The Days Of Awe

And so we end the days of Awe, or the high holidays as they are affectionately known in the States. Which means that if you are using the Jewish calendar (a lunar one) then Josh and I have technically been in Argentina for a year!! Well, a Jewish year anyway. The secular anniversary is coming up too though!!
Last year we actually arrived on Yom Kippur, so we decided to pretend it wasn't happening. This year however, we celebrated both Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and did both with Jewish friends.
Josh and I experimented with Temple Libertad for Erev Rosh Hashana and for the second night we ate dinner at Alex's parents house after a crazy service in a random community center in Belgrano that sounded like a Phantom of the Opera wanna be. The synthesizer was that intense. The dinner at Alex's place was awesome though. It was so cool to be with a family for a holiday, and Alex's parents remind me a lot of mine: book loving Mom from Long Island, foreign dad with just less than perfect English but in a cute way...and that's maybe where the similarity ends but it was still awesome.
For Yom Kippur I met up with Alex and family for Kol Nidre at Libertad and then went back the next morning with Maddie and Rachel (my new Jewish friends!! that I also happen to really like). In the afternoon I went back with Josh to hear the Shofar (gotta do it!!) and then we headed to Rachel and Maddy's for a break fast of chicken, kugel, veggies, and cookies. Afterwards we looked at a blog called "This is why you're fat" and I felt sick. Rachel felt like she wanted to eat a meat martini... To say the least I'm happy to have found someone who loves to eat maybe more than I do, and I was full. So I was full and happy! and we took the bus home to our house in time for Josh to catch some Monday night football. Oh thank goodness.

Stef Completes 22

Stef turned 22 on Saturday!!! And what better way to celebrate than with an asado/party. Its been a while since we had a party, and I'll admit I was a little worried about the noise. Luckily it all turned out OK because the costume party next door raged until 5 in the morning or later and while we tried to compete our speakers had nothing on theirs.

So here commences the party, please press play before you continue. Just trust me on this one.



The night started out somewhat typically. Uli insisted on doing Stef's hair so she would look special for the special day, only they couldn't really agree on what special should look like.

Here is the progress:

(Dan's friend is in town) Cute poses while they watch Fanie's hair progress and made salsa verde

Fanie get's angry cause she don't do curls!!

Lost in Translation: Uli thinks it Fanie's Quinceanera

Not Lost in Translation: Fanie is not happy with the hair

The final product:

OK,
Josh gets out the Colombian liquids:

Introducing PJ: Originally a friend of Nick's, EBC veteran, always smiling and potential replacement for Dan if he doesn't come back

Felipe and Fanie

Camilla and Emilio!!!!!!

Instead of the usual happy birthday boringness, Fanie came up with a better idea:
Sing Thelma Houston (our fave) and dance while handing out her homemade cupcakes.
I hope you are right about at the chorus at this point, all the next photos were taken while we were listening to it. Featuring the excellent dance skills of Fanie herself, Josh, Drew and Phil:

Introducing Phil, a study abroad Frisbee playing kid from New Mexico

My heart is full of love!!!

and desire for you!!!

Felipe's heart is full of love for this yellow cupcake:

Against my advice Gabi (introducing Gabi: Felipe's flatmate and a Cadillac) smashes a cupcake into Stef's face

Somebody had to clean it off!!! Can't waste icing, now can we?

I made Willy an inside out Choripan. Pan on the inside, Chori on the outside:

Fanie eats all the grilled pinapple even though she doesn't think its grilled enough:

Uli and Stef share some pineapple love:

At this point I'm tired and want everyone to leave. Felipe, being South American and all, is tired too but wouldn't admit it for anything.

Brian makes Camilla laugh, he's happy he found someone new to tell the same jokes to:

You know its time for a party to end when a massage train starts:

And there it was, well most of it anyway. Some stuff was a little to explicit for the blog, but it was quite a party. One that will go down in the history of Casa Cochobamba. The next day it rained and we slept the whole day taking a break to clean up. But you know what this means? Summer is back, and the roof usable again which means the parties return. Here we go again...

Adventures in Once with Uli and Beyond

Last Wednesday (I know...I'm behind) Uli and I headed to Once to check out the goods. The neighborhood home to many cheap stores and it gives a new meaning to quantity, not quality. You can buy in bulk, or pay more for fewer products, but everything there is cheap and poor quality (except for the churros, they are cheap and delish). This neighborhood happens to be the perfect place to buy things for our house!!!! Cheap and poor quality means that when someone breaks it, forgets to wash it and lets it rust over, or looses it it won't matter so much. Uli was also looking for boots, but apparently they are not in right now because we couldn't find any.
After Once we headed to Abasto and then to Palermo to meet up with Dan. Along the way we came upon cool wall art and fruit!!!

Argentines love to match...even matching the wall art is important

Devilishly handsome in pink

My turn to model...I just don't posses the talent Uli does, or the hair...

Uli is really knoweldgable about a lot of stuff when it comes to Argentina. For example, this tree we are crowded around has a delicious fruit that I've never heard of before and sure as heck never eaten. Its awesome, and free!!!

We are probably the only people to go fruit picking in Palermo Hollywood. EVER. It would be like eating fruit off the trees in SoHo. Its just not done...

The fruit has two giant pits that are fun to spit at friends

And no, that's not a bag with Dan's purchases. Its his purse.

The Weight

Today we will be celebrating the end of LSAT studying and Stefanie's birthday. This video is appropriate for both occasions.

Study Break

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program (Julia's wonderful posts) to bring you an important announcement: Manzi has a leash and a collar. Now we can bring her to the park without getting covered in dog hair or risking her life en route by letting her walk on her own. You'd think her puppy smile would stretch from floppy ear-to-floppy ear with this new development, but unfortunately, that is not the case. It's quite the opposite, in fact. However cute and stylish her green collar and urban-camouflage-leopard print leash may be, she hates them with a passion so burning that it makes Glen Beck distaste for "fake" America and those who inhabit it's blasphemous borders look like it's flickering in the wind. Well, maybe she doesn't cry on a daily basis (just barks, still unsure which is more annoying), but she surely protests with much gusto. For her collar, she will do her best to shimmy it over her head, after which she'll drive her head into the ground and roll over. Her reaction to the collar may very well be our fault; after all, we took five-months to get her one, conditioning her to be accustomed to operating without a bothersome necklace. As for her leash, she delivers her version of "Don't tread on me!" by refusing to tread on anything - she puts her front paws on the leash and proceeds to stand in place, demonstrating her impeccable balance while making a strong statement. Eventually, she gives in, but it's almost instinctual for her to go right for the leash. And even though it may be annoying when walking down the sidewalk, it's adorable in the house and makes for some great pictures:

Candid on the Calle: Dia de la Primevera Edition

Today is Spring Day!!!! Yes, the Argentines have gone so far as to give kids the day off because its the first day of Spring. So we headed to the park to check out the festivities. From the bus windows we say large groups of people eating lunch or sitting in circles outside. But when we arrived at the Parques de Palermo we could see that we had arrived at the mecca of Spring Day. The place was filled with people and mostly young high school kids. A mediocre rock group was playing on a stage, and volleyball took the day over soccer. Maté also has begun to give way to Terrere (yerba with cold juice) and everyone had coolers with ice for their sandwiches and Fernet and coke that they drink out of a coke bottle with the top cut off. Spring fashion made its big debut and I couldn't help but be really creepy with my candid shots. I take my critics seriously, and the call for more photos has been headed. Here is a selection from today along with commentary and more stories:

My favorite shot of the day.

Drinking out of pitchers

Way to young to be smoking

As a website predicted, music was in abundance and there were many groups with guitars:

Boca fan:

Clips are just as in here as they were in the nineties in the US. Everyone is sporting painstaking looking hair styles, and of course, giant flowers.

An attempt at capturing the ridiculous pants everyone is wearing. They don't' even look good on the tall skinny girls, and everything looks good on them.

A second, more successful attempt:

A more classic Porteña look:

Volleyball:

Amazing flogger haircuts:

Of course, the normal amount of passionate public displays were in excess. Everyone was selling flowers and running around with candy. It felt like Valentines Day.

Doling out the Fernet:

Amazing mullety hair

Bottle FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!
As Stephanie pointed out, there is no snow here. So of course it would make sense that since there can be no snowball fights there must be bottle fights!!!! This involves literally chucking glass bottles at each other from about ten feet away from each other. The sound of breaking glass brought more, and a beehive like chase began. When groups of kids started running towards us instead of away we began to fear for our lives and picked up our gin rummy game and moved out of the line of fire. I didn't' capture it well, but I did the best I could:

In my final attempt to capture the Spring Fashion I told these kids that Juliasabroadblog.blogspot.com is in fact a fashion blog. Not far from the truth today. I loved their "Look" which is Spanish for look. Haha. Anyway, they look AWESOME!!!!!