Back in the US

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!

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!

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!)

Things Pick Up

Hola Todos

So things are rapidly coming to an end here in Buenos Aires. On Tuesday, I had my grammar final and yesterday I passed in my final for Economic Development. Now, I'm working on my fifteen page paper for my class at UBA on Chile and next Wednesday I'll have my Economic World History Final. So much to do, in such a short amount of time. After that, I'll have my Listening and Conversation final the next week, which I'm a little stressed about, but after next wednesday, the bulk of my schoolwork will be finished. 

All this really means is that my time in Buenos Aires is coming to an end. The other day I was thinking about how long ago i arrived and how much has happened in the past few months. It's been quite an experience. I still have many pictures that I haven't posted in this blog to show when I get back to America and though it is sad that things are wrapping up, I'm so grateful to have had a chance to experience life in Argentina. 

This weekend, elections are taking place in the country. It's basically for the legislature and I ahve to admit that I dont really know enough about politics here to say which party is in the lead on the polls, but I'm sure that it will be smooth enough. Voting takes place on Sunday and it's obligatory. Sundays here are usually really quiet, so it makes it easy for everyone to vote, although with the gripe porcina (swine flu) I'm sure there'll be tons of precautions set up to prevent the spread of the illness.

I registered for the LSATs today. Its so weird to think that it's already the end of June and that the test is in September. That means I'll have to spend a lot of the rest of the summer studying, but I'm glad to take them in September when I get back. I'll be taking them in Massachusetts (DC's venues were all filled up).

Anyways, I'm going to get back to writing my essay! but Ill post again later.

Miss everyone!

FINALS!

So, it's finals time and the workload has picked up. Unfortunately, my motivation hasn't. I'm planning a long night writing about Argentine politics and economics tonight to try to finish my take-home for Econ Development, but who knows how far I'll actually get?

Today, for my FLACSO class, we went to the Cancilleria which is kinda like a foreign affairs office of Argentina. We met with some ambassadors there who explained to us the role of Argentina in MERCOSUR and things like that. It was really interesting, but I was a bit too preoccupied with my exam to really pay that much attention. The building was really cool too, but I didnt bring my camera, so I wasn't able to get any pictures.

I have less than a month left and I finally figured out the date of my last final will be July 6, which means that I can head to Brasil (spanish spelling) with Val and Maureen on the 7th! I booked my flight to Rio from Buenos Aires and my flight from Iguazu back to BsAs and now all I have to do is secure my visa next week. Apparently the process only takes three days so it should be relatively easy, although a bit expensive- over $100, but by the end of next week, I should be all set.

Well, I'm gonna get back to work. I'll post later.

The Last Month

Wow, this month has been flying by.

I've meant to post more, but things have been really busy here lately. It's weird but although I haven't been traveling, I feel like I've barely had anytime to truly relax. This past weekend was a lot of fun though! Although I spent much of the weekend working to prepare for finals and a presentation, I also had a chance to go out to celebrate a birthday of one of my friends in the program! It was a lot of fun and a good way to chill out before the onset of finals.

Today, I had a presentation in my class at the University of Buenos Aires. It was on Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. Although I was nervous, I was in a group of four students and I was the only American so I was pretty confident that if I got confused I would be able to get help from one of the other kids in the group. The presentation went really well and I got a good grade. It was weird too because this project was my last real assignment before finals start up. 

Tomorrow, I get my first final in one of my Economics classes. It's a take-home and I have a week to complete it. My professor has been telling us that it's going to be really hard, but he also told us that the midterm was going to be really hard too and that turned out to be pretty easy, so it's really hard to know if he's just trying to scare us into doing some of the reading before the test or whether it actually will be hard. But I figure that I'll find out tomorrow haha. 

Two weeks from today, I also have my final paper due for my class at the University of Buenos Aires. It's a fifteen page research paper, and I have to admit that I've barely nailed down my thesis. Like I've said, these next two weeks are going to be pretty intense. However, I think I work better under pressure so I'm betting everything turns out really good. 

I know that this has only been my second post in June, and I wish that I could post more often, but the ongoing craziness here has made it difficult to do that! I can't believe that I have just over a month left in South America and really only three weeks left in Argentina before I head off to Brasil to visit my sister and cousin, which should be really fun! 

I'm off to try to churn out a page or two of my final paper, but I'll try to post again sooon. 

Buenas noches!

Time Flies

Hola todos,

I can't believe that today is June 11th! It's actually my cousin's birthday! Happy Birthday Dianne!

The other week in my grammar class, we learned that in Argentina, if you know that someone's birthday is coming up, you can't wish them a happy birthday unless it's the day of their birthday because to wish them a happy birthday earlier is bad luck, which I found to be very interesting.

Not a whole lot has been happening these past few weeks, just a lot of work and studying. However, I thought I would take the opportunity to share some things about life here in Buenos Aires.

First, the Quick and Dirty. The Quick and Dirty (not an official name) is a restaurant/cafe/parilla type of place really close to my university here. It's cheap food and it's really fast; however, it's also, true to its name dirty. And yet, despite this appearance, I've eaten there twice this week, two chicken sandwiches and frankly they've been pretty good. Haha. As long as I don't get the norovirus again, I'm pretty satisfied.

Second, final exams. At one of my universities here, UCA, I still haven't been told the date of my final exam. It's frustrating because I'm trying to make plans after my finals end, and I really want to know what day it does, but it's also frustrating because it seems no one at the school seems to really care. Asking them when the final is seems to annoy them, as if knowing when the final is isn't something that's important. 

Third, the subway system here. I don't know if I've blogged about this before, but the subway system here (called the Subte) is crazy. It can be forties degrees outside, but the Subte will always be warmer, like in the 80s. It gets horribly crowded as during most of the day, people are pushed up against one another. It's a very unpleasant experience, but pretty unavoidable.

Fourth, the Buenos Aires Symphony. Last Thursday, I went to the Buenos Aires symphony. I went with some kids from the program and it was a really good experience. It lasted for about two hours and it was a great way to end a pretty long week of studying. 

That's it for now! Things are really good and they're starting to wrap up! Hope all is well in the US, I'm missing the warm weather! 

Peru

So after I finished up my two exams on Tuesday, I packed up my stuff to go to Peru on Thursday morning. The 25th of May was a holiday, and because I hadn't missed any classes up till that point, I figured missing my one class on Thursday would be okay.

So, at 4am I headed to EZE the international airport in Buenos Aires. We boarded the plane at like 7 and after 5 hours, we landed in Lima, Peru. From that airport, we headed onto another plane for Cusco, the biggest city near Machu Picchu. We got to Machu Picchu at about three in the afternoon and we knew that there were ruins around Cusco, and we wanted to see them before heading to Agua Calientes and Machu Picchu the next day. That afternoon, I saw the ruins at Sacsayhuaman, an Incan town almost five hundred years ago. Seeing the ruins were amazing and our tour guide explained about a lot of the symbolism that was involved with all of the ruins. That night, we headed to a restaurant and got pizza for the night.

The next day, after another early wake-up, we headed for the train to take us to Agua Calientes. Although it was cold and early, the train ride took us through the beautiful mountains of Peru in about three hours. That day, we focused on getting tickets for the bus and for Machu Picchu in the town of Agua Calientes. But that afteroon, as I was walking on a trail around the city, my camera broke. I thought it was done for good, so I ran out and grabbed a disposable one for the next day.

The next day, at 530am, we headed out to the bus station that took us up to the top of the mountain of Machu Picchu. After twenty minutes, we arrived at Machu Picchu. Getting there early was awesome and we were able to see the sunrise from Machu Picchu. Then we spent the day at Machu Picchu, learning all about the ruins, including the clock, Intihuatana, which is one of the great relics of the Incan civilization. A few years ago, the clock was damaged by a crane. There were also tons of terraces that were devoted to agriculture and cultivation of both animals and plants. The history of Machu Picchu is still much of a history as its location was perfect as a way to hide the town from the rest of the world. 

That afternoon, we climbed the Mountain Putucusi which was a ladder on the other side of Agua Calientes with a great view of Machu Picchu. The hike was pretty treacherous, as there were about ten vertical ladders that we needed to climb to reach the summit. The view was really worth it though and after four hours on the mountain to go up and down, I was pretty proud of what I had accomplished. 

The next day, we spent most of the day in the city, visiting the fairs and the local shops. We headed back on the train to Cusco at 500 that day. It was supposed to only be three hours, but it broke down, so it took us five hours to get back. Once we got to Cusco, we headed back to the hostel for the night, as our flight back was really early in the morning. We headed back and arrived in Buenos Aires with no problems at 8pm that night. It was a great weekend and I'm really glad I was able to get to Peru during my time here. 

This past week has been good too. I did really well on the midterm I got back. And last night, I went out for dinner and drinks with one of my friends from the university here. It was great to hang out with someone from Buenos Aires out of the classroom. 

Mendoza Part II

Hey Everyone,

I realize it's been a while since I've posted, and I still have some more hw to get to tonight, but I figure I'll start catching everyone up on the last two weeks.

The weekend before this last one, all the FLACSO students had another trip. This time, we headed to San Rafael in Mendoza. Although I had already visited Mendoza before, this trip took us to a different part of the province. We left Friday morning (at 4am!) and arrived on the first day to embark on a short hike through the hills near the Andes mountains. It was great to get to hang out with everyone from FLACSO. The next day, we headed to a few bodegas for wine-tasting. That night, the hotel we were staying at had some type of dance party which was fun as well.

The next day, we had a late start and went zip-lining and ropeling. Although I had never done either before it was pretty cool to try both of them. That night, we participated in some karaoke and made smores at a campfire. The next day we headed back to BUenos Aires. It was a really fun weekend, but I had two tests the day after we got back. Both of them seemed to go okay tho, so I'm just glad they're over now.

Gotta get back to doing some reading, I'll post again soon about last weekend- Trip to Machu Picchu!

Really short post (more like a tweet)

This isn´t meant to be a real post, but I wanted to give everyone a very quick update! today i climbed this ladder in order to climb Mt Putucusi. http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/rachel_john/roundtheworld/1146261420/100_0569.jpg/tpod.html (notice how high it goes, and there were like ten more of them to get to the top of the mountain!) I would have taken a picture myself but my camera broke, but more details to follow on that in the real post. Hope things are well, i should post again around tuesday/wednesday.

Two Months Left!

Hola,

This week was pretty long, but also more or less good. During the weekend, I went on a tour of the Casa Rosada which is like the White House of Argentina. Although the tour was short, my friend and I were surprised at how easy it was to enter the Casa and jump on a tour. It was a very beautiful building and I have some pictures to show later when I can upload more.

The week was pretty standard, although because I have two exams coming up, I'm pretty nervous about how they will go. However, my two econ exams that I've taken so far, I've done well on so I'm thinking that as long as I study I'll be okay. 

Today wasn't too much fun. After working for most of the afternoon, I was returning home from a study session. During the walk back, I was robbed by a group of men. Although they were able to steal my phone (that's two Argentine phones down, if you're counting), luckily, I was only carrying a few pesos so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. 

But in a few hours I'm heading to the airport to go to San Rafael. The trip is with half of the FLACSO students so it should be a lot of fun, but I have to finish packing, so I'll update later! 

South American Update

Hey everybody,

Classes have been pretty busy these past few weeks. I've taken about half of my midterms, but still have some more left. However, most of my subjects have been pretty interesting. Learning about Argentine Economics has been an eye-opening experience. 

Last Saturday, I hung out with my friend who lives in the city, Patricio. He's in my class of Economic History at UCA. We had a lunch of burgers and licuados - which are the Argentine version of smoothies- and then played ping pong and tennis. It was a lot of fun and a great way to relax and gain a new perspective of the city.

On Sunday I headed down to the fair in Recoleta, which is where artisans have tons of booths lining the two busiest streets in that part of the city. It's really popular with most portenos on Sundays and I enjoyed seeing all of the different types of art produced by the citizens of Buenos Aires.

Tomorrow I'm planning on doing some sight-seeing in the city and should be taking a lot of pictures too!

Exams and Tandil

Hey,

So it's been a while since my last post. Hope everybody is doing well. Things here have gotten much busier during the past two weeks. 

Most of Friday I spent studying for my exam for World Economic History because on Saturday, our program, FLACSO, took us on a trip to Tandil, which is about a five hour drive from the city. We departed Saturday morning around 7, and after arriving, had a really great lunch. We were running a bit behind, so after we checked in at our hotel, we had a tour of the city. 

Following this tour, we headed over to a cheese factory, where for about 2 hours we enjoyed tasting different kinds of cheese and had tons of hot chocolate. 

That night, we had a dinner of Milanesa, salad and empanadas. 

The next day we headed to a ranch where I rode a horse. For lunch, we had a huge asado (barbeque). Then, we headed back to BA. It was a really relaxing weekend.

Then, we didn't have classes on Monday, so I spent most of the day again studying. Finally, yesterday I had my midterm- which was pretty hard, especially doing it in Spanish, but I'm glad it's over. After the test, I made plans with my Argentine friend, Patricio, to play tennis on Saturday. It should be a lot of fun. 

Not too much else going on here. Today is a feriado and I'm taking it really easy this weekend. My headphones broke, so I'll have to look for some new ones this afternoon. 

Putting the Study in Studying Abroad

After my last post on Sunday, I got down to some more studying for my exams this week. 

On Monday, I had my Listening and Conversation Examen Parcial. The exam wasn't too bad. It basically entailed doing new versions of exercises we had been practicing in class. Sometimes, the audio wasn't really clear, but I think that's part of the challenge(!), but I assumed I did well enough to pass, especially since there wasn't more I could have done to study for it.

That night and last night, I poured over my Economic Development of Argentina notes, which was really boring. But the exam today wasn't that bad, I think. I'm pretty sure I did fine and I'm so glad that it's finished. Next week, I have my midterm in my World Economic History class. I don't think it will be too challenging, but I definitely have a lot of studying to get down this weekend/next week to be ready for it.

 My class at UBA is turning out to be quite challenging. Last night, I barely understood what was going on in the first hour and during the second two hours I was just lost. Hopefully, when I have time to get around to readings for that class (after my midterm next week) I'll have a better understanding of everything for that class. Plus, the other kids from my program in that class and I are planning on meeting with our program's tutor for that class (who is also the TA!) sometime in the next week, so I'm sure I'll be caught up before our midterm for that class which isn't until May.

This weekend I'm off to Tandil, for a trip that the program is throwing for us. Originally we were going to Entre Rios, but because of the incidents of dengue in the north, we've changed our locations! 

And here's a picture of me from Puerto Madryn:

Soccer, Burritos and Dengue

After two weekends outside of the city, I'm glad to be spending this one back in Buenos Aires. On Thursday, I had my last class of the week and then ran into some friends in the Plaza de Mayo. After "doing work" for about an hour, we headed to California Burrito, which was great and reminded me a lot of Chipotle. That night, after doing some work, I headed out to a the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, where the Madres de La Plaza de Mayo, were having a discussion about a new book called, "Silencioso no es una palabra" which was about the disappearances of thousands of people during the Dirty War in Argentina about thirty years ago. Although I didn't understand everything that was said at the event, it was still pretty interesting to go to and hear the different speeches.

The next day, Friday, we had our Dengue informational meeting. For an hour, we all learned about the life cycle of a mosquito. Apparently, it's really really hard to get Dengue in Buenos Aires, it almost seems like you have to go out of your way to get it here. Plus, one of the girls in our program actually had dengue a few years ago in the Dominican Republic and assured us that as bad as it is to get it, it's not the end of the world. The first time you get it, there's no chance of dying, but the second time there's more of a risk. That afternoon, a friend and I had lunch in one of the parks in Palermo.

Yesterday, I went to a soccer game. I was really excited to go to one, and the game did not disappoint. The weather was perfect as we watched Velez play Arsenal at the Velez Field. The crowd really got into the game and sang encouraging songs for ninety percent of the game. I tried to remember the words, but all that I could make out was Ganador, winner. Velez ended up winning 2-0, after ninety minutes of intense playing. Then last night, I headed home and studied some economic history of Argentina for my midterm this week. Hopefully it goes okay, but I gotta get back to studying now! Hope all is good with everyone!

The Puerto Madryn Trip

Hey All,

So, it's been a while since my last post! and i'm sorry, things have just been really busy here.

First, last Wednesday, I headed down to Patagonia! I went via bus, which meant the trip was incredibly long. But since I had a long weekend for Easter, I figured why not? After 23 hours on a bus to the city, I headed to the hostel, which was great. The next day, I headed around the Port, which was really interesting. There's a lot of history of the Welch influence in this area, which was shown in many of the statues around the city. One painting I thought was interesting was this one:

Which essentially means, A ship is safe in the harbor, but that's not why it was built. 

Puerto Madryn seemed to have a long history of naval ties in various wars within the Argentine path and I thought this was an interesting sentiment.

On this first day, I headed to the museum called the EcoCentro, which had tons of information on all the wildlife of the area, but I really wanted to do a tour of the Valdez Peninsula right to the north of Puerto Madryn, so I booked a tour for the next day.

After getting picked up from the hostel at 8, we drove to the peninsula. There was so many amazing sights in the Peninsula, which has been designated as a national park. We covered the whole peninsula, saw orcas, sea lions, sea elephants, more penguins, llamas, and tons of other wildlife. It was a long day, but it was definitely a really cool place to go to. It was probably my last trip to Patagonia and even though I'm sad that it was my last time there because it's such a beautiful place, I'm excited to have the opportunity to spend more time in Buenos Aires, the lake district of Argentina, and other areas in the north!

Classes are really picking up too! By this time next week, I will have finished two midterm exams, one in Listening and Conversation and one in the Economic Development of Argentina in the Context of Latin America. I'm not too worried about Listening and Conversation, but I still have a lot more to study for Econ, so I'll probably be spending a lot of time this weekend in the library, but it'll be good, and all my classes are just pass/fail, so I'm not too worried. 

I Left My Heart (and Cell Phone) in Mendoza

Hey everybody,

I can't believe that it's already April. This past weekend was amazing. I headed down to Mendoza, which is the wine country of Argentina. After my two classes on Wednesday, which felt really long, I went home and packed. I got to the bus station, where I realized that I had printed off my confirmation, but not my ticket! So I had to get my ticket printed at the station. However, I managed to get onto my bus with minutes to spare and settled in for a fourteen hour bus ride. The ride wasn't too bad. They served us food, which was a milanesa (breaded beef) and a (surprise!) ham and cheese sandwich. After midnight, I fell asleep and successfully stayed in that state till we arrived at 9 the next morning.

We checked into our hostel, and then planned to go paragliding. I had never paraglided before, but I thought that it would really be a cool experience. I'm also a bit afraid of heights, but figured I would be able to overcome it to see Mendoza from a different perspective. So, we headed up one of the mountains that overlooked the city. Then, we signed waivers (which got me a little nervous) and waited to head up to the highest point of the mountain to jump. When I got up there I was still pretty worried, but after I was harnessed in the backpack with the parachute and instructor behind me, I finally relaxed and was able to run off the cliff! The view was extraordinary and I was able to take some pictures from the air!

That night, we went out for dinner at a really cool restaurant. It was a holiday in Argentina on that day, and in the plazas, there were lots of people holding some sort of festival. It seemed like a really fun, end-of-summer fair where lots of people came to just relax and enjoy the awesome weather. 

The next morning, my friend and I decided to go on a guided hike up the mountains in the Andes. We took this van to a mountain about an hour and a half from our hotel. Twenty minutes after getting out of the van, I realized that my cell phone had slid out of my pocket when I was in the van and I had lost it. Bummer, but since there wasn't anything I could really do to get it back at that point, I decided to just enjoy the rest of the day. 

Then we got to the trail. Hiking was quite a physical task. The way up wasn't too difficult, and we stopped many times to refill our water bottles and catch our breath. But, the way down was quite treacherous at points. I slid many times and was definitely in danger of falling a few times. But we all reached the top and bottom of the mountain without any real problems.

 

Finally, on Saturday, our last day in Mendoza, we set out for the wineries, aka the bodegas. After a short bus ride to Maipu, we rented bikes from a place called Mr. Hugo's. Then we followed the map that Mr. Hugo gave us to the wineries. The first place we went, was actually an olive oil bodega. We went for a free tour and tasting. Though I'm not a huge olive oil aficionado, the olive oil did taste delicious and it was cool to get all the info on how it was made. 

Next, we headed off to a family-winery. The winery specialized, as did most of Mendoza, in making Malbec wine. For ten pesos, we attended a wine-tasting and tour. Though I have very little knowledge of wine, I could definitely tell which kinds I liked and which I wasn't a huge fan of. 

Finally, we stopped at the chocolate factory. There were countless different options of combinations of chocolate and liquor. For another ten pesos, we participated in a tour and tasting. I chose the "Chocolate" option, a little boring, but I definitely wanted to see what the original flavor was like. Although the chocolate part of the drink seemed tasty, the taste of the liquor in the drink really diminished my liking of the drink itself. The factory also gave us pieces of real chocolate to eat and it was quite delicious.

After a free glass of wine from Mr. Hugo when we returned the bikes, we headed back to the hostel, picked up our bags and were back at the bus station for our 8:30 back to Buenos Aires. The bus ride went by very quickly and when I got back to Buenos Aires, I realized that the weather seemed cooler than when we had left, and as sad as I am that the summer is winding down, I'm certainly welcoming this drop in humidity.

Another Week

I can't believe another week has already gone by. After getting back from Tierra del Fuego last week, I definitely took some time to catch up with some homework and reading. Last Tuesday was a feriado, or holiday. Although I spent most of the day doing some reading for my classes, I did venture out to the Plaza del Mayo to watch the protests that Buenos Aires is so known for. It was muy lively. 

The rest of the week was pretty normal. My classes are going smoothly and I'm starting to get used to everything in the Argentine culture. 

On Saturday, I watched the Argentine national soccer team in their World Cup qualifying game versus Venezuela. Argentina won 4-0 and it was fun to watch the game. I wasn't able to get tickets to watch it live though. Some people in our program waited in line from 230 am to 930 am to get tickets, but they said that the game was a lot of fun.

On Sunday, I went to a feria, fair, in San Telmo. Sundays are so quiet in the city. Most of the businesses are shut down, and the public transportation is very empty. It feels very strange, but also very relaxing. It was my first Sunday in the city in almost a month and it was a nice way to relax and take in parts of the city. I've also found a route to run through the parks here which is lovely now that the weather is slowly beginning to cool.

Tomorrow, I'm going to head off to Mendoza, the wine country. I'm excited to travel again in Argentina. I'll be leaving on Wednesday night, because Thursday is another holiday, and then returning sometime on Sunday. It should be a great trip! I'll blog again when I return.

Back from the End of the World

On Thursday afternoon, after my class at UCA, my friends and I headed out to the Airport so that we could take a flight to Ushuaia which is the capital of Tierra del Fuego. During the flight, we stopped once to drop some of the passengers off, but we were in the middle of nowhere. On the last half of the flight, there was an amazing sunset. It must have lasted for two hours in total. 

Once we got off the plane, the first very clear difference was the drop in temperature. In Buenos Aires, it's usually in the 80s with humidity. In Tierra del Fuego, the temperatures were in the forties to low fifties with tons of wind. We took a quick cab to the hostel, which was incredibly clean. The next morning, we headed up to the National Park. Normal entry fee is 50 pesos, but with a student id, it was only four pesos. There were four possible trails that we could hike, and we choose the one that was by the Beagle Channel. The views were amazing. Along the way, we passed by horses and rabbits. The trail was supposed to take about 3 hours, but because we took tons of pictures and stopped to eat lunch, it took us about five hours. When we had reached the end of the trail, we saw two rainbows. The weather at Tierra del Fuego was a bit strange. It was always sunny, event though it was a bit cold until late afternoon, when clouds would roll in and it would rain for a few hours. 

That night, we headed to bed pretty early because the next day we planned to take a boat out to an island of penguins. We had not realized, however, that first there would be an hour and a half bus ride to the boat. It was well worth it though. When we finally arrived to the island, we saw hundreds of penguins in their natural habitat. Our tour guide, Anna, told us about the migration path of the penguins. Apparently, we had arrived just in time to see them because in a few weeks they will be returning to the South pole for the winter. I took lots of pictures of the penguins and had a great experience there. 

The next day, we headed out on a 10am boat across the Channel. First, we visited islands with seals. Then we passed the lighthouse. We visited a few other islands, but we finally disembarked on one of them and climbed up a hill. From the summit, we had a great view of the city of Ushuaia and the other islands. It was an incredible sight. 

Finally, that night we headed back to Buenos Aires. It had been an incredible experience. I had never seen such fantastic landscapes and been so close to so much wildlife. I'm glad that I had this chance to get to travel to the End of the World.

Today, Tuesday, is actually a holiday in Buenos Aires. It is called el Dia Nacional de la Memoria por la Verdad y Justicia. So, I don't have classes, but I'll probably head down to Plaza de Mayo to see how the citizens commemorate this day. 

Finally, although I've been posting some pictures here, this is a link to my picasa site. Just copy the line below this paragraph into the address bar of your web browser and you'll be able to see my pictures! Because it's so hard to post a lot of pictures to the blog, I've been uploading pictures to this site. I only have about fifty up from the End of the World Trip so far because it takes a lot of time to load, but I should be posting more soon.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ej.jones06/

Quick Post

Hey All,

This week has been really exciting! I finally had a week with all of my classes. My class at the Universidad de Buenos Aires seems awesome. It's called Transicion, Crisis, y Reforma and it's all about the transitions in Latin America during the past years. The building and classrooms of UBA are so interesting. There's tons of graffiti and posters on the walls, and the buildings seem really beat up. But the education is the best in Argentina and it's free for Argentines. Most of the students work part-time/full-time and attend classes later in the days, which means they're really committed to the work. The professor seemed really knowledgeable about the subject and I've heard great things. Also, there are three other students from FLACSO in the class, so it was a relief to know other people in the class, though I do hope to meet some of the portenos in the class as well. 

On Monday, I was really tired from the weekend, but I was talking to some students in the program and we decided to travel to Tierra del Fuego (aka Land of Fire, aka The End of the World). It's the southernmost city in the world and with any luck I'll see glaciers and penguins! The temperature there should be in the forties, low fifties, which is a lot higher than I anticipated, especially coming from a cold Massachusetts winter. But it should be a lot of fun, and i'm gonna take tons of pictures!

Finally, today when I was going to my class at the Universidad Catolica Argentina and during some other points of the day, I took some pictures of the university, the statues in the Plaza de Mayo, the view from my street, and some pictures of my apartment building. Hopefully, you all will enjoy this little slideshow!