Iguazu

It’s been awhile since a new blog, eh? I haven’t been up to anything too incredibly interesting here in Buenos Aires, what is more interesting is my recent ventures to Iguazu Falls.

Thursday night we hopped on an overnight bus up to the province of Misiones to Puerto Iguazu. The ride was 18 hours, and I can’t complain about the bus ride much at all. Dinner, drinks, pillows and blankets provided. Okay, maybe the movie choice wasn’t the best. Aston Kutcher might not be the best actor, but I’d watch him swim around for a couple hours, so I did.

We arrived in the small town of Puerto Iguazu, flagged down the public bus to bring us out to our hostel. Did I say hostel? More like resort. This place was amazing. Big pool, great food, tons of friendly people and a nightlife. We weren’t really roughing it at any point of this trip. (By we I mean my friends Sam, Diana and they had some visitors from the states that joined us. We were 6 in total.) Saturday we spent all day in the national park. Couldn’t ask for better weather. 80 degrees and sunny. The falls were apparently ‘dry’ but I think they were still very impressive. We followed all the trails and took a boat to the island that is in the middle of it all. Had some really great views from there and rested a bit on the beach, even swam a bit. Sunday’s trip into the park was a little different. We had some serious rain. The whole day was a downpour, but we put on our raincoats and went. Thoroughly soaked, we went and saw “Devil’s Throat.” This part I guess is like the start of it all. It’s above the falls and talk about water pressure. (I’ll post some pictures.) The rain was not really an issue once your soaked and it seemed miniscule compared to the water I was looking at. Sam, Kramer and I trekked a little bit down the muddy road back to the main areas. My legs were stained orange from the clay earth, looked like a bad fake tan.

It was so great to leave the city and run away from homework for a long weekend. But now I’m back and have no where to run now, so I better just get all this work done. It’s June now….meaning about a month or so left of school, which also means finals! I’m hoping for a big trip after all the work is turned in. southern Argentina…? Brazil? Not sure yet. I’ll keep ya’ll posted.

Hope you are all enjoying summer!

Until next time…

photos

me in colonia
mario's house.
some buddies

the beach in colonia and a shot from a plaza in montevideo

Across the river to Uruguay!

I had another great weekend down here, although not in Argentina, but in Uruguay. It’s just a 3 hour boat ride across the river and then there you are, in another country all together. My first night I spent in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. For being the city with 70% of the country’s population, it appeared to be a bit of a ghost town from what I saw. I stayed in the historic part of the city, I guess that might have had something to do with it. The hostel where I spent the night was two thumbs up for sure. Friendly staff and a cool building. I met people there from all over the world, and it seems that a lot of people just decide to travel. They’ve got rough plans and go til they’re broke. That night at the hostel there was a big BBQ on the roof. About 10 of us sat around chatting, eating meat and sharing travel stories. The next day I wandered around a bit more in Montevideo, but it was Sunday so it really was a ghost town. We did find a big market in the middle of the city to wander in, but nothing out of the usual market merchandise.

I hopped a bus that evening back to Colonia, where I came in from the boat. Found another hostel, and wandered a bit there. Colonia is a much quieter, quainter and definitely smaller than Montevideo. I loved it. Again the hostel was in the historic neighborhood of the town. Cobblestone streets, tall trees lined the streets and antique lanterns lighted the way. I have decided I’m retiring in Colonia. Monday the rest of the group showed up, so I met up with about 40 students from the program. We took a short bus ride out to the house of the program director and honestly my jaw dropped. This house was incredible. Absolutely amazing. Giant gardens, pool, pond, silly dogs, vine covered house. (I’ll post some pictures.) I had another BBQ, and ate probably way too much. After lunch we walked down to the beach, proved to be a bit longer of a walk, but it was worth it. the water of course was a little brown…it is a river after all. But the beach was abandoned and practically perfect. As we walked down the street, all the neighbor’s dogs came out and followed us down there. We tried not to get in their way when they shook off from jumping in. Uruguay over all was very relaxing, and again like my beach weekend last weekend, it was nice to get out of the city and see some new stuff. I think I’ll be wandering about Buenos Aires this week with some of the people I met from the hostels, maybe sharing a maté or checking out a museum. I gotta get my city legs back…do those exist?

Anyway, besides traveling…school is going. It’s nice to only have 3 classes. I’m about halfway done with the program, that’s hard to believe. But it’s even weirder to think that my peeps at Lake Forest are graduating in 2-3 weeks! Que raro.

I send my love from the south!

Until next time…

Semana Santa

It is difficult to get back into a routine of schoolwork. Last week I only had one day of class, and then we got a long weekend for Easter. Gery, a friend from Bolivia, came here to BsAs. It had been two years since I saw her, time flies. It was a lot of fun to hang out with her again, she of course was traveling with her time off too. After a day with Gery, I migrated south of Buenos Aires to two different towns. The first stop I made was in Pinamar, a very laid back and family fun sort of beach town. The beach there lacked the crowds, was very clean, and great for long walks on the beach. I tagged along with my buddy Sam and 6 other girls I had met once before. We squeezed 8 into a 5 person room, poor Sam being the only boy. Well maybe lucky Sam for being the only boy.

From there I went down to met up with my friend Liz in Mar del Plata, a bigger city with less impressive beaches. The people however were still pretty laid back and the vacation mentality was obvious. Easter weekend is practically the last weekend of summer for these Argentines so everyone hit the beach. In Mar del Plata the beaches were crowded and sprinkled with trash, not my favorite. However I didn’t spend much time on the beach, we wandered around the city a bit and ended up at the port. A big tourist attraction there are the sea lions, los lobos marinos. Big, stinky and hilarious is how I would describe los lobos. Our last day there we tried to take surfing lessons, but turns out they were done. We drove in the ocean anyway even though it was a cold fall day and we were the only ones on the beach, the complete opposite from the day before. The bus system here in Argentina is very impressive. (I’d say better than the airlines.) I had a comfortable seat and they even served some food. It was stellar.

I’m back now in Buenos Aires, doing Spanish language exercises. Not quite as fun as the beach. I’ve got plans to head to Colonia, Uruguay this up coming weekend. Sin parar, digamos. (We call that non-stop.) Life is good here in Argentina. It’s becoming fall, and people are breaking out the jackets, I’m still sporting a t-shirt, but I’m sure I’ll adjust to the “cold” soon.

Until next time…

Vamos Vamos Argentina

Helllllllllo. I don’t have to much to update, but I have an adventure story.

Adventure story:
So the Argentina national soccer team had a game verses Venezuela Saturday. My friends and I were dying to go, tickets were fairly cheap, but here’s the catch. You have to go Friday morning to get the tickets. Ticket windows opened at 6am. 6am??! That’s when people start going to bed after a night out! Well, in order to make the 6am window opening, it was obvious we were going to stay up all night. After ‘hip-hop night’ at a club, my friend Sam and I caught bus #160 out to the soccer stadium. It was around 5 when we got on the bus, ears ringing from the music and feet tired from dancing. We got to the stadium, hopped a couple fences and waited in line for a couple hours. Thank god for the man selling the coffee out of his grocery cart, if it weren’t for that, I would have found a bench and fell asleep. We finally got the tickets after the sun came up, and severe hunger kicked it. I got home around 10am, napped and had class. Maybe not the smartest life choice…but worth it. The game was a lot of fun. Argentina took the victory winning 4-0. Messi is on the Argentina team, and he’s apparently the best player in the world currently, at age 20/21! Insane. It was a good game, I tried to pick up on the cheers and sing along and jump when they said jump. An all-around adventure and a lot of fun. I hope they come back and I can catch another game.

School as been good. Tons and tons of reading. Kids are smart here, well in the public university they know what’s going on; the private one, it’s debatable. (Very much the opposite of the reputations of public v. private schools in the states.) Some really good questions asked, and great discussions have followed. I haven’t quite participated yet, but soon enough I hope to join in on the discussions.

Anyway, that’s about it. My mother is coming Thursday and I can’t wait! I’ve got some things planned, hopefully I’m a good guide, and translator for when she meets the host mum and boyfriend. Eek, that’ll be exhausting I imagine.

Until next time….

Big city life

Classes at one university have started, and this week my class with the program will start along with UBA, Universidad de Buenos Aires. We had to take an exam to be able to take courses in the UBA Social Sciences departments, and the building was full of character. Tons of political graffiti on the inside walls, the halls we full of posters, crumbling stairwells; I think it’s going to be pretty awesome.

This past week I haven’t slowed down on exploring the city. I checked out the Malba museum which hosts a variety of art, but all Latin American. Some modern art but the most famous piece by far is Frida’s self-portrait. After that I went to my host mum’s boyfriends apartment for an asada. That was probably the best meat I have ever had. They have a fire going first, then use the hot coals under the meat to cook it. I don’t really know much about meat, but I’m pretty sure he did a really good job.

Last night was an exciting night. I checked out a Boca soccer game. The stadium was chaos inside and out. Surrounding the “Bombenera” there were grills on every corner and the smoke soaking into my clothes, I was a walking parilla (grill). We bought tickets off of a scalper type, and headed in to find we were in the populares; standing room only. Luckily, we got there pretty early and I didn’t have anyone in front of me. The game was exciting and the fans were singing the whole time. I even learned a couple chants, most were pretty inappropriate but definitely catchy. Boca ended up winning 3-0, I’m glad there were happy celebrations afterwards and I didn’t have to see the upset masses.

Things are still going well here. I can’t believe it’s been nearly a month since I’ve been down there. I’m content with my choice of Buenos Aires. One of my few complaints is about my bed…if anyone wants to ship me a SleepNumber, I’ll gladly accept.

Until next time…

Random Thoughts and Observations

Here is a list of things that I feel compelled to share....for some reason:

-Here in Buenos Aires they love mayonnaise.
-You must always watch where to step, dog poop is everywhere.
-Portenos don't sweat. (a porteno is someone from Buenos Aires)
-You can find really cheap steak all hours of the night.
-They have their own version of Married with Children. It's called Casado con Hijos. It's a literal translation.
-Mullets are still in. As are rat trails, dreaded with beads.
-I've decided that if one wishes to drive in this city, you're asking for your death.
-Some street fairs are cool, and others just have the same stand over and over again, and that stand contains a couple pairs of old shoes, some old coins, maybe a silver plate or two and your token fanny pack.

I'll be adding more.

Bariloche Bariloche

Whooooo. It’s been fabulous here. I just got back from Bariloche, Patagonia. I can now claim that I have been to Patagonia, even though it’s the northern part of the region. We flew from Buenos Aires to Barlioche Thursday morning and started dour sightseeing right away. We went on a chairlift up Cerro Campanario and the views were to die for. There were tons of glacier lakes all the most beautiful blue. And the mountain. Ah! Amazing. The sun was hot there, and with no sunscreen it’s a miracle I didn’t burn. Everywhere you looked on the top was another incredible view.

The next day was the day we got to choose whatever we wanted to do. Sightseeing on a boat…going for a hike…hanging at the hotel…those sounded alright. But what caught my eye was the whitewater rafting adventure. So that’s what I did. I couldn’t believe that only 6 of us from the program decided to do that. Boring folk I guess. It took us 2 hours by van to get to the river. We spent nearly 3 hours on the river, and then another 2 to get back. It was a long day, but so worth it. The rafting was great. The rapids were never too scary, well there was one we kind of failed on, but nobody fell out of the boat (although there were some close calls). There were parts of the river that were calm and where you could see the rocks on the bottom. We’d jump out and swim along side the boat to cool ourselves down a bit. The guides were great, and put up with 6 American girls trying to get down the river. I was so content to just be on the river surrounded by more amazing mountains, and I even say the boarder of Chile. Rafting can be a little demanding, but overall it was an adrenaline rush with moments of total tranquility.

Our last day in Bariloche we spent doing a big ol’ hike. The mountain was called Cerro Lopez and it was a big ol’ hike indeed. They have a saying here that says “Sube como un viejo, y baja como un joven,” which translated means “Climb up like a old person, and come back down like a youngster.” Which I’m glad we did. Although at times the hike up seemed painfully slow, it was good to set a pace for the trek. Took us nearly 3 hours to get to the top where there was a refuge with some shade and a cool breeze. It was dusty and dry, and absolutely gorgeous. Pictures and words are hard to capture the views that I had my whole time in Barlioche. We rested at the top about an hour, I munched on some items wrapped in napkins stolen from the hotel’s breakfast buffet, and got to hang in the shade a bit. Going down was harder than going up I think. The path was either loose rocks or sand pretty much, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fall a couple times. At the bottom there was a creek where we splashed off a bit, but still everyone arrived dusty and stinky to the airport to fly back “home” to Buenos Aires.



I’ve got a couple free days now here in BA, but I have to study up some because I’m going to be taking an exam this week to see if my Spanish is good enough for la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Pressure!

Thanks for reading my blog even though you don’t have to.

Until next time….

If you can't stand the heat, get out of BsAs

So after almost a week, I’m still getting a little disoriented around this city. There is so much to see and do that I’m sure I’ll never be bored down here. This past week has been orientation with the program so I’ve been in the same place all week. We started a little Spanish class and we have a small project to do this weekend.


The heat took a little break yesterday when it rained in the afternoon, but it feels like it’s going to be another hot one down here. It was reaching 100 all this week, and I’m happy to learn Maru’s (host mum) boyfriend has a pool within his apartment complex. I think we’ll be taking advantage of that today.

Last night I had my first big night out. There was a group of 6 of us that went out to a club that someone had read about in their guidebook. It ended up being a pretty cool place, unfortunately not the most affordable, but now we know. We also know now that it is appeals more to the gay crowd, which was totally fine with me but I think the boys were a little annoyed. I was just humored by the whole situation.

In the near future I am going to have to register for classes. There is one university that offers “Clown,” I’m really chewing on that one. We get to choose courses from 4 different universities, one public and three private. The class lists are impressive and I’m going to need a decent amount of time to flip through all the course offerings.

Also next Saturday I’ll be on my way to Barlioche, Argentina. We will be flying and spending three days there. There is so much to do there: biking, hiking, boat rides, etc. I’ll be snapping a lot of photos there and I’ll make sure to share those too. I’m really excited about this trip because I’ll get to see more of Argentina than just the city, and it is a very geographically diverse country.

Today, besides going to the pool, I’m going to head to the laundromat for the first time, that should be an adventure. I hope everyone is doing well. I’ll write again soon…this blogging this isn’t too bad I guess.

Until next time….

First 48 hours

Turns out Buenos Aires is a pretty cool city. I guess I knew that coming in, but the two days I`ve had have have been good, long but good. The sun is hot but it`s perfect in the shade and there seems to always be a breeze, which is very necessary. I had a bit of time Sunday morning when I arrived beofre I could check into my hostel so I wandered around a while, thankfully the hostel held onto my bags. After a long flight with babies, strange smells, and uncomfortable seats walking around was very appealing. Although going on no sleep for 24 hours I wasn`t feeling too tired and spent a considerable amount of time peeking into old churches, perusing the Sunday morming craft fair, and people watching in the plazas. That afternoon I met up with a girl, Teagn who is also doing this Butler program. We rinsed off and I put my shoes back on to do some more exploring. Teagan is very nice and we seems to have a lot in common. We took a tour of La Casa Rosada, the equivilent of our white house...I think. I´m surprised how easily my Spanish is coming and I seem to catch what most people say; the accent however is a little Until this afternoon with the program meeting and meeting my host mum I was speaking mostly English with Teagen and a couple guys we met from New Zealand who proved to be pretty cool. We all went out of dinner last night and had a ton of laughs. We quoted a lot of Flight of the Concords but they could obviously do it better with the accents and all. Anyway, my first night in Buenos Aires was really fun, full of small adventures and a couple crazy cab rides.



Today started around 10am checking out of the hostel however we hung out in the common rooms and kicked it with the kiwis until our program meeting. 3oclock rolled around and we hauled our luggage over to the office. Nice place, though a bit cramped. There seems to be some cool kids in the program and the orientation appears to be a bit intense. We don`t have anything on the agenda tonight, so I`m sure it`ll be a quiet night. After the meeting it was time to meet my host mum. She is pretty and young. She has been nothing but nice and accommidating. I`m sure we are going to get a long great. I`m really looking forward to my semester here even though I have a fear of school, that is still a ways away though. So all n` all I have a wonder first impression of Buenos Aires and am expecting many more exciting days to come.

Until next time.....

Counting Down

Feb. 9, 2009

Okay, I'm new to this blogging business and I don't know how I'll like it. But I figure it's a good way to keep everyone (who cares) up to date on my time down in Buenos Aires. I'm leaving for Miami the 11th and spending a couple nights with my uncle and grandparents who are down there right now. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous for this semester, but the fact that I'm leaving winter behind calms those nerves a bit.

Anyway, I just wanted to set this up before the craziness of packing, airports and a language barrier distract me. I don't know how often I'll be writing, weekly maybe. I'll have a better idea once I'm there.

Until next time...