90 Days and Counting

Today marks a rather important day in my stay here. I have 90 days left in this country. How did I choose to celebrate? I went  to a local restaurant with a friend, ordered coffee, and hung out for a little bit. It's not much, but it was the best I could do here. Next week is finals, which is going to be stressful, so I took some time out today to relax. Tomorrow I need to buy the bus tickets for me and Megan that will get us TO Buenos Aires. I also need to find us hostels and book them. And I need to study. Tomorrow I will also be reading a children's easier reader version of  "The Lorax" to my mom's kids. I translated the book into Spanish. Don't start thinking I've gotten fluent suddenly. It's a very easy book so it was mostly words that I already knew before I got here. Tomorrow is "Read Across America" day and so we will literally be reading across America. It should be fun.

Anyway, I'm going to continue the "tranquila" today and watch a little bit of a movie or something before my class.

Tata for now.

Peru and a Bit More

Hello everyone,

Very sorry for the delay in the postings. I've been meaning to write something on here the last couple of days but I've been preoccupied.

3 weeks ago was midterms. I think I did well on pretty much everything. There's still one class I haven't seen the results for yet. Grammar I did bad on. Right now my overall grade in that class is hovering around a 76%. Not good. I'm pretty upset about that but unfortunately I keep messing up on my quizzes so the grade isn't coming back up.

2 weeks ago we went to Peru. Of course it was the 6 hrs by bus to the airport in Buenos Aires, then wait for our plane, 4 hrs to Lima, 1 hr to Cusco, and then we were there. Cusco is at a very high altitude so we had to becareful to not do too much or we could get altitude sickness. Our leaders kept telling us "tranquilos! no comen mucho. no corren. tranquilos!" Basically, chill out. Don't eat a lot. Don't run around. Just chill or you'll get sick. A bunch of people did end up getting sick. The first day we were there we just rested and tried to adjust to the altitude. THe next day we went on a tour of Cusco. We saw a huge indoor market that literally sold everything: clothes, souvenirs, flowers, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, bread, meat. And by meat I mean a whole pig carcass and you get to pick what you want to take home. The meat sections were pretty gross. Lots of dead things, not my idea of fun. We went to the biggest catholic cathedral in South America and we also saw where there was an Incan temple that had been turned into some sort of convent thing for Catholics. It was a museum of the Incan temple and connected to it was the Catholic stuff.
The next day we got up epically early to go to Machu Picchu. We drove 2 hours and then got on a 1.5 hour train ride up to Machu Picchu. From the base town we took a little bus up to the actual site. We didnt have very long there so it was rushed and I wanted to take pictures so I didn't learn much. It was either listen to our guide and translate what he said in my head or take pictures. I took lots of pictures.
The next day we left for Lima. We had a 8 hour layover or soemthing silly so they took us to a mall. That mall was MUCH better thna the malls I went to in Buenos Aires. Lima had a lot more American stuff: Dominos, Pizza Hut, and Papa Johns, KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks, Chili's, TGI Fridays. Mostly I just noticed the food places. But I did recognize a few of the store names, mostly high end clothing stuff that I've heard of an don't actually own. I got a massage there.
On the plane back to BA I got sick. It wasn't fun. I was sick all that weekend. We landed in BA around 10 am on Friday. Our bus was late so we had to wait. Then when we got to the mall to get lunch on our way back to the UAP the AC in the bus died so we had to wait 3 hours for a new bus. We didnt leave BA until almost 4 pm which meant we weren't gonna get back to the UAP until 9:30 almost 10 pm. It was a long day.

Last week was pleasant. We had a holiday on Wednesday which I used rather productively. Next week is Finals for this quarter and on March 8th I'll be meeting Megan in BA for Spring Break. This Thursday marks 90 days until I come home.
Between being a little stressed about finals, annoyed about my grammar grade, and trying to prepare everything for Spring Break I'm definitely ready to go home. There are 5 students leaving at the end of this quarter. I kind of wish I was going with them but I'm not so I shall have to press on.
Hopefully lunch is worth eeating today, I didn't eat dinner last night because it was not good and the cereal was stale.

Halfway Down a Waterfall

Well my loverly readers, lot's has happened since the last time I posted. Last week (Jan 19) was exactly halfway through this school year. It's been 19 weeks of 36 and there's still a lot to do between now and the end of May.

The most exciting thing in the last two weeks has been our trip to Iguazu Falls (pictures coming soon). We left at 11 pm on January 19 and arrived in Misiones (northern province literally squished between Brazil and Paraguay) around 3pm the following day. It was a little more than 15 hours there. I slept a little but it was pretty uncomfortable so I took a nap before dinner once we arrived at our hotel. Monday we spent the entire day walking around the falls.

Iguazu Falls is off the Uruguay River and is split between Brazil and Argentina, similar to how Niagra Falls is between Canada and America. It was really pretty. The first thing we did was walk/ride a mini train up to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat). It's a gorgeous view of the biggest section of the waterfalls, you can see the Brazilian viewing area from there as well.
We ate lunch at the park's restaurant, La Selva, which was an AMAZING buffet. It was so good, I ate SO much food.
After lunch we walked A LOT. There are paths that allow you to view the falls from various view points. We walked through all the paths for quite a while, taking pictures. Finally we got to the bottom and then realized we had to climb down a billion stairs to where we were going to get on a boat.
Have you head of Maid of the Mist? It's a tour boat company that takes you into Niagra Falls. These boats are not like the ones at Niagra. They are smaller and the drivers take you MUCH closer to the water. We were drenched.
After boating around for a little bit, chancing some pictures when the spray wasn't too much, the driver drove us down stream to where we got out. We dried off, I changed my shoes, some of the group changed clothes, and then we climbed up a bunch of stairs to where we went on a "safari."
Personally, I thought the safari was pretty lame. We were in the rain forest of Argentina so it would make sense to have a safari and see some animals right? Wrong. We saw giant spiders and that's it. Actually, that's not entirely true, the guide pointed out a giant tree that's now protected by law and we saw a toucan when we were unloading. All in all it was a really gorgeous experience. The weather wasn't too hot or humid, it didnt rain at all while we were there. There was LOTS of walking but it was worth it.
Megan is coming in March to visit me during my spring break. She's wanting to go to the falls and I'm looking forward to going back and being able to take better pictures with my nicer camera. I took a really cheap point and shoot camera with me because i wasn't sure if I'd be able to protect my nice camera when we went on the boat ride. Now that I know how everything works and that we get waterproof bags I'm more comfortable taking it with me.

In 2 weeks we have midterms, in three weeks we're going to Peru. This quarter is already pretty much half over. And we have a feriado (holiday) next Thursday. :-)

Grades and Quarter Numero 2

Well, I finally have all my grades from last quarter. I got A's in Grammar, Composition, Geography, Folklore, Current Events, and History. I got A-'s in Conversation, Bible, and Orthography. *Go Me*

This quarter I'm taking Advanced Grammar, Conversation, and Composition. I'm also taking Phonetics, Translation (ooohhh fun!) Folklore, Bible, and Geography.

Tomorrow is my first day of class this quarter. I don't have class till 10:30 am so that will be a nice way to ease into the quarter. I actually really like my schedule this quarter. Monday I have class from 8:30 am till 10:30 am (Grammar) and then Folklore at 2:30 pm until 4:30. Tuesday I have Conversation at 10:30 am till 12:30, Phonetics at 1:30pm ad then Translation from 5:30-7:30 pm. Wednesday is Grammar at 10:30 until 12:30 and then Bible at 3:30-5:30. Thursday is Composition at 10:30 and then geography at 2:30-4:30. Friday I don't have any classes (yay!!) but there are ACA meetings at 10:30 am (as announced) so some days I will have to be a normal human in the morning and other days I won't.

That's about the run down for this quarter. In a few weeks (we'll probably find out when this Friday in the meeting) we will be going to Iguazu Falls. The falls are in the north in a province called Misiones. It's squished between Paraguay and Brazil. From what I've seen in pictures, it's really pretty. It better be, since Megan wants to go up there when she comes to visit in March. At the end of February, the ACA program takes us up to Peru and to Machu Picchu (this is basically THE trip that convinced me to come down here and the one I've been looking forward to this whole time). March is Spring Break (or fall break depending on which season you choose to call it by) and then in April is our trip to Rio de Janiero. I have two more quarters, 4.5 months, and lots to learn between now and the end of May. It seems like a long time but I know it will fly by and instead of wanting time to go faster--so I can go home--I will be wanting everything to slow down before I head back to the States. It's all about perspective I suppose.

Happy New Year everyone!

__----Travels to date: # of countries- 2  (Uruguay, Argentina)
                                       
                                     

A Series of Unfortunate Events

It has taken me a few days to come to grips with what I'm about to share. I had moments where I felt pretty stupid and incompetent..and a little embarrassed. In retrospect, there's really not much we could have done differently to change the out come. Below is an account of my journey back to the UAP from Bariloche.

Thursday morning, 6:30 am.

Anna and Dylan were the first up. They showered and packed up there things. At 7 am I also took a quick shower and got the rest of my things pulled together. By 7:55 I was heading downstairs with my bags and was ready for breakfast.

At 8, the three of us grabbed a quick breakfast. Anna finished a few things on her computer. By 8:30 we loaded our things into the car and we headed out. We stopped at a gas station to fill up the rental and then Anna drove straight to the bus terminal. We arrived by 8:45; Anna pulled up to the taxi loading area and we unloaded our stuff. She parked. We walked our things in, Anna bought her public bus ticket, and then left with the rental car to return it.

Dylan and I checked our bus tickets to double check which bus company we were looking for. The ticket was purchased through FlechaBus. It was then that we realized our bus was at 10 instead of 10:30. We weren't concerned since Anna had just over an hour before we were supposed to be leaving. Dylan and I took turns walking the length of the bus terminal looking for our bus.

Anna returned at 10:10 and we immediately went outside to look for our bus since Dylan and I hadn't seen it. Anna ran in and asked the lady at the Flecha counter where our bus was and she said it had already left. Dylan and I both said we hadn't seen a Flecha bus come in at all. We went inside and the woman explained that we were actually riding with Chevallier, another bus company. It said htis at the very bottom of our tickets (frustrating!!).

We purchased new tickets to Buenos Aires (our original tickets were taking us to Parana, a town 1 hour from the UAP but there weren't any more buses running there until Sat., so we choose to go to B.A which is 6 hours from the UAP). Our bus we scheduled for 2pm.

We got on the bus, it was actually a very nice bus, and were on it all night until about 12 pm the next day (Friday). From there, Anna caught a ferry into Uruguay since she was going to miss her bus that was scheduled to leave from Parana that night. Dylan and I bought tickets to Parana, but realized that it was going to be too late for us to catch a bus to the UAP.

Dylan called his family to see if they could pick us up. Before they decided he ran out of minutes and we had to wait for them to call him back.

We got on our bus at 4:20 (not to be confused with the 4:15 bus to Parana from the same company that left from adjacent slots). It was not as nice of a bus but it was alright. Dylan's family finally called him back and they agreed to pick us up. They did and I was back in the dorm by 1 am (Saturday morning).

I've gone over the scenario dozens of times and it doesn't seem to matter what we had done, we just weren't supposed to make that bus in Bariloche. We left with plenty  of time, had everything ready and worked out. I spent an extra $200 on bus tickets that I really didnt want to and couldn't really afford. But it doesn't matter at this point. Thankfully we arrived back safely and everything will work out financially..eventually.

Tonight is New Year's Eve. I didn't get invited anywhere, which is fine, so I'll be spending the night chillin in my room, eating watermelon, and maybe drinking some terere. 2 hours till the new year in Argentina. 4 months and 27 days till I'm home.

This year is going to be great!

The Near End of a Journey

I have been here in Bariloche for 3.5 days. It has been different than I thought it was going to be. It does not smell like chocolate even though this is the chocolate capital of Argentina, there is no snow where I can touch it (although that isn't all bad because I am sick again and it's been a challenge to keep warm-even inside-with the clothes I brought). It has been a very beautiful and mostly relaxing experience, however.

On Monday, we reserved a car for using today (Wednesday). We wanted the car for Monday but there were none available and the only one available was the most expensive car but we needed it to be able to do one of the activities which I will touch on shortly. After we worked all that out, we went to find the kiosko that sold the bus tickets we needed for our trip on Christmas, and then we went ice skating. We paid 50 pesos for an 1hr of ice skating in the smallest ice skating rink I have ever seen. We did not stay for an hour. We went to try to grab a quick lunch at McDonalds but it had closed at 4. We got there right after 4. I was disappointed. I wanted a mocha...I wanted Christmas in a cup. We went back towards the hostel and had a late lunch/early dinner at La Alpina; a little Germanish restaurant. It was pretty good, slightly over priced but oh well.

Tuesday (Christmas) we took the bus to a lake, I dont remember the name right now but it started with a G. Near the lake was a waterfall that ended up in the river. We all thought the walk would be longer but it took us maybe an hour to get up to the waterfall, most of that time was to walk down the road to the trailhead. It was a little overcast and very windy so it was pretty cold. We waited for the bus to pick us back up, got on the correct number bus but it apparently took a different route back (explain how that works. I have no clue. Same numbered buses run the same route. I have no clue how that happened). We got kicked off the bus in the middle of no where. We made the bus driver give us the "conductor" part of our tickets since we didnt have other tickets and then we had to wait for 20 min in the cold for the same numbered bus with a different route back to take us where we needed to go. It was the weirdest thing.

 <This is a picture of what is talked about below>

Today we picked up the car and drove out to see the 7 lakes. It was by far the most beautiful drive I have been on in a very long time. We stopped at a lot of really great spots; the best was Punto Panaram. I took some really cool pictures and a few panaramics with my tablet. It was really windy and chilly everywhere we went. We also found this Germanish-looking artesian spot. It was pretty much a tourist trap, cute but over priced. I didnt buy anything.

Tomorrow we're heading back to campus. No more cold, just lots of heat. Hopefully I will survive. I'm planning on buy some chocolate here tonight and I completely forgot about it being super hot up there so I left some chocolate in my room. I will be putting it in the freezer with my name written all over it as soon as I get back to campus.

Anyway, until next time.

Christmas, Penguins, and Chocolate

It has been an interesting two and a half weeks of traveling for me. I began in Entre Rios Argentina, the province the university is and and now I'm sitting on the wrong side of the bus to see anything exciting until the valley opens up driving through Rio Negro, another province much further to the south. Since I'm on the bus, and have been on a for almost 50 hours in the last three days, I'm slowly running out of things to do. I will try to keep my Christmas travels, thus far, in chronological order.

Part 1: The Beach

During the first week of break, I went with three friends (Megan, Tanique, and Erin) to Punta del Este in Uruguay. We had a contact with a local taxi driver that helped out ACA students in the past. He charged us $200 USD to take us to Punta del Este and back. Since I had other plans the following week and needed to be back at a certain day/time, the taxi worked well for us. There are buses to Punta, through the Uruguayan captial Montevideo but since that bus runs once a week, we decided to take a taxi.
We left Wednesday, December 12th, at 7 am and drove the 10 hours to Punta del Este. It was a nice drive, not very eventful. Once we arrived in Punta it took us quite awhile to locate our hostel. We stayed at a place called F&F Hostel. It was a cute little hostel with a pool and nice staff. It was kind of loud at night but since we weren't planning on getting up very early anyway, it worked out. We were five minutes walking distance from the beach, and let me tell you- Ocean City, MD has nothing on Punta. The sand was soft and not very shelly. The water was still chilly since it hasn't had much time to warm up from the Arctic currents. It was still really nice and the sun was warm.
On Saturday, Megan and I set of on what was supposed to be a moderately long walk to find the lighthouse on the point. It took us over an hour on what ended up beingthe hottest day we were in Uruguay to find the Lighthouse and then we had to walk back. Yes, I made the journey solely for my parents. I'm not a crazed lighthouse fan like them.

I woke up with a fever on Sunday morning so I didn't do anything on our last day at the beach. It was fine since it was raining all day pretty much. Our taxi driver came to pick us up Monday morning and before midnight that night we were back in the Villa.

My next trip (the one I'm currently on) was on Wednesday,so I had just enough time to do laundry, do a little grocery shopping, and repack.

Part 2: Penguins and Chocolate

Wednesday night Anna, Dylan, Miguel, and I headed to Parana on the 7:30pm bus. Parana is about 1 hr from the Villa. Miguel was coming to hang out for the night and return to the Villa the next morning. Our hostel was nice but small. We arranged with the attendant to have breakfast prepared for us at 6:30 am and for us to pay and still make our 7 am bus. Unfortunately, the lady that was working in the morning was late. We had to take our breakfast to go and practically run to the bus terminal (which was only 2 blocks away) to get to our bus on time. We made it was about 5 min to spare, loaded our luggage and climbed on board. The bus was nice, large seats that were pretty comfortable. We were on that bus for 30 hours.
I slept for a while. We had to take several detours, some because of flooding and a few in Rosario (about 6 hours from the villa) because people were protesting something and burning tires in the streets. They weren't being violent so don't be worried about my safety. It seems they do it all the time here.
The detours set us back several hours. They fed us lunch (ham and cheese sandwhiches, luckily the ham was easy to get rid of) and dinner (which was at 2 am). Finally, around 1 pm on Friday, we arrived in Trelew. Trelew is the "home base" for going to Punta Tombo (penguins) and Peninsula Valdez (whales, penguins, seals, sea lions, etc). We only had time to go to Punta Tombo.
Saturday morning at 9 am, we loaded on some kind of a tour bus and headed for the penguins in Punta Tombo. We arrive at 11:30 and spent an hour and a half walking among the penguins, literally. If I had wanted to touch one, take one home, take more than one home, I could have. There were babies and adults. It was fantastic! I took a lot of pictures and had a great time. The tour van/bus took us to a Welsh town, Gaiman. There was an optional Welsh tea thing you could do, I did not participate. We then left to go back to Trelew. There was another optional  museum stop. Dylan, Anna, and I decided, like the Welsh tea, that we didn't want to pay anything extra so we had them drop us back off at our hostel, El Agora. Our bus for Bariloches was leaving Saturday night (last night) at 9:30 pm. We worked it out with the hostel for us to be able to stay there until our bus left.
It has now been 13 hours since we left Trelew. We're driving through vallies lined with snow caped mountains, streams, lillac, and green shrubs.
While this region is still pat of Patagonia, like Trelew, the landscape and vegetation are very different. In eastern Patagonia, it is dry, brown, and dusty. It rarely rains and the only green section is along the Chubut River (which is what the province Trelew is in is named after). Here, in western Patagonia, it's green and fresh. Today is cloudy but I'm sure the mountains look spectacular in the sun light.
Right now the bus is playing what I believe is Madagascar 3 or 4, in Spanish. I understand most of what they're saying.
Today is December 23. I thought being away from family and familiarity would be harder during Christmas. While it hasn't been the easiest thing I've done, and while it doesn't quite feel like Christmas here (lack of decorations and the overplaying of Christmas songs on my non-existant radio) it's been better than I thought. Christmas isn't quite the same without family and friends, but it's not going to kill me and it's about time I get used to things being different and doing them on my own. :-)
Hopefully we'll arrive in Bariloche soon. I'm not sure where we are, whether we're on time or not. But Merry Christmas everyone!