Today is July 19, 2009 and I’m sitting in the JFK International Airport in New York. I have a five hour layover till my flight to Boston, so I figured I would write my final blog post here. I have a lot to cover, but I also have plenty of time.
Last time I posted I wrote about the onset of the swine flu precautions in Buenos Aires. By now, Argentina has overtaken Mexico as the country with the second highest amount of deaths from swine flu. For portenos, residents of Buenos Aires, exams from this past semester will continue and finish in August before their next semester starts. Many of my friends from my Argentine classes have decided to travel with their extra long break and it was sad to say farewell to them!
So, my classes had pretty much wrapped up last time I had posted, I was still waiting to hear back about a final paper I had written from one class, but as of now, I still haven’t heard anything about it. So I’m assuming that it went fine.
I was going to head to Brazil on the 7th so before that I was trying to wrap up a lot of things in Buenos Aires, like souvenir shopping and things of that sort. I was not successful and still had much to do when I got back. Also, I started to say bye to a lot of kids in the program and it was really sad.
Then, on the morning of the 7th, I boarded a flight from EZE International in Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro, where I met up with my sister and my cousin! I loved Rio de Janeiro. We started our days off early and were in bed by 10 most nights so we didn’t see the night life, but we were able to see the Jesus the Redentor statue, the Botanical Garden, the Copacabana Fort and Beach and Sugarloaf Mountain! It was really hot there too! About 80 degrees Fahrenheit and it was the middle of the winter! Then on Friday we traveled to Foz de Iguacu which is on the border of Brasil and Argentina. There, we spent the first day shopping and avoiding the rain because our flight landed in the afternoon in a storm. The next day, we took a tour of the Argentine side of the Iguazu Falls with seven other people who were all very nice! As Americans we had to fill out many forms to cross the border! But the falls were worth it! It was incredible to see so many waterfalls in one place.
The next day was my birthday! On that day we went to see the Brazilian side of the Falls. Although the Brazilian side is not as big as the Argentine side, it has a great panoramic view of the Falls and we took many pictures. The next morning I departed and went back to Buenos Aires for my final few days! Upon arriving I had learned that many people had also changed their flights and had gone home earlier which was sad because I didn’t have the opportunity to say goodbye to everyone, but I hope that we’ll catch up in the future again.
This past week has been crazy. First, I had tons of souvenir shopping to do, which I completed the day before my flight home! On Monday I visited one of my favorite parks in the city and hung out most of hte day with a friend. Tuesday, I finally went to Boca, which is a part of the city that has very colorful buildings. It’s only like two or three streets so we just walked around for a little bit, but it was still good to see it!
On Wednesday I went to MALBA which is a museum of Modern Art in the city! It was great to just have a relaxing day in the city. That night a group of us FLACSITOS went to Sugar, which was a bar that we frequented during the semester for one last time. Even though it wasnt a great bar, it was a place where so many of us went to hang out during our weeks here in Buenos Aires. The next day was another lunch at a restaurant that had great! lasagna and a salad bar with the entree. That night my some of my friends from FLACSO and I went to a club in the city with some of our Argentine friends! It was my last night to go out in teh city, but we had a good time!
Then Friday was another busy day. After lunch, I headed to the Recoleta fair to pick up some gifts and then to downtown to pick up some more too. After that, my host family and I had our despedida (goodbye) dinner. It was very sad to say goodbye to them! They gave me a framed picture of us together and I gave them an Argentine decoration! We have each other’s emails so I’m sure that we’ll keep in touch!
I spent the rest of the night- literally until about 4am packing! I had soo much stuff! Demasiado as we say in castellano. I knew that one of my two checked bags was definitely going to be over weight limit, and I had two carry-on bags as well! I guess that 23 kilograms isa bout 50 pounds cuz thats the limit. My lighter bag was 19 kilos, even though it was completely packed, and my other bag was 29 kilos, which is like 62 pounds i think! I had to pay a 50 dollar fine, but I didn’t have any other choice so I had to pay.
During the morning I finished getting everything together and said farewell to my friend Kelsey from Georgetown, who’s in BA till Thursday.
Time at that airport seemed too short. I shared a car to the airport with my friend Sebastian from FLACSO, and then we met up with other FLACSO students at the bar/restaurant before our flights! My flight was at 8 and at 715 I had to go to board and it was sad to leave. I have to say that this flight felt shorter than the one to BA from Texas in February even though it was longer, but we didn’t have personal tv’s like we did on the way down and they showed Inkheart, which I decided to not watch after five minutes.
I still can’t believe that the experience is over. It’s so strange to be sitting here in New York after five months not in the US. I’d be lying to say that it isn’t really nice to completely understand what everyone is saying, but at the same time it’s almost like I was uprooted from a new home, right when I was starting to adjust to it. But I’m excited to be back, it’s like returning to reality from a month off from real life.
I want to write here the thing that I will miss the most and the least about Buenos Aires.
The most: How nice and friendly the Argentines were. Although there were some portenos who were not the nicest, the truth is that the Argentines in my classes, Argentine friends of my host family and Argentine friends of my American friends here were all so nice and welcoming and accepting. I will really miss just how kind the Argentines really were to the extranjero whose Spanish was just okay.
The least: This is an easy one. The subte. If I never have to take the subway system in Buenos Aires again in my life, I will be very very happy. It’s so hot and crowded, I look forward to American public transportation (although American public transportation will be so expensive in comparison!)
I want to say thank you to all of you who have continued to read by blog! I know I was never the most consistent blogger, but I do hope that you enjoyed what I read and the pictures I sometimes posted. In a few days I hope to be able to post a link to Picasa where I will upload all the pictures from the trip! Good luck to everyone with everything in the future! I’m sure I’ll see many of you soon!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
things are getting pretty interesting.
hola again! two posts in two days. first time that's happened i think. woohooo.
But i feel like i must address the turn of events that have occurred in Buenos Aires over the past five days.
First: Sunday was the election here. Cristina Kirchner has been the president here since the election of 2007, and the president before her was her husband, Nestor, who only stayed on for one term and gave support to his wife during the election. Her popularity, due to a variety of reasons, is in the twenties now which is really bad. These are midterm elections in which only members of the Congress and not the President compete. As a result of Sundays vote, the President's party, who had a majority of both houses of their congress, lost a lot. Now, the other party has a majority or maybe plurality of the lower house and her party lost tons of seats in the upper house. Anyways, to top it all off, her husband, the ex-president, was running for a seat to represent Buenos Aires, but he lost by like three points to his opponent, which everyone has said has destroyed his plan to come back to run for president (for his second term) in 2011.
But during the elections the government told everyone who was voting (because voting is mandatory here) to wear masks when they go to the polls. At some point in teh past week, Buenos Aires declared a state of emergency.
On my way to my UCA final yesterday, I saw a great amount of people wearing masks and I started thinking, why is everyone wearing masks now, gripe (flu) has been around forever. but then i found out that apparently it's gotten worse in buenos aires/argentina - not to worry for my trip to brasil, provided they let me in- and that more people are now worried about getting it in Argentina. America has had many many more cases of the gripe. And, so many of those people wearing the masks had no problems with touching the poles and hte seats in the Subway system, so i really do not think that a mask is really going to give them that much protection. I don't really believe that a mask gives that much protection from this anyways, or that this flu is actually as huge of a problem here as they make it out to be.
But anyways, last night I started hearing all these rumors about schools being shut down in Buenos Aires, and I was wondering what would happen to us. Keep in mind that I've finished four of my five classes and my last class is not a direct enrollment, I have to give a short presentation in my Spanish language class on Monday for my final. But now the University that houses htat class as well as all the other universities are shut down. As of this afternoon. Which is really crazy! Anyways I should be getting information on how to do this last presentation pretty soon, but theres another catch. Apparently GUMail is shut down for this weekend, which doesnt really affect most students who are on summer break, but unfortunately, my gumail is the main one for most of my abroad activities, so if i get important emails about whats going on for the program here, i might have problems actually receiving them! What a week!
In really good news, I got the results of my econ/history exam from yesterday! I got a 10, which is the highest grade that you can get here, so i'm really excited!
But i feel like i must address the turn of events that have occurred in Buenos Aires over the past five days.
First: Sunday was the election here. Cristina Kirchner has been the president here since the election of 2007, and the president before her was her husband, Nestor, who only stayed on for one term and gave support to his wife during the election. Her popularity, due to a variety of reasons, is in the twenties now which is really bad. These are midterm elections in which only members of the Congress and not the President compete. As a result of Sundays vote, the President's party, who had a majority of both houses of their congress, lost a lot. Now, the other party has a majority or maybe plurality of the lower house and her party lost tons of seats in the upper house. Anyways, to top it all off, her husband, the ex-president, was running for a seat to represent Buenos Aires, but he lost by like three points to his opponent, which everyone has said has destroyed his plan to come back to run for president (for his second term) in 2011.
But during the elections the government told everyone who was voting (because voting is mandatory here) to wear masks when they go to the polls. At some point in teh past week, Buenos Aires declared a state of emergency.
On my way to my UCA final yesterday, I saw a great amount of people wearing masks and I started thinking, why is everyone wearing masks now, gripe (flu) has been around forever. but then i found out that apparently it's gotten worse in buenos aires/argentina - not to worry for my trip to brasil, provided they let me in- and that more people are now worried about getting it in Argentina. America has had many many more cases of the gripe. And, so many of those people wearing the masks had no problems with touching the poles and hte seats in the Subway system, so i really do not think that a mask is really going to give them that much protection. I don't really believe that a mask gives that much protection from this anyways, or that this flu is actually as huge of a problem here as they make it out to be.
But anyways, last night I started hearing all these rumors about schools being shut down in Buenos Aires, and I was wondering what would happen to us. Keep in mind that I've finished four of my five classes and my last class is not a direct enrollment, I have to give a short presentation in my Spanish language class on Monday for my final. But now the University that houses htat class as well as all the other universities are shut down. As of this afternoon. Which is really crazy! Anyways I should be getting information on how to do this last presentation pretty soon, but theres another catch. Apparently GUMail is shut down for this weekend, which doesnt really affect most students who are on summer break, but unfortunately, my gumail is the main one for most of my abroad activities, so if i get important emails about whats going on for the program here, i might have problems actually receiving them! What a week!
In really good news, I got the results of my econ/history exam from yesterday! I got a 10, which is the highest grade that you can get here, so i'm really excited!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Ummm. Swine flu
Hola Todos
Today has been one of the most interesting days in buenos aires. First, this morning i had my uca final exam. it was really hard, but it's finally over. I also passed in my monografia for my uba class yesterday.
this afternoon i had some great pizza and went shopping for souvenirs. I have only one more final at flacso on monday. or do i?
tonight i was online and i started reading about this whole panic of the swine flu in buenos aires. and then i went on fb. apparently the universities here are closing as in ending their semesters this weekend because of the swine flu, so my final at flacso as of right now. is up in the air. everything else has pretty much wrapped up, but now i have no idea whats in store for monday. also, just to put another wrench in the system- i do hope that brasil lets me in next tuesday.
Vamos a ver! (We will see!)
Today has been one of the most interesting days in buenos aires. First, this morning i had my uca final exam. it was really hard, but it's finally over. I also passed in my monografia for my uba class yesterday.
this afternoon i had some great pizza and went shopping for souvenirs. I have only one more final at flacso on monday. or do i?
tonight i was online and i started reading about this whole panic of the swine flu in buenos aires. and then i went on fb. apparently the universities here are closing as in ending their semesters this weekend because of the swine flu, so my final at flacso as of right now. is up in the air. everything else has pretty much wrapped up, but now i have no idea whats in store for monday. also, just to put another wrench in the system- i do hope that brasil lets me in next tuesday.
Vamos a ver! (We will see!)
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