A Mountainous Road

Last Weekend of Peace

2010-08-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in the last post that I was heading down to Colorado Springs for the Craft Lager Fest this weekend. I can't imagine a better last weekend before getting cranking in the classroom than this one. My parents stopped through Denver on their way back home to Chicago, so I spent the night with them at dinner and then hung out with my dad on the porch.

I wasn't able to spend really any time in Chicago this summer, so it was really nice that Chicago came to me. It was probably for the best that I took it easy Friday night, because Saturday was a big day. I woke up and hit the road with Matt, and about an hour later and a beautiful drive and we were at our friends place in the Springs as they say. The Craft Lager fest was great, and I was able to try probably more beers than I should have.

It's pretty disappointing that a lot of my good friends are down in the Springs, but it was great to hang out with those guys all day and night. Sunday was another great day. I woke up early and drove back to Denver, and decided it was time to finally get in the volleyball game. We played for almost three hours I think, and by the end I started playing like my high school days...mediocre. We went to the TFA bbq afterwards and I was able to hopefully get myself into a soccer league for the fall!

After a run through Cheesman Park I am now just hanging at my apartment watching Remember the Titans and getting ready for a big week of school. I have two days to get my classroom ready before the crazy kids come on Wednesday and Thursday...Ready or not here they come

The Start Is Near

2010-08-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been pretty great out here in Denver. I saw my brother and his girlfriend Wednesday, and my parents got into town on Saturday. My roommate Mike and I were finally able to furnish the apartment which now feels much more like a home.

Some of my friends were able to head home for some time during the summer, but I have been training the past few weeks and didn't have time to go home. It was really nice that home decided to come to me, and it reminded me how much I do miss everyone back home in Chicago.

On the school front, training has been incredibly boring, but it has been great to start to form relationships with other more experienced teachers. On top of that, we were able to hear four inspirational stories from Denver Public School Students. Their stories of strife and eventual success really made me excited at the possibility of working with students just like them. Some might pity these students, but that is the opposite of what they need. These are talented kids who have just as much potential as any other child.

The last exciting note was that I am now able to see my class list as well as their pictures, scores, and all that good stuff. I know that a strong challenge awaits us, but I am ready to get down to business.

On a personal note, I can't wait to head to Beer Fest This weekend in Colorado Springs. Should be a great way to spend my last weekend before teaching!

A Fresh Start

2010-07-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

Much to my surprise, TFA Colorado not only approves of blogs, they also support them with a few caveats. I cannot speak as if I am TFA, and cannot talk about specific students or show pictures of them.

This blog will be significantly different than my Argentina blog in that it will be pretty reflective and hopefully thoughtful. If you enjoy reading about my life out here, that is great, if not that is ok too.

If I were to sum up my experience so far I would say that it has been an "amazing whirlwind". I cannot believe how much I have learned and how much I still have to learn. My time in Phoenix at Teach For America Institute was the beginning of my journey to the life of a teacher. In Phoenix I learned just how much work goes into being a teacher, and how amazingly empowering student growth and change is.

Each day I could see myself and my colleagues changing, as we gained a foundational knowledge of the realities of teaching in low income communities. Each day I dealt with amazing kids that like any other child deserves an outstanding education. I am not quite sure if I am ready to provide that education, but I guarantee I will work my tail off to do anything I can to help these kids achieve.

Over the next few weeks, months, years, I will have my highs and lows, and I hope to use this as a forum for writing about my experiences. I want to emphasize how important friends and family support has been in my life, and how excited I am to hopefully give everyone a glimpse into my life out here.

Until next time...

Gracias Argentina

2008-12-30T00:38:00.000-08:00

I don't have anything to profound to say with what looks to be my last blog entry. I decided to spend my last day/night awake rather than asleep, so I just finished watching the sun rise while eating a piece of steak from last night.

The experience has been incredibly unforgettable, but I think that I am finally ready to come home. I'll be flying out today, 30th and getting in very late tonight. I can't wait to catch up with all of you guys, and I hope you enjoyed reading about my experience here. If you are someone that was a part of my experience down here I really appreciate whatever you did no matter how small it was.

I'm home for now but I think that my next adventure is just around the corner...chau!

El Sur: El Calafate and Torres del Paine

2008-12-21T08:12:00.000-08:00

Off to Patagonia: One Last Time

Looking back on this trip, I think that I was meant to go on this trip as much as I was meant to do anything in my life. How do you like that for an opening statement. Trip after trip had failed and I was worried for a while that this trip would fail on me as well. I was supposed to go south with Nick and this had been in the plans for months. Unfortunately he took a class from hell that just finished a few days ago. Thankfully a minutes before Nick told me he couldn't go on the trip, Niru told me that she was in.

From here on out I had the longest string of good luck that I have ever had in my life. We found cheap plane tickets, stayed in awesome hostels, and stayed way under budget for the trip. We started off in a touristy town called El Calafate where we chilled, grilled out and drank a bunch of wine, or maybe I was the only one to drink a bunch of wine. The next day we headed off to the famous Perito Moreno Glacier. This was easily one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It is over 180 feet tall and monstrous in every direction. The ice takes in this beautiful blue color and it makes it very hard to look away. Every once in a while huge pieces of the glacier fall off and make this deafening noise. I managed to catch the biggest crack of the Gday.

We then left El Calafate to head to Puerto Natales in Chile. There our good luck continued. We managed to score a free tent, sleeping bags, stove, plates, knives, the whole shabang. I had originally expected this to cost a lot of money. I never knew that Chile is incredibly cheap with American Dollars. We lived like royalty in Chile, and I wondered why I didn't study there instead of BA. The next day we left for Torres Del Paine National Park. It is known as the most famous national park, and with good reason. The things we would see over the next few days are both breathtaking and unforgettable. I would call this an absolute must see for anyone that would go to South America. We trekked for 6 days through the park, and by the end, neither of us were ready to leave. Being in a place that gorgeous, where you have to work for everything you get really helps to put a perspective on things. I left the park knowing that I had just been lucky enough to see one of the great places in the world, and one that is scarcely remains a secret.

Sunset in El Calafate
Glacier Grey
Me and Cerro Paine Grande
Me and My Trusty Bag
Torres del Paine (Paine Towers)

Soccer, Asado, Race Track

2008-12-08T16:02:00.001-08:00

Lately my life has been filled with lots and lots of nothing, but then something, then lots more of nothing.

I have something going on just about every day, but it usually lasts about an hour. I play soccer two or three times a week and I get excited like a ten year old before the Jacklelantern Tournament"(Sp.) in Lisle. But hey, passions are passions.

I finally got around to going out with the soccer guys which proved to be quite the interesting night. We went out to this really cool second story bar in San Telmo called "La Puerta Roja" (the red door). At first it was a pretty calm night, but then I got sucked into taking a few chili bombs. The night took off and crashed from there so to speak.

The next day I headed over to an Asado(bbq) at the house of one of the soccer guys, he's 29 and owns his own apartment, this place was absolutely baller. Flat screen tv, huge grill area, and lots of other cool toys. This was a good time, and the meat was outstanding as usual. Buenos Aires has really changed from a city where I do not think I could live into a city where I think I could absolutely live. Everything is about the friends you make and how accustomed you can make yourself. That night I watcthed "A Few Good Men" for the third time in two weeks, and was just as into to it as the other billion times. Nothing gets your blood flowing like the dialogue between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.

I woke up this morning and headed to the race track with a few chicas. I normally suck at betting and of course my struggles continued. I managed to win one race out of the 7 that I bet on. I suck, badly. Then I told Niru to bet because others usually do well when I struglle and she proceeded to win 14 pesos on her first bet. The day was actually one of the better ones I have had yet, due to me actually doing something with it. I am currently waiting for room picks to start at DU, and then heading out for a birthday party argy style. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I am picking up the new camera tomorrow. Then Wednesday its off to Patagonia finally...chau.

Thanksgiving and Mendoza

2008-12-01T07:27:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving

This was by far the weirdest Thanksgiving I have ever had. It was definitely different to be away from family and friends, but hey it was an experience. The first dinner was great, but not quite the same. Things just had their own litte twists I would say, but still a welcome taste. I was supposed to go to a second Thanksgiving but I didn't make it to that one for one reason or four or five more if you catch my drift. It will be good to be home next year for Thanksgiving again though.

Mendoza and Camping

This was definitely one of the coolest and craziest weekends of my life, but very peaceful as well. Me and Nick decided that we wanted to go camping in the Andes, but all we were able to find was these ridiculously overpriced packages to go with a guide. That was not exactly what we were looking for, so we talked to about 15 people in Mendoza, and after none of them would agree on what we should do we just decided to try something and hope for the best. We rented and bought a whole bunch of gear and food, and headed off into the wild.

We woke up the next morning at 5 to catch this shady mountain bus full of even shadier people. Consequently when I got off the bus one of these shady people walked away with my camera. Anyway, we took this bus about three hours up into the mountains, and we hopped off at this river that we esentially knew nothing about. I'm not sure how great of a job we did decided what to pack or wear because our packs were incredibly heavy.

It was supposed to be a five hour walk to this refuge where you could stay at or outside of, but at about four hours in we had barely gone anywhere. The hiking was like nothing I have ever done before and then adding a 50 or 60 pound back pack to that just made it that much harder. It was a great walk though. We were constantly climbing or walking next to the river or up a snow pile.

Eventually it got to be about 430 or 5 and we found this great spot tucked away in between a few mountains and decided to set up camp there. It happened to be the only place that we could find any grass as well. This turned out to be where we stayed the whole weekend. It took us forever to set up this damn tent because of all the wind, but afterwards it was all worth it.

The area around us was incredible, there was a mountain spring coming out of this bluff and the river was slicing through the mountains next to us. During the night you could hear the river moving these boulders and them slamming into each other. It was unbelievable. We spent a ton of time just hanging out, cooking and really doing a whole lot of nothing. The whole weekend we did not see one other person. The weather was really amazing as well. During the day the sun was the hottest I have ever experienced and really drained you. At night the temperature dropped below freezing. The sleeping bags they gave us were great, they were made for someone about 5'6, sucked for Nick as he froze his ass off with about half of his body outside of the bag.

This is the kind of trip where pictures do a better job describing it than words really could. If you want to hear a couple really hilarious and very scary stories let me know, because I would rather not put them in the blog.

Lately my travel plans have been falling apart, but I just booked my trip down to Patagonia so that one will not fall through. I have not decided what to do with this next week but I hope to do that relatively soon. It's really been wearing on me having these travel plans fall through, but the United States really screws you over. We make everyone pay big time to get in to the states so they do the same to US citizens, thats the reason i cannot go to Brazil....so thank you Bush!

PS. Nick sent me some really amazing pictures from this trip so I will try to get those in here or on Facebook when I can. The files are huge though and take forever to download

Thanksgiving Argi Style

2008-11-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

I am definitely a little bit bummed to be spending Thanksgiving in a foreign country away from family and friends, but it will be another experience I suppose. This morning I received the bad news that going to Brasil will not fit in my plans, so that was pretty dissapointing. I guess when I become a baller some day I will be able to do that. It came down to me having to pick trekking through Patagonia or going to Rio de Janeiro and at this point in my life it was not a very hard decision. I´ll probably be flying to a place called Salta in the Northwest of Argentina next week so that should be cool. I am thinking about doing either sky diving or bungy jumping there, so hopefully I´ll have some cool pics

I just got back from an amazing weekend in the Andes full of beautiful nature and near death experiences, but my camera was stolen so I am waiting for Nick to send me the pics. I hope to have an update about that up as soon as possible.

Today I am going to two different Thanksgiving dinners, one in about an hour, and one later tonight, so I will report back on how the turkey tastes in the southern hemisphere. I hope you guys all have a great Thanksgiving and I will see you again before you know it. Chau!

Korean Food, Colonia, and More

2008-11-15T06:22:00.000-08:00

Why Does Brian Suck at Updating?

Maybe some of you are wondering why I have been on a hiatus from the blog, or maybe you forgot about the blog and did not notice. I have been uber busy the last few weeks because in South America we have finals really early. I just yesterday finished my fourth out of five classes. If it were merely tests I think I would have had more time to update but every class is making us write essays. Thus far I think I calculated that I wrote upwards of 67 pages of research papers in Spanish. Sucks right, but hey I now only have one class left, so thats nice.

I'll try to hit a few of the highlights from the last few weeks and add some pics in if I can. I am working on a really slow internet connection so I'm not sure if the pics will work.

Corea Town

I have become pretty good friends with another halfie like myself who is half Korean and actually knows her Asian culture. She lived in Korea until she was twelve so she still speaks fluent Korean. She mentioned to me that there was a Korea Town in BA and that we should go eat there. I am not sure if she was joking or not, but I bugged her until she gave in an took me there. After taking the bus to the bufu ghetto of Buenos Aires we eventually came upon Corea Town(half a block of shops). We sat down at this restaurant where I asked for a menu, apparently Koreans don't use menus, they just have pictures. We decided it would be best if Gabi just ordered for us. They proceeded to put out a ridiculous amount of food for two people, and that Gabi being the great friend that she is told the owner that I wanted to eat some meat. I did not know what was going on, but the lady left the restaurant and came back with a bunch of meat and whipped on this really cool cooking contraption. Gabi tutored me on exactly how you are supposed to eat this stuff which if you didn't know , you would look very stupid. It was a really neat experience trying out all of this new stuff, and it was cool because I felt like Anthony Bourdain with my tour guide Gabi along to show me whats up.

Football

One of the things I regretted the most about the first month or so I spent in Argentina was not getting to play enough soccer. That has definitely changed, and I am really having a great time with the games that I've found. Through the help of one of the guys from my program I joined a group of about 20 or 30 internationals who play a few times a week. It's a cool group of guys with players from all over the world. It's a better game than I was originally playing in and it's nice to just have another group of people to hang out with.
One of the guys in the group actually lives out by me and is from Argentina, so I have been going too and from the games with him. My Spanish has markedly improved since this time, and while I work on my Spanish he is trying to get his English down so he and his girlfriend can move to Canada. This week alone I have 5 hours of soccer which is great because I can finally earn all this meat that I have been eating. Surprisingly I have actually managed to score goals in Argentina, something I havent done since about oh first grade. Though Charlie may be justified in his skepticism of my scoring abilities, I am having fun while it lasts.

Colonia, Uruguay, Sasha

For as much as I have travelled down here in South America, I had still yet to leave Argentina as of last week. I do not really regret that because there is a ton to see, but I was looking forward to getting out of dodge. Our program pays for us to go on two trips, the first being Bariloche and the second to the small town of Colonia, Uruguay. I wasn't really all that thrilled about this trip because people had told me that it was sort of a boring place, and I am an ADD type person. So when Niru mentioned to me she was going to be staying an extra couple days I surprised myself by wanting to do the same. We left with the program on the buquebus which is this incredibly high speed ferry and were in Uruguay within the hour. It was nice because we literally left the smog of BA behind us. We got there and met up with our program director who owns this absolutely baller house a few minutes away. We went there and had a really great asado, and afterwords Nate, John, and I polished off about half of the wine supply in the pool.
Good times. Everybody else in the program took off an headed home while Niru and I went to our hostel to check in. We had a pretty chill night and really didn't do too much.

The next day was the big day. The thing to do in Colonia is to rent scooters and cruise around. We were both pretty pumped for this. We got to the place and the dude was much more serious than I thought he would be. He demanded that we had experience so I told him that I had rented a similar scooter in Europe (never rented a scooter, and never been to Europe). Niru as it turns out did not bring her drivers license so we could only rent one...thank god. I let her drive twice. The first time she slammed into a curb and asked me where the reverse button was, yikes. The second time I tried to get on with her and she could not support both our weight, yikes. Goes to show, don't send a girl to do a mans job (Argentine attitude). We cruised around quite a bit and eventually found this awesome beach with grills set up, picnic tables the whole deal. We decided that it would be a good idea to grill, so we scrounged up some wood (that's how you grill down here, it's awesome) then we bought the necessities, Chorizo, Chimichurri, and cerveza. The first attempt on the chorizo went poorly because there was a ton of space between the grill racks and all I had was a plastic fork to turn them. Later I realized that I could just turn them with my hands. Anyway I was pretty pissed at myself and so when I went to go buy more I was in a rage and turned the scooter too fast and scraped the paint of the front of Sasha. I was really worried because I had heard horror stories that they would make you pay a ton of money to repair it. Turns out that the guy asked me if I hit something (te pegaste algo?), I said no, and he said, (no pasa nada) it's nothing. That was amazingly relieving.

That night we were still living it up from our first parilla and decided to do it again at the hostel. This time we bought some big steaks, a few bottles of wine, and I tought Niru how to make twice baked potatos. Amazing dinner needless to say. The next day I had a 930 boat back, but I didn't make that one, nor did I make my class. We still had a bottle of wine left from last night so we decided to just chill, drink wine, and half a beach day. All in all this trip was a lot of fun, and way better than I could have imagined. It definitely matters who you travel with, because Niru was a lot of fun and really easy going aka chiilll.

Now that school is almost over I am starting to plan out my next months. I am for sure going to Rio de Janeiro probably near the end of November, and me and Nick are trying to plan a trek for next weekend in the Andes. I'll keep you updated on the happenings as much as possible. Free time is now my life, and my life is free time. Suerte a todos!

I'm Back

2008-11-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

I have taken a bit of a hiatus due to an overload of schoolwork. Down here the schedule is reversed which was the reason I had to leave so early. The benefit is that it is now Spring/Summer and I have already wrapped up three of my five classes. Jealous yet? Just kidding. People always say that studying abroad is a semester of grade inflation, but I think I found a program that strongly disagrees with that mentality. By no means are the grades bad but they leave a bit to be desired. I am really looking forward to travelling and seeing more of South America. At this point I have a lot of options and nothing really decided. Where will I go, how will I get there, do I go alone or with people...and so on. I'm just happy that I only have about 15 to 18 more pages of Spanish to write. 70 pages seemed insurmountable at one point in time, but now it is just something I can look back on and be thankful I will never have to do it again.

Culturally I think I have really adapted well, and I feel as though we are now living in the same world instead of walking around in someone elses. The Spanish is going well except for in my house where I think there is all together too much pressure. There are constant references to the past students who did this or that, but it's all good. I'm definitely not going to be ready for the adventure to stop but there will be a few really great thing about coming back to the United States.

Bariloche

I was going to write a really long post for this one because it was a trip that really felt like something good was going on. I have used this blog as my journal in many ways, but I decided that I am going to keep most of this trip to myself. To give you a brief rundown on what happened...

Our program went in two groups of sixty each and since I was in the second group I figured I would know what was going on. It was great to fly again. The plane took under two hours and a bus would have taken over 20. Not a sensible ratio. The weekend was a great chance to reconnect with people in the program who I had not seen for quite a while. Since then I have expanded my horizons a bit with who I am hanging out with in BA. The mountains and the scenery were unbelievable. When I think of Patagonia, this is what I want to remember. I found that this trip justified my decision to come to Argentina and really reaffirmed the person that I believe I am.

The weekend was a great time to act like a kid and just enjoy simple things like swimming in a freezing cold lake at night, and sitting watching shooting stars. Sounds sentimental I know, but I would like to see you go there and not feel something. Anyway if anyone wants to hear more about the trip I would love to talk about it, but some things are best kept simple. By the way, if anyone is reading this who went to Glacier National Park with me, this place is very very similar, but Glacier still ranks as the coolest place I have ever been.

Mi Vida en Los Andes: Mendoza

2008-10-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

Mendoza: Wine, Argentines, and Rios

I meant to write a post about this trip last week but as it turns out I was swamped by a 15 page paper and a test. I have decided that this post will be brief because I would rather talk about Bariloche which goes down as maybe my best weekend in Argentina.

I decided that I really wanted to go to Mendoza which is a really pristine city on the border of the Andes famous for its Bodegas (Wineries). I have also been wanting to travel alone just to see what it would be like. This didn't quite happen, because Ameesha joined me the next day. Anyway I took one the most uncomfortable 14 hour bus rides of my life, but no the most, that will come later. We rolled into Mendoza at about 8 the next morning and what a sight it was. For those of you who have driven to Colorado it was very similar. Nothing...nothing...nothing...amazing mountains. I checked into my hostel, but could not do anything with my morning because I had a take home essay test due that night that I didn't finish. I was the loser sitting in the hostel on his laptop writing a paper about comparative politics.

I finished up my paper and decided to explore the city, but I really wanted to meet some people to explore with. About that same time two guys travelling alone walked into the hostel. I ended up exploring Mendoza with Martin a 30ish year old Argentine who played tennis but had arms the size of a pencil, needless to say he was no Roddick. We walked through the city to this amazing park that had everything from palm trees to a lake with mountain views.

We grabbed some lunch across from the other University I could have studied at in Argentina. This city gave me some second thoughts, beautiful school, pristine city, proximity to the mountains, and incredibly attractive people. Oh well, the grass is always greener on the other side is what I keep telling myself. Except that we don't have grass in Buenos Aires, we have cracked side walks.

After our walk I decided to catch up on a bit of sleep and took about a three hour nap. When I woke up there was another girl in my room, I should say woman. She was an Accountancy Professor but only about 30-33 years old I think. We had a nice talk, I spoke spanish and she spoke English. Though numbers are fun, I didn't really want to spend my night with a professor so I went down to the lounge where I met a couple of Aussies. We went to the grocery store to buy some food to make dinner. I bought about a pound of ribeye for 3 American dollars, and a potato. My dinner was very simple, some ribeye and homemade french fries. He made something a bit cooler but I'm not sure what it was. We later walked to this really cool park where this gigantic Spanish Fair was going on. The very unhelpful hostel workers somehow did not manage to tell us that there was a huge fair going on about oh 10 feet from our hostel where we could eat Paella from every region of Spain. We decided to share a thing of Paella from Valencia which they informed me was the best. It was pretty darn good and the way Paella cookes is also very very cool. Sorry no pics from this one.

The next day I woke up with a phone call from Ameesha because she had just arrived. We chilled for a bit and walked around the city again. We then hopped in a van for a Wine tour, also chocolate and olive oil. This was a pretty fun time with some really really good food and drink. I also tried absynthe for the first time, but I don't really see what the big deal is. After buying a few things we headed to the first Bodega and were instructed on how exactly to taste wine and what to look for and smell.
Needless to say I feel more cultured now. After that we moved on to an organic vineyard where evertyhing was done by hand and tasted much better actually. Finally we hit up an Olive Oil factory and had this amazing bread covered in sundried tomatoes dipped in Olive Oil.

That night we went to easily the worst Hostel Asado I have been to yet, but thankfully it was saved by the people we met. Ameesha made friends with these two Brasilian girls who are now legitimately in love with her. I talked to them for a bit but I spent most of my time talking to Roberto who is a Mexican student studying abroad in Buenos Aires as well. He educated me in the art of the Mexican drinking handshake.
Note: This clearly is not the short post I thought it would be so I apologize for that.

The next day we woke up to go on a trekking, rapelling, hot spring tour in the Andes. I really enjoyed parts of this day and others not so much. I thought the climbing part was great and there was some pretty cool scenery. I have found out thanks to Argentina that I really do not like Rapelling. It is extremely uncomfortable on the groin region and you never feel like you have accomplished something afterwards. I do however love jumping of rocks and running down hills. It appears there are better and worse ways to get down from a mountain.

After finally getting down from the mountain we wandered over to the hot springs which turned out to be nothing more than a gigantic hot tub filled with unappealing people, haha, is that mean? I decided like I often do to just wander off by myself and climb something. One thing I really wanted with this trip was to feel like I was in Latin America and not Europe. I wandered through over to this suspension bridge I found that was filled with locals. It was obvious because not one word of another language but Spanish could be hear...finally. I climbed down below the bridge and found rock in the middle of this river to sit and think for a while. With the rapids around the rest of the world was zoned out and I really enjoyed that and found peace. It was also pretty cool because below the bridge was a base camp of sorts. There were tents and people grilling. The most amazing thing was watching this lady climb straight up the bridge with seemingly nothing to grab on to.

Our time ended at the hot springs and we hopped back in our van to go back to the Hostel. We decided to grab some Mexican food that night. The Brazilian girls somehow had never tried Mexican food in their life. They though that it was great but I really saw it as mediocre to the max like all Mexican food down here. There is no spice in anything which to me takes away its Mexicanity. Some creepy French dude followed us to the Restaurant and after dinner Ameesha and I headed back to the hostel while the Brasilians and the creepy French guy checked out the Spanish festival.

The next day Ameesha and I wanted to do different things so I went whitewater rafting while she decided to go Horseback riding. The rafting was a lot of fun although it wasn't anything too crazy. This was one of the coldest days I've ever had in my life though. I met a bunch of people though so from that aspect it was cool. The first people I met were two guys from Portland travelling through South America, one was an Asian guy and the other reminded me of Ben Kantner which I found funny because I couldn't help but thing of Kantner and Hai. I also spent a lot of time with a group of probably late twenties Argentines. This was nice practice for my Spanish and I think overall it went pretty well.

That night we were set up to leave Mendoza at about 8:30 when all hell broke lose. We showed up at the bus station where the people from the company told me that I did not have tickets although I bought them and received a confirmation number. Because it was a holiday weekend it was impossible to find tickets. Not one company had tickets back to Buenos Aires and both Ameesha and I needed to be back. We finally found this awful company that gave us tickets to Rosario which is in between the two cities and from there we would get a bus back to BA. We got on this bus which was Greyhound style barely recline seats only to find that Ameesha's seat wouldn't even recline. This ammounted to 12 of the worst hours of our collective lives. We showed up in Rosario and rather than go back to BA where it was already too late to go to our classes we decided to go back to the amazing Restaurant. We sat down and ordered the same thing as last time, but immediately I realized there was a problem. I had ordered my steak and no one was manning the grill. This meant that my steak was obviously going to be overcooked, and it was. Just as I was about to give up all hope on this trip the waiter brought me out another huge steak, perfectly cooked this time because the last one was, "chiquita", Argentine BS for sorry we ruined your last steak, forgive us! and I did. I think both Ameesha and I were on edge from this long trip an we had some really intense arguments. Finally we got on a bus back to BA and were home at last.

The next day I checked my bank statement and was charged for the tickets that I did not receive, and that was the last string. I freaked out Jon Hyosaka style on the phone and at the bus station until I got my money back. What a weekend. After two hot-cold trips finally I was presented with an amazing trip to Bariloche which hopefully I will have an update up soon. These blogs really take a lot out of me so it's hard to write them one after another.

Patagonia: Puerto Madryn

2008-10-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

Off to Patagonia: Background

One of those must do type things for me has always been to go to Patagonia. This trip came about in a funny manner. I had been sitting in one of my classes and my professor brought up how she was going to Puerto Madryn that weekend to visit one of her friends and to whale watch. Out of the 15 Americans in the class none of us had heard of this place. Apparently it is along the coast of the Atlantic in Northern Patagonia. I imagine many of you have images of Patagonia in your head, as I did as well. Patagonia as it turns out is very very large and very very diverse. It makes up the Southern Part of South America. There are everything from deserts to mountains to glaciers to apparently Whales and Penguins. In this map I went to the northwest, to Puerto Madryn and Peninsula Valdez. Off to Patagonia: Trip Begins

Continuing my travelling in pairs, my amigo on this trip was Freddy. We hopped on another long distance bus for what ammounted to be about a 17 hour bus ride. We ate some crappy food, broke bathroom rules(not what you think probably) and watched 300 and Lord of the Rings 3. This was absolutely the most boring ride yet though. You would think driving through Patagonia would be great, turns out that it was nothing more that driving through a desert. All of a sudden we come over a hillside and a small city pops up along the Ocean. This was a welcome sight. The city itself is not all that big, but I think that during the summer it has more life. The time when we were there happens to be breeding season for both whales and penguins so it was a cool time to be there. Off to Patagonia: Penguins

We spent the first day mainly just walking around the town and seeting up and planning for our next few days in Puerto Madryn. We set up an excursion to visit a huge colony of penguins about 150 KM south of the city. We got royally screwed on this package as esentially we paid a ton of money for transportation. There were mandatory stops along the way with optional costly excursions. One of them was dolphin watching which would have been cool enough had it not cost another 50 dollars. We instead found a rock wall and went out there to hang out with a Ski Instructor for Telluride/Bariloche, a random guy from Spain, and another ski instructor from Italia. This was cool enough and very peaceful as well. After this pitstop we eventually hit the road again and were off to visit the penguins. Along the way we talked with the same group we had been with a bit earlier. There was also this unbearably annoying German mother with her two sons. She demanded her money back because she was not told she would not see whales and a dolphin watching tour. Bullshit...Anyway back to the penguins. I did not know what to expect but I did know that these are not at all like emperor penguins, much smaller. They don't mind if you are close to them as long as you do not touch them or go near their nests. This was a pretty cool experience and something that made me realize I was in Patagonia.

Off to Patagonia: Asado and Staff

I have really taken a liking to hostels and the lifestyle. Everything is worry free and very friendly. The owner of the hostel Gaston was an incredibly friendly guy who had built the hostel from ground up. He had turned a garage into a kitchen, climbing room, and asado area. The asado was a great time and I ended up spending much of it talking to an American couple from Seattle who had been spending a year travelling the world. Most travellers are on a budget, but this couple spend 10 grand alone on a safari in Eastern Africa. This should give you an idea of their "budget". The rest of the night I spent with a few Irish people drinking wine until about 430 in the morning, while Freddy was off with a self-proclaimed pimp from Berkeley. This is the reason America gets a bad name. The Irish people were great, but unfortunately I had to get up at 730 to head to Peninsula Valdez to whale watch the next day.

Off to Patagonia: Peninsula Valdez

This day was the best and worst day that I spent in Patagonia, but I won't get to the worst until the end. We got there and sat a cafe and could see whales jumping in the distance. We then booked our tour for four that afternoon. We had a bus back to Puerto Madryn at 6 and a bus back to BA at 9. I was really desiring some alone time to just think and reflect so Freddy and I went our separate ways for a few hours. I walked along the bay in between the water and some really impressive bluffs. This whole day was really peaceful and made me feel a lot more connected to what was going on. I was really wanting to climb though and see the view from the top of these bluffs. The problem is that they were quite steep and literally made of sand somehow bonded with shells. I decided to get my Bear Grylls on though, and even filmed brief clips. Though at the end of the clip I began using and Irish accent due to the ammount of time I had spend with the Irish people. I don't think it sounds good, and I don't like watching or listening to it, but some of you might get a laugh out of it. This was very dangerous proposal but after filming the video it would be a let down to not climb this. The view from the top was definitely worth the risk and there was nobody else even close to me which made it that much better.After mountain climb number one I went to meet Freddy for lunch before our whale watching adventure. We had maybe the most obvious freezer-oven pizza that I have ever eaten. Turns out after lunch we still had another hour and a half until our boat so I decided to climb a different mountain. This one was more of a sand dune, but made out of gravel. I got freaked out a little when I saw snake tracks every step I took. a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XegYx4OORsc/SPd6PxRBkUI/AAAAAAAAAF0/TYvDzADAAUg/s1600-h/CIMG0514.JPG">After climbing one more mountain and getting one more spectacular view in it was time for the whale watching. We showed up to the office and we were set to go at four. It was an hour and a half of whale watching which would get us back with 30 minutes to spare to catch our bus at six. Then things took a turn for the worst in a big way. People did not even start putting their life jackets on until about 415 and it was obvious that there were problems. I was a mixture of worried and pissed. We walked into the office and spoke with the same lady who booked the tickets. She said that it would be an hour and a half no matter when it left and that the bus always left on time. It's funny that she didn't mention this to us when we bought our tickets. At this point my blood was boiling as it is now just thinking back on it. She smiled at us which royally pissed me off so I gave her my best sarcastic remark in Spanish slammed down my ticket and walked out the door. Talk about a major buzzkill. I am still very mad thinking about this. Imagine for a moment that you take an 18 hour bus ride to see whales and then you get there with the whales jumping in the ocean and some stupid (insert word here) ruins all of that. Needless to say this is the most pissed off I have been in quite a while. Anyway, we got back on another 18 hour bus ride, watched some decent movies and were back in BA. Moral of the story, Patagonia is cool, but there are stupid people all over the world, even in Patagonia, and I am one of those stupid people for believing a really stupid person...really upset blogger signing off

Reader Appreciation Week

2008-10-14T19:09:00.000-07:00

Hola a todos...I am sorry for such a long period without anything cool to say. It is not that I have not had some cool experiences because that is far from the truth. I could do one ridiculously long post but I think you would probably get bored by the end of it. Instead I will try to take trips (Patagonia and Mendoza/Andes) and other events (classes and food) one at a time. There is a good chance that the first update will be this Thursday about Patagonia. Lo siento a todos. I hope everyone is doing well, or at least as well as Steve Burgoon apparently is...

Quick Rundown

2008-10-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

I have been fairly busy lately and haven't had much time to update this blog. It looks as if that will continue in the forseeable future. I went to Patagonia which was a really cool place and a good time. Hung out with penguins, whales, and Irish people. I decided just now that I am going to Mendoza tomorrow haha. It is a city in the Andes famous for its wine. I will hopefully be able to give a huge update after that...maybe. Sorry for slacking on you guys.

Weekend Update

2008-09-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

My feelings with Buenos Aires go up and down, but this weekend was definitely wayyy up. I would say that this was probably the most fun weekend I have had here yet. It was as if I was discovering the city again.

Wednesday

Like every Wednesday I have a whopping seven hours of class, but this Wednesday was better. It started off poorely with me waking up late and getting into class a few minutes late. I had just taken my midterm in this class last week which I thought went well. I got it back and it had a 9 written on it, which I was happy with considering it was out of ten. Then Nick told me that I had gotten the highest grade in the class. This put me in a great mood because in my class are a bunch of kids from Northwestern, Penn, and Duke. The rest of the day school wise was pretty uneventful. After my last class which like every Wednesday, I didn't get anything out of it I met Freddy and Nick at a bar for a nice strong drink. Turns out a few of the other Americans in this class with me also go to this place after class for a strong drink so that was funny, and great to talk to people as lost as I remain to be.

Thursday

Slept til about 1, but oh well. Freddy and I went to this charity dinner of one of my friends Erica. It was great actually because it was some pretty good Mexican food. After that we headed to Las Canitas, which is a super trendy area but really fun. I had to go to the bathroom so we stopped into our regular bar Drink Gallery and got a pitcher. The night seemed to be dying, but then I started talking with this guy watching USC losing to OSU. He was a USC guy so this was pretty funny. We all hit it off and next thing you know we were heading with him to another bar where he proceded to buy our drinks for the rest of the night. He was a very interesting guy, LAPD and he told us some crazy stories. He summed it up well by saying, "people don't call the police to tell you how great things are, they call you in crisis". He told us about his encounters with Chicago PD which was absolutely hilarious, but I left a bit "early" and got home at about 4:45. Freddy after hooking up with some Panamanian made it home at about 730.

Friday

Nick's girlfriend Christina had just gotten into town this morning so we all went out with those two for the night. This was definitely the most anticlimactic night of the weekend, and I really don't have too much to say about this one. Again though it was a great night and I ended up home at about 5. I should mention that I played soccer on Friday with a couple of cool people from all over the world, and it wouldn't be the last time I would see them...tricky.

Saturday

Woke up late again like a POS. I went to this restaurant I have been meaning to check out. It's in Belgrano and supposedly had super spicy Peruvian empanadas. I thought I'd give it a chance. I ordered Dos Carne Picante(spicy beef) una pollo picante(spicy chicken) and a ahtoke(which was a basil cheese and tomatoe). I bit into one of the beef and not only was it hot but it was hot. I burned my tongue badly and realized that these empanadas were no bs empanadas. I thoroughly enjoyed these empanadas and spoke with the owner after the meal. After this I met up with Freddy at Retiro(bus station) to buy tickets to go to Patagonia this weekend. That was a hassel but I am absolutely pumped to find out what Patagonia is all about. This was a big Brian and Freddy weekend because Christina was in town and Ameesha was out of town with some chicas. Anyway me and Freddy went to an incredible steak house and had another ridiculously good meal. Needless to say...phenomenal steak. We then headed over to this apartment of some British guy that Freddy knew from one of his class. Turns out that this apartment belongs to three of the guys I had played soccer with on Friday, and eventually just about everyone from that game had showed up. I spoke with people from German, Britain, Poland, France....pretty cool. The highlight was probably when I turned around and saw this girl Gabi show up. She's from my program and we get along really well but have never hung out, so that was pretty cool. Made it home at about 3 because Sunday needed to be productive.

Sunday

Woke up at about 11 feeling hungover but there was no time for that because I had a test on Monday that I haven't done anything for. I headed over to Cafe Martinez and remained there from 1145 until 7 at night...very sad, and my butt really hurt. After studying with a Taryn, another American in my class I decided that my brain needed a break so I would head over to Drink Gallery to watch the Bears game for a nice calm night. I got there and it was a very quiet night so I just ordered a pitcher determined to chill and watch the game. Since there were as many workers as people I began talking with everyone. I made friends with some cool girls from the south, Camille from Georgia, and a girl from Ole Miss. More importantly I am now friends with all of the bartenders as well as the owner. This meant that I drank and ate a ton for free. Probably about 6 shots and some food for free. Needless to say this was not quite the calm night I had thought it would be. I eventually was given a ride home by Matias, a guy I had met and my Spanish was flowing like it never had before. That was a cool feeling, but I am not sure if a perfomance like that can be repeated.

The Result

I took my test today in Historia de la Cultura y Arte de Argentina, and that was not the most fun day of my life. It started horribly with the teacher reading off five essay questions instead of writing them down or something. When you can't even be certain you wrote the question right how the hell could the test possible go well? Afterwards I just laughed it off and went out to get a beer with Julia another American in the class. Her Argentine bf was freaking out because thats what they do, but overall I felt better afterwards. So moral of the story, you cant win them all but I have no regrets after a great weekend with a lot of cool people. I should be able to throw in some more pics after Puerto Madryn this weekend. Hopefully some leaping whales as I get off my bike like in those Pacific Life commercials.

Cosas Diarias

2008-09-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

I did a lot of walking yesterday and realized that I was in South America. This happens sometimes, but I realize this because of very weird reasons. So I thought I would put together a list of things I see daily that you would never see in the United States. The order really is of no importance.

I was walking down one of the busiest streets in BA, Cabildo and all of a sudden there was a traffic jam on the sidewalk. There was a 35-45 year old man in a business suit making out with a 35-45 year old woman in a business suit in the middle of the sidewalk. PDA is huge here and very accepted.

I was on the subte yesterday, no I lied, everyday, and I thought, "wow this chick is hot" This was from behind of course. Incredible body. Later she turned around and was probably abour 40-45 years old. People do not age in this country and neither do their bodies. It's embarassing at first until it happens a thousand times. I guess this is better than what happens on the subway in Chicago, "that lady's gross"-from behind, "that lady's gross"-from in front.

I was walking through a barrio(neighborhood) called Recoleta and about 20 dogs are swarming around some unfortunate man. "Oh no" you think that man is being attacked by a gang of dogs. Nope he is a Pasaperros which is a person that literally walks 10-15 dogs at a time and leaves dog shit all over the city. I was trying to figure out how to get to a bar from this class that I was sitting in last night. The subway was closed and I didn't want to take a taxi. I pulled out my guia t(bus guide) and searched for a bus. I had to look through over 400 different bus lines that run through Buenos Aires to figure out which one or two I could take to get from point A to point B.

I was sitting at a bar after a class where I did not understand or care to understand more than a few words about the government of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez can jump of a bridge for all I care. Politics aside. I was chilling at a roof top bar with a few also very confused and upset classmates drinking a Long Island when I noticed an interesting smell. Someone was smoking something. First smoking is not even allowed in the United States in a bar, but even if it was this type of smoking would not be if you catch my drift.

I was craving some american food one day so I was looking for, Alfies or Buffalo Wild Wings, surprisingly they don't have an Alfies down here so I walked into McDonalds. I looked for the #2 Ketchup Only with a Root Beer. Their number two was a Big Mac Meal that had cost 17 and I still have not found Root Beer. For some reason McDonalds is the only place that can charge the full price of what it would costs in the United States. So I left and found a steak sandwich with fries and a drink with a football match on for 12 pesos. Much Better.

Finally and probably most important to me is that everyday as I walk down the street I hear random screams or see people standing outside a restaurant gazing in. The reason is because their football team is playing. This is passion that will not be found in the United States for any sport let alone soccer. This is not to say people do not have passion in the states because that would be an absolute lie, but

Che Guevara

2008-09-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

This man is probably one of the two most famous people in Argentina's history alongside Evita Peron(Madonna). I guarantee every single one of you would recognize his face although you maybe do not know anything behind this revolutionary. There is a good chance many of you have seen Motorcycle Diaries, and if you haven't I would strongly strongly reccommend it. Anyway, this blog does not exactly have a point, but maybe it does. For those of you that do not know who Che is...
He is a world famous communist revolutinary most famous for being Fidel Castro's right hand man in the Cuban Revolution. This guy is phenomenally interesting. He comes from a very well to do family in Argentina, and completely changes his mentality as well as the world for that matter. Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because at senior wills as some of you may remember, Chester gave me a Che Guevara shirt. This was a really cool will, but all I knew about him was that he was from Argentina and had a famous face. I eventually watched Motorcycle Diaries and found a ton in common with him, if nothing more I found respect. I wore the shirt a few times during the summer, got some looks, some conversations. I decided to bring the shirt down here, and talked to my host family about it. Whereas in the United States it is more of a fashion statement, down here it is a strong strong political statement. Since I don't want to get shot and do not consider myself a communist, I think I will keep that one in the closet. The real reason I thought of this is because Jay-Z wore the shirt and I read an article ripping him for it. Anyway before any of you put on your Che shirts, think about it you Commie Bastards.

On a lighter note. I am a huge movie buff and have finally enrolled or inscribed as it directly translates here in a video store. I can officially watch Argentine movies without subtitles and have done so four times already in the last 5 days. Though I do not understand everything, I am picking up some new slang phrases I think. I saw Motorcycle Diaries before I came, and am planning on watching it again soon and I hope some of you guys do the same. Let me know what you think. By the way, thanks Chester for trying to get me killed.

Brupdate

2008-09-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

I feel like it has been a while since I updated this, whether thats true or not I'm not quite sure. I kind of like the title of this post, because it could mean a lot of things, Brian, Brief, Abrupt, but you will never know.

This past week has been somewhat unnoteworthy, in terms of "wow he's so lucky to be in Argentina doing that". Basically my week was focused around my test or Parcial that I had on Wednesday. The class is of Society and State of Argentina so it is more or less a PoliSci/Econ/History class of Argentina. We covered 150 years so that was fun. I actually studied fairly hard for this test and thanks to the help of one of my Northwestern friends amazing study guide(I made one as well, not as good as her 30 page one) I feel like I kicked this tests ass. This was a relief as esentially my classes usually kick my ass.

The way school works down here is a lot different. I think I may have touched on this before but I will explain it anyway. Rather than go to class three times a week they go once for a long time. The classes are based on a 1-10 scale but I was told foreigners rarely get above a 7, which does not mean anything as a 6 or a 7 can sometimes merit an A. The classes generally have Parciales, and a paper...loooong papers. I will be writing over 50 pages of research papers in Spanish this semester. If you do well enough on the parciales and papers you do not have to take the final to get "promotion". This means you have successfully completed the class and are done. If you screw up a parcial there is a "recuperatorio" which is like a make-up, but I am not quite sure how this works and do not want to find out. In general it is super confusing and I am just trying to do my best and see how it works out. Either way I will be done with school by the middle of November and be ready to head to Brazil or Macchu Piccu or wherever I feel like.

Outside of school the only real thing to note I suppose would be that Freddy's parents are leaving tomorrow which is dissapointing because they are really cool and funny people. They have taken me out to two really great meals and bought us lots of beer and wine. We went to a all you can eat Beef and pasta restaurant called "La Bistecca" last night which was pretty darn good. I maybe ate two much because I my stomach still hasn't gone away from last night...oh well. I'm not sure when I am going to travel next because of the intensity of school in the next few weeks, which sucks for you guys because those are my only interesting blogs I feel. I think it sucks worse for me though so don't feel too bad about it. I'll try to go somewhere for you guys though, but don't hold me to it. This your weekly Brupdate, goodbye

Weekend in Cordoba

2008-09-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

This week/weekend was not a group travelling weekend. Freddy and his family were flying to Iguazu for the weekend, and Ameesha and her bf who just got in also went to Iguazu. Nonetheless me and Nick still wanted to travel so we decided to hit up Cordoba for the weekend. Cordoba is a pretty large city right in the center of Argentina. The weather was pretty nice all weekend, 60s 70s which is a little warmer than BA.

We found a bus that was leaving Wednesday night at 1015, so we hopped on this for about a 9 hour trip to Cordoba. Unfortunately it was semi-cama which are seats that have a decent recline, but far from a bed. This was a miserable nights sleep. I did got into some comical positions while attempting to catch a few hours. We got into Cordoba at about 8 in the morning and went straight to the Hostel, Baluch Backpackers Hostel. It was a great location on a mainly pedestrian street. The hostel worker suggested getting to our room and taking a nap, sounds like a good idea.

We got into the room and some creepy Argentine guy in his Speedo rolls over and sort of yells at us. Oh well. So we set up our beds and lay down, its comfortable enough. Nick falls asleep easily, like he does everywhere. I on the other hand notice that there is a mule sleeping above me, and he is making a bunch of weird noises. I attempt to sleep but this guy is making the most absurd snoring noises, you would think he was trying to piss me off. I eventually did start getting mad so I clapped my hands, snapped my fingers, lifted up his bed and dropped it, none of this worked. So I just said screw it. I took a shower and got a cup of coffee. This turned out to be one of the better decisions I made on the whole trip. I think my lack of world travel mixed with my curious nature makes Hostels specially interesting to me. This blog will be more focused on the people I met than the things I did, but I will also talk about some of the things we did. I do not have many pictures but people are sending me them so when I get them I will update the blog.

The first day Nick and I took a bus out to a place called La Falda to go on an ATV trip that looked pretty intense. The pictures showed driving through water splahsing it up in the air. Don't get me wrong, it was a good time and the area was pretty neat, think NorCal for those of you that have been. The highlight of our 2 hour ATV tour was a gigantic rock, needless to say the pictures were a little misleading. It was still a good time and something to do. We got back to the Hostel pretty warn down and hungry, so we along with Olina, a girl I met that morning and will talk about later, went to a restaurant called "Mandarina". It was fancy unfortunately, but there was a huge tv screen playing some crazy Irish chick who plays a bunch of instruments at one of her concerts at La Alhambra. That night was pretty chill, we hung around a little bit and had a few beers on the Rooftop Patio. I was deteremined to get to sleep before that snoring bastard, success! Well 4 o clock strikes and I am not sure why I am awake. Oh yeah, because that snoring bastard was performing a symphony the most obnoxious noises in the world. The only way to describe my feelings are lude swears so I will refrain. I went to the lounge and talked with the receptionist, aka, bitched, and then I went to the lounge to try to sleep for a few hours before our Horse Back Riding Trip. She tapped me about ten minutes later, I was going to freak out if she made me go back to the room. Thankfully she was awesome and pointed to a stack of mattresses and gave me a blanket and a pillow and I slept in the corner of the lounge by myself. I slept great but I woke up with three strangers watching tv's looking at the weird kid sleeping in the corner. Oh well.

After getting a few hours of sleep and some breakfast we left for our Horseback riding trip. I won't say too much about this because what is important to me is the people. The trip was great, really relaxing and beautiful sights. My horse was huge and sort of badass. We also got to eat some Chorizo Sandwiches, or Choripan. We finished our trip playing a game of soccer with a super beat up flat ball. A lot of fun actually. That night we had a great asado and all you can drink for a ridiculously cheap price. Drunk and full, nothing better. I had some great discussions and though I wanted to stay and had booked a room, we decided to call it a weekend and take a bus home, aka, I wasn't going to sleep in the damn lounge again while snoring bastard enjoys himself above me.

Anyways, I will go over the people that I met, some more in depth than others and in chronological order.

New Zealanders: I am not certain of their names, but I think one of their names was Andrew. These guys were pretty interesting. They have been travelling South America for a few weeks and had seen many of the things I have and more that I want to see. I talked with these guys about Auckland where they are from, rugby rules, as well as plans for the weekend. I also found that I have no clue who is from, South Africa, Australia, England, or New Zealand, they all sound relatively the same.

Olina: This girl had easily the coolest story of anyone I have talked to yet. She and her amigo flew from Germany to Mexico City. From there they bought bikes and biked from Mexico City all the way to Argentina. How crazy is that? When she said this I had to ask her to repeat it. And then I told her she was the coolest person ever, exaggeration maybe, but that is pretty damn cool. It's great meeting people like this because it gives me ideas for the future. Her friend that she is here with right now has been in the hospital for a few days and she has been hanging out alone in the hostel. During our stay he found out that he would have to stay for at least 4 or 5 more weeks. For him to be flown out it would cost upwards of 60,000 Euros. So she was stranded as well. I didn't feel like asking what happened but Nick speculates he was hit by a car?

Ben: We met Ben the second morning. He was a really happen Asian Australian who was Malay. Super nice guy who is about as affable a person as I have ever met. He seemed to me to be very young, and by that I mean about my age. I later found out that he is travelling for an undetermined time and is 29. Asians age well. I had a few great talks with him while my horse was close to his, and he had some fascinating insight on life. I like meeting people who stop working to travel, that is a risk.

Sophie and Helene: These girls were on our horseback riding trip as well. They are both French and from Paris. Sophie who was extremely attrictive, in a very beautiful way was really impressive to talk to. She told me that she speaks, French, English, Spanish, Chinese, and one or two others that I don't remember. That is baffling to me. They had both just graduated from college as engineers. I mentioned that engineering chicks are usually uglier than they are(smooth right) and they told me that I misunderstood their engineering. Apparently Helene is more or less a Business Management major, and Sophie is actually just very rare, a super attractive Physics major.

South African Girl: I feel bad because I do not remember her name even though she was never introduced to me. This girl was a total sorrority girl South African style, ugg boots and all. She was the first South African I have ever met so we had some really good convos about what it is like down there and all that. She explained to me how great it was, and then told me all of these horrible problems. This seemed weird to me, and then I realized it was just like the United States. Her and her Aussie BF sat next to us at dinner and they are two really really funny people. They explained to us the Paradox of New Zealand. I could never put it in there words because they use really funny words, but they pretty much explained that New Zealand is a gorgeous country filled with hideous people. I have decided that I like Aussies the most out of the people I have met. They are really laid back and generally funny people.

I met other people but none that I probably need to remember. I have been continually taking and giving out contact information, and even though I probably will never use more than one or two of these contacts, it's cool to know that if I go to Munich or France or somewhere else that I could hypothetically have someone to show me around. I have also decided that Hostels are amazing. Even when I get zero sleep and cancel my second night, meeting these people is just so much fun.

Suck it Archie and Fam

2008-09-08T20:12:00.000-07:00

Last night I returned to the same bar again,"Drink Gallery". There was more of a purpose this time I guess, to watch the Bears get their asses kicked by Manning and Co. Or so I thought. Needless to say I was pretty shocked and enthused when the game was turned on and I saw the Bears were up 7-6. I also happened to be there with a friend of mine who is a Colts fan. Wearing her Colts jersey, darn. Anyway I don't need to describe the game as anyone who cares already knows, but there are other things to note...

I am now officially friends with Maurice, the owner of the bar. This is important for a few reasons.
1. His bar is pretty cool and there were some lookers from Pepperdine that he says will probably return
2. The drinks are fairly cheap, they have pitchers, and beer pong on Tuesday if I want to get my Frat on.
3. He gave us a round of really expensive shots for free.
4. Most important, he controls the Sling Box which means that if I become good enough friends he will maybe pick Illini games to put on TV instead of other less important games.

To continue with the night though, Freddy's dad was with us and he is also a big Bears fan. This means that I drank and ate for free. Parents are great. Also, we ordered wings, which are unheard of in this country. We ordered extra picante(hot) and they were incredible.

Today I think was more important. I had the best empanadas that I have ever had in my life, which says a lot because I have had upwards of 200 I think. I have been meaning to try this place for a while. I ordered two Carne Picante(spicy beef), and a Pollo(chicken). If I had eaten any of these alone they would be the best. I would say the Carne Picante was the best. For these reasons, it was sort of picante, the beef was tender and juicy and the other fillings(egg, onion, basil) didn't overwhelm the beef. This all really probably seems stupid to you, until you come to BA and experience the greatness that is Empanadas. I will post a picture of a more mediocre empanada ordered in La Boca. Do not be tricked by the simplicity, these things can be works of art.

Football Match and American Bar

2008-09-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

Argentina Contra Paraguay

Since I have been down here one thing I have been dying to do was see a football match Argentina style. I would ease myself into it with a normal league game. I wouldn't want myself to get overexcited and fall in love with this place. Anyway, I was chilling with Raul(host dad) and like every other night we got to discussing soccer. I asked him when River or Boca would play next because I spent all this money on jerseys(camisetas) and I wanted to put them to use. He told me Boca was playing away and River was as well because there stadium was being used. For what I asked? For the Argentina Paraguay game of course. Thats about how that discourse went. Long story short, Nick went to the stadium and bought the tickets and all of last week I was pumped to go to the game. Game Day So I woke up at about 1:30, hungover, looked outside the window, rainy and miserable. But not to worry things would get drastically better. I remembered the Illini were playing so I bought this streaming radio thing for all of there games. Then I remembered that I had gone to Jumbo(Argentine Walmart) and bought the equivalent of Hot Pockets. They really hit the spot, so between my Carne Trazada and hearing Brian Barnhart call the Illini game the hangover was gone.
The game was at Four though so I had to be getting ready and doing something productive with my life. I through on a thermal undershirt, finally put to use my Argentina Jersey and had a jacket as well. I walked out the door and my Paraguaya maid casually told me that if Argentina won the game I wouldn't be eating dinner this weeek. I guess that thought drifted through my head at times, but hey Ill just eat more Argentine Hot Pockets. I started walking to the game and was waiting for Nick for about ten minutes. There was a dude selling hats and I realized that it was rainy and freezing and the hat costed 3.50. Por que no? Pretty ridiculous hat as you will see in a bit. We walked to the game though with crowds of Argentines and all of a suddent there was a line about 50 meters long(metric system baby). Well we could either wait in the huge unmoving line or walk around it. We walked around it, and then there was another one. At the front of these lines were police guards with huge grenade launcher looking guns. Somehow we continued to walk around these lines and eventually after multiple pat downs made it to our seats. The stadium was huge and completely segregated and the field looked golden, absolutely perfect.
The starting line-ups for Argentina really got the blood pumping for me. I've been to a few Fire games, and even a Sting game here or there, but to hear the names, "Carlos Tevez, Lionel Messi, Juan Roman Riquelme, Gabriel Heinze...." on one team is absolutely ridiculous. I really don't want to get too into the details of the game because it would bore 95% of you anyway. To sum it up though, it was a crazy crazy game. Within ten minutes Tevez(who was incredible to watch) had gotten a red card for blatantly cleating someone. Five minutes later Heinze headed the ball into his own goal and for the first time in the history of the world Argentina was down to Paraguay and missing a player. This did not look good for Argentina. They played miserably the first half but really picket it up the second half. It really was something special to watch world class players string passes together and put the moves on. It was clear that Argentina was on a whole different level from Paraguay. Eventually Lionel Messi darted through multiple players and played a perfect through ball which led to a goal. Hear is the celebration...
All in all though I really enjoyed my first experience with Argentine Football and I plan to continue going to games whenever possible. Oh and for those of you that recall my earlier story, I will in fact be able to eat because a tie is not a loss. Here is a picture of the sweet hat that I bought and will most likely never wear again.

Post Game

After the game Nick and I hit up a Japanese Restaurant I have been dying to try. Some of you might remember that I live about 2 minutes from China Town. Anyway I got some pretty fantastic sushi as well as Teriyaki Steak, so that meal was one of the better ones.

Later that night we decided we wanted to watch some American football so I did some research and found a bar called "Drink Gallery" no translation necessary. This place was sweet. Apparently they have beer pong every Tuesday night. I got there and the Whitesox were on tv in the bottom of the 12th...great. We made friends with the owner though who is from Rochester, New York. His name is Mauricio, apparently his parents are Argentine. Really it was a great night. A group of ricos, as we call them here, from Pepperdine walked in and we got some free shots from them, from one of daddy's bank accounts probably. I made friends with a few of them and they live in the same neighborhood as me so that's pretty sweet. Not to mention that two of them were really attractive. The best part of the convo was realizing that my spanish was way way better than theirs. I am so sick of hearing how my Spanish isn't great and how I sound like an American. This was great to find out that I can speak and handle myself better than some. I think I am heading back there to watch the bears game tonight. Oh and one more thing to note, Mauricio hooked it up with a free round of Jameson shots, which prompted me to buy another for everyone, cost, 8 Dollars. Hell Yeah! Hasta mi proximo aventura, ciao!

Off To Iguazu: Las Cataratas (The Falls)

2008-09-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

My Journey To The Middle Of The Earth
Well now that you have probably read a bunch of junk about the other less important part of the trip I will get to the juicy details of Iguazu. I'm not sure what image exactly I had in mind for what I would see here, but I guess it probably looked something like my background of my laptop for the past 6 months. Needless to say I was ready to see this place. One thing about the jungle that I never realized until Iguazu was that you really couldn't have a hike like you would at the parks in the United States. The ground or floor if you will is just too dense and a trail would never survive. For this reason I was a bit bummed that all the trails were over a boardwalk. That was probably the last dissapointment I would have all day. We walked through the jungle for about 20-30 minutes which was incredibly cool and peaceful. I think Ameesha and I talked about religion which I found to be really fascinating and interesting. It was kind of cool to have this conversation minutes before seeing one of the most awe inspiring places in the world. Anyway, after walking a bit further out of the middle of the trees appeared our first view of the falls in the distance.
We were getting closer and the excitement level was starting to jump through the roof. I have a bunch of pictures from the first waterfalls that we saw and while this was cool in its own right, I think I will leave this one out. So after being at the "smaller" waterfalls we finally arrived to get up an absolutely incredible view.
Every step we walked there was an even more impressive view. I think I took in the neighborhood of 200-300 pictures during the weekend. There is clearly a reason that Indiana Jones and many other movies have shot scenes at this place. There is not one thing there that makes it great, it's a combination of everything. Where else can you walk through a JUNGLE, and emerge and see Palm Trees, Rainbows, and Massively Powerful Waterfals. I really hope all of you will get a chance at some time in your life to visit Iguazu. After taking a ton of pictures in the first locale, we were ready to board our boat into the falls. This was definitely one of the highlights of the day. I took a video but obviously I couldn't have brought my camera into the falls. To attempt to describe the feeling is worthless, but it is something like standing under 500 buckets of ice water for 5 minutes...very cool. Get it?

After being on this side of the waterfalls, we dried off and headed over to The Garganta del Diablo.
These falls were the most impressive and powerful that I have ever witnessed. You can literally stand over the falls as they plummit over the edge. If you were a fearful person this could be miserable. I kept bringing up all the ways you could die, or scenarios where I explained to Ameesha how I would survive. Matthew(British Friend) and I discussed which falls would give you the best chance to live. Probably was a stupid argument because you could not possible survive any of these waterfalls. What was interesting was walking there over this placid river. I kept thinking if the water had a brain what would it be thinking. "This is fun, but what the hell is that mist over there" By now you think I am probably super weird but thats ok. The point is that this was not a fast moving river, until the very second the water went over the edge it was seemingly in slow motion. Then all of a sudden the ride of a lifetime.

The weekend to Iguazu was probably overall the best weekend I have had down here. I think it really affirmed the reasons I had for choosing to come to South America rather than Europe. The natural beauty and culture of Argentina has really impressed me in the few experiences that I have gotten. I really am looking forward to seeing the Andes, Patagonia, as well as Brazil and Peru.

I hope that you guys whoever you might be are enjoying reading about my experiences. I have really been pumping a lot of time and thought into it. The blog was something that I had mixed feelings about but I am really enjoying it. Most of you probably know that I am somewhat of a Travel Channel nut, and this has really been a dream come true. I plan to continue to pursue opportunities to see the world. I have even gone so far as to look into internships at the travel network though I imagine they would be fairly difficult to get. I have finally added a counter which is nice to know that there are some readers out there. I really would enjoy some feedback via e-mail or facebook or whatever. I do not know what direction my life is going but you never know, maybe I will submit this blog to the travel channel someday. Hopefully school is going better for you than it is for me haha. Hasta Luego mis amigos!

Off To Iguazu: Adventure Excursion

2008-09-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

Day One in Puerto Iguazu Travel Agent Brian had read about an adventure excursion that took you through the jungle to do things like Zip Lines, Climbing, and other things. The plan was to try to do this excursion on the second day and hit up the falls on the first day. After talking with our concierge, a 20 something year old Argentine named Cesar we decided to leave about twenty minutes later for this excursion. We took two cars and drove off into the jungle where we arrived at a little hut with a path leading into the jungle. We met our guide Manuel and headed into the abyss. We then stopped abruptly about two minutes later at an opening in the trees where there were a bunch of traps set up. These were pretty cool and I can imagine they worked pretty well, but to be honest I just wanted to climb something or jump off of something. Along the walk we stopped so that he could show us a few things. We ate some leaves that apparently would have poisoned us if we hadn't removed the spine. All of us shared a leave, save Julie, so it was a nice group bonding experience. Eating this leaf reminded me how happy I am to be a carnivore in one of the largest beef producing countries in the world. Eventually we did get to the rock climbing portion of the excursion. It was about 25-30 meters we were told, whatever the hell that means. There were two different routes though, the hard and the easy. Obviously being the cocky Americans that we are we all chose the harder route. Nick started us off followed by Emily, and then I was ready to rock and roll. I think sometimes I am too competitive to actually enjoy things to their fullest. I literally sprinted up the rocks to prove some crazy poin to myself. All told this could not have taken more than two minutes, three at most. Next came the zip lines. These were a lot of fun although they really did not move super fast. The view was great, on one side there was an Argentine waterfall rolling down a hill and on the other was Brazil across the Rio Iguazu. We have discussed this at length how Brazil has some sort of hold on all the males. It has always been one of my dreams to go to Brazil, and on this trip I found out that it is a dream of nearly every guy here. The girls do not have this same fascination which is weird. What is it? The beaches, the women, the rainforest? I really believe this has something to do with human nature. There are a lot of emotions that I share with the guys that the girls just do not get. Anyway I will be spending at least a week in Brasil at the end of the trip and I look forward to being able fulfill one dream. Sorry for that rant but it was on my mind. I am going to try to post a video of me on the zip line, sorry for the shakiness this is the first time I have tried this. I know a lot of you miss my beautiful voice...right, but anyway you will get to hear my poor narration. After the zip lines were done we had to rapell down the same rock face that we had climbed up. Some of the girls were a little nervous about this part so I decided to be a tough guy and make it look easy. I stepped up to the wall and began to lean back like you are supposed to do. Things were going well and then my feet slipped out from me causing me to nearly slam my face on the wall. Pretty smooth. I do not have any great pictures of rapelling, not to mention they all just look like we are climbing anyway. After all this fun had ended we went to the last part of our excursion which was a boat ride up the Iguazu back to Puerto Iguazu. We found our rickety old boat and met our 500 pound Captain Marco. He was a really nice guy actually and let some of us drive the boat. We just had to make sure that for every one Marco on the left there were three of us on the right. When Nick's turn to drive came we both looked at each other and knew we were going to get as close to Brazil as we possibly could. We got as close as 7-10 yards which was pretty exciting. This was perfect distance to swim Che Guevara style for the border. But I didn't. I really wanted to swim in this beautiful waterfall that was so close. But I didn't. This blog would probably be a lot cooler if I was like Che Guevara and did crazy shit and started revolutions. But I don't. The only other thing of note is that we went to the point where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay would hypothetically meet. In this picture I am standing in Argentina, Across the river to the left is Paraguay and across to the right is Brazil.

Off To Iguazu: Hostel and Travelers

2008-09-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

Hostel INN

Like I mentioned before I had done a fair amount of research prior to this trip. There were somewhere in the range of 15-20 hostels near Iguazu, but the Hostel Inn had been dubbed the Club Med of hostels. It was supposed to be a big international party. We got the the hostel and the first thing we noticed was that it did not look like a hostel, it looked like a resort.

The inside reminded me of the trips I had taken to Mexico as a highschooler. There was a bar, a concierge, a restaurant, pool tables... There is really not too much to say about the room, pretty standard. Although my bed was way more comfortable than my current bed in BA.

Roomates and Other People I met

Marcus: Maybe my favorite person I met the whole weekend. Marcus was from Germany and told us that his girlfriend's father was an oven salesman and was paying Marcus to travel through South America selling ovens. Thus far he had sold only one. Marcus was really fascinating though. He was about 800 dollars in debt, but that wasnt a problem because he could go 1300 dollars in debt before he got in trouble. He also told us that he had a gig as a security guard paying 15 dollars an hour when he got back to Germany.

Matthew: Matthew is a 19 year old British kid that Nick met while on his bus to Iguazu. He ended up spending a good bit of time with us and he is also living in Buenos Aires so we will probably be hanging out with him down here as well. I was around him enough that I started using quite and rather, quite a bit...jaja(haha in spanish). I discussed football with him, but unfortunately for him his team has been stuck in the lower divisions in Europe.

Gemma: Gemma is also from England, but her story in incredible. Her and her friend who I did not get her name are travelling around the world. They bought this ticket that is super cheap and started in Mexico city. They took buses all the way through central america into South America. They were in Bolivia during Evo Morales' rigged elections when it was rather dangerous. I got into a big debate with Gemma's friend who claimed that American Football is not a sport, crazy wanker that one. Me, the kid that has not even played a down of football in his life and is a diehard soccer fan was arguing for the sake of American football, imagine that.

Other Randos: There were a ton of people from the states that we met as well, though its not as interesting to talk to them. I met two of the biggest assholes from California. But then California redeemed itself when I met two kids from Cal Poly who programmed the computers to allow us to illegally use internet. I also had a French roommate who was a creep; I sat next to a British guy on the bus named Andy and we discussed the finer points of soccer; met some workers at the hostel who Ameesha befriended.

Nightlife and Meals:

The first night we went to this really "great" restaraunt acclaimed by Julie's guidebook as one of the best. We made our reservations for 9 and I think all of us were generally excited. We show up and see that it is a Pizzeria/Confiteria, not a parilla(grill). Oh well, we enter the restaurant to see about three other people sitting there. Thank god we made our reservations! The menu at first glance seemed ok, everything was fairly cheap. There were two bottles placed in front of us. I think they wanted us to say, "oh that one looks good" but we aren't that stupid. After asking the price we found out that they were 120 pesos each, 40 dollars. No chance, we found a bottle for 30 pesos that was shitty as could be but got the job done. This restaurant had a great promotion going, starter, main dish and dessert for 26 pesos. So I ordered this tuna thing first, then a beef asado, and finally some ice cream. Well this tuna dish was more or less canned tuna with weird junk in it....pass. The asado came out on a platter and was looking good, unfortunately it was all the scraps no one else wanted. After cutting off the fatty parts I was left with about one third of the meal. The ice cream was alright though! We decided to look at this positively though. We successfully found a place that none of us will ever go to again.

The second night was significantly better as well as more exciting. The second night was an all you can eat Asado as well where the workers walked around with plates of meat and you could choose whatever you wanted to eat. There were also all you could drink Caipirinhas. For those of you that do not know what they are, they are a brazilian drink made from sugar cane liquor. They really aren't great in my opinion but they get the job done. After dinner there was a Brazilian show with dancers. This was pretty fun, but many of the girls were noticeably uncomfortable. It was a good time and about half the room got pulled into dancing including yours truly. We were randomly paired with partners and I got an Aussie who was about three inches taller than me. When it came time to pick your partner up I was slightly nervous, but then I remembered that I worked out with Duke Johnston for a semester, I could pick this chick up.

After this was over the party moved all over the place, but mainly outside to the pool area. The drinks were ok but it was a good time and meeting people from all over the world was a pretty cool experience. It's nice to hear that a world exists outside of the United States every once in a while.

Off To Iguazu: Bus Ride There

2008-09-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying, this was one of the coolest places I have been in my life. The weekend itself was such an experience and for that reason this post may be significantly long. I am trying to improve the blog a little bit so hopefully adding pictures and organization helps a little bit.

Day 1: Thursday Night Bus Ride

For this trip I took on the role of Travel Agent, but I'm not complaining it was kind of fun and everyone knows I like control. When it came to booking our Long Distance bus, we wanted to get out of town as soon as possible because the trip is about 17-18 hours. The earliest bus we could make work also happened to be the most expensive and the most baller. We hopped on the Crucero del Norte 19:20 Cama Suite Bus. There were four out of the five of our group on this bus, Ameesha, Emily, Julie, and me. Nick was on a bus that left 20 minutes earlier and arrived over an hour later...sucker.

We got to our seats and they are absurdly huge and comfortable. No longer than three minutes after sitting down we were given a selection of candy. After being on the road for about 15 minutes the first service came through...a nice big glass of Whisky.

This made me think of DU's and their intense passion for the good stuff. Apparently I am really fratty, oh well I guess I am just hanging out with a couple of GDI's haha.

About an hour or two into our ride the dinner service started. I was told that there was a two course meal, which I guess was true. Course one consisted off a roll, some crackers, a rice dish, some weird spinach dish, and a delicious alfajor pastry. Oh yeah and some damn fine imported beer, Budweiser.

Course Two was the hot plate and this was Milanesa, which is a breaded small peace of beef with some sort of egg dish sitting on top. Apparently I was the only one who enjoyed it. Oh well.

After dinner was over the azafalta or attendent came by with Cafe and then after this was done she also came by with some bubbly. This was all good fun because it was like first class for the working class. First class people really fly but how fun is that?

After dinner was over movie hour started. The first movie was some chick flick starring Reece Witherspoon. Didn't that last sentence make me seem like I hadn't seen it? Ha yeah right, I've seen it. I had to explain it to Ameesha because apparently her Northwestern Education did not include understanding of great chick flicks. After this some ridiculous Tommy Lee Jones movie came on. Absolutely terrible. We were getting ready to go to sleep when some pretty cool people came up with a fifth of Jim Beam in hand. Those cool people were Emily and Julie. We had a nice night cap of about half a fifth of Jim Beam. We then figured out or Beds using these fine instructions and went to sleep sort of.

I forgot to mention that Travel Agent Brian based on a tip that I read on someone elses blog knew to book the front two seats on the bus. The reason is because there is a vista fenomenal. We woke up and were in Misiones, the province where Iguazu is located. We were about four hours away were treated to a pretty fascinating ride. It felt like we were in a different country than the Argentina I have grown accustomed to. I will have to end part one of the journey here because I need to go to class. But stay tuned for the next editions of Off To Iguazu.

California Burrito Company

2008-08-26T12:17:00.000-07:00

Some time last week I found out about a little place called California Burrito Company. This was about the same time that I had gotten sick so I was pretty bummed out that I couldn´t go. I did promise myself that when I was better it would be one of my first meals. So yesterday I made an hour trek to get a little taste of America. I had read that this place was very similar to Chipotle, but I did not expect it to be this similar. From the choices of meat to the corregated metal all around, I felt at home. It was overall a pretty solid burrito. I had a meat similar to Barbacoa, loaded up with guac, lettuce, black beans, rice, and corn salsa. All this and a small drink was a little less than 7 dollars. Not terribly cheap, but not terribly expensive either. For about 15 minutes I felt like I was back in the states again and I liked that. During our time eating there about 7 kids from my program walked in. Turns out I am no pioneer...darn.

I am considering giving this blog a facelift and adding pictures if possible. Not sure how soon this will happen but hopefully somewhat soon. Unless something monumental happens my next blog will be after Iguazu. Ciao

Change of Plans

2008-08-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

Well I had originally planned to be heading to Las Lenas to ski this weekend, but it doesn't look like the logistics/pricing are going to work out. That's ok though as I have a pretty amazing back-up. We are heading to Iguazu instead. Iguazu is one of the biggest waterfalls situated in a rainforest bordering Brazil. The bus ride is extremely long (20 hours) but I'm getting a bed on the bus and have about 500 pages to read so it's all good. I think it's safe to say I will have some pretty cool pics following this latest adventure. The craziest thing to think is that I have already been down here a month and five days.

One great thing about being down here so long already is that I have managed to become a regular at a number of establishments. Since I am still in the process of hooking up internet at my house I currently go to Cafe Martinez in the mornings and Zeus Restaraunt at night. When I walk in the door at Cafe Martinez they start making my Te Frutilla (Rasberry/Strawberry Tea) while I do like tea, it also happens to be the cheapest thing on the menu at 5 pesos. They know I plan to sit on the internet for 3 hours, but they never care. Maybe because I leave a 2 peso tip generally. At my other spot, Zeus, I do pretty much the same thing. I generally get a water, but one night I felt like a beer, which turned into four. Turns out I drank them out of Stella Artois...oops. At this bar, I have made friends with my waitress Carina. It took me about four trips there before I finally asked for her name. Big step right? Next question, how old are you haha. There are a few other places that recognize me by now, but those are the two most notable.

One last thing, if any of you feel the urge to send a package/mail or anything, the address where I can pick up a package is:

Brian Hyosaka
COPA IFSA-Butler
Av. Corrientes 880 8ºC
Buenos Aires, Argentina

PS. If you are sending a package, peanut butter, root beer, or mac n' cheese would be greaaaatly appreciated

Reading

2008-08-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

I guess it has been a while since my last update, which admittedly was not the happiest of updates. Right now though I feel pretty much back to normal. Anyway my classes kicked into full gear this week and that is not an exaggeration. For next week I have about 4-500 pages to read. I am not sure if every week will be like this but I assume that it will be. I started reading a novel yesterday and it took me about an hour to read 15 pages. While my spanish conversational skills are improving, my vocabulary still lacks about a million words. This makes reading 400 pages of Spanish quite the task. My dictionary is going to be overworked this semester I think. Right now I am watching with pride as the United States smacks around Nocioni and the crew. I am planning on heading to the Andes for a little ski trip next weekend so I will probably update again after I do that. Ciao amigos.

Health Update

2008-08-15T16:58:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in the last post, things were not going so hot. I have spent the last two days in and out of the hospital listening to doctors tell me different things and prescribe different medecines. Last night probably was the worst night of my life, I did not sleep and spent about half of the night in the bathroom. Today I went back to the hospital for a follow up. It turned out to be more than a follow up. This time they ran a bunch of tests and did some uncomfortable stuff, but they found that I have a bacterial parasite type thing that is causing my intestines to inflame. Sounds fun huh? At long last they finally did something that helped. I was put on an IV for about two hours or so and now I feel much better. There are still bad moments but I think I am through the worst. Tried to keep this as g rated as possible, if anyone wants the real details let me know and I'll make you wish you didnt want the real details.

Inflamation

2008-08-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Like I mentioned in the last post, my body is not in the best shape of its life right now. First it was my feet, then my muscles were sore. That was just a warmup for what I am experiencing right now. At about 1:00 yesterday I started having issues with my stomach. About every minute or two my stomach would cramp up. At first it wasn't too bad. I went to class which is when it started to dawn on me that something was wrong. Being the good decision maker that I am, I decided that having a pint at a bar would be a solution to my problem. Just as I finished that pint it was time to go home. The spasms were starting to intesify. I attempted to sleep it off but after three hours of sitting in bed (I think some of you may be able to guess the position I was in), I could not take it anymore so I walked to a pharmacy. They gave me some drugs for a stomach issue. These drugs were useless and the cramps continued.

I woke up from one of my half an hour sleep periods this morning feeling slightly better. I attempted to choke down some tea and toast but this was just not happening. After about an hour debate in my head I decided it was time to head to the hospital/clinic. This was one thing that actually went well. I am convinced that the United States health system is an absolute train wreck. I was in and out within 20 minutes. I have been diagnosed with Inflamated Intestines. Pretty sure it sounds worse than it is, but it hurts like a bitch. They prescribed a few medications and told me I cannot eat basically anything. Now I am sitting in bed watching the gayest Hugh Grant movie I have ever seen waiting for this day to end. Like I have mentioned before, the highs and lows of this trip are remarkable, and I can only hope that this is the lowest of lows.

First Football Experience

2008-08-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

Since I have been down in Argentina, the one thing that I have been dying to do is play football. I had this idea in my head that everyone down here was like Maradona and Messi, or at least pretty damn good. For a few weeks now I had been getting invited via Facebook to play in some 5 v 5 games. Each week I have made an excuse why I could not play. This week I decided there would be no more excuses. I looked at the group and there were players from 7 different countries, how cool is that? They have names like Enzo, Yakub, and others that put some fear in my eyes. I was ready to get rolled on so to speak.

I finally got to the gym and saw the five on five courts, they were nothing special but oh well. I began to meet the guys, a lot of them had different accents and did not speak English well. I happened to be the only non graduated member out of the ten there. This was interesting because technically this Facebook group was a group of exchange students. There was a group of guys on vacation from Denver that were pretty good guys, as well as a guy from Oxford that was like an English version of Matt Roos for those of you that know who he is. It became apparent to me very quickly that I was not in fact playing with Messi, I may have been the closest thing to Messi. 15 minutes into the game I had 5 goals to my name but hey, a confidence booster is nice once in a while. Yakub could play a little bit, but Enzo makes Stewart Swain and Byrnes look like Pele. While this game was not at the highest level, it was a quick wakeup call that all this beef eating and drinking has ruined my physique.

Also of note, about 45 minutes into our game I felt shooting pain coming from both of my feet. I am an idiot and wore a pair of trendy pumas clearly not made for soccer, all though they say Roma and are dedicated to a famous Roma team. When I got home last night I found the two largest blisters I have ever seen, one attached and one dissattached from my foot. I'll post those on facebook for your viewing pleasure even though none of you want to see it. Another problem is that I feel like I am 80 years old today because I seriously cannot walk, every muscle in my body is aching at the moment.

On a more serious note, having a host family proved to be very nice again. When I walked into the dining room with a towl wrapped around my foot I quickly had two mothers jump to my aid and yet again today they have treated me like an injured soldier. Really though, having a family eases the home sickness because when you need some familiarity during the days, it is always there. The moral of the story is, The United States is the Best Country in the world at everything, Including Soccer, with the exception of Gymnastics, Screw China.

More Adventures

2008-08-10T12:35:00.000-07:00

I´ll apologize in advance because this post will probably somewhat long. If its boring...oops.

This past week and weekend has left me with many new thoughts and impressions of Buenos Aires and Argentina. This is a big big city, so just when I thought I had figured it out, I really did not. One of my main reasons for coming to Buenos Aires was because I am very interested in the economic disparity. When I was researching programs I was drawn to third world countries, and on the opposing side, very rich European countries. BA to me was a compromise, as Argentina is technically considered a third world country. At the same time it is known as the Paris of South America. In these first few weeks, I have seen very much of the Paris side, and very little of the third world country. I have adjusted to this rich and fancy lifestyle and at times it can be a little much.

Talking with a few friends, I found out they too were interested in leaving Buenos Aires for the weekend, to try something new. We did not have a ton of time, but we decided to go to Rosario which is about a 4 hour bus ride. It is a city of about a million people, but not one known very well by tourists.

For the first time, I took Buenos Aires version of the metra, the mitre, to Retiro which is comparable to Union Station combined with the Greyhound station. The trains are in notably bad neighborhoods, and the area around Retiro is one of the absolute worst in BA. This trip started off well, I saw close to 100 clay court tennis courts as well as golf courses and a horse track. All of this was cool, and then we got close to Retiro. For those of you who have never seen a shanty town, it is something else. I had my first true flash of reality in South America. There must be thousands of people living in these scrap metal, wood shacks that look like they would be blown down by the next storm. It took my breath away to see this kind of disparity. This shanty town made Kabrini Green seem like a country club. One of my goals on this trip is to work with an organization that goes into this neighborhood and others like it and talks with kids, tutors them, and plays games with them. I hope this happens, but to enter this area would take a type of courage that I am still searching for.

Once at the station, I headed to the bus terminal to meet up with some amigos. This terminal is very comprable to an air port. There are close to thirty bus companies that have long distance buses going all over the continent. They are double decker buses that have many options for seating. We chose the cheapest which is called semi-cama. these seats recline to somewhere around 130 degrees. The bus cost about 15 dollars, or 45 pesos, and took less than four hours. I had about a four hour talk with one of my friends Ameesha, and soon enough we were there. We got into town about 9 and had zero plans. We decided to head to the city to find a place to eat and use the internet to find a hostel. We found a hopping cafe that looked good. They were assholes and I had one of the worst burgers ever, it actually has a piece of ham on top of the burger...very literally a hamburger. We called about 15 hostels and there were zero rooms. At this point things were not looking so hot. We walked around aimlessly searching for hotels, and found nothing. Eventually we called a hotel and thankfully they had rooms. We got back in the cab and the cab drove us right back a hotel across from the bus station. This hotel worked out alright at first. They gave us a room, which had three single beds. We decided to combine them to a kind bed and share it between the four of us. Little did we know this was a fire hazard. The hotel made us buy another room, which doubled the price. I paid 26 dollars for two nights.

Overall there was not much of note to this city, we ate pizza watched the olympics and then walked around. The trip was bordering on mediocre let down, then the trip became the best weekend yet in about one hour. We ate a restaurant called La Estancia, which translates to a beef farm. We all split a bottle of really good wine, cost per person=2.50. Then we ordered dinner, I decided on a filet, cost 11.00. I will post pictures of the parilla or grill on facebook. This was truly spectacular. About twenty minutes and 5 amazing dinner rolls later, a platter of beef came out. This steak was a masterpiece. After my first bite I realized that that was the single best piece of food I have ever eaten. Everyone at the table felt the same way about there food. The power of food is incredible. A mediocre weekend was transformed by one absolutely fucking unbelievable piece of steak. And this was no six ounce filet that costs 50 dollars in the states, this was a solid 12-14 ounce filet. To me this meal could have cost 100 dollars and I would have said yeah that was worth it. This meal cost 15 dollars. Buenos Aires is great, but Rosario is cheaper and has overwhelmed my taste buds in a way that is unthinkable.

Again sorry for the length of this blog, but finally some cool stuff happened again. I´ll post the pics from Rosario as well as La Boca when I get a chance. Enjoy the rest of your summers, start booking your flights to visit me down here, it will be well worth the money. Ciao

Classes Begin

2008-08-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

Today marked the first day of classes for me down in BA. While things certainly could have gone worse, this was one of the most nervous days of my life. The way my program works is like a true exchange program. What I mean by that is that unlike other programs, we are not separated from Argentines. In theory this is great, but in practice it is a bit unnerving. I had my first class at 10:45 this morning, Historia Argentina 1. I arrived with one friend, and we walked into a classroom that had clearly defined groups of friends. In Argentina you pick you career before you enroll in a university. This means that everyone in my class was a history major and had taken two years of class together already. It is very similar to grammar school. So we walked in very nervous, and minutes later the professor walked in looking very pissed off. Maybe she was just trying to be tough on the first day. Another thing to note is that you go to class one day a week for 3 hours. We went through today as a real class, and it wasn´t terrible. I probably comprehended about 85-90%. Eventually she singled out the exchange students and asked us questions, because my amiga wouldn´t talk I was forced to talk which was not a whole lot of fun. At the end of class to make matters worse, she informed us that there would be 4 oral exams. Needless to say I will not be taking this class.

My next class was an art history class, which on paper sounds easy so why not. I do not have quite as much to say about this class. After walking in by myself, four more kids from my program joined me. The problem is that there is a cap on this class of 3 foreigners, so 2 of us will not make the cut. I probably understood about 50% of this professors words, but we stared at pottery for about 2 hours, so I think I caught the jist of it. As of right now, I do not have any more classes lined up for this week, because the other universities I am taking classes at do not start until next week. I think I am going to explore, find a gym maybe. With all this free time who knows, one things for sure and that is that money is going to continue to fly out of my wallet. Thank god I didn´t go to Europe or this could be a real problem. Hasta

Makeup of the Program

2008-08-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

Ill start by saying that this program is great, but there are a lot of really weird people. I guess I should have expected this coming somewhere like south america which is not main stream. There are about 100 or so people in this program. At least 70 are girls, great right? Not really, I will explain. Of the 30 guys, at least 15 are gay, and this is not an exaggeration. Its like gay pride club. That leaves about 15 straight guys, and of these 15 there are probably about 7 or 8 cool people, thankfully I have found a few of them. Back to the girls though, out of the 70 girls, about 15 are gay. That leaves about 55 give or take. Out of this 55 there are probably about 15-20 attractive/cool girls. And of course many of these girls enjoy hanging out with there gay amigos. All this may sound bad, but I have actually found a pretty cool group of people that I am really enjoying being around. We have gone out every night, and its been in the words of Sir Charlie Schwartz, a riot. So don´t cry for me Argentina, its all good. Or as they say down here todo bien. I thought this was someone interesting, sorry if it appears that I am super shallow. When you get dropped off in a group of random people its actually important to consider who you want to hang out with. Nothing would be worse than getting stuck with a group of weirdos for 5 months of my life. Tomorrow I am going to a place called El Tigre, so I will talk about that next as well as post the pics on facebook. Hope all is well back in the states. Paz

Bits of Culture

2008-07-31T15:11:00.001-07:00

Its been a few days since my last post, and unfortunately nothing too crazy has happened. We found a really cool Irish pub last night that is about ten minutes from my house. At about 130 they started rocking out to some 90s music, and dimmed the lights. Now I haven't been to Ireland but I heard the Irish love 90s American music. Today I discovered that panaderias are very good and very cheap, I think I may have found my new passion. I had three small turkey croissants, or as they say in the biz, medialunas. They were fantastic and cost me a total of $2.50. The most amazing part of this meal was not the price, or even the croissant. This was the first time I have eaten turkey since I left the states. Its amazing how quickly I realized things I would miss, such as Dr. Pepper, Italian Beef, and until today turkey. Then there are the things that make life bareable, such as incredible empanadas and being able to legally drink. Yesterday I visited the grave of Evita Peron in the coolest cemetary I have ever seen, Ill post pics on facebook. I realize that facebook pics are only exciting when people are in them so I will try to change this in the future. I was planning on addressing culture in this post, but I guess maybe next time. Hasta Luego

Castellano

2008-07-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

I apologize that I am not talking about rocks of cocaine in this blog, although it is noteworthy that I saw the same dude again, coked out again haha. The focus of this blog and I guess some others will be culture shock. Most of you spoke Spanish at one point or another or at least took a class. While the classes were definitely helpful, nothing can fully prepare you for living in a Latin country. Argentine Spanish is a little bit different but it is really beautiful and fun to speak. They speak with a "che". What I mean by this is instead of saying ella (a ya) they say (a sha). Or instead of saying "yo" (y o) they say "sho". This is just part of the difference, they also created their own verb tense. Instead of using the 2nd person singular, which is Tu, they created vos. So in place of tu hablas espanol. they have vos habl(accent over the a)as espanol. These differences may not seem huge but at first they are a mountain to overcome. I'm sorry this blog may be hard for some of you to understand, but in order to update it, I will need to mix it up a little. Hope all is well en los estados (states). Ciao

Experiencias Nuevas

2008-07-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

Hola todos! Where to begin...To attempt to verbalize or write how incredible things are would be a waste of time because this is one of those experiences you have to see to believe. Hands down these have been three of the greatest days of my life. We are in the process of attending many orientations but really, who gives a crap about that...not me, not anyone. Whats important is what happens after the orientations. I will share with you a few notable experiences. Yesterday we receieved a tour of BA and at the end they dropped us off and left us in a neighborhood no one had ever been in before. We found lunch at this incredible corner cafe and had steak sandwiches that were out of this world. Our lunch ended at about 1 and we all had oral exams at 130. Being the smart Americans that we are we used our bus guides to help us get back to the school. To note: There are over 200 different routes and we were left with a simple guide. We all though we knew how to use the guide but this was not the case. We hopped on the right bus, and mi amigo Nick pissed off the bus driver by pressin el timbre, the bell accidentally. The driver failed to mention that we were going in the wrong direction and at about 125 he kick us out in one of the worst neighborhoods in BA, La Boca. This was a little bit scary but extremely fun. There were four of us two guys two girls wandering aimlessly through a neighborhood comparable to the south side. I eventually called us a cab, but we did not wait for this cab. We hailed our own cab which apparently is a no no. We got back to the school about 30 minutes late assuming we were in trouble, but the director smiled and laughed. This is ¨el estilo argentino¨ argentine style. Oh well. Story 2: after our day ended we decided to hit up a bar. Between three of us we ordered 4 liters of quilmes which is argentine beer. Needless to say I am no heavyweight. By the time we got to dinner I was a little tipsy. Now steak is all the hype in BA so I decided to try out a 12 ounce filet. Price 16 dollars. Hands down the best steak I have ever had. We also finished a another bottle of wine over dinner. Again we found us in a bad neighborhood and again I decided to break rules and use an ATM at night. At this ATM I met a Brit who was speaking portugueese and offered me help. I needed it. After helping me he revealed to me that he was totally messed up and showed me a rock of cocaine....in a bank. I proceeded to share a cab home with one of my new friends and hard earned pesos. Being the nice guy that I am I spent about as much on that cab as I did on my steak. Now visibly and enjoyably drunk I chatted easily with my cabbie about soccer, andres nocioni and chicas argentinas, argentine girls. That was all yesterday. I am about to eat dinner con the fam and head out for the next adventure. Tonights mission....find un boliche, a dance club. These are supposed to be very scary and full of drugs, my ideal night. If anyone has any questions or anything they think I should write about post a comment and I will gladly fill you in. If I remember correctly this is slightly better than those nights in Glen Ellyn, ha. For those of you that are studying abroad, get pumped. For those of you that arent, come to BA and Ill show you a good time. Ciao todos!

Dias Locos

2008-07-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt these have been two of the craziest days of my life. I left for the airport Sunday ready for the adventure to begin. After a somewhat miserable flight to Mexico City things were on the up and up, I found out that alcohol was free on Mexicana. I arrived at the airport looking for my friend Niru who I would fly with the next leg. I struggled to find her and speak effective Spanish, not to mention droping 15 pesos into a phone that wanted American change. Eventually I sat down at a bar and ordered my first legal drink, a Modelo Especial...delicioso.
Eventually I did find Niru and had another beer before the flight began. Mexicana hooked it up on the next flight as you will eventually see in my pictures. I took advantage of the free drinks this time and had some Dewars and a glass of wine.

When we woke up we were in Argentina, unfortunately it is an absolutely miserable day, and I was almost certain we would crash....we didn't. My host family is not what I thought it was but it worked out to be alright. They are an older couple who live in a 4 bedroom 4 bath apartment in a pretty nice area.

They also have a maid who with her son lives in the apartment. Thankfully I like kids or this could have been pretty bad. There is certainly some culture shock happening but its all good. Right now I am at an internet cafe, but tomorrow starts the Program and all of the fun that comes along with it. Hasta Luego!

Last Night in the States

2008-07-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight marks the last night that I will be in the United States until 2009. The barbeque was great and I was really happy and flattered that so many people showed up. On a sentimental note, its really been nice to have a good group of friends, and I will really miss that while starting my new life. The nerves are starting to kick in, but I'm ready to hop on the plane and get this show on the road...Hasta...? Translation: Until...? Adios Amigos

Pre-gaming for Argentina

2008-05-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I took a trip out to DC to hang out with my uncle and some of his Argentine friends. It was great hanging out with my cousins eating some great food and drinking more wine than I ever thought possible. The crazy thing was I actually enjoyed the wine, a good sign considering a good bottle of wine in Argentina is 3 or 4 dollars. The Argentine friends (Jorge and Andrea) were great and I loved playing soccer with their son...the next Lionel Messi

My First Blog!

2008-05-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

Although I am not yet physically in Argentina (I am in a white cubicle) I can feel the date approaching. Outside of work I do not have much free time, so I decided to create this blog while at work. The next entry will come in July...