So, this may or may not have one of the best weekends of my life. We got to the hostel around 10:30 Friday night, and 14 of us piled into a room with 6 sets of bunk beds and 2 separate beds.. to say that we all got pretty close, pretty fast is an understatement. That night we just all hung out on the beach, enjoying each others company and the sound of the ocean, almost until sunrise. We woke up the next morning to catch the breakfast wave before 10:00, and headed right out to the sunshine immediately after! Man it felt incredible laying on the beach.. not to mention admiring alll of the beautiful people around us! There's something about the Argentines- literally every single one of the natives are beautiful. Flawless. This in turn made people-watching into a sport.
After getting THOROUGLY sunburned after the first day on the beach (my butt is like a tomato, my host mom literally just rubbed her aloe plant all over me! Bonding experience, that's for sure), we cooked a family dinner of pasta with great sausage, vegetables and some bread. It was so great to sit around as a group and share a meal! The set-up of the hostel was neat too, because in the huge kitchen and dining area there were other people doing the same thing and it turned it into a really fun and energetic atmosphere. After dinner wrapped up, festivities began on the beach and at the boliches- I ended up finding a bonfire on the beach and hanging out with some locals for a while, which was a lot of fun! They were riding their 4-wheelers up and down the strip, which I thought was neat considering I haven't been on many beaches where that's kosher after dark. That night I stayed up and watched the sunrise with my friend Miguel, and God it was an incredible sight. It was one of those mornings that I'll have freeze-framed in my head forever.
Saturday we were all much more sluggish and reluctant to lay out on the beach... most of us were still pretty red from the day before. Even after applying loads and loads of sunblock, some of our skin tones are just tooo susceptible to getting crispy. Anyways, we hung out on the beach for a while and collectively napped, ate some dinner, and then napped again! Hahaha that makes us sound pretty lazy, but staying up until sunrise and being in the sun is more exhausting than it sounds. We rallied around midnight, but just ended up staying around the beach all night again until sunrise. Becca brought her ukulele with her, so that obviously led to a sing-a-long for quite some time. The cool, fine sand between our toes with the perfect view of the milky way galaxy right above us was almost too much to handle. Before leaving, Becca and I went to the beach to meditate and do some writing in our journals. That small time period really let me reflect and absorb the recent series of events- while I don't think I'm very good at meditating in terms of clearing my mind, I'm looking forward to practicing and making it a part of my daily routine.
It felt so great to be on a beach and away for the city for a few days in general. As much as I love it in Buenos Aires, I really do, there's a big part of me that also relies on the nature and a big, open sky to keep me sane. Having that for the last three days was incredibly rejuvenating. When I think about my last weekend, actually, there is not one moment where I felt stressed, upset, worried, anxious... anything. That's another reason why I'll never get sick of the beach- it's so medicinal. This weekend was definitely a splurge, and though it won't happen all the time, I'm hoping that we can make our way back there one more time before heading back to the states!
I was terrible this weekend and took mayyyybe 2 pictures. So, I'm going to wait for my friends to upload them, steal them, and I'll post a couple on here in the next few days!
Yesterday the ISA group went on our first excursion- to Tigre! We took a train and a ferry to get there, and 50 of us relaxed on a beach for a few hours. There are people who are native to the island and don't leave much, which is why the outside world comes to them-- there's a supermarket boat that stops at each house! Granted, prices are more expensive, but they save a ton of money on boat fuel. (There's also a small theme park!) The water at Tigre kind of resembles the chocolate river from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-- but not really because it's dirty, but because there's so much dust and mud that's thrown into the river that it has just become this dull brownish color. Not complaining though, well, maybe a little bit due to the sunburn... but anyhoo, after hanging out at the beach for a few hours, we went to some markets by the water and walked around before heading back towards Buenos Aires. Our last stop though was a beautiful restaurant right on the Atlantic ocean in one of the burroughs of the city, it was such an incredible view and the water was hot tub material. I have a rough life here, I really do. ;)
We all ended up going home, eating dinner with our families and then meeting up in a bar called Sullivan's waaaay across town for a girl's 21st birthday celebration. Because there were so many of us it ended up getting hectic and we split up-- around 2:30 or 3am we got to the Plaza Cerrano and camped out at a bar called Bruja until it closed at 5! It's weird, I'm usually such a grandma and would have hated staying out that late, but for some reason time doesn't seem relevant or applicable in Argentina. When the bar closed we realized that the sun was coming up... so naturally, the 9 of us walked home as the sun rose and then stopped at a pizza place to get some beer and empanadas around 6 or 6:30am. We weren't the only ones though-- the place was poppin and so was the city! Honestly, the night was perfect. The last time I watched the sun rise was probably Relay for Life.. but let me tell you, seeing the sun come over the horizon was incredible. I feel so blessed to even be here!
