Today was probably one of my most productive days off ever. Last night Martin offered that if Alice and I wanted to go into town, he would be at the Aleman later in the afternoon to give us a ride back. Thus far what has been keeping me from adventuring into capital is having to ride the bus to and from where we live in Moreno. A bit of a daunting task since Ive never used public transportation (basically non exhistent where I live) and have a giant language barrier to face. There there is the whole being alone in a strange, very large city where your language is not the primary one. A tiny bit intimidating. But since my spanish is better and Alice agreed to come we decided to go.
Got up early this morning super excited for the day. Rachel ended up having to go into town anyway so we skipped taking the bus into town but after that we were on our own. We found the subway on Santa Fe and took it to Plaza Italia where the zoo is. It was my first time on a subway so that was already an experience. The zoo was fun. Smaller and older than the ones I have gone to in the US. They had the usual lions, tigers, bears and whatnot which was very fun. My favorite part, however, was the muskrats and capibaras (definitely spelled wrong) that just run free on the property. The capibaras were friendly enough to feed out of your hand but werent particually pet-able. The muskrats, however, were quite friendly and very game for head scritches.
After we got back on the subway and headed for the mall to look around and grab lunch. Then started the journey to the Aleman. We new it was on Durago so took to subway to Durago and were planning to walk the short distance to the Aleman. The subway stop ended up being on a part of the street I didnt know so we ended up asking a guy at the gas station where Libratador was. Libratador is a large avenue that runs right by the Aleman and presumably should have gotten us going in the right direction. But despite the directions and our bests attempts, we ended up turned around and headed totally the wrong direction. Which we finally figured out when we managed to find a WiFi connection and check a GPS application. We'd only gotten about 12 block the wrong direction. So turned around and eventually found our way to the Aleman (only a few blocks from where we'd gotten turned around - go figure). Watched a few rounds of the show (over 600 rounds today!) then found Martin and headed home!
Some definite highlights/funny moments of the day. On the subway people walk around putting booklets or pens in peoples laps. If you want to buy them you hand them money. If not you just ignore whatever it is and theyll pick it back up. I totally missed this and picked up one of the booklets, started flipping through it then stuck it with my stuff to look at later. It didnt look like much but thought it might be interesting to try to read. Guy comes back around and starts freaking out in spanish. I just stared at him and was like "I have absolutely no idea what youre saying". Thankfully the guy sitting nect to me spoke english and while laughing at me was able to help get it sorted out. On a seperate subway ride a young guy leans over and asks, in perfect English, where Alice and I were from. Turns out he was from Texas and working down here. Still have no idea how he picked up we were from the US so quickly. Ended up speaking to a decent amount if people both in spanish and english in our tour around the city. Every time we went to buy something, however, no one spoke english. Attempting to order things when I dont know the words for what Im asking (ice cream cone?) was quite an experience. This whole year is about different experiences though. Over all a very successfull, very fun day in Argentina. Another full week ahead with horse shows, Megs arrival and who knows what else!
Photos of all sorts of stuff. The city, the subway, the zoo, Alices earrings that she bought today, grafitti, ect...
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