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