iguazu falls

Wowee. Its been quite a while. I wonder who is still with me. Anyone? I hope you all didnt get too discouraged by my lack of blogging and gave up on me! I need every reader I can get, seeing as how I probably started out with 4 or 5. Anyway I have good excuses. First, my parents were here for two weeks! Shout out to padres! woo! We stayed in a sweey Palermo apt. and galavanted around to all the touristy spots of Bs.As. We went to a tango show and even a day on a ranch! Then, when they headed back to the states, it was crunch time. I had been stressing about all this final work I had to do and it was time to get down to business.
I go to school on monday only to find out that my papers are due earlier than I had expected. So I freaked out for the next few days because I knew I was going to Iguazu on thursday and NOTHING was going to ruin my time. Anyway, long story short everything turned/ is turning out fine. One paper was technically cut in half. For another we were given another week. School is ridiculous. I mean, I wouldnt like anything serious and in that way its great, but it does seem to take itself too seriously. They make us swipe cards for attendance and you have all these rules about when you can and cant. Also, they arent clear about anything. I know several people, including myself who don't know when a test is or if a paper is due that day or if it was what it would even be about. So no worries, as long as I turn something in I'll pass. Its a new outlook on life.
So the exciting part of this blog. IGUAZU!!!! hands down the COOLEST thing Ive ever seen. I mean, Ive seen the Mona Lisa, leaning tower of pisa, etc. but this is different. Its NATURAL. and when aren't waterfalls gorgeous and wonderful to look at? And there are soooo many and so huge its unbelieveable. no picture or story will ever do it justice. Its no wonder it was one of the seven world wonders. We took a boat unde the falls and they get you reaaaal close to it and you scream and get soaked and yell for more and they keep doing it! like natural disneyland!
So we left our university in the evening and took an overnight bus (one bus just for ISA) to Misiones- a province in the north. There they don't use the 'll' accent that makes argentina so unique in the spanish speaking world. They awoke us at 6am to eat breakfast and then we went to see the Jesuit ruins. Remember that movie 'The Mission?'. Thats the place. Then we went to an estancia. It was a humid and hot day so the pool came in verrrrry useful. From there we walked to a yerba mate factory and saw the process of making mate for the stores and to drink. it was cool but slightly miserable for the heat. At the estancia we ate lunch and danced and lounged and drank mate- including a cold version with lemonade! At night we drove four more hours to our hotel and ate at the buffet. The next morning we went to the falls and came back to the hotel to pool it up some more. it felt good to be in a nice hotel- we're so used to hostels! So next and final day before we go to the airport we went into the jungle to see the indigenous Guarani people. Some kids sang for us and it was really cool except that it was kinda awk. and they didnt really look too enthused about our presence. It DID start raining super hard as we trekked through the red mudd too. It was a well planned and full trip and a great way to wind down our program. i love isa.

pictures

hey! if you would like to see an album of pictures from my trip to Uruguay then copy and paste into the search bar the link below. There are also a couple pictures from the tango show I was in with my class last night!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2391973&l=2f874&id=2539707

enjoy! love you all!

Uruguay

So I took a spontaneous trip to Uruguay this weekend. I was planned to go to Colonia, Ur. with my program on saturday so I decided to get to know the country just a little bit better by heading out a couple days early. I bought my ticket for BUQUEBUS wednesday evening and left early thursday morning. The buquebus is the name of the company/ boat that ferries you across the Rio de la Plata that separates Uruguay and Argentina. There are two versions of these boats and I took the 'lento'- or slow one that takes 3 hours to cross the river. It actually doesnt seem like a river because its so wide and you can never see both sides at once. Its a really big boat though that has several levels and big chairs and a deck that you can go walk around on. On the way there we were riding with a large group of River fans going to a futbol game against a team in Montevideo. As we exited the ferry they were chanting and cheering all their team songs. From the port which is in Colonia we hopped on a bus for 2 1/2 hours to Montevideo. Got there in the afternoon and tried to locate our hostel. I went with a friend here and we met up with three other girls.
Anyway, I exchanged 100 Argentina pesos and received 630 Uruguayan pesos. Now, a really weird thing about this traveling business is adjusting to your sense of things. Like my sense of what is a hot temperature would be 80 degrees farenheit, but what does that mean to me in celsius?because that is what they use here. Or how my sense of distance is in miles and feet but everything is in km. So, I dont really understand how to think something is far or near without converting it. This also happens with money. To put things in perspective here I (used to more than now) convert pesos into dollars by dividing by 3. In Uruguay I thought I was getting a lot of money receiving 630 pesos. The only thing is a hamburger can cost around 150 pesos and a cup of coffee about 90. Yes, so the conversion rate is like 20: 1 so divide those prices by 20 to get American currency and things arent so bad. Its just a relativity thing. Its the immediate shock of going to dinner and getting a bill for five people thats 700 pesos. It just seems like a lot from what Im used to.
In Montevideo we stayed in a part of town called Ciudad Vieja. It had nice streets just for pedestrians and there was lots of interesting architecture to look at. You could also see the water on both ends of the street. We were walking around killing time before we had to catch the bus back to Colonia for the night and we came upon what we thought was this impromptu parade. We soon realized though that the men were in military uniform. We walked to the grand Plaza Independencia right across from where the old government building is. The building wasn't so amazing, but the focal point of this plaza was a huge statue of Artigas. He is apparently the guy who united Uruguay and so he is something of a national hero. That day we happened upon some celebration of him. First, We went underneath the statue and into this dark room that had on the wall all these big block letters jutting out and spelling out significant historical dates. In the middle of the room with a spotlight there was this big jeweled urn thing that was labeled ARTIGAS. From the lighting you could make out two silhouettes of the same soliders we'd been seeing. It was actually kind of creepy. Im not sure if those were his remains/ashes or what. but hes a big deal. So we stuck around for a little while and watched this pomp and circumstance stuff. They sang and marched and we watched. It was really cool and we happened upon it serrendipitously. yay Artigas!
The next day we spent in Colonia del Sacramento. It was a planned excursion for our program but we spent the night there and met up with the group that came by ferry that afternoon. Colonia is really cool. Its such a nice change of pace from Buenos Aires. There are no stop lights and if youre standing by the side of the road they will stop and beckon you to cross. That would NEVER happen in Bs. As. Standing on the edge of the sidewalk is risky. In fact, I do know someone who was hit by a car ( ooo but my friend did jump out of a bus that started moving and ended up rolling into the street when we were in Montevideo. shes fine). Anyway, he's okay too. But Colonia is this little antiquated town with water almost completely surrounding it. Its pretty touristy but still charming. It was the most beautiful day I have experienced since being in South America. The weather was perfect. And we found the closest thing Ive seen to a beach. I dipped my feet in the Rio de la Plata and international waters! It was a very relaxing day of eating (i ate a chuvita which is a typical Uruguayan sandwich with beef, lettuc, tomato and egg- yum) and roaming. It was a very full day as well. Although I didnt have to travel by buquebus that same morning the boat ride back took 3 hours and so by the end I was drained. Now its back to the same ol' school stuff but since monday has passed only two more days! My parents come in a week so Im getting excited! woohoo. pictures soon.

Primavera

Happy Spring day! Today is the first day of spring here in the southern hemisphere and very ironically its the ugliest day we've had in at least a week. Its celebrated pretty widely nonetheless. They have days for everything here! Since I've been here its been Friends' day, Childrens' Day, Teachers' Day and now today is also students day so tons of people flooded the parks for picnics to celebrate. I myself didn't participate because I celebrated last night by going out dancing and therefore slept through any festivities today. Speaking of sleeping and students, I've realized lately just how different my life is here. My priorities are completely different than when I'm in LA. For one, I have absolutely no academic/scholastic related work ethic. I think my daily life is just too stimulating to put it aside for books. School is not my priority here and since I only have class 3 days a week its easy to forget about it. Although, all this unstructured time does give me stress about things I think I should be doing. Its just very hard to make myself be proactive in terms of school even though there are things I do need to do once in a while. I think I'm doing a different kind of learning. The other day, I gave myself a 5 day weekend because I took Wednesday off of class to go see the Ballet Argentina and you know what? I felt very fulfilled. Another fulfillment in my life is my newly acquired gym membership. Ive been twice already to Megatlon and it feels pretty nice to be active. Its kinda the posh gym around here but still the people are nice. I guess you're paying them to be that way. This action of going to the gym came after the day I decided to solve a debate for myself. So here they have these cookies/treats called alfajores. Many times they are filled with dulce de leche and covered with chocolate but you can get variations of flavors. They have these things in bakeries and made by large companies who package them up and sell them at kiosks. Even nabisco has an oreo one- which I dubbed the 'alfajoreo'- but I have yet to try it even though I here its really tasty! So, there is this giant debate here over who makes the better alfajor. In terms of those made for wider distribution. There is a cafe chain here called Havanna that competes with a brand called Cachafaz. Apparently the creators of Cachafaz worked for Havanna and when they left they took the recipes and improved them. So, I decided over a few hours that I would make my own informed decision. Really, I had just been hungry so I bought a Havanna and then later I wanted another so I decided on the Cachafaz. The results are in and well, they aren't that much different. But, I guess I would a slightly higher grade to the cachafaz. haha. After reading this story, you must really realize where my priorities lie here!

Okay, well love you all!

Let me break it DOWN to UPdate you

puppy!

Gen./ Pres. Sarmiento's home in Tigre- i think a recreation
Flower sculpture
church seen from boat tour
waffles del mundo
MALBA

whew! Its been a while since my last post. It must be a good sign that I'm keeping myself pretty busy, although since its been so long and I have been doing so many things I really can't remember all the cool things I wanted to write on here! I will do my best.

Tuesday- woke up early and went to the ISA office for spanish/homework tutoring. It was very helpful and Paula (my tutor) was very kind and constructive. Ended up staying at the office for about 5 hours handling some academic business and eating lunch in the back room watching music videos. The program office is a pretty cool place. Its like Harry Potter style. What I mean by that is that nowhere on the outside does it indicate its the ISA office. You just have to know. And you have to ring the buzzer and tell them who you are so that you can be let in. The office has a wonderful staff that knows everybody's names. They chat with everyone and more often than not are singing and dancing while doing their work. I caught the music from hairspray being played the other day. It seems like a fun job! So, after that I went to tango class. We are practicing for our show. Our midterm is a performance of what we've learned. They are having a youth competition at our school and we are the exhibition. Its a bit of a joke and I'm pretty sure we will all prove ourselves the extranjeros we are!

Wednesday- the start of my weekend. Went home for dinner and then out to Recoleta to meet up with some friends. My friend Dan lives in the giant, sweet student residence that is three floors and just filled with all sorts of peoplel- mostly Americans. We hung out on his terrace before heading out to Plaza Serrano in Palermo for some drinks. Twas quite a relaxing night but fun nonetheless.

Thursday- I had to wake up early because the maid comes to clean the house in the morning and if I have to be up, I might as well be out and about. Walked around Palermo for a bit and came home to descansar and take a nap. Went out for my first time in Palermo Hollywood. It was a cool rooftop bar/lounge thing. Pretty interesting that all these places are named after places in the U.S. Its like hey! I live like 10 minutes from the REAL hollywood.

Friday- woke up and headed to Recoleta to meet up with a friend to go to MALBA. MALBA is a museum of contemporary Latin American art. It isn't very big so it was nice to feel like you really could see everything. I enjoyed it a lot. Plus its free for students! They had an exhibition of 20th/21st century latin american art that was organized by decade. It was really really cool. One part had these light switches that turned on this mechanical art that had lighting designs and moving wheels and such. Also they had this exhibition or recreation of installations by an artist named Torres. I cant remember his full name, but it was really cool because the topic of his pieces had a lot to do with the United States. One of the installations had individually wrapped red, white and blue lollipops in a pile in a corner and you could take them. Another part had piles of posters that were spotlighted and you could take those also! One last one had a huge rectangle of a silver wrapped candies in middle of the room and the border of the wall read significant events and dates that involved the U.S. That night I went to an 80s themed birthday party for a friend.

Speaking of the U.S. I am registering to vote abroad. Im thinking of voting at a poll at the embassy so I can have a real first presidential experience! I think they are having some sort of voting day party- although I have to vote much much earlier than you all! Im excited though! yay Obama!!

Saturday- woke up tired because I got in late the night before but I had to wake up early to go on an excursion with my abroad program. We took a bus about 40 minutes from Bs. As. to Tigre. It is where a lot of people from the city have weekend homes. The houses are on little islands that are close together so there are canals and what not in between. We took a boat tour through the 'neighborhoods' on the beautiful brown river. The brown color does kind of ruin the beauty but the houses were nice nonetheless and people drinking mate on their docks waved to all of us. It feels good to leave the metropolis every now and then. The rest of the day we walked around the ferias and ate of course. I had this delicious waffle filled with ham and cheese and another filled with apple and covered in dulce de leche. Then at our next stop I had the most divine ice cream- Freddo (which I also ate yesterday because it was two for one mondays!!). At the end of the day we had snacks and coffee at a restaurant right on the water. It was kind of beach like and felt very removed from the city even though we could make out the skyline in the distance. It was relaxing to sit in the grass and watch the sunset which is now setting later because spring is almost here!!

Okay, theres my weekend. Its been a few days yeah but nothing has really happened and Im too lazy to write too much more. Ill catch you in a few days!

Lunes

Hello hello. Its monday night and I had a verrrry long day today. I was in class for eight hours straight! yipes! It doesnt help to walk out from that long day inside and enter cold weather. I mean, okay so my kinda cold is mid fifties but STILL. I was chilly. During the weekend it rained so I'm glad now to have internet here in the house where is semi-warm and dry. It was also nice that very surprisingly I wasn't alone here all weekend. On saturday night Beatriz's three grandsons came to spend the night. They are 9, 7 and 2 (i think?). They're pretty cute and they get a kick out of those funny pictures you can take on my computer. I like to speak to them in spanish even though they are of course lightyears ahead of me in fluency- except the little one, he grunts a lot. I'm pretty envious of them right now actually because all three of them are going to Florida at the end of this week to go to Disneyworld! Que suerte! I'm just bitter because I'm in school. I know I have class three days a week but its still work! The stress of school is different here but still present. Its the language that makes it so challenging because I don't know 100% of the information being thrown at me, I don't know what I'll be tested on and how. Its quite scary and I think I'd prefer UCLA! Plus this semester business is way too long. Maybe I just didnt have the expectation of working as much- or at all really, I mean 3 different 10 page papers all in spanish??en serio? I guess its too late now!
I'm trying to get my post school travel plans together. I've been looking at treks to machupicchu in november so if anyone is interested hop on the bandwagon! I havent done enough research but it get so crowded I know I need to make decisions soon! I can't believe it will be two months since my arrival in just one more week which means like two and half months more! I miss you all terribly!

Please email me or leave comments or whatever you would like because I really want to know whats going on in your lives as well!

Peanut Butter Asians

Hello all! I am writing from the comforts of my own mattress (more like pad, there are no springs) this evening. Yes! I finally received wifi en casa. Let me tell you explain that this fact does deserve its own blog acknowledgement. It comes as the result of the longest pain in the butt (PitB) process. First, the technician came to install the wifi but nobody was home to let him in. Boo, okay five more days of waiting but thats it. Next, two times for two weeks nobody can make it to setup. Then, when they finally do come, woohoo! We have the wrong modem and turns out I have to dar more pesos for another. So alas, after a month since the fought began and after being told 4 times that internet access was mere moments away, I am finally celebrating it as reality! hazaa!

So, back to actually important matters. You know, things that deal with my personal thoughts and experiences and oh yeah, Buenos Aires. Lets see, I left July 17th and today is September 5th. Is that 7 weeks? 8 weeks? Well anyway Ive been gone for quite a long time! Im having an amazing time here but there are things and people at home that I miss. In the past few days the weather has gone from sunny and perfect for sandals and a t-shirt, to "why am I here when California is drenched with sunshine right now?" The official start of spring is less than three weeks away so hopefully by then I wont have cold weather to complain about on my blog.

Its really hard when you havent blogged for a few days and you want to update people on all the activities you been doing and you cant remember everything. I will just stick to things I can remember and see where that gets back.

This past week I've evaluating my living situation. I think I made my life a lot better by asking Beatriz to eat with me from time to time. She told me she didnt eat dinner, only fruit, because she is trying to lose weight. I was like, eh whatever, except that she would sometimes actually eat real food later at night in her room! And why couldn't she eat her fruit while I ate dinner? So, now we eat together more- or at least she is present when I eat. Its great because its a time of the day where I most definitely practice conversing in spanish. The first night we ate together she showed me pictures of her family and of the apartments she redocorates as one of her many endeavors. To reciprocate, I ran upstairs, grabbed my computer and gave her like a 30 minute long slide show of my life. It was kind of force-fed, but she at least feigned interest. It was a lot of storylike explanations in spanish so it was good practice.I mean, I had to supplement all your weird faces with something! Also, the other night we had dinner with her mother and her son Federico. Her mother made this uber tasty lentil soup/stew dish that had sausage and meat and uhh lentils. That of course was followed by panqueques (crepes) and dulce de leche and strawberries. Needless to say I ate more than anyone else at the table.

Yesterday I woke up pretty early. The maid comes to clean on Thursday mornings so I have to be awake and that usually means that I just leave. Last week my excursion during this time was a haircut. Ha. Just now when I wrote haircut I accidentally wrote "haircute". Thats funny and ironic because its NOT cute. I knew it was risky but I had seen results in person and it looked good. The pictures in the place looked good. The people looked good. Me, no good.
It kind makes me look like either: mrs. brady, hallie berry 5 years ago (it looked good on HER), or a 15 year old argentine boy. Hair grows back right? Please give me hope! Anyway, its done so there is really no point in regretting it. When I complained to my friend Ben, he told me he felt way better about his haircut after he blogged about it. hmph, we'll see. Back to yesterday, I left the house with the thought that I would just get off on some subte stop and walk around until I found something. I texted my friend Dan (from UCLA, I swear I didnt plan to hang out with so many UCLA-ers) who lives in Recoleta to see what he was up to. I ended up stopping by his apartment (right next door to where Jorge Luis Borges once lived) and we decided to go get some food in Barrio Chino (right back near where I live). I wasnt exactly sure where it was, but it wasnt too hard to find. We laughed at how funny it would be if we (two asian kids) ran around Belgrano asking where Chinatown was. Funny how so many cities have chinatowns right? Beatriz told me there has been so much recent immigration that if I come back to Argentina in 10 years Ill have to learn Chinese. Doubt it. Dan asked me, 'do you think they asians here speak english or spanish?' I know, its an odd question because why would they speak english, but ya know, its kinda weird to see. Anyway, it was a delightful time in Chinatown. I had spicy food, we found cheap peanut butter and lots of asian snacks.
That night we met up with some other friends at a restaurant 'tenedor libre' (freefork). It was a giant buffet where you go up and order and they make it for you. I ate paella, chicken, chorizo, ravioli and gnocchi. But by far, the best part was the dessert. This country is soo dangerous for me because they love their sweets and so do I. I mean, it was a spread like Ive never seen or could imagine. It was almost too much. I had little slivers of cheesecake and flan and then ordered a flambeyed apple crepe with dulce de leche and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The only time my stomach feels rock hard is after I eat. Sadness. It was worth it though. I wish I could tell you all it didnt matter anyway because I'm running in the University 10k, but that would be a lie so I won't tell you that. It doesnt help that now Beatriz has given me her account number at Freddo (amazing ice cream store) and that I live a block from one and that on mondays its two for one. I have no will power. Although, I'm hoping to start yoga classes this week and I did go for a run before my tango class the other day. Working out does make me feel good, but really it just allows me to feel free to eat more. I wish you all could taste the meat and pastries here!