Rosario, Mendoza and a little bit of BA of course

It’s been so long, where do I even begin? I think where I left off was right before the trip to Rosario. Rosario is the second largest city in Argentina and is about four hours Northwest of Buenos Aires. The trip was sponsored and organized by my program and almost everyone from the program went. The bus left at 9:00 in the morning on Saturday, unfortunately without me and my friend Paula on it! I woke up around 9:30 when I was supposed to wake up at 7:30 to catch the bus. I quickly called Paula and luckily she had missed the bus as well. This was all due to a rather late house party we had been at the night before. Over breakfast Norma and I laughed hysterically over how ridiculous Paula and I were. Determined to make it to Rosario, Paula and I met up around 10 and headed to the Retiro omnibus station. We made it just in time to catch the 11 o’clock bus to Rosario. Although we were not feeling exactly our best we made the best of our bus ride and watched a Spanish dubbed version of Hotel for Dogs. Great bus ride. When we arrived to Rosario we were unsure exactly what stop we should get off of or if there was only one stop so we got off at some random stop in Rosario. We caught and taxi and headed towards our hotel. We realized that we were actually about twenty minutes outside Rosario but we had a pleasant ride with our taxi driver who told us about Rosario and pointed out some cool sights. Rosario was nothing like Buenos Aires; there were very few tall buildings and the feeling of the city is much more calm and relaxed. When we arrived at the hotel all of our friends were rather surprised to see us and couldn’t believe we had actually made it! We arrived just in time for the city tour so we hopped on the bus ready to go. They took us around the city, first to the river side to walk along the coast, see the beach, etc. We later went farther down the coast to the boardwalk that was filled with people walking around, skate boarding, rollerblading and such. We ended up at the top of a huge flight of stairs that led down to a lower part of the boardwalk. We also got to see a couple famous statutes and buildings around the city. Also, Rosario had so many beautiful (and unlike BA), very clean parks that were filled with people lounging and selling artisan crafts.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel to nap and get ready for dinner. Luckily me and a few of my friends ended up going to dinner with the director of the program Mario and his boyfriend, both of whom are extremely charismatic and fun to talk to. We went to an absolutely amazing restaurant, drank wine, ate great Argentine steak and just had a great time. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get ready to go out. A bunch of us went to a bar to start out the night. After being heckled by a group of rather inappropriate of guys we decided to move on. We then went to a club called Madame that our taxi driver had told us about. Despite the fact that it is apparently one of the biggest clubs in South America we were able to get in right away and I even got in for free! We danced non-stop to cumbia and reggaeton for hours. Some of the girls got tired but Paula and I stayed for a while and wandered around the absolutely enormous club. Eventually we got tired of pushing through everyone while getting pulled at and being wooed with lines such as “que linda que sos”. We stepped out on the street and started looking for a taxi but of course got distracted by the choripan stand on the street. We grabbed two choripans, talked with the guys working there for a bit about the U.S. and went on the hunt for a taxi. It was actually IMPOSSIBLE to find a taxi that night, every single one was full! We decided we minus well walk while trying to find one. Somehow, miraculously we ended up on the street of our hotel and walked home happily full of choripan. Don’t worry it was perfectly safe to be walking around and there were a ton of people walking around!

The next morning we woke up early to check out of our hotel room. Afterwards we wandered over to a small artisans fair and checked out the crafts they were selling. We then headed to lunch before getting back to the hotel to meet up with the whole group. They took us on a relaxing boat ride on the river. It was a beautiful sunny day and was a great way to end the trip. We then all loaded onto the bus to head back to BA and don’t worry Paula and I made it onto that one!

The next weekend I went on a trip to Mendoza with Paula, Lauren and Lauren’s friend Chesney from Denver who is also studying abroad in BA. Mendoza is about 14 hours Northwest of BA and most famous for being Argentine wine country. It also is famous for the outdoors opportunities because of its proximity to the Andes. Unfortunately right before we left I became rather sick. Determined to go and have a great time I asked Norma to take me to the doctor. We didn’t have to wait very long before we were able to see a doctor. My doctor turned out to speak perfect English and was actually very cute. Lucky for me, I was a gross, sniffling mess. He examined me quickly, gave me some antibiotics to take and told me to have a great trip. Not exactly the way they do things in the States. Afterwards Norma kept on talking about how nice he was and eventually I commented that he was cute, to which Norma replied “MUY LINDO”. I think that’s what she really meant all those times she was saying nice….haha. We left Thursday night and got in early Friday morning. We had bought our tickets with service so we had a server coming around to bring us food, water and such. Our server was hilarious and kept speaking English to us but we couldn’t understand anything he was saying. Eventually we had to ask him to speak in Spanish so we could actually understand. At one point he was saying “the bathrooms closing in five minutes” in a very thick accent and we started freaking out thinking that the bathroom was going to be closed all night until we discovered that he meant “the bathrooms closing FOR five minutes”. I’m starting to realize how important prepositions are...

We arrived at the hotel too early to check in so we put down our bags and had a very Argentine breakfast at a café down the block. By a very Argentine breakfast I mean orange juice, coffee and toast. WE then walked around the city of Mendoza for several hours. It reminded me a lot of Rosario in the way that it was rather small, had very few tall buildings, and had a much more laid back feel. The streets were lined with tall trees and restaurants filled with people sitting outside. While Mendoza doesn’t exactly have many sights to see it was nice to walk around and see the city. After getting settled in to our hostel we piled into a bus to go horseback riding in the mountains surrounding Mendoza. We were accompanied by two gauchos, Ramiro and Pirata (meaning pirate). It was about a half an hour ride that mostly consisted of Pirata bumping cumbia music. When we got there we were surrounded by a bunch of dogs that I later regretted petting. We all got onto our respective horses and started off on our journey. It was a pretty calm trip even though my horse had mala onda (basically was in a bad mood) and was trying to fight with everyone else’s horse. After riding for about an hour we stopped and climbed up a small hill. Ramiro told us about the wildlife that lived and plants that grew in the area. We then climbed down to have a mate break. Ramiro was a young, cute gaucho who wore shin guarders, gaucho pants and an adorable hat. During our mate break we talked with Ramiro who told us about all us foreign girlfriends he had had and lectured us about how we needed Argentine boyfriends to really learn Spanish. We told him we were working on it, haha. We then got back on our horses to head back. Ramiro asked us if we wanted to trot/gallop and without receiving an answer he whistled to the horses who all started trotting after one another. I was extremely excited because I’ve never trotted before and I’m not exactly the best on horses as my sister will tell you. When explaining how to trot Ramiro told us to ride the horse “like you’re having sex” which just made us laugh while trotting. Kind of an inappropriate gaucho but great nonetheless. When we got back we loaded back into the van and headed back to Mendoza. That night at the hostel they had an asado (barbeque) for the guests which included basically endless wine and meat, great combo.

The next day we took a bus out to Maipu, a small pueblo outside of Mendoza. After getting a bit lost, we found our destination: Mr. Hugo’s Bike Tours. A big thing to do in Mendoza is rent bikes and ride from winery to winery. We were greeted by Mr. Hugo himself and a cup of wine. We started off on the relatively busy road towards the first winery. Even though it was rather far and the road was crowded with drivers honking at us non-stop part of the ride was really beautiful and relaxing. At the first winery we had a leisurely lunch sitting in the sun. We then went on a tour of the winery during which our guide told us all about how they make the wine, how long they store it for, etc. Then to the best part, tasting the wine! We tried four different wines which to my rather undeveloped wine palette were pretty good. We then biked to the second winery about ten minutes away. There we tried eight different wines; three of which were Malbecs distinguished by year, three cabernets by year, and two white wines, all of which I found to be great. We then biked to a chocolate factory that was in fact closed but let us in quickly to buy a couple things. Afterwards we headed back to Mr. Hugos to return our bikes. Upon return we received more wine and sat down for a bit. We were joined by an awesome Swedish couple who are currently studying in Chile. Later that night we met up with them for dinner and I’m hoping to be able to visit them sometime! The next day we had a little time to kill before we got on the bus so we went to a huge park that was close to our hotel. We walked around the park and eventually just sat by the lake, watching the rowers and soaking up the rays. We headed back to the hotel, grabbed our stuff and made our way to the bus station to head back to BA. All in all, it was a great, relaxing weekend filled with lots of sun and wine.

I spent the past weekend in BA, relaxing, going to great cafes, going to great new bars and I guess studying a little bit. Quick update on the UBA strike, so it turns out that the strike still has not ended and it is likely that they will either extend the year into January or cancel the whole semester. In response my program has been forced to offer us other options in order to receive credit for the semester. So instead of my class I am writing a 20 page research paper. It has been a little stressful figuring all of it out but I think it should end up fine.

On Thursday night I met up with Lauren and a friend of our Emerson (who’s actually from Vashon Island and is good friends with Pablo, what a small world!) at a bar called El Alamo. As you can guess by the name, it is a rather as Argentines say “Yanquii” (American) bar. Lauren, being from Eugene, just HAD to watch the Ducks game and I reluctantly agreed to meet her there. Although it’s known for being an American bar the majority of people there were Argentines. Unfortunately, it was a lot of drunk, Argentine guys trying to meet American girls. By the end of the night we both got extremely fed up with the aggressive guys we quickly fled after the game ended. Luckily the Ducks killed it and we also got to see a bar fight J kind of an eventful night. Lauren left directly from there for the airport to head to Peru for ten days! I am so jealous!

On Saturday Paula, Adam and I headed to this organic market that my blogger friend had recommended. To find it we had a walk down a kind of shady, unmarked street. The market is called El Galpon and takes place in a small, yellow warehouse. Although it was small there were people selling all types of great stuff. Adam bought a couple empanadas of course, while Paula and I tried different types of olives. Even though I don’t like olives these were great and Paula ended up buying two jars. The organic produce they had there looked absolutely amazing and fresh and I will definitely have to go back sometime to get produce. After looking around we had lunch at the market. I had quinoa croquetes while Adam and Paula had a bruschetta plate with pancetta wrapped asparagus, duck eggs, and salad. All in all, a great lunch. Afterwards we wandered around the Chacarita cemetery which is actually very similar to the Recoleta cemetery. Heading home on the 42 bus we happened to be on the bus with all the River soccer fans who sang songs, cheered for River, and yelled at people on the street wearing Boca jerseys the whole way.

This Wednesday Paula, Max and I will be heading to Salta which one of the most Northwest provinces of Argentina. I am extremely excited to go and can’t wait to see all the beautiful mountains and salt flats! Sorry this post is so ridiculously long, I will try to be more efficient with my blog posting. Also, sorry if my grammar or spelling is horrible—I’m really starting to lose some of those skills in English! Hopefully that means they’re getting better in Spanish but I’m skeptical…Anyways I’ll post when I get back from Salta! Un beso!

I can’t even believe how bad I am at updating this blog, I’m so sorry!!!! Today is El Dia del Estudiante also called Dia de la Primavera which means the day of the students/day of spring. Like I said earlier, they have a day for everyone! Yesterday was the day of perfumista, the people who sell perfume. As my Norma said Argentina sometimes is una joda which means a joke haha. So today none of the students had class and had the day to celebrate. I went to the 3 de Febrero Park in Palermo Park with a couple of friends and the park was absolutely filled with students. There were thousands of what seemed to be high school students hanging out, playing soccer, watching performances that were going on and most of all getting drunk. Although it was exciting to see so many young people together it was a little overwhelming. It was also the only time since I’ve been here that I felt like I really stood out (on that note someone thought I was Brazilian the other day woot woot). Maybe it was because I didn’t have a crazy haircut. It seemed like every guy had a mullet, dreads, frosted tips or a combination of all. My favorite that a lot of guys had was the bottom half of their head shaven and the top half longer with white tips. I swear guys with that haircut traveled in packs haha. Afterwards I caught the bus to go to the place where I will be volunteering in a neighborhood called Flores. I am working with an organization called Mensajeros de la Paz that runs numerous programs around the city but the one that I will be working with is a house where children that are not able to live with their families (due to drug, abuse and other related problems) come to live. Because today was Dia del Estudiante all the kids were at a nearby plaza but I was able to meet the director and talk about what kind of work I would be doing. I’m going to be just helping out, picking up the kids from school, doing activities etc. The director told me that there is also a German guy living there who will be helping out too and another American girl but besides us we’re the only foreigner volunteers but that over the years they’ve had numerous foreigners volunteer with them. I’m really excited for next week when I get to meet all the kids!

All my classes are going pretty well meaning I have very little homework. Right now I have a two week break from my film class at Di Tella in order to study for midterms. At UBA things have been a little bit crazy. The social sciences students have decided to stage a strike demanding that the government remodels one of the buildings and gives more money to the university. The whole thing was set off by an incident in which a huge window pane feel and almost fell on a group of students and injured one student. They are protesting by blockading the classrooms so no one can enter and refusing to attend class. Some classes such as mine, have continued to meet however we’re forced to have class outside of the class room. Two weeks ago I had class outside and last week we blockaded the street and had class in the street. As I said, the COMPLETE opposite of Whitman haha. I have a friend who only has UBA classes and has not had class for almost a month now! I’m not sure if I agree or understand the students’ tactics but apparently they’ve done it before. I guess we’ll see how productive it turns out to be.

Last Friday I woke up nice and early to go on a trip organized by IFSA going kayaking in Tigre. Tigre is a smaller, much calmer city about an hour from BA by train. It is famous for the canals that run through the city (only maybe one or two) and for the Puerta de Frutas which is an old trading port. We went kayaking through a canal through the city and then crossed a channel into an area of the countryside. Along the canals were houses built on stilts. Although we passed numerous boats it was extremely calm and quiet. We ate an adorable little restaurant along the canal and soaked up in the rays. I was in a triple with two other girls and on the way back we really struggled to get there. Our guide Juan kept encouraging us but we just kept complaining about how tired we were and how it was the longest canal ever hah. Saturday I went to a rugby game in San Isidro, a northern part of BA. My neighborhood team Belgrano was playing San Isidro’s team and even though we lost it was really fun watching the game.
The past couple weeks I’ve been eating some really great food. I’ve had a couple great choripans (sausage sandwiches), found a great empanada place and organic place by my house, an actually pretty good Indian place we went for Lauren’s birthday and a place I’m most excited about is a place called Marfa delivery that’s about ten minutes from my house that my blogger friend recommended. It was really cute, had great, cheap soups, sandwiches, salads etc and was playing great hipster music. Definitely my new fav place! Also, I’ve discovered these great drinks that all the hip restaurants serve is a lemonade or grapefruit juice with ginger and mint. Sometimes it’s juice but it also sometimes is kind a slushy texture and it’s always amazing!!! Anyways, I really love writing about food so sorry if this turns into more of a food blog. I’ll write more soon I promise!! Tell me if there’s anything that I don’t talk about that you’d like to hear more about!!

Oh and here's some pictures I stole from someone's facebook!

Seattle Days and Crazy Classes

I’m having a very Seattlite day today. These past couple of days have been extremely gray and rainy apparently because of La Tormenta de Santa Rosa. August 30th is the day of Santa Rosa, the saint of Buenos Aires. As Norma explained to me, every year on Dia de Santa Rosa it becomes cold and rainy. (Sound familiar, 4th of July in Seattle?). I am also currently in Starbucks. Kind of a very Yanqui thing to do, but where else in BA can you get a soy vanilla latte? However, today I did a very un-Seattlite thing—I actually used an umbrella. Absolutely everyone uses umbrellas here which can prove to be difficult when you’re on a busy street running to catch the bus. As I have told some of you already I am really starting to miss the numerous international options of the States. While I absolutely love Argentine food I’m not exactly accustomed to eating a steak every time I go out to eat. As a result, I’ve taken to trying to find the best international restaurants in BA and reading food blogs. Lauren recently found a BA food blog by a young American woman living here and I feel like this girl is reading my mind! Through her blog I’ve found some great places nearby my house and an organic market! On Saturday night a few of my friends and I went to an Armenian restaurant called Sarkis. We went around 8:30 which is considered extremely early to eat dinner in BA to beat the crowd. We had a great meal consisting of hummus, sun dried tomatoes with parmesan and shared all of our entrees such as mousaka, falafels, some type of meat pie and meat wrapped in cabbage leaves. We also got a HUGE desert of ice cream, walnuts and a chocolate-coffee liquor sauce. AMAZING. I also went to an organic grocer/café called Natural Deli and had french toast with bananas and berries and a smoothie. Also soo amazing. Sorry if my blog seems to have become more a food blog, it’s just something I’ve gotten into since getting here!! But I promise I will of course talk about other things.

So even though I’ve told you what classes I’m taking I have yet to really talk about what it’s really like to take classes here. In general, taking classes here is the COMPLETE opposite of Whitman. One of the biggest differences is none of the universities have campus’, they all just consist of one building. Sometimes it can extremely frustrating, for example when your class gets canceled and somehow all the Argentine students know this and the foreigners have no idea.
My popular music Spanish class is through my program so an hour of it is grammar, another hour we talk about a book we all have to read and then the last hour we talk about music. My class is taught by a sassy, nonstop talker named Dario Steimberg (yes Steimberg) who loves classic bands like Radiohead and the Cure. When a girl in my class said she loved Enrique Inglasis I thought he was going to die. He’s extremely entertaining and is not afraid to give his opinion about anything, especially politics. For this music part of the class I have to listen to all this classic Argentine rock. Right now we’re in the 1960s-70s era and I must say that I can’t stand listening to a majority of the music. Hopefully it will get better as we get to more modern music. My Argentine film class is taught in Universidad Torcuato Di Tella which is a small, private university in my neighborhood of Belgrano. Because it is private the majority of students tend to be more upper-middle class and tend to keep to themselves more. The class is about half foreigners and half Argentines. While the class can be a little boring at times I’ve really been enjoying the movies we’ve watched and I feel like I’m learning a lot about the culture and history from this class. My experiences taking a class at Universidad de Buenos Aires is definitely extremely different than any other experience I’ve ever had. I take class at the social work building in the Constitucion neighborhood (one of the more rundown neighborhoods in BA). Although I technically have class from 6 to 10 I am never actually in class from 4 whole hours. Usually class starts around 6:25 or whenever the professor feels like it. Apparently the professors at UBA get paid close to nothing but it’s considered an honor to be a professor there so many professors have another job to support themselves. The atmosphere is extremely relaxed with people come in and out, arriving an hour late and leaving two hours early. At UBA all the students are extremely friendly, helpful and warm. In the main hall and the hallways everyone is constantly smoking, drinking mate and painting posters protesting anything from the law against abortion to Macri, the governor of BA. For example, last night there was an assembly organized by the students to talk about the need for more money for the social sciences part of UBA. There are two other buildings for the social sciences in other part of the city that desperately need remodels. While the social work building is new, the other two are extremely old—they are covered in graffiti, lack heating, and apparently flood when it rains. Basically even worse than Garfield before the remodel. So we went to check it out during our break at 8. While I thought we would stay for about 20 minutes and then go back to class apparently that was not the plan. I realized that no one from my class was going back so basically the second half of my class was canceled because no one went back. These are the types of things that happen that I’m still adjusting to. Even though it can be frustrating sometimes I’m really glad I’m taking class there and feel like it’s going to be a very interesting experience.

Just a little bit of bad news, the other day Norma fell and unfortunately broke a bone in her shoulder and has to have surgery! But she’s going to be totally fine, she’s just had to go to a lot of doctor’s appointments and has been very stubborn about not letting me help her with anything! I think she’s having surgery possibly this weekend or next week and then it should be totally fine! Anyways, I’ll write more after the weekend!!!

I'm sorry I'm the worst blogger ever!

I’m sorry that I haven’t blogged in so long! After several weeks of trying at classes I think I’ve finally decided what I’m going to take: Contemporary Argentine Film, Urban Politics and the theme for my Spanish class is Popular Argentine Music. I’ve continued to do a little bit of sight seeing the last couple of weeks. The other weekend I went to El Museo of Bellas Artes (Museum of Beautiful Art) which probably has the largest art collection out of all the museums in BA. There was a large variety of the type of the art there from Renaissance art to modern art. I preferred the modern art part and the exhibits that featured two Argentine artists. I also went to the weekend fair in neighborhood in San Telmo. The fair was huge and consisted of booth-lined streets selling types of souvenirs and antiques. There were also people dancing tango and we stopped to watch a couple who were absolutely beautiful dancers. I will definitely be going back sometime soon!

This past weekend I went to Puerto Iguazu to visit the incredible Iguazu waterfalls. The bus ride was about 18 hours, most of which I was able to sleep through. We arrived around midday and took the local bus to our hostel. The town of Puerto Iguazu is a rather sleepy town. The hostel we stayed out was great and popular among young travelers. There we meet up with a bunch of other people who were staying at the same hostel. The first day we sat around the pool and relaxed. Lauren and I also went on a walk through a nearby sanctuary of some sorts. That night we went to dinner in the town at a restaurant called Tio Quierdo which was absolutely amazing. I had chicken and beef skewers with onions and red peppers with chimichurri sauce, the first chimichurri sauce I’ve had since coming to Argentina! The next day we woke up early around 7 to get an early start on our day at the falls. There are several paths to take to see the enormous waterfalls so we decided to start on the upper circuit. From there you are above part of the falls and have an amazing panoramic views of the rest. We then went to the Devil’s Throat which is where the biggest waterfalls break over cliff. The view was absolutely break-taking and almost unbelievable. Afterwards we went down to the lower circuit to get another view of the falls. There we took a boat ride underneath part of the falls. We all got soaking wet but it was extremely fun and exhilarating to be right under the falls. It’s hard to describe these incredible falls, basically they’re one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I will try to steal pictures from someone to post soon!

That night we had great asado (barbeque) at the hostel for dinner. The day after Lauren and I returned to the park before we returned to BA. We went on a hike through the jungle until we reached a beautiful, small waterfall. It was nice and sunny so we laid on a rock and soaked up the sun and the mist of the waterfall. On the way back we saw an adorable family of monkey climbing through the trees! The weather was great that day so we sat around the pool at the hostel and then caught the bus back to BA that night. All in all it was an absolutely amazing and relaxing trip and a great break from the bustling city! I promise I will be better about posting more often from now on!

Hello all! Sooo this weekend when I had a break from classes stuff I got to do a little sight seeing around the city. On Saturday I went to the local weekend market with Norma and bought some stuff for lunch. I bought a red pepper and two small onions and it was only 2 pesos which is about 50 cents! I have been a little bit frustrated trying to figure out what to make for lunch here because there are so many things that they don't have here! But Norma told me Chinatown is the place with the most international food in the city so afterwords we went to Chinatown to do a little more food shopping and to look around. We looked through all the supermarkets and I was extremely excited to see particular food such as salmon and soy sauce while Norma was mostly grossed out by everything haha. I ended up only buying peanut butter and soy sauce but I think it will definitely be a place that I shop for food. I also went back to 3 de Febrero Park and went to the Japanese garden which I thought was a little overrated but everyone here seems to love it. That night me and a couple of my friends went to a parilla that Norma recommended called Club Eros. She told me it was very Argentine, cheap and a lot of locals went there, basically everything I'm looking for in a parilla. When we got there there was some sort of birthday party going on so when we walked in everyone turned and stared at us haha. It was a real hole in the wall kind of place but the food was great, authentic and really cheap!

Today is El Dia de Nino which is basically the day that celebrates children. They have a day for celebrating almost everything from Dia del Amigo (celebrating friends) to Dia del Abuelos (celebrating grandparents). Norma and Charlie both went to visit their grandchildren so I took the bus to the MALBA which is the Latin American Art Museum in BA. I rode through the 3 de febrero park and it was packed with families and children. Even though the museum was a rather small I really enjoyed the exhibits and I was even able to tag along on a tour and I could understand almost everything the tour guide was saying! I then took the bus back to my neighborhood and I have to admit that I went to Starbucks! Being the Seattle coffee snob that I am, I'm not a huge fan of the coffee here. It'ss like New York coffee-- a very weak coffee taste and just a lot of milk and sugar. The other thing is that very few places that do coffee to go, it's almost impossible to find. At Starbucks I got a dulce de leche latte which was delicious but I didn't exactly get my good coffee fix. I think I will have to go on a mass hunt for good coffee.
I think next weekend I may do a little bit of traveling but I'll keep you all updated!! love love

Soooo it's been quite a while since I last posted but there's not too much I have to cover. I'm finally done with orientation stuff which is great, but now I have to task of trying to figure out what classes I'm going to take for the rest of the semester. So this week and next week I will (and have been) running around the city testing out 13 different classes! All of which are about 45 minutes away from my house. Even though I haven't gone to all of them I think I will end up taking a contemporary Argentine film class at Di Tella, which is a private school with small classes and one at Universidad de Buenos Aires. Quite the opposite of Di Tella, UBA has 300,000 and is free for Argentines. However the class that I will most likely be taking is a politics seminar that will be smaller. I have been taking numerous subtes and colectivos and have been walking everywhere! On Thursday some of my friends and I walked to Plazo de Mayo. Even though it's not the most exciting place it has the Casa Rosada which is a huge PINK government building on one side. It's also famous for the Madres de los Desaparecidos which means the mothers of the disappeared. The are the mother's of people who disappeared when Argentina was controlled by the military. While the mothers were not there the day we went, there was some type of socialist protest going on but that type of thing is not exciting out of the ordinary.

During the weekend I went out to dinner with friends and went to a couple bars. I had squash ravioli with a cream sauce but like a lot of the food here, it was a little too salty for me. I have to remember to always ask for less salt, they really do love it here! We also went to a really cool bar called Post in Palermo Soho. Palermo Soho is kind of an epicenter for eating and drinking among the more hip, younger crowd of BA. While the main part Plazo Serrano is a little more touristy, Post is a couple blocks away and was great. Not only was it cheaper but the inside was covered in graffitted caricatures from Pinky and the Brain to Jimi Hendrix. I went with a bunch of my friends and we all loved it, definitely one of my favorite places to eat/drink so far.

On Sunday Cate and I walked to the 3 de Febrero Park which is a huge park in the middle of the city. It's basically physically impossible to walk the whole thing and has numerous attractions. In the middle there's a lake, a Japanese garden, a botanical garden, the zoo, etc. Even though it was rather cold it was a beautiful sunny day and the park was packed with people.

Besides that I have just been running around the city, going to classes, running errands so it's nice to have some down time. By the end of the day I am always utterly exhausted from walking everywhere and constantly having to listen to and speak in spanish. I'll write more very soon! Ciao!!!

This is our dinner at Las Cholas. So much carne!!!!

Sorry I haven’t written in a while, I have been so busy with orientation stuff and choosing out classes that I barely have any down time! This weekend I had a little bit of time so my friend Lauren and I went to La Recoleta Cemetery for a couple hours. The cemetery is one of the largest attractions in Buenos Aires. Here lie the tombs and bodies of the rich, powerful and famous of Buenos Aires. Even though it sounds creepy it’s extremely beautiful and oddly calming. Outside of the cemetery there was a small group playing the violin and the cello whose melodic sound floated through the quiet cemetery. We found the tomb of Evita basically by following the crowd. Apparently those of the upper-class were extremely upset when she was buried here due to her low class status. After we spent some time at the cemetery we walked through the neighborhood of Recoleta, which is one of the more upscale neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. It was extremely cold that day so we were overjoyed when we found a cute café with all types of tea. For dinner Lauren, Cate and I went to a parrilla (steak joint) that had been suggested to us by many called Las Cholas in a neighborhood close to ours called Las Canitas. Although we had to wait for about an hour to get a table, we were able to wander around and check out the cute and quaint neighborhood. Norma had told us what to order so we had the provoleta as an appetizer, which is basically just fried cheese and absolutely delicious. We also shared the parriada completa, which basically has a little bit of everything. And when I say everything, I mean every part of the cow haha. It came out on a sizzling plate and was loaded with prime rib, flank steak, chicken, chorizo, blood sausage, liver, intestines, everything! On top of that they serve it with french fries. Even though we tried almost everything between three of us we barely made it through one third of it! All together it cost us around 40 pesos each which is about $10! It was a great, very Argentine dinner!

On Sunday I mostly stayed around the house due to the horrible, rainy weather. Since then I have been preparing for signing up for classes and for actually taking classes! While I’m nervous for classes to begin I’m anxious for orientation to end, which has become extremely repetitive and boring. I’m still unsure what classes I’m going to take and where I am going to take them but within the next few days I will have signed up for all my classes that I may be taking (which right now is around 14!) and then next week I have a period of what they like to call “shopping” in which I go to all my classes to figure out which ones I like, which ones I don’t, which ones I won’t be able to understand the professor, etc. Lately in orientation we have been talking a lot of Argentine politics which has been extremely interesting. Basically what I picked up on is that no one likes Christina Kirchner. At all. Besides that there is a huge range of political ideologies in Argentina, all the way from socialism to extreme conservatism.

Just a quick story that I thought was funny, a friend and I were walking to the subte (subway) when we heard a marching band playing and saw a large crowd on the street. In the middle were people dancing holding blue and white umbrellas singing some song that every seemed to know. As I have heard, Argentines have a lot of national pride. After explaining this to my friend, he proceeded to ask someone “what are you celebrating” he answered, “we are celebrating nothing!”. Anyways, I’ll write more soon! xoxo

Long Post!

k here comes a long one since I haven't written very much since I've gotten here. Right now we are doing orientation for my program so I have to take the bus (el colectivo) every morning which takes about 40 minutes. For orientation we talk about things like the weird type of spanish that argentines speak, the city and where we will take classes. It's extremely long and often times boring but I guess it's all information that we need to know. Then I squeeze onto the ridiculously packed subway (subte) which is always closing on people because it's too full. The past couple of days I've been watching a telenovela with Norma that is of course extremely dramatic and ridiculous. Everything here is so cheap that I have been eating extremely well, I just want to try everything!

The city itself is absolutely amazing, I love it! Never before have I seen a more compacted and packed city. There are so many people everywhere I go but everyone mostly keeps to themselves. On every block there's a couple restaurants that have coffee and food like medialunas (like crossaints) and empanadas. It has been rather cold in the morning and at night lately but during the day it has been nice and sunny. There are a ton of trees everywhere and parks in all the neighborhoods. However, there is a ton of pollution from the amount of buses and cars in the city and sometimes when I have been walking around for a while I have trouble breathing. It's not like the fresh air of Seattle! My neighborhood is called Belgrano, towards the northern part of the city. It's mostly a residential area off of a man street that has a ton of stores. Even though there are parts of the city that are much more beautiful I still love it!

Last night was the first night that I went out because I have been a little jetlagged and am always tired from doing orientation stuff all day. Me and a few of my friends went to a little bar to meet up with a guy, Pablo who lives here in BA who I became friends with through Susy. We hung out there for a while and I met Pablo and all of his friends. They all speak pretty good english but me and my friends were trying to practice our spanish so we all spoke a lot of spanglish. They are all students that live in BA and all of them were extremely nice and reminded me a lot of my friends from home. We then went to a huge nightclub that had hundreds of people waiting to get in. Somehow Pablo convinced the bouncers to let us in after bribing them a bit hah. This place was the most crowded place I have ever seen, there wasn't even room to dance! Even though it was quite a sight it was a little overwhelming for my first night out so we didn't stay long. They couldn't believe we were leaving so early because here everyone stays out until 7 in the morning!

Anyways, sorry for the long message but basically I absolutely love it here! more later xooxoxxo

I arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday morning completely exhausted and worn out from traveling. I was nervous to meet my host mom, but she is absolutely amazing. Her name is Norma and she is extremely warm, helpful and relaxed. She keeps telling me that it's totally fine with her if I go out until eight in the morning! She lives with her boyfriend Charlie as well and has two daughters neither of whom live with her. Yesterday I slept for about five hours and then just chatted with Norma and ate dinner. Today was my first day of orientation which was good but also extremely long. I watched my first telenovela here with Norma which of course was extremely dramatic and ridiculous. Norma cooks a lot vegetables so I am still yet to eat a steak but that is at the top of my list! That's all for now! Ciao!

xoxo

Adios Seattle, hola Buenos Aires

Hello all! I am currently at the airport in Houston trying the pass the time of my six hour layover. I almost missed my flight to Houston but I'm now on my way! Despite my rough start to my trip I am extremely excited to arrive in Argentina! I just wanted to say goodbye to everyone, I hope you all have a good rest of the summer! I'll try to post often and post pictures as well!

love
air

HIII!!

hi :)