last hurrah

Only seven more days until I am back in Saint Paul - which means only 6 more days in Buenos Aires. I had my 10 day vacation in Chile and it was quite odd. So a little under two weeks ago I went out with a group of friends to a boliche and had enough time to sleep 1.5hs and get to the airport before my flight to Santiago. However, I got to the airport at 830am and they decided to cancel my flight due to "the plane having broke". Not quite sure what I am supposed to make out of "se rompió el avión" but it definitely does not inspire confidence. I nodded off in the airport and waltzed around the duty free from 830am until almost 5pm when the flight actually left, and got to Chile a little later than expected. My friend Andrés from AIESEC Santiago picked me up from the airport and let me stay at his house - which was really beautiful, right at the foot of the snow capped Andes. I went out in Santiago with Elin Harm, a friend from high school who did her study abroad there and then drove with Andrés and two other AIESECers to Viña del Mar. I spent the day exploring Viña and Valparaíso, two cities that are on the coast in Chile and similar to St. Paul and Mpls in the fact that there really isn't any division between the two cities. On the map you can see that the two cities are just West of Santiago, its a little over an hour in car.

Saturday day I got to Meet Peter Fliegel - my Dad's cousin that he has never met. He was born in Germany and has lived in Chile for a long time, so that was fun. I went to his house with him and his wife Anita and it is beautiful - we had a great time and I left him with a bunch of old Xmas Letter pictures from over the years. On Saturday night I met up with Greta Kreider Carlson, a friend from grade school and high school and took a 24 hour bus ride up to the northern desert, San Pedro de Atacama. However, half way throught he desert our bus broke down and we had a few hours of just sitting around and finally, as the last bus of the day was passing, we all piled on and around 1am got into San Pedro, only a few hours behidn schedule. Greta and I and two of her friends spent 4 nights in the desert, seeing cool sights but we weren't able to see the sights San Pedro is most known for, as there was unseasonal snow in the mountains and lots of rain and hail in town (which happens every 10 years or so).

We saw La Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley)

La Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley) - originally supposed to be "Mars Valley" but they couldn't understand the Dutch guys accent when he spoke in Spanish and understood Death instead of Mars. They actually go to this valley to test the Mars Rovers (NASA does) because it is the place on Earth most similar to Mars. Currently there are investigations underway.

We also saw the salt flats, which are quite different from the ones I saw in Argentina and I swam in a lake with the same salinity as the Dead Sea. It was so cold out that I went to the lake with my winter jackets on, stripped down to my bikini, ran cussing into the water, dipped myself in up to the neck, floated for a second, and got out. As soon as I got out the contrast between the freezing water and the cold air was so drastic that I felt warm in the air,although I was wet. You could float due to the salt content though, which was pretty nifty.

At the salt flats we also saw flamingos and nothing else too spectacular to report.



Also we went to the Rainbow Valley - similar to the HIll of 7 colors in Jujuy that I saw about a month ago.

21 days and 20 of them vacation days

Tomorrow morning I have my final final. CANT BELIEVE IT!!!!! I feel prepared, so I'm writing in my blog instead of cramming :)

My trip to Uruguay was great, I have posted some photos below - it's a beautiful tiny country full of gorgeous coastlines and inland full of natural hot springs.

The most famous house in Punta del Este - or close to punta

the hideous view and balcony

getting a little stir crazy after roadtripping all the way across uruguay (a whole 1.5 hours!!!)

aiesec birthday party - holland, argentina, uruguay, usa: note in the background you see a plaque of the USA-URUGUAY, the kid who lives in this house has a Dad who works with the DEA and the whole room was covered in plaques for his service to our country.

eating a chivito - the sandwich of death

standing at THE punta del este

djaja, rodrigo, maijo, quique and i

rodrigo, maijo, daniel, yo, djaja

at the statue of the hand in punta del este

Since uruguay I have mostly been studying for my final tomorrow and getting up to date with my life in Buenos Aires. AIESEC is going to be sad to leave behind, but I had a great sleepover on Friday night with Juli, Maijo and Vicky - the three other girls that organized the weekend seminar with me in April.

This afternoon I saw Fuerza Bruta (Brute Force). Its a show that I would describe as somewhere between Cirque de Soleil and Stomp. There were drums and acrobatics and all sorts of stunts - I cant even explain it. I have uploaded a video that shows more or less how the show is.

Tomorrow after 1pm my summer vacation officially starts!! I will fly to Santiago, Chile on Thursday morning, stay with a friend there for 1 night, then head to Viña del Mar, Chile. I will spend just the day there and spend the nights of July 1st and July 2nd in Valparaíso, Chile - where I will also meet my distant Rothe relative, Peter Fliegel. He is my Dad's cousin who emigrated from Germany to Chile many many years ago. On the 3rd, early in the morning, Greta Kreider Carlson, some friends of hers and I are heading up north on a bus to San Pedro de Atacama - the dryest place on Earth. They have a lake that is equal in salinity to the Dead Sea as well as flamingos, salt flats, and sandboarding!!!!!!!!

Be sure I will try to buy a camera charger for the occasion :)

1 month mark

Cemetery in Humahuaca

Backbending at the salt flats in Jujuy

Jumping over the pool at the salt flats in Jujuy

Verifying the saltiness of the salt.

Next to a HUGE cactus in Purmamarca

A panoramic view of The Hill of the 7 Colors in Purmamarca.

These are photos from last week in Salta and Jujuy.

I'm back in Buenos Aires, after a fun long weekend in Uruguay. Yup, thats right, after having spent just under one full week in the Northwestern Argentine desert, I went to Uruguay. During my two full days back in Buenos Aires I finished a final project and took a final exam - grades in Wednesday (cross your fingers!). Uruguay was a Friday morning to Monday night trip, accompanied by my friend from AIESEC, Maijo (an Argentine). We took a ferry across to Colonia and immediately took a bus to Montevideo, where we were so kindly picked up by Quique (Enrique) a member of AIESEC Montevideo who ended up leaving us his apartment for the weekend. It was really awesome of him, considering we don't actually know him very well, and it worked out really nicely. We spentall day Friday and Saturday in Montevideo and went to a birthday party on Saturday night, before Sunday morning heading to the eastern coast beaches (Punta del Este, Piriápolis) and stayed in Rodrigo's family's beach house in Piriápolis for the night, watched the U17 world cup soccer game (Uruguay vs. Canada) and then had a long night sleeping.

Monday was very relaxed and we made out way back to Buenos Aires, getting home a little after midnight. This whole week will be study study study as I have my final exam of the semester a week from today at 9am. I am really nervous but confident that I have enough time to prepare well - although I do have to review over 2,500 pages of philosophy in Spanish. Hmmmmmm - could get tricky.

Next Thursday I am flying to Santiago de Chile and doing a week long trip around central and northern Chile before spending my last week in Buenos Aires. I'll get to see Santiago, Viña del Mar, Valaparíso, and San Pedro de Atacama.

I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS YEAR IS WINDING DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

five weeks and a quilombo

Currently I am marooned in Salta, the capital of the province of Salta, in the NorthWestern limits of Argentina. I was supposed to fly back to Buenos Aires last night (Sunday) at 9PM, but due to the second erruption of the volcano in Chile, the ash cloud hanging over Buenos Aires is making it impossible for flights to arrive or leave. We got switched to the 9pm flight tonight - but it turns out that we wont be flying home until Wednesday night at the earliest. I would have gotten on a bus by now, but I would then lose the $160 I spent on the return flight as well as waste about $100 on a bus ticket back. And the ride is 21 hours....... This is all overly complicated due to mutliple factors.

1. I have a final exam on Wednseday at 6pm
2. I have to finish a final group project for Wednesday at 3pm
3. I have a boat ticket to Uruguay on Friday morning at 12:30PM

hence the quilombo - which means an infernal mess in spanish from argentina.

The trip was amazing this weekend, the colors in the mountains are unbelievable!!! I cant wait to post my photos and show you all how amazing it truly was. For now, I got my hair cut and got waxed today and am just wasting away studying for my potential exam on Wednesday. We will see what happens. Maybe i WILL take a bus home tomorrow, to be back in time for my exam. We will see, we will see.......

Love and hugs to everyone and HATE for volcanos!!!!!

6 weeks 6 weeks

So I think I may just have weekly posts until my days are done here. This past weekend I went on a program trip (pre-paid with my $24,000 year long program fee) and went to Los Esteros de Iberá, or the Estuaries of Iberá, in the province of Corrientes, in NorthEastern Argentina. There was all sorts of interesting wildlife but it was really quite cold. We saw black caiman alligators, seat otters, there are 3 species of piranhas, we saw capybaras, many species of birds including local vulturas, 2 species of deer, howler monkeys, wild jungle cats, and I will leave it at that. A good time was had by all 13 of the year long kids who went on the trip, our program director Mario and his partner, Sergio. They are both super buena onda, or cool. (it literally translates as good wave)


The dock at our hostel

A capybara getting used as a wagon by a little yellow bird that ate his parasites

Carpincho snack time *same as the capybara, different name

Kingfisher

The birds that are named after Jesus because they seem to walk on water

One of the numerous cardinals that I saw over the weekend

Wild cat - looks like a baby ocelot. It was the Mommy, it had its husband who was all black (just due to an excess of melanin - like albinos have a deficit) and its baby who was inbetween being almost black and having distinguishable patterns equivalent to its mother's.

Lily pads

Black caiman alligator mother keeping a stern eye on her youngins.

This week I have my last week of normal class and then on Wednesday evening I am flying to Salta, a city in the Northwest of Argentina. Its a desert, in the Andes, home of the largest salt flat in the world, and full of adobe homed towns.

I will get home Sunday evening from Salta, take my History of Pre-Colombian Art final on Wednesday and head to Uruguay on Friday, the 17th of June. I'm going there with a friend from AIESEc, Maijo, and we are staying with AIESECers from Montevideo. The trip will last from Friday morning until Monday night, as Monday is Flag Day in Argentina. *Let me just clarify that they have a RIDICULOUS amount of holidays here.

After I get back I have to turn in a final project for my Radio class on Wednesday, the 22nd and then I will only have one class left. The next weekend I will finally be staying in Buenos Aires, but I will be studying 24/7 for my Political and Social Theory final - I have so many Saints to get straight and Church nonsense to be on top of. Once those three things are out of the way though, I am DONE WITH MY JUNIOR YEAR OF UNIVERSITY!!!!!!!!!

Links to my photos from this semester on Facebook....

Mendoza
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1702145475054.2088187.1280460131

SDL - the AIESEC conference
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1740910484155.2090253.1280460131

7 weeks until...

Hey everyone, in 7 weeks I will be back in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! How sad and happy - this means I get to go camping with my whole extended family from my Dad's side, but it also means that I have to leave all of South America behind :( Two weekends ago I was at an AIESEC leadership development conference of the Southern Cone (aka Argentina, Uruguay and Chile) but with delegates from all over the world. When I had to say goodbye to all of the friends that I made over the weekend and the AIESECers that I met last November in my first AIESEC conference, I got really sad - realizing that I would probably never see the majority of them again in my life!!!! Really sad, I even shed a few tears, really not my style, but it happens sometimes. It was an amazing experience and I really learned a lot at the conference, plus AIESECers know how to party! Work hard and play hard is their motto.


The multi-cultural proof photo. This is from the AIESEC conference.
Germany (originally Kenya) - United States - Colombia - Argentina - Costa Rica - Belgium


My local committee in Buenos Aires, at the conference :)


The second party at the AIESEC conference I went to - dress as a famous person (I was goign to dress as Britney Spears and put a nylon on my head to simulate when she chopped all her hair off but I couldn't find to baby dolls to carry around by their ankles, so I nixed the plan and dressed as a generic soccer player.)


Punk costumes the first night


Again punk night

Since my last post I've turned 21, and survived the experience.

Doing a shot of tequila with my Mom over Skype to celebrate my 21st birthday.

Mendoza was a really fun Easter Week trip, I learned a little about wine, got to drink a lot of wine, and spent lots of time outdoors, which was really nice! Since then I've mostly been staying in the City, no big trips have been taken.


Horseback riding in Mendoza in the mountains!


wine and vineyards



School-wise I am hating life right about now. I put off all of my readings for my History of Art class, well, since it started..... so I will be doing all of those this week. (Seeing as our final exam is June 15th). Also, my Political and Social Theory class has been getting ahead of me as well, so I spent all day today doing the readings I had missed. I am still behind but at least I made up 1.5 weeks of the readings that I missed. I will also be keeping on top of those readings from now on! The real debbie-downer of the situation isn't the readings, because those don't make for a desperate situation, but the 10-15 page paper my Professor of ARt History just assigned me out of nowhere IS A DEBBIE-DOWNER!

Socially my life has been pretty great. The AIESECers and I go out a lot/have meetings all the time so I see them often and am always talking to them to do my tasks. Now that I am 21 I feel quite old, and I don't know what to make of feeling old, considering I am still a young duck, but hey, who knows! My other Argentine friends are pretty fun, I've been eating a lot of BBQ with them. Also, I've made some American friends that I can do touristy things with, which is a plus.


At my friend Vicky's birthday party last Saturday.

Yesterday I went to the Lujan Zoo, where you can pet the tigers and lions but not the bears, oh my! Its a 2 hour bus ride to the zoo but it was definitely worth the $5 round trip and the $12.50 entrance fee. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. What else, what else - I dunno.

Feeding a baby lion milk from a bottle/my palm.


Stroking a 7 month old tiger.


Staring down a 4 month old lion cub.


Getting in on the sleeping mass of lion cubs. All 4 or 5 months old.


The cathedral in San Lujan, famous because Pope John Paul the II went there.


Having elephants eat apples out of my hands. I went first so didn't know what to expect at all, the guy just yelled at my to turn around and put my arms out.


In the pen with the big boys. These were no babies.


They had a huge stash of old tractors at the Lujan Zoo, random but most of them were John Deere and I had to represent the Midwest.

This coming weekend I am going to an ecological reserve where they have black caimans and the following weeking I am going to the NorthWest of Argentina, Salta, Jujuy, the salt flats. Should be prettttty amazing!!! Love my life, just wish I were only 100% vacation instead of 75% vacataion.

75% over

I arranged to fly home July 17th, meaning I'll get in early morning July 18th to the MSP airport (10:30am more or less for those of you who are so anxious to see me that you feel the overwhelming urge to meet me at the airport! - oh, and I'm flying Delta from Atlanta if you want to look up my flight). I am excited to get home but the longer I stay here, the closer I get to my Argentine friends and the sadder I am to only have 89 days left with them. School is still school, and I have been making an effort to keep relatively up to date with my work-load. AIESEC has been great lately, and taking up a lot of my time. This past weekend was the induction retreat/ conference for the new members. About 60 AIESECo's went to the 2 days over night event, planned by my new 3 best friends and I. (Um, this is a bad sign, I am not sure whether that should read "and I" or "and me").... hmm, losing my English skills, Mr. Ford would be appalled.



Photos form the Toga PARTY!!!

I have no new photos, because my camera battery charger got stolen, what a shame, what a shame. I am hopeful that someone will upload a few photos from the conference from Saturday night though, because we had a Toga party. My toga was beautiful and I would love to share it with the world - so professional looking. Anywhoo, the conference went swimmingly and all of the newbies loved it, the oldies had a great time, and I slept 6 hours in 2 nights. When I got home on Sunday evening around 8pm I showered, skyped my Dad for 4 minutes to say happy birthday, ate dinner, and immediately went to bed. I continued to sleep for 10 hours, go to 3 hours of my 4 hour class, leave early, sleep the whole bus ride home, wake up a few blocks from my apt, get home and take a 3 hours nap. I feel like I am a whole new person now.

Tonight at 6.30PM i have Portuguese class and then tomorrow I have my Radio class and in the evening half way through my History of art class I am heading out for MENDOZA! Wine country in the Andes Mtns, pretty much directly west of Buenos Aires. Its an overnight bus ride and I am heading there with 3 other girls who are on my program and have been in Argentine since last July, just like me. We should have a lot of fun as there is great hiking, white water rafting, etc in the region too. I'm looking to make the best of my 4 days there as we are heading home Sunday evening and getting back early Monday morning, in time for my morning class.

Other than that, I don't know what more I can update. Nothing too exciting has been happening - School, volunteering with AIESEC, going out with friends and some cute boys, drinking lots of mate.... I dunno folks. I'll try to send some pictures your way in the near future.

A hug and a kiss. I'll be seeing all your Rothes in Door County!