The father and son team of Isaac and Marc were at it again this weekend. Talk about a contented state of exhaustion. We were all over the place and saw tons of people and hung out with family and it was awesome. I'd just to highlight our adventures here so we can remember that this one is going to be tough to top.
It all started on Friday June 25th. Lisa had to go to work so she had to drop him off to me as soon as I got home. So I tried to be nice and get home as soon as possible to facilitate this. I needed to talk to Jim to get the key to his house off him because he was going away again for work and might not be there next weekend when Ale gets here to open the door for us. (We are staying at his house instead of a hotel for the #Alevacation) He wouldn't be home for a while so we chilled out and played some Red Dead Redemption. Isaac isn't that good at it because he doesn't care about doing the missions. All he wants to do is sometimes shoot a bunch of people but mainly chase down the train and ride it around. You do know he loves trains right? So we did that for a while until I got a text from Jim saying that he was home but he was going to cut the grass. I figured I could take Isaac out to eat and by the time we were done and drove over there Jim should be done with his chores so that was the plan we were going with.
We stopped at The Great Escape Clubhouse to have some dinner. This place is okay. It's a local place and the prices aren't too crazy. Isaac was excited because I guess when hanging out with his one friend Adam and his parents once they took the kids here. So he was familiar with it and he was telling me all the stuff they did. I grabbed some quarters from my car to let him play the games. I got a buffalo chicken sandwich and it was pretty good. After we were done I needed to stop at the state store next door and guess who I saw walking out? It was Aunt Dee and Aunt Mary Jo. They just came from a funeral home and they invited us to come over. I told them I had to meet my friend but that we would stop over later. From here we got in the car and went to Jim's.
I was glad to see that Jim was watching the NHL draft. For whatever stupid reason the place we were at had NBA draft coverage on and who the hell cares about that. I talked to Jim about what was going on and everything and he was really cool about it. He let me go upstairs and see the room and then told me if we were going to need an air conditioner that there was one in the basement we could use. I said no doubt we would need that and I went downstairs to get it. From there we started moving more things around. He needed a couch to go in the basement so we moved that. The futon bed that we were going to use needed hauled up to the room. That was a little harder to pull off but we that too. I asked him if he needed anything else but he said that was it for now. By around that time the draft was only on pick #12 or something but it was quarter to 9. How can it be that late already? My plan was to hang out until the Pens picked (#20) but if we were going to go to Blair's house we would have to leave now. Jim gave me the key, I thanked him for everything and we were off.
Last on our stop for today was Uncle Blair and Aunt Mary Jo's. It was fun to go over there and hang out. Mary Jo loved Isaac (cuz he's so cute) and since I haven't talked to those guys in a while it was nice to see them again. Isaac caught lightning bugs and Blair teased that he would give Isaac a dollar for every one he caught (He ended up not paying out :P). I got to run me and Ale's house idea past Dee to see what she thought. It was good getting additional input on that. I should write that up in a blog next. We didn't stay too long because it was late and getting dark and this was only the first day of our fun so we went home and pretty much went straight to bed.
Saturday June 26
I talked to my friend Anne this week and she invited us to go with her out to Keystone State Park today. Her boyfriend Ryan didn't get off work until 3 though so we wouldn't leave until shortly after. (Check out the band Ryan is in, The Boogie Hustlers, pretty awesome!!) That gave us some time to relax. I got my bills done and worked on backing up some of my videos and adding them to my tracking sheet. Isaac played more of the cowboy game (as he calls it). Around 3 we got our stuff ready and left. I told Anne we'd meet her at her house. When we got there and knocked on the door some dude I never seen answered. His name was Dan and apparently he lived there since April. Good job keeping me up to date on this stuff Anne. :| She texted me that she must have assumed she already told me she moved. Whatever. Not a problem. We just went back to my house and waited for them to come by and we followed them to the park.
This was another place I have not been in forever (see Father's Day 2010) but now I was sharing some time there with my son. He did mention that he was here before with Lisa and her cousin Katie. Not sure if that is true or not but hopefully so. At least she is doing some stuff with him. We picked out a spot on the beach and started playing and swimming. I warned Isaac about doing that gagging thing he does when he gets water in his mouth. He was pretty good about it today but he did puke once and I had to take him out of the water for a bit. I still don't understand that. I've never seen anybody else do what he does and it bothers me a bit. Besides that he played in the sand and with Ella and Sean. He made some new friends too. I took him out to the deepest parts a few times and let him go to see if he could swim and he did great. He's not a strong swimmer but he could probably stay afloat and save himself if he had to so I am proud of him for that. We may have got there late in the day but we stayed until dusk came so it was a good long time. I know I was exhausted. After we got dried off and changed we even fit in some playground time. There was a nice playground right there so I let him play around on that and got some more pics for 2010PlaygroundFest. I lit some of his fireworks when we got home since we really couldn't do that at the beach. Nothing spectacular since we are in lamo anti-fireworks PA but he still enjoyed it. The little neighbor kids even came over to check them out. I made us some food and we took showers and went to bed after that.
Sunday June 27
We woke up today and had one more awesome thing to do before the weekend was over. It was Allie's 4th birthday party!! She is my cousin Stephanie's kid. Aunt Dee called in the morning about this. I guess she was coming too so it would be a good idea to pick her up when we left. We ate breakfast and got our stuff ready to go. Zip was supposed to follow us over but he was not there. He had one of those inflatable jumping houses for kid's birthday parties and he was going to set it up for them. That was cool! We made a quick stop in Delmont at the Wal-Mart to pick up some presents and we were off. This is in an area I don't normally go so I had to use my phone's GPS to get there but we had no issues. I couldn't wait to see their new house.
There were already lots of people there when we arrived. Lots of older people that must have been Sam's (Stephanie's husband) relatives because I did not recognize them. I did see Elaine (her mom) but from what she told me most of the other relatives that I know from her side of the family were on a cruise in Alaska at this time and were not coming. I did see a girl that I went to high school with there and that was weird. We had a blast though! The house was amazing! I am so jealous. This is the kind of house that I could picture myself being happy with. It's big and there is a room for everything. Their property is very nice. A whole acre I think they said. I walked all around everywhere when I first got there and checked it out. You could say it's sort of close to Pittsburgh but it's still in a woodsy area which is nice. Their pool was awesome too!! I know Isaac loved it. I think my child is turning into a fish. We could not keep him out of it once we let him in. Everyone seemed to be apprehensive at first about going in except a few of us and then the pizza came so we had to get out to eat. We went back in for a bit but it started storming so we closed it but it stopped after 20 minutes so we opened it again. We had to get out again when it was cupcake and present time. The cupcake's she made were awesome. They were Oscar, Cookie Monster and Elmo cupcakes!! Allie loved all her presents. A lot of people left by that time but there were a few of us who stayed. We got back in the pool and played some volleyball for a while. They had flippers and I never used them before but I love them. It's amazing how dramatically they can improve your swimming skills. With those on I could motor across the pool in seconds. I kept them on for the rest of the day and my ankles were hurting later. We also got see and play with her new baby Jillian. She is so super cute. Actually the last 2 groups to leave were us and her mother. I got to talk to them seriously for a bit. I also told them the house thing and she was kind of bugged that my mom made excuses not to come. We also planned what we are doing to do next week when Ale comes because they want to meet her. I guess she gets some deal at this bowling alley nearby so we are going to do that. I hope to show their house to Ale so I can give her an idea what I dream of for us together.
We probably didn't leave until like 8. We stopped at Burger King to get some dinner and even after I was nice enough to put on a shirt the kid still gave me crap for not wearing shoes in the store. I was going to call and bitch the place out about him but whatever. As big of a total no-issue that was I guess he was just following rules. We took our food home and ate then took a shower. I put Isaac to bed because it was getting late and he needed some sleep after that weekend since he had to get up early with me this week to go to Penn Pals. I called Ale on Skype and pretty much fell right asleep after telling her about what all we did. I can't wait until she can come with us when we do those things. <3
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Revacation part 6
2010/03/31
We woke up and went down to the hotel dining room to get us some free breakfast buffet. Being free meant of course that there was nothing really good there. It was just a bunch of little desserts and things and some cereal. We still filled up as much as possible to get us moving. We want to try and hit the beach again.
We stopped on the way at the Human Body exhibit. It happened to be right here in Argentina while I was here. I missed it when it was in Pittsburgh. I don't think I actually tried that hard but now that it was here we could see it together. How cool is that? Well, while it was neat it wasn't like the greatest thing we've ever done in our lives. We saw a lot of dead people and their guts. If you like that kind of stuff then for sure go see it. I would think it would be a must for school children to attend like for health class or something. In fact there was a tour of them in there at the same time as us. They were not dead. You could hear the teachers pointing and talking to individual things telling the kids more information. If I had it to do over, not sure I'd be in the mood to do it again. We blew thru it in less than an hour and got out of there.
Oh it was definitely nicer today outside. A lot warmer, not super hot mind you but at least you could hang out and get in the water without freezing (The water here must come up from even further south because it is freezing year round). There were more people here today. We walked to this shop and bought one of those beach mat thingies to sit on. I took a lot of awesome pics of the environment up and down the beach trying to capture the atmosphere. There was a guy in the water trying to wind surf but he kept falling down so that was funny.
We went back out on the street for a walk to start sight seeing. I found a nice store right away that had souvenir shirts for small boys. I finally found what I was looking for to get Isaac! A Mar De Plata t-shirt. (PIC) We kept on walking down the beach seeing what there was to see and I got even more awesome pics. Some of the best were at this high point where you could almost see forever down the beach in either direction. We sat on this wall and took pics of both of us from all sorts of angles. It was awesome. These are some of my favorite pics that we got. (PIC)
We walked back to our home base area at this point and got some lunch. I was knocking out all the awesome Argentinian dishes that I wanted to try and I finally got to have some milenesa at Montecatini (she got the chicken I got the beef, both with eggs). After we ate we stopped in Italia and got some Cannoli which was this amazing ice cream thing. It was a churro covered with ice cream that was filled with peanuts and all with a chocolate shell around it. It was so good and super hearty but I could barely finish it I was so stuffed from everything.
There were more touristy things to do further down the beach at the port. So I let Ale drag me along to a bus stop to take about a half hour ride down the coast. I saw houses with actual yards and stuff which was cool. This is stuff I was used to rather than straight 100% city all the time. We got there and we right next to this circular plaza. Nothing really interesting here so we walked a bit down the road to the actual port. Here it turned into a pedestrian area with a bunch of souvenir shops and you could see about a million boats on the water. Where the concrete ended by the water there was another level underneath for the boat people to get to their boats I guess. That is where the sea lions were. There must have been at least 20 lying there sleeping. I wondered being so close if they would ever attack someone if they got in range but there were boat people walking back and forth and neither of them seemed to pay each other any mind. The fun thing to do while looking at them is to say 'Hey' to someone and point and go 'That one looks like you'. That was good fun to do that.
We left there and I found the perfect little trinket for my mom (even though I already bought her some stuff) and we found a dock that gave a tour via boat. We looked at the time and we were here right at the time we needed to be. We bought some tickets and hopped on. While is was a nice tour, it was the slowest damn boat I had ever been on in my life. We only went out and made a huge circle around the bay but damn. We sat on the top at first but it got chilly so we went down inside. There was a spot on the shore where more sea lions were. There must have been 200 of more at this spot. I wondered how they climbed up the rocks to get where they were.
When we got back we grabbed the bus back to the beach and went back to Manolo's to have submarino. I guess to tide them over until dinner since everyone eats so late, the popular thing to do is get warm milk and a chocolate bar for a snack. You stir the chocolate in the milk until it melts and then you drink it. I was happy to be doing these cultural things. We went back to our room after that and I think we were so tired we didn't even go back out for dinner that night.
TO BE CONTINUED
We woke up and went down to the hotel dining room to get us some free breakfast buffet. Being free meant of course that there was nothing really good there. It was just a bunch of little desserts and things and some cereal. We still filled up as much as possible to get us moving. We want to try and hit the beach again.
We stopped on the way at the Human Body exhibit. It happened to be right here in Argentina while I was here. I missed it when it was in Pittsburgh. I don't think I actually tried that hard but now that it was here we could see it together. How cool is that? Well, while it was neat it wasn't like the greatest thing we've ever done in our lives. We saw a lot of dead people and their guts. If you like that kind of stuff then for sure go see it. I would think it would be a must for school children to attend like for health class or something. In fact there was a tour of them in there at the same time as us. They were not dead. You could hear the teachers pointing and talking to individual things telling the kids more information. If I had it to do over, not sure I'd be in the mood to do it again. We blew thru it in less than an hour and got out of there.
Oh it was definitely nicer today outside. A lot warmer, not super hot mind you but at least you could hang out and get in the water without freezing (The water here must come up from even further south because it is freezing year round). There were more people here today. We walked to this shop and bought one of those beach mat thingies to sit on. I took a lot of awesome pics of the environment up and down the beach trying to capture the atmosphere. There was a guy in the water trying to wind surf but he kept falling down so that was funny.
We went back out on the street for a walk to start sight seeing. I found a nice store right away that had souvenir shirts for small boys. I finally found what I was looking for to get Isaac! A Mar De Plata t-shirt. (PIC) We kept on walking down the beach seeing what there was to see and I got even more awesome pics. Some of the best were at this high point where you could almost see forever down the beach in either direction. We sat on this wall and took pics of both of us from all sorts of angles. It was awesome. These are some of my favorite pics that we got. (PIC)
We walked back to our home base area at this point and got some lunch. I was knocking out all the awesome Argentinian dishes that I wanted to try and I finally got to have some milenesa at Montecatini (she got the chicken I got the beef, both with eggs). After we ate we stopped in Italia and got some Cannoli which was this amazing ice cream thing. It was a churro covered with ice cream that was filled with peanuts and all with a chocolate shell around it. It was so good and super hearty but I could barely finish it I was so stuffed from everything.
There were more touristy things to do further down the beach at the port. So I let Ale drag me along to a bus stop to take about a half hour ride down the coast. I saw houses with actual yards and stuff which was cool. This is stuff I was used to rather than straight 100% city all the time. We got there and we right next to this circular plaza. Nothing really interesting here so we walked a bit down the road to the actual port. Here it turned into a pedestrian area with a bunch of souvenir shops and you could see about a million boats on the water. Where the concrete ended by the water there was another level underneath for the boat people to get to their boats I guess. That is where the sea lions were. There must have been at least 20 lying there sleeping. I wondered being so close if they would ever attack someone if they got in range but there were boat people walking back and forth and neither of them seemed to pay each other any mind. The fun thing to do while looking at them is to say 'Hey' to someone and point and go 'That one looks like you'. That was good fun to do that.
We left there and I found the perfect little trinket for my mom (even though I already bought her some stuff) and we found a dock that gave a tour via boat. We looked at the time and we were here right at the time we needed to be. We bought some tickets and hopped on. While is was a nice tour, it was the slowest damn boat I had ever been on in my life. We only went out and made a huge circle around the bay but damn. We sat on the top at first but it got chilly so we went down inside. There was a spot on the shore where more sea lions were. There must have been 200 of more at this spot. I wondered how they climbed up the rocks to get where they were.
When we got back we grabbed the bus back to the beach and went back to Manolo's to have submarino. I guess to tide them over until dinner since everyone eats so late, the popular thing to do is get warm milk and a chocolate bar for a snack. You stir the chocolate in the milk until it melts and then you drink it. I was happy to be doing these cultural things. We went back to our room after that and I think we were so tired we didn't even go back out for dinner that night.
TO BE CONTINUED
Monday, June 21, 2010
2010 Father's Day
First off I want to thank everyone that wished me a Happy Father's Day and right back at ya! 
Being a father is awesome and it makes me extremely happy. I am so lucky to have Isaac. He is a fantastic child and I think I am doing all right by him. Second off I am doubly thankful that this year turned out to be the complete opposite of last year. That was when you'll remember (or maybe not) that Lisa took Isaac from me and did not let me see him on Father's Day when it in fact was my time with him. That actually started the whole legal battle, custody bullcrap I think. Thank you, Lisa, good job! Anyway this year was a lot better. This time it was her time with Isaac but she decided this year that it would be a good thing for him and I to do something. (Probably something else behind that but you got to take what you can get eh) Not that it bothered me but she also generated some confusion about how Isaac was getting to and from me but that all seemed to work out just fine too. On to the good stuff!
It being a beautiful sunny day before the first day of summer I decided instead of continuing the 2010 Playgroundfest deal, we would take a break from that today and go swimming. (I did also have the idea to visit the Toonseum down Pittsburgh but swimming seemed like a much better idea. I can save that for another day.) Somehow I remembered a place that my dad took me when I was little, Ligonier Beach.
I haven't been here in ages but I found out that it's still there and still open to the public. I also discovered it's the biggest pool in Pennsylvania and we had an absolute blast!!
It takes a while to get there and Isaac was getting impatient but that's okay. It was out there for sure. It's been a long time since I was that far down route 30. We made it though with no issues. We paid, got changed and went on to find a place to put our towels down. [Note to self: Bring more water/pool toys next time we go] You have to watch going in because the whole way around is just sloped and it's slippery. There are a couple of metal bars around the pool you can hold on to to assist you. They are better for getting out. There was lots of grass and bugs floating around but not so much that I was grossed out or anything. Isaac didn't give a crap about that. The water was cold but he loved it!!
We waded over to the fountain in the middle first to walk under it and get splashed. Isaac was worried about being tall enough to stay above the water but it turns out that he was. I remember there being diving boards here and they were actually still there. I thought there was big insurance issues with diving boards and you couldn't even buy them for your own pool anymore. I took a couple big dives off them and it was sweet. Isaac even jumped off too. He was not scared at all. I did have to be there for him to help him swim to the side. I was very proud of him. I thought later to get Isaac to film a clip of me jumping off it but we never got to that.
We splashed around for a good 3-4 hours. We were totally pruny and sunburnt by the time we left. He was having some stomach issues and we had to get out of the pool twice for him to go to the bathroom. What sucked was there was no door on the stall and there was a huge line so everyone kept poking their heads in to see him sitting there pooping. After the first time I couldn't believe he had to go again. You'd think your embarrassment would allow you to hold on a bit until you could get somewhere else but I guess it didn't really bother him. He also does this thing where if he sucks down some water he gags so loud you think he's throwing up everywhere. I am trying to tell him to keep his mouth closed at all times but he must have done that 3 times while we were there. I don't know what is up with that. I told him if he pukes we are so out of there because that is really embarrassing. Luckily nothing happened though.
About the last hour or so I swam off by myself and let him play with a couple little friends he made. They had found someone's abandon raft and were trying to stay on top of it and keep it from flipping and that looked like a lot of fun.
I took a bunch of pics and I think we both had a great time. I love being a father.
Being a father is awesome and it makes me extremely happy. I am so lucky to have Isaac. He is a fantastic child and I think I am doing all right by him. Second off I am doubly thankful that this year turned out to be the complete opposite of last year. That was when you'll remember (or maybe not) that Lisa took Isaac from me and did not let me see him on Father's Day when it in fact was my time with him. That actually started the whole legal battle, custody bullcrap I think. Thank you, Lisa, good job! Anyway this year was a lot better. This time it was her time with Isaac but she decided this year that it would be a good thing for him and I to do something. (Probably something else behind that but you got to take what you can get eh) Not that it bothered me but she also generated some confusion about how Isaac was getting to and from me but that all seemed to work out just fine too. On to the good stuff!It being a beautiful sunny day before the first day of summer I decided instead of continuing the 2010 Playgroundfest deal, we would take a break from that today and go swimming. (I did also have the idea to visit the Toonseum down Pittsburgh but swimming seemed like a much better idea. I can save that for another day.) Somehow I remembered a place that my dad took me when I was little, Ligonier Beach.
I haven't been here in ages but I found out that it's still there and still open to the public. I also discovered it's the biggest pool in Pennsylvania and we had an absolute blast!!It takes a while to get there and Isaac was getting impatient but that's okay. It was out there for sure. It's been a long time since I was that far down route 30. We made it though with no issues. We paid, got changed and went on to find a place to put our towels down. [Note to self: Bring more water/pool toys next time we go] You have to watch going in because the whole way around is just sloped and it's slippery. There are a couple of metal bars around the pool you can hold on to to assist you. They are better for getting out. There was lots of grass and bugs floating around but not so much that I was grossed out or anything. Isaac didn't give a crap about that. The water was cold but he loved it!!
We waded over to the fountain in the middle first to walk under it and get splashed. Isaac was worried about being tall enough to stay above the water but it turns out that he was. I remember there being diving boards here and they were actually still there. I thought there was big insurance issues with diving boards and you couldn't even buy them for your own pool anymore. I took a couple big dives off them and it was sweet. Isaac even jumped off too. He was not scared at all. I did have to be there for him to help him swim to the side. I was very proud of him. I thought later to get Isaac to film a clip of me jumping off it but we never got to that.
We splashed around for a good 3-4 hours. We were totally pruny and sunburnt by the time we left. He was having some stomach issues and we had to get out of the pool twice for him to go to the bathroom. What sucked was there was no door on the stall and there was a huge line so everyone kept poking their heads in to see him sitting there pooping. After the first time I couldn't believe he had to go again. You'd think your embarrassment would allow you to hold on a bit until you could get somewhere else but I guess it didn't really bother him. He also does this thing where if he sucks down some water he gags so loud you think he's throwing up everywhere. I am trying to tell him to keep his mouth closed at all times but he must have done that 3 times while we were there. I don't know what is up with that. I told him if he pukes we are so out of there because that is really embarrassing. Luckily nothing happened though.
About the last hour or so I swam off by myself and let him play with a couple little friends he made. They had found someone's abandon raft and were trying to stay on top of it and keep it from flipping and that looked like a lot of fun.I took a bunch of pics and I think we both had a great time. I love being a father.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Revacation part 5
2010/03/30
We started out this day in a taxi on our way to the bus station. Due to the city tour I took I was able to recognize a lot of things on our journey. We did have to wait for a while when we got there and our bus wasn't on the screen at first but it did show up and we checked our luggage. Apparently there was an issue with the type of bus we were boarding. We were supposed to have seats that reclined the whole way but this bus had seats that reclined only part way. It was confusing but they gave Ale a bunch of money back because of this so that was cool. Also more seats would fit on this bus due to that so instead of being packed it was quite sparse. It was a double decker bus so we got on the top and went the whole way to the back. They gave us a snack bag and a water too. The seats seemed fine to me. I still don't understand what the issue was but whatever. It was a 5 hour ride to the beach and it took me a while to fall asleep but eventually I did.
We woke up pulling into the station in Mar Del Plata. We claimed our bags and grabbed a taxi to the hotel. It sure was weird and deserted at 6 in the morning. We stayed at the San Remo Grand Hotel and it was pretty nice (PIC). I thought it was real cool that they let us check in that early and go up to our room. I liked that our windows opened because I like that crazy feeling of 'OMG I could totally fall out of this window and die' and I thought hotels didn't even have those anymore (maybe just in the US). We ended up going right back to sleep until a tolerable hour came along.
We woke up and wanted to go get breakfast and go to the beach. I didn't exactly dress up because I thought we planned to go out, get breakfast then come back and get ready for the beach. This didn't matter at first because we went right down the street to the bakery place and got some medialunes for breakfast. I wondered why she ordered so many like 10 or something but once I started eating them I wondered why she didn't get more. lol
It was windy and pretty cold and I had shorts and sandals on. I was not comfortable and wanted to go back to change but Ale said let's just check out the beach real quick. It wasn't far so I said fine. We just had to cross the street and walk behind the casino. I guess due to the weather everyone stayed away because there was no one there. I wanted to snap a few pics real quick but some guy with a professional looking camera tried to get us to let him take some pics. (Did I mention we became masters of snapping our own pics? Someone is smart because now cameras come with a little screen on the front) We were both like No no but he said he'd use our camera so Ale relented. Of course after a few pics he said that we should let him take a few with his fancy camera now. Very slick dude. :| As I said earlier I was not really ready for this. I looked crappy and had my not-nice glasses on but we let him take the pics anyway and then had to follow him back to his shop to get them printed out. I tried to tell Ale we didn't need this but she didn't believe me until he told her how much it was. 100 pesos! I guess they turned out nice though. We got like 10 of them so we split them between us. (PIC)
We went back to the beach and I started complained how cold I was so we left the beach and we went back to the room so I could get more comfortable. We decided to check out the pool at this point. I didn't realize this place even had a pool. I didn't see one. I found out why. It was on the 10th floor! I don't know enough about architecture to know how that much water could be contained that high up but whatever. It wasn't huge but it was a nice pool and I found a nice hot jet of water blasting at the one end so I hung out there. No one else was here so it was nice to relax by ourselves for a bit.
After that we took a little nap and then got dressed at went to Manolo's for dinner and I got more pizza. I got confused by their mirrors. Looking into the back of the place I thought it was huge but there were just so many mirrors it looked like the place was double the size. The whole one wall was a wall of mirrors. There were stairs going up to the bathroom and I was wondering as I walked back which side was the Men's room. As I got closer and realized there was only one because the other was in the mirror I lol-ed at my silliness. Since there were mirrors up where we were sitting as well we took another picture of us in it. At this point we knew taking pictures of ourselves in every mirror of every restaurant we went in was going to be 'the thing' we were going to do.
When we left we went to the pedestrian part of this town and noticed a movie theater. That was one of our plans from our original itinerary - see a movie - so we bought tickets to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 3D. They gave us a discount coupon for a place called Carltio's that sold gourmet pancakes so we checked out a few things around there and decided to go cash that sucker in. On the way we checked out a bunch of the shops and booths they had set up around here. There was a place where they spelled out the date every day in rocks so we took a picture of that. There was a bum sleeping right next us that we didn't even notice at first. We also stopped at this mall so I could get some wifi to check my iPhone (had to shut the 3G off so I wouldn't get insane international roaming charges).
We got to the pancake place and checked out the menu. This was going to be awesome! Where we sat there wasn't a mirror nearby but we saw there was one there. After we ordered while we waited for our food to be cooked we ran over and got our restaurant mirror pic. All the dishes here were named after famous people from Argentina. I forget who ours was but it was covered in chocolate and stuffed with nuts. Amazing!! (PIC)
By this time we had to walk back to go see the the movie. On the way back we saw a bunch of dogs attack another one. (Did I mention there were stray dogs running all over the place?) I never heard the sound this dog made and I was surprised when we saw what was going on. I don't know if the dog that was being attacked was someone's or not but some guy seriously bolted after the attacking dogs swinging his shirt at them as a weapon. I didn't think that was a good idea but they did run away so lucky for him.
We got to the theater and took our seats. The movie was in English and had Spanish subtitles. We both enjoyed it. You can't really screw up Alice in Wonderland and Tim Burton is a pretty creative guy. I thought it was funny that the theater was extremely militant about the 3D glasses being stolen. They all had security tags in them with scanners through the doors that would beep if you tried to sneak them out. I guess they cost enough they they REALLY didn't want people to steal them. It was late by this time so we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.
TO BE CONTINUED
We started out this day in a taxi on our way to the bus station. Due to the city tour I took I was able to recognize a lot of things on our journey. We did have to wait for a while when we got there and our bus wasn't on the screen at first but it did show up and we checked our luggage. Apparently there was an issue with the type of bus we were boarding. We were supposed to have seats that reclined the whole way but this bus had seats that reclined only part way. It was confusing but they gave Ale a bunch of money back because of this so that was cool. Also more seats would fit on this bus due to that so instead of being packed it was quite sparse. It was a double decker bus so we got on the top and went the whole way to the back. They gave us a snack bag and a water too. The seats seemed fine to me. I still don't understand what the issue was but whatever. It was a 5 hour ride to the beach and it took me a while to fall asleep but eventually I did.
We woke up pulling into the station in Mar Del Plata. We claimed our bags and grabbed a taxi to the hotel. It sure was weird and deserted at 6 in the morning. We stayed at the San Remo Grand Hotel and it was pretty nice (PIC). I thought it was real cool that they let us check in that early and go up to our room. I liked that our windows opened because I like that crazy feeling of 'OMG I could totally fall out of this window and die' and I thought hotels didn't even have those anymore (maybe just in the US). We ended up going right back to sleep until a tolerable hour came along.
We woke up and wanted to go get breakfast and go to the beach. I didn't exactly dress up because I thought we planned to go out, get breakfast then come back and get ready for the beach. This didn't matter at first because we went right down the street to the bakery place and got some medialunes for breakfast. I wondered why she ordered so many like 10 or something but once I started eating them I wondered why she didn't get more. lol
It was windy and pretty cold and I had shorts and sandals on. I was not comfortable and wanted to go back to change but Ale said let's just check out the beach real quick. It wasn't far so I said fine. We just had to cross the street and walk behind the casino. I guess due to the weather everyone stayed away because there was no one there. I wanted to snap a few pics real quick but some guy with a professional looking camera tried to get us to let him take some pics. (Did I mention we became masters of snapping our own pics? Someone is smart because now cameras come with a little screen on the front) We were both like No no but he said he'd use our camera so Ale relented. Of course after a few pics he said that we should let him take a few with his fancy camera now. Very slick dude. :| As I said earlier I was not really ready for this. I looked crappy and had my not-nice glasses on but we let him take the pics anyway and then had to follow him back to his shop to get them printed out. I tried to tell Ale we didn't need this but she didn't believe me until he told her how much it was. 100 pesos! I guess they turned out nice though. We got like 10 of them so we split them between us. (PIC)
We went back to the beach and I started complained how cold I was so we left the beach and we went back to the room so I could get more comfortable. We decided to check out the pool at this point. I didn't realize this place even had a pool. I didn't see one. I found out why. It was on the 10th floor! I don't know enough about architecture to know how that much water could be contained that high up but whatever. It wasn't huge but it was a nice pool and I found a nice hot jet of water blasting at the one end so I hung out there. No one else was here so it was nice to relax by ourselves for a bit.
After that we took a little nap and then got dressed at went to Manolo's for dinner and I got more pizza. I got confused by their mirrors. Looking into the back of the place I thought it was huge but there were just so many mirrors it looked like the place was double the size. The whole one wall was a wall of mirrors. There were stairs going up to the bathroom and I was wondering as I walked back which side was the Men's room. As I got closer and realized there was only one because the other was in the mirror I lol-ed at my silliness. Since there were mirrors up where we were sitting as well we took another picture of us in it. At this point we knew taking pictures of ourselves in every mirror of every restaurant we went in was going to be 'the thing' we were going to do.
When we left we went to the pedestrian part of this town and noticed a movie theater. That was one of our plans from our original itinerary - see a movie - so we bought tickets to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 3D. They gave us a discount coupon for a place called Carltio's that sold gourmet pancakes so we checked out a few things around there and decided to go cash that sucker in. On the way we checked out a bunch of the shops and booths they had set up around here. There was a place where they spelled out the date every day in rocks so we took a picture of that. There was a bum sleeping right next us that we didn't even notice at first. We also stopped at this mall so I could get some wifi to check my iPhone (had to shut the 3G off so I wouldn't get insane international roaming charges).
We got to the pancake place and checked out the menu. This was going to be awesome! Where we sat there wasn't a mirror nearby but we saw there was one there. After we ordered while we waited for our food to be cooked we ran over and got our restaurant mirror pic. All the dishes here were named after famous people from Argentina. I forget who ours was but it was covered in chocolate and stuffed with nuts. Amazing!! (PIC)
By this time we had to walk back to go see the the movie. On the way back we saw a bunch of dogs attack another one. (Did I mention there were stray dogs running all over the place?) I never heard the sound this dog made and I was surprised when we saw what was going on. I don't know if the dog that was being attacked was someone's or not but some guy seriously bolted after the attacking dogs swinging his shirt at them as a weapon. I didn't think that was a good idea but they did run away so lucky for him.
We got to the theater and took our seats. The movie was in English and had Spanish subtitles. We both enjoyed it. You can't really screw up Alice in Wonderland and Tim Burton is a pretty creative guy. I thought it was funny that the theater was extremely militant about the 3D glasses being stolen. They all had security tags in them with scanners through the doors that would beep if you tried to sneak them out. I guess they cost enough they they REALLY didn't want people to steal them. It was late by this time so we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.
TO BE CONTINUED
Friday, June 11, 2010
Revacation part 4
2010/03/29
We woke up Monday morning and it was time to check out the hostel. I ran around and took some more pictures so I would remember this place. You could get up onto various places on the roof from where we were so I went exploring. There really wasn't too much going on up there but boys always like climbing on stuff. We so got ready, packed our stuff up and checked out. It was about 15 blocks or so to Ale's house and she suggested we take a taxi but I thought we could handle it plus it would be good exercise to walk. My arms were aching a bit carrying all my luggage with me but it wasn't that bad when we arrived.
Her mother made us lunch of the meat that was leftover from the night before and then we geared up and grabbed a bus to downtown. Today was the day we were going to take the city bus tour. We got close and got off the bus (the transportation one). We were in a huge pedestrian area and it was packed. It must be lunchtime around here. I think this area around Florida St was called El Centro. I wanted to get my souvenir buying out of the way so I steered us over to some shops. I found some good stuff here. I got my mom a nice shirt and some other crap that said Buenos Aires on it that I thought she would like. My sister wanted a postcards so I got her one and also a shot glass.
I didn't find the perfect thing for Isaac yet but at least with them out of the way I only have to worry about him now.
At the end of one of the streets we came out in this triangle area and it was there that the tour bus and its ticket booth was. Ale went in to get the tickets but came out to sadly tell me that they were sold out for the day. That was not good that would mess up our whole day. I wonder what we should do now? 'Good day' I heard. Who? It was some little British woman and her husband. She must have heard us talking and wanted to help. They had already gone on the tour so they wouldn't need their tickets anymore so she straight up gave them to us. The tickets were not like get a ticket, take one ride on the bus and you're done. No these tickets were good for 24 or 48 hours from when you bought them so you could use them over and over until they expired. This made sense to me later since there were lots of stops on this tour, you could get off anywhere and go exploring. When you were done you found the stop and could get back on without having to buy another ticket. Well all right then we were good to go. We got in the queue and waited for them to let us on.
The tour bus was pretty kick ass.
There was an upstairs that was open but Ale thought it was too sunny and she didn't want my hairless scalp being torched. I wasn't worried about it but I just trusted her judgment. I like that I can do that with her. So we just sat in the main part which was right in front of a monitor. There were headphones available too. You put them on and the narrator would describe what you were viewing as you passed it. What I thought was crazy was how many languages they had available. When you put your headphones on you had to jack in to the audio. On the ceiling were the ports and you just found what language you know and plug in there but I swear the ports section was 2 ft long. There must have been 15 different languages there. Normal ones like English, Spanish, French but there was also Portuguese and Hebrew and ones I was like whoa, that's crazy.
The tour itself was epic. It lasted hours and we went all over the city, back and forth. I took about a million pictures of statues. Why? I don't know. I think that's the kind of thing you're supposed to take pictures of when you go on vacation. There was one part of the tour we had to variate from the path due to those protesters. The police had some roads blocked off so we had to skip one part and go a different way but that really didn't affect my enjoyment of any of it. It was very fun and I saw a lot of great stuff that made me extremely happy we did this. Plus we were together. That was the best.
Hours later when the tour was done and we got off the bus we jumped right on Subway A to go see the Congress. (That was the part of the tour that was cut out). Plus it's right next to where Ale works. 5 blocks or something. That became a running joke with us. Everywhere we were she tried to describe something that was near us and it was always like 5 blocks that way is this and 5 blocks that way is that. No matter where we were. It started to become really funny and I started doing it too. :D
We stopped at a cool Burger King to grab a quick bite because I was getting hungry. It was the only time I think I ate 'normal' food while I was there. It was cool because it was like a 3 story Burger King. Quite impressive.
We kept on walking until we hit the center of the town where the obelisk was. This was one of Ale's favorite places to be. A huge Washington monument thing rose from this Central park area and it was awesome. There was a sitting area below it for people to stop and relax and take in all the sights. I really liked it there too and that would be one of the main places I would have to go
see again if/when I go back.
Later that night we went back to Ale's to have Passover dinner. (That is some kind of Jewish thing, I think it is when Jesus saved the Easter Bunny) I was nervous of being in the middle of this huge party meeting all of her family that want to know who this strange Americano is and why can't he talk to us and a million questions but it wasn't like that. Her cousin Diego spoke a little English so we had a few words and I did meet everyone but luckily for me his kids were the center of attention. Once everyone saw me that only wanted to play with the babbies. That was cool. I didn't mind at all. I was happy to meet everyone and let them know that I was hoping to be part of their family someday. It did make me sad that I didn't learn more Spanish so I could speak with them better but I'm still trying (slowly). I have no doubt I'll get there eventually. So we ate and partied and had a great time well into the night. We had to be at the bus station though by midnight so we could get to Mar del Plata so we called a taxi, grabbed our things and left before it was totally over. As fun as everything was up until now I had even more crazy stuff to look forward to.
TO BE CONTINUED
We woke up Monday morning and it was time to check out the hostel. I ran around and took some more pictures so I would remember this place. You could get up onto various places on the roof from where we were so I went exploring. There really wasn't too much going on up there but boys always like climbing on stuff. We so got ready, packed our stuff up and checked out. It was about 15 blocks or so to Ale's house and she suggested we take a taxi but I thought we could handle it plus it would be good exercise to walk. My arms were aching a bit carrying all my luggage with me but it wasn't that bad when we arrived.
Her mother made us lunch of the meat that was leftover from the night before and then we geared up and grabbed a bus to downtown. Today was the day we were going to take the city bus tour. We got close and got off the bus (the transportation one). We were in a huge pedestrian area and it was packed. It must be lunchtime around here. I think this area around Florida St was called El Centro. I wanted to get my souvenir buying out of the way so I steered us over to some shops. I found some good stuff here. I got my mom a nice shirt and some other crap that said Buenos Aires on it that I thought she would like. My sister wanted a postcards so I got her one and also a shot glass.
I didn't find the perfect thing for Isaac yet but at least with them out of the way I only have to worry about him now.At the end of one of the streets we came out in this triangle area and it was there that the tour bus and its ticket booth was. Ale went in to get the tickets but came out to sadly tell me that they were sold out for the day. That was not good that would mess up our whole day. I wonder what we should do now? 'Good day' I heard. Who? It was some little British woman and her husband. She must have heard us talking and wanted to help. They had already gone on the tour so they wouldn't need their tickets anymore so she straight up gave them to us. The tickets were not like get a ticket, take one ride on the bus and you're done. No these tickets were good for 24 or 48 hours from when you bought them so you could use them over and over until they expired. This made sense to me later since there were lots of stops on this tour, you could get off anywhere and go exploring. When you were done you found the stop and could get back on without having to buy another ticket. Well all right then we were good to go. We got in the queue and waited for them to let us on.
The tour bus was pretty kick ass.
There was an upstairs that was open but Ale thought it was too sunny and she didn't want my hairless scalp being torched. I wasn't worried about it but I just trusted her judgment. I like that I can do that with her. So we just sat in the main part which was right in front of a monitor. There were headphones available too. You put them on and the narrator would describe what you were viewing as you passed it. What I thought was crazy was how many languages they had available. When you put your headphones on you had to jack in to the audio. On the ceiling were the ports and you just found what language you know and plug in there but I swear the ports section was 2 ft long. There must have been 15 different languages there. Normal ones like English, Spanish, French but there was also Portuguese and Hebrew and ones I was like whoa, that's crazy.The tour itself was epic. It lasted hours and we went all over the city, back and forth. I took about a million pictures of statues. Why? I don't know. I think that's the kind of thing you're supposed to take pictures of when you go on vacation. There was one part of the tour we had to variate from the path due to those protesters. The police had some roads blocked off so we had to skip one part and go a different way but that really didn't affect my enjoyment of any of it. It was very fun and I saw a lot of great stuff that made me extremely happy we did this. Plus we were together. That was the best.
Hours later when the tour was done and we got off the bus we jumped right on Subway A to go see the Congress. (That was the part of the tour that was cut out). Plus it's right next to where Ale works. 5 blocks or something. That became a running joke with us. Everywhere we were she tried to describe something that was near us and it was always like 5 blocks that way is this and 5 blocks that way is that. No matter where we were. It started to become really funny and I started doing it too. :D
We stopped at a cool Burger King to grab a quick bite because I was getting hungry. It was the only time I think I ate 'normal' food while I was there. It was cool because it was like a 3 story Burger King. Quite impressive.
We kept on walking until we hit the center of the town where the obelisk was. This was one of Ale's favorite places to be. A huge Washington monument thing rose from this Central park area and it was awesome. There was a sitting area below it for people to stop and relax and take in all the sights. I really liked it there too and that would be one of the main places I would have to go
see again if/when I go back.Later that night we went back to Ale's to have Passover dinner. (That is some kind of Jewish thing, I think it is when Jesus saved the Easter Bunny) I was nervous of being in the middle of this huge party meeting all of her family that want to know who this strange Americano is and why can't he talk to us and a million questions but it wasn't like that. Her cousin Diego spoke a little English so we had a few words and I did meet everyone but luckily for me his kids were the center of attention. Once everyone saw me that only wanted to play with the babbies. That was cool. I didn't mind at all. I was happy to meet everyone and let them know that I was hoping to be part of their family someday. It did make me sad that I didn't learn more Spanish so I could speak with them better but I'm still trying (slowly). I have no doubt I'll get there eventually. So we ate and partied and had a great time well into the night. We had to be at the bus station though by midnight so we could get to Mar del Plata so we called a taxi, grabbed our things and left before it was totally over. As fun as everything was up until now I had even more crazy stuff to look forward to.
TO BE CONTINUED
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
