Happy New Years! and then some

So, for the last 8 or 9 days, I have been spending time in Resistencia, Chaco, to spend the new year's, with my friend Sam that lives there for his exchange.  At first, I was a little hesitent to leave Iguazú for the new year; my new friends at the hostel wanted me to stay and party with them.  I would have liked to, but I'm definitely glad I did what I did.  At about 10 or 11pm the night of the 30th, I bought my ticket for Resistencia, and then headed out to the hostel to chill out for a bit.  I ended up talking to my german friend david and one of the staff until about 6:30am the following morning. (I had intended on doing something like this; the ticket that I bought was for 8am that morning).  So, I ate some breakfast, packed some clothes, my passport, and a few other things, and left.  I love that feeling of travelling far away from where you usually stay!  I had intended on sleeping on the bus, but this didn't happen.  Don't ask me why, but I haven't been sleeping well these days.  Ever since going to the consulate to get my brazillian visa, and staying up till 7 or 8 in the morning regularly, and then the christmas festivities, my sleep schedule has quite simply gone to shit.  I stayed up for 2 days at one point to try and fix it by actually being tired at a normal sleep hour, but it didn't really work.  Anyway, after a 10 hour trip, I arrived in resistencia, being cheerfully greeted by sam.  Ahh, it's great to see old friends again.  Man, I was really happy then, and still am now.  In the days before, he was extremely late in responding to me for the all-clear to go, so I wasn't exactly sure.  I ended up getting his message about 24 hours before I left, saying that he had already bought my ticket for a club having a new year's party, so I had better come.  Sounds good to me!!  Once we arrived at sam's place, I caught about 2 hours of sleep before we ate a big dinner, full of argentinian party foods and champagne.  we ate, toasted, and relaxed for a bit afterwards while we waited for some more of sam's hostbrother's friends to come, so we could go out.  Around 2am, we left for Golf, the club that was having one of the bigger parties in resistencia.  When we arrived, I was surprised how many people were there.  I asked sam's friend pablo how many he thought there was; I mean in an area maybe the size of a football field , with a stage, there was already such a deep crowd that one would surely get lost if one ventured too far.  He said, "there's maybe 2 or 3000 people now, but just wait man, that's nothing! later on in the night, there will be about 6 or 7000 people!"  Sh*t!!  That news amused me quite a bit.  the whole place was outside; a grass field, huge elevated stage, with lots of lights and lasers probing around the crowd, illuminating the place with neon green, red, and blue.  Sam, Henrik(a german exchange student also living in resistencia) and I made are way around the crowd, just kind of looking for trouble and a good time.  Pablo was right in what he had said; by around 4 or 5 am the place was packed to the extreme.  In this huge field, especially in front of the stage, you barely had room to move your arms, having to squeeze your way wherever you went through the tight crowd.  Just my type of thing!  and better yet, it didn't end at dawn!  We continued to party and dance until maybe 7:30, and then took a cab home.  Along the way, we decided that we were very hungry, and that a hotdog or hamburger would properly fill that void.  The cab driver was so nice!  He dropped us off at a hotdog place, and waited for us to make our orders.  After purchasing our delicious gifts from heaven, we got back in the cab, deciding that none of us would eat in the cab.  The driver had been nice enough to wait for us, the least we could do was not make a mess in his car.  Once we got back, I decided that after another this (second stretch of) 2 days with 2 hours of sleep (not to mention several hours of dancing) I was quite exhausted.  The following day consisted of nothing but sleep, relaxing, and watching movies.  For the following 3 nights or so we went out every night, whether it be to a club, a pool party, whatever.  God, it was great to be with people who actually party!  That's one of the thing's I'm not a fan of about Iguazú;  apart from going to clubs, things are quite boring.  It was so good to see my exchange student friends again!  That was another reason for me coming to resistencia; other than it being a fun city, I have lots of exchange student friends here, so I knew it would be a good time.  In my experience, exchange students can make any party rowdier (and exotic!) than it already was.  Around the 4th or 5th day there, sam's hostbrother fernando became quite sick; people were crying, his hostmom had to call an ambulance, and things in the house were generally tense.  Due to this, I felt that it was a good time to leave;  now wasn't a good time for them to have a guest in the house.  I went to the bank to draw out the money for the ticket; I didn't have enough cash on me at the time.  Upon arriving; I made an interesting discovery:  there was no money in the bank!  this was indeed a predicament.  Fortunately, a bit later, one of sam's friends yanina invited me to stay at her place for a bit.  The next day, we spent the day first walking around the city, and then went to corrientes (the neighboring city, in the next providence), to walk along the river coast.  We arrived back at her house around midnight, both extremely exhausted (I fell asleep several times on the bus, being occasionally woken by the extremely bumpy road).  I think that's the most tired I've been in weeks.  The next day, I played video games with her older brother martín.  Today is saturday, and I'll be leaving today;  Her mom is leaving to travel, so I can't stay longer.  Still, I've had quite my share of fun.