Goodmorning Buenos Aires

Sorry it's been a while!! Things have been busy busy. School started last week, and my 4 day weekends seem to last forever! This weekend has been amazing. Thursday night was kind of a bust, but Friday and Saturday nights made up for it. Let's begin:
FRIDAY: Wake up late (obviously), Gretchen and I head to Palermo Soho to, what else??? SHOP. We had a great day, it was warm out, we had delicious carrot and ginger soup at a great place called Mark's Deli and Coffee House, and met some models. We went into a shoe store called Lara Bernasconi. Greta (Gretchen's Argentine alter ego) needed some boots and I'm always in the market for shoes. We walked into the amazing store only and were treated so nicely by the owner, designer, and model Lara Bernasconi. We didn't realize she was the Gisele Bunchen of Argentina until we 1) saw her modeling photos and photos with Sophia Loren, etc. all over the store and 2) Googled her. So after Greta dropped over $600 pesos on boots, Lara invited us to her friend's birthday party & afterparty at Mute in Las Cañitas. I was nervous to go, but Greta understandably peer pressured me to go. I still thank her for making me go. I mean, if I'm not intimidated enough speaking Spanish all the time, but speaking Spanish with models?? No thank you. Anyway we got dressed up and went to the party. Roma greeted us at the door and told us to go upstairs, Lara would let us in to VIP. Well we caught her attention and she kindly told the huge bouncer that we were with her...Score. Champagne flowed like water and after a few hours I think I had finished at least 7 glasses. Lara and I made a pact that she would speak English to me and I would speak Spanish to her so that we could help each other learn. She is so nice, a really incredible person. After a while, my host brother Juan texted me asking if he could come to our model party-- Lara said of course. Juan showed up with a small crew of friends and we hung out at Mute for a while. Then it was time to dance. We headed to ROXY, a great club nearby that plays 80s and 90s American music exclusively. Every new song they played made Greta and I scream, we were so happy. I put some pictures on Facebook of Juan and friends and of Roxy as well. We stayed out until 7:00 AM, and came home to the house with Juan for an enormous breakfast feast of cream cheese (ish) stuff and jelly on home-made bread. mmmm. Went to bed and woke up at 2 the next morning (first one up).
SATURDAY: Saturday during the day Greta and I accompanied Pedro (my other host brother) to the park near our house. He was meeting up with some hippie friends to hang out, do acrobatics, the usual. The park was full of crazy hippies drinking, smoking, playing with crystal balls, whatever. It was crazy! The boys set up a slack line in between two trees and were playing on it and stuff, it was fun. We had dinner reservations at 9, and when you don't leave the house until 4, the day goes by pretty quickly. On our way back home Greta and I stopped at Patio Bullrich, after walking down Avenida Alvear, one of the most amazing streets in the city. We just had to go shopping for things we couldn't afford!! When we got home we got ready and headed to Bangalore in Palermo, an amazing Indian food place where we ate and drank way too much. After that, the 5 of us went to meet up with my friend Clay, a good friend of my friend Hailey (!!! :) ) at Skidmore. We met up in Plaza Serrano and decided to go to Niceto, which we liked to call "Nice-T" (as in Ice-T). The music was super fun..Salsa music, very Latin, but cool. Greta, Clay, Becca, Liam, Amanda and I danced the night away. Then, to our surprise, a group started playing music on the stage- we found ourselves rocking out to an amazing free concert of Brazilian/reggae/hip-hop music..it was incredible. We danced until 4 and returned home.
Now it's Sunday, my favorite day of the week to just relax - everything is closed anyway, so there is no reason to feel bad about staying in the house all day :). The 4 kids - Me, Juan, Pedro, and Greta, are going to an asado later, which is an Argentine bbq, at Amanda (my host mom's) oldest son, Gonzalo's, house. He lives in La Boca (famous neighborhood where all the houses are painted different colors, home of Boca Juniors soccer team...). I'm really excited!!
I am going to try to watch more of the Olympics online, but most of the American sites won't let me because I am out of the country :(
I'll update you on the asado later tonight!! Hope everyone is doing well! xoxo love & miss all of you