Good Skies!: Over halfway through!

AH MAN! So much has gone on in the past two weeks! I guess I'll try to be quick about it. I just have a bit of time to kill at work right now while some calculations are running (I forgot just how much time these could actually take up). On a side note, I'm just realizing that my last post was before the halfway mark, but this post right here is after it. I only have another 5 and a half weeks left in South America!!! Anyone doing the math for themselves realizes that this would have me home August 7th or so, which is almost true. I don't remember if I mentioned this already but I'm going to be staying with my (biological) Dad and his side of the family for a week, which puts me back in Jersey on the 14th (as originally planned).

Anyway, we were in Recoletta and the street markets there in Plaza Francia, and I came across this little gem:

At just 30-40 pesos less than what I was willing to pay for a top-hat (note: this guy came out to 30USD), I was completely willing to get this mbira (slash thumb-piano slash weird Argentine play on what is apparently an instrument of African origins) instead of the top hat I had my eye on near when I arrived. This is exactly the sort of thing you bring back from a foreign country, you know? Playing it is... well it's weird. At first I COMPLETELY had the note-arrangement down and could jam out on it pretty easily. I lost it after day 1 though, haha! Just gotta build it back up ^_^ The really good thing about it is that it's easy to play quietly or loudly, so it's pretty easy to avoid upsetting anyone when playing it.

The same weekend (same day, I think) we went salsa dancing! It's taken me 16 years or so, but I finally realize why my family wanted me to learn how to dance Spanish music when I was a kid. I regret resisting that as a child as much as I regret resisting learning Spanish at that age. Fortunately some of it stuck - I apparently wasn't doing too badly =) (and my verbal Spanish is coming along quite swimmingly - creo que sí cuando regreso voy a hablar el español buenisimo ^_^d). And of course Chirag and Linnea got picked out for a random contest they had that night. Those two are the most incredible pair of dancers I know!

There they are! In the back, on the stage anyway.

Later that week we went to a really nice Spanish place with lots of tapas. Ryan was nice enough to cover me for dinner there (it was among the most expensive dinners we've had so far, and that's saying a lot here). The food was wonderful, of course. Oh! And we got sangria again - I don't recall if I mentioned this before, but I had my first sangria here in Buenos Aires. Can I just say that I am a fan. A big, huge, enormous, Energy Star approved fan. Anyway we had it again here and it was once again delicious. Again, I may have already talked about this, but I'm definitely learning how to make the perfect sangria when I get back (one of my best friends, Erica, tells me her family has it down to a science already, actually).

Say hi to Ryan and Chirag! (left to right)

They had such a pitifully small bit of wine left by the time we arrived. As you can see.

The next weekend I basically just chilled out (and the previous one). Trying not to spend all of my money, anyway, eh? I did go out one night each of the past two weekends, though. Had some good nights, got a few numbers. Still trying to figure out how one appropriately uses a number one obtains (how long to wait to call, what to actually invite them to, blah blah cliché stuff one really ought to know how to successfully do by this point in life).

Oh! I've been cooking recently =D

I'm having fun with it ^_^ I want to learn how to make a good empenada, next.

Anyway, work has been going pretty bien. I've been doing strictly theory for the past 2 and a half weeks, now. I'm 99% sure that the current version of the program I'm writing is actually doing what it's supposed to do. Wo0t for progress! I need to catch up with Francisco (the Argentine undergrad I'm working on this project with) so we can compare data and figure out what to do. If my calculations are correct (cliché line unintended), I'm only about 3 units away from where we're supposed to be. For reference, we were previously 10 times off of the established value (just looking at simple sodium for the moment - gotta make sure everything's working before we go ahead and apply these things to genuinely new systems). Hopefully I did actually get this right, but we'll see, huh?

On the experimental side, Marcos has been doing a solid amount of data analysis. The last leg of the run we ran lo those 2 and a half weeks ago was kinda funky though =/ Looks like we began seriously running out of solvent then. Anyway, I unfortunately haven't had time to look at how that data actually gets processed. It's real give and take between these two ends of the overall project, you know?

Well just some miscellaneous notes before I leave you for the day. Here's a sign in San Carlos, pretty much my favorite restaurant so far (I find it strikes a perfect balance and spread between price and quality).

"Pizzas and good times" This is a phrase we could all stand to live by!

Also, here's a view of the river from my temporary window seat at work (I'll probably try and use my real camera soon to get actually decent shots of it):