca
(the main shipping area)

our lifeguard in El Tigre

During the days, we spent our time roaming the city. With so much to see in this wonderful city it was impossible to be bored. Daytime was also when we did our most damage shopping.... The city is just too fashionable and reasonably priced. Needless to say, neither of us had trouble adding to our wardrobes. Thank goodness our moms had taken a good portion of our belongings home with them (I'm not sure how we would've fit everything otherwise...) Though our initial attempt to go to the beach in El Tigre  due to weather, we made it there several days later. It definitely wasn't comparable to our beautiful southern California beaches, but was worth the trip. The sun was scorching, the water was refreshing, and the beer was cheap. And of course we hit up all the basic tourists sites.

On another day, Kristin was able to reconnect with her host family. We'd planned on just stopping by for a quick hello, but ended up staying for 3 hours chatting, eating, and drinking. Apparently the no beer rule was only applicable to being a student.

Other than the disgusting bug infestation in our apartment and the incredibly leaky air conditioner, our stay in Buenos Aires couldn't have been better!


Day 122
Spent the morning packing up and cleaning out our apartment. Our biggest mess to clean up was the large collection of Quilmes (the local beer) bottles we'd accumulated. We apparently misunderstood the bottle return policy, f.y.i. it's not the same as in the states, we'll just leave it at that. However, we eventually got everything cleaned up and checked out at 1pm. From there, we headed to the bus station and hopped on the 19 hour bus that would take us to Iguazu Falls.

Day 123
We arrived in Puerto Iguazu in the morning, checked our luggage at the bus terminal backage check, and headed to the falls. Here we spent several hours roaming the falls and checking out the various view points. The only word that can really describe them is spectacular. There's really nothing like it. After viewing the falls from every possible angle, we headed back to the small town of Puerto Iguazu. With nothing else really to do, no open book stores or internet cafes (other than the falls, this town is dead, especially on a Sunday), we took to drinking in the streets so that we'd be able to sleep on the 17 hour bus we were taking to Rosario that night.

Day 124
At around 6pm we arrived in Rosario. Though we were exhausted after two overnight busses in a row, we were excited to see our friend from school, Georgia, who was currently living in the city, and I must say, she showed us a superb time during our stay. This evening, we went out to dinner at a fantastic milanesa restaurant. Milanesa is Argentina's token food, it's essentially flattened meat that's been breaded and then fried. The restaurant we went to was known for it's milanesa pizzas. YUM! Then after dinner we headed to O'Donnells, the Irish pub around the corner from her house that her roommate worked out. We got here with the intention of having one drink because we were all so exhausted, but this quickly turned into loads of free shots and bottomless beers... I guess that's what happens when you have an in with the bartenders.

Day 125
Woke up this morning not feeling quite 100%, but eventually pulled ourselves together enough to make it to La Florida, the beach which was just a short bus ride away. After lounging in the sun for several hours we headed back to Georgia's to get ready for our evening. For dinner and drinks we head to Fanesia's, a delicious brew pub, started by two Northern Californians. We treated ourselves to delicious burgers and microbrews, two things we'd been deprived of for many months. The owners were two very nice gents that Georgia had struck up a friendship with over her stay in Rosario, so we got to stay after hours at the bar, play Asshole (a card game), and even fill up pitchers behind the bar!

Day 126
We spent the day touring Rosario and looking for a bookstore with english books. Both were successful! We ended back at Fanesia's for the evening, but kept it a lot more laid back because we were hoping on a bus to Uruguay around 8pm. So we carried our backpacks into the bar with us so that we could head out immediately from there.

Day 127
Arrived in Montevideo after another all night bus, only to hop on another bus to La Paloma, the beach town we'd decided to camp in. Luckily this was only a 3.5 hour bus. Once we arrived at the campsite we decided to head into town to pick up some essentials for the evening. Unfortunately, we walked to the wrong town. We made it to the one that was closer, however, it had no ATM, and we had no cash... So we set out on a walk to the other day, which was about 40 min away. The walk would have been fined had we planned ahead a little more, but instead we ended up getting completely scorched by the sun due to wearing take tops and no sun block. When we arrived back at camp finally we attempted to go lie on the beach and read, but at the point the sun had disappeared and the wind had picked up, so we retreated back to our campsite to light a fire, cook dinner, drink red wine, and play cards.

Day 128
We woke up an immediately headed to the beach, eager to make up for the lounging time we'd missed out on the day before. I don't think we could've asked for a more pleasant day; we spent the whole time, reading, napping, eating fruit, swimming, and basking in the sun. The evening turned into a repeat of the night before, it's amazing how the sun can suck the energy out of you.

Day 129
We wanted to spend the morning how we'd spent the previous day, but after an hour in the sun, we decided it just wasn't worth it because our bodies were too burned. So instead we headed back to camp, loaded up all of our gear, and headed to the bus station so we could take a bus back to Montevideo. We made it to Montevideo but late afternoon and spent our time roaming the city, and then headed back to the hostel to catch some z's. We'd originally wanted to go out, but decided we just didn't want to spend the money and needed to take the time to catch up on some much needed sleep, not the mention we had an early bus to catch in the morning.

Day 130
Woke up early to catch a bus to Colonia, from where we caught the ferry to take us back to Buenos Aires. We ran into some trouble when we reached Colonia and were checking into get on the ferry. Apparently, we never received our necessary Visas when we entered Uruguay. The bus that took us through the border was suppose to give them to us, but somehow failed to do so. In exchange for not having the necessary paperwork, border patrol was trying to get each of us to pay a $30 fine, which we just flat out refused to pay. Their main argument was that we were Americans and that it really wasn't that much money, then after us repeating several times that we didn't have the money and that was why we were schedule to leave for the United States the next day, they told us that we should just put it on the credit card. Eventually, I think that we just complained enough, and the didn't feel like dealing with us anymore, so they gave us dirty looks and then stamped our passports. SUCCESS!

Once back in Buenos Aires, we checked ourselves into Millhouse Hostel, the biggest hostel we'd ever seen, ran our last minute errands (purchased souvenirs), and began started drinking in celebration of the Super Bowel! Our hostel was ever so accommodating too, the put out the game on the big screen and had drink specials all night!

Day 131, the last day (we were there for 134, but somehow lost count in our blog, sorry avid readers)
This was a very sad day for us, so we spent the majority of the day moping and drinking in various parks around the city. Then around 6pm we headed for our last supper at parilla restaurant in Recoleta, we splurged and it was absolutely worth it! After dinner we hopped in a taxi and headed to the airport, we had a several hour stopover in the Mexico City airport and then landed at LAX around noon the following day.

It was the trip of a lifetime and we're devastated that it had to come to an end, but now we're on to the next stages of our lives. Kristin just recently moved up to Portland and is desperately seeking a job, while Molly will be attending Thomas Jefferson for nursing school in Philadelphia starting in May.

Thanks for reading!