Uruguay, etc.

Hola! Well, I had a pretty good week. My theology presentation went surprisingly well, and I was able to stay awake in my Church and State class...two good things, ha. Friday my friend Ed's girlfriend Emily (who goes to Madison but is studying abroad for the year in Brazil) arrived for a week visit. She also happened to be my Spanish class partner and friend last semester, so it's cool to have her here. We went to Clasica y Moderna, our favorite jazz club/restaurant place, again to hear a show of guitar and piano interspersed with Borges readings. Then Saturday night we went to the famous Cafe Tortoni for a very touristy/tacky but good tango show and dinner. After that we took a cab out to Palermo to go to some bars in Plaza Serrano, a very popular nightlife area where I hadn't been yet. Also Saturday was our first soccer game! We lost 2-1 to Di Tella, another BA university, but it was still really fun. It took 2 hours to get to the field, on the subway, then a commuter train, then a taxi...all for only 50 minutes of soccer...but oh well. We played on like a U-10 field, 8 v. 8, and the ref was calling absolutely everything. All of us Americans were getting super frustrated because the game is much less physical here, and everyone was way overshooting the tiny goal. The jerseys were so tiny, and there were only 8 so we had to pass them around. We also got Doritos after the game from the league, which was funny. The other team had some American girls too, and I talked to someone from Minnesota after. Sunday Fran and I went with his sister Caro and her husband to the house of the mother and father in law of the other sister. It was in this super fancy, gated neighborhood called Nordelta, about 45 min. outside the city. We played tennis, ate a delicious asado, and hung out with Fran's little cousins. It is very interesting how the entire family becomes friends with the inlaws of just one sibling. I feel like that never happens in the U.S. Anyway, everyone was super nice, and the neighborhood was insane...all these super modern, huge houses of all different styles. It was like a mix between a new Florida condo development and Stonefields (mini-mansions in Mequon) or something.

So, yesterday was our program trip to Colonia del Sacramento, in Uruguay. It was a 3 hour ferry ride across the Rio de la Plata to get to the tiny UNESCO world heritage town founded by the Portuguese in 1680. Our program director, Mario, actually has a bed and breakfast outside the town, and we went there first for lunch. It was absolutely GORGEOUS, with acres and acres of trees, a lemon farm, a pool, dogs, ivy covered walls, modern decorating, and rooms full of character. Some of the doors were from an old prison in Montevideo and had prisoners names carved in them, with slots to pass through food and everything. His small staff prepared this huge asado with chorizo, chicken, beef, and tons of sides and wine. We sat outside in the garden/yard surrounded by ponds and flowers. For dessert we had blueberry and dulce de leche ice cream and fresh fruit. After we just hung out there for awhile and then took a bus back into the historic district and just walked around for about 2 hours. The cobblestone streets and alleys of old buildings were super cool. We sat down on the pier in the setting sun for awhile as well. The river on that side is the same muddy brown as it is in BA, except apparently in Uruguay it's perfectly clean, not disgusting and polluted like the Argentina side. The brown color is actually because the river bottom is all red clay. We had thought mate was super popular here, but in Uruguay you didn't pass a single person without it. It didn't really feel like we were in a different country at all, except for having to go through customs. On the ferry home we sat up on the deck outside on this bench and just watched the stars in the windy darkness...no Big Dipper, because the constellations are different in the Southern Hemisphere (Mr. D, I thought of you!) Ok, well it's super late so I should go, that's all for now.

Vamos Boca!

Today I went to my first Argentine soccer game, which just happened to be a Superclasico. It was Boca Juniors vs. River Plate in the Bombonera, Boca's stadium. My coach from Mequon Soccer Club played for Boca back in the '80s with Maradona, and he came down for the game. He also managed to get Fran and me tickets...kind of. The whole day felt like a drug deal or something. Fran and I tried to hail a taxi to the stadium, but no one would stop for us. He ended up taking off his Boca jersey because he figured taxi drivers were trying to avoid driving into the mess around the stadium (or were River fans!). We were supposed to meet Cacho's friend on this street corner, but we couldn't find him forever and no one was answering the cell phone numbers Cacho had given us. Finally this guy comes up to us and asks if we're with Cacho, but doesn't introduce himself or anything. We follow him around for awhile as he talks to random security guards and men in suits. It is honestly like the mafia...people were begging the guards to let them in because they knew this or that person, and people were being escorted in from cars and stuff. Also, there were 1100 police officers with rifles. Anyway, we finally get in the first gate, but then end up waiting at a second gate for like an hour. The original "friend" hands us off to another guy, but the tickets he gives us come up as already used at the scanner thing. So we wait again, and at this point Cacho's still not answering his phone and we're thinking we're not going to get in. Finally, five minutes before the game started this guy grabs us, pulls us through this crowd, and just says "they're with me" and we proceed to walk in without tickets. We raced up to the third tier and, having given up on Cacho, just found a spot to stand in the aisle of the highest "popular" section. The popular section is the least expensive and where all the hooligans and real Argentine fans are. The video I've attached is from right before kickoff, when the Boca players were coming out. Basically, the game was insane. I felt like I was going to be injured several times. I had to keep my hands over my pockets the whole time because of my phone and my camera. The game ended up being 1-1, and after the Boca goal everyone went nuts and we almost fell forward. There were balloons, flags, fire works, smoke bombs, flying papers. Our row unfurled the top of one of those HUGE flags you see covering a section of fans on TV. One of "La Doce," or the actual mafia of Boca who always initiates violence and gets arrested, was yelling commands at us about the flag. At halftime you literally couldn't have gone anywhere if your life depended on it...people were just sitting on top of each other. The whole time the stadium was shaking from people jumping, and Boca has a million songs that people scream at the top of their lungs. I also heard more swearing than I've heard anywhere else in my life. The actual playing of the game was almost hard to pay attention to, there was so much else going on. After the game we, after a lot of waiting and phone calls, met up with Cacho. He was wearing his Mequon Soccer vest, which was funny. He also introduced us to his nephews who apparently now coach in Mequon as well, and another former Boca player who was the coach of the Argentine women's national team. This guy ended up giving me his jacket, walking us to his appartment, introducing us to his son who plays on the Boca "minor league" team, and driving us to the subway station. It was kind of sketchy seeming, but he was Cacho's friend. Also, he kept talking to me about how I played and telling me I should play with one of the women's professional teams here. Cacho actually told me he'd already given my number to his friend with the Boca women's team (didn't know such a thing existed...) so I could have a try out and try to play with them. I don't exactly feel up to trying out for a professional team, haha, but I promised I'd give it a try, since women's soccer here is basically a joke, from what I've seen. All in all, it was a super fun and very cultural experience. I had thought going to a Real Madrid game was going to be the best soccer I'd see in my life, but this was like 10 times better. Crazy is really the only word for it. It definitely lived up to my expectations, except for that we didn't see any violence or riots or police stand-offs (or anyone die, for that matter) which was good. Now Fran is telling me I shouldn't be writing this stuff because the Boca mafia will actually come kill me, haha. Well, I have a 20 minute presentation on the Mormons for my theology class Tuesday so I must go. Vamos Boca!!

Rant

Disclaimer: I have been having a rough couple of days and have decided to just write a blog of complaints, so don't feel compelled to read it, it's really for myself. As I'm sure you can tell from my previous posts, I'm having the time of my life, but today is my 2 month mark and I'm just going to indulge in some cathartic complaining!!

This is what I hate about Argentina right now: 1. Inefficiency and inconvenience. That just about sums it up. Every little thing you need to do here becomes an ordeal. Going to the store. Going to the doctor. Getting something printed. Our visa thing took 7 hours. I spent 3 hours today trying to get a simple signature for my medical release form. Bus rides to school take 40 minutes. There are lines for everything, and no one is in a hurry or cares if you are. There is always paperwork, or a strike, or a delay. The store closes early on Sundays. The worker forgot to make the copies you ordered. 2. Men staring. Seriously, you feel like a piece of meat. It is just completely normal and accepted to look a woman up and down blatantly, whip your head around after you pass her, beep, whistle, cat call, and generally act disgustingly. Also, women look at you and judge you. Basically everyone stares at you in an unfriendly and creepy manner and you feel the need to be paranoid constantly because everyone is just loitering around giving each other weird looks and you think you're going to be robbed. 3. Overly skinny women. There are no women athletes here, so no one has my kind of body. They are super into plastic surgery, fashion, tanning, etc. My host brother makes comments about me being fat all the time. Here that is supposed to be endearing (ironically). I don't find it very endearing, personally. 4. Eating dinner at midnight. I want to be in bed. And I'm starving at 6:00. 5. Girls and boys can't just be friends. If you hug a guy, it automatically means you like him. People don't hang out in mixed groups. And jealousy is expected and encouraged in relationships. 6. The photocopy system for classes. I don't care if there's not a book, but they could at least have all the photocopies together instead of having to go down every week, stand in line for half an hour, find each document on some computer / in a book in the library, pay with monedas, and have random papers floating around everywhere. 7. Lack of customer service. If you don't have exact change or at least some monedas, people just won't serve you, instead of rounding down or something like they'd do in the U.S. Cashiers blatantly hold conversations with each other or on the phone. People at a desk at a place like migrations or a bank will stand up in the middle of your conversation and go to another cubicle to chat or grab some food. 8. People talking in class. Really rude. 9. Confusing bus system. The bus guide doesn't show you where the stops are. I always get on the bus going in the wrong direction. And accepting only coins is the most inefficient and annoying thing ever. 10. No peanut butter. Or baking. Or good dark chocolate. Or Heinz ketchup. Or bread in my house. Or butter. The list goes on and on. 11. English music. Everyone here listens to music in English. I am here to learn Spanish. 12. No seat belts in taxis. With the way people drive here, not wearing a seat belt is just asking to get killed. 13. Dog poop everywhere. There are streets by parks where you can't look up for more than 5 seconds cuz you're bound to step in some. 14. Accents/vos form. People speak so fast and in such a different style than the Spanish we learn in the U.S. It is incredibly hard to understand. 15. Lack of monedas. An extreme coin shortage in a country that demands the use of coins for its main transportation. 16. The subway closes at 10:30. People don't even go out till 2 or 3 AM. Why? Well, there is my judgmental, typical American list of unfair generalizations. Now I feel better. Soon I will write a list of what I love, and I'm sure it'll be much longer. Yesterday in my Theology class with just 5 Argentines, me, and the professor, the majority of the class was discussion. When the Argentines spoke amongst themselves I couldn't understand A SINGLE WORD in some conversations. In others, just the last word of each response. I was exerting such mental effort but with all the back and forth and laughing and interrupting and slang I just couldnt follow anything. When the professor speaks I can understand, and when other students speak to me, for the most part, but listening to my peers speak to each other is like listening to German or something sometimes. I've been here 2 months, what the heck! It's not even like I don't know the vocabulary it's that I literally can't make out the words they're pronouncing it's all mumbling and spoken inside their mouths. Ugh. I almost walked out of my class in tears at several points because I was so lost and bored and I wanted to understand the topic cuz it was really interesting but no one spoke to me and I couldnt have interjected if I tried. A guy brought mate though and we all passed it around, so that was nice. I got home late last night after soccer, tired and upset, and ended up crying for the first time since I've been here. Luckily my host brother stayed up talking with me, and has promised not to speak to me in English at all for awhile. He went out to a kiosk at 1 in the morning and bought his mom (who had received some sort of bad news) and me chocolate and said his grandpa always said "when you're having an ugly day you need something sweet." Claudia also noticed something was wrong right when I walked in, even though I thought I was acting cheerful and fine, so it kind of felt like I was back with my real mom (but not really of course, mom!). Then I skyped my family today after this long hassle at the hospital today getting an electrocardigram and all for soccer (so unnecessary) and missed my mom so much and it was sad. And I am homesick, even though I don't want to go home, if that makes sense.

Okayyyy, that is all. Claudia and Fran are gone discussing some kind of family issue with his siblings for dinner, so I ate dinner by myself. But actually that was fine because I ate quickly, early, and as much as I wanted..non of which usually happen. And then I ate ice cream out of the tub just to be rebellious haha. Tomorrow will be a better day. This weekend we have our first soccer game and I'm going to the Boca/River game, so that will be awesome. Hasta pronto.

Mendoza

Hola amigos. Well, I am finally home from my whirlwind two weeks exploring Argentina. This past weekend in Mendoza was absolutely amazing, and I did more adventurous things than I've done in the entire rest of my life. Mendoza is a city to the way west on the border with Chile in the Andes. It's known for it's wine and skiing in winter. I went with my friend Hanna, who also went to El Calafate, and a sophomore guy from Madison named Kyle. We left on a coach bus ("omnibus" here) Wednesday night from the huge bus station in Retiro with just about the entire rest of the city. The terminal was the most chaotic and crowded place I have ever been. And you constantly have to be watching your stuff and be paranoid because it's a dangerous area (I caught someone unzipping my friend's backpack while we were walking a different time). Anyway, our bus was 2 hours late, and it was very stressful because there are no boards or anything telling you where to go, only a woman on the loudspeaker constantly announcing delays, gates, and bus companies over the noise. We finally got on our bus and settled in for the 13 or so hours ahead. The buses here are actually as unbelievably nice as everyone said they would be. Our seats were "semi-cama," which meant they leaned back quite far into a bed position and a little foot rest came down from the chair in front. We were served both dinner and breakfast by the two attendants on the bus. They played music, showed a movie and a concert, and generally created a fun atmosphere.

We arrived in Mendoza around noon on Thursday. We ran into a bunch of IFSA people in the bus station because just about half the program decided to go to Mendoza this weekend. We walked about 10 blocks to our hostel, Simplemente Mendoza. Kyle booked the hostel, and it ended up being a great choice. The owner, Romina, was super interesting and helpful. She is from Argentina but grew up in Chicago. She then met her husband, who is from BA, in Texas, and they moved back south to open a hostel. Through her we booked all our tours and excursions. We stayed in a 9 bed bunk room with 5 students from the University of Oregon and one student from Germany. Later in the weekend we met some other Americans in the hostel and went out with them. One is moving to Waterford, WI this summer. Weird. Also met someone from Texas with a cottage on Sturgeon Bay. Small, small world. Anyway, Thursday afternoon we just walked around the town, which was extremely dead. Mendoza has huge plazas and parks, and we enjoyed just relaxing. We got ice cream, which Mendoza is famous for, several times during the trip. The weather was also beautiful...70s and 80s, not a cloud in the sky...all weekend.

Friday afternoon we took a winery tour on a bus. We visited the now-closed but formerly biggest winery in South America, a smaller family-owned boutique one, an olive farm, and a chocolate shop. The visits included wine/olive oil/chocolate tastings, which were for the most part delicious. At the chocolate shop though we got this disgusting chocolate alcohol that no one could drink. It was super interesting to see how wine is made, and we got lessons in wine etiquette at one place. The scenery was just gorgeous driving around...big, sunny groves and lines of grapes surrounded by mountains and the clear, fast-running pre-Incan irrigation system the city if famous for (it's all fresh water running down from the Andes that allows extremely dry Mendoza to be the 5th largest wine producing region in the world). We tried a bunch of different recommended wines at various restaurants and bars throughout the weekend, and I actually enjoyed most of it, even though I'm usually not a big fan of wine.

Saturday was our big day of adventure. We were picked up early in the morning in a van and driven about an hour away into the Andes. The landscape was incredible...mountainy like all the other places I've been here but also super different because of the red clay and arid landscape. We went to the base camp of the Argentina Rafting company, which was absolutely beautiful. It is situated on the huge Mendoza river in a gorge between walls of mountain. They had lovely wooden decks and lounge chairs, an outdoor restaurant, and fun music. It felt like a mountain resort or something. Anyway, we had signed up for half a day of zip lining and half a day of whitewater rafting. I was super nervous because both activities are(clearly) not me and I would consider them too dangerous even in the U.S. But, I ended up loving them both and it was another one of the best days of my life. The zip lining consisted of getting strapped into a harness, putting on heavy gloves, grabbing onto a cable, and flying across gorges and the river hundreds of feet up in the air. It was absolutely exhilarating. We did about 7 or 8 different passes, and the best was definitely going out over the river. We were actually doing the zip lining for about an hour, then we had a nice break to eat lunch and just lounge in the sun. In the afternoon we got dressed in wetsuits, jackets, helmets, and boots to go rafting. We were driven out to the beginning of the rapids, then split up into groups. It was the three of us, a young Argentine couple, and our guide Jason. It was immediately clear that Jason spoke Spanish worse than us, and it turns out he's from Colorado and just kind of moved to Argentina with his girlfriend on a whim, started learning Spanish (a month ago), and got a job under the table from friends as a rafting guide. The rafting was AMAZING! The rapids were class 3 and 4, so it was actually pretty intense. No one fell out, but almost. We were surrounded by mountains and churning water. Saturday night on our way out to dinner we stopped in the teeming Plaza Independencia to watch a street performer set up. We ended up staying for an hour and half watching this creepy guy get children to give him their parents' money. He also juggled fire and picked me out of the crowd to help him two times, one of which involved shaking my hips and thrusting a bowling pin into the air to Aretha Franklin or someone similar. It was awkward.

Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and then took about an hour walk up to Cerro de la Gloria, a peak from which you can see the entire city of Mendoza and the Andes on the border with Chile. It was a nice, if very hot, walk, and we sat up at the top by a cool statue of San Martin the liberator for awhile. After that we went out for pizza and just sat in a park again. It was a really weird Easter; my two friends aren't religious and I didn't even make it to Mass but I explained the Easter story to them when they asked and ate 12 Peeps so I suppose it was okay. The bus ride home was nice as well; they showed Slumdog Millionaire and we played Bingo with the whole bus and a prize of a bottle of wine. We did, however, have to sit on the bus in line to disembark back in BA for 2 HOURS because there was so much return traffic for the Easter holiday. Well, now I'm back in my room, about to fold the mountains of laundry I just got done. Two of Fran's friends came over for "tea" for about an hour and we drank mate, so that was fun. I still get very frustrated trying to hold a conversation though, because when they speak to each other I literally get nothing at times. Oh well. Tomorrow I have class so it's back to reality...kind of, haha. If only my life here was going to stay reality. Hasta pronto.

Glacier Video

El Calafate

Hola! So, I just got home from the best trip of my life: El Calafate, in southern Patagonia, to visit Argentina's Glacier National Park. Anything I write here will not even begin to describe how cool this place was. I took 500 pictures (haha) so hopefully I will be able to put more up than usual or you can check them out on Facebook.
Anyway, I flew out Thursday afternoon with my two friends Ed and Hanna from Madison. Our plane was delayed like 3 hours but at least we got lunch vouchers. Landing in El Calafate it looked like Mars or something...red rugged plateaus and no sign of people or buildings. Also, the airport was the smallest thing I had ever seen. It had an embarking/disembarking place for one plane only. The terrain throughout the trip was so varied and unlike anything I had ever seen before. Mostly it was very dry brush steppe, I would almost call it tundra, mountains, and one lake. We alternatively felt like we were in Lord of the Rings, Antarctica, Land Before Time, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Thursday night we got in late and just crashed at our hostel, Glaciar del Libertador, which was super nice. We had paid for a 4 person hostel type dorm room but actually got a private, 3 bed room with a bathroom. Friday morning we got up to do this horseback riding tour but it was full, so we walked around town in the rain all morning, looking to book tours and rent winter clothing for our trekking the next days. Friday at 5 PM we did this "cabalgata" tour at a small ranch in the middle of this empty valley between huge mountains. It was just us and 3 girls from NYU. I havent had much experience with horses and was a bit nervous, since most of the other people were riders, but my horse Surgas was mostly fine, except for bucking as I was getting off. We followed our guide along these trails winding around and up these mountains for about 2 hours in total. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking, and we saw cattle and rabbits roaming around everywhere. After that we went back to the ranch for a huge asado of delicious beef, chicken, vegetables, and potatoes. All the workers were so friendly and the atmosphere was great.

Saturday was our big day: our glacier trekking tour was from 7:30 AM to 6:30 PM. The tour company, Hielo y Aventura, picked us up in a bus in the morning, and we drove into the national park. We drove along this lonely highway in the huge dark valley passing no one. It was like a movie. We had to pay park entrance fees two days that would have been significantly cheaper if we had our residency (which happens tomorrow), so that was annoying. Anyway, we drove to the touristy balcony things along the front of the famous Glaciar Perito Moreno and stopped for about half an hour, taking pictures of the stunning ice wall across the water. It was raining, but we did get to see two small breaks, where a big slab of ice comes crashing down into the water. All of the glaciers in the park are receding because of global warming, some at rates of like a meter a day, which is a ton. After this we took a boat across an arm of Lago Argentino (a HUGE lake, 700 meters deep at the most, the biggest in Argentina, on which the glaciers are situated). We arrived at the base of these huge, prehistoric looking mountains, with weird outcroppings, low clouds, and misty waterfalls everywhere. There we started our long trek up and around the side of the glacier. I guess I had always thought of glaciers as being on water, but it was actually over a huge valley of rock between two tall mountains, and you could see at higher levels the lines where it passed through, carving out the rock. We got to try some wild Calafate berries, for which the town is famous and makes ice cream and jam with. Then we get crampons and harnesses and actually went out onto the glacier with about 5 guides. We spent 3 hours walking around on the ice, seeing all the crevasses, deep holes, blue ice formations, rocks, and peaks. I felt like I was on the moon. In front of us were the snow-capped Andes and white for as far as you could see. We even ate lunch up there. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and I could have been in just a sweatshirt, but we were glad we had rented hiking boots and also gloves because the ice is super sharp if you fall or sit down.

Sunday we did another tour, leaving at 7:15 AM on a boat excursion. We took a huge catamaran with about 100 other people up different arms of the lake to see 3 bigger glaciers. Upsala, the biggest, is 4 TIMES the size of Buenos Aires, but we had to stay about 7 km. away because of the dangerous field of icebergs in front of it. Still really impressive. We got super close to Spegazzini, and then ate lunch outside in a foresty/rocky (and freezing!)outcropping overlooking some other smaller ones. The lake is this crazy turquoise color because of the "glacial milk" or the pulverized, silvery rock suspended in the freezing water. The icebergs we saw were almost cooler than the glaciers. We were constantly navigating through and right up next to huge, weirdly shaped ice sculptures, some of which were deep blue. Volcanic looking mountains surrounded us, and you could again actually see the path of the glaciers due to tree levels and such. You could see the paths of long, thin waterfalls coming down from what seemed like a mile up. It was very windy, misty, and cloudy, which was cool.

Monday morning we checked out of the hostel then just walked around town until going to the airport around 3. The town is entirely based on tourism and in the absolute middle of nowhere, just right on the lake in this big valley. It has one main drag, and just about every other building is a tour office. It still had a lot of character though, with a lot of old, beat up cars, stray dogs, and locals hanging around the brightly colored stores. We got all of our meals at this crazy crowded corner grocery store and ate basically off our laps on our beds in the hostel with rented silverware and stolen plates. One night we even drank wine out of yogurt lids. So, the room was a bit messy and we got a bit sick of dry bread, but it was cheap. It had to be, since all the tours were so expensive. However, it was totally worth every penny. Best time of my life.
Well, I have class now, but I'm going to try to put up some videos later. I'm kind of in panic mode here because we had to go through this whole ordeal switching our second trip for this weekend from Salta to Mendoza because of this huge dengue fever epidemic. So it's been a big hassle, but at least I won't get dengue, so that's good. I leave on a 13 hour bus ride again tomorrow night, so it's a quick turnaround! Hasta luego.