The Last Entry?

Ok, I lied. I a. didn't update when I said I would and b. won't be talking about anything that I said I would be. I'm a bad blogger. In reality, I've just been really busy lately. We're trying to plan our month-long trip to the north of Argentina and Bolivia, and we're leaving next week. I'll have really limited internet access for all of July because we're going to be doing a lot of camping and hostels and such, so you probably won't be hearing from me too often during the next month. Sorry!

I'm really excited for our trip. We've got a general idea of where we want to go and a huge list of things we want to do, and we're just kind of picking a starting point and going from there. Eventually we'll make it up to Bolivia and then come back down and do more of the north of Argentina. This will be my first true backpacking experience, and the only thing I'm not stoked on is my lack of backpack. I'll probably end up borrowing my friend Olivia's old one, but I'm kicking myself for not getting a nice Mountain Hardware one from my sister before I left. That was dumb. Oh well, there's always the next trip to Argentina.

Expectations I have for the trip:
1. Cooking our own food!! (A staple of which will probably be rice)
2. Buying a sweet, multi-colored Alpaca sweater in Jujuy
3. Seeing some amazing natural landmarks in the North
4. Salt flats!! There's a REALLY big one in Bolivia that we're going to
5. Hot springs
6. Not showering
7. Being really grateful that my boyfriend insisted on getting a blowup mattress for the tent
8. Being cold.
9. Sleeping on a lot of buses
10. Meeting up with all my friends, and having the most amazing time possible.

I can't believe I'm almost done with my time here in Argentina. It seems like I literally just got here. While I'm really excited for my last year at Ithaca, I'm definitely going to miss the Tina and all the people I've grown to love here. Who knows, maybe I'll be back sooner than I think. I'll try to update again before I'm home, but if I don't I'll see you all very soon and I can tell you all my stories in person!

Loves.

sorry!

Just wanted to tell everyone that eventually I will actually update my blog. Sorry Lacey. Believe it or not, I actually have schoolwork this week. Keep checking back because I pinky-swear/thumb-print that I'll update by like, Friday at the latest (probably).
To tide you over, here's a quick list of some of the things I've been up to since the last time I updated (which was like a month ago, I know):

1. Rode more horses than I have in like 5 years.
2. Did a reforestation course in the Sierras
3. My family came to visit me!
4. Subsequently went to Buenos Aires and Mendoza with the flia
5. Ate a lot of asado
6. Climbed Uritorco, a mountain with UFO sightings and lots of "spirit presence"
7. Ate roughly 20 alfajores, but that's lowballing it
8. Bought a new mate
9. Oh ya, I'm dating an Argentine
10. Ate Endangered Species chocolate (Thanks, Mom!)
11. Am wondering if I will ever speak to my roommate again (Jess let's skype pleaseeeeee!!)

That's about it that I can remember. I'm guessing the highlights of my next post will be the flia and the reforestation course, so stay tuned.

Love and miss you all.

University Tests and Thoughts on Poor People

Sorry it's been a while, guys. In the past few weeks I've had a bunch of midterms, so I've been focusing on school for what feels like the first time in 3 months (probably because it is). Yesterday I took my very first Universidad test in my art history class, and it went HORRIBLY. But, fortunately, I feel like it went horribly for everyone, not just me, the foreigner. All the Argentines made extremely obvious sounds of displeasure as the professor read out all the test questions for us to copy. The general sentiment that I gathered before and after the test was "Dude, did you study that?" "No I had no idea that it'd be this specific." "Man I have no idea what she's talking about." "I'm pretty sure I failed that thing, how about you?" "Well, at least we have a makeup test."

Fortunately, the Argentine university system allows you to fail/miss one midterm and still be able to "recuperarlo," or make it up later. This is what I plan on doing, because I don't think I can even play the foreigner card at this point as I literally fabricated the answer to question number two entirely from what I was currently blowing out of my you know what. When we got out of the exam I asked my friend Brian if he knew what question number two was talking about, and he replied with, "I probably could have talked about purple elephants and bunny rabbits and gotten then same score." My speaking partner Paula is in that class too, and she just looked at me and shook her head. Oh well, at least I wasn't alone.

On a happier note, a couple weekends ago the whole CC-CS crew took off for an extremely short but fun trip to San Rafael in the Mendoza province. Mendoza is known for it's wineries, and for outdoor activities like white water rafting. We partook in both while we were there for a few days. The first day we hopped off the bus fresh from an overnight ride (during which we were all woken up to what was basically a bus on hydraulics. Sounds fun but really isn't at 3 am) and got right into the river for some rafting. Our raft guide man was adventurous and showed us all these fun tricks to get the best ride out of each whitecap. Here's our awesome equipo all nice and soaked with ridiculously cold water.



We also did some repelling and zip lining, and then ate some yummy food and hung out in a hotel room all night playing guitar and drinking some off the province's cheapest wine (still good!). The next day we visited a Bodega, or winery, and learned about the process of making wine. It was really cool (literally, because they have to keep the rooms cool and temperature controlled), but one of the areas had processing rooms that were distinctly reminiscent of a concentration camp. I was much happier when we moved on to the mulled wine and dried fruit tasting area. So happy in fact that I bought some of both.

This is random, but not really as it's something I live with every day. The more I see and learn about poverty, the more I realize how pointlessly cyclical it is. It could be stopped if someone would just address the underlying factors instead of trying to put a temporary bandaid on things. I know, easier said than done. Of the said underlying problems there are many, but I truly believe that if you give people a legitimate chance in life they will take it. Obviously there will always be inequality, but I just don't think the world has to be how it is.

I guess I've been thinking more and more about this the longer I stay here in Cordoba. Every day you encounter someone who asks you for money, and 75% of the time it's a child. I HATE giving money to people, not because I'm stingy but because I have no idea where it's going. So many children here are addicted to the very strong and very cheap drugs that are prevalent in the slums, and giving them even a few pesos is basically getting them high for the day. You normally wouldn't imagine that a 7 year old is asking you for drug money, but when these kids grow up in such misery it's really no wonder that they don't want to be with it all the time. What I like to do instead is give people food, so I try to keep something on me to offer up instead of cash. What's even more depressing than a kid who's begging, however, is a kid who's so high that they refuse whatever you're giving them with a depressed shoulder shrug as they slouch away. I'm obviously not saying that ALL kids in slums do drugs, because that's definitely not the case. However, an alarming portion of them do start huffing solvents and snorting the resin of whatever's left over after you make coke when they're 7 or 8. When I was 7 I was making rocket ship control panels out of scraps and playing AYSO soccer. It's just weird to think of the comparison.

On a lighter note and to prove that not all kids who grow up in slums are doomed to be dejected, unhappy people, today during our weekly Beer Wednesday gathering a little kid came around with homemade bracelets trying to get a donation. As usual, I didn't give him any money. However, a friend in the group had a bag of candies and I offered him one. While a kid before him had glanced at them and just kind of dazedly walked off, this little guy got the hugest smile on his big round face and went, "Really?!" Just like a normal 8 year old would do. He took one and happily walked away, back to what type of environment I have no idea. He pretty much made my day. I know that there are a crazy number of things that everyone needs to change before poverty is reduced in any country, and candy's certainly not going to do the trick. Still, I'm glad I could do something to make that kid's face light up, at least for a second or two.

Awkward Turtle Week

Well, I told you things wouldn't be boring. In the past week I've gone to a rockin' concert (I somehow imagine Lyndsay saying rockin concert, so I'm writing it how I'm hearing her saying it), the entire Polish government died, my friend was robbed while we were walking, a volcano exploded and all of my friends in Europe are stuck without flights to Paris, I went to basically an international party with people from every corner of the world and learned some French and German, imagined myself in a scene from Passport to Paris while I talked to 4 Frenchmen who sounded EXACTLY like the actor with the accent that I originally thought was fake ("when the rain comes, I am sad"), and I got homesick. Now I will go into detail on several of those occurrences.

The Polish government and Iceland's volcano you probably already know about. My only comment on both of those incidences is this: Sorry guys, that sucks. As far as Córdoba events, I'll start in chronological order and tell you about the rockin' show. We went to a club to see a band called Onda Vaga, which means lazy vibe, who are from BA and are REALLY popular here. The club was packed, but we got relatively close up to the stage and had at least 2 inches of dancing space each, which in Argentine terms is great. The band has like 8 members and has a super cool vibe, but what really made it a good show was that you could just tell how much fun they were all having up there. It set the tone for the whole show, and made it pretty easy to dig their music. Here's their myspace page if you'd like to listen to them:
http://www.myspace.com/ondavaga

So that was great. Moving on the to robbery. We were walking last Saturday night to a party that Olivia's host siblings were at, and we really shouldn't have been walking a.) because it was 3 am and b.) because we were in a sketch part of town. However, being Americans and not Argentines, our mindset was more along the lines of "it's only 6 blocks!" whereas it should have been "it's a whole 6 blocks in a sketchy neighborhood and we're obviously foreign." So, as we were walking some dude came up from behind us and just ripped my friend's bag off her shoulder (literally ripped off the strap) and ran away. He was FAST too. Like I kind of feel like boyfriend would make more money if he put his efforts into becoming the next Prefontaine (funnily enough, the movie Prefontaine was playing dubbed over on tv the other day. Jared Leto is just not as cute when he's not shooting up drugs and getting his arm amputated. Name that movie. The arm amputation is a dead giveaway.). Anyway, so the man ran away with my friend's cash, camera, phone, and credit card, but everyone was unhurt so we have that to be thankful for. Mostly it was just a good lesson, because while we're all super comfortable here, we need to remind ourselves that we're in Argentina and a lot of people have no money and will thus take yours if given the opportunity.

On to the international party and Passport to Paris. We went to a friend's appartment where she and her roommates were having a "fancy party." Everyone spiffed up and payed a ridiculously small amount of money for a ridiculously large quantity of alcohol, and as we mingled we realized that not only were there Americans and Cordobeses, there were also English, French, German, and maybe Spanish and Brazilian people there too. This made the night infinitely more fun, because like 80 different languages were being thrown around at one time in a room where you already couldn't hear because of the music. I found myself out on the balcony chilling with a group of French guys, and I kid you not when I tell you that I am now impressed with the kid in Passport to Paris. I totally thought his accent was super corny and fake, and it probably was fake, but that's actually how French people sound when they speak English! Low and behold. It also turns out that the French are very gentlemanly, and I had like 8 layers of coats around my shoulders when I got a little cold. I also made friends with a couple Cordobeses, which I'm very happy about because I've been lacking in the Cordobes contact for a while (friend wise anyway).

I've also been homesick this past week, probably just because things were weird with the robbery and stuff. I'm getting over it, but I think it's definitely normal to feel this way when you can't just pick up the phone and tell someone you miss them. So on that note, I'd love to skype with as many of you as possible this week. Let me know what works for you.

Basically this is an entirely random blog, but it's been a random couple of weeks. Next weekend is Mendoza with white water rafting and wine tours, so stay tuned for something a little more interesting to read (and possibly some pictures). I'll be spending my week preparing for and taking my midterm exams, and probably watching a little classic MK and Ashley as well. Let's hope they have "Winning London" on youtube.

A Weekend at the Zú

As most of Latin America practices Catholicism, Easter is a pretty big deal down here. Therefore, at the university we get a long weekend to celebrate or go home to see family. For study abroad kids, this means taking off to travel somewhere and "aprovechar," or take advantage of, the extra time. A wide variety of Argentine provinces were visited by the CC-CS students over the holiday weekend, but my friends and I chose the province of Misiones, home of red dirt, tropical forests, and Iguazú Falls, a very large ring of waterfalls that stretches across the border with Brasil. So, Wednesday morning we prepared ourselves mentally and physically (aka by buying lots of snacks) for the 22 hour bus ride and started the journey off to Jurassic Park incarnate.

Funnily enough, we didn't quite make it there on time because our bus "se rompió," or broke down, for two hours in what we thought was the middle of nowhere Misiones. When I woke up it was still dark outside, and I groggily thought it suspicious that the air conditioning had turned off. Before even opening my eyes, I heard the woman behind me saying, "se rompió, que bárbaro," which basically means, "It broke down, what shit!" Upon hearing this I said a few choice words in English, still without opening my eyes, and promptly rolled over and went back to sleep. Two hours later I woke up to a beautiful sunrise and the realization that we had not in fact had any type of mechanical problems, we simply ran out of gas and were waiting for a little man in a pickup truck to come manually pump some into our tank. We then proceeded to drive 5 MINUTES to another bus station. Such is Argentina.

When we finally got to Puerto Iguazú, we discovered that our hostel was basically Cancun Spring Break MTV style, so we threw on our suits and hopped in the pool for the rest of the afternoon to wash away the filth of what turned out to be a 26 hour bus ride. The hostel had a great kitchen so we cooked every day, which saved us a TON of money in the long run. Saturday, our last night, we went out for an asado to splurge, and Olivia got the waiter's email (brownie points Liv, brownie points). Darío, our friend from Buenos Aires who met us in the Zú, told the waiter that she was leaving the next day, to which he responded, "Yes, but she might come back!" Again, such is Argentina.

So back to the actual falls. We luckily used our student ID and residency cards to get ourselves some mad discounts on tickets to the parque, which also saved us a ton of money. The nice people who took our tickets told us we could get them stamped for a discount the next day, which we did, and he remembered us when we came back to him. This was the Friday before Easter, which is THE busiest day in Parque Nacional de Iguazú. That means that this man had seen over 12,000 people at the ticket line that day, a very large portion of them foreigners, and yet managed to remember who we were and where we were studying. This is one thing I love about Argentina. They're so centered around relationships that they always remember you, always greet you by name, always make you feel extra welcome. This has been a huge reason why I feel so at home here I think.

We walked in and started out our hike to the falls, and were instantly reminded of several scenes from both Jurassic Park and the Land Before Time (Janie, I was expecting Petri and Ducky to jump out at me the whole time, or on a more unfortunate level, the T-Rex who ate that dude off the toilet in Jurassic Park, which if you recall I saw for the first time on your surround-sound tv at the age of 5 and had nightmares for like a week). The contrast between the red dirt and the incredibly lush, green tropical foliage is amazing. And then there are the falls. The jungle itself is impressive, but the falls are something else entirely. You cannot fathom how much water pours down them every second, or the power they have. We walked right up to one at a lookout point and got absolutely drenched from the mist. Here's a photo of part of the falls (yes, there is more. We didn't even see the Brazilian side).



Ridiculous, right? And then there's La Garganta del Diablo, or Devil's Throat, which I'm not even going to put a picture up of because pictures just can't do it justice. It's a HUGE fall, just this complete gurgling madness, and you can't see the bottom because there's so much mist. You can see the mist that it produces from the other side of the park, and it looks like smoke coming up. For those of you who have been, these falls put Niagra to shame.

All in all, Iguazú was one of our best trips so far. The scenery alone was so completely incredible, but as always with our crew there was tons of laughter and fun times as well. I would say that I think the next few weekends will be pretty quiet, but knowing Córdoba I'll have some other grand adventure to tell you all about in roughly 3 days. As much fun as I'm having down here, know that I'm missing you all and that I'm sending more love than there is water in Iguazú Falls, Brasilian side included. <3 Besito a todos.

Will Smith Hits the Hiking Trails

When we first got here, our program director gave us a list of possible volunteering opportunities. All of them sounded great, but my friend Olivia (also an environmental studies major) and I asked if there was anything we could do involving the outdoors. A few weeks ago, Vicky came back to us with information on a trip to Los Gigantes, a mountain range in the Córdoba province which is roughly 3 hours away from the city by bus. We eagerly signed up, not really even sure what we were signing up for, and this weekend the two of us and two other guys from our program packed up our mochilas and headed out for some down and dirty time with nature.

When we arrived at the Los Gigantes bus stop, I was reminded of my kindergarten days waiting for the bus (which I would inevitably end up puking all over through most of that grade, as well as on Jimmy, the quiet boy who was in the wrong place after a particularly unfortunate lunch involving cheeze-its. ya. gross.) at my friend Jane's house, in the little hut of a bus stop that the neighbors had built. Except there is NOTHING around this bus stop except a few houses that you have to walk a good 15 minutes across the Pampas to get to. We said what's up to some cows as the bus swerved around them, and then hopped off to be greeted by our guide, Ivan. This kid was pretty cool, as he was still in high school and had been coming up to do work in Los Gigantes long enough to know the way up without hesitation. From there, we hiked up, and up and up, until we reached a hiker's refuge at what we calculated to be roughly 7,000 feet. While my mind said "That was awesome," my legs and butt said something akin to "I will get you back so hard in the morning, you just wait."

After meeting the rest of the volunteers, all of whom were thankfully Argentine and very cool, we got to work restoring "el medio ambiente" (literally the half environment, which our project director Ricardo laughingly pointed out). A lot of erosion has occurred because the cows that somehow make it to the top of the mountains (they just wander everywhere, there aren't really any boundaries) eat all the Tabaquillo plants, which naturally maintain the soil structure. Because the land has become so eroded, it's getting inhospitable to Tabaquillo. After resting por un ratito, we got to work digging up Poa plants, which are big grass clumpy things. While the guys planted the Poa in an eroded hillside to reconstruct the integrity of the land, Olivia and I dug. And dug. And fell down. A lot. Mostly because we were laughing too hard.

That night we had an awesome asado in the refuge (which has lights and water because of a solar panel on the roof. very cool.) and played Chancho Va!, which is a card game that is translated to Pig Go! We played that with the guys in Tanti about a month ago and were very pleased to continue. The next morning we leisurely awoke around 9 because Argentina is awesome and not concerned with schedules, and I brushed my teeth outside with some extremely gorgeous nature around me. Needless to say, I felt pretty lucky to be there.

Before we headed down the mountain we moved a bunch of buckets of sand and rocks, which is about as physically fun as it sounds but was made infinitely better by some awesome conversation on Argentine and US environmentalism. This is Olivia and me (I used correct grammar, Dad. I think.) in front of the refuge, nice and dirty and loving Los Gigantes.

The title of this blog comes from the backwards hat Fresh Prince in his prime look that I rocked all weekend with Martha's prized Bodega hat from Mendoza (which I returned a little dirtier than it started out as, but otherwise unharmed). After the Great Flood passed (it rained REALLY hard for about half an hour) we started the hike down sporting the latest rain gear, trash bags. The hike down was quite a bit easier to swallow than the climb up, let me tell you. At one point when we were walking across the plains and could look out for miles and see nothing but cows, Olivia turned back to me and said, "We're in Argentina." Sometimes we have to remind ourselves just how fortunate we are and how amazing this experience is, because Argentina already feels like home and we're so comfortable here. However, I fully appreciate that I spent my weekend giving back to the land that's supporting me for 6 months and basically walked across a scene from National Geographic for two days. But just to emphasize, I'm in Argentina. It's fairly cool or whatever.

Cool Contest: Brasil v. Argentina

So the past couple weeks have been pretty quiet here in Córdoba. I started some of my classes at the program center on Monday, and will start my university class in April (the art department is having building issues, so they just decided to chill til next month). So far I've made a couple new friends who are from different parts of the world, but I'm still waiting to really hang out with Argentines. I'm hoping that when I start my art class I'll make some new contacts, because I feel like part of the point of my being here is to make Argentine friends! However, it's hard to do this when you're constantly hanging out with American kids (all of whom I love, however).

Fortunately, we ARE in a foreign country and are therefore forced to have contact with Argentines on a regular basis. While I've not yet made any long-lasting Argentine friendships, some very cool Argentine people have made guest appearances in my life here. We usually end up chilling with some locals in whatever place we go, which has been great. I think part of our appeal is that we're foreign and therefore new, but I also believe that Argentines are just incredibly friendly and genuinely curious and open people. I'm grateful for that, because it's made my life in Córdoba so much more interesting.

Last night, for instance, we went to a place called Casa Brasil to listen to live Brasilian music. The Casa Brasil is kind of like a community center for Brasilians abroad, and unless you know exactly what you're looking for it's kind of a Diagon Alley-type situation to find it (three taps on this brick, four to the left). The only distinguishing factor that tipped me off to its existence was the distinctly Brasilian beats coming from inside as I passed the door. I kind of slinked inside, still unsure as to whether I was actually entering someone's home, and thankfully saw my friend Olivia waiting by the door. Man, am I glad I didn't get sketched out and leave! The music was awesome. I adore Brasilian music. The beats, the instruments, the Brasilian men who play them, I love them all. We drank a traditional Brasilian drink that involved a lot of lemon-lime deliciousness and generally soaked it all in.

The show was great, and afterwards we hung out with the band for a while and shared some Quilmes and conversation. Things at the Casa wound down but it was still really early (only 3 am!) so we all headed back to the band's hostel. Low and behold, our friend Hendrix was there playing the guitar in a jam sesh with the band! The whole night turned into a singfest with half the hostel, Argentine guys, hostel employees, and British man included. The British man more just sat on a couch by himself, but he still counts.

It's random nights like these that truly make my time here special. You never know where you'll end up at the end of the night or who you'll meet. It's an aspect of life that I've never really experienced before, this spontaneity. Sure, I've definitely had a lot of random nights with my friends back home, but here everything is new. There's a 90% chance every day that I'll go somewhere I've never been before or do something I've never in my life done, which is something I'm growing to truly appreciate and love. I'm learning a lot of life lessons down here, which is kind of the point I guess. Who knows what tonight will bring. Whatever it is, I'm down for the ride.