En la Tierra del Vino

Thursday night, on the 6th of October, I left with two friends for La Tierra del Vino (or the land of wine) AKA Mendoza, Argentina. We were taking an overnight bus to the city so that we could optimize our time in the wine capital of Argentina. The ride there was actually the most comfortable bus ride of my entire abroad travelings. The bus was pretty empty, so we each ended up getting a row of seats to ourselves. Also, to start the journey off, we shared a bottle of Cuban rum, which gave us sweet dreams and a deep sleep.

DAY 1

When we finally arrived to our hostel on Friday, I go to the front desk to check-in since I had made all the reservations. The woman working there was taking a little long to pull up our info, and we all took a couple of nervous looks around. Then we find out, that (in true "Nora" style) that I had made the reservations for the following week! Luckily they had one room available for that night, but we'd have to find a different place for the rest of our trip. Too bad, because that hostel was really nice, and the people were super friendly. This first day, we just walked around the city of Mendoza, bought groceries, and grilled out at the hostel. This was the very first night I tried Argentine steak... it was okay. Steak, as it turns out, just really isn't my thing.

DAY 2

First thing Saturday, we moved to our new hostel, which turned out to only be a convenient block away. Then we took a bus out to the wine district, which so happened to be called Maipu (pronounced "My poo") so you can only imagine the fun we had with that. When we got to Maipu, it was freeeezing cold and really windy. To make matters worse, the bike shop that we were told to rent bikes from was closed. Since we had made it all the way out there, we were determined to at least see one vineyard. Finally we found a wine museum/bodega (bodega is where wine is made). We got a brief explanation (in Spanish) of how the wine is produced, and then finally got to taste authentic Argentine wine. It was delicious.

After the museum, we found a little shop where you could sample a bunch of different homemade dips, jams, cheeses, and olive oils as well as delicious liquors. After some sampling and purchasing, we headed back outside. We were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful weather that had developed while we were inside! Perfect for riding bikes! So we decided that we'd eat first, and then find someplace to rent bikes and continue exploring the vineyards.

Lunch was awful. But after that we found a cute bike rental place owned by this nice old lady. My friend Dan and I fulfilled my lifelong dream of riding a tandem bike!! It was the most laughing I'd done in a looong time. Pretty tricky to get the hang of at first, but afterwards we just cruised along. We spent the rest of the day biking around the vineyards and stopped by a glorious establishment named the Beer Gardens. They only served three different home-brewed beers, but they were delicious and the place itself was so quirky and adorable. I could have spent hours there in the sunshine. Aside from the places we stopped, the scenery itself was absolutely amazing. The contrast of the bright green vineyards with the blue sky, and then topped off with the backdrop of the Andes mountains, it was just unreal.

We eventually left Maipu, and had a quiet night in the hostel, where I got my first opportunity to cook since I had been in South America. I made pasta, it was just okay (I blame the available ingredients) but finally being able to cook my own meal was very enjoyable.

DAY3

Sunday was our first day of adventure. We got picked up early to go white water rafting in the Andes. The car ride there alone resulted in an excessive number of mountain pictures. I couldn't help it though; I never get to see mountains! When we got to the river, we find out that they scheduled too many people for the time slot, so they told us that we would have to wait about 2 hours... but on the bright side, they would take us on a hike and let us go zip-lining for free. The zip-line was pretty weak, but better than just sitting around. The hike wasn't too incredible either, but we got some exercise and great photo ops. Then it was finally time to raft. They gave us “waterproof” outfits to wear, and off we went to learn the commands (in Spanish mind you). The rafting was fun, the water was frigid, and the views were fantastic.

DAY4

Monday was our last day there (and no we didn’t miss school, it was a holiday). We decided to go paragliding. I was super excited since it was another adventure to check off of my to-dos. We took the drive back out to the edge of the Andes to the base camp for the paragliders. It was a neat place, middle of nowhere, abandoned building… if it wasn’t such an exciting atmosphere, it would probably be the great setting for a horror movie. We then took a ride up the side of a mountain on this zigzagged trail in a rickety truck. The ride up was almost as exciting as the glide down haha. Skip to take off: we were attached to another (professional) glider. As the wind caught the parachute (or kite… whatever you call it) they yell for you to run. You literally run straight off the side of the mountain… super fun! From there on out we just floated along, every once in a while catching a fast burst of wind. The most exhilarating part was the landing. We did this downward spiral thing and the force of our wind speed was so strong I couldn’t really feel my face anymore haha. After I landed I took a tiger snooze in the sun while I waited for my friends to land. This resulted in the notorious shin tan (I was wearing cropped pants) that lasted through the rest of my trip.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Mendoza, seeing the parks, eating ice cream, and doing some last minute shopping. We then caught an over-night bus out of the city to make it back to Buenos Aires just in time to catch our Tuesday morning classes.

Well until next time, (which is hopefully soon since I’m totally slacking on my catch-up blogs)… Chau!

Another City: Rosario, Argentina

Rosario was my first time outside of Capital Federal Buenos Aires, so I was super excited to see a different aspect of Argentina. Rosario is the second largest city in Argentina, the birthplace of Messi (one of the greatest fútbolers of this time), and the location of Argentina's flag monument (which we got to watch a 10 minute tourist/advertisement video on).

Our entire group of ISA students rode to Rosario in two Semi-cama Omnibuses (nice tour buses that are common for distance traveling in Argentina). We all stayed in the same hotel, and within the first ten minutes of check-in we all were sticking our heads out of the windows of the building and yelling to our friends in the different rooms all over the hotel... we weren't used to being surrounded by all of our friends, so the close proximities were a nice change.

We were only in Rosario for two days, so our first day we spent just walking around and exploring. We saw some of the city, the main shopping areas, the overly-advertised flag monument (which was admittedly pretty impressive), and some ferias near the water.

On our walk home, we were walking back through the heavily crowded shopping area and we saw a street performer beginning an act, so we decided to stop and watch for a little bit. Guess who got selected from the crowd to participate in a Spanish-spoken magic show??? THIS GIRL. So I nervously join him, in front of the crowd. He starts talking to me and asking me questions, after having him repeat a question he realized I wasn't a native speaker... but fortunately I answered his questions accurately and followed his directions for the first part of the trick. He then selects another girl from the crowd, she was an Argentine. He gave her instructions for the second part of the trick, unfortunately for her, she didn't do it the right way. He called her out on it and made fun of her in a way that didn't seem like it was that funny to the crowd. When she didn't laugh at his joke at her expense, he accused her of having "malas ondas" (literally bad waves, but it means she didn't give off a good vibe). He then lectured the crowd that they had to be having a good time and have "buenas ondas" in order to stay and watch his show. Everyone started to get uncomfortable, and people started to leave since this guy wasn't in the least bit enjoyable to watch and he had basically brought one of his assistants to tears. I sooo badly wanted to get out of this, and I could tell that my on-looking friends did too. So I asked him if he wanted to start the trick over. He did. So I returned the cards I'd been given and at the first opportunity, my group and I ran for it. I guess I'll never know how that magic trick turned out... good thing I don't care. Meanest street performer I've ever seen. Actually, the only mean street performer I've ever seen.

After our nightly entertainment, we went to dinner (nothing special), had some drinks, and went out to this club that we'd heard about all day. There were only a few places to go out to in Rosario, so everyone had been buzzing about this club... we heard that it had something like 11 different stories, an indoor pool, etc... Turns out it only had like 4 stories, maybe 11 rooms, but only a few were open since it was off-season, and I never saw a pool... Besides all of that, we had a blast. The club was really fun, good music, and to top it all off we were with all of our friends.

The next day, we all went to the beach. Well it was technically a beach. It was the sandy coast off of the river Paraná. Way different from any beach I've ever known, but after about 3 months of winter in the city, I'd embrace it with open arms. The water was freezing, I didn't have a towel or blanket to lay on (so I strategically laid on my sun dress), and the sand was weird, but the sun was warm and the friends were there, so I enjoyed it. We spent the entire day out in the sun before heading back to Buenos Aires, a little bit happier and a lot more sunburnt than when we had left.

...More catch-up posts to come pronto!

Chau!

The Great Cell Phone Adventure

On Sunday, September 11th, I lost my second phone in Buenos Aires. I had just sent a text message before collectivo 15 pulled up right outside of Barrio Chino, slipped my phone into my pocket so I could pay the toll, and got on the jam-packed bus. With no room to move, I wedged myself into the crowd, and didn't pay much notice to the others bumping right into me and squeezing by. When my 20 min ride was finally over and I released myself from the sardine tin of a bus, I look for my phone and realize its gone. Not much to be done at that point.

Electronics in Buenos Aires are expensive, the pay-as-you-go mobile phones are no exception. It costs $50 USD to get the cheapest Nokia phones at the stores. I was not about to shell out another $50 dollars of my (parents') money to get another phone, that has a pretty good chance of being stollen, so I decided to check out the Argentine e-bay, called Mercado Libre. I found a guy selling a pay-as-you-go samsung phone for about 75 pesos, I bid on it for about a week and ended up winning it at about 90 pesos. Saving $40+ USD was a pretty exciting feat for me, but little did I know of they journey ahead.

I researched online how to get to this guy's business because it was in an area that I didn't know. Then that Friday I set out with my friend Kaylen to find the bus we needed. We searched all day for a stupid bus stop but could never find the bus going in the right direction!!! We are both really directionally challenged, so looking back its not too surprising, but I was on the brink of full-on rage that day.

The next day I set out on my own and finally found the bus I needed, pulled out the handy bus Guia and followed the route of my bus as we went along. Everything was going swimmingly, until (just like the bus 111 incident) my bus took a turn off of the said route. I decided to sit it though since I had no idea where I was going/where I currently was. I rode yet another bus to the absolute end of it's route, in the middle of nowhere, past slums, past countryside, to the end. I then bought a return ticket, hopped back on the same bus but going back in the other direction. I followed the Guia until I got to what I thought was relatively close to my phone's whereabouts, got off the bus, hailed a taxi, and made the rest of the trek the easy way, getting dropped off right at the doorstep.

I get to Juan's (owner of the phone) apartment building buzz his apartment number, and............. no answer. SERIOUSLY?!?! I then avoided a major break-down, turned around, and headed toward the subte that the taxi driver told me about. As I'm walking down Juan's street, guess what I see... THE BUS THAT I HAD TAKEN TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. It obviously wasn't the same bus, but apparently only some of that bus number actually stay true to the route that the Guia says it follows. At that point I could do nothing but chuckle at my ridiculous life.

The next week was parciales (midterms) so I had to wait until Friday until I could re-try the phone journey. I took the newly discovered subte route (required taking two different subway lines until the very end of their routes) to Juan's place. I go back to the apartment building, buzz up, and........... no response. So I show the address I had written down to a maintenance worker and asked for some help. He explained to me that there were other apartment complexes behind this building that had the same exact address. So I ventured into the complex, buzzed on a few apartments, and had no luck finding Juan. I reluctantly continued wandering around the complex, until I finally tried one last building. IT WAS JUAN'S!!!! I finally made a decision that resulted in success.

With phone finally in-hand, I go to the nearest corner store, to buy a SIM card. The woman working there inserts the card, goes to activate it, and......... apparently there is something called a SIM block, that doesn't allow you to activate a new SIM card without a certain password (probably to avoid making whoever stole your phone's life easier). I then make my way back to Juan's. I wait as Juan finishes selling two (yes TWO) laptops for 500 pesos a piece... that is two laptops for about $250 USD... I never said Juan's "establishment" was very legit. He then brings me and my phone into his office, looks up online how to de-activate the SIM password, does some crazy trick with the phone battery and a piece of paper, and voila! My new phone is ready for action.

That was the most satisfying subte ride home.

I blissfully enjoyed life with a phone for about a week and a half. My new phone died. No longer accepting a charge, I accepted defeat.

The good news is, though at times it is inconvenient, I've been enjoying the last month even without my phone. With only a few more weeks in South America ahead of me, I know I can make it without a phone.

Chau!

Its Been a While...

So I accidentally skipped blogging the entire month of September, and yes, I feel terrible about it... BUT I will slowly, yet surely catch up with with the blog. My last post was August 27th, so I'm going to start off with the 3rd of September, because thats the next cool thing I did with my life.

• On the 3rd of Sept. I finally re-visited La Boca with a group of friends. (And when I say I visited La Boca, that really means I visited El Caminito --literally the small walk-way-- since that is the only "tourist friendly" part of La boca... or at least so I'm told). For me, La Boca is the coolest barrio of Buenos Aires. The streets are narrow, the brightly colored buildings clash and complement one another, and it is a place proud of it's history. La Boca is the birthplace of the tango and also of the fútbol team, Boca Juniors. Throughout El Caminito you can find homages to Evita, Carlos Gardel (father of tango), and Maradona (debatably one of the greatest fútbolistas of all time). The only downfall is how touristy El Caminito has become. Its somewhat of a paradox; the one place that you're supposed to experience the "real" Buenos Aires, has become very un-real, and sort of like an attraction. So in order to really get a taste of La Boca, one would have to venture outside of El Caminito, but it isn't highly recommended... especially not for foreigners, not to mention gringos. Nonetheless, I had a good time taking pictures of the bright buildings, watching all the tango dancers, and my over-priced pasta dish at a tango show restaurant.
• The following week (on the 9th to be precise) I visited the Museo Nacional de Bella Artes. I never know how to talk about museums (especially art ones)... but there were tons of extremely old and beautiful paintings. The names I remember seeing/recognizing include: Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrant, Rodin, and El Greco. I don't know too much about art, but it was very cool to see works by names that I've heard of and seen in various classes. I also got a mini history lesson from one of the security guards: after viewing a huge painting for a good minute, he explained to me that it was a portrait of General Juan Manuel de Rosas and his daughter. He then showed me how that is the exact same portrait that appears on the Argentine 20 peso bill. And that's the extent of my applicable knowledge of Argentine art.
• The next day I went to Zoo Lujan. Lujan is about 2 hours outside of the city of Buenos Aires, and has a zoo in which you are able to pet animals otherwise known as dangerous man-eaters. Here I got a chance to pet and bottle-feed lion cubs (and lion pre-teens), pet full grown tigers, ride a camel, and hand-feed an elephant. I also thoroughly enjoyed the children's area where I played on a seesaw for an age-inappropriate amount of time, held a little duckling and a baby goat, and survived a crazy old goat's attempt to eat my hair. Also the zoo had piggies!!! They were not the cutest of pigs, but I loved them all the same. Another priceless memory to note, is that our two hour return home turned into a 4+ hour return home when our bus literally took over 2 hours to stop at the bus stop... gotta love that reliable public transportation system. Argentina wouldn't have it any other way.
• The next day (Sunday the 11th) I went to the first annual Harvest Moon Festival in Barrio Chino. I love every chance I get to go to China Town, so I obviously enjoyed this day. We saw traditional dragon dancing and Chinese drumming (all humorously performed by Argentines and not a single Chinese person), ate a delicious Chinese meal, were discriminated against because we weren't Chinese (a store owner was only letting in people of Asian descent into the grocery store--- not necessarily fun, but I found it funny in a way), and tried a moon cookie (or cake, or pie... I don't remember the technical term, but whatever it was, it was over-rated). This is also the day that my second phone was stollen on the bus ride home... but that process will be receiving it's own blog post, so stay tuned.
• The next two weeks of September were dull. This was the time period of my parciales (midterm exams) so I'm going to use my responsible dedication to my studies as an excuse... During this time period I also bought my first pair of Argentine-style boots, a very exciting occurrence for me, and I also visited the San Telmo feria, which is practically a giant outdoor market that runs for blocks and blocks and blocks of people selling crafts and touristy gifts. Didn't even make it all the way through the first time, so I'll probably be re-visiting before my time is up here. During this time I also missed an excursion with ISA due to my lack of phone, and hence lack of reliable alarm clock. It was the Día del Campo, which was meant to be my first official Argentine meat tasting, but don't worry, in the meat capital of the world, other opportunities have presented themselves... but more on that later.

Aside from my cellphone ordeal (which will be elaborated upon in the next post), that pretty much sums up my month of September. A catch-up on the month of October, will be following very, VERY, shortly.

Chau!

Bubamara

It's kinda been a while since my last post, but day to day life is becoming more routine, so I generally feel like nothing new is really going on... but here are some of the highlights of mi vida in the past couple of weeks. I promise I'm still doing cool stuff.

Last week I got sick of being lazy, so I joined the volleyball intramural team for the University of Belgrano. We practice twice a week and then have games on Fridays. Practices are interesting, because its mostly girls from the US who are studying abroad that show up. So far there are two Argentine girls who are 'regulars.' There are also these two Argentine guys that show up, which is cool because they help us deal with stronger serves/hits/whatevers. We had our first actual game last night against the University of Palermo... and WE WON!! Additionally, yours truly (all 5ft 2 inches of me) got two kills, awwwwyaaaaa.

Last night I also had a brief tango performance in front of all the other international students (and locals too) as a part of my tango class. It wasn't fantastic because we were soooo limited on space, and us newbies have a lot of trouble if we can't rely on enough room to do our basic steps. Regardless, my partner and I killed it! haha Another funny side note is that we may or may not have had a couple of pre-performance drinks (just to calm the nerves, of course)... and then maaaaybe a few more post-performance drinks (only to celebrate how awesome we were) which resulted in me being sufficiently tipsy for the volleyball game. Not necessarily a bad thing, seeing as we won and played pretty well in general :)

Some other things I've done (to prove that I am still experiencing the Argentine culture, and not just the bars) are:

• Tango Festival: the world tango competition is being held in Argentina currently, and as a result, Buenos Aires has put on a huge tango festival with free music and dancing events and shows, as well as some historical displays of Carlos Gardel (the king of tango). When I went it was to hear a tango musical group perform, but also there was an open dance floor with some pretty impressive veterans getting their groove on. The dance floor was literally jam-packed with people, but they all somehow managed to still look amazing. It makes me realize how much more I have to/want to learn about the dance. Its this fantastic mixture of being intimate and sexy while also being light and fun. Next personal goal: to go hit up a milonga (tango club) or two... maybe after a few more classes.
• MALBA: (el Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) here there was a lot of modern artwork, not only from our time period, but from a number of decades back as well. I personally liked the more recent stuff better, and I'm not going to lie... some of the "art" was a little questionable to me haha. Can a bunch of outlet adapters hooked up to each other really be considered art??? Well at MALBA they sure are. Some other cool stuff was an original self portrait by Frida Kahlo and a room dedicated to Ricardo Garabito, who I'm proud to say I somehow recognized as being famous... I guess I shouldn't give myself too much credit since I didn't know who he was, I only recognized his paintings as being notable. There was also this pretty cool bench that starts on the top floor and then unravels into swirls of wood to the next floor down where it re-forms into another bench, and so on down the building.
• National Library: I went here yesterday to do some research for an upcoming project, even though we weren't too successful, I'm glad I made it over there just to see it. They system was soo weird. There was tons of security throughout the building, with guards that had to check an ID card at each floor. Also you don't search for your own books/resources. You have to know exactly what you're looking for and then you put in a request with a librarian and they go retrieve it for you while you wait. It was a bit complicated.
• Evita Museum: Just kidding!!!! I was supposed to go (and still really want to go) but I lost track of time at the library and then missed the group tour I signed up for as a result. I still plan on going eventually though!!

Now for some nightlife! I recently made friends with this girl who has been living here for a while now and she invited myself and Kaylen out to a huuuuuge club (Pancha) with her and some of her friends. I was super excited to a) go out to a legit Argentine club, and b) go with a bunch of Argentines! Even though her friends ended up not going, we still had a fun/crazy night. We didn't even get to the club until around 3!!! We paid a ridiculous cover to get in, and then were immediately swarmed by Argentine guys... After making our escape (not an easy task) we just did our own thing and danced. When we left, we ran into some British guys, and an Irish one and split a cab with them... lucky for them because they couldn't speak a word of Spanish. Also found out that my name is indeed very Irish... I can honestly say I have an authentic source to site. We didn't get home until around 6, so needless to say it was a true Buenos Aires experience. However, I'm still waiting to stay out all night and end with breakfast :)

Are you wondering what the title of the blog post means??? Welllll Bubamara is this my new favorite thing to do in Buenos Aires! It is this music party/event that is put on once a month at various venues. It is described as a "Balkan, Gypsy, music festival." When I went it was held at this old building that was once (and maybe still is) used as a theatre. All the music was live and folksy and perfect for dancing! The crowd was super high energy too, everyone was jumping around and cheering. The other cool thing was that besides the person I went with, I felt like I was the only Yankee there (a rarity). I cannot wait for the next one!

Thats about it for now... until next time,

Chau!

Never Take Bus 111

Before getting into the meaning of the title of this post, I'll share what I did this week:

Mon-Thurs = classes!! On Wednesday night I got to hang out with a new friend, Adriana, we met only once before and it was about a year ago, we have a mutual friend back in Florida, so that's how we connected. Through Adriana, I met 6 other Argentine girls and we hung out at one of their (Augustine's) apartment. We drank beer, ate empanadas, chatted (in my case mainly listened to others chatting), and looked at a bunch of underwear. Yes underwear. A couple of the girls sell it as a job so they just pulled out a duffle bag filled with undies, pretty amusing.

To stay with Thursday tradition, I went out to Pub Crawl, and we can just say that it was a pretty crazy night and leave it at that.

Friday was recuperation/lay around and do nothing day.

Saturday I got my culture fix and took a tour of the Casa Rosada, the Argentine government building. It's painted pink as a symbol of the harmony of the two primary political parties (federals which are Red, and the unitarians which are White). I now fully support the US's adoption of a Purple house, how sick would that be??? After our nice little history lesson we headed over to the famous Café Tortoni (the oldest café in Argentina) to have some coffee and dulces. I got a torta (cake) called Bonbon Suiza, it was amazing. Afterwards we strolled down Calle Florida where there are a lot of touristy and cheap vendors. Here I bought a Boca fútbol team soccer ball :)

Today, we went to the park, where I got to try out said soccer ball and laze around in the sun for the afternoon. Just a teensy bit warmer and it would've been perfect, but regardless, it was a beautiful day and it felt great to be outside and mess around with a soccer ball.

Think I forgot about last night??? WRONG I absolutely did not, just saving the entertaining story for last. So last night I was going to meet some friends at a park to drink a little and hang out (it was yet another election day eve, hence no bars/clubs were serving alcohol). We've been to this park before, I know exactly where it is, and so I look up in my Guia (guide book with all the bus routes that ISA gave us) which buses traveled from my part of town to this park, wrote about five options down on my hand, and head off. The first bus from my list that showed up was the 111, so I hop right on. Very shortly afterwards it turns to the left, which I knew was in the opposite direction of where this park is. So I pull out my Guia and double check to make sure the bus in fact does end up at the park, it said it did, so I figured I'd be patient. After about 20 minutes of patiently sitting on the bus, I really regretted not getting off and turning around, but the area the bus was in was too sketchy to turn back now, so I continued to go along for the ride. My friends call me to make sure I'm still coming, and I explain my bad choice of bus and let them know I'll be a little late. Maybe about 20 more minutes later I'm getting really nervous, so I start following the bus route street for street in my Guia. Even though I have no idea where I am, the streets are matching up, so I figure it will end fine. Then the bus takes a couple of streets that are not listed in the Guia, I figure I better address this situation head on. I ask the bus driver when we are going to get to the park, "Park off of Maria de Campos?? We don't go there, thats in a completely different province!!" (in Spanish). I proceed to have a mini mind freak out and try to talk with him about how to fix this. Apparently the all-knowing Guia is capable of making errors. I'm at a bus stop, in a different province, I'm having a really hard time understanding the nice bus drivers, and all I could gather was that I need to take the 140 back and I'd have to wait 40 minutes for the next one. I may or may not have shed a tear or two at this point... I was pretty freaked out. The nice old bus driver saw this, and graciously escorted me to a different bus stop, spoke to the driver of that bus, explained my sitch, and got me going in the right direction. (I LOVE this man). Then I sit on this bus for 20-30 minutes, endure some creepy guy saying "wow" to me, the 8 screaming babies/children/terrors that rode with us for a good 15 minutes, and the cute, yet rather loud gum-smacking old man. Finally bus driver number 2 tells me to get off here, and to take bus 114. Here I wait with a drunk man leaning on the telephone wire for 10 min, then hop on 114. Luckily, this was a short and easy bus ride and within 10 minutes I FINALLY met up with my friends. Such an incredibly stressful night, but everything worked out, and I really enjoyed just hanging in the park. I thought I was done getting THAT lost, but I now know to not assume such things. Lessons learned:

1. ALWAYS ask the bus driver if they in fact are going to your destination, or say where you want to go as you enter.
2. NEVER, EVER TAKE COLECTIVO 111!!!!!

Off to other things,

Chau!

Classes and Such

So just when I get settled in, have a week off of just wandering around and going out, its back to reality where I'm reminded 'oh yeah, this is a study abroad program, isn't it?' Last week was my first week of classes, and going on week numero dos I'm still not in "school mode." In fact, I'm using this blog post as another method of procrastinating my homework... some things never change I guess. Overall, I'm very pleased with my class choices and I'm looking forward to the semester. Here's a rough look at my schedule:

• Grammar: Advanced B to be precise... it sounds great and all, but my grammatical knowledge does not correspond with my speaking knowledge. The real kicker is when I mess up when telling someone I'm in "advanzado b," its such an oxymoron haha. But thats why I'm taking....
• Oral Production! It only meets once a week, but its sole purpose is to become more comfortable talking and enhance the fluidity of speech. Its also cool because we have a guy from Denmark, a guy from Italy, a girl from Turkey, and a girl from Japan in the class as well. Kind of depressing when you know they have three languages down (they all know English as well as Spanish) and I'm still struggling with the second, but its still cool to have different cultures represented... plus we get some pretty funny cross-cultural discussions going in class too.
• Latin American Film: I love movies! So I'm obviously looking forward to the rest of this class. We've watched two Argentine films so far: El Tiempo de los Valientes, and Los Paranoicos. They were both funny and entertaining, but Los Paranoicos appealed to me the most, it was quirky, humorous, and had a great ending, I definitely plan on re-watching it. Its so refreshing to watch quality films that don't come from the US, it makes you realize how many great films we Yankees miss out on... entertainment actually exists outside of Hollywood!!! I'm also looking forward to El Secreto de Tus Ojos, which won best foreign film at the Oscars in 2010, and one of my favorite movies, Cidade de Deus (City of God).
• Argentina: An Open Society: I chose this class as a personal goal to be more well rounded... I thought it would be important/valuable to learn about the history and politics of Argentina and their social effects on the nation. It will probably be my most challenging class, but also potentially the most interesting. I'm excited to branch out from literature/grammar classes. And last, but not least...
• Tango!!! This is my favorite so far, pretty much because one out of the two days of classes is devoted to learning the dance! I'm sure it will be at least semi-intersting to learn about the history of the dance, it has such a huge meaning for Argentina after all, but the dancing is fun! However, I also found out that my class will be doing a group performance at International Student night... This means that I have to dance a dance that I do not yet know in front of all the foreign exchange students (including all my friends I've made).... should be interesting, and by that I mean hysterical.

All of my classes are taught in Spanish, so hopefully I'll just keep on slowly (but surely) improving my Spanish skillz. Also, classes are only Mondays-Thursdays so I'll be able to keep up my perfect attendance at the free Pub Crawls on Thursdays :)

Other noteworthy things I did last week:

- Went to this really awesome drumming performance by a group called La Bomba. They had about 15 different people working percussion instruments and it was soooo good!! They would just make up songs right there through hand motions and just keep building up the beats. I went with a bunch of my girl friends and we all ended up jumping around in this ridiculous mosh pit... good times. Definitely plan on going back.

- Managed to lose my phone, I think/want to think that it was pick-pocketed. Its actually pretty likely that it was since I heard about five other girls that got pick-pocketed at the same place on the same night.

- Went to Chinatown again, ordered what I thought would be a delicious bowl of vegetables with shrimp, but turns out vegetables just means a shit ton of boiled cabbage sprinkled with shrimp haha. Next time I'll just stick to fried rice...

I guess thats all for now, maybe I'll actually start studying seeing as I literally have no more excuses to procrastinate...

Chau!

A Quasi-successful Week

Today is that last day of winter vacations here. My "week of solitude" ended up being not so lonely after all. One of the first friends I made on the trip (in the airport before leaving the states, in fact) ended up staying through Tuesday with his sister, and after that I found other ISA stragglers to hang out with. As for all of the goals I set for myself, I'd say I was semi-successful. Of the things on my to-do list, I:

- did NOT start reading a book in spanish (but I did carry it around with me for a whole day once with the intention of starting it... counts for something, right?)

- ALMOST tried a new place for lunch every day, I repeated the same place once

- SORTA started to run regularly... I went twice, but on a different day I went rock climbing

- did NOT find a pair of boots, but man did I look

- DID go to 1 museum (but not 2)

- did NOT make a side trip, too expensive

- DID check out Chinatown, and ate a delicious Chinese meal

- DID make one new friend who is Argentine (thanks to another girl in the group) but nonetheless, he only speaks spanish, so its one way to practice

Other things I did:

- Friday (night): went to a new club called Crobar to send-off the one-month travelers.

- Saturday: found a legit Yankee-style breakfast place, named Randalls. It was so nice to have something besides toast for breakfast. Then I explored the Plaza Serrano feria (outdoor market) near my house. Purchased a feather earring (a single long earring paired with a random stud on the other side is the cool thing to do here).

- Sunday: went to the stadium to try and snag some Copa America final match tickets (FAIL), but we managed to make it past two security checks without one and experienced some crazy fútbol fan action, and I snagged a picture of Forlán (Uruguay's star player) from the team's bus. We then watched the game in a bar, where none of the Argentine's gave two shits about the outcome (still sad they got eliminated).

- Monday: Chinatown! It was literally only four blocks, but the grocery shops were pretty cool and had interesting foods. I got some lychee juice to drink, and then we ate at a Chinese restaurant, which was sadly my favorite meal out since I've gotten here. Then we went to El Museo Laretta, which was an old house turned museum. Nothing too spectacular, but it was interesting to see traditional garb and admire the artwork and architecture of the house. Also noteworthy of this day, was that I tried a Milka McFlurry... don't judge, it was awesome. Milka is a popular chocolate brand here, and it involves dulce de leche. Enough said.

- Tuesday: Original plans fell through as a result of all the rain on Monday night (yes, it was that bad), so I ended up mindlessly wandering around with some other people while they shopped and I watched. Fun times. But as my motto goes: "Its better than sitting around at home," so wandering around wasn't all that bad I guess. I also think that this was the night we went to some reggae bar, got bored, so our Argentine friend (Pablo) got us into a neat club named Kika for free (because he had a friend of a friend working). We then got free drinks, and my friend and I managed to get ourselves into VIP (honestly, it was more like she got us both into VIP, but whatevs). An all-around successful night out.

- Wednesday: This was the day I went rock climbing. We were also going to go to a museum (MALBA to be specific) because it's free for students on Wednesdays, but it ended up getting too late, so that is for next Weds I suppose.

- Thursday: Set out with the intent of going to the zoo, but since there was an army of 5,000 children taking the place over, we opted for something else. Grabbed lunch at Pablo's restaurant of work and then went to the Recoleta Cemetery, where I got a little carried away with the picture taking. The cemetery is beautiful with mazes of raised tombs and monuments for blocks. It was practically its own city. We saw Evita's tomb as well, which was adorned with dozens of flower arrangements and surrounded by people waiting to take a picture with it. The love that Argentina has for Evita is very inspiring and admirable, I look forward to learning more about her impact on the country and it's people. After the cemetery, we walked around the Recoleta feria and then went to La Flor, which is this huge metal statue of a flower that has been constructed to open and close with the rising and setting of the sun... pretty neat! Then that night was the free Buenos Aires Pub Crawl (for which I have a perfect record of attendance, thank you very much). It was a fun night to say the least.

- Friday: We finally made it to Tecnopolis (a technology fair, that is way cooler than it sounds). We had been trying to go since Tuesday, but rain and schedule conflicts kept messing with our plans. So we were super excited to finally go... BUT we get there and there are literally (at least I think literally) thousands of people there with hour+ long waits to see some of the exhibits. So we saw a couple, but then made the smart decision of returning next week when not everyone is on vacation. So more to come on the awesome that is Tecnopolis.

- Saturday: Pretty uneventful. But I did go have lunch with some of my friends who had just gotten back from the Salta trip. It was nice to see everyone again, and my darling friend, Kaylen, even brought me back a souvenir :) Lunch was followed by some meandering, and then when I got home I finally tried traditional yerba mate. It is definitely an acquired taste. I thought it would be no big deal since I drink mate in tea bags back home all the time... well its way different. I still like it in a weird way, I just have to take very little sips haha. As a result from the mate, I was super hyper the rest of the day with nothing to do but download movies from the internet...

- Today: Dragged some friends on a pointless adventure to go see a park... we (I) never found it. We ended up walking all the way to our school's campus and eating at a café. On the bright side, I now know where the actual park is, and I definitely plan on checking out sometime soon.

Tonight at midnight I register for classes, and tomorrow I start going to said classes. More to come on this later, I've blabbed enough for one post.

Chau!

A Week of Solitude

Today marked the end of my month of intensive language classes. It also marks the beginning of a 9 day break we have in before starting the fall semester. As excited as I am, I also have my trepidations. Practically everyone in my program, and literally all of my closer amigos are going out of town for the break. I unfortunately don't have 1000 pesos to put towards the 22 hour bus ride to Salta (sorta reminiscent of the U.S.'s Colorado Plateau), so I'm going to be chilling in Buenos Aires all by MYSELF.

I hate to make it sound like a bad thing to be stuck in Buenos Aires, Argentina for 10 days, because this place is amazing and there's tons of stuff to do... I'm just not looking forward to figuring out and doing everything alone. I consider myself a pretty independent person, and I do enjoy the peacefulness of being alone, but for 9 days?!? I'm actually kinda exaggerating, I at least know of 2 other girls staying in BsAs, I'm just going to have to make an effort to meet up with them since we've never really hung out before. Also there's a huge group of 50 newbies coming to BsAs this week to start their fall semester program, so time to make new friends! And on another positive note, this will give me an opportunity to plan out the things I want to do, seek them out, and explore. On my to-do list for the next week:

- start reading a book in spanish

- try a new place for lunch every day

- start running regularly

- find a pair of boots

- go to at least 2 museums

- find someplace to make a 1-2 day side trip to (Colonia del Sacremento, Uruguay and Los Esteros del Iberá are the current forerunners)

- check out Chinatown

- try to make Argentine friends

Stay tuned to see how successful (or sad and lonely) I am. Now I must go take a siesta to recover from my late (6am) night, and prepare to go out for one last hurrah with the people who were only here for a month and leaving tomorrow.

Chau!

¿Buenos Aires sin Carne?

Most people who know me also know that I'm a pescatarian (I eat a vegetarian diet, but seafood as well). I've been this way for about 15 years of my life, so its not like I have to actively try to eat a certain way, its just the way it is. Its easy for me, and I (usually) have no complaints...

Most people also know that Argentina is the beef capital of the world. Any vegetarian's perfect match! Here, all gastronomy revolves around meat. Lunch consists of empanadas (its possible to find veg friendly types), panchos (hot dogs), milanesa (thin breaded meat?), hamburgers, choripan (chorizo sausage on bread), not to mention actual asado (Argentine BBQ), locro (a traditional meat stew), steak, etc... Absolutely no traditional/famous Argentine dish is vegetarian (or pescatarian) friendly... with the exception of alfajores (dulce de leche cookie sandwich) -- carne is probably the only thing that people would draw the line at for pairing with dulce.

The thing is, I don't have any problem whatsoever turning down meat, but what I do have a problem with is missing out on the rich culture of a unique place. The food is such a huge part of life here (along with tango, mate, and vino) and I'm not really getting the chance to experience the full porteño lifestyle. I know I could simply decide to just try a bite of something one day, and for this, a lot of people would probably think this is an empty issue, but the internal conflict of it all has me stumped. Vegetarianism has been a part of my life for so long, its difficult to just choose to eat a freaking cow. I guess I'll be finding out in the sometime near future if I'm willing to take a leap and try one of Argentina's legacies, until then I'll stick to vegetable empanadas and alfajores...

Chau!

P.S. got my nose pierced!

Beautiful People

They are everywhere here, men and women alike, and they know it. When you go anywhere in public, everyone is just checking each other out. The men here call out to practically anything with two legs and a rack, and the women all know to ignore the advances. With a combination of guys that come on too strong, and girls who are in a way hardened by the (sometimes not so) sweet nothings, I have no idea how anyone forms relationships down here. Oh, but they sure do! It is a normal sight to see a girl atop her boy making out in the middle of a crowded plaza or beside national monument, or to be squished up against a kissing couple in the Subte (subway). If there is a couple anywhere near you, you'll have already heard the smacking of lips.

So on the note of oblivious, affectionate couples: here's a little anecdote from last night at a bar called Sugar, (and no, its not really called Azúcar - I'm not that gringa). Anywho, I was with some friends in this lofted area and across from us was this couple getting pretty... "comfortable." After a few minutes the waiter brought them this awesome looking platter of cheeses, olives, guacamole, toasts, and meats. My entire group was envious of their spread. After a while, we noticed that they weren't eating any of their food! They were too busy staring into each other's eyes, and taking turns straddling one another. As they became more and more involved with one another, the idea was thrown around that one guy in our group should just snatch a little something off of the plate. Success. The lovers didn't notice a thing. As the two started to get a little too hot and heavy, we decided to go downstairs and maybe try mingling with some locals (far and few between in this Yankee bar). We were only downstairs for a few seconds when one of us realized that the love birds were getting up from their seats... we all glanced at one another and quickly decided what must be done. WE COULDN'T LET THEM WASTE ALL THAT FOOD!! So we dashed back up the stairs, waited eagerly to make sure the couple was out the door, and proceeded to devour the platter... after all, it was the right thing to do. We probably looked like dumb Yankees the whole time, but the free food was well worth it.

A la Noche

My nightlife experience in BsAs is slowly (yet surely) expanding. Here, the real weekend starts on Thursday nights, which is perfect since that how it usually goes down in Gainesville (Indie Night, I miss you so). This Thursday I went on this Pub Crawl that was free for international students! Free, however, only got you so much. Free beer and wine was advertised during the 10-11 sign up, but I didn't really benefit from that seeing as they ran out quickly. Then we went to 3 bars and received a free "shot" at each place. More like a sip of soda. Nevertheless, we had a ton of fun, it just wasn't all that free. We ended at this club called Lost. It's one, if not the, place to go on Thursdays. This was the largest club I've ever been to and the environment was pretty amazing, two floors packed with dancing Argentines, a break-dance circle, and the scent of recreational substances in the background. We stayed there for a super long time dancing, and finally left when 6am came rolling around! The most surprising thing to me, was that the fact we left at 6am seemed to be a normal night out... I guess I'm starting to adapt. I was even able to wake up for class and appear to be alive the rest of the day (until my pre-dinner siesta, that is).

I napped for about 3 hours, woke up for some dinner, then went back out with some friends to a bar. We didn't do anything too crazy on Friday night, but we got to play land mines in the bar... a little taste of home haha.

Today I walked all around the Botanical Garden close to my apartment with some friends and then we explored one of the many parks in the Palermo (my) area. Then we went to an outdoor market in the Recoleta area, where I purchased my first mate gourd! I told my house mom about it, so now she's helping me begin the process of making mate:

- First you put used mate leaves from another person's mate gourd into your own

- Let sit for 24 hours

- Remove the paste of mixed tea leaves and water from the gourd

- Scrape the inside of the gourd rigorously to clean out any extra... gourd?

- Then you may finally put in fresh mate leaves, add hot water (at the perfect temperature) and enjoy yourself some mate!

I look forward to trying it out like an authentic Argentinian tomorrow!

As for tonight, we're having to improvise. Tomorrow is the local election for jefe de gobierno (mayor equivalent) of Buenos Aires. This means that the solicitation of all alcohol is prohibited in the city tonight after 8pm... the purpose of which is to allow the locals to have a clear head for voting. Another thing here is that voting is considered to be 100% mandatory. In a way, its nice that they have such a high showing for voting, but on the other hand, I don't think its such a great idea to force voting. This just means that people who don't even care, or aren't informed will just go and vote for whoever in order to avoid the fine given to those who decide to abstain. So what did we do? Bought our alc. before 8 of course. Now we just need to find a nice park to enjoy our drinks and have a laid back night. Still a work in process, but I'm hopeful.

Chau!

On Track to Becoming Legal

Today I went to La Oficina de Migraciones for step 2 of 3 for obtaining a student visa for Argentina. Let me just say, that if we didn't have the help of the ISA staff to hold our hands through this process, I think I'd just have to deal with being an illegal immigrant. The terrible thing is that the US's process for distributing visas is even more convoluted and also unfair. In order for an Argentine (or anyone else) to enter our country for some extended period, they must purchase a visa before they make the trek to the US. Additionally, we make them pay waaaaay more for these visas than what is expected from us when visiting their country. Then to top it all off, the traveler could legally obtain a visa, pay for their flight to the US, and go through customs and still possibly be turned away due to suspicions of security (which could be any range of things since we're so paranoid). I'm not trying to say this happens all the time or anything, BUT the US is the only country (according to my knowledgable professor, Mage) that has the jurisdiction to force potential travelers to purchase a visa BEFORE entering the the country and then STILL have the power to turn them away. Thats just really shitty.

Now that my political rant of the day is over... my B... I'll tell you how I got lost!! AGAIN! I guess there really isn't much to tell, same story, different day. My main frustration is that I can't seem to read a map haha. I was over 30 minutes late for our visa appointment, but thank goodness it didn't really matter. The visa process takes for.ev.er. I got there around 8am and wasn't out of the building until after 10. The waiting process was entertaining at least, we are all so clueless about what is going on (myself definitely included). Our ISA staff likes to call us Spanish babies, because we are learning everything as we fumble along. Even after spending the morning in immigrations, we have to return, yet again, to finally get our official student visas (a 2 month waiting process). I am so looking forward to have my documentation in hand (and of course, stowed away from muggers).

Chau!

El Tigre and 4th of July

The one notable thing I did this past weekend was take a trip to El Tigre, an area an hour or so outside of Buenos Aires. It was a very refreshing break from the fast-paced city life. It is located at the river delta of Rio Paraná and many people live here and use boats as their main source of transportation (there was even a grocery store boat and a school boat for transporting children to and from school). We also saw Puerta de las Frutas which has a rich history with the import/export of, you guessed it, fruit! Now its primarily just a market with tons of souvenirs and handcrafted goods and foods. On the return trip home, we enjoyed a delicious merienda, which is an Argentine tea-time, consisting of submarinos (do-it-yourself hot chocolate) and alfajores (the most popular cookie of Argentina). We then fell into a sugar coma upon the return home.

Today is/yesterday was the 4th of July! And absolutely no one couldn't have cared less! (Except for some of my fellow students). Argentines don't really celebrate their own independence day (9th de Julio/July) so why on earth would they care about ours? Anywho, a huge group of us Yankees decided we were going to go to this expat, USA-style bar, suitably named The Alamo (and also known as Barefoot Joe's). I was very excited because its known for being super cheap, and upon checking it out online, I found out it was only 2 pesos per beer for ladies! So I decided that I'm for sure going, asked my host mom how to use the bus, and off I went.

Now the buses (colectivos) here are WAY different from the ones back home. You can wave them down like taxis, they don't have a set schedule (sometimes three of the same bus arrive at the same time), you can stop it wherever you want (but must signal it) and when looking up routes there is no map, just a long list of streets that I'm supposed to somehow know.

So I take on my first bus ride, and besides going way too far before I got off, it went pretty well! So then I have to walk back in the direction I came from to get to The Alamo. I finally find my street and start getting ready as I see a good crowd formed outside. I get to the door and the guard tells me its 30 pesos to get in... Now, 30 pesos is not a lot. Its a little less than $8 US, plus the cover charge went towards your bar tab. Nonetheless I had been expected free entry and beers for 2 pesos (.50 cents) each! So I got stuck outside hoping that one of my friends would come by and spot me 10 pesos... I waited for a while haha. Plan B eventually became too tiring and I was getting too cold, so I decided to return home. No problem, just use the same bus I already tested out earlier! Well, I did worse on the ride home than I did on the way out. I got off waaaaaaay too early because I saw what looked like a familiar subway exit... I was wrong. I then proceeded to walk home in the freezing cold, by myself, trying to look as Argentine (and tough) as possible.

I officially have a higher failure than success rate when it comes to night life in Buenos Aires. Oh well!!! I have plenty of time to turn that around, and I'm learning along the way! Even more good news is I gain some extra sleep. So as they say here in BsAs,

Chao!

Week 1

So, I have officially been abroad for one week and haven't blogged once... oops. So far things have been one adventure after another (small and large). There are a lot of different aspects to being abroad so I'ma break it down for you:

• The People: the people here are completely different from the personalities I'm used to in the states. Smiling is not common, unless you're looking at me, which is then a dead give-away that I'm a Yankee. (US citizens are referred to as Yankees --or Yanquis-- since the people here are also known as "Americans"). Outside of friends chatting, conversation is very practical and direct, Argentines know what the want and will not beat around the bush.
• Safety: for the first time in my life I'm truly having to be aware of my surroundings and use/develop "street smarts." Rules include: 1) don't speak English, 2) try not to be loud (common stereotype/accurate label of Yankees), 3) when using public transportation have a hand on your bag, if its a backpack you wear it on your stomach, don't keep anything in your pockets, don't stand by the doors, and be aware of people staring at you (which seems to be everyone anyways), 4) the danger time is between 3-5 am, during which you NEVER walk home alone, 5) be wary of taxi drivers trying to give you counterfeit money, 6) always have at least 20 pesos on hand in case you are approached by a mugger, to try to get them to move on quickly. I could honestly go on, but these are the main ones. I'm so used to just automatically trusting everyone, but here there are just people trying to get by and willing to take advantage of those who are susceptible targets. So far while we've been here, 4-5 people have been pick-pocketed and 1 guy's backpack got stollen that had a $900 camera in it...
• Going Out: this process starts around 1, and thats still early. Most places don't start getting hot until 2-3 am and then its completely normal to be there past 5am... Also, making the transition from Grog to Buenos Aires nightlife is going to be tough. No shorts and flip flops, no $5 all you can drink, no 25 cent pitchers... Alcohol here is waaaay cheaper if you buy it in the store (wine and beer can be found for cheaper than water), but at the clubs it gets pricey fast. On the topic of alcohol, its considered to be a vice of the lower classes. Of course people drink when they go out, or have a glass of wine with dinner, but getting drunk... that is associated with the poor, or with the Yankee tourists. Don't get shit faced (add that to the rules).
• Food: soooo good! Most of my meals are eaten at home, but every time I've been out, I've liked it. The Italian influence is impossible to ignore, and thats a good thing. The coffee here is also delicious, not like in the states where sometimes you get hot brown water in your cup. Prices here are pretty good as well, most sit-down, nice meals fall at about $10 US, but its also possible to get a $2 lunch of empanadas!
• Getting Around: bottom line, I get lost... A LOT. Like pretty much everyday I get lost at least once. The first couple of days was hard, and it was really frustrating and difficult to keep my cool. Now I've just accepted it. Quite a number of the streets here are not labelled... like QUITE a number, so half the time I'm basing my directions off of instinctual "feelings"... and I am no navigator. The subway system here is called Subte, and thats probably the only thing I'm kinda good at. Then there are the buses, or Colectivos, which don't have set schedules, and no maps for the routes, so I haven't tried them yet. Car traffic is to be treated with caution, I would never want to drive here. People go down the wrong sides of the streets, stop signs do not exist, and the pedestrian generally doesn't have the right of way.

There are a lot of other aspects of adjusting to a B.A. life, and I'm sure I'll get to them later. For right now, I just keep having to remind myself that I'm going to be here for 5 months! Its been one week, and it seems like 3. However, I dread mid November, when I'm packing my stuff up and wondering where did all my time go?!?