School stuff, Adventures and Misadventures

• Hey guys! Sorry about the format of this post but this website is a little touchy sometimes! So hopefully you all have seen that I posted a new update about my trip to Iguazu. In this post I'm gonna update you on everything else that has been going on here in Argentina, from school to cool activities to robberies, ay!
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• School has been going really well so far. Granted, classes are extremely difficult because they are about a subject I do not know in a foreign language. Paying attention to a lecture in Madison is hard enough, but here our classes are longer (usually 2-3 hours) and in a foreign language with jargon pertaining to that subject that I generally do not know. Here's an overview of my classes:
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• I'm taking a class called Argentina en Palabras (Argentina in words) at the Catholic University (Universidad Catolica Argentina). It is a class for foreign students, so my class consists of a girl from Mexico, a guy from France, 2 girls from England, 2 other American students and 2 girls from my study abroad program. About halfway through the program (at the end of April) I had a parcial exam about all the works we had read so far. It went really well and I got a pretty good grade, so yay! I also had to lead discussion for a day based on two fantasy stories by Julio Cortazar which went well, and I am currently working on my final paper which is due in two weeks. I have really enjoyed that class and my teacher is so smart and wonderful, I have definitely learned a lot!
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• I am taking an Art History class through the University of Salvador (another private university), and I recently finished all of my work for that class. Last Monday I had an in-class exam (with all the other Argentine students, the same test as them, eek!) which went very well, and a few days ago I turned in my final work. My final work was a 15 page paper about four artifacts from northwestern Argentina from about 1000 BC to 2000 DC, discussing the cultures they come from and the role they played in that society. I am so happy to be done with that paper because it took a lot of work, but I think it turned out really nicely! The teacher for that class is very nice, and her assistant (like a TA in the states) is amazingly sweet and helps us out a ton when we don't understand something. The students in the class are nice too, but a little shy. It's a year long class, so although we have 1 more class before their "winter break", all the foreign students are done with that class, woo!
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• My hardest class is a seminar at the public university about the emergence of pop culture (culture of the people, not pop culture like we think of it) in Argentina. It's a class of about 300 students, and the professor of the lecture is extremely smart, a lot of the reading for the class is written by him! The foreign students did not have to take the first exam because the teacher knew it would be way too hard for us (the class assumes we have an extensive knowledge about Argentine history, which we obviously do not), and we have a take home test sometime next week. The regular students got their take home test assignment today, but the foreign students take a separate test written by the professor, which we were supposed to receive today but did not. School in Argentina is very chaotic, as I'm sure you can tell by the fact that I do not know when my take home test will be.
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• My last class is given by my study abroad program and is about Documental Film in Argentina. This class is fairly easy because it is designed for us as exchange students and really helps us improve our grammatical skills. We have short essays almost every week that are corrected by our teachers and show us where we can improve. We have a paper due at the end of my program (the end of June) and an interview (an oral exam of sorts) with professors of the public university to make sure the program is up to par in what they are teaching us grammatically.
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• Overall, school is going very well! This is "final time" but I'm lucky to have all my stuff pretty spread out and I am actually almost done with everything. I have definitely learned a lot and my spanish has improved a lot. (on the right, a picture of me and Nico at Kansas, the American restaurant)
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• I have had some really good food in the last few months. Some highlights have been dinner at ritsy places such as Godoy- a warehouse turned into a swanky restaurant and Asia de Cuba- an Asian inspired restaurant right by the port. For my friend Alex's birthday we went to an American restaurant called Kansas and ate barbecued ribs, yum! Sara continue to make delicious dinners at home- we usually eat chicken and potatoes or empenadas. Recently she made these delicious spanish filled pancakes, and spinach soup- I didn't even know I liked spinach! Empenadas and superpanchos still are my favorite foods here, but who knows, maybe I will get sick of them in the last month!
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• My friends and I have become obsessed with a restaurant by our houses called "Los Molinos". We found this restaurant the first week because it is by me, Amy, Eddie, Emily, and Alex's houses, it is open 24 hours a day and it takes credit card (hard to come by in Argentina!). Los Molinos has become our late night spot to get some food after a night out, and we have discovered the deliciousness that is ham and pinapple pizza. Most nights, we come storming in, say hello to our usual waiter, Carlos, and they don't even bring us a menu but instead start making our ham and cheese pizza and give us tap water, which they also don't usually serve in Argentina (they make you paid for bottled water usually). Los Molinos has come to be one of my favorite spots in Argentina, and definitely a good place to wind down and eat some food after a night out.
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• We have also had some fun nights out here in Buenos Aires. We have been invited to some house parties with Argentines and other American students alike, and have tried all sorts of different night spots- from cool Irish pubs, to salsa dancing or hip hop dance clubs.
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• The circus was in town recently and my friend and I went to check it out. Apparently there's different groups from different countries that perform on different nights, so we picked an Italian act. Turns out that the "circus" here is very strange: the show was at night and there were no elephants or clowns or anything- it was Italians speaking in Italian and doing weird dancing and a few arial acts. We got in for free because the guy selling tickets thought the girls in our group were "so beautiful" (which actually happens a lot here, I think it's because we look foreign?), and we tried to keep ourselves from bursting out laughing the whole time because it was just so different than the "circuses" we used to go to.
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• 5 de Mayo was an interesting celebration here in Argentina. A Mexican holiday that Americans seem to love for some reason, 5 de Mayo is not celebrated by Argentines like it is in the US. All of my friends from my program and I decided to go out to celebrate 5 de Mayo, so we signed up for the 5 de Mayo party at a Mexican bar, only to show up and have it be all Americans with overpriced drinks. Still, we treated ourselves to nachos and margaritas and had a very fun night.
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• I have recently acquired my Argentine residency- I am a legal resident of Argentina! Until August... It seems silly that we had to do this at all, and it took soooo much time! In Argentina you can stayfor 90 days without a visa, and if you leave the country at any point and re-enter, your 90 days starts all over again. So, since I have gone to Uruguay I don't even technically need a residency, but for some reason our program needs it to allow our grades/transcripts to transfer back home. This means that we had to pay 300 pesos (about $80), take new passport photos, and go to the migrations office 3 different times to complete the process. It was confusing and definitely unnecessary, but hey, I'm a resident!
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• And now for my misadventures in Buenos Aires... A few weeks ago the director of our program hosted a big dinner with all of us so we could talk with him about what was going poorly/well on the program and what we would change. It was a very nice dinner with delicious food, and my friends and I dressed up nicely for the occasion. Usually, I don't bring a purse out, especially not when I'm going to a club, but since I had this dinner first I had it with me and we went straight out after dinner.
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• We headed to a few bars to hang out and meet up with our friends, and later in the evening we decided to go to a dance club called LOST. This place is known to have theives that will pickpocket you and steal your wallet, and I have been there many times when friends have gotten pickpocketed. The whole night I spent with my purse on my shoulder (with my coin purse that I use as a wallet inside), with all of my friends around me, and not talking to Argentines that I did not know. We had a fun night and a bunch of us took a cab home and to where else, but Los Molinos. As we got out of the cab, I realized that although I had my coin purse in my wallet, and my ID and my cards such as my Starbucks cards, I had no cash. I thought this was strange because I could have sworn I had about 60 pesos (13 bucks) in there, but my friends told me I probably spent it or something, so I brushed it off an had them spot me. I went home and went to bed, not suspecting anything.
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• The next morning I woke up to a frantic Sara knocking on my door telling me that someone was on the house phone speaking to her in engish and she didn't understand what they wanted. I sleepily answered the phone only to hear my father, who told me someone had taken my debit card and spent a lot of money on it! I had no idea how this could have even happened. Not only was my coin purse in my purse all night, but somehow they got into my purse, into my wallet and took only the money and the card- leaving the rest behind leading me to believe that only the cash was missing.
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• We cancelled the card right away and got things squared away with the bank, but I realized that I was pickpocketed, and that they are very good at what they do because I had absolutely no idea! It turns out another one of my friends got pickpocketed that night at the same place. We ordered a new card, and I had my credit card safe in my room, but I still felt terrible that I had now been robbed, just like almost every other person on my program.
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• A few days later, my friends convinced me to come out with them even though I was upset that I had gotten pick pocketed. With no debit card, I took the remaining cash I had an went and had a fun night with my friends, making sure to leave my purse at home and carry only what I needed and keep it close to my body. But yet, more was to come, and I left my phone in the cab on the way home. I was the last stop, and had been keeping my phone in my pocket (since I refused to bring a purse), and as soon as I stepped out of the cab I realized it had fallen out but the cab was gone, never to be seen again. And since we had hailed it from the street, I had no idea the company name or cab number. My friends and I tried calling my phone to see if someone to answer but to no avail. There I was, no phone and no debit card. Boo! (on the left, a picture of me, Amy, and some other girls at Asia de Cuba)
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• Although it was a very sad weekend, I chalked it up to life experiences and laughed it off. My new card came in the mail (after a funny weekend of travelling with no money with my friend Delaney in Chile, next post!) and I bought a phone for really cheap off my friend Nico who had an extra one. So, everything is okay and I now have a phone and a form of money, but it was definitely an interesting weekend. It was also amazing to see what kind of people I have around me here. My host family offered to lend me money for anything I needed and looked out for me, the program coordinators were extremely helpful, my good friend Delaney spotted me for cash all weekend in Chile, and my friends worked around me not having a phone by using skype as our form of communication. I wish that crazy weekend hadn't have happened, but it showed me what kind of people I have surrounding me and how to survive without some of my modern day conviniences.
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• Another crazy misadventure happened just this Monday. My friends, Emily, Eddie, Caitlin and I had just turned in our final work for my Art History class and we went to Starbucks nearby to study. This Starbucks is on the corner of two very busy streets in my neighborhood of Argentina, which is very safe and nice. We were standing in line by the entrance to the cafe, and me and Eddie had our backs to the door. Suddenly, I heard commotion behind me and turned around to see a man running out the door and a girl right behind him. This girl had been working at a table right by the door on her computer, when this man walked into the cafe, grabbed the computer and ran out the door! She chased him out the door and onto the street, and he jumped onto a moped that his friend was waiting for him on and they were off with her computer. Not only that, but there was a security guard at Starbucks and a police car right across the street. No one could do anything! It happened so fast! Eddie and I were right there and although Eddie went out the door after him too it was just too fast, it happened in the blink of an eye. This girl was actually working on her computer and BAM its gone! It was one of the craziest things I have ever seen!
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• Although its scary that so many things have happened around me here, Buenos Aires really only has a problem with petty crime like this, not violent crimes. Yes its sad that this girl just lost her computer, especially because she was probably working on a final paper or studying for a final exam like all Argentine students, but she is totally okay and no one got hurt.
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• Even with all these things happening, I absolutely love this country and am so happy to be here. I can't believe my trip is almost over and I only have one month left. It will be nice to come home, but there are definitely things about this country that I will miss dearly.
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• Sara and Marcelo have started telling me (almost daily) how much they will miss me when I go. They have host students all the time, I think I am their 8 or 9th student, and they have another student coming the same week that I leave (crazy!) but they say that they have bonded with me so much and we get along so well. I really do feel like Sara is a mother/grandmother figure to me, and Marcelo is a protective big brother/uncle. I can't begin to express how much I will miss them, they have welcomed me with such open arms in this country and made me feel so at home. School has been crazy recently and is now winding down, and I'm taking the time to take in everything that I will miss. In the next few weeks I plan to do the few things I have left to do on my "checklist", take pictures of all of the crazy things that exist here that I would never have expected, and take in all I can in my last month. Hopefully I will update my blog again today or tomorrow about my trip I took to Chile at the end of May, and the bicentennial celebration in Argentina. The mundial (world soccer playoffs) starts this week, so be sure to cheer on Argentina with us! Put on your blue and white and cheer hard, and I will be back before you know it! Love and miss you all!
• - -Sara

Iguazu Falls - The Biggest Waterfalls in the World!

The whole Iguazu gang in front of the "smaller" waterfalls (in the back is Emily and Alex, then in front from L to R is Dallas, Kasia, Amy, Me and Andrew)

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't updated my blog in so long! I have been really busy so I will try to write a few entries today about what I've been up to for the last (I can't believe its going so fast) 2 months.

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The first weekend in May, a bunch of my friends and I decided to take a trip to Puerto Iguazu, home to the largest waterfalls in the world and a trip that I have wanted to take since I knew I was coming to Argentina. Unfortunately, my dad and I did not get to take this trip while he was here, so although I had a fabulous time I want him to know that I wish he would have been able to come too! Anyways, we left Thursday May 6th on an evening bus to Iguazu. The bus ride is at least 17 hours long (depending on how many stops we make), so my friends and I all gathered up homework and things to keep us occupied for the journey and hopped on the bus.

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The buses here for long distance travelling are amazingly comfortable. They have chairs that lean back really far with footrests and all the windows have thick curtains to keep out the early morning sun. We did some work, had an iffy dinner (provided by the bus company) and went to sleep. Early the next morning, we woke up and started planning our weekend. The forecast said it was going to be rainy pretty much all weekend, so we knew we wouldnt get fabulous views but it was still worth it to us.

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Andrew and Kasia had been talking about seeing these cool ruins a few hours outside of Puerto Iguazu (the town where Iguazu falls and the national park is located). As they were checking out these cool sights in our lonely planet book, they realized that the ruins are 5 hours outside of Puerto Iguazu, but that our bus would pass it on the way. We talked to the bus driver who told us that although it wasn't a usual stop on their route, they would pull over at the city where the ruins were located and we could hop off and go see them. Thus began an amazing adventure...

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As we approached the small city of San Ignacio (I think...), we collected our belongings and hopped off the bus. The bus drove away and we, a group of American students, were standing on the side of the road in a town in the middle of nowhere with backpacks and all of our stuff. We didn't really know what to do, and were struggling to trudge through the mud and rain with all our stuff when a man in a little white car pulled over to us. Turns out he was the "head of tourim" for the town and was really nice. He took us the bus company's kiosk where he offered to let us leave our stuff. Since we didn't know the town or this strange man, we agreed to leave our backpacks but took out anything of value and shoved it into the few purses that the girls had. He then led us to his "tourism hut" and gave us maps of the towns and coupons for cheap lunch in town. The journey was going well so far!

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We trudged through the rain a few miles, following the map, until we came to the hub of town that appeared to be brimming with tourist activity. There were shops everywhere selling all sorts of native products, and many of my friends sprung for llama sweaters, flutes, or artisan jewelry. We headed over to the ruins site, bought our entrance tickets and waited for our tour guide.

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The other tourists in our tour group all happened to speak english, so we chatted with them until the next tour "in english" was to start. There was a group from Norway, some Australians, and some other Americans. The guide did not speak english very well, but since no one else in the tour group spoke spanish (except our little group), we had to endure a very awkward tour. The explinations of everything might have been shakey, but the sights were amazing!

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The ruins were huge and absolutely amazing! There were over a thousand little two roomed houses where the Guarani (indigenous) people lived with their families. The picture to the left is of us standing in the ruins of what was their church. The people who ran the missions taught the Guarani people how to build these houses and how to sustain themselves, so there were also workshops and schools as well. Something really interesting about these ruins is that the men and the women were kept seperate almost at all times. The single women lived in the oposite area of the complex as the men, and even in the cemetaries there were areas for men, women, girls and boys. The ruins were really cool, and definitely worth the detour!

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After our tour of the ruins, we got to roam about on our own for a little bit and take more pictures, and then we headed back into the touristy part of town for some lunch. We had milanesas (breaded chicken or fish sandwich with fried egg) and french fries, and headed back to the edge of town to get our stuff and get going.

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The "head of tourism" told us that the same bus company that we had taken to get there passes by the town every half hour, and for a small fee (about $10) we could hop on another one whenever we were done. We timed our walk back perfectly so we could pick up our stuff from the bus kiosk (that had "siesta" until 3:00) and make the 3:30 bus that would be passing by, but upon arriving back to the bus kiosk we saw that the owners were not back and our stuff was locked inside. Realizing we should have known better than to count on the promptness of Argentines (who are always, always running late), we helplessly sat outside and watched as the 3:30 bus rolled by.

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Finally, the owners returned and we got our stuff, safe and sound, and walked back to the bus stop to wait for the next bus. Although we had to wait in the rain for about another hour, we were all in good spirits and so happy to have taken the adventure to see the ruins. Once the bus arrived, though, we had other problems. The bus driver took our 40 pesos ($10) and told us to find a seat up on the second level, but upon climbing the stairs to the top level we realized that the bus was completely full. We were pretty sure that this meant we would be standing for the next 5 hours...

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Thankfully, people slowly started getting off and by about 2 hours in all 7 of us had found seats. We all took naps, and arrived in Puerto Iguazu around 9pm. Not knowing where our hostel was located, we hopped in cabs and told them the address. We asked the cab driver how much it was going to cost and he replied that it would only be about $2 (8 pesos), great! After the cab driver made 2 u-turns, we realized we were probably lost. Turns out that our hostel was on the same street as the bus stop, and the cab driver just couldn't find the exact address, so we paid him the 8 pesos and got out and walked the one block from the bus stop to the hostel, another small adventure for the weekend!

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The hostel we stayed at had been recomended by friends on our program who had already gone to Iguazu, so we knew it would be nice. It had a pool and a cool area with swings and hammocks outside, and we settled into our hostel rooms (that had their own bathrooms, a big deal for hostels!), and got ready for dinner at a nearby restaraunt where Viviana, the owner of the hostel, had suggested and given us vouchers for.

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The restaurant, named TaTas (haha) was really good and treated us to complimentary champagne since we came on Viviana's recommendation. We were pretty tired, so although we wanted to check out the town, we called it a night pretty early and got ready for the next day when we were going to go to the National Park and see the falls.

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Viviana set us up the next morning by buying our passes to "La Gran Adventura" (the Great Adventure) over the phone, so once we took the bus to the national park, we paid our entrance fee (really expensive for Americans, grr!) we walked right down the path to start the treck. On our walk through the park to get to the sight of the jungle treck, we found ourselves face to face with the infamous coatis (ko-ah-tees). Coatis are extremely common in Iguazu, and they look like raccoons with an ant eater nose (right). They are pretty timid, but like any animal in a national park, coatis know that humans usually carry food, and they are pretty ferocious trying to get it. They ran after my friend Dallas (who strangely wasn't carrying any food) and came close to all of us, so we snapped a few pictures and continued on our way.

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The first part of "La Gran Aventura" was an hour long cruise through the park. We got onto a big open air jungle cruiser and started to cruise through the jungle. Our tour guide was really great, pointing out certain plants and animals indigenous to Iguazu and telling us the history of the park. At one point, the tour guide thought it would be a good idea to stop and show us this huge spider web hanging between the trees. Unfortunately for us, they stopped when the spider web was directly over our heads and the big spider was sitting there. It was really, really scary! But, while we were stopped looking at the spider web, the driver spotted a troup of capuchin monkeys high up in the trees! Ever since my primate behavioral ecology class I have been dying to see a monkey in its natural habitat, and although I didn't get any great pictures (they were too high up in the trees) it was a really exciting sight!

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After the jungle cruise, we headed down toward the water for the second and most exciting part of "La Gran Aventura". We changed into our waterproof gear and loaded all of our stuff into giant waterproof bags and boarded the boat that we would take all the way up to the falls. We were so excited, and after a few minutes of cruising up the river, the trees cleared and we got our first shot at the falls. They were absolutely gorgeous! There are no words to explain how amazing they are, and pictures hardly show it (see right). We got to take pictures from afar of both the small falls (in the picture on the right) and the larger falls, called "la garganta del diablo" or "the devils throat". Because of the recent rain, we couldn't get that close to the big falls, but we still got some gorgeous shots and the rain even cleared up and the sun shown through! It was so magnificent, one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my whole life!

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After taking pictures of both sets of falls, we were told to put our cameras into the waterproof bags and get ready for our "shower". We put our stuff away and held on tight as the boat went up to, and under, both sets of falls! None of us could see anything since the water was pounding so hard, and we were all laughing so hard we could hardly breathe! It was so cool, and there was a guy with a waterproof camera taking a video of the whole thing! Emerging soaking wet, we docked by the falls and all grabbed our stuff and got off. We signed up to buy the video (we bought one video and copied it amongst ourselves) and started our hike up the mountain to get back to the top.

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On the way up, we noticed an amazing picture-worthy sight at Salta Bosetti (Bosetti falls), but since we were soaking wet and cold we decided to come back once we changed. To the left is the picture of us by Salta Bosetti after we had changed back into our warm clothes (from L to R: Andrew, Dallas, Kasia, Emily, Amy, Me and Alex). The falls were so beautiful from below, and although we had to treck up the mountain twice (once after we had gone up and changed), it was worth it to take this cute picture! Up the mountain again, we started our adventure along the top of the waterfalls, on overlooks that the park built so we could walk across the entire set of falls and see it from almost every possible angle.

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After stopping for a quick lunch and chasing off the coatis that wanted lunch too, we walked along the top of the "smaller falls". We walked and took tons of pictures and observed the amazing view. It was shocking to see how much water pours out of the falls every second, and how far down it really goes! I took a million pictures of the treck on top of the falls, so I will be happy to show you all when I get home but there's just not room on here! After seeing all of the "small falls" from above, we took a little train (it was adorable) to the "big falls" on the other side of the park. Once we arrived at the enterance of "la Garganta del Diablo", we started the long treck along these man made bridges to the mouth of the waterfall. The walk was soooo long and was amazing how long the bridges were! It was a little freaky walking over all those bridges, but we made it to the falls without problems.

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The picture on the right is from "la Garganta del Diablo", which is pretty aptly named because it definitely did look like we were looking down the throat of a giant beast! The pictures I took do no justice to how big and magnificent these falls were, they were truly breathtaking. Like I said before, we were so lucky that the rain let up and the sun came out so we could really enjoy the experience. Just look at that rainbow! Iguazu falls were so cool, and I will never see anything like it again in my entire life.

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The only thing left to do in the park was to go see the falls from the Brazil side (the park shares boarders with Paraguay and Brazil), but since Brazil is not open to American tourists without a pricey visa and Emily had forgotten her passport all together, we decided to head out early and take a nap before exploring the city for the night. We all showered (our second shower of the day?) and headed out to another restaurant that Viviana recommended. Of course, we were showered with complimentary champagne and appetizers again, and enjoyed another delicious dinner. Viviana also gave us vouchers for free drinks at many of the bars in town, so we headed out for a night of fun.

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If the extremely short cab ride/walk from our bus station to our hostel didn't tip us off as to how small Puerto Iguazu is, this night certainly did. We walked into the "nightlife" part of town, which again was only a few blocks from our hostel, and were showered in free "capirinhas" a strange drink with floating limes in it. The boys really liked the capirinhas and downed all of our free ones, while the girls opted out and bought our own drinks. We had a fun night out at the towns 3 bars (yeah, really small...) and went home.

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The next day we headed to "Tres Fronteras", or "three fronteirs" where you can see Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay all in one place. We walked for about 20 minutes to get there, and although our friends told us you could go swimming in the river that belonged to all three countries so that you were "three places at once", we couldn't really find it nor did any of us want to go swimming in the brown, murky water. Instead, we wantered around the small shops and look out points and took a few pictures (see right, Emily, Amy, me and Kasia in front of the flags from the three countries). There honestly wasn't much to see, so we headed back to the hostel and packed up to get on our bus home.

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We checked out and thanked Viviana for everything and headed to the local bakery to pick up dinner to take on the bus (just in case we were left with the same gross meal as last time...). We got on the bus around 4:00pm, and got ready for another 17 hours of homework and chatting. I worked on a presentation for my Literature class (more to come in my next post) and we watched the strange movies the bus offered (an italian movie with spanish subtitles). Dinner was not the same as last time, but surprizingly much worse, some type of grey hot dish with really bad meat - definitely the worst food I have had in this country, but I guess what can you expect from bus food?

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We started realizing that the bus ride home seemed to have much more stops than the ride there, and a few times Argentine police would get on an take a look around the bus. At one point there was a drug sniffing dog and my friend Emily was asked to take her blanket off her bag and show what was in it. We found out later that the 'tres fronteras' is a place where a lot of drug trafficking happens, and the drug lords try to bring drugs into the city. Because of this, the ride home was much longer, and although we were supposed to get in around 9am we didnt get in until around noon. We were all so tired from our long trip but so happy to have done it!

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Iguazu falls were absolutely amazing, so beyond word or pictures. We were so lucky to have such good luck with our side-adventure to the ruins, and we were blessed with good weather and good people like Viviana to show us a good time! The other people at the hostel were really nice as well. There was a man named Richard who was a doctor and quit to travel the world (he was a little odd...), a nice boy from Saint Louis Park that went to Madison, and a really cool group of students from Ireland. It was my first time staying in a hostel and it was very nice, a lot more comfortable and safe than I would have guessed! This was definitely the trip of a life time and I will never forget it!

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I will try to add another update today about other stuff going on here in Argentina, and also about my trip to Chile last weekend. Love and miss you all!