Colombian Update

At the mall in Bucaramanga with Laura, enjoying the view of the city and the nice weather for Xmas.


Some of the super awesome public Christmas illumination that I talked about in my last post. This is still in Cucuta (from a while back)


Preparing the hayacas, the traiditional Colombian dish that I spoke about in my last post. This is turning into the Rothe Amundson Xmas Letter, calling people up to quiz them on previous posts so that they can understand what is going on!

To start things off today I think I will mention that I love Colombia, and there is a 0% change that this will be the only time I visit this country. Any family members should take note of the fact that Lauras parents have offered an open invitation to come back and arrange a trip for my family and their family to go to the coast, and let me tell you, the Colombian coast is most definitely worth going to Colombia for. I have so far only been in the interior of the country so I cant vouch for the coast from first hand experience but Colombia is amazing. For those of you who recieve the Rothe Amundson Xmas Letter, note the misspelling of Colombia (Columbia). Now to the updates on what I have been doing...

Since my last entry I spent a few more days in Cucuta, Lauras hometown. We celebrated her moms (Carolinas) birthday on the 19th and we spent a lot of time hanging out with her friends and immediate family. I quickly snagged a Colombian boyfriend, hes pretty cute but only really lives up to 3 week boyfriend standards, although he did gift me a pretty dandy beaded bracelet of the Colombian flag. Other than that, we continued praying La Novena every day and on the 23rd at about 5AM Lauras parents woke us up and we drove with a incredibly packed sedan to Bucaramanga. Both sides of Lauras family live in Bucaramanga, another Colombian city of about 700,000. In order to get here we had to traverse a 5 hour long mountain roadway that was recently cleared from the horrible mud slides that have been plaguing Colombia. There have been really heavy rains all over the country for pretty much all of December and they had led to a lot of flooding and mud slides. One whole town, Gramalote, in the northern part of the province (Norte de Santander) where Laura lives, completely disappeared. The rains caused the whole mountain that the town sat on to shift and it is now a disaster zone. There have also been floods show on the news that are very reminiscent of the scenes shown after Katrina hit New Orleans. And what most amazes me about all of these disasters and the images shown daily on the Colombian news is the fact that I read bbc.co.uk and I am seriously disappointed in the fact that they have 2 articles from December that mention Colombia and the rains/flooding but they have incorrect facts and dont even mention the worst disasters. However, airport closures across Europe and the USA are definitely front page news.


Above the clouds during the drive from Cucuta to Bucaramanga.

During the drive from Cucuta to Bucaramanga there were so many mud slides that had been cleared from the roadway that I lost count. Also, newly formed pot holes and parts of the road that had litterally fallen down the mountain side and left 1 lane where there a few weeks ago were 2 lanes. We did make it to Bucaramanga with minimal problems as far as the road blockage goes (the one road between the two cities had been closed for the few days prior to our trip) but when we were entering the city we got stopped for almost an hour as two houses had just collapsed down the mountain at the entrance to the city and they were bulldozing them off the road.

We spent the 24th with both sides of Lauras family and we started out the evening with her Moms family. Every family buys a present for every other family member, so there were a LOT of presents to unwrap. Lauras parents even bought me presents, which was divine of them. They gave me a very cute pajama pant and tshirt set, a beach towel with matching flip flops, two Colombian soccer jerseys, an adorable tank top and a plain jane blue tshirt that will be easy to wear any day. And then on the 25th they even prepared me a stocking full of the watermelon flavored blowpop knock offs that I love so much! Continuing with the 24th, after we left her grandmothers apartment we headed to her great aunt and uncles from her dads side of the family around midnight. The first thing we did there was head outside while her Dad hid a figuring of baby Jesus that was wrapped in 140,000 pesos (about $70). After baby Jesus was well hidden we all were allowed to enter and rampage around looking for him, in order to claim the cash. Laura found him within about two minutes, so it was kinda a let down, as I was 1. looking to win, and 2. enjoying the whole weird traiditon of it. And the 25th was quite relaxed, they mostly finish celebrating on the 24th since that is when everyone exchanges presents and eats together, but we did spend the whole 25th with family as well.

A little about Lauras family, her mom has 2 sisters and 1 brother. Her oldest sister lives near Bogota and has 2 sons, Nico aged 19 and Daniel aged 6. They are both great fun and I really enjoyed their company. Her other sister has 3 kids, 2 daughters Gabriela 10 and Mariana 8. She also has a son, Jorge Mauricio aged 13 and I also enjoyed all of these cousins and aunts and uncles. This sister with 3 kids live in a town called Ruetoque, which is one of the top 4 compounds to live in if you are in South America. It is a 10 minute drive minimum up to the house from the front gate where you have to show an ID and have the guard call up to the house you are visiting before they will even open the gate. Her moms brother is younger, hes only 32 and he is recently married. On the 24th they announced that they are 1 month pregnant so that was pretty exciting. On her dads side her dad has 2 older brothers (just like me!!!!!) Walter and Amparo have 2 kids, Daniel 14 and Maria Paola (Mapa, yes that means map in spanish) 19. Their family is very nice and welcoming. This family also has a kick ass apartment and today we went to their cabin that is about an hour away, where we rode the two 4wheelers and the gokart around all afternoon. The other brother is weird, had 3 sons, two of whom are obese, aged 23 and 14 and the third who is SUPER SKINNY and aged 19. Anyway, moving on, we went to Lauras cousin (Mapas) friends house the other day and got there around noon. We spent the whole day in the pool and drinking the local liquor, Aguardiente (buring water or fire water, however you want to interpret the name). It is an anise based liquor and it is absolutely horrible, but all of the Colombians insisted that I drink it and I did, which led to an inevitably raucous and fun time, see Facebook photos.


Hanging out in the pool
(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070331&id=1280460131) is my first album that corresponds with my last post and (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071629&id=1280460131) is an album full of newer photos and there is another soon to come.

Today we took a day trip to La Mesa, a town an hour away from Bucaramanga where there is a Gondola that takes you across an impressive gorge into a national park where you can hike around a little bit, take pictures, and zip line (which I did obviously). These are the pictures soon to come and as I am currently too exhausted I will add more details in the near future. Have a great New Years Eve EVERBODY!

Colombia

I am currently in Cucuta, Colombia. I dont really know how to work the punctuation on this computer so I will write a very grammatically incorrect blog entry. I left my apartment in Buenos Aires at 315AM on Sunday, the 12th (also know as Gail Amundsons birthday) and my cab driver was falling asleep during the 30 or 45 minute drive to the airport. I had to keep asking him weird questions or making awkward small talk to make sure he was still awake because I saw his eyes drooping in the rear view mirror. Once I got to the airport around 4AM I tried to check in but they ended up telling me that I needed a reservation number for my onward flight out of Colombia because you cant enter a foreign country without proof of onward travel. I then went to the internet cafe at the airport in order to access my email and my reservation number but the whole server was down so I had to call my host sister, Candelaria at 4AM and ask her to go into my email and text message me all of my flight information. Luckily she did it more than willingly and quickly, so there were no real problems. I was ready to board the plane and head through customs before they even opened the security zone at 5AM. I ended up waiting in the airport until 640AM when they boarded my flight to Bogota, Colombia. The whole time I was sitting across from a Nun in her full nun wear and trying to not fall asleep, as I did not sleep at all.

I made it to Bogota without any further complications and then had a ridiculously long layover before my flight left for Cucuta, my final destination. While I was waiting in the airport I was amused by the presence of a Dunkin Donuts and the fact that all of the Colombians bought big boxes of donuts to bring to their hometowns because I think the Dunkin Donuts in the airport may be the only one in Colombia. I also met a really nice family from Bogota ~ they were waiting for the flight for their two daughters to go visit family in Santa Marta, a beautiful coast town that I am going to have to come back to visit. Laura and her family were waiting for me in the airport when around 7 or 8PM I finalllllly made it to Cucuta. We went out to dinner and I was more than ready to go to sleep when we got home and I had gotten settled into my room.

Since then I have mostly just hung out with Laura and her family and friends. They are members of a much hugers version of the Saint Paul Tennis Club, it has 7 clay tennis courts, 2 connected pools and a golf course. Laura and I have played tennis three times and one day we even played doubles with some of her friends that we ran into while we were there. Swimming has also been nice too, but I am scared for my white person skin and getting any more sun as it is already bronzed to perfection and I am peeling in places that I didnt even get sunburnt. The food here is amazing and Lauras family has a housekeeper that cleans every day and makes our breakfast and lunch for us, so I have definitely been eating well. On Tuesday we made Hayacas, a Colombian tradition. They are like tamales wrapped in plantain leaves and filled with saffron rice, raisins, olives, capers, chicken, beef, and juicy sauces. They are something that everyone prepares together for Christmas adn then eats together.

Some interesting things that I have noticed... I am one of two natural blondes that I have seen in Colombia this week. Also, all of the motorcyclists wear reflective vests that have their license plate numbers on them in order to deter drive bys. Cucuta, where I am staying with Laura is really close to Venezuela, like I mentioned before. On Wednesday afternoon Laura, her mom Carolina and I all went to San Antonio, a town in Venezuela right across the border. We didnt need to show papers or anything to enter, we just had to drive on through. Not too much happened while we were there, we just went grocery shopping and bought some toiletries. Later that evening when I was with Laura and her friends driving around they just casually mentioned to me, oh hey, we are in Venezuela again, and it really surprised me how lax the border control is. I guess its really easy to cross unless Hugo Chavez goes on a whim and decides to close the border, and then all of the Colombians are stuck in Venezuela until he decides that they can leave again.

As far as the holidays go it is La Novena here right now, a celebration of the nine days before Christmas. It stated on Thursday and we sit downstairs by the lit up Nativity Scene, read from a little booklet (prayers) and then sing a song inviting Jesus into our souls. Its not taken too seriously in Lauras house but everyone does need to be present to pray. Ill leave it here for now and put up some pictures in the near future, although I havent taken too many. Un beso!

Heading out

So now I am starting my South American summer adventure. Up until now I've only made it to Uruguay and done a wee bit of traveling around Argentina. This Sunday at 7AM I am flying out of Ezeiza International Airport to Bogota, Colombia and from there I have a connection to Cúcuta, Colombia. Cúcuta is a border city with Venezuela and it is also where my friend Laura Jaramillo lives with her family. I doubt that I will actually enter Venezuela even though you could technically walk there from Laura's house because of the whole dangerous blonde American aspect of entering a country controlled by someone as INSANE as Hugo Chavez and the complications involved with procuring a Visa last minute and from outside of the good ol' USA.



This is a map of Colombia that has the cities that I am going to be in on it. You can see here that Cúcuta really is a border city and for Xmas and New Year's Eve I will be in Bucaramanga, in between Cúcuta and Bógota with Laura and her extended family. I am pretty excited for the whole Colombia adventure so I will try to keep you all updated more than I have recently, as it's something more noteworthy that is happening in my life.

I'm in a pretty weird place as far as self-identification goes right now. Most of you probably know my uncle Jonathan Rothe, my Dad's youngest brother, was in Buenos Aires last weekend with his work as he often has done business trips throughout South America in the past. He traded me some American dollars for pesos and it was a shock to see American money after 5 months without $1US to my name. His visiting also helped me realize that 1. I am not ready to move back the United States permanently so I am really happy that I elected to do my study abroad for a full year and 2. That it will most likely be a BIGGER culture shock for me moving back to the states than it was to come here. I think this because coming to Argentina I was 100% prepared and pre-talked about the dangers of culture shock and I knew that I didn't know the place at all, so I came in with basically zero serious expectations as well as an open mind. When I go back to the states I already have pre-conceived notions about how things should be in my life because I've only lived there for 20 years of my life. Updates to come in about 7 months when I actually am packing to head back to MN.

To continue with my travels.... after three gloriously HOT HOT HOT weeks in Colombia I have a flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador.



Here is a map that shows where Guayaquil, a coastal town and the largest in Ecuador currently, is located. You can also see the Galapagos Islands on this map which was a purposeful addition. I am going to spend 8 of my 9 or 10 days that I am in Ecuador doing a cruise of the Galapagos, and I keep talking about it non-stop because I am ridiculously excited and I can't wait to get there and see how amazing it is. The Ecuador trip will be a 100% solo trip, I won't know anyone that I am going with nor will I be visiting anyone I know while I am there, which I am excited for. My Spanish at this point I have been told is quite good, although I obviously still struggle with limited vocabulary and grammar at times. I find that when I compare how I can understand, joke around, and express myself at this point I am impressed with how far I have come from my interactions during my first taxi ride.

I'll take this opportunity to gloat just a little bit and throw in a picture of the boat that I will be on and the deck plan....





After 10 amazing days in Ecuador (where the official currency is the USD) I will fly to Lima, Peru and spend 9ish hours in the airport waiting for my DAD!!!!! I am sooo excited for this. I am a little sad now that I didn't choose to go home for Christmas but then I think of myself as having a more true exchange experience for it. Going home is nice but barring any epic tragedy home will be 99% the same whether I come home in December for Christmas or July for the fourth or even in August for Door County. (This way I get to fully skip one whole winter cycle, which is throwing off my internal clock). My Dad and I are meeting up in Lima and flying to Cuzco, Peru together. Note: I am having a, let me check this up to be accurate..... 8 hour and 45 minute layover in Lima just so that Peter didn't have to take a flight by himself in Latin America. But it's okay, he paid for the more expensive plane ticket, I will eat at the Pizza Hut at the Lima airport and I will be happy to see him a few hours earlier than if we were to met up in Cuzco. We are going to then spend two days in Cuzco checking out local Inca ruins and acclimating to the elevation before we do the Inca Trail to Machu Pichuu, which is a 4 day rather strenuous hike. Last night a Colombian friend told me how she was crying during one day of the hiking and her group was with 2 obese women and she has NO idea how they were physically capable of doing it if it were so bad for her, a thin rather in shape, young Colombian. I guess we will have to wait and see, but it is comforting to know that even if it takes me 9 hours to hike a section that takes really in shape, seasoned trekkers 2 hours I WILL MAKE IT!



One final picture of Peru. You can see in the north there is the city Iquitos, where I was in Peru 2 and a half years ago right after graduating from high school. I went into the rainforest then and now I am going into the mountains so I am pretty excited to have the opportunity to explore another aspect of Peru. (which was awesome last time I was there, so it better not let me down.)

Anywhoo, I have been writing this rather than packing which is probably not a good thing. A few last minute updates about what I have been doing in Buenos Aires. I am on summer break and Wednesday this week was a national holiday, so I decided to go out Tuesday night until 6AM, get picked up at 9:30AM to go to a friends pool and soccer club type place and spend the whole day there. My friend Dan Rubenstein from the United States is visiting and it just so happened that I am here. He is on vacation so he got in Wednesday morning and I immediately went to pick him up and bring him to the club with me. It was basically a really lower class version of a Country Club in the states. We then had a really delicious $1.25 each homemade dinner that consisted of dried mushrooms that were rehydrated with $1 white wine, sauteed chopped onions and garlic, rice and some vegetable stock and butter as well as some spices. It was delicious, filling, and SUPER CHEAP. He and I also spent most of yesterday together where I brought him to the Stakeholder's Gala for AIESEC and then we went to a bar for the after party and since it was Thursday, almost all of the AIESEC people went home around 12:30AM and we went out to a gay dance club which turned out to be prettty fun. Today I am just packing and attempting to get my room in order so that I can go out two final times tonight and tomorrow night.

Uruguay Recap

Howdy folks. So last night I got back from 7 nights and 8 full days of traveling throughout Uruguay, the very small country directly across the Rio de la Plata from Argentina (it's to the northeast, more or less). In order to get there, last Saturday my friend Taylor and I took a boat at 9:00AM across the river to a city called Colonia de Sacramento. The trip took three hours and it was a beautiful and sunny morning on the deck of the boat. After a really laid back questioning at Uruguayan customs (the man literally just asked us why we were coming there and we said vacation and that was that) we hopped on a bus and within 15 minutes we were on our way to Montevideo. I have always wanted to go to Montevideo, ever since junior high school Spanish class where you are forced to learn all of the countries in South America, be able to locate them on a map, and identify their capitals. I'm not too sure why but I think I always thought the name was cool because it sounds like the word 'video'. After about 2.5 hours on that bus we got into the bus terminal (3 cruces, or three crosses) in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. The whole bus terminal complex is also a shopping mall and after we bought our bus tickets to continue on to Punta del Diablo that evening we had a two hour layover so we went to the food court and almost jumped out of our skins when we saw the prices at McDonalds. A big mac meal was about 155 pesos Uruguayos, which translates into about (155/20 = $8 US), so still expensive but not as expensive as it appeared to us. We have gotten used to the Argentine peso exchange rate (approximately 4pesos = $1 US) so when we got to Uruguay with Argentine money it was confusing. The exchange rate is about 20 pesos to $1US but if you are paying in Argentine pesos its about 4.5 uruguayos to 1 argentine peso. Moving on to Punta del Diablo.



The view of Buenos Aires as we were pulling out of port.



This is a picture of the beach and how it looked just about all weekend in Punta del Diablo.



Here I am enjoying the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Although the water was surprisingly swim-able and enjoyable.

It was an almost 5 hour bus ride from Montevideo to Punta del Diablo but it was definitely worth it. The town is right along the coast, not far south of Brazil, and it is beautiful! We ended up meeting some really cool people there, seeing a baby seal hanging out on the rocks when we went for an evening stroll, enjoying 1 full day without electricity when the power went out and staying four nights instead of three. We didn't get in Saturday night until after 11PM so we were pretty tired from traveling all day when we did finally get there and spent the first night just heading to bed early rather than taking a nighttime stroll along the beach. We stayed in the hostel (El Diablo Tranquilo, Playa Suites) that I talked about in my last blog post. We ate some great seafood, we hung out on the beach in the sun, and we played with the sea anemones that we all over the beach. There were blue ones and really small scarlet red ones. We kept cracking open mussels and feeding them to the anemones, which was reallllly fun. After four days in Punta del Diablo we decided to head back to Montevideo so early Wednesday morning we hopped on another bus and spent the afternoon/evening and 1 night in Montevideo. Taylor and I booked rooms in a 6 bed room at a hostel but it was such a slow night that we ended up being the only two in our room.



The view of the Montevideo skyline in the background.

We woke up on Thursday and realized that it was Thanksgiving, packed up our stuff, and headed back to Colonia de Sacramento where we met up with our program for our official Thanksgiving celebration. We ate at our program directors bed and breakfast that was a palatial estate. He has a lemon orchard, a pool and is about a ten minute walk from the river beach. The water at the beach was amazing, you could walk out hundreds of yards and have it still be waist deep so the swimming was great, especially for just hanging out and tossing around a football.



Sitting on the deck at my program director's bed and breakfast with Taylor.

We then spent the next two nights in a nice hotel and exploring the city of Colonia which is the oldest city in Uruguay.



Here is a picture of one of the Portuguese cobbled streets. The city was fought over for many years by the Spanish and the Portuguese, due to the fact that it lies right in the disputed region of land distribution when the Americas were first settled.

We spent Thursday eating and having an evening tour of the historical part of the city, where we stayed, and then we headed back to the hotel for a good nights rest. At 8AM the next day Taylor and I got up and went around taking pictures of the city on our own before we met up with a group of friends and took a bus to the beach, where we spent the rest of the afternoon.



After an amazing dinner with our program and getting up early a second day, Taylor and I decided to rent a go-kart/bugy type deal and cruise around the city. We ended up actually leaving Colonia because we were going on the highway but we didnt quite realize until we re-entered the city and saw the welcome sign. It was a fun experience to say the least.



On Saturday evening around 7PM we headed back to the boat terminal and struck out for Buenos Aires once more, after a long week of the intense Uruguay sun and relaxation. Now I have 1 final this Wednesday and then I am on SUMMER VACATION for a little over 3 months!!! I will definitely be keeping you all updated as I travel through Colombia, hopefully Venezuela, Ecuador and the Galapagos, Peru this summer (South American summer) and potentially Brazil, Chile and Bolivia next semester.

If you want to see more of my photos from my trip I put up two Facebook albums and the links to them are:
(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067983&id=1280460131) for the first album and (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067981&id=1280460131) for the second album. I hope you enjoy them!

VACAY!

A big hello to all of my avid blog followers, I know I have caused you many frowns in the past few weeks, every time you came to my page and there was NOTHING NEW TO READ! You have had to give up stalking me and my wonderful life and living vicariously through me and start living your own lives, but alas, I have decided to resume my blogging. The period of final papers and final exams has wound down, leaving me with 1 paper, 6 pages in length and 2 weeks to write it. Hence I have no excuse not to update my blog.

Tomorrow morning at 9:30AM Argentina time (6:30AM Midwestern time) I will be embarking on a grand adventure. I am heading to Uruguay for a week. Tomorrow (Saturday) I will arrive by boat in Colonia, Uruguay around 1PM and from there I will head directly to Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay) on a bus. Once in Montevideo my friend Taylor (from upstate New York) and I will need to buy bus tickets to take us further into Uruguay. Our final destination for Saturday night is Punta del Diablo, a beach town along the northeastern coast of Uruguay where there is a hostel run by UW-Madison grads. The translation of the name of the hostel is "The Tranquil Devil: Beach Suites" so it should be a great couple days. We plan on staying there and sunning ourselves until about Tuesday morning, when we will transfer to Cabo Polonio, another beach town about 15km away. You have to enter Cabo Polonio in a horse drawn carriage or on a 4wheeler, you can't use a car to enter the area.



This is a picture of the eastern coast of Uruguay. You can see Punta del Diablo and Cabo Polonio on this map. Look up a world map if you don't know where this country is folks (sigh).



Alright, I included a full map of Uruguay, (note that Punta del Diablo and Cabo Polonio are not marked on this map) but here you can see where Colonia and Montevideo are in relation to the other places I will be staying.

I am pretty stoked for all of this beach time, even though the weather forecast is saying it'll be between 75 and 82 all week, I still think it will be great to relax on the beach, read some books, and sip some piña coladas. After spending Tuesday day and night in Cabo Polonio Taylor and I are planning on heading back to Montevideo for Wednesday day and night. We planned this itinerary because we then have a Thanksgiving celebration in Colonia, Uruguay with our program that commences around 1:30PM Thursday. We will be in Colonia from Thursday morning until Saturday night, when we will return to Buenos Aires by boat.

Too bad none of you will be here for Thanksgiving because we are allowed to bring guests from the United States to Colonia with us FOR FREE!!!!!!!!! (You would have only had to pay for your boat passage which is ~$50 round trip). Also, Taylor has an 8GB memory card for the Canon camera that she had until recently but that got stolen. I am going to buy the memory card from her tomorrow morning, so expect LOTS of photos!!


Love you all <3 Julia

So I kind of stopped writing in my blog, unintentionally. But I did just upload a lot of photos to facebook!

(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066746&id=1280460131) This first album is called 'Argentina lately' and should give you a glimpse of what I've been up to.

(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066747&id=1280460131) This second album is called 'The rest of argentina lately" and it should round it out a little more.

Enjoy :)

1 Week in Buenos Aires

Howdy Folks-

So, I last updated you all when I was just getting back from Oktoberfest in Villa General Belgrano, in the province of Córdoba. That was about a week and a half ago, so I'll try to fill in all of the details. Let's just throw it out there that I haven't had a solid 8 hours of sleep any single night since before Oktoberfest, so my life has been pretty chalk-full of great things to do and it's likely I'll accidentally leave a few out.

The 12th-15th of October I spent writing two papers and doing all of the work that I did NOT do while I was drinking beer in Córdoba (understandable, right?) It was mostly school work and staying up late to get things done at the very last minute but it all turned out just fine. A few weeks ago I started volunteering in a place called Hogar de abuelos, which translates to Grandparents Home, and its been pretty fun going there.

The weekend after getting back from Córdoba we did another dinner with our friends from Germany on the Friday night and then I went home rather than going out because I had an early morning obligation. Saturday morning I had an inauguration at 930AM for AIESEC, a student run organization that sets up and sends young adults on paid international internships that can last 6 weeks-18 months. I recently joined the Buenos Aires chapter and everyone in the group is amazing. I spent all Saturday morning with them and then from 2-4PM we had our local committee meeting, so everyone in AIESEC Buenos AIres was there. Afterwards I went to La Plata to hang out with my friends that I had made the weekend before when we were camping in Córdoba. We all met up at Manu, one of the Argentine girl's houses and then we cooked an asado (the BBQ thing) and I learned the basics. Afterwards we headed to a house party that was different from anything I had ever been to before and around 6AM we got back to Marcos's house and the roosters were crowing us to sleep. The first of the two pictures that I've included are of my with Seba, an Argentine friend, the one who taught me how to grill a proper Argentine asado. The second picture is also from Manu's house and its just the majority of the group sitting around the dinner table.




(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1280460131&aid=2064289) here is the album of photos from the night.

Sunday of that same weekend was Mother's Day in Argentina so we had brunch with Marcos's Mom and Dad and bought her some lovely lillies and then I had to head back to Buenos Aires becaues I had another AIESEC meeting at 6PM. I did get there just about on time, but it made for a long weekend. Monday morning I went kayaking in El Tigre, a city about 40 minutes north of Buenos Aires whereas La Plata is about 45 minutes south of Buenos Aires. Then commenced my finals weel. Tuesday I had an oral final and Wednesday I had some work to turn in and then Thursday I was scheduled to have a final. It ended up getting cancelled due to a demonstration that was happening outside the school and it being a night class so the other Americans and I went to an American bar and met some crazy English people.

Friday was my friend Rachael's birthday (22, on the 22nd = her GOLDEN birthday) so we went out to lunch in the afternoon, headed to a salon where we paid for her to get her nails done, I got my hair cut, and Julie dyed her hair. We then went back to my apartment, cooked a delicious frozen pizza for dinner, and then started our night. The last picture I posted is from about 6AM when we left the club this morning and the sun had already risen and it was broad daylight.


I clearly started writing this and left it for two days before I decided to finish it, so I'll polish it off now that it's Monday and not Saturday anymore. Saturday was a day for relaxing and then I had a meeting at 8PM followed by a dinner at 10PM with everyone in AIESEC, the organization I joined. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met, and they come from all over the world. For example I have already been offered housing in Ecuador and Colombia when I go there, even though I probably won't need it in either place. Sunday I went to the rose garden where they have a least a hundred varieties of roses. It is amazing and I will put up an album of photos from all of this in a few days. Have a great day folks!

Córdoba = Oktoberfest

This past weekend I had another vacation within my year long vacation and let me tell you, it was GREAT. On Thursday night Julie and I hopped on a bus to Villa General Belgrano, a city in the province of Córdoba. The main attraction of the weekend was the conclusion of Oktoberfest 2010. The one in Argentina claims to be the second largest in the world, and there were definitely a lot of people there, but not an insanely large amount of people like I had expected. The bus ride was about 10 hours so we got in around 9AM on Friday morning and headed over to the campsite to meet up with Marcos, an Argentine friend. Marcos and Rachael, another girl from Madison, did a study abroad together in Germany during high school and he was the one who organized our whole trip and had the tent all set up for us when we arrived.

We spent Friday just hanging out on the beach, getting to know Marcos a little and meeting some of the really drunk guys who had been pregmaing for Oktoberfest all morning. It was a fun day and we ended up just hanging out with some new friends we made (a group of about 10 people from the province of Buenos Aires and California) rather than heading into town with a $12.50 (US dollars) taxi ride and attending the beer festival. They were all really cool and we all have plans to get together on Saturday night for an asado (basically a BBQ with freshly butchered meats) at Marcos's house in La Plata. It's exciting to have ARgentine friends!!! The only bad thing about Friday night was that it was REALLY QUITE COLD in the tent and Julie Marcos and I all didn't really sleep too much. I woke up every hour or two and all I could think of was how nice it was going to be once the sun came out during the day and I could lay out on the beach again and take a nap, but I survived, so no harm done.

Saturday morning we did some more exploring of the river, which was gorgeous. It looked like something out of a national park and it was littered with boulders and great for clambering around. We hung out with our friends again, had an asado that one of the boys prepared for lunch and then cleaned up and headed to the beer park. It was quite an experience and I will just say that I was really glad to have an Argentine man with me when the guys got a little aggressive. Everyone had to buy their own bier steins, which are just gigantic mugs for drinking beer and then go to a stand to buy tickets to fill up your mug with fancy beer. We got back to our campsite around 4:45AM so we missed the coldest hours of the night and we spent a few good hours before we went home hanging out with a random friend we met at Oktoberfest who had graduated from MADISON!!!!

Sunday was more of the same, hanging out at the river and then having a little campground fiesta with our new friends. They all grilled up hamburgers but Rachael, Julie and I went into town to explore and to go to a German restauraunt, THe city of Villa General Belgrano is known for being like a small German city so we thought we should give the cuisine a try. It was delicious and although the Argentines and Marcos went out dancing until 6:30AM we headed back to get a few hours of sleep in before we got up to take our bus back to the city. We had a ~12 hour bus ride back into the city because of the traffic of everyone getting back from the long weekend and last night I wrote a 5 page final paper for one of my literature classes so I only got 4 hours of sleep and am currently watching a movie for my afternoon class.

Two of my classes will be over with by next Thursday so I'm pretty excited about that, even if it means more work right meow. I need to make it through next THursday and it will be smooth sailing as my 3 remaining classes trail off. Two will end in the third week of November and the final class will end on December 1st. I am back in Buenos Aires for the week but a little busy, so I hope you enjoy my photos, which I put up on Facebook and are quite silly, and are all having a great time wherever you are in the world!

(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2063746&id=1280460131) the link to my photos.

Rosario

On Friday night I went to some German friends' apartment and we cooked an amazing dinner. They made homemade crepes which we stuffed like enchiladas with a homemade spinach and ricotta cheese stuffing and then we topped them off with a homemade redsauce and smothered everything in cheese and baked it in the oven. The German girls, Julia Nini and Mona cooked with me, Rachael and Julie, so there were a lot of 'Jules' around. We were joined by some German guy friends as well as some Argentine guy friends and we ended up going to a party hosted by some French girls, where there were even more international people, which was a really fun crowd to hang out with. I went home rather early, a little after 2:30 though, because I had to get up at 7 to pack to go on my trip to ROSARIO!!!! early Saturday morning.

I just got back from a vacation with my program, one of the two trips that we have already paid for with our program fees, and it was to Rosario, the second largest city in Argentina (~1 million in habitants). The city is a 4 hour bus ride outside of Buenos Aires in a neighboring province, so we met up around 8:30AM Saturday morning and headed out. Once we got there the weather was beautiful and we had a few hours of free time to walk around the city before we took a bus tour. We then had a little break before dinner so Julie, Rachael and I bought a bottle of wine and some strawberries, kiwis and pears and hung out in their room under the covers relaxing and watched Mama Mia on our flatscreen TV. It was pretty great but we did motivate ourselves to make it out to the dinner we got paid for by our program.

The appetizer was sweet bread (lymph nodes for those of you who do not know) which are a very delicious part of the cow. They were grilled to perfection and served on top of grilled tomatoes with a small salad and a delicious dressing. The second course/main dish was lomo, a really good cut of steak, to me it seems similar to a filet mignon. It was smothered in mushrooms and layed on top of a bed of cooked carrots and it was also amazing. Finally, to top it all off, we had a delicious lemon ice cream/custard/cake dessert. In fact, we ate so much that Rachael and I opted to do the 25 minute walk home rather than take a taxi, in order to work off at least a few of the calories and to let our food settle in before we went to bed. Our hotel rooms each had 2 double beds (one for each person) and were very luxurious, which was a nice change from the tiny little room I have in my host families apartment, and my tiny little twin bed. I, unlike the majority of the kids in my program, went to bed early and had a lovely nights sleep rather than heading out to the notorious Rosario nightlife.

Sunday was more of the same, exploring the city and then doing a boat tour until we headed back to Buenos Aires around 5:30PM.

Don't expect me to write for a while since I am currently swamped with school work. For next Tuesday I need to write a 5 page, 1.5 spaced final paper which I will have to orally defend the following week. I also have to study for the questions they will ask me about the entirety of my literature course during my oral defense of my paper. For next Tuesday I also need to read some Borges and watch a movie for a separate literature class at a different university. For next Wednesday I have to do 2 readings, go to the theatre to watch an assigned movie, and write a critique of a book. For next Thursday I have to make an outline of a final paper that is to be 10 pages long as well as prepare for a review for my history final the following week. Now, this would all be a normal academic week in Madison around midterms/finals time, but lets remember that I thought I was on vacation here. So I planned a trip, leaving tomorrow night after class, to Córdoba. Córdoba is a western province of Argentina, about 8 hours away from the city, and they host the second largest Oktoberfest in the world. I will be camping and attending a beer festival all weekend, not exactly conducive to hard core studying. I should be back in town Monday night around 7PM so hopefully I will have time between now and Thursday and between Monday evening and Tuesday morning to cram everything in.

Chau chau for now folks, Besos!! (kisses)

oh yeah, and here is the link to my new album of photos on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062831&id=1280460131)

Responsibilities

I know, I know, I've been slacking on the blog keeping front. Last time I wrote on here was going on 3 weeks ago I think, so I'll just hit the highlights of what's been going on since I got back from Iguazú. I still have classes every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday although I'm almost done with two of them (my History class on Thursday nights and one of my Literature classes early Tuesday mornings end in October). I've stayed in the city since getting back from Iguazú and I have been having a jolly good time. This past week I began volunteering at a nursing home type place, but it's more of a shelter where adults 60+ can go from 8am-4pm to get free meals and be indoors as well as to have company and be treated as equals. A lot of the adults (they call them grandparents) who come in live on the street or live by themselves and are looking for companionship. All I did while I was there was meeteveryone and eat lunch with them, which was fun because one of the old guys has already startedteaching me slang.

As for filling out my light schedule, I'veadded a few more things. Volunteering will take up a few hours on Thursday mornings and soccer with my host sister and her friends will take up a few hours on Tuesday nights. In addition to both of those, I just joined a student/young adult organization called AIESEC. The whole point of the organization is to set motivated young people (like myself) up with international internships, the majority of which are paid. They can range from 6 weeks to 18 months and there are over 5,000 corporations world-wide that hold spots specifically for interns from AIESEC. My plan is to just be a member for now and help with the administrative side of things while I am here in Buenos Aires and then to stay a member when I return to Madison (Madison has a chapter) and do an internship after I graduate. Seems prettty ideal to me.

.

My friend Julie, my host mom Sara, yo, and my friend Rachael. Also the stuffed peppers.

My host nephew Salvador and his mom, my host sister Candelaria.

My host sister Florencia with her boyfriend Ale.

Hmm, lets jump to my host family. I don't know if I ever detailed before but I have three host sisters, Candelaria who has a son Salvador who is just about to turn 14, Florencia who has a daughter Catalina who is 16, and Soledad - the one I'm playing soccer with. I also have a host brother, Guillermo, the youngest of the 4 (he's 30) and he has not been home for a little over a month. He went on a 15 day vacation with his dad to Spain and decided to stay a little longer and go to England, since he had lived there for a year and a half a while ago. Worst possible situation, he got realllly sick with an intestinal bacteria and spent over a week in the hospital in England. He just got home this morning and he gave me a really cool sports watch that looks like a bracelet, but is just all around cool. Anyway, he seems to be pretty much all better, just a little skinnier.

Last Saturday, or maybe the Saturday before, about two weeks ago, I cooked dinner for me whole host family (minus Guillermo who was in the hospital in London). I made baked bell peppers stuffed with wild rice that I brought from MN, ground beef, cheese, tomatoes, onions, and they were delicious! I still have a few in the freezer that I can heat up if I ever get the urge for a stuffed pepper.

Sorry guys but I don't have the motivation to write any more at the moment, I didn't sleep too much last night!

Cataratas de Iguazú

I finally took my first real vacation in Argentina (I guess you could technically classify it as a vacation within a vacation.... since my school isn't too serious here). On Thursday afternoon at 7PM I took a bus from Buenos Aires up north to Puerto de Iguazú, in the province of Misiones (the little point between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay) with two girlfriends from Madison, Rachael and Julie, and Brady, also from Madison. We have formed a pretty tightly knit Madison posse. The main attraction there is the huge waterfalls, las cataratas de Iguazú, but there are a lot of other cool things to do as well. We arrived Friday around noon after an 18 hour bus ride with a dinner service and breakfast as well. The hostel that we stayed in (Marcopolo Inn) was really cool and I'll get back to that later.

We arranged an outing through our hostel on Friday afternoon so we all changed our clothes and hopped on a jungle truck. We rode into the jungle and entered into some government/ militarily controlled land through the residential area of Iguazú and up to a path where we got out of the truck and started hiking. The hike was not very strenuous but we made it to the area where they had a zip-line that was 3 segments long. We went zip-lining (my first time ever) and then we kept hiking, back to the truck and we rode to a small waterfall, which we again had to hike through the jungle a little to get to. Once we were there (we had our harnesses on still from zip-lining) we started taking turns rappelling down the waterfall. It was less nerve-racking than the zip-lining but I got 100% drenched. And then we hiked out and took the truck back to hostel and relaxed for the rest of the day.

-standing upstream from the waterfall that

we rappelled down

- just starting my descent. I ended up on that

platform below.

Back to the hostel... we decided to go to the dinner they were hosting, an asado (a grill-out/ bbq, more or less) which consisted of a really huge salad, some rolls, a glass of red wine, chorizo, chicken, and steak slices. It was all delicious but they incredibly over-salted the meat (other than the chorizo). We ended up becoming friends with about 7 germans who were staying at the same hostel and who happen to go to one of the universities in Buenos Aires as exchange students that we all take classes at. It was really fun to hang out with them, and we ended up doing things with them all weekend and seeing them all over Iguazú. We also became friends with two 30 year olds from England, one who is am American citizen but lives and works in England and the other whojust recently quit his job as a lawyer after 5 years at his firm and is doing a 1 year world tour. He is in Buenos Aires now for 1 week of touristy sight seeing with his friend and then 2 weeks of Spanish class, since he spoke absolutely no Spanish. We promised we'd hang out with him and take him out tosee the town once we got back from the falls. Rob and Paul were their names.

We hit the hay pretty early on Friday and got up at 7:30AM on Saturday, so that we could have a full day in the national park at the waterfalls. We took a shuttle there and arrived a little after 9AM, when the park opens. The biggest disappointment was that if we had brought our student ID's we could have gotten into the park for 25 pesos (about $6.25) instead of 85 pesos (about $21.25). Oh well, we now know for every other time we travel that bringing your student ID with you is ESSENTIAL for discounts. We had all left them at our respective homes in an attempt to not lose them, bummer. I can't even describe to you how amazing the waterfalls were. You will just have to look at my photos and try to imagine how much better it was in person. See facebook photo album link below, this time you should only have to click on it and log into your facebook and it will bring you straight to the page.

(http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=2060651&id=1280460131&ref=mf)

The most eventful thing that happened at the park was during lunch. We all bought over-priced sandwiches, because that's the only type of food you can get in a national park, and a koati (look the animal up online) STOLE the top half of Julie's sandwich! Right off the table, they were definitely not people shy.

a view from the isla de san martin, so great!!

-a view from the Devil's Throat,

pretty thunderous falls!

-another view from la isla de san

martin, probably where they filmed

Avatar/got the idea.

We literally spent all day Saturday at the park and we were all pretty wiped from hiking around the trails and everything by the time we got back to the hostel that evening. In estimation I think we were at the park for 7 or 8 hours, so if you think about the cost, a little less than $3 per hour isn't too bad in a place THAT BEAUTIFUL! Saturday night consisted of a hamburger and french fries across the street from our hostel and then just hanging out for about an hour before we all passed-out from exhaustion.

Sunday saw us up early once again, but without strenuous obligations. We paid for our hostel and our Friday excursion and then just bummed around all morning after our 10AM check out until 2PM when we went horseback riding through the jungle. We went with 2 of the German girls, Nora and Jasmine, and their New Yorker friend Joanna. We rode for 2 hours and stopped in a Guaraní village (the indigenous people of the region) where we bought jewelry made out of dried seeds (I felt pretty obligated after invading their lives in such a gringa manner) and saw a pineapple, in the flesh, still attached to the plant!!!! We also learned that for the past 3-4 year television has been severely altering the lives of the Guaraní and that they are a nomadic people who slash and burn the rain forest and move around every year or two.

We left on Sunday evening at 7PM and had a wonderful dinner which consisted of:

-a fruit roll up style jam and cheese (which I will call jamón y queso from now on) with an olive on the end of the little cocktail sword stabbed through it

-a bread roll accompanied by jamón flavored spreadable queso

-a cold slice of meatloaf with egg and olive cooked into the middle

-mashed potatoes with a breaded, very thin steak on top (known here as a milanesa) and to top that off, jamón covered with melted queso and little olive slices

-a muffin with dulce de leche and an overly merischinoed cherry on top

Now I know the Argentines LOVE their freakin' jamón y queso, but tell me that meal is not going a WEE bit overboard? It was okay though because the meal was accompanied by a tiny glass of red wine that we had to basically chug so as to not spill it all over all of our possessions and laps and was followed by a glass of champagne. We got back into Buenos Aires at 12:30PM today, after 18.5 hours on the bus, and now I'm not doing homework to tell you all about it.

Once again, (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=2060651&id=1280460131&ref=mf) is the link for my facebook photo album, if you are interested in seeing some of the most amazing photos of your LIVES!

VIVA ARGENTINA!

So folks, Argentina beat Spain 4-1 today in the friendly soccer match that they played pretty darn close to my apartment. It was awesome being there but my only regret is that some of my favorite and most anticipated Spain players WERE NOT THERE! I know that players like Messi (10 for Argentina, their best player, the man on my jersey, and the guy who scored 2 of our 4 goals today) who play for both Barcelona (a club team in the European league) and their national team (Spain or Argentina) had to travel A LOT in the past few weeks to get to all of the games [Mexico, Ireland, around Europe, Argentina] so I guess it's forgivable that they didn't make it. NOT NOT NOT!

Bitter that I didn't see Puyol in action. Mad it was such a blow out. The field was REALLY short (it was in the River stadium, an Argentine club team). Also, I just expected more out of the World Cup Winners (Spain). Oh well, it was still a great experience. I'm headed to las cataratas de Iguazú on Thursday evening. It's an 19ish hour bus ride to the province of Misiones, which borders Brazil and Uruguay. Las cataratas = the waterfalls, there are about 270 separate falls and it's right on the border of Brazil. I'll take a million photos (more or less) and then post them when I get back, but for now I have pictures for you guys from my trip to El Tigre, from around Buenos Aires when I go on walks, and from the Japanese Gardens. Not to mention the soccer game.

The link is....

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2057983&id=1280460131&ref=mf

So enjoy folks!

some photos, finally folks

Hanging out with Indiana Jones at one of the local boliches called Sahara, la Casa Rosada (the pink house - the equivalent of the white house here), some candy covered kumquats and other delicious fruit treats, an old theatre that has been converted into a massive bookstore/cafe when I discovered today that I really enjoy studying, my B-E-A-UTIFUL number 10 MESSI jersey, and the culprit wine that exploded all over my bedroom. (HINT: If you'd like to see the photos in a bigger format, just click on the individual images and they will enlarge in a new window.)

ARGENTINA VS SPAIN (previa)

Previa means preview, for those of you who didn't know. It can also mean pregame, if you are using it in the context of going out. If you don't understand what I mean by that, do not be troubled, its probably just a generational thing. ARGENTINA VS SPAIN (soccer game) this TUESDAY!! Guess who just picked up their tickets? Hint : She writes this blog. That's right folks, I just spent two and a half hours waiting in line, outdoors, on a drizzly day to pick up the soccer tickets that I had already bought online. Insanity. I guess it's just how they roll in this country. After taking breaks for food with my friend Julie, who waited in line with me since she had bought her own groups tickets on her credit card, I feel like I survived a truly Argentine experience. I waited in line for half an hour before Julie got there, and then as soon as she did, she held our spot while I went to buy alfajors (pronounced elf-ah-whores), which are delicious dulce de leche, chocolate, cookie type things that are going to make me SUPER DUPER FAT, and then a few hours later she went and bought french fries at McDonalds, which we split. Not the most healthy lunch but we needed to keep our energy up in the freezing cold line.

As soon as we were done picking up our tickets we headed across the street and I bought a gorgeous, official, 2009 Argentina national team jersey and had the number 10 and Messi's name printed on the front and back. ITS AWESOME, almost as awesome as being able to go to this game, but not quite as awesome. The good thing about it is that I can take it with me as a nice little reminder of how much I love this country. It took half an hour for the name to get printed on the jersey, so I went back across the street and went into the IFSA office. (IFSA, Institute for Study Abroad, is the program that I am here with) They have computers that students can use and classrooms where we can study, so I just hung out and used the computer for about 20 minutes before I went back to pick up my gorgeous jersey.

This is all kind of stupid because I have one of the Ticketex windows (the equivalent of Ticketmaster for Argentina) right next door to my building. You can pick up your soccer tickets at any of the Ticketex windows, and when I got home, the line for the one next door to me was, oh, about half as long. STUPID. At least I can be happy with the fact that I got in line at the window by the IFSA office when I did because when I was done picking up my tickets the line had just about doubled and was going around the corner of the block (a full block long line). Sucks even worse to be one of those people.

I'll give you some more photos and an update after I go to the game!!

oh Dios mio

Where to start. I think this post is just going to be a recap of the ridiculous night I had last night (before dinner).

To set the scene, my host brother, Guillermo (30) is out of town and he is the proud owner of our 6 year old border collie, Shiva. By out of town I mean he is in SPAIN with his Dad (no big deal) for 15 days, and that leaves Shiva alone at the house with me and Sara. Sara is truly Argentine and doesn't like going out of the house without 5 sweaters/jackets on - so I offered to pitch in on bringing Shiva out. We live on the 8th floor of our building and have no balcony, so there is no alternative for her to go to the bathroom. We have to bring her outside and take her on a walk.

Last night around 7 I asked Sara if I could have a friend over before she and I (my friend from Madison and I) went out to dinner at 10PM, and she said yeah, of course! Do you want to walk Shiva over to meet up with your friend and then you can both walk back here together? So that's what I did, it's only a 15 minute walk or so to get to my friends apartment. I thought it seemed like an awesome plan because what I miss most about Madison and Minnesota is being able to have friends over, not for any specific reason, just to hang out in a relaxed setting like home. Let me tell you, things can get awkward prettty quickly.

Yesterday I had gone on a walk so that I didn't sit in my room doing homework ALL day, and I ended up in a grocery store, just looking for some basics, and walked out with 2 bottles of Santa Julia Malbach (red wine). It was Santa Julia brand, I had to buy it, and I had been looking to buy a bottle of wine for my host sister to congratulate her on getting tenure at her job anyway. So 1 bottle went to her as a present and the other stayed in my room, just asking for us to drink it when my friend came over. Now Sara had given me permission to have a friend over, but I'm not really sure that extends to drinking wine clandestinely in my bedroom. Either way, we thought it wouldn't do any harm, so we (mostly I) tried to use the bottle opener I found in the kitchen and failed miserably. The cork was all shredded up and eventually ended up inside the bottle, with little chunks floating everywhere.

And the story would be all great and funny if those were all of the details, but no. In the process of trying to jam the cork down into the bottle (because damnit I paid $4.50 for that wine and there was no use throwing it out) little bits of cork got strewn around my room, not a big deal. Then, when I wasn't really paying close attention, my friend somehow managed to ram the whole cork into the bottle. Awesome, SUCCESS! NO NO NO. Red wine sprayed EVERYWHERE in my room, it was on 3 of 4 walls if that gives you an idea. 3 of 4 WHITE walls, 1 brand new tan colored shirt I was wearing, my freshly changed white bed sheets, a huge puddle on one of my blankets, and all over another white Urban Outfitters t-shirt as well as my white North Face fleece. (Potentially hundreds of dollars worth of clothing/bedding ruined.)

I managed to wipe the walls off, put my shirts under some cold water and find them in decent condition this morning, and salvage 2/3 of my homework/ books that got sprayed. The sheets are the most complicated matter, as I poured dish soap on the stain on my blanket and let it sit overnight and am bringing it to a laundromat today. There is no inconspicuous way to take off my sheets and get them washed. They, however, are not too badly marked. Needless to say, I have left my mark on this bedroom, and I will never clandestinely drink wine in here again.

On the up-side, the wine was great (yes, we drank some of it after all of that hard work to get it open). I am currently wiping little wine splatters off of my keyboard as I type this, and hoping that this doesn't lead to an extremely awkward moment with my host mom, as I haven't seen her yet today and she came into my room last night and left me a little note on my desk asking about what time I took Shiva out.

That's it for now.

1 Vacation Down, Many To Go

So it's Saturday night and I'm just taking a little rest, hanging out in my bedroom. On Friday morning Julie, Rachael, Brady and I all took the train to El Tigre, a city/suburb of Buenos Aires. It was a pretty expensive train ride, 2.7o pesos round trip. (We were expecting to pay at least 40 pesos each way, not realizing that people who live in El Tigre often work in Buenos Aires and take the train to work every day so it makes sense that it only costs ~75 cents US round trip.) It was awesome! We got there Friday afternoon (its a 40 minute bus ride and when I say we left in the morning I mean we let around 2PM, since we had all gone out until ~6AM the night before). We spent Friday dropping our stuff off at a gorgeous hostel, that cost $15 a night and then walking around and ending up at the Yerba Mate museum.

For those of you who are uninitiated, Yerba Mate is a type of tea that is very very popular in Argentina, in the rural country regions more so than in the capital. At the museum we saw a huge collection of historical bags for the loose tea, historical mates (the name for the cups they drink it out of) and historical straws. We also had a demonstration on how to brew and drink the tea - everyone who was on the tour (about 10 people) then got the chance to share a drink out of the same mate. (mate is pronounced as mah-tae, not may-te as in friend) The culture that surrounds mate is almost more important than the actual tea, which is really caffeinated, and a lot of people drink instead of coffee. You drink the tea by filling your small mate about 3/4 full of herbs, then tapping the side until the herbs sit at a 45 degree angle. Once you are situated, you insert your straw and then pour water over half of the leaves - avoiding the straw so it doesn't get hot and leaving some leaves dry so air can circulate. The water should be 80 degrees Celsius, no hotter, and maybe 5 degrees colder. AKA NOT BOILING, although in some places they do drink it with boiling water. There is a small amount of water in the cup because the cup is pretty small, typically, and once you finish one round of water you pass the mate on to the next person and they re-fill it and drink 1 cup. It's a very social tradition and its an acquired taste - I bought a bag of mint flavored mate for $1 US and they also gave us a free bag after we left the museum. I am convinced that I need to get accustomed while I am here.

After we left the museum we went grocery shopping and got wonderfully fresh red and green bell peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, avocados, steak, chicken and pita bread. We then headed back to our hostel and made DELICIOUS fajitas. Never have I ever enjoyed cooking a meal so much as I did last night. It was amazing to be able to relax with friends and cook and then enjoy a meal and not have any obligations. We made guacamole, cooked the onions, peppers and meat as fajita stuff and toasted the pita bread in oil to eat all of it on. It was just a great meal - I could probably go on and on for a long time. (All of the food we bought ended up being around $5 per person, amazingly cheap)

The hostel we stayed at was great, they had bikes for rent but we spent our time walking around and on a boat tour. (The city is situated along the river and connects to a huge delta system.) The backyard at the Hostel Tigre was beautiful and had 2 cats begging for milk. We ate a breakfast of coffee (not instant), frosted flakes, and french bread with dulce de leche out there this morning. We then went to a fruit fair, where I didn't actually see any fruit for sale... and then took a boat down the river delta system for about an hour before we got dropped off at a parilla. I don't know if I explained before, but parilla is literally the word for grill, and they always have DELICIOUS grilled meat at parillas. We were all complaining about the expensive prices before we realized that we were at a fancy restaurant, outdoors, sitting along the water, eating $20 steak meals. We had to catch the boat back to the city and then we got dulce de leche ice cream and sat along the river to watch the sunset. Once that was over and done with we hopped on the train to head back to the city.

The past week:

To jump back to the things I've skipped at this point, since I know you're all going to demand a daily account - I now have a fixed class schedule. I have "Argentina in words - Literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries" on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:10-4:40PM, "Latin American Literature 2" on Tuesday mornings from 10:30AM-12:45PM, "Literature of Latin America and Argentina" on Wednesdays from 2-4:30PM, "Argentina's Cinema of Fiction" Wednesdays from 9AM-12PM, and "History of America 1" on Thursdays from 6-9:25PM.

Pretty awesome, I know. Classes Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I have a 4 day weekend EVERY weekend - you should ALL be jealous of that. I can't think of anything else really awesome to report, other than that I am falling in love with this city. On Thursday night I went to a bar to meet up with some girlfriends where it's pretty American and you can play beer pong - which was GREAT! Then we went with some Argentine guys these girls knew so that we could get into a dance club for free, around 1:30AM - we got VIP bracelets for free. Pretty wicked. To sum this story up, as it's getting rambly and repetitive, I had an amazing time dancing until 6 in the morning, and went home as the club was thinning out, rather than out of exhaustion - I'm becoming a PORTEÑA.

GOTTA GO OUT, now that its 12:00AM, its porteña time!

Nearing a Month (time flies)

Hola a todos-

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048302&id=1280460131&ref=mf

Thought I'd post the link to my new photo album on here, so that you all can get a taste for what I've been getting into the past few weeks.

I went to the zoo today and I have to go back with a camera, because it's too bizarre to try and explain. There were about 250 muskrats just wandering around as well as 500 little rabbit/deer thingers and a buncha species of ducks. Wait until I can take photos - because I really CANNOT explain it.

Dunno why I'm awake, it's 1:44AM and I'm just bumming around in my room. May have something to do with the fact that I went out until after 4AM last night, 2:30AM the night before and 5:00AM Thursday, so I am accustomed to staying up late.

I'll post a FULL new post tomorrow after I get some winks. i love cats and trees.

Friday the 13th

I survived a second week of class and the only school updates are that:

1. I am either going to take a second history class or a political science class, the international political relations of latin america.

2. I made some friends in my history of America 1 class, and one of them lives a few blocks away from me, and he got my number. We took the subte home from class together and then we made plans to hang out next week after class and he said he'd let me know if he did anything really cool this weekend. You gotta know that porteños are all about making plans and not following through on them, so we'll see what happens.

Updates about my life... hmm..

Last night was Thursday (obviously) and I went out to a bar called "The Spot" with my friend Brady, another Madison kid. It's owned by a guy from Boston and everyone who works there speaks english, so that was annoying when we got there around 12:30. There were a whole bunch of kids from our program hanging around because Thursdays are spicy wing night (1 peso per wing, about 25 cents) and its the only place here I've actually found spicy food. By about 2:30 all of the annoying Americans filed out and porteños started to arrive and Brady and I ended up having a really fun night just hanging out with random new Argentine friends. At the end of the night we had a hilarious conversation outside the bar with an English guy who was looking for a lighter. Can you say drunk!

This coming week two other girls from Madison and I are going to plan some type of trip for either the coming weekend or the one after. We'll take an omnibus (the cama [bed] style ones lay down flat, serve you wine and other refreshments, dinner, breakfast and have dvd players). Considering we'll probably be on the bus overnight and for at least ~10 hours its definitely worth it to pay 600 pesos to take the cama bus over the semi-cama, where you can't lay all the way flat. The destination is still under discussion - so an update will come once we've made set plans.

Current options include wine country (Mendoza) or the waterfalls on the border of Brazil (Iguazú) or just somewhere in the center of the country so we can get out of the city. It cracks me up that they serve you wine and also let you bring your own on the buses because there is a clause in the ticket sale that says intoxicated passengers are not allowed on the bus. So I guess you are not allowed to pre-game the bus ride, but you can get as tanked as you want once you get on the bus. Wines here are AMAZING. Malbec is a wine made in Mendoza and I've had the cheapest bottle available at a cheapy restaurant to a very expensive one at my host sisters house and they've all been pretty darn good. I was never a fan of red wine but Malbec has really grown on me, and I'll make sure to get a few bottles back to the US in my suitcases next year. Maybe even send a few back with every visitor who comes.

There is a study abroad 2010 Fall kick-off tonight hosted by the Buenos Aires pub crawl, an organization run by americans. It's 15 pesos for girls to get unlimited beer from 10-11 (which is realllllly early by buenos aires standards) and then there are free give-aways all night (including a 1 year membership to the pub crawl, which happens every night in different neighborhoods). That would be a pretty awesome prize because it costs 60 pesos for a night on the pub crawl. I've realized that I need to start holding clandestine english lessons so that I can bring in a little money rather than build up debt with my parents.

Money runs through my fingers here. I have had a lot of unavoidable expenses, like buying warm weather clothing since I brought really minimal clothing with me, as well as housing expenses such as getting my papers for my residence in line and buying lunch. Also, every time I have to do a reading for a class I have to either buy my own copy of the book at a random book store in the city or go to a pre-determined copy shop and get a copy of the reading. Which is really hectic and annoying because the vast majority of the readings aren't available until a few days before they are due/a few days after they are assigned. EVERYTHING HAS TO BE BOUGHT IN CASH which is driving me insane. Since I would rather use my credit card, but it's a little risky to bring it with me when I leave the house and things are often more expensive if you don't pay with cash, and most places just flat out do no accept credit cards.

Gotta go figure out my life for Friday the 13th.