Yes.  I’ve decided on Buenos Aires for my Thanksgiving trip!  Some of you were dead-on, and some of you were VERY close with Rio — along with several other place where I’d eventually love to visit.

I am SO, SO, SO excited.

After monitoring the fares for a few days, the price suddenly went down $108 — so I booked it that night.  It’s a ridiculously low fare ($792 from Boston with one stop in Atlanta).  I fly out the day before Thanksgiving and I leave late the following Tuesday, returning Wednesday morning.

After much consideration, I have decided to stay in the Palermo neighborhood, hopefully Palermo Viejo.  I have a friend at work who studied in Buenos Aires and highly recommends that neighborhood.  It sounds awesome — filled with the hottest clubs, boutiques and restaurants.  I’ll be staying in a private room in a hostel, so I can have the benefits of my own room and the social benefits of a hostel.

And yes, I will temporarily give up the vegetarianism to sample the fine steaks of Argentina.  God, I used to love steak, especially the incredible steaks in Florence.  But I’ve gone without meat for so long (eight months!), I can’t imagine eating it again.

I have six weeks to learn Argentine tango.  I did ballroom dancing in college and I can do American tango, but Argentine tango is SO different.  I found a class in Cambridge that is six weeks long and starts on Tuesday!  PERFECT!!

I also need to brush up on my Spanish.  I speak it a bit — I took two years’ worth of Spanish in high school, but French is my main language and I also speak Italian from my time studying in Florence.  I can understand it, but I’m not so good at speaking it.

I will be doing a day trip to Uruguay as well — probably Colonia.  I’d love to go to Montevideo and Punta del Este, but that will probably be best reserved for another time.

And I haven’t told my parents yet.  We’ll see how that goes.

As for the mouse, it got REALLY BAD the past few nights.  On Monday and Tuesday night, I was up until 3:30 AM because as soon as I stopped moving, the mouse would start running all over my room and I’d get freaked out.  (Yes, we caught one, but this was another.)

It was terrible.  I went into Sars’ room to ask her if I could sleep with her, just so I could sleep, period.  She refused.

I sobbed as I filled yet another trap with peanut butter.  I just wanted to SLEEP, and that was the one thing I couldn’t do.

Well, it’s been strange.  My dad brought me a ton of glue traps (the extra inhumane kind), and even though we haven’t caught a mouse, I haven’t seen one in two days.  I was FINALLY able to sleep yesterday, and it was SUBLIME.

Oh, also, I dropped my computer right after booking my tickets last night, and the screen was scrambled, then it stopped working.  It won’t turn on now.  Thank God for my work laptop, which I will be bringing home each night until it’s fixed.

And that’s it!  I’m so excited for my Buenos Aires trip, and I grin just thinking about it.  🙂