Finde en Buenos Aires!

Seems like a rare occurrence, but this weekend I stayed home and caught up on my life!

On Saturday, Sydney and her chilean friend Manuel and I went to the zoo in Recoleta. It was so fun, and the weather was perfect for a day outdoors! The zoo was very cool and full of Spanish-speaking children (alway a plus!). Some of the animals seemed disconcertingly unguarded though... are we really sure that bear can't make that jump? Because there are no bars separating him from the innocent onlookers...

We had lunch at one of the Cafés Notables (up to 17 now! Yes!), and by then it had started raining. We wandered around a mall (I finally got some dulce de leche softserve from McDonald's.. why do we not have that in the States??)

Me and my spirit animals. Look at that bear, shmoozing it up for the camera. 

While wandering around Recoleta we ran into a man and his son who were carrying three black lab puppies. THREE LAB PUPPIES. They let us hold them and hug them for a few minutes and it was just the swellest thing.

After wandering around in the rain I went with Sydney and Manuel to youth group at a church in Palermo. Everyone there was so nice, and we stayed for the pizza dinner afterward. I met some Colombian boys who invited me to go bowling with their friends. They don't speak hardly any English so it was definitely good Spanish practice for me! We had such a good time!

Muster.

"Softly call the Muster, let comrade answer 'Here'..."

     Muster is an Aggie tradition that is held yearly on April 21. It's a time for Aggies to get together, share memories, and remember the Aggies that have passed. Every year in College Station there's a huge Muster service in Reed Arena where a roll call of fallen Aggies is read. It's very powerful and one of my favorite traditions at A&M. 

     It's said that when two or more Aggies are within 100 miles of each other, they are expected to meet and hold Muster. Kelsey, another girl from A&M, and I looked to see if there was a Muster in Argentina and sure enough, there was one in Buenos Aires!

     The Buenos Aires Muster was held at a couple's house in Olivos, a suburb just north of the city. We realized we'd never been to a house before in Buenos Aires! It had a piano and a backyard and everything! :] Everyone was incredibly hospitable and friendly (but what else would you expect from Aggies?) -- one couple picked us up from the train stop, and another couple took us all the way home to the city! They were so excited to have "real Aggies" there and introduced us as such to everyone who walked in the door.
Most of them went to A&M for grad school, and many hadn't been back since they graduated in the 80s! We got to share a lot of stories and compare memories. Yes the IHOP is still there on University, No the Kleburg building isn't the only building on West Campus anymore. :]
It was such a wonderful evening of food and fun -- we held a short candlelight roll call service, and watched Johnny Football highlight videos. They treated us just like part of their family, and we're hoping to have another gathering before we leave!

"There's a spirit can ne'er be told..."

Comentarios.

1. Muchas veces frases en castellano me salen más facil o más rápido que las inglesas.

2. Me parece que cuanto más que aprendo, cuanto más tonta siento, ya que sé mejor todo lo que todavía no sé!

3. Voy a tener que esforzarme mucho perder el acento porteño cuando regreso a Texas. Pero no lo quiero hacer :[

4. Pasé mucho tiempo en la sección de los libros infantiles ayer en una librería, y me prometí que por cada libro en inglés, voy a leer a mis niños uno en español. Porque ellos van a hablar español aún mejor que yo. Eso es la meta :]

5. Me encanta este país.

Cataratas de Iguazú

     Last weekend I took a trip to Iguazú Falls--one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, located on the border of Argentina and Brazil! It's the widest waterfall in the world, and a third again taller than the Niagara. There aren't enough words to describe how spectacular it is, my pictures don't even do it justice! There are rainbows all over the place and.. it's just unreal!
     We spent all Saturday walking around the trails at the park... there were endless views of all the falls, it was so incredible.

Mermaid Lagoon, Neverland.

Waterfall selfie.

     

     We bought boat tickets to take us under the falls. Let me tell you--WAY better than any water-ride at Six Flags! :] We got an excellent view of all the falls from the water, and then they plunged us straight into two different spots. We were SOAKED! And laughing nonstop--because what are our lives right now? 

     Below you see the best and the worst parts of the park. A) I saw WILD TOUCANS in their NATURAL HABITAT. And B) Coatíes are terrifying. They're like squirrels, but bigger and more proliferous with bushy tails and they climb on your tables and try to eat you and I hate them.

La Garganta del Diablo--the highest part of the falls. It's hard to see how cool it was because of all the spray but believe me--breathtaking! Oh, and across the falls is Brazil!

El "hito" de Argentina.

    We also went to Hito Tres Fronteras (Three Borders Landmark). From this spot you can see Brazil and Paraguay across the river from Argentina! They each have an obelisk painted with the country colors, above is Argentina's. I really wished we could've crossed into Brazil and/or Paraguay, but unfortunately we didn't have the appropriate visas. Womp womp.

     On Sunday we took four-wheeler trucks far out down some bumpy dirt roads way out into the country. We went to an indigenous village, and got to see how they live. They showed us their food, how they trap animals, and some children sang us a few songs! It was really neat, and really eye-opening to see that people still live so primitively.  

     

This trip was a welcome change--it was preplanned and prepaid for (for the most part). We just had to be in the right place at the right time, it was nice not have to think! We flew there (no more overnight buses, yay!), and also got to stay in a four star hotel....... I'm honestly not sure what I enjoyed more, the falls or the breakfast at the hotel. :] It'd been so long since I'd had a real breakfast!! There's not a whole lot going on in Puerto Iguazú (the town near the falls), so we took the opportunity to sleep a whole lot and get homework done. It was an excellent relaxing weekend. 

Travel Life.

So far I've only mentioned the cities themselves, but I thought some of you might be interested in the rest of travel life... So here's some travel overviews for you!

Hostels.
As someone who'd never stayed in hostels before, it was quite the learning experience! We spent around $15 a night for the hostels, and were pleasantly surprised for the most part! It's about the same level as mission-trip living: bunk beds, shared showers, etc. It definitely makes you start to appreciate the small things though. You know, like sheets you can't see through, towels in general, opaque showers...
All the hostels were different and we liked different things about each of them, but overall they have such a cool community vibe, and the staff is always so helpful and friendly :)

Food.
We went to the supermarket every evening and made our own dinner. It usually came out to around $5 a person, and we ate so well! Omelettes, chicken pesto sandwiches, pizza, spaghetti. So good! The first day we found yogurt (pronounced  sho-GOOR in Argentina...) bebible--or drinkable yogurt. It's just liquid yogurt, but it comes in a bag, and for some reason it became a tradition every evening to drink yogurt out of mugs and share high/lows of the day. We invited our Brazilian friends and then Israeli friends to yogurt high/low time with us. They enjoyed it and didn't even make fun of our yogurt obsession. I think that says a lot about a person.  

Buses.
Bus trips in South America are pretty cool! You can buy overnight trips and sleep on the bus (and save money on a hostel for that night!). The longer ones (over 12 hours) only cost around $75, and the bus from Viña to Santiago only cost us $6! They give you hot tea/coffee, snacks, and play movies. One bus company even plays bingo on the bus, and the winner gets a bottle of wine! Latin America is just a party, let me tell you.

Chile vs Argentina
It was really fascinating to see the difference between the two countries. I feel like I'd finally gotten used to everything Argentine, and then we went to Chile!
--The Chilean accent is closer to mainstream Spanish than the Argentine, but it's a lot faster and more closed and thus was a lot harder on my brain. Also a lot of words are different, which was kinda frustrating... "Colectivos" are buses in Buenos Aires, but in Chile they're taxis.. And a tshirt is called a remera in BsAs, but a polera in Chile (neither of which is what I learned in Texas...), and the subway isn't called the "subte," but rather el "metro." So many things to keep straight!
--Chileans look much different than Americans--they're almost entirely black-haired and medium skinned, whereas porteños are more heterogenous, and many look more European (for this reason we got cat-called wayyy more in Chile than Argentina, because our blond heads stuck out way more!). However, Chileans dress way more like Americans (somehow it seemed to me that they had the American style, yet somehow did it better..), and have a much more Americanized culture in general.
--In my experience, Argentines in general are a lot friendlier than Chileans! Argentines are so open and quick to help you whenever you ask anything.. We didn't have that same experience in Chile.
I'm glad I got a chance to see other cities in Argentina and Chile, because it made me so happy with my decision to study in Buenos Aires! :) I loved all the other places, but I think Buenos is the best fit for me.

And here you see the best $7 I've ever spent. These are alpargatas. The misinformed American would call them "knock-off Toms," but really they're the original Toms (that's why the Toms logo looks like an Argentine flag!). My Argentinian friends were shocked to learn that these sell for nearly $50 in the States, they started laughing, because they're so darn cheap here! 
I wore them all day everyday for our two week trip--they were so gross by the end! I wish I had a pedometer to tell me how far they went! 

People.
We went so many places and did so many cool things, but hands down my favorite part about traveling was just the other people we come across. We met: Argentines, Chileans (duh), other Americans, Brits, Australians, Danes, Dutchmen, Germans, Brazilians, Frenchmen, Uruguayans, Peruvians, Swiss people... honestly I'm losing track!
I feel like when you travel abroad, the point is to learn about cultures and people that are different from you, but honestly the thing that has struck me the most is how we're all the same. The Brazilians were making How I Met Your Mother references, the Israelis were singing Disney songs with us, and pretty much anyone anywhere knew the words to Thrift Shop. It was just so cool to see that no matter where you go, people are people. And people are wonderful. 

Part 4: Making it home

After Lollapalooza, the plan was to meet up at the bus station 15 minutes before it left. This involved each of us coming from different corners of Santiago (me, from a park with thousands and thousands of other people...) and the public transportation accommodating our needs. We had neither working cellphones nor a backup plan. In retrospect a lot of things could've gone wrong. But lo and behold, we made it to the bus right on time and headed East right around midnight.



I had essentially been standing for two days straight at that point and was rapidly losing faith in my knees to support me...

       The bus company we took to Mendoza was called El Rápido, and it lived up to its name, because we arrived two hours early... 6am. Our next bus wasn't leaving for 12 hours. After sitting for a few minutes, dazed, in the bus terminal we decided we had to do something with ourselves, and called the hostel we'd stayed at previously, who agreed to let us split a twin bed for the day for $5 each. So we went there and slept til noon. Money. Well. Spent.



We spent the rest of the day wandering around Mendoza. It was a bit less of a ghost town than it had been during Semana Santa but still no Buenos Aires :]

Just so you're aware, this is what US$2.70 buys you in ice cream here... Noms.

I made it back to my apartment in Buenos Aires around 10:30am on Tuesday, nearly 36 hours after leaving Santiago! I have never enjoyed a shower more. And Mimi made me steak for lunch--bless her heart. Real food!

We had to laugh, because we kept lamenting about having to end our adventures and come back to the "real world," but really... the real world for us is living in Buenos Aires, which really I guess isn't so bad... :]

Video!

Sydney is an absolute baller and made this awesome video of our trip! Check it out!

Part 3: Santiago

Tie advice from the salesman.

Santiago was probably where I saw the least of the actual city, but also the one where I had the most fun! So I'm a little lacking on Santiago points of interest but forgive me :]


For booking our hostels somewhat-randomly a week before, we ended up with some great places! The top picture above is the few from our hostel in Santiago--looking out over la Plaza de Armas, one of the main squares in Santiago!


The first night at our hostel we met some boys from Israel (who had just finished serving their time in the Israeli army), and we went with them to pick up Lolla tickets at the mall the next day. Somehow it came up that they had never worn suits before (I guess they don't throw Shmancy Fance parties in Tel Aviv?), which Sydney and I found appalling. So we headed to the nearest department store and had a fashion show. They looked so cute!



     We wandered around Santiago the rest of the day, and took the Funicular up the Cerro de San Cristobal. There was a beautiful view! I only wish it hadn't been so cloudly :/
     The boys taught us some Hebrew (probably just so we'd stop saying "Shalom mazel tov" and making phlegm noises every time they spoke...), and even sang some Disney songs in Hebrew for us! BEST DAY EVER.

Dani, Peri, me, and Aviran

Lollapalooza.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Lollapalooza is a music festival that's usually based in Chicago, but a few years ago they began doing a few international festivals as well. It's in this huge park in the middle of Santiago, and this year had over 70,000 in attendance. 

And it was quite possibly the most crazy-happy I've been ever. I didn't stop singing and yelling and exclaiming things all day :] 

I was dumbstruck by how huge American culture is in Chile... I mean I expected that people would have heard of Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Justin Bieber, but to be standing in a crowd of thousands of Chileans who know every single word to Passion Pit's song? Or Kaiser Chiefs? Or Gary Clark Jr? It was incredible! 

Look at those mountains!!

 For those interested, I saw:
Of Monsters and Men 
Two Door Cinema Club
Kaiser Chiefs
Passion Pit 
Queens of the Stone Age
Pearl Jam
Gary Clark Jr.
Foals 
Franz Ferdinand
A Perfect Circle
and The Black Keys! 

Not a bad way to spend two days :]

If their shirts had a baby, it would be my shirt...

I put together some videos for yoouuu

Bueno, I have so much more to tell about the trip, but I've got to be up in 5 hours to go see one of the 7 natural wonders of the world! (Rough life, right?)

I'll try to get more up when I return next week!
Love you all!
~Alfonsina

Part 2: Valparaíso y Viña del Mar

This is going to be a very photo-heavy post because spoiler alert: Valparaíso is GORGEOUS.

     When we arrived in Valparaíso on Sunday evening, tired and hungry, we had $4000 pesos to our name, and no way to get more til the following morning. I know what your'e thinking. "4000 pesos? You're RICH!" You would be wrong. Because Chilean money is crazy... and that amounts to about US$8.50

     I'm still not sure how it happened, but somehow we bought enough food to feed the four of us and it was an EASTER MIRACLE! :]

     The next morning we actually got to see Valparaíso in the daylight. And let me tell you... it is my new favorite city. It is LLENO de colores y arte. You can't walk a block without seeing some sort of painting on a wall or stairway (or anything else you could possible paint). 

     Valparaíso is snuggled up on the coast and thus has excellent views. It's also quite hilly! We spent the day walking around with our new Brazilian friends we'd met at the hostel. It was one of my favorite days of the trip!

Some Valparaisian street art.  

I SEE THE MAR.

   

     One of the most iconic things in Valparaíso is their "ascensores." They're like public elevators that cost a few cents. They're a great way to skip the hills, and give awesome views of the city!

Ascensores. 

     One of my favorite parts of Valparaíso: somehow we managed to get a $6 private boat tour of the bay! The weather was perfect and clear and it was SO pretty! You could see all the way to Viña del Mar.
     Our "tour guide" was absolutely hilarious, and we got one of the boys to get up on the bow and sing "I'm on a Boat" (he was the only one who had flippy-floppies...)

     Our boat went within about three feet of a herd of sea lions just chillin' on some boats/pier. Who knew there were sea lions in Chile?? They were SO funny looking (and smelled terrible...). In Spanish they're called sea wolfs, but if you look at the picture on the left... that just looks like a dog to me! Our tour guide had named some of them. You know, Hugo Chavez, Barack, and Michelle. 

     After the boat ride we went looking for some seafood! We found a nice restaurant... well it must have been nice because our Spanish vocabularies were not big enough to encompass all the seafood on it's menu! We just picked things at random and YUM. I ended up with this crab.. lobster.. pancake.. thing. It was delicious though so I didn't ask questions!



    While we were in Valparaíso we also went on a tour of Pablo Neruda's house (he's a very famous Chilean poet) and it was SO COOL! Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures... but it was five stories and decorated with the most eclectic and unique things. I definitely would not mind living there, con vistas al mar. 

     We'd planned to have a beach day when we headed over to Viña del Mar, but suddenly the weather was cold and dreary and we hardly had ganas to even leave the hostel! So I don't have very many pictures, but honestly Viña wasn't a whole lot to look at compared to Valpo. Still a cute city, just not nearly as picturesque!  We took a walk down the beach one night, watched some surfers (they must've been FREEZING!), and that's about all of our Viña activities! (I had to spend some time writing an essay at the hostel... because school is still a thing, unfortunately.)