Tangled Up in Blue

Lions & Tigers & Bears... OH MY!

2009-10-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

Some of the most amazing animals ever...

We went to one of the most amazing zoos ever today.... Luján Zoo... Where you get to pet the animals. Like the tiger that I am petting above. Such amazing animals. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Never again will I be able to pet a tiger or play with lion cubs. Or bunnies? Ok, those maybe again. But they were adorable as well! We also rode a camel and an elephant!!! :)

Long time, no blog...

2009-10-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since my last blog. I haven't had anything new or exciting to talk about, except now it's getting down there.
My last week of school is tomorrow, I could not be happier! I wish I was learning. I'm not though. Classes here are made for international students and are therefore easy, and only two hours a week. Which I love and hate. I wish I enjoyed going to my classes, but I don't. However one more time to each class then finals! Which are kind of worrying me. Two of my finals are oral. Which means I get to sit there and answer my teachers questions on the spot, in Spanish! Both of which I am not looking forward to. Hopefully I do well though.
The day after I finish my finals, next Friday, my program has our final dinner, a farewell meal for everyone. The next Saturday off to Ushuaia, then end of the World! From there my roommate, two friends and I will backpack up to Calafate, and hike a glacier and drink brandy with glacier ice. Then to Puerto Madryn where we will ride a into the ocean to watch the whales, and take a trip to see thousands of penguins in their natural habitat. Then to Mar del Plata and BEACH! I am extremely excited to get away from the city and enjoy a different part of Argentina.
This last Sunday we ventured to Feria de Mataderos. Which is a big market in Buenos Aires, that sells different things from the cowboys and areas in the South and North. It's a great place to sink into the culture. Music is being blared as people dance in the streets, and gallop on horses down the street in attempts to hook a little ring on a piece of metal. Plus the food is amazing!After that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of my time here. The program I volunteer with goes to the jungle in Northern Argentina to volunteer for three days, if the dates work out I might join them. Or go up to the Northeastern part, or just stay in the city.
I am definitely going to miss my volunteering. It's been the most amazing part of my trip so far, and thinking of leaving those adorable kids is saddening. They are such bright lights in a dreary area. We did face painting today, it worked out in the beginning, then before we knew it everyone was painting everyone and it was a mess. They enjoyed themselves though, and that's what matters!

Mendoza

2009-10-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

Thursday night we went to the provence of Mendoza, wine country. We left on a private bus for everyone from my program to go stay in a cabin on river surrounded my mountains, aka one of the most beautiful places ever. I did not want to leave once we got there, I am definitely sick of the concrete jungle that I've been living in and will be excited to venture out in November and go see some more nature.

We got there Friday morning after a little over twelve hours on a bus, we immediately had some free time to just sit by the water. I read my book for my literature class, Estrella Distante. Then we had a humongous lunch, we all though it was just a tarta and salad, then we got milanesa and french fries, plus some amazing cake for dessert. Then we went on a hike through the mountains, it was a ton of fun, and just so great to be outside in the sun, away from smog and concrete. We then had the most amazing and elaborate snack ever, with medialunas, cake and tea, it was sooooo good! There will never be a better snack.

The next day we went on a hike in the morning, and wandered through the mountain, and that afternoon we toured a couple of wineries. We saw a cute little small winery. They had farm animals and for some reason I was taking pictures of the pigs. Not really sure why. Afterwards I kept saying "what am I doing? I'm from Iowa?" Kind of hysterical. We also went to the biggest winery in Argentina, Bianchi. You can easily buy wine in the states from this winery, so look for it while buying your next bottle.

The last day we were there we went white water rafting in the beginning. It was only class 2, but it was fun. The four guides were a ton of fun, they kept pulling people into the water and just generally enjoying ourselves. At one point the water was calm and they said we could jump in if we wanted. I did and immediately regretted it. It was a bit chilly. Even though we were wearing these huge suites it was still chilly.

We left later that day and I did not want to leave. Almost all of us suggested to CEA that they do a program with half being in Buenos Aires and the other half out by Mendoza.

Other then that I don't ahve much time left with classes, thankfully. Two midterms this week, then three more weeks of class, followed by finals, and then flying to the end of the world and backpacking back up to Buenos Aires. Definitely excited for that!!

Whoa...

2009-09-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

Whoa it's been a long time since I have updated my ever so boring blog! But it is better then writing in my journal... which has not been updated in an even longer amount of time...

The parentals were here for 18 days. They left
yesterday. And I am now back to my lonely boring lifestyle of not knowing what to do with my life most days. However while they were here we did some very memorable things, including
stuff that I had not even done yet. We ventured to the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano
Buenos Aires), La Feria de Mataderos, which is all about the campos or countryside and the cowboys who live there. It was very entertaining, I got a cow horn ring! Woot! How many people have those in the states? And we went to Uruguay.

Uruguay was great, we went to Colonia de Sacramento, I have officially been to ten other countries outside the U.S., and it was a great escape from the city. If you started to cross the street cars actually stopped for you as opposed to honking or simply running you over. We had a great time, it wasn't too bad out. Mom and I went on a little shopping spree, oops. But I did get an amazing coat, backpack and a hoof mate. Haha, that one is a little funny. And then we rented a go kart! Woo-hoo! I hadn't driven for three months so that was rather interesting... Kept forgetting what a turn signal is, yet somehow we made it out alive and mom didn't have a heart attack from my horrible driving skills. Yay for going back to Iowa when there is snow on the ground and not having driven in over six months..... Uh-oh! Watch out!

While Mom and Skip were here we had some amazing meals!! I have never had such good steak in my entire life, and that's saying a lot, I am from Iowa. My favorite was Las Doritas which is a little place in Palermo. It is so popular that they built the same restaraunt kitty corner from the original. We ate in the original though, of course. And now I know to order entrana, or skirt steak. It's darn good, and problematic! I have eaten far too much meat, bread and dessert in the last few weeks.

This weekend CEA my study abroad program is taking us all to Mendoza, wine country! It should be a good time! We get to go there and drink some wine, tour some vineyards and go white water rafting!! Yay! Then the following weekend off to Cordoba with the roommates, then back for a weekend, then finals week, then down south, then I'm almost home. It's crazy. I'm on the downward slope of things. However no matter how much I love it here, I think I will be excited to go home!! Just not excited for the 12 hour plane ride to Atlanta then the plane ride to Chicago to get me there...

Parents

2009-09-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

My parents are here!! Yay!! It's been a very tiring week... We haven't done all that much, but for some reason are always dead tired afterwards. Although we went to a River Plate futbol game. That was a blast! The fans are ridiculously crazy there!! We always think football games at home the fans are nuts, but they literally sang the entire game! It was a blast! I unfortunately failed at learning the songs prior to going to the game... but I know that if I go again I will study first!!

We ventured to Recoleta Cemetery and the Feria, which are amazing. I love eating stuffed bread at the feria and the cemetery is well amazing. There isn't another one like it in the world. Plus buying some wonderful things!!

Other then that just been enjoying the boho-hippie area of Palermo Soho and eating some good food!!! Uruguay sometime this week or next and who knows what else!!

This is what happens when....

2009-09-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

So, now after salt being put in Fran's food and Jose's bed being moved into the bathroom, none of us can leave our rooms or the kitchen table without fully expecting something has been done to them... I will probably carry my plate and drink with me if I have to go get something else out of the kitchen... However I did wander home Monday after a long day of volunteering to find Karen in my room.... Karen, sometimes Carlos. Since we live about 10 blocks from the red-light district for transvestites Carlos will magically become Karen and go to work from about 6:30 at night till about 6:30 in the morning. You really have to love her for all the hard work she is doing. However opening your door and seeing her requires a "HOLLLYYYY SHIIIITTTT!" response. Which is what she got from me!!

Katie and I then wandered to the grocery store to grab some birthday presents for Fran and on the way back I told her to remind me that Karen is in my room, she forgot and screamed like a little girl!! That was hysterical! We then made Sarah go and "grab" something from my room, she also screamed like a little girl, so in the end Fran scared the crap out of all of us.....

We then put Karen in his room a long with a lot of balloons for his birthday which was yesterday! And about 50 balloons! Except we had to distract him for awhile and played the most entertaining game of Uno ever! Everyone we are playing this when I get back! Basically you play uno, except that once you get out you just come back in with seven more cards and you make up a rule. But you don't tell anyone what the rule is. You just give them a card when they break the rule. The first one we had was that you can't ask questions or you got a card! It was hilarious!! So I officially live in the house of pranks and crazy things...

Dwight

2009-09-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday night instead of having frisbee practice we had a get together to get our new jerseys!! Our moto for the team is "Ceveza and Choripan!" (Beer and these really good sausage sandwiches). So we got together to drink and eat. It was a good time, one of the guys on my team is an amazing chef and I therefore ate the best Choripan I've had yet!!

We also got our amazing jerseys! VAMOS CADILLACS! CERVEZA, CERVEZA, CERVEZA, CERVEZA, CHORI, CHORI, CHORI, CHORI, PAN, PAN, PAN, PAN, PAN, PAN, PAN, PAN.... CAAAAAAAADDDDDDDILLLLLLLACCCSSS!

Friday was Sarah (my roommates) first day of work, she got a job as a promoter, so a few of us girls went out, because now we get in free! Woot! It was a new club in Recoleta and they have a black and white party. We decided to take a picture of the three of us girls living here, with our family dog, Watson. He's quite white, so we figured he would fit in perfectly with our outfits. Pagana was a cute little club, smaller then most of the others that we had been to, but it was a good time. It became a girls night out!! We came back kind of early, about 5 a.m., because Sarah had a soccer game the next morning and I had frisbee. We did not do so well. We played one of the better teams down here, and definitely got our asses handed to us, I only played one point and I told them that was a bad idea. But oh well... It was a good time anyway!!

Last night began as a rather uneventful night. Then we decided to pull a lovely prank on our host brother, Jose, who was gone for the weekend with friends. After going through lists and lists of things to do with nothing working, I started to watch clips from The Office on youtube and found the one where Jim moves Dwight's desk into the bathroom....

And then this happened...

Where the bed was...

Where the bed is...

IN THE BATHROOM!!

Pranks become way too much fun!! When Jose came back today we set up a camera in the bathroom to see his reaction, he walked into his room, then when he wandered in front of the bathroom he just stopped and stood there for about ten seconds just staring at his bed with computer and phone and everything sitting in the bathroom!! It was hilarious!

We got up this morning, with a lot of protesting from Sarah and me, to go do a "maraton" which was only a 10k. And we were going to walk the entire thing, but people here either can run the 10k and do it, which I can't... or they run or walk the 4k. Sarah and I eventually talked Katie into only doing the 4k and then walking home... Proves how lazy we are!!
However when we got up to go this morning Jose's bed had been moved back into his room. It turned out that our older brother Paul needed to shower and moved the bed back. So we had to move the bed back again...... but it was well worth it!

L.I.F.E.

2009-09-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
so yesterday was my first day with L.I.F.E. a volunteer organization that I joined here in Buenos Aires. I looked for quite awhile to find a place that would work out well with what I wanted to do. And my friend Nicole informed me that she had been working at L.I.F.E. for awhile and that she really liked it. I looked into it online and went to orientation the next day and Monday I volunteered for the first time. It was a whirlwind of emotions. L.I.F.E. is different then a lot of other organizations because you are literally volunteering in the villas (favelas, similar to City of God, basically the poorest neighborhoods in all of Buenos Aires). Usually there are about ten volunteers per area, but yesterday we were low on staff so only three of us went to Los Angelitos, where I will be a co-coordinator for the rest of my stay here. When we first got there a kid about fourteen or fifteen was sitting there, which is slightly older then the normal age groups we work with, but they are there for help on their homework. The coordinator asked him if he needed help with anything and he said that he didn´t, however then the ladies from the villa that run the soup kitchen said he was there for help. Apparently he was waiting for a man, George, who had been helping him for quite some time. None of us knew George, so he must have gone back to his home country. But this kid appeared so sad and lost without him. We all tried to help him with his matematicas, but it wasn´t going very well because George had a special way that he had taught him. Eventually he relaxed and began working with us and learning the way that we were attempting to teach him, which is the only way that we knew. Of course I haven´t done math in forever and have always hated it, so I was learning along with him. He broke my heart though because he looked so lost. But at the end of the day after working on some multiplication tables as well he asked if I was going to be there on Friday and thanked me for coming. I´ve never felt so honored in my entire life. The rest of the time when I was not with him though I was helping with the younger kids, they are all so adorable. But very pushy. Most of these kids get little to no attention at home which is why they come to our after school program. Plus it keeps them out of trouble, away from drugs and gangs. They did a lot of sheets of math or word searches, and then they get coloring pages after. Now that I´m co-coordinator though I have to start coming up with more stuff for them to do! Ahhhh!! Hopefully I will be a good co-coordinator... but I guess we will see!! Vamos a ver, vamos a ver...

Last night was a very comical dinner though. We were eating peaches with cream for dessert and Fran was making the cream, so we decided it would be funny to put salt on his peach. Oh boy was it hilarious! Fran kept saying ¨my peach tastes like salt? Why does everything taste like salt?¨ so we opened another can of peaches in hopes that those did not taste like salt, but Jose put even more salt on that peach then before.... it was hysterical! None of us could keep a straight face and we kept pretending that ours tasted like salt as well!! He eventually found out hours later, pobrecito! It was quite a laugh though.

Today is cloudy again, its supposed to be Argentina´s anual huge storm but there hasn´t been much rain. Although this weekend was magnificent! Saturday I went to frisbee practice, like usual. And it was so sunny out, I was roasting in shorts and a t-shirt. After that Katie and I went to the Recoleta Feria because we thought it was going to rain on Sunday. She bought a purse and I got my hair braid thinger, I don´t know what they´re called. Then Sunday ended up being nice as well so we wandered all though the parks which are closer to our house then we thought. We were going to paddle boat but were exhausted by the time we got to the lake to paddle boat in. So we just layed in the shade. I´m waiting for the sun to come back though, hopefully soon. It was being a tease coming for such a short period of time and then leaving again!

All for now though, off to class!! Blahhhh.... =)

Chile.Chile.Chile.

2009-08-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

Oh Chile, how I love thee! Well, Valparaiso anyway.

The adventure started on a lovely Tuesday afternoon, Katie (my roommate), and Adrielle a friend of ours got on a crazy long bus ride to Santiago, Chile. The guy that worked on the bus was nice though and put English subtitles on the movies that were dubbed in Spanish.
We got to Santiago and immediately jumped on a bus to Valparaiso, by the time we got there it was getting late and had started to rain. We grabbed a taxi and went to our hostel, which started off rather creepy, the taxista told us that we were not in a good area, and there wasn't even a sign a on our hostel, just a sticker for hostelbooker.com, so we were worried. But Gustavo (the owner) answered the door and we could see that the walls were all painted bright colors and were covered in art work. It ended up being an amazing place to stay! (Definitely recomend NuevaMente if you go to Valpo.). We met a nice Canadian named Nick, we all went out to grab some supper around 9, which is early for Buenos Aires, but is apparently late in an ocean town in Chile.

We wook up at a decent hour and ate some breakfast and then ventured down to the Ocean. Katie had never seen the Pacific, so that was fun! Then we ate some amazing street food! I love the ridiculously amazing and cheap meat on a stick! I wandered away from Katie and Adrielle to get another sopapilla (sp?), and came back with meat on a stick and a new scarf as well!! (left).

We then went on the craziest bus ride of our lives. Valparaiso is a town full of hills and the bus to Pablo Neruda's house goes up the hills, and down the hills, and the drivers all drive super fast, we were falling over, because the bus was packed. It was hilarious! But we had no idea where we were actually going and ended up passing his house, but the bus driver was either yelling at us to get off, or was being nice and telling us we were dumb. Still not sure which it was! Then to La Sebastiana, one of three of Pablo Neruda's houses in Chile. We visited all of them! Then we wandered down the gazillion and a half staircases.... my legs hurt so bad!

Next day was crappy and rainy, so we jumped on the bus to go to La Isla Negra, not actually an island, in fact nothing is realy in this town except for one of Pablo's other houses... It was beautiful though. Right on the ocean... so pretty!

Next day was rainy as well, but we went to Vina del Mar to see the beaches, which were closed, since it is winter down here... We went to a museum where they had shrunken heads!!! I was really excited! Adrielle and Katie were grossed out... They also had one of only five sculptures from Easter Island that aren't actually on the island. It was cool.

The next day we went to Santiago. It was our only day in Santiago, but we saw Pablo Neruda's house, La Chascana, of course!! Can't miss the third one!! Took the funicular which goes up this huge hill where you get to see how big Santiago actually is. As well as the Andes mountains, which I still loved at this point. Only to loathe the next day...

And the worst part of the entire trip, which elongated our trip by two days. We got to the bus station around 10, for our 10:30 bus... only to find it out had been cancelled!! Because of snow that closed the pass. And that we would have to pay more money to wait ten hours in the Santiago bus station to go on a 22 hour bus ride to Neuquen way far South in Patagonia, to then wait four hours in a bus station there, to then get on a 16 hour bus ride to finally get back to BsAs. I am therefore extremely upset with the Andes at the moment. I also missed two more days of class and the bus was freezing and there were barely any movies and if there were they were not good.

It was definitely a good trip though, I needed to get out of the city!! And why not go to Chile?!? Definitely love Valparaiso, it's so pretty!! I will have to go back!!

2 1/2

2009-08-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I am two and a half months in to this crazy adventure. I probably should have started this thing two and a half months ago... but what can you do? Better sooner then later, or at all...
Two and a half months, that's crazy! I can't believe it. It seems like I just got here, and that I've been here for forever are all at the same time. I've accomplished a lot though. I've been to see Iguazu Falls and Chile, I've been to museums, seen Tango shows, joined an Ultimate Frisbee team, gone to class, learned a couple words in Spanish.... and now I have a blog!

Bueno, today was the first beautiful beautiful day in Buenos Aires. Katie and I did our homework next to the pool, and apparently my freckles decided to multiply... awesome! I finally found a place to volunteer and I'm excited to start doing that. I'll be working with children in a Veisha, which are the poorest areas in Buenos Aires. I've been searching for awhile, and finally found L.I.F.E. it looks amazing, I go to orientation on Friday. And then in less then two weeks the parentals come! Exciting! I've walked past a lot of very good looking restaraunts to go to, but being the poor student that I am, I have been waiting for them to get here...
This blog is officially my accomplishment for the day! In fact I feel so good about it that I'm going to write another one immediatly after explaining all my amazing/horrible adventures in Chile... so read that one too! :)