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After four wonderful days in the big beautiful city i was ready for a little bit of country and a familiar face. so i hopped on a nightbus bound for mendoza and 17hours later, after transfering to another bus to get to the small town of tunuyan, i was greeted by patchs open arms and now heavily bearded grinning face. after a 30 min walk to the farm we sat down to a huge meal in honor of nacho (the son of the farm owners) s 5th birthday. twas a bit overwhelming with all the fast talking and greeting and kissing, but in a really heartwarming kind of way. they are such a wonderful family, so passionate and kind. in the morning we we set out to earn our keep and, for a girl from orange county, id say i worked that hoe like nobodys business. after the mornings work was finished, jorge (the man of the farm) led all us volunteers in a yoga lesson after which we had lunch and a siesta and returned to work until nightfall (this time building walls out of mud, water and horse poop). but as good as all this sounds, we were itching to get to wadnering and head south to reach ushuaia (the southernmost city in the world) before summer had retreated too far. so we packed up our stuff and patchs mouse, sancho panza, and once again boarded a bus for the better part of a day. this time i ended up in bariloche in a beautiful campsite 3 kilometers outside of town with a view of the deep blue alpine-esk lake. id like to tell more, but time is so often of the essence for us wadnerers. more on bariloche and our 5 wonderful days there later.
PS please send warmth as i will be reaching very cold temperatures this evening.

the adventure continues...

so winter on the east coast was appropriately wintery and wonderful.
some highlights: 1. visiting wonderland (the last stop on the blue subway line in boston) where there streets werent paved with gumdrops, to my disappointment, but where i did have my first experience with snand ( wierd inbetween substance where the snow meets the sand). 2. walking home from a bar in brooklyn at 3 in the morning in the snow with no socks on. 3. having a song dedicated and sung to me at a comedy club in the lower east side. 4. dancing the night away at a by request dueling piano bar. 5. 4am dance parties on the third story of 98 pleasant street.
i could go on, but then they would cease to be highlights and be just regular old everyday lights. but alas, many good things must come to an end so i have now moved on from the northern hemesphere and am currently enjoying a change of weather and language and pretty much everything else in beautiful buenos aires.
the flight, flights, were unblievably long and exhausting (emotionally, mentally, physically) and when i finally arrived at the airport in my state of pan-exhaustion i made a series of mistakes which ended up making for the most expensive taxi ride i will ever take in my life. unless in the future taxis are made of gold and driven by good looking celebreties. feeling very sad about the state of humanity after being brutally swindled i walked into spring break hostel 2008. i mean i like to party as much as the next guy, but this place is dedicated to helping british people and the products of their colonies party like they could party anywhere else in the world. kinda lame. but there is always beer in the fridge and someone around to talk too, even if they are the bohiem travel snob type with pupils the size of nickles. however, this is not to say that i havent met a few down to earth awesome people too. one british girl in particular is totally my kind of awesome and after a solo tour of the city center on my first full day, which included the pink capitol building, the pedestrian calle florida and the beautiful shaded plaza of san martin (where, by the way, i managed to get bitten 6 times by mesquitos, in the middle of huge cosmopolitan city) the two of us headed out to a tango lesson. we both did rather well if i do say so myself and, after a delicous and cheap 10 o´clock dinner of steak and wine, we returned for the milonga (free dance, of sorts). however it very quickly become obvious that this was not the cool kid milonga, but the over 50 (60?) milonga. it didnt really matter, though, since as we were just beginners we actually had a good old time (pun intended) getting led around the room by all our newly accuired elderly angentine admirers. my favorite partner, though, was a man about half my height dressed in a full suit complete with a fidora hat who was probably the oldest and slowest person ive ever seen. i must have "danced" 5 songs with him. and by "danced" i mean he took hold of my arm and we walked in incredibly slow motion around the peremeter of the dance floor. really, it felt more like i was helping him cross a busy street than anything else. his one move was that every few steps (= few minutes) he would (slowly) rock back on one foot after taking a step. so, in the end, what the night lacked in thrills and eye candy it wholly made up for in amusement.
so long story short... ive found me another wonderful corner of this great big world.