Leaving Barney and the Familia Feliz...

This is my last week in Buenos Aires and I'm excited and relieved to be making an exit. At the time of my departure, I will have been here 6 weeks.
The time, of course, flew by because of the routine I quickly settled into: eat breakfast, go to school for 6 hours, drink mate (stain my teeth), walk home, take a cat nap, do homework, fix dinner, have a glass of cheap wine.
I also managed to stay on budget (more or less) because of my lack of time to do other things.
My Spanish has definitely improved - I'm certainly not fluent but can get around.
While out walking today I realized how anxious I am to get into the country, away from the city. I think there is something a bit more telling about a country once you're out of its' population centers. Buenos Aires residents have a reputation for arrogance amongst their fellow countrymen, but I certainly never experienced that. Although, that bastard Barney the dinosaur refused to give me directions to the Japanese tea garden today. I'll show him....
Come Saturday I'll be heading to Santiago, Chile by bus then continuing on to Valparaiso - Pablo Neruda's hometown. There I'll meet one of my closest friends - Frank and his brother Zach. They've been traveling together though Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Before they linked up in Ecuador, Frank was traveling for 3 months through India, China, Tibet (I mean China..), and Mongolia. He stopped over in Texas for a few days then flew to South America.
On Halloween a few years back, I remember Frank dancing through throngs of college students dressed as the Bird Flu - touching as many people as possible. Then he actually got sick the next day because his thin, white coveralls covered in bird feathers failed to insulate him against the Santa Fe night.
Our plan from Valparaiso is to head south to Santiago, then back East to the wine country around Mendoza, then to the Sierra Mountains in central Argentina. From there they'll continue on to Uruguay and I'll head North to Chile/Bolivia.