Omar Samad

So I’m still suffering from not carrying a pen. And have only been able to journal on bb or lappy, kinda lame but whatever.

So I’m on a bus to mendoza then to san juan, to have christmas with friends family!!! I just wanted to do this sooo bad, stayin with a family to me is like … The ultimate experience!! So there is also a magical place there called the valley of the moon and we are gonna go at night to it!

K so! Bus started backing up!!!! And no ones sitting beside me !! Ahhahahaha whattttt!!! Kinda fuckin awesome don’t ya think

Ok so btw travel tips for here, tip and tip well. I caught on in argentina when I got that feel of how similar it is to karachi, and a little more here goes along way. They are poor, and just seeing a smile that they get from something as so simple as money .. Makes me feel good, these are good people, really good people here.

So btw I got dropped after suring at the mall was plannin to go eat and then leave, but I decided togo back to hostel and omg am I ever glad I did. Really talked to tristan and more imprtantly carolina!! Omg she’s sooo pretty I wanna take her home with me

K so, I need to buy some nice things for the parents tried todo that at mall but fuck it was insane .. Literally and with suitcase and pack .. Hahaha kinda made up my mind on goin back to hostel. So gonna have to try to find a thing in mendoza.

This is pretty fun actually !! Woot bus is nice and comfy, I wish I woulda pushed for first class !! Didn’t even think about it till carolina asked me, but to be honest. They look about the same, and that remindsme of travel tip number 2 , pack a nice portable pillow !!!! Saved my life on the plane, and right now

Toon time! Ciaou ciou cioau

…Later that time trip…

Ok so yay! Made sucha good call on stayin in mendoz* for the early morning, wow these seats are so comfortable !!!!!!!!! K so on way to san juan now , caught the 1400 early actually so all good!

So yeah I got 4 gifts!!! Heheh just in time fuck u woulda been proud , saw exactly what to get and made the call right away no delay.

So sleepin from 9 to 1230 made all the difference in the world! Muah !!!!!!!

…even later on that trip…

Omg .. I honestly can’t believe that I’m actually here .. This is just something that I had dreamed of and its happening.

This house is just beautiful, I have a balcony with a view of mountains and wine fields, I can see all the stars in the universe soon, there’s hardly anything out here.

So things didnt go according to my plan today =/ I was supposed to go on a bike tour of the northern suburbs, and I even got up early! like 8:00 to be at the meeting place for 9:00, and the dood didnt show up, and i msged him like enough times, then still no reply! Piss me off! so I went back to apartment, and not sure what to do now, seems like a beautiful day, but ive been doing all the touristy things all week, so AHHHH!! bike tour woulda been perfect thats why i lanned it out for today! ahh well, i’ll figure something out, and tonite gonna goto Tango class hopefully get a chance to do some more tango,  like the rock was fun and all, but tango is tango, and 2morrow creamfields !!! so that’ll be full on,

OK, so Santiago actually came by 16:00ish and took me for a real tour in his car, showed me some amazing places, and the neighbourhoods and all that stuff, so maybe that wasnt sucha bad thing missing out on the bike tour!

So btw just got back from Salsa, Tango night, OMG I loved it, was sooo much fun! and met up with some couch surfers too!!! So first was the salsa dancing, and it was workin for me if i didnt think about it and just did it, but some of the girls i danced with were like pretty bad I thought. and I had the giggles, so like it was a great combo! but by the end of it, not that many girls wanted to dance with me cuz I kept laughing, and when everyone switched I was usually the odd one left out, kinda lame for me at the time but oh wellz

Tango was so much better I thought, I liked the more longer smooth strokes of Tango. and actually one of my partners spoke english!!! so I asked her to be my partner for the whole time, and we got good at it! So was an amazing night actually, and even met some couch surfers and *might* even plan out an adventure!! but we’ll see how it goes.

So im just kinda killing time now, staying up a little late tonite so 2morrow night i’ll be up all night! Creamfields in BA, can’t fucken wait, gonna be a ridiculous party, timo, hernan, satoshi,avb and theres a couple more but thats what really stuck to me. but stil havent decided what to wear!! ahhh, might go with my army camo shorts, or my black ones, black ones are lighter so thats where the points are going now. muah! will let ya know

So kinda made plans with my one friend here to have dinner and stuff last night , but i kinda didnt want to! I decided to try out tango at this reccomended club, la virtua , and omg was it ever fun. Actually what happened was the tango lesson was from 19:00 - 20:00 but i got there at 19:45 so just in time for the last step, and the teacher was like ok go and practice with the girls, and someone asked me and after 2 steps they could see i had no idea what was going on! she quickly taught me the steps and we did a 5minute tango!

All the lights actually went down a bit, and there was some very good students that came out and did a show for everyone. Which was quite entertaining actually.

So it was like 20:30 now and i called my friend she said shed be like another hour or so, so I decided to go and watch some more dancing, but inside they started a new lesson on rock n roll dancing, or like American 50’s music kinda thing. but omg!! it was soooo much fun, and we did the lessons and all the way up to practice dancing with all the girls! yay, and after there was a big line dancing kinda thing which just killed it! literally could not stop laughing doing it.

So by the time it was over, it was like 21:30 and perfect timing for meeting up with my friend, but to be honest i wanted to stay there for the next tango session that was starting up at 22:00 !! err, so i think i might go there tonite at 22:00 for some proper tango.

So just doing laundry right now before i head out to check out the shops and change some american bills.

ok so i woke up today and it was like crazy, my legs were sooooooo sore, btw i went out to this pop hiphop club last  night, i literally walked in, and walked out after i noticed people smokin indoors, it was like a younger crowd, and the worst was people smoke inside here. soooo nasty, i really wanted to stay just for the night out thing, but i really couldnt. it was a 2.1k hike here, and i walked there, taxid back. and besides all the other walkin i did yesterday kinda felt my legs a bit today.

but anyways went to pick up the tickets from Lorena today, person i found the ad for, and her and her bf were amazing! mentioned they knew some ppl going and shit to look out for me, and if i wanted to go out later this week they’ll take me out, they pointed me in the direction of this art meusuem and omg it was fuckin amazing!! it was this one that was closed yesterday, er i didnt see, so omg it was amazing, it was like an old school house or something but the main halls were humongeous , with marble status , and all kinds of interesting things, i just wandered around some of the other parts of it, and it was just amazing, I wandered to what looked like a theatre, and some workers there didnt seem to mind i was just looking around when i did a littl twril of my finger around my eyes.

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Well, I dont know what to say its been about 4 days here now, and man what an experience. I have been having the time of my life, and it feels as if its just getting started. BTW, im lucky to have a free wifi link here!! gotta love open networks!

So I only forgot to bring with me my quick dry towel that i got from Australia, which isnt that bad, probally will just have to buy a towel or two for when i do the hostelling.

The neighbourhood im in is just beautiful! I love how they line the sides of the buildings with trees, that go all the way up, so when u look out the windows all u can see is green! this  is actually a trait of the neighbourhood im staying in Palermo. Im about 5min walk from the main street which is got a subway stop and theres lots of shops/restaurants and all that stuff over there.

Something about the spanish culture here is that it seems very simliar to the Pakistani, always late, laid back and less caring for the less important things, the driving and all is pretty simliar too, which is why im not gonna be driving here! can be pretty bad at times too, like people that walk dogs here let the dogs shit and piss everywhere and just leave it, people come with buckets of water and just wash them onto the roads from time to time, but still pretty nasty.

I feel that ever since I was in karachi and London on my own when I was younger travelling any country alone is not that daunting anymore. For me the challenge in everything was being in a totally new world. Its still pretty intimidating for me being here, like its hard to talk to many people here because 95% of the people do not speak english.

I love the feeling of being out of my comfort zone, and trying to find my way. Im going to be leaving for Chile and Easter Island by next monday so things will get alot more interesting then!!

was just walking around was actually on the subway to goto check out this famous cathederal, when i got a bbm from Santiago (guy im renting apartment from) asking me if im intersted in going to the boca juniors game, he also had along with him was this lady from Vancouver Segred, which is always awesome to find a fellow Canadian where ever you go!!! Man was I ever glad that I did, what an atmosphere. When the game was about to start and the home team ran out the stadium went off the hook. Party streamers were flying everywhere, ripped newspaper were thrown up, signing and dancing.

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So by the time I got back from the game it was about 8, and time for dinner. Always my favourite part of the day, especially when I have no idea what the menu says. So was just about to hike out when I started chatting to this chick thats in my building, and she said shed join me for dinner!!!! Made the night actually! Her name was Valeria, and shes been born and raised in Buenos Aires, and spoke good english so perfect !!! so we found a nice little place close by and got to know each other a bit. Even more exciting to find out that shes a famous singer here, and she was winding down from her career touring, and is focusing more on talent promotion and teaching. She joined me for a cup of tea after dinner and by the time we knew it, it was 1:30 !! a little late by even the locals standard for a weeknight.

Right, so the flight here was pretty nice actually we stopped over in NY for like 2hours which was a great flight over too btw, i was in the middle thing and had the whole row to myself! so just layed down the whole time with ear plugs in. NY to Santiago was a bit of a hike, but wasnt as bad as I thought! it was a 11h flight over night, arriving at 9:45am. This trip I cracked out this pillow that I brought with me, its a small barrell shaped squishy comfy pillow that made the trip for me!, when i layed back and put it behind my head i could lean on either side without any pressure at all!!! i think i slept about 5-6 hours because of it which was amazing! i never been so successfull at sleeping on planes before!

The flight over to BA was only 2h, and I was greeted by the hired car I made for getting me to my apartment, his name was Dante, and he was just awesome, gave me lots of tips and tricks about the city, and even made a few calls for me to get somethings sorted I asked him about, so definately helped me out bigtime!

I took a nap soon as all the documents were signed for the apartment, so I think I ended up paying $477 for 9 days here, bit pricey but its a great place and very centrally located which is what i wanted.

So after my lil nap it was like 20:00 and i went on my first little cruise, found a nice little restaurant to have dinner at, and  I was actually going to go out for a club night to Pacha, but im still a bit tired from the trip, and im gonna be partying pretty hard in a few days anyways

To me , it feels as if im in another world down here. People dont really speak english so that makes for some interesting conversations. Im seemingly expanding my spanish somehow more and more, i even find myself talking to myself in spanish!!

SO was at this grocery store and there was some nice spanish music on the radio and there was a little girl like had to be abour 4 or something that started dancing to it, and I started smiling and actually evreyone in the store turned and then some clapping started .. hehe was just something that I thought was hilarious.