Uruguay - The last blog

The boat ride to Uruguay went fairly smoothly. There were a few minutes of bumps in the water that made the boat move more than normal. Everything else was fine. I am getting really good at this traveling thing. I found a taxi to go to the hostel. There are no stoplights in Colonia, Uruguay. Not even stop signs. All of the cars stop for the pedestrians so that they can walk across the street. It is such a huge difference in Colonia from Buenos Aires and Cordoba. The taxi ride was 100 Uruguayan pesos which is about $5.25. I found my friends José and Guilherme in the hostel. I had José check out my Argentina jersey to see if it was an original or not. (He paid more than twice what I paid for his jersey.) After inspection, we decided I definitely did a great job buying my jersey. Mine even has Messi’s number and name on it. Poor boy. Haha. I left my bags in the main room and the three of us headed into town to see what was up. The two guys arrived in Colonia the day before, so they kind of had an idea of where things were. It is so peaceful and chill in Colonia! I loved every minute there. It very colonial looking, which makes sense because of its name, and it was a lot cleaner too. First we stopped at a shop that was selling the Uruguay soccer jersey. I made sure to tease Jose and tell him to be careful with how much he spends on his jersey, and he might actually be better off having my buy it. We did a little more window shopping and headed towards the boat docks. José encountered a cute little kitty that looked a lot like the cat from Shrek. We walked around a little more and found an aquarium that we could go to the next day since it was closed. We skipped stones in the ocean for a few minutes. I used to be very good at this. I swear when I was in elementary school I could get to stone to skip six or seven times. I think my record was two this go-around. Another boat dock and some more pictures. (I really hate that I am having trouble uploading picture for us all.) For lunch I had a chivito, which is the typical Uruguayan sandwich. It was pretty tasty. It was a hamburger with a more steak-like patty and it had boil eggs on it. The only problem was that it was very difficult to bite through the meat. I had to cut some of it with a knife, but I still liked it! In order to work off the chivito calories, we rented bikes to go searching for museums. I kept on trying to encourage just walking to the museums, but my subtle hints never really caught on. I haven’t really ridden a bike for maybe 10 years now. And someone told me that I was never really good at riding bikes, so my confidence was shot. You know who you are…sometimes you go by the name “Mother” at home. Cough. Cough. But I rode the bike anyway. It was so difficult to get started. To give you an idea on how long it has been since I rode a bike: I am much more used to the bikes that break by peddling backwards. These handle breaks are tricky. They say you never forget how to ride a bike, but I felt like I was learning! Besides that fact that I felt like awkward 10-year-old Kendall again and was worried I would crash, I had a great time on the bike ride. We rode along the beach and the view was beautiful. Guilherme was taking video while he was riding his bike; I was lucky to adjust my sunglasses while trying to steer. We found an old bullring, but it was closed and we couldn’t go in. It was the Coliseum of Uruguay. Then we went to a pirate/buried treasure museum. Sounds cool right? Hahahaha…it was the most boring museum ever! And I have been to lots and lots of museums. The saddest part of it all is that you could tell that a lot of work was put into the museum with all of the decorations. It looked cool. I made it back to the hostel alive on the bike. I actually started getting the hang of it at the end. The three of us hung out in the patio of the hostel and tried to connect to the internet unsuccessfully. I took a shower and siesta then we went out for dinner. I had the pizza of course. The need to compare Uruguay pizza to Argentina pizza was just too overwhelming. Argentina wins, but Uruguay put in a good effort. Then we walked around town trying to find a pub of some sort to chill in. Colonia is small, and therefore there really aren’t any pubs with lots of people. So we just walked around town more, found Paseo de Suspiros (semi-famous street in Colonia), and played on an old fort. There was a shop that had some good souvenirs and the lady working at the shop was super nice. We went back to the hostel to find out more about going to somewhere, but the only place we could find didn’t really get started until 3 am. We felt too tired from all the walking and bike-riding to wait until 3am, so we called it a night.

Sunday morning started off with some pastries for breakfast that were filled with none other than dulce de leche. Found a flagpole with a huge Uruguayan flag…pictures. Went to a hippie fair and I got another trenza because the one I got in Bueons Aires in January had fallen out. Then we revisited a lot of the places we saw the night before because they were open. I got a new maté for sweet maté! It is ceramic with blue paint that says “Maté Dulce/Colonia, Uruguay”. So perfect. Maté is a billion times more popular in Uruguay than it is in Argentina. There are families walking through the streets carrying their maté drinking it 24/7. Checked out this cool place that had a big wooden curly thing that we could take pictures in. I have no idea what it has to do with anything, but we liked it. We went to the aquarium, a cathedral, and then the big lighthouse. José and I went down closer to the beach the get better pictures of the flagpole because the wind was moving the flag perfectly. The sun set and we went back to the hostel. I got on the hostel computer to check up on how the rest of the world was doing. Then we went to a hotdog stand to get dinner. We made plans for the next day for going to Montevideo and to meet up with Jacobo. Bedtime.

Monday morning I got up at 4:30am to catch the 5:00am bus to Montevideo. When I got the hostel, Jacobo was already there. We went to the beach for the morning. There was gross and sad thing happening on the first part of the beach we came upon. I think it was due to the shape of the bay. There were lots and lots of dead fish washed up on the shore. So many poor little fishies dead on the sandy beach. It made walking on the beach kind of like walking through a land mine field. The crazy thing we saw washed up was an eel of some kind! It had big scary pointy teeth and everything! I definitely never want to encounter one of these suckers alive. Its eyeball didn’t seem real. We also saw three jellyfish, at least that it what it appeared to be. All we could see was the top part. The rest of it was under the sand. It kind of seemed as though they were stuck in the sand, and I wanted to help! The possibility of getting stung kept me from doing so. They were just little jelly pods on the sand. We did try to save a little string fish thing that was still wriggling around. Even though we tried to help, Mother Nature ended up doing all the work. Two large waves came in a swallowed the little guy back into the water. Jacobo and I chose a place to sit and soak up some Uruguayan sunrays. All of the people at the beach at 10 something in the morning are old people. These old people were not ashamed of their saggy boobs or wrinkly butts. I never felt so young! We went back to the hostel to take a shower so we could enjoy lunch without getting rubbed raw by the sand. We continued to find sand in our ears throughout the day though. We went to a recommended Italian restaurant to have some seafood. It was quite the trek to get there, and I cannot really say it was completely worth it either. The service was super slow and they gave us waaay too much food. I took a picture of the food before and after I was finished eating. There is hardly a difference! It did taste pretty good though. Jacobo had a seafood ravioli dish and I had a seafood spaghetti dish. I recognized the shrimp and calamari, but there was one thing with little grey hair looking things that I didn’t know what it was. It was tasty though. We walked to the mall to look around for a bit then headed back to the hostel. José and Guilherme arrived at their hostel a few hours before. So we made plans through good ol’ Facebook to meet up that evening for a goodbye dinner. Jacobo and I rested and computered. I had to re-pack for the 58,301,863th time and the final time. Then we went to José and Guilherme’s hostel. We went to the same chain restaurant that we ate the chivitos at in Colonia so Jacobo could try it. The three of us who were in Colonia all agreed that Colonia is better mostly because there are lots of museums and the food service is faster. I must go back to Montevideo to give it another try though. The beach was wonderful (except for the dead fish on the shore thing) and I don’t think 24 hours is a fair time to make a judgment on a city. The conversation at dinner was so great and funny! I am going to miss these guys so much!! We headed back to their hostel for a bit then Jacobo and I went back to our hostel. We had to say goodbye to the beach before we left, so we spent an hour or so there. It was very cool at night with no one else there. The water looked black and there were lots of white waves. Back at the hostel we went to sleep.

Tuesday morning: my last morning in South America. I did not want to leave at all. The taxi came to pick me up at 5:45am. At first I was taken to the wrong terminal and I had a panic of some kind of ticket error and I would miss my plane flight. Everything got sorted out and I made it back to Buenos Aires just fine. I had a great conversation with my taxi driver. It was kind of like my final exam in what I learned in Argentina. Then I got to spend 3 hours waiting to be able to check in and then a few more for the plane. I managed to sleep during the 9-hour plane ride from Buenos Aires to Miami. Sleeping in public transportation in a new skill I have acquired. Plane ride to Dallas went well. I know I was a sexy beast sleeping with my mouth wide open. When I finally got back to Texas, I was greeted by my mom and Lauren at the airport. What a great trip. I will miss Argentina. 

Buenos Aires as a Tourist

I did not take a nap when I got to the hostel. I went to breakfast and ended up making friends with a girl from Switzerland and a girl from Germany. They were planning on going to Tigre that day and invited me to go. It was perfect because I didn’t make it over there when I was here in Buenos Aires in January. It was a very magical place to me in 2010, so I was very excited to go visit it again. We took the subway a bit to take an hour trip on a train to Tigre. Tigre was just as wonderful as I remembered. I had more moments where I felt as though I was walking through my Facebook album of Argentina from two years ago. The McDonalds that I was forced to go to last time was still there. I noticed that they had remodeled. We bought tickets to take a boat tour around the delta to see all of the houses on the river, but the tour wasn’t for another hour and a half. We walked over to the fair and market just to see what was there. I managed to find more gifts that I needed to buy for people, and maybe a few for me as well. We had hotdogs for lunch and headed back to the boat tour. The lady that sold us the tickets found us to say that they were having trouble with the boat and it would not be for another hour or so. We had heard about a maté museum that was just down the street and decided to check that out. I loved it! There was a cute old man that gave the three of us a personal tour of the tiny museum. He was so passionate about everything that has to do with maté. There was a short film about the importance of maté too that we watched. It had absolutely terrible English subtitles. Very entertaining. After the museum, we went to the boat tour. The girl from Switzerland, Sabrina, and I bought a Quilmes beer for the trip. It felt very weird carrying around a beer in the afternoon onto a public boat tour. I kept waiting for someone to tell me it was illegal, but I never happened. There were two other people with a beer too…when in Argentina do as the Argentines do, I guess! The boat tour was so great. I got to see the art museum I want to get married in and other things I saw two years ago. After the boat tour we headed back to the hostel. First we stopped at a store to buy chips because I was starving. I Skyped and started panning out my trip to Uruguay with Jacobo, Jose, and one of their friends from Brasil. There is an actual bar in the hostel. I waited there for Ren, my friend I made in Buenos Aires in January, to get there. Two guys from Canada were hanging out, a guy from LA who has lived in South America for 11 years works at the hostel for free stay, and a French guy was the bar tender. They were all very entertaining to talk to until Ren got there. Oh how they begged us to stay there for the night, but Fer came to the hostel to pick us up so we could go get dinner. We had pizza at a restaurant then went to a bar to listen to some live music. It was nice to get to catch up with my old friends. Back at the hostel, I got ready to go to sleep. I didn’t move once that night, I woke up in the same position. For some reason I slept great in the hostel in Buenos Aires.

Thursday morning I went to breakfast and met Sabrina to decide where we would go that day. We chose La Boca neighborhood. That is the place that has photos of very colorful houses, apartments, and restaurants. I was just beside myself when we decided to go. I had wanted to get a picture in front of the colors for years now! It was so pretty! We stopped at a café to have coffee and watch people tango. I even got to take a picture with a tango guy. We walked around more to see all of the fair booths. The one bad thing about La Boca was the number of people who would ask you to go to their café, or shop, or to let them take a picture of you with the colorful buildings in the back. That last one I definitely would not do. Crime is pretty abundant in La Boca, so I was sure they would just run off with my camera. Actually they would probably just demand that I paid them. But still…. Before I came to Argentina, I knew I wanted to buy an Argentina soccer jersey. In Córdoba they were about $100. I am glad I was hesitant to buy one there, because I found the jerseys for under $30 in La Boca! Maybe it isn’t as “official” as the more expensive ones, but it looks identical to me! Sabrina and I took the bus back towards the hostel, but jumped off when I noticed we were next to Florida street at one point. I felt very proud that I knew where I was, somewhat. It was about lunchtime so we started to look for something to eat. The only places to eat on Florida are either super fancy places, or US places like Starbuck, Burger King, or McDonalds. Starving to death and craving something unhealthy due to all the walking we just did, we went McD’s. Plus, we were at the end of Florida, and that is all that was there. We had never seen so many people in a McDonald’s ever! It was so crowded, like it was an opening day or something, but it was just a normal day in McDonald’s in Florida. We walked back to the hostel from there. I was glad because I felt a little guilty eating at McDonald’s. Back at the hostel I made friends with another French guy working there, and an Australian who was the person sleeping below me in our room. I played my ukulele on the balcony for a while, and then managed to make plans to go to an art gallery opening with the Australian, a New Yorker, a girl from Norway, and Sabrina. The New Yorker left before the rest of us did, and he knew how to get there really well. It was quite the trip getting to the gallery because there was tons of traffic on the bus. We jumped to bus and took a sub instead. The art gallery was so awesome! Free to get in and there was free wine too! We felt so important. Almost everyone there was an Argentina hipster. There were a few that I almost asked to take a picture with they were so hipster! We looked around for an hour or two and saw some very interesting art. Then began the adventure to find dinner. I very nice man who gave us directions also recommended a pizza shop when we were searching for the gallery. We went to this restaurant to get dinner, but there was no room to sit. So we opted for take-out, but it took us forever to decide on which two pizzas to order. I never realized how impatient I could feel when I am starving. Then the three girls were sent to find some beer while we waited on the pizza to be made. The first place we tried said they didn’t have any, but didn’t bother telling us where we could go. So we kept searching and found a place that told us that beer cannot be sold after 10pm in Buenos Aires. Oh…so we bought water. After we got the pizza, some people still really wanted to find beer. Somehow a lady sold us two. I don’t understand why. Then we went to a park to eat, but didn’t have any bottle openers. So we ate the pizza and went back to the hostel to have the beers. I had a great conversation with Sabrina; I think we will be friends. A few other people joined us on the rooftop – the second French guy I met and a guy from Portugal. He has a very US accent. He says it is because he watched lots of US television. I asked if he watched lots of Brad Pitt movies because he sounded just like him! Then the girl from Norway said to the guy from Portugal, “I’m sure you get this all the time, but you look a lot like Jim Carrey.” HAHA!! From one great compliment to an insult. Slowly one by one we went to bed.

Friday Sabrina and I decided to go check out Palermo and then see where the day took us. We walked down some streets, found the shopping areas, had empanadas in the botanical garden, and then went to the central part of Buenos Aires. I got a picture of me in front of the Casarosada with my Argentina jersey on. How much more Argentina can you get?! The bad thing about wearing my jersey through Buenos Aires is that I got lots of attention that day. The men here are not slow to tell a girl she is pretty or make some kind of comment, but when I had my Argentina jersey on and was with a blond girl, it was literally constant attention. We walked down one street headed towards Puerto Madero and every single truck driver honked the horn, waved, or yelled out the window. It was ridiculous!!! We went to Havanna to have an afternoon snack then went back to the hostel. I found another place to get a leg wax before I came back to the US, made plans with Ren and Fer for the night, showered, and repacked. Ren and I met at a plaza to have coffee before we went to eat with Fer. She was a bit late because the buses didn’t stop at her stop. So I got to watch a group of Argentine hippies working and hanging out at the fair in the plaza. Oh how I wanted to be their friends. For a moment I wanted to ask them if I could join their clan. But I got too scared. Haha. Ren got there and we went to a restaurant to have a drink. While we were there we found out the Fer was not going to make it to dinner. So we went to another restaurant to eat. I was super tired so I had a coffee too. Ren took me to a club that she has been to before that was really awesome the time she went, but we got there at about 1am and no one was there yet. So we hung out on a couch and chilled for a while. Every hour we kept saying that more people would arrive. But by 3:30am it still wasn’t hoppin. So we left. I had to get up around 6:45am. So the sleep was much needed.

Incredible Iguazu

We finally got to the hostel around 12:30p on Friday. The ride was actually an hour shorter than expected. So just 20ish hours. No big deal. The girl at the check in told us about the different activities we could do in Iguazu. There were some interesting sounding tours to go on apart from the waterfalls, but we only had a day and a half. That means I will have go back. I thought we wouldn’t be able to go see anything the day we got to Iguazu, but the park doesn’t close until the late evening. We went to the bus station to buy tickets for the Grand Adventure. The park for the waterfalls was very pretty, it reminded me of a zoo actually. We had to wait for the tour truck to pick us up. It was one of those safari type trucks where there are rows of seats in the back and there is no roof. The first part of the adventure was 5.5 kilometers through the jungle/forest with a guide telling us about different animals, plants, and spiders we might see here. We just had to make a special stop to take a closer look at some of the big gross spiders. He even touched the web to make it move. That gave me the chills…eeeh. *shudder* Then we got off the safari truck to walk just a few minutes to get on the boat to go look at the waterfalls. That turned out to be harder than necessary because the hiking trip tore up every muscle in my legs. When we got to where the boat was, we could see that Brazil was just across the river. I wanted to jump off the boat and just touch Brazil, but I don’t think the workers would have appreciated that. So I stayed on the boat like a civilized person. During the 6-kilometer ride up stream, there was about 2 kilometers of rapids that were awesome! Anything with rivers – I am happy. Then all of a sudden, I saw the waterfalls. It was the most breathtaking things I have ever seen. I taught the Water Oak 1^st and 2^nd grade class a lesson about the Iguazu Falls, so I had seen pictures, but actually being there was unbelievable! There are so many different waterfalls big and small. Sooo many. There are two sides of the waterfalls separated by the Island of San Martin. To the right, is the impressive collection of hundreds of water falls – the most beautiful sight you could ever see. To the left is Garganta de Diablo (The Devil’s Throat). This part of Iguazu is made up of waterfalls falling together from three different sides. There is so much mist coming from these falls, you can’t even see the water below it. This is the powerful and mind boggling part. The drivers gave the people on the boat a chance to take pictures on both sides of the island before we had to put all of our stuff in a dry bag to protect it for…going UNDER the falls!! I didn’t bring my camera on this trip because I didn’t know we were going to have something to protect our things. Luckily, Jacobo has this really awesome camera that also has a good waterproof case. He got great footage of us under the thousands of gallons of water. First we went to the side of the Garganta de Diablo and got absolutely soaked! Over to the other side and just as much water…maybe even more. On the way back to shore we realized that we have been almost sick for a few days now and that we might actually get sick now. Back on shore we dried off as well as we could without towels, and then walked around the park, got somewhat lost, checked out the tourists stores, and saw some Coatis. They are a cousin to the raccoon and they look like anteaters. If you have been to the zoo, you have seen one. They were really cute actually. The first two we saw we just had to take pictures because we thought it was cool, but then after seeing about 30 more they became more like the squirrels in Texas. We got back to the hostel, changed into dry clothes, looked at the pictures and videos from the day, and ate at an Asian food restaurant. It was about 32,489 times better then the sketchy one we went to a couple nights before. We walked around town to see what was there, but there isn’t really anything to do in Iguazu except for visiting the waterfalls. We checked out a few restaurants to see where we might want to eat the next night. Tired and fully aware that we had a full day ahead of us, we went to sleep.

Saturday we woke up, ate breakfast, and went back to the bus terminal to catch a ride back to the magical waterfalls. This time we took a train to the top of Garganta de Diablo. That was just as amazing. It looks like just a regular and calm river, then BAM! The ground opens up and swallows the river! I had my camera that day, so I have tons of photos and videos. (The pics will be on Facebook. For some reason I can;t get the blog site to let me upload pictures anymore.) We started walking around the jungle again, almost left, but then decided to take the short trip to go under the waterfalls once again. How many people can say they have been to Iguazu Falls? Several. How many people can say they went under them twice? Few, and I can. On the walk over to the boats, we encountered a whole family reunion of Cappuccino Monkeys! There is a movie called Monkey Business that Taryn and I watched over and over when we were little that had a Cappuccino monkey in it. I have always wanted to see one after I saw that movie. I was just beside myself for several hours after finally and accidentally seeing lots of them. I even made eye contact with one. We are friends now. He is going to try to come visit me in Texas. Back at the hostel we watched the videos and looked at the pictures, nap, changed clothes, and went to dinner at a hamburger place. We walked around town some more, and then hung out on the patio/kitchen area until we went to sleep. We are not too happy with the hostel compared to Link in Córdoba. The people at Link are so friendly and everyone knows the staff. In Iguazu, nobody talked to each other and the staff didn’t even introduce themselves. We were not too sad to leave. Give us Link!

On the bus ride back, we stopped at a drug check for like…ever. Other buses got to go by, but ours was the unlucky one that had to wait and wait and wait. We finally made it back to Córdoba, but Jacobo only had ten minutes to get to class on time. He didn’t make it. I went to Link to get my big suitcase and met Flavia for breakfast at my little coffee shop. I will definitely miss her! Then I went back to the bus terminal to head back to Bell Ville. I had the hardest time staying awake, but I didn’t want to sleep for fear that the Great Bus Adventure of 2012 would have a part two. (See first Córdoba entry) First thing I had to do was take a shower at the Fernandez house! It had been too long since I had a proper shower. After that was a heavenly siesta. I started to re-pack all my things in order to prepare for my bus ride to Buenos Aires. (When I arrive in Buenos Aires, I will have spent over 52 hours on a bus in the last week. Whoa.) The electricity got cut, so that made it difficult. So I quit…maybe I got scared too. Haha. Andres showed me how incredibly awesome the stars are at his house when there are no clouds. And I got to see where they work with the bees to make honey, so much honey!! Then we went to pick up Elisa from her hockey team practice. When we got in the van, I said something about how I haven’t driven a car in nearly three months and I feared I would forget how to drive. So he tried to teach me how to drive manual…in another language! That was pretty entertaining to say the least. I think I did ok, but eventually he said to switch back into the passenger seat. We got back to the house safely with Elisa. She entertained us on the way back as her own version of an English songs radio. It was so funny listening to her try to sing different songs in English. I am going to miss this family very much!! Dinner at the house, then we met with some of the friends at a house to have coffee, tea, and chocolate. I almost fell asleep sitting on the couch with all the people there talking. That played to my advantage when we were leaving because I was too tired to get emotional saying my goodbyes to my friends. I want to bring them all back with me!

The buses from Bell Ville to Buenos Aires only leave half after midnight. So I decided to leave the next midnight instead of rushing away after I just arrived back to Bell Ville. Therefore, I had a full day at the Fernandez house one last time. I spent most of the day trying to plan out my week in Buenos Aires. My plans to stay with different families started to fall through and my plan to go to Uruguay wasn’t working out, so I started to look into hostels in Buenos Aires. I think that it is better that I stay in a hostel because everyone is working or in class during the day anyway. During the day I found out that Jose and Jacobo might be going to Uruguay this weekend anyway, so I might still get to go! I spent most of the day trying to plan where I was going to stay, paying for bus and hostels, and packing.

The bus ride to Buenos Aires went just fine. I got around 4 hours of sleep. The hostel looks pretty cool, but everyone is still sleeping. I went into my room to put my suitcase and bag away. I was hoping to take a quick nap before I got the day rolling, but I think five of my six roommates are stinky boys. The room is full of back-packer backpacks, boy shoes and socks, and I think I saw some bobby pins. The bobby pins are my one hope that I won’t be the only one suffering from the smelly boy stench. The base floor doesn’t smell and has wifi. So life is good once again.  

Week in Link

It is tough to find a good chunk of undistracted time while living in a hostel. I will be on a bus for the next…oh, 20 hours, so I believe I will be able to right out this blog post. (Continue reading to find out just why I am, in fact, on a bus for nearly an entire day.)

Thursday last week was the day I was supposed to go to the river, but didn’t get to go. I ended up having different adventures instead, no thanks to the British girls. After I posted my blog, I went to have coffee at the same little shop I have gone to before. The guys there definitely know who I am now. I love it. While I was waiting on my café con crema to cool down, one of my friends from Mexico, José, walked by. I managed to get his attention through the window and convinced him to come in and sit down. We had a good long chat in Spanish for a few hours. We talked about our universities, soccer, etc. When I got back to the hostel, my roommate was there. I asked him if he wanted to go with me to Iguazu to see the famous waterfalls. I was expecting him to say “no” since José already said that he couldn’t, but Jacobo said he could! With in just a couple hours, all the bus tickets and hostel nights were purchased. I love the Internet because of how easy it was to do all of that. When I was finishing up the purchases, some people from José and Jacobo’s university started showing up for another exchange student’s birthday. While they were having some beers, Jacobo and I went to my little restaurant with pizza to eat dinner. When we were full we sat on the patio at Link with all of the exchange students to talk for a while. There were people from Colombia, Spain, and Brazil. I could understand the Colombians very easily and the Spaniards weren’t too difficult either. (Note: Brazil speaks Portuguese.) It was really cool to be able to understand the conversation without having to ask them to slow down. We headed out to town to get the birthday party started. Jacobo and I were feeling somewhat insecure about how we were dressed compared to the rest of the people in our group. Everyone had on a button up, heels, or some kind of cute outfit. On the other hand, Jacobo and I had on grey zipper hoodies. His had Pikachu on it. I also was wearing flip-flops, shorts, and no make up. Our first stop was a surprise though. We were searching for the address and looking for the “bar.” It was not a bar. There was a group of people with a makeshift table and chairs drinking beer and eating cakes. I was really confused, but felt better about what I had on since this was going to be some kind of street birthday party. Two guys from Brazil came over to say Hi to Jacobo and introduced themselves to me. Jacobo introduced me as his friend from France. I wasn’t sure why he was doing that, but I went along with it. Later on Jacobo told me that the two guys love European girls and he wanted to play a trick on them. I think they still believe I am from France. Haha. After a bit at the street party shindig, we headed over to a real club. Here there are lots of people who work for different clubs standing in the streets at night asking people to come to their club. They will give them a ticket to get in for free, cheaper, or some kind of deal most of the time. It also helps them to get people with the right “look” in their clubs. Still looking like we belonged in someone’s living room playing video games, Jacobo and I never got asked to go to a club. It was so obvious too! There would be a group of three or four in front of us, and a girl would ask them if they were interested in a club, not ask us, and then ask the couple behind us. This happened about three times. The group had decided on going to Studio Teatro, which I had already heard of before. It is an old theater that has been converted into a dance club. The stage sometimes has live music or people can get up there to dance if they want. And people can go up to the balcony seating to watch everyone dancing or have another drink. It is a very cool place. Since we were a group of over 15, some of the guys wanted to try to get in for free because they would get lots of drink sales from us. After about half an hour of trying, several of us still had to pay 15 pesos to get in. Less than $4, whatever.  We tried to feel cool in our hoodies for maybe 20 minutes, but just couldn’t, so Jacobo and I left to go back to the hostel. We agreed that we needed to come back another night thought because it was so cool…just with better clothes the next time.

The next morning, Friday, I slept in, checked Facebook and email, then Jacobo and I decided to go eat somewhere “fancy” for lunch. Aka – not a 3 peso miga. Migas are long white bread ham and cheese sandwiches that they sell here for suuuuuper cheap. There is really nothing to them, but they taste really good. They fill you up too. But we didn’t want to eat those, once again. Santiago, the owner of the hostel, suggested going to il Panino for lunch, just a few blocks away. It was pretty good. I had a soy burger that was HUGE!! I could only eat half of it. I got to put the other half in a to-go box. In order to de-full myself, Jacobo and I watched MTV for a couple hours. José came by and we all decided to go to Patio Olmos to have a beer and hang out. These guys are so funny. It is just constant fun and laughter hanging out with them. I really hope that we get to hang out some after Argentina. Monterrey, their city, isn’t too far from Houston. We went into the Patio Olmos mall just to look around. It used to be a really good old school, but they converted it into a mall. It is a really popular place for the hippies to sell their bracelets and other jewelry. When you go shopping with two guys, sports stores tend to be preferred over clothing stores. That is good though, I don’t need to buy the clothes in the malls here – pricey!!! Then José and Jacobo decided they wanted to eat at McDonalds. Uuuuugh! Why do I hang out with boys?!?! Haha. My phone was about to die, so we had to go back to the hostel so I could charge it before I went to watch a Flamenco show with Facundo. The show was beautiful! I loved watching the people dance like that. It is a very serious and kind of angry dance, something very different from what I am used to seeing. After the pros danced a few numbers, they let some audience members get on the stage to show off their dance skills. Love, love, love. I got back to the hostel around 12:30am. Just in time to finish my soy burger then go out! Jacobo, José, and I went to the Studio Teatro again. And this time we were lookin’ fly! During the walk, a girl from Argentina said (in Spanish) “Excuse, me, but are you Jacobo Wong?” And then freaked out when he said he was, got a picture with him, and everything. It was cool to see that happen. Especially since he is so far away from Mexico. We got to the club a little after 2am, and that might have been just a bit early because no one was really dancing. But we got the party going really soon. There was a live ska band playing, which was stinking awesome. I can dance to ska music. It just requires you kicking your legs around and acting really goofy. I guess they don’t do that here too often because people seemed to be staring. But Jacobo and I went up to the front and center of the dance floor next to the stage and brought party rock to the house that night. Once every got their boogie shoes on in the club, we went to the back to get a drink, and guess who we found!! Like…the rest of the hostel! An Israeli guy was having his birthday that day. So we hung out with the hostel people the rest of the night. We walked back to the hostel, some people stopped to get a hotdog, and then we went to sleep. Such a great night!

Saturday morning, I slept, but for lunch, I had Subway with Jacobo. I took a picture this time so you all could see how much it look like the one’s in the US. I just wish I could capture the smell some how! I wanted some coffee after eating, but my little coffee shop was closed for siesta. Sad face. So we went back to where Subway was because next door is a Starbucks! It is a little United States street right in the middle of Argentina. On the way to the US street, I just had to take a picture of the cruise ship we saw in a travel business window. There were several girls naked or topless. There was a naked couple chasing each other around the pool. I took a picture of the girl just striking a pose completely nude on the diving board with a girl behind her taking off her purple top. I just could not stop thinking about two things. What kind of company was this? And what was the creator thinking when he made the mini cruise ship? I got to Starbucks, and as usual, as soon as the employee hears my non-Spanish-speaker accent, he switches into English. It is so aggravating, but I continue to speak in Spanish. So there is yet another reason I don’t like Starbucks. International reasons. Also, the guy thought he was so good at his English, when he wrote my name on the cup, he wrote “Candle”! Haha. Wrong-o! We sat down at some couches and worked on some puzzles in a newspaper. It was nice to use my brain like that again. Back in the hostel, Jacobo needed to work on a video. He got asked by some people to go to the Olympics in London to do interviews about the games. He is up against two other Youtubers, so he had to make something like an audition video. He wanted to show that he is a better selection than the others by showing his ability to speak English. So I got to be the person he interviewed! The manager came to our room to tell us about the events that were happening in town that night. The newspaper was having a big anniversary so there was a celebration in a park. We walked around town, and then headed to the park. We saw a band playing some traditional sounding songs and people were doing some cool dances were they jumped high in the air and did kicks and spins. Over to the left and the right were some groups of people…slacklining!!! I think I freaked out a little bit when I saw that. We went over to a group and asked if I could slackline. I walked a few yards my first try and second. Then I told them it was my first time slacklining. Haha, they believed me for a second. Jacobo tried too. After I got my fix, we walked around the park some more. Saw some cool concrete egg-shaped chairs and people climbing up a giant red ribbon like they have in the circus. Next we walked over to the hippie fair so I could finish up almost all of my family souvenirs! During our outings, Jacobo and I talked about trying to stay out until the bars closed and kicked us out, then we would go to a park that all the locals go to after the clubs and eat migas. So we took a nap when we got back to the hostel in order to prepare for the night. We woke up a little after midnight, got ready, and went out. We couldn’t figure out where we wanted to go so we went to Buen Pastor and chatted for a bit. When we left to hunt for a club, people were practically begging us to go to their club. I felt famous.  We decided on a bar that was free to get into. It wasn’t that great but we had fun dancing and making fun of the music. Haha. However, we got tired around 4:30am and didn’t quite make it to the 5am closing time to get kicked out. So we went back to the hostel to go to bed.

Sunday was a pretty chill day. We filmed some for his next video, and we got a guy from Holland to join in. Then we set up the camera outside on the patio and I played my ukulele a little. That took pretty much the whole day, got some dinner, watched 10 Things I Hate About You, and went to sleep.

Back to the beginning of the week. Classes started for Jacobo again, and I got up early so I could pack and go my stay at my friend’s apartment. However, when I texted her to find out the plans, it turned out that I could not stay with her because there really wasn’t any room. More nights at Link Hostel! I decided to do an ab workout then shower to get my day going. I was going to work on my blog, but the roommie got back and we watched Youtube videos instead. The night before I had said, “Wouldn’t it be weird if we had other roommates here?” We had gotten so used to it being just our room. And guess what happened the next day? We got two new roommates! Two girls from Denmark. Jacobo and I took thought it would be a good idea to take a walk around town since our house just got invaded by new people, we needed to recuperate. That little walked turned into quite the adventure. We took a stroll down the main shopping street, got turned around, and ended up back at the street the hostel is on. My theory is that the intoxicating smell coming from the Adidas/Nike store confused us. So we went to grab a quick ice cream cone…that turned out to be a 15-minute walk away. I thought there was one closer. Since we were so close to Patio Olmos (the school turned mall), we went inside to just look around. We passed the movie theater in the mall and saw that a movie he wanted to see was starting in 25 minutes. So what else would we do but buy tickets, popcorn, and a soda, and watch the movie! We saw Project X. It is a movie about some loser-type high school kids throwing a huge party to become cool, and the party goes out of control! It was made by the same people as The Hangover, so it was really good. I just realized that you all might know about this movie since you are in the States. I haven’t heard about it though. Haha. I felt so happy sitting in that theater because I got salty popcorn that time! It is always sweet popcorn here, and it just doesn’t give off the right vibe in a theater. After the movie, we heard some kind of soccer celebration going on. There was a big group of people with banners, flags, and instruments celebrating the 107^th anniversary of the team Belgrano. Then farther down on the walk, there was a big parade that was probably three or four blocks long. It was really cool to see that. We weren’t quite ready to go to bed when we got to the hostel, so we asked lots of people if they wanted to go with us to get a drink. No one wanted to though, and our roommates said they were tired from their long bus ride. So we walked back to Patio Olmos to have a beer, walked back to a kiosk to buy migas and a KinderSorpresa. That is a hollow chocolate egg with a little toy or game inside. My egg had a little toy with a skiing girl. I thought it was too awesome! We hung out on the patio and went to sleep.

 Tuesday I was supposed to wake up to try to go on a hiking trip with the new roommates, but I felt like I had a cold, so we rescheduled for Wednesday. Jacobo wasn’t feeling too hot either, so we went to Disco, the grocery store, to buy soup and orange juice. While I was making the soup, José came to the kitchen to visit. There was a marker hanging from a string on the fridge, so he demonstrated his drawing skills on the side of the fridge. The drawing was really good and all, but he didn’t realize that the marker was permanent. Haha…why was a permanent marker hanging from the fridge? I felt even worse after the soup and juice, so I took a nap. Got to do some Skyping, then went to Buen Pastor to meet Flavia and Agu, two friends from Bell Ville, for maté and pastries. Remember when I went a couple weeks ago, and couldn’t figure out why people kept saying to go see the fountains? Well I found out why this time. On every hour, the fountains do a little dance to a few songs. It was a very nice surprise to come upon. After maté, we went to Agu’s apartment to have pizza for dinner. Nachi, her brother, was there too. The pizza was good and company even better. I came back to the hostel a little after midnight and got to watch Jacobo edit some of the video, had some more orange juice, then went to sleep.

Maybe drinking orange juice right before I went to bed wasn’t the best idea, or maybe Jacobo’s alarm going off for ten minutes before I got him to turn it off was the bad thing. But about 20 minutes after I got the alarm to shut up, I woke up again, but this time it was terrible. I was dreaming that I had an uncle named Uncle Tio. (Tio means uncle in Spanish.) And he was going to die unless I saved him. Somehow I didn’t save him and he died. Then I woke up, but I was in my room in Sulphur Springs. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. I have had those dreams before where I tried to scream, but it never happens…except for this time. I actually screamed out loud in the hostel. It sounded like someone was trying to murder me! After I woke up and figured out what was going on, I didn’t know if I wanted to cry because I was so freaked out, or laugh because I just screamed in my sleep. Very strange feeling. Later the two girls from Denmark and I got ready to go on our hiking trip. It was shocking that the guide was at the hostel early. Normally in Argentina, if someone says we will meet at 8:30am, that means more around 9 or 9:30am, but he was there at 8am! Where am I? The hike was so refreshing. It felt so good to be able to breathe again without inhaling car or bus fumes. It was about 2 and a half hours to get to the beautiful waterfall. There was only one tough part because it was going almost straight down, and half way through that, the guide reminded us that we got to climb back up the hill on the way back. The hike was worth it. I could have sat at that waterfall for hours. It looked like something we would see on Pinterest that girls would post saying they would go there some day know that in reality they never would. But I did!! We got back to the hostel, and I was too tired to take a shower immediately, so I hung out on the patio with José and Jacobo. Some Quilmes beer was brought out. I am really starting to get tired of this watered down beer here. Gimme some good Texas beer! Ha. I took and shower, then told then went back to the patio. A guy from Australia had joined since I left. I told them about this Chinese food restaurant I saw the night before when I was walking back from dinner with Agu and Flavia. I have been searching for Chinese for a few weeks now. So went to go eat there! It was kind of suspicious looking and after we left we were all a touch worried that we would have food poisoning the next day. So more naps ensued. Then more orange juice just to make sure, and some Halls as well. We sat in the kitchen to drink the orange juice because there were a lot of people in the having a party. An Irish guy and a Scottish guy started to take to us. They were rather inebriated, and hilarious. They acted like they came out of a movie.

Thursday I got up to start packing and cleaning my room for check out. I am going to miss Link. It was my home for over a week! Jacobo got back from classes, packed, and then we went to eat pizza at my pizza shop. We put our big luggage in a locker room for while we are gone, then left for Iguazu. The adventure started off with a – bang – I guess in the taxi. Our driver was crazy! And that is saying a lot because all of the driving here is kind of nuts, but I have gotten used to it. But this guy…wow. He drove super fast, almost rear ended cars every time we stopped, and one time he was going around a car and hit it! Yeah, I have been in a car crash in Argentina! The guy just kept going like nothing happened! We got to the bus station on time and alive. The bus arrived, and we got on…for the next 21 plus hours. It was a bunch of sleeping, waking up to eat merienda, sleeping, waking up to eat dinner, sleeping, waking up to eat breakfast, blog and music in there too at times. Breakfast was kind of confusing because the guy said something to us that neither of us caught, and then skipped serving us coffee/mate or the pastries. We could not figure out what was going on. Then we got to a stop and almost everyone got off. So we figured that he was going to serve the people who were leaving first, then us later. That was somewhat true. It turned out that he overslept and had to rush through breakfast and skip us. Then we stopped at the company station of the bus to get more breakfast. We had to close the curtains on the bus because if people saw us eating breakfast late, the guy could have gotten fired. We got extra pastries, so it was fine that we had to wait 20 extra minutes. The last couple hours of the drive were beautiful. I looked so much like what I remember of Costa Rica. So green and so many different trees.

I will post more about my trip to Iguazu later. I feel like this post is plenty long for now!

My ukulele is famous!

First...I wanted to add pictures to this blog post, but the blog site isn't opening the picture page. So sorry. :(

My last couple of days in Bell Ville were very chill like expected. I got some good exercises in since I have been slacking lately. The gym is definitely missed by me and my flabbier muscles. The last night in Bell Ville several of us went to the center to eat pizza and have ice cream. Friday afternoon Elisa and I headed over to Córdoba. The bus company sold more tickets than it did seats, so we had to stand up for the first hour until we got to the stop in Villa Maria. Luckily I had my iPod and Elisa has never played the games before, so it was really fun teaching her all of the games I have. Naturally, Angry Birds was her favorite.

Finally in Córdoba I went to my friend, Facundo’s apartment. I made friends with the taxi driver on the way there. I love how everyone here is so friendly and not afraid to “talk to strangers.” There are so many more good conversations when you actually talk to people. I got to my Facundo’s apartment and we ordered a pizza and listened to Argentine folkloric music on his upstairs patio wile we ate. I felt so Argentine.

Saturday he had to work until 1pm, so I got to make lunch! I walked over to a little vegetable shop and bought carrots and broccoli. Then at a meat shop I bought some chicken. It was quite the adventure to cook not only in someone else’s kitchen, but also in a whole other country. First I had to figure out how to peel the carrots. I have never done that before, and it was really hard with an almost butter knife. After about 30-45 minutes I finally got the three carrots peeled and cut into small pieces. The broccoli was easy breezy. Normally I would use Extra Virgin Olive Oil and sea salt to roast the veggies, but regular olive oil and normal salt did just fine. Then I grilled the chicken. I had to improvise the seasoning with what I could find in the fridge: oregano and onion. Not bad I thought. Also, the stoves here are all gas. So I had the fun time sticking matches in the stove praying that it didn’t blow up. Facundo thought I was really funny being so nervous to use the gas stove. After lunch we watched a movie and that evening we went to the hippie fair that happens each weekend in Cordoba. There were so many things there that I wanted to buy. Luckily I only brought 50 pesos with me.  I am going back this weekend though…with more pesos. ;) After the fair, we went to one of his friend’s house to have an asado (bbq). I loved it when the guitar got brought out and we had a sing along.

Sunday we hung out at his house all day talking about how to save the world and so on. We spent about an hour searching for somewhere to eat dinner. The first place he wanted to go was completely full and so was the second. At the third place we went to he changed his mind once we got there, so continued on the search. We drove for about 15 minutes to a bowling alley where he though there was going to be karaoke. However, it was Sunday and there was no karaoke. We got to play pool though, so that was nice. I lost.

Monday I packed a smaller bag to take with me to the hostel I went to the week before. I immediately met lots of cool people. I put on a little concert on the patio with my ukulele. I tried to charge them 20 pesos, but no one wanted to pay. I went to have coffee with a guy from Austira that I met when I was here last time and a new guy from Germany. Sadly, the guy from Germany and two girls from…Ireland, I believe, were leaving that evening. However, one guy, Sam from London-ish was staying for that night. We went to eat some pizza and French fries (chips, as he calls them…and he said that cookies were biscuits) at a little café. When we were almost finished eating, a guy I recognized from the hostel walked by. I waved at him, but I don’t think he recognized me. Haha. I had to tell him that I was staying the Link hostel too. But we exchanged phone numbers so he could meet us later on that night. Sam told me all about his most amazing travel life, and I must say that I am a bit jealous. He met a girl from Argentina in India a while back, so we went to meet up with her and some of her friends for drinks at a place called Bonanza. We did end up walking around Cordoba for about 30 minutes or so semi- lost. We could not figure out where the correct streets were! The people here are so helpful and they helped us get pointed in the right direction, but we ended up just having to take a taxi to get there. It turns out, that at one point we were just one street over. All of the friends there were all really cool, nice, and funny. The girl’s boyfriend is from Australia, so there were some funny times discussing the proper way to say different words. For example: banana. Australia they pronounce it as bah-naw-naw. In London it is more like ba-nah-nah. And in the US it’s like…banana. ;) After Bonanza, Sam and I headed over to a cool bar type thing called Indi. It was all India themed and there were people smoking hooka, the decorations were awesome, and the music was really cool too. Basically, I wanted to steal all of the lamps and tables to put in my not-yet-existent-apartment. The guy that we saw when we were eating came to meet us at Indi. He is from Chile, and he brought his other friend from Chile with him and a couple from Australia. 

Tuesday, Sam and my Chilean friends left, but my friend from Austria told me about a thing called “English and Maté.”  It is an organization where people who want to practice their English meet up and just talk in English and drink maté. That night was joke night. So if anyone knew a joke in English, they were supposed to tell it. Of course, I told my favorite joke: What washes up on tiny beaches? Microwaves!! And I got the same reaction that I get every time I tell it – polite chuckles. Whatever, I love that joke. After “English and Maté” was “Espanol y Cerveza” which means “Spanish and Beer.” On the walk over to a little bar some of us stopped to get hotdogs. In my opinion, the hotdog looked way more like it belonged to the US. It was just so big! 

I had some good conversations at the little bar. I was even told that I speak very well. It was a definite confidence booster!! When I got back to the hostel, I met two girls from London who just arrived. I was also told that my request to go on a hiking trip the following morning wasn’t going to work out because not enough people signed up for it. I was the only one and they needed two people. Darn. However, the girls from London, Sofia and Lulu, said that they were going to go to Mariamaria later on that night because it was salsa night. So we sat around and chatted for a while then at about 1:30am we left to go dancing. It was super super crowded, but it was fun to watch the people dancing and listen to the music. Sophia and I both agreed that the singer was very cute, but were disappointed when we saw him later with his girlfriend. At least we assume she was his girlfriend, they were acting like it.

Wednesday morning I slept in, worked on this blog post since I knew it would be forever long, and bought a new swimsuit. Part of the reason I wanted to get a new swimsuit was because of the name of a store I saw: Kendall. Can you blame me? I asked the lady working there if I could get a discount since they used my name. It didn’t work. But it was less than $30, so it’s all good. She told me that they when the store was created they wanted to have US type clothing and so they searched for a US name. It is funny that they choose “Kendall” because it is so difficult for them to say it. A little while later my two London friends came back from exploring Córdoba. We went up to the patio on the second floor and then my roommate and his friend joined, the manger of the hostel joined, and a few others. It was probably one of my favorite times I have had here in Córdoba. The conversation felt like it was one between long time friends. My roommate, Jacobo, and his friend, José, and I went to Subway to grab dinner. I should have taken a picture when I went inside. It was one of the strangest feelings. I had a moment when I questioned if I was even in Argentina anymore. The place even smelled like the Subways in the States. There were a few changes on the menu. There is salami that everyone loves to eat that was an option, but I just stuck to my normal turkey sandwich. While we were eating we had a conversation about fútbol versus football. I still think football is more interesting, but I couldn’t convince them. When we got back to the hostel, Jacobo and I chatted it up in our room for the remainder of the night. He is a Youtube star in Mexico, so he told me stories about how he got started with his Youtube channel, how he makes the videos, and so on. He has 122,000 fans on Facebook too! My ukulele is going to be in one of his videos. He held it and tried to play it while he was talking for a clip. It was really interesting getting to hear stories from the other side of Youtube. If you want to check out his videos go to Youtube and search Jacobo Wong. Note: they are in Spanish, but they are really funny.

Today I was supposed to go to the river with two other girls I meet from London, but they changed their minds and decided to go look around town. Lame. But I got to finally finish my blog post of the century. I hope you enjoyed it!!

Adventures in Córdoba

Several rivalries remain constant here in Argentina. One is between the soccer teams. Another is between the provinces - mostly between Buenos Aires and Córdoba. I loved being in Buenos Aires. The big city life does not call me as much as it does here. My theory is I prefer the big cities in Argentina just because they are in Spanish. Buenos Aires is so exciting and different from my life in little ol’ Sulphur Springs. I thought I was a Porteña, a person that belongs to the Buenos Aires area, but now that I tasted Córdoba, I might be a Córdobesa. Maybe it is just because I found some fun people to tour the city with and got help from a life long local, but I really loved Córdoba – even with all my travel “adventures.” (See below)

Adventure #1: When the bus to Córdoba lacked about 20 minutes to the terminal, we stopped. My seat was in the very back, so when one of the drivers came up the stairs and announced something to everyone, I obviously didn’t quite catch the message. All of the passengers got up from their seats and took all of their bags downstairs. We all stood outside of the bus while people got their big luggage out from under the bus. Then people started getting back on the bus. I followed like a lost yet obedient sheep. We sat there for a few more minutes then the driver came back up, said something, and we all got off the bus again! This time there was another bus for us to get on. I am still not too sure why we had to change busses, but I eventually arrived in Córdoba just fine.

Agu met me at the terminal and we walked around a little bit then we took a taxi to the hostel. At first I didn’t see the hostel because it is just a front door. The concrete around the door is painted with all kinds of cool colors and the stairs inside are painted with “Welcome” in many different languages. It was very clean and my first impression was great! I got settled in my room then went to buy a lock for my locker and to grab lunch. It was nice to walk around just by myself. It has been a long while since the last time I have gone anywhere alone. (I am sure all of my “moms” prefer that I don’t do anything alone here anyway. Haha) I found a little café and got some pizza and a soda. After that I did a little sight seeing just in the center plaza of San Martín. I went back to the hostel to shower and met my two roommates – one girl from Holland and the other from Norway. We went to the store near by to buy food for breakfast the next morning. That night we had asado (BBQ) and I got to meet many of the people staying at the hostel. I made friends from Holland, Norway, Chile, Germany, Ireland, Austria, and New Zealand!

This is a memorial for the Dirty War. There were lots of people being tortured at this jail. The finger print is made up of the names of people who died.

Adventure #2: Wednesday was probably my least favorite day of the days I spent in Córdoba. I decided to go check out Córdoba some more on my own. I got directions and suggestions from one of the guys working at the hostel and I hit the town. I missed my first turn and just kept walking and walking down the shopping street. The clothes here are really inexpensive. There were some shirts for 35 pesos (about $8) that could be sold in the US for $35! The streets are really easy to navigate in Córdoba, so I always knew how to get back to the hostel. The problem was that I didn’t know where anything else was! I swear I circled around the same block three times looking for a museum that must be really well hidden. Then I tried looking for another museum or church with no luck. I did run into the Austrian guy from the hostel though. Haha. Anyway, I was beginning to think that there was nothing in Córdoba to look at and the maps were all wrong and told lies. I went back to the hostel defeated. Showered and took a siesta. When my two roommates got back that evening we decided to go find a bar to have some drinks. It was yet another rather unsuccessful hike around town. I got to be the person to ask for directions though! I felt very happy to be the elected Spanish-speaker in the group. We ended up eating at a restaurant on the same street as our hostel – literally a minute walk from where we started. It ended up being really nice and we had some good conversation.

Thursday morning things started looking brighter. I had breakfast in the hostel and made friends with the two new arrivals from Chile. I we ended up planning out a route to see a lot of Córdoba. Then two hostel-stayers from Holland joined the group. We went to an old house that has been turned into a museum that was pretty interesting. Then we walked father into town and looked at the outside of a church that we could not find the entrance into. Lunch for 10 pesos, which is about $2.30. I had a bottle of water and two nice sized empanadas. I love the prices here! Then we met with some other people and went to a museum of natural science. It was very pretty and interesting, but there weren’t any hands-on activities. Boo. Next we went to a really cool park that had 200 giant metal rings – one for each year of Argentina’s history. After a few pictures at the ring park we went to have ice cream. The same Austrian guy from our hostel I saw in town the day before was randomly walking by the ice cream shop! How weird is it that two days in a row on opposite sides of a big city I run into the same person?! He showed us where the entrance was into the beautiful church. Here are some pictures of it. I don’t know if I was allowed to take pictures there, but I did and I am not in jail. So I think it was OK.

 Some of the rings.

Me and the ring from the year I was born.

My Holland and Chile friends eating ice cream.

Outside the church. It only has one steeple because the people wanted it to have imperfections. 

Adventure #3: Friday I made plans with people to go an hour out of Córdoba to Jesus Maria to see some old buildings. I had plans at 4 o’clock to meet my local friend to hang out before I had to catch the bus back to Bell Ville at 7:45p. When we finally got everyone organized and headed to the mini-bus terminal, I had about an hour to check things out in Jesus Maria. However, the bus ride was more than an hour. It was more like and hour and 20 minutes. So that meant I didn’t have but 20 minutes in Jesus Maria, so I just bought another ticket on the mini-bus back to Córdoba.

Adventure #4: I met with my friend to go to an art museum, and it was absolutely wonderful! The museum used to be a HUGE house so it was cool to just see the house too. He really studied communications in the university as well so we were able to talk about the different texts in the paintings like I did in my college classes. I don’t think I have many friends who would want to stand in front of a painting for 15 minutes discussing what the artist was trying to convey. After the museum, we went to eat dinner at a little café on the sidewalk. The waiter was a little slow, but the conversation and food were very, very good. At about 8pm, I looked at my phone and realized that it was an hour after the time I was supposed to head over to the bus terminal. Awesome. I went back to the hostel and luckily the owner of the hostel is incredibly nice, and he said he could take me to the terminal to find another ticket to Bell Ville. I bought a ticket for 10:45p. I set an alarm on my phone to go off at 1:45a because the trip was 3 hrs and 30 mins. I woke up and then Andres calls me to find out where I was because he was going to met me at the terminal. He said I should have been in Bell Ville by then. My phone dies. I asked the driver when we were going to stop in Bell Ville, and he informed me that we stopped in Bell Ville an hour ago. The trip between Córdoba and Bell Ville is actually 2 hours and 30 mins. Oh. Cool. He makes some phone calls and finds another bus that is headed towards us going back to Córdoba. At 3am we meet the bus in the interstate, I cross the street, get on the bus, and head back to Bell Ville. One of the drivers walked with me across the street to make sure I made it ok. The new bus ended up taking me to the other terminal in Bell Ville, the one I have never used before. I asked the man working at the terminal if I could charge my phone so I could call Andres. The plug wasn’t so great so I had to hold the charger in the plug the whole time. I finally got in contact with Andres, and he told me to take a taxi to a certain location so he could come pick me up in his dad’s van. When I got to the location I found out that the van wouldn’t start back up, so we had to take the taxi back to his house. We finally arrived at his house around 5:30am. And we were leaving for the canoe trip around 9am. Whew! What a night! I am so glad the driver was able to find another bus. Otherwise it would have cost me another ticket and possibly missing the canoe trip!

The canoe trip was nice. I was extremely tired though, obviously. We got back to the house at 7:30p. I took a shower and then we had everyone come over for dinner a couple hours later. I opted to not have a glass of beer with the pizza because I am pretty sure I would have fallen asleep right then and there.

Yesterday and today have been pretty chill. I bet that it will be like this the rest of the week. So later on today I am hoping to go into town to buy index cards to I can study my Spanish textbooks like I am about to have a final. There are a few rules I don’t quite have as second nature yet and there are roughly 21,397,053 times more verbs in Spanish than there are in English. I am forever a Spanish student!

One last picture. This is me next to some fountians that everyone said I needed to visit. So I did. 

Long time since I was here last! Let me catch up all up.

Wednesday was a pretty low key day. Not too much happened until Elisa and I went to the camp to help prep for the kids camp that was this weekend. It was dark when we were walking back, and as you may have seen in some previous pictures, the walk back is through as pasture. When it is dark out there...it is very dark! The moon was completely not there either so our light was the stars. Those little guys aren't too much help. During that little adventure I learned that I really dn't like walking through pokey pastures in the dark. Elisa was leading the way and sometimes would walk straight into a bush. Haha. Comic relief! We got lost for a couple minutes.  And one time we went under a wire fence only to realize that it was the wrong one. But after we corrected that mistake we were well on our way back home. That night Psycho was on TV. I had no idea that it was made in 1998! I thought it was a 80s film. And Vince Vaughn is the lead role! The movie was terrible too! How did it get so popular?? If a scary movie didn't even scare me, you know it was no good.

Thursday I went to Villa Maria for the second time. I visited my new friend Lali this time. We made a cake at her apartment. I was amazed at how she would just pour the ingredients in the bowl without measuring anything! And she let me add an extra egg just because she figured I wanted to crack one too. How did she know? We went into the center to shop a little, and then we visited Andres and Marcos at the coolest house ever. Here are some pics!

Torta!

The view of the awesome house from the street

It was difficult to take a picture of the front, but here it is!!

Around the left side is the entrance.

Isn't this awesome! Oooold books still just there!

Old typewriter

Old Argentine flag that I want!

These are the old books in Spanish. 

Friday and Saturday I helped at the kids camp. Really I was more like the entertainment for the kids. They would crowd around me and ask me all kinds of questions like "Are you really from the US?" "Can you speak English?" and the classic "How does you say _____ in English?" I also love it when they would ask me what my name is, and when I would tell them they would just kind of stare at me then walk away because my name is difficult to say here. haha. I slept in a cabin and the girls in that cabin were so sweet. They would actually get jealous if I talked with another cabin or ate with someone besides them. I had to leave Saturday night before the camp ended and they did not want me to go! They gave me little gifts and a millions kisses!! It took me about 15 minutes to get out of the camp because the kids kept giving me kisses! It was so cute and I felt so loved!

The sign the girls made for our door. "The Mermaids"

The cabin

My Good-bye party! haha

Sunday and Monday I went to Leones to visit Lali in her home town. Leones has just 10,000 people. So it would be more like Sulphur Springs I guess. We went to a fair type thing...like Fall Festival with rides and things to buy. Then we visited some of here friends and drank maté. That night we went to a concert of Abel Pinto. I didn't understand all of every song, but I understood enough to get a little crush on him now! It was very romantic. He could be like the John Mayer of Argentina - tall and skinny and just about every song would make any girls heart melt! Monday Lali gave me a little tour of her town.

Lali and I ready to go out!

Abel Pinto

Cemetary

House

Ice Cream Shop

Hospital

Sorry for any errors! I am getting ready to leave for Cordoba and I still need to take a shower!