Time Flies (?)

Suprised its already been a week. I've been doing more spanish lessons- they've been really helpful and I think they are worth it over say straight book learning as I get a lot out of just trying to make simple conversation and listening to my teacher do the same. Its also a bit fascinating to me how you begin to understand what words mean without being given their definitions- your brain is able to construct its context/ definition just through dialogue.

Basically what i'm trying to say in a nice way (to myself) is that I suck at grammar- always have, always will and the only way I'll ever learn a foreign language is by hearing/ talking as much as possible. Outside of classes, if other people are having conversations (ie Brant talking to cab drivers on how we should get home, or with a hostess on where we should go to check out the tigre delta), I definitely have noticed an improvement in my spanish. But i am not at the point where I can talk to people beyond very simple things.

This week I think my classes will be 'spiced' up a bit, as instead of me going to my teachers apartment and getting lessons, we're gonna go to a cafe on Tuesday and an art show later in the week. So that should be cool.

On friday I went to the Tigre delta. Me and my friends took a boat ride which was fun, and just walked around the area. It was nice to get a bit outside the city, and the train ride we took was pretty scenic- there are some mansionesque houses on the outskirts of the city (complete with walls that include guard towers (!!!) as I think train tracks usually are pretty ghetto.

I also included some pictures of the fine dining I've been lucky enough to experience. There are 600+ restaurants within a 10km radius of Palermo, and already I have a few favorites. Sudestada, i've only been to 2x but they have great asian food (singapore dumplings are incredible) and they have a lunch special which includes water or beer, an appetizer (salad or dumplings) and then a bunch of different main dishes ( I went for a vegetarian curry but my friends recommend bison) all for around $10 usd.

On friday night we went to a spanish place, as I was kindof craving Paella- mainly because I hadn't had spanish food in a while and having red meat all the time can feel a bit taxing. Anyways, we went to Azulay which was a bit off the main strip in Palermo hollywood and showed it as it was not busy at all (which set off warning flags in my head that maybe this place won't be that good). But I was wrong, as it ended up being an excellent meal. We got a fixed price menu, where we had 5-6 small plates initially followed by a big plate of paella. The highlights of the meal would be the salad, which had a great vinagrette, the calamari and paella of course. Maybe my only regret was having wine with dinner without seeing if they offered sangria.

Last night we went to Miranda, where my photos show two of the meals (Ribeye steak with a grilled pepper that has a fried egg in it and my cut of lamb) is an awesome steak house. The cuts of meat so far have been better then anywhere else that we've gone and the apple crumble dessert is amazing. Its actually the best apple crumble i've ever had, and it reminds me a lot of the one that I once got at the Ruth Chris steak house. Unfortuantely the last time I went to Miranda I got some mint ice cream that was way too strong on mint, but I won't be making that mistake again :).

In the next week my plans are pretty simple. Plan out my trip to Mendoza a bit more (how many days in each place, go to the South American explorers club for advice/ additional resources, go to Colonia Uruguay on Wednesday for a day trip (if not Wednesday then this weekend), work on my spanish and ramp up the time I spend at the gym.

Anyways, thats all for now. Pictures are of course here.