One month left!

In exactly one month from today I will be home! This semester has gone so fast! I am ready to go home but there's still so much I want to do here and I know I will miss it so much!

So, sorry I've been so bad at updating this...I'll try to give a brief description of what I've been up to this almost 2 months since I wrote last.

Jujuy- We went on our second program trip to a northern province of Argentina to enjoy fresh air and llamas. We explored some ancient ruins and a few markets filled with llama merchandise, did a little hiking, and struggled to breath in the very high altitudes. We also spent an hour or so at the salt mines which as far as I can tell only serve the purposes of mining salt (obviously) and taking "cool" pictures. It was a nice time to get out of the city and spend some time with the other Flacso students. 

Maria's Visit- In the middle of october maria came to visit me!! It was so great to see her and show her around the city. We did a lot of walking around, shopping, and catching up. Probably the highlight of our week  was going to the city zoo where you are allowed to feed the animals so they all do tricks to get food. 

Mom's Visit- Last weekend my mom came down to visit!! Early in the semester my dad sent an email saying keep that weekend free because he was going to surprise her with a trip down. Only she found out the email the next day haha. Basically she was a great sport and put up with all the ways i made her trip "authentic" like hopping on a 17 hour bus ride the day she got in and sleeping in a cheap hostel. We spent the 1st 2 days in Iguazu (the giant waterfalls on the border of Chile and Brazil). They were absolutely amazing and my pictures do not do them justice! The last 2 days we spent in the city where I showed her a little bit of my life here. She brought a bunch of food and gifts for my family and it was so great to see their responses. My brother grabbed the pancake mix and syrup, my dad took and hid the chocolate, and my mom absolutely loved the purse making patterns. She is a seamstress who mostly makes purses but patterns are not available here. She immediately called up her friend who works with her because she was so excited! 

Classes- I've been keeping busy (definitely too busy) with classes but they are winding down now. I have a few more papers and presentations to finish but am feeling much less stressed than I have been for the last month or so. Considering all my classes are in spanish, I've actually been doing pretty well in them. 

Church- I've been going to a youth service once a week and a small group every other week and I love it! I've met some great people there which is a good opportunity to practice spanish and hang out with Argentines. 

Today I spent a long day trying to change my temporary visa into a permanent one (even though it's only for one more month...) We went this morning and they said they couldn't do it. There wasn't really any more explanation than that, just "we can't do it now. come back later". Luckily when we came back they were able to do it. Yesterday my class was supposed to go on a tour of one of the buildings they used to use a torture center but we couldn't because the guide just decided to leave...Those are just 2 good examples of how things are run here. I love this country but sometimes it can be frustrating... 

So yeah...that's pretty much it. If you want to see some pictures, look at my facebook. I'll be posting a bunch of pictures in the next few days. 

See you soon!!  

BA, Mendoza, Santiago, Valparaiso, Viña, Valparaiso, Santiago, Mendoza, BA

Don't worry, I'm still alive! I've just been really busy with classes and traveling and everything else I've found to occupy my time with! 

Here are some highlights from the 3 weeks I haven't written about yet...

-Watching the Argentina vs. Brazil and Argentina vs. Paraguay games. Argentina lost both but it was still fun to see the whole country get excited for the games. And see how depressed the city was the next day...

-One sunday when I went to church the girl who is playing the lead in Phantom of the Opera here in Buenos Aires was randomly there. She shared her testimony and then sang 2 songs! It was amazing and everyone was crying (including the 2 middle aged men sitting next to me) 

-Tigre: A bunch of us went to Tigre one afternoon. Tigre is a little town about an hour train ride away from the city but it only costs about 30 cents to get there. It's built around the delta of a river so there are tons of little rivers. The residents take advantage of this and use their boats to go to school or have groceries delivered to their house. We had lunch there (Choripán- a traditional sausage sandwich thing), took a boat ride through the city, and checked out the market. 

- Kerri and I went to see "El secreto de sus ojos" an argentine movie that just came out and is really famous. It was certainly an experience...I think I would have been confused by the movie even if it was in english but without subtitles it was nearly impossible. Needless to say, Kerri and I left with no idea what happened. It was still fun to see a native movie and try to figure out the spanish

Mendoza/Chile

After some crazy and stressful "planning" a group of 6 of us decided to travel to mendoza and chile this past weekend. We left with almost no plans except a plane ticket there and back. Our argentine families kept laughing at us when we tried to plan ahead by buying bus tickets so we decided to just trust that everything would work out (and it did!) After a ridiculously easy flight (security here is a complete joke- 2 of the girls accidently switched passports through customs and they didnt even notice) we hopped on a bus from mendoza into chile. The drive is beautiful and goes right up through the Andes mountains. We were all exhausted from waking up at 5 for our flight but didn't want to sleep because we would miss the scenery. We got stopped at customs for about 3 hours because there were several buses in front of us but it was ok because the customs building is in the middle of the mountains. We got out of the bus, took pictures, and then fell asleep until we could pass through. 

The other girls with me transfered to a bus that took them to Valparaiso but I stayed on our bus to Santiago because I had plans to meet up with KATIE! Our vague plans of meet at this subway stop around this time actually worked out really well! She took me to her house to drop of my stuff and meet her family and then to a friend's apartment to meet some Chileans. The next day she and a Chilean friend showed me around the city. By pure coincidence it was chilean independence weekend and so there were concerts and festivals all day. It was so fun to see Katie, catch up with her, and compare our experiences.

The next day I caught a bus to Valparaiso to meet up with the other girls. After hopping on a random bus and then taking an "elevator" (basically a rickety box that takes you up the huge hills in valparaiso) I found their hostel. Valparaiso is a beautiful city with great colors and all the buildings built into the hills. 

We had breakfast and then took a bus to viña del mar, a ritzy suburb with a beautiful beach! It was so nice to walk along the beach and enjoy the nice weather. 

We then went to a famous empanada restaurant and enjoyed the 30 different types of empanadas (including sea food) a nice variety from the 5 types we can get here. We then got desert which was devoured in about 4 minutes.

We caught our overnight bus back to Mendoza. Because of an annoying bus company I ended up on a different bus than the other girls. It was fine though because I just slept all the way through. We arrived in Mendoza around 6 in the morning. We had forgotten to write down the address of our hostel so we spent a while looking for someone who knew where it was or could help us. After we tried to explain 411 and area codes to a very unhelpful bus worker we finally called another hostel who told us where ours was. When he got there a very sleepy hostel owner opened the door and said "Tenemos un gran problema" (we have a big problem). There had been some type of problem with our reservation (i was too tired to really listen...) and he had given our beds away. Luckily he found another hostel for us on his hostel worker chat room thing and we headed over there. After arguing with the hostel owner to get the price down since we were only sleeping a few hours that day we finally got to go to bed for a few hours!

When we woke up we went to a local market recommended by the hostel workers and enjoyed the wide variety in the food court. Callie and I split mexican food including chips and guacamole. We then got a cab out into the hills to go on a guided horse back ride. The ranch had a bunch of gauchos just hanging around who all ended up on our trail ride with us. I'm not sure if we really needed all of them or if they just came because there were 6 american girls. It was beautiful to ride through the rolling hills with the sun setting. Our guide diego was showing off his english skills for us and said some pretty awesome things. At one point he yelled at us to hurry up and said "Chicas, move your horses!". Later he asked us where our "wild spirits" were. When we got back from the ride we waited for our cabs for about an hour and just sat around with the gauchos, listened to them play the guitar, and drank really good mate. 

That night thanks to Callie's guide book we found a really good restaurant with middle eastern food. We spent so long there and then went back and got some sleep. The next morning we woke up and took a bus to where we wanted to start out biking/wine tour. The area around mendoza is known for its vineyards (kind of like the napa valley of Argentina). Unfortunately all but one of the vineyards was closed because it was sunday but we decided to go there anyway. We rode bikes past amazing scenery and arrived at a cute little french vineyard. The owners were a french couple who went on a vineyard tour, fell in love with the area, and decided to open their own vineyard. We got a brief tour and then got to taste a few of the wines. We got lunch there and then quickly rode our bikes back so 3 of the girls could catch a plane back. 

Callie, Diana and I were staying for a day longer so we collapsed in the hostel, exhausted after a day of biking, sun, and wine. When we woke up we ordered pizza, showed each other our houses on google earth, and then fell asleep 5 minutes into the movie we were planning on watching. 

The next day monday was Día del estudiante (day of the student) and the first day of spring. We bought fruit, goat cheese and crackers, and stuff to make our own trail mix and went to a giant park to enjoy our picnic. 

We attempted to do our homework but just fell asleep instead and watched the thousands of teenagers flooding the park. We caught our plane back and got into BA around 10 that night. 

The last few days I've just been catching up on my huge amounts of reading I need to do and getting back into the rhythm of classes. I FINALLY have all my classes finalized and turned in my final course form this week (yes i have been here 2 months...)   

Ha venido Santa Rosa

For those of you who don't speak Spanish, the title of this post says "Santa Rosa has come". Santa Rosa is the name porteños have given to an annual weather front that comes through around the end of winter. Every year towards the end of august it gets really hot, it was in the 80s this weekend. Then around August 31 (Día de Santa Rosa) it starts to rain and get really cold and windy. It was pouring rain and cold when I walked from the subway to class this morning but then it cleared up and really wasn't that bad. Argentines are very superstitious though and many people won't ride the buses today because they are sure they will crash (as far as I know none did...) I took advantage of this superstition and had a very non-crowded bus ride during rush hour when it would normally be packed. 

This weekend I enjoyed the brief warm weather by going to the park by my house at least once a day. I went with the intentions of doing homework each time but mostly I just people watch. I love going there because it is always packed with people, soccer games, and random street vendors and performers. On saturday when I was there I heard drums so I went to investigate. I found this drum line performing and there was a fitness center there leading a giant coordinated dance work-out with like 100 people participating. It was so cool to watch. 

Saturday night I went to the youth service at the church I've been going to. I ended up going by myself because the other girls I usually go with were busy. It was so great to get to meet many people my own age there and I went out to eat with about 20 of them afterwards. Despite having to answer the same questions many many times, I had a great time hanging out with them and hopefully made some porteño friends! 

Tengo que estudiar acá?

Classes have officially started here...

I still haven't figured out my schedule completely because my art class (painting or photography) doesn't start for another 2 weeks... Other than that, I am taking a grammar class, a spanish listening/conversation class, 2 lit classes, and a non-credit nature painting class. My lit class at flacso is mainly focused on the city and we go on lots of fieldtrips to different places that were important to certain authors. Our first trip is next week and we have to bring our cameras and take pictures while we walk around the city. My other lit class is at IUNA, the art school. The atmosphere there is really relaxed and people are constantly playing music or dancing in the courtyard. In my classroom there were probably 20 desks for 40 students...My painting class is great. It's on the top floor of an old theatre with beautiful natural light (great for painting!) I didn't understand a lot of what my professor said but she basically set up a still life and said "paint it", which I understood, art is pretty universal. I also tried out a psychology class at UBA which is the public school here. That was an interesting experience! The building is completely unfinished with handmade posters covering every inch of the walls. The classroom had murals all over the walls and desks that were falling apart. The class was so interesting but there's no way I could pass it. 

In general, classes here are fairly similar to classes at home except for a few differences. The biggest one of course is that everything's in spanish! haha. Lots of stuff goes over my head but I think that it's getting better...It's not unusual for a professor to arrive 20-30 minutes late to class and students walk in super late too and sometimes just leave to get food. In lots of classes there is a 10 minute break usually so that the professor can go smoke (if they don't just smoke in the class). We don't have any textbooks just huge photocopied readings that we have to buy from photocopy kioscs. 

Other than trying out classes I haven't really done anything too interesting...This morning i went to finish my visa process which was surprisingly easy. It only took an hour and a half even though they told us to prepare to be there for several hours. Sunday after church, Kerri, Chelsea and I went to recoleta to see the famous cemetery and fair. 

The weather here is getting so nice. Today it was 75 and beautiful. Because it was so nice and my class this afternoon was relatively close to me, I decided to walk. While I walked there I was thinking about how funny it was that a 30 minute walk now seems close to me even though at hope the farthest walk is maybe 7 minutes. Walking to class also seemed like an exciting novelty because I always have to take a subway or bus to get there. 

Well...I should probably get back to the reading I am avoiding doing. Off to a good start...

Bariloche!

Right now my host mom is blasting music and singing along as loud as possible. Including opera. I love her! 

Anyway, Yesterday I came back from a wonderful week in Bariloche with 11 other flacsitos. 

Last tuesday we set off on a 2o+ hour bus ride which was actually way better than you might think. Our seats were basically beds and we were given 3 fairly good meals and many movies to watch. I actually think I liked it better than flying because it was more comfortable and we got to see the beautiful Argentine countryside and mountains. 

When we arrived we stepped of the bus into freezing cold rain/sleet (Happy birthday to me!) We settled into out hostel which was right on one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen. The hostel owner, Iñaki was a really cool and helpful guy who lived there with his wife and 21 day old daughter. 

Thursday morning we woke up early enough to see the sunrise over the lake. Then Iñaki drove us himself to Carro Catedral, the nearby ski resort. The best way I can think to describe my skiing experience was that it was very latin american. So many of the runs were closed for really no reason and in order to get to the base of the mountain you had to take a chair lift down. It was still so fun though and now I can say that I've skied in the Andes!  

After skiing some of us (encouraged by Jessie) decided to jump into the lake. It actually wasn't as cold as you might think. If it wasn't for my feet (which were completely numb) I might have been able to stay in there for a while. 

Because of bad weather and kind of expensive prices, most of us decided to only ski one day. We spent the rest of our time relaxing, reading, playing tons of card games, and eating great food (Including delicious mexican food and a giant asado made for us by the hostel workers) One day we basically hopped on a random bus which according to katie would take us to a lake. She was right. When we got off the bus we saw this...

We spent a few hours walking around the lake and hiking up to a "mirador" (viewpoint). On our walk/slide back down it started snowing so hard. I had to keep reminding myself that it was the middle of August. 

The trip definitely ended too soon and all of us wanted to stay longer but we had to come back for our classes which started today. 

The only class I had to go today was a 2 hour grammar class which went really well. It's kind of weird being back in classes already but it's nice to start settling down into a schedule. After class I successfully bought art supplies in spanish (well really all i did was hand them a sheet of paper with everything i needed on it...) 

Gauchos Galore

Hello from Buenos Aires! We spent the weekend in what I refer to as "Cowboy land" and are just starting up classes this week. 

Friday morning we met early to leave for San Antonio de Areco, a small town about 2 hours outside of the city. We spent our first day there playing some orientation games outside and learning more about Argentine culture. We also ate tons of good food and I got to try Maté for the first time. Maté is a super traditional drink here that's really important to them. It tastes pretty much like tea, so I liked it. It's served in a small hallowed out gourd (also called a maté which makes it confusing). There are lots of rules to drinking it like you are not allowed to say thank you because that means you are done drinking it and you have to drink the whole thing the first time it is handed to you. We were the last people to sign up for a hotel room so we tried to sign up 3 people for a 2 person room. When we got to the hotel we found out they had moved us into a really nice suite. When we met up with the people staying in the other hostels we found out that some of them didn't even have running water and our hotel had a spa and some rooms had Jacuzzis. That night a bunch of people from the program including all of the staff went to a bar where they was a live band playing. They played a bunch of old English music (lots of Beatles) which was pretty funny. 

The next morning Kerri and I went for a walk through town and collected quite a few stray dogs who then proceeded to follow us to the estancia, which is like a ranch outside of town. We spent the morning there relaxing, playing games, and going for horseback rides. Then they brought us out food (including the best empeñadas i've had!). Right after we finished that food they brought us inside for more food; salad, potatoes, asado (basically grilled steak) and gelato. After lunch they had a folk dance show for us and taught us how to dance a little. Then they had a gaucho show. Activities included them trying to spear this tiny ring while galloping past it, musical chairs on horses, a game of Pato (pretty much quidditch), "tubing" behind a horse on a cowhide, a random sack race and tug-of-war. Then we drove back to Buenos Aires and got back just in time for dinner. The whole weekend was a nice time to relax, enjoy nice weather, and get out of the city for a little bit. Check out my facebook if you want to see pictures. 

Sunday morning Niki, Kerri, and I plus 2 other girls from the program went to a church that they found online. As soon as I walked in I was so happy and comfortable! It was just so nice to be with other believers and see a little bit of the church here in Argentina. I could understand most of the songs but didn't catch a lot of what the pastor said. Afterwards so many people came up to us to introduce themselves and tell us about small groups of young people that meet throughout the week. We gave our numbers and emails to lots of people and hopefully that will be a great place to meet some other young people. After lunch at a nice spanish-style restaurant, I spent the evening running errands and hanging out with my family.

Today we unsuccessfully tried to go to our first class at la UCA. When we got there we had to find our classroom on a big list of all the classes but our schedule didn't match up with the list. We tried to go to the classroom where we thought it was but once the class started we quickly realized we were in the wrong class! We're going to try to go tomorrow and hopefully it will all work out... Instead of going to class Kerri and I went to register for our classes at the Rojas center. Through the program we can take 1 class there for free. I was trying to sign up for a photography class but they were all full. I ended up signing up for what is basically a painting class with a focus on nature. Then we went to FLACSO where we mostly tried to figure out our trip to Bariloche tomorrow! I will be spending the next week (including my birthday!) there skiing in the Andes and exploring the town. I can't really think of a better way to be spending my birthday! 

Los peligros de la vida de la ciudad

Today we saw la UCA (the Catholic University where we can take classes) for the first time. It is 4 big, beautiful buildings right along the river and feels enough like Hope to make me feel at home. After a boring, and mainly pointless orientation session we walked to Plaza de Mayo and had coffee and tea at Gran Cafe Tortoni. It was founded in 1858 and is one of the oldest cafes in the city. Lots of famous writers used to go there to work. 

When we went to get on the subway to take us back to FLACSO a man and woman got on right with us and kind of trapped me in a corner. It's not at all weird for people to stand very close to you on the subway but they were keeping me right by the door instead of walking further into the train which I thought was strange. I tried to look at the woman to see what was going on but she was avoiding eye contact. She had a coat in her arms that was blocking my view of my purse. Luckily I quickly realized what was going on and pushed her out of the way (although I wish I had punched her). The two got off right away and left. When I looked at my purse the zipper was undone and my wallet was half-way pulled out. Thankfully I realized just in time that I was being robbed and nothing was stolen! I would have lost about $75 and my phone. Needless to say, I was really flustered and mad but it was a good reminder that I have to be careful here!