I'm going to take a moment and forego the posts that should be in progress right now, my trip to Uruguay, this past bicentennial weekend, everything, to talk about something that has been ruining my sleep. Pesadillas... also known as nightmares. Those have been happening to me the past few days, and would you imagine the timing? I have one month left of IES and of living in my homestay.
WORRY 1
I consider my homestay my home. It has my room. My bed. My rock star brothers. My adorable host mom. I'm used to living here. Other things I've become used to...
-- taking the elevator up and down to and from my apartment
-- waking up in the morning and looking in my purse praying to God that I have coins to take the bus, otherwise I'll be leaving earlier to be able to walk to IES in time
-- having a rushed conversation with Javier the doorman before I go catch the 152 or speedwalk to class
-- gripping my purse until my fist turns purple because yes, even that business man in the suit will steal your stuff
-- walking in the city
-- pushing myself onto the subte (subway)... I have pretty good subte balance by now as well
-- alllllll of my classes in Spanish
-- alllllll the people around me in the city speaking Spanish
-- going out for a beer at night with friends
-- dinner at 9... 9:30... 10
-- not using my cellphone
-- knowing that I need to have close to exact change to buy anything
-- dividing every price by four to convert to USD
-- not telling anyone where I am and it's ok
These everyday situations all lead into this nightmare: I walk into my house, set all my luggage down, and have a complete breakdown. What do I do now? Where do I go? When I walk out of my house, I have a driveway... I have a lawn... I have to get in my car to go anywhere, and it doesn't matter if I have quarters or not. Everyone is speaking English and they will understand me the first time around when I ask them something. Everyone moved on with their lives when I was gone and now I just have to get back into the swing of things. Normal, everyday life like I never left. And that freaks me out.
I was talking to Mama Feli today about my pesadillas and how I feel like leaving is going to be one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. She said that all the girls that have stayed with her have cried when they left, and she always wondered why it was so sad for them to leave. But then she came up with this conclusion, that it's because the first day that we come here, we change from being a kid to being an adult. All of a sudden we have to take care of ourselves, venture around a HUGE city, no one is holding our hands or telling us where to go. We do everything on our own. Plan our own trips, take care of business on our own in a different language; it's a lot of growing up in a very short amount of time. When I go back, I'm not going to be the same person as when I left. For the better, yes, but it's still going to make the adjustment back difficult. When I go back home, I feel like either I'll be all over the place or I'll be stuck in my room, clueless about what to do.
WORRY 2
This may just be my personality, but I am afraid that I have not taken every opportunity that I have had here. Maybe I should have made the effort to travel to more places, walk around the city more, talk to more locals, eat at nicer restaurants, go shopping more, spend more time in different neighborhoods. I have this fear that I'm going to go back home and look back on all of the things that I could have done, instead of what I should do, which is look back at everything I was so lucky to experience. I'm afraid that I will regret every second that I wasn't exploring, every second that I didn't try to improve my Spanish-speaking ability, every second that I didn't take to stretch myself. I do realize that I have done a lot here, way more than I thought I would, but I just hope when I go back home the things that I did do resound stronger in my memory than the regrets of everything I didn't do.
Obviously thinking of leaving this country has been affecting me greatly. I've become very sentimental toward Buenos Aires lately, and yes, part of it could be a result of all the national pride displayed this past weekend for the bicentennial. But I really do feel like Argentina is a second home to me now. So, I have decided to finish my undergraduate degree here.
Juuuuussst kidding. I will be returning to the United States at the end of July. Hopefully by then I'll be able to collect my thoughts and prepare myself for West Michigan living. I do miss everyone and everything back home, but I have already begun to realize everything I will be missing here. I don't think there's any way that I could live the rest of my life without returning to Buenos Aires. This city, with all its quirks, has a special place in my heart. So, during my absence, don't cry for me, Argentina.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
SPRING BREAK (in the fall)
Time is going by extremely fast. Spring break always seemed so far away, and now almost a week has already passed since the break. I had an AWESOME time traveling, and it felt like I was done with school and that taking buses and staying in hostels was my normal life. I thought that it was difficult before trying to concentrate on my work here, but after break my attention span for reading about Juan Peron or doing worksheets on grammar has gone out the window. Luckily there is only 6 more weeks of class left. Actually, I'm not sure whether that's a luckily or not. While I would love to be done with class, that also means that I'm that much closer to having to leave the country. I can already tell that leaving is going to provoke a really weird mixture of feelings. But I'll deal with that when it comes.
Ok, now for spring break adventures! First up, TANDIL. (I actually forgot my camera for this trip (oops!), so I stole some pictures from my friends.)
Tandil is a city located about 5 hours south of Buenos Aires. Like I have found many parts of the Buenos Aires province to be, Tandil also looks a lot like Michigan. Its name derives from the Mapuche words tan ("falling"), and lil ("rock"). It's been suggested that the name refers to the Piedra Movediza ("Moving Stone"), which was a balanced rock. It fell in 1912 but a few years ago was replaced.
The trip to Tandil was through IES, and there were probably 25 students or so. Looking back on the trip, we didn't really do a whole lot, but it was relaxing and nice to be out of the city. This sounds really sad, but once you're out of Buenos Aires it's weird to look up at the sky at night and remember that there are stars. The hotel that we stayed at was really awesome and located on the top of this hill (that we got to walk up and down a number of times because the bus struggled to make it up).
Tandil is known for its cheese and salami, and at one of the restaurants we went to for dinner we had cheese fondue. We also ate out at a restaurant where we had the best carne empanadas I've had in Argentina. They weren't ground beef, there were actually little slices of steak in them. At another restaurant that we went to for lunch, we shared these entrees that were little casserole pots. Some of them were rabbit, some were venison, some were chicken. Really really delicious food. Other than eating... haha... we also did some hiking one day, where we saw the Piedra Movediza. Some of our time was also just spent at the hotel talking and enjoying some wine.
We were in Tandil from Saturday until Monday. Then Tuesday morning began what I would consider to be my real spring break trip. To PATAGONIA! Me and three other friends boarded a bus for a 22 hour ride on Tuesday afternoon, and after a ride full of bracelet and hair-wrap making, iPod listening, reading, and lack of sleeping, we arrived in Bariloche. The city is located next to the Andes, right on the border of Chile. The view in Bariloche is unbelievable. Our hostel had a fantastic view of the city, lake Nahuel Huapi, and the mountains. Just incredible.
The first day in Bariloche we attempted to rent bikes and do a tour called Circuito Chico. Right when we started out, it began drizzling, but we were tough and decided to keep going. Well, half hour into our ride it was basically hailing and really miserable. We attempted to be good sports about it but to go on would not have been fun at all. So since we were soaking wet and freezing, we went back to the hostel, took showers, then walked around the town. Bariloche is fairly large and pretty touristy. There are a lot of outdoors shops and CHOCOLATE SHOPS. It is known for its chocolate, so I definitely took advantage of that attribute!! We had some specialty hot chocolates, some bonbons with raspberries in the middle, some with dulce de leche in the middle, lots and lots of good stuff.
The next day, Thursday, we took a chairlift at Cerro Campanario, which according to National Geographic is one of the Top 10 Best Views in the world. It definitely was the best view that I have ever seen. It was so difficult to take it all in because there's mountains and lakes all around you. I probably took ten pictures of the same view but I couldn't help it.
Then we took a ferry to two different national parks. The first one was Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. It had a variety of trees and really good views of the area. Wasn't my favorite park but it was nice to walk around the island.
Then we hopped back on the ferry and went to Parque Nacional Los Arrayanes. This national park is the only place in the world where there is a whole forest of arrayan trees, so it was really cool to be able to see them.
The next morning, Friday, we took a bus to Villa la Angostura and had some waffles with frambuesas (raspberries). Very delicious. Villa la Angostura is a cute little town that also has an awesome view of lakes/mountains, just like the rest of the cities on the Seven Lakes Route. This route zigzags through the mountains and lets you see the lakes and forests in the region. The best way to appreciate the route is by renting a car, but we were able to see the region on our bus ride. We had planned our bus tickets for having about 7 hours in La Angostura, but after talking with some people we decided a couple hours was enough time to see the city. So after walking around a little bit, we took another bus to San Martin de los Andes, which is where we were to stay until Sunday.
At first, I wasn't so sure about San Martin. The ride going into the city was beautiful, but once we were in the city the view was just mountains. Which is still great! It just wasn't like Bariloche. When we were walking to our hostel, we walked by a community garage sale, and lots of families walking around; San Martin seemed to just be a residential city, and not somewhere to visit at all. We went to a little restaurant to eat some dinner and the city didn't seem to have much of a downtown.
At night we went out to a bar and that's when I changed my mind about the city. We met a bunch of locals at the bar, and the people that we were staying with at the hostel were really cool too. The bar had a ping pong table and I just about died when I saw it. I played some locals and even a gaucho. Then we made our way over to a dance club which was awesome too. It was different from dance clubs in Buenos Aires, it was a lot smaller but felt more safe and just more fun. I decided then that I loved San Martin because after seeing more of the city, it actually does have a small downtown with some cool shops and some fun places to go out at night. The people there are what make it awesome. Everyone is super nice and it's really easy to make friends.
In the morning my friend and I took a cab to a mountain a little outside the main city, called Cerro Colorado. After talking to a few people about hiking the mountain, they said it was really well marked and a fun hike that should take 3 hours up and 2 hours down. So our taxi driver Carlos, who we made friends with, dropped us off at this little sign on the side of the road that said Cerro Colorado. There was a little trail so we're like ok! We can do this! Carlos drives away and we start walking. Eventually the trail turns into car tracks that lead away from the mountains. Weird... Then horse trails start going in all directions off the car tracks and we really don't know which one to take. There are no signs at ALL and we were in the middle of this huge field between the mountains and the road.
Ok, so this is our dilemma. We told Carlos to come pick us up at 5:30, because we figure if we started walking at 12 and it's supposed to take 5 hours roundtrip, that would give us plenty of time. Well, by now it's 2 and we haven't started hiking UP at all. Umm... not good. But then we see this man walking in the distance toward us. YES! So we speed walk over to him and ask him where the Cerro Colorado trail is. He was really surprised that we were so far away from where the trail was. So we speed walk back over to almost where we started, and he takes us down a turn on the trail that really isn't well marked at all. It would have been very difficult to know to take that little fork because at the time it looked like nothing at all.
So it's 2:15 and we start hiking up the mountain. That was the most difficult hike that I have ever done. It was sooo steep, some parts you could have put your hands down and just crawled up. But even the way up had some of the prettiest views. We ran into about 3 groups of 2 people who looked like hard core hikers. They had their hiking sticks and their wicking clothing and hiking boots and hats. Here were two girls in tennis shoes, tshirts, and with a little backpack of rolls and carrots. Seeing these people made us think that maybe we were a little too ambitious and underprepared, but we were determined to make it up. After 2 hours, we made it up to the top of the mountain. GORGEOUS! So breathtaking, literally, after that intense hike. The fall colors, lake, and surrounding Andes made it so picturesque. We sat on some rocks at the edge and had a snack.
At 4:45 we decide that maybe we should start going down the mountain in order to meet Carlos at 5:30. So at every stretch that was not too steep we decided we would run. We even tried running at some stretches that we shouldn't have and ended up on the ground a few times. The problem was that because there was ice on the trail around noonish and now it was around 5, the sun had melted the ice and it became a little muddy. With the combination of mud and old running shoes that don't have any traction, I fell quite a few times. One time I even landed with my hand in some pricker plant and got about 12 splinters in my hand. There's still about 3 in there. But the running/falling down the mountain paid off because we met Carlos at EXACTLY 5:30. Which means it took us 2 hours to climb up the mountain and 45 minutes to go down. Yea... we felt accomplished. And tired. And needed a nap. Or some food. Or a celebratory beer.
So we did all of those things! We went out to a great Italian-ish restaurant for dinner and then met up with our hostel friends at this really cool bar. It was up this hill on the edge of the city, and there was a pool table and some tables and the bar downstairs, with some couches in the VIP section upstairs. One of the hostel guys we met had his boss visiting for a few days, and he had come out to the bar with us. He ordered a really cool appetizer that had trout, venison, wild boar, and some cheese on it. We had some drinks then he got us up into the VIP section, where we were able to look over onto the dance floor. We sat and talked a bit, then danced a bit. At the end of the night, this guy's boss paid for everything, we just paid the tip. It was an awesome last night to an awesome spring break.
The trip definitely was a great experience. I got to see the most amazing views, and did some great hiking, spent a lot of time with some great people, spoke a lot of Spanish, and learned more about Argentina and myself. I think that traveling without a detailed plan sometimes is the best, because you get to experience whatever the region throws at you and not what you want it to give you. During spring break I came up with the sweetest job. I could be a travel writer and stay in hostels and be able to have time to work AND experience tons of different cities. How great would that be? Don't worry. I'd send postcards :)
PS ... you can look at all of my spring break pictures at this link http://picasaweb.google.com/rachel.jantz
Ok, now for spring break adventures! First up, TANDIL. (I actually forgot my camera for this trip (oops!), so I stole some pictures from my friends.)
Tandil is a city located about 5 hours south of Buenos Aires. Like I have found many parts of the Buenos Aires province to be, Tandil also looks a lot like Michigan. Its name derives from the Mapuche words tan ("falling"), and lil ("rock"). It's been suggested that the name refers to the Piedra Movediza ("Moving Stone"), which was a balanced rock. It fell in 1912 but a few years ago was replaced.
The trip to Tandil was through IES, and there were probably 25 students or so. Looking back on the trip, we didn't really do a whole lot, but it was relaxing and nice to be out of the city. This sounds really sad, but once you're out of Buenos Aires it's weird to look up at the sky at night and remember that there are stars. The hotel that we stayed at was really awesome and located on the top of this hill (that we got to walk up and down a number of times because the bus struggled to make it up).
Tandil is known for its cheese and salami, and at one of the restaurants we went to for dinner we had cheese fondue. We also ate out at a restaurant where we had the best carne empanadas I've had in Argentina. They weren't ground beef, there were actually little slices of steak in them. At another restaurant that we went to for lunch, we shared these entrees that were little casserole pots. Some of them were rabbit, some were venison, some were chicken. Really really delicious food. Other than eating... haha... we also did some hiking one day, where we saw the Piedra Movediza. Some of our time was also just spent at the hotel talking and enjoying some wine.
We were in Tandil from Saturday until Monday. Then Tuesday morning began what I would consider to be my real spring break trip. To PATAGONIA! Me and three other friends boarded a bus for a 22 hour ride on Tuesday afternoon, and after a ride full of bracelet and hair-wrap making, iPod listening, reading, and lack of sleeping, we arrived in Bariloche. The city is located next to the Andes, right on the border of Chile. The view in Bariloche is unbelievable. Our hostel had a fantastic view of the city, lake Nahuel Huapi, and the mountains. Just incredible.
The first day in Bariloche we attempted to rent bikes and do a tour called Circuito Chico. Right when we started out, it began drizzling, but we were tough and decided to keep going. Well, half hour into our ride it was basically hailing and really miserable. We attempted to be good sports about it but to go on would not have been fun at all. So since we were soaking wet and freezing, we went back to the hostel, took showers, then walked around the town. Bariloche is fairly large and pretty touristy. There are a lot of outdoors shops and CHOCOLATE SHOPS. It is known for its chocolate, so I definitely took advantage of that attribute!! We had some specialty hot chocolates, some bonbons with raspberries in the middle, some with dulce de leche in the middle, lots and lots of good stuff.
The next day, Thursday, we took a chairlift at Cerro Campanario, which according to National Geographic is one of the Top 10 Best Views in the world. It definitely was the best view that I have ever seen. It was so difficult to take it all in because there's mountains and lakes all around you. I probably took ten pictures of the same view but I couldn't help it.
Then we took a ferry to two different national parks. The first one was Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. It had a variety of trees and really good views of the area. Wasn't my favorite park but it was nice to walk around the island.
Then we hopped back on the ferry and went to Parque Nacional Los Arrayanes. This national park is the only place in the world where there is a whole forest of arrayan trees, so it was really cool to be able to see them.
The next morning, Friday, we took a bus to Villa la Angostura and had some waffles with frambuesas (raspberries). Very delicious. Villa la Angostura is a cute little town that also has an awesome view of lakes/mountains, just like the rest of the cities on the Seven Lakes Route. This route zigzags through the mountains and lets you see the lakes and forests in the region. The best way to appreciate the route is by renting a car, but we were able to see the region on our bus ride. We had planned our bus tickets for having about 7 hours in La Angostura, but after talking with some people we decided a couple hours was enough time to see the city. So after walking around a little bit, we took another bus to San Martin de los Andes, which is where we were to stay until Sunday.
At first, I wasn't so sure about San Martin. The ride going into the city was beautiful, but once we were in the city the view was just mountains. Which is still great! It just wasn't like Bariloche. When we were walking to our hostel, we walked by a community garage sale, and lots of families walking around; San Martin seemed to just be a residential city, and not somewhere to visit at all. We went to a little restaurant to eat some dinner and the city didn't seem to have much of a downtown.
At night we went out to a bar and that's when I changed my mind about the city. We met a bunch of locals at the bar, and the people that we were staying with at the hostel were really cool too. The bar had a ping pong table and I just about died when I saw it. I played some locals and even a gaucho. Then we made our way over to a dance club which was awesome too. It was different from dance clubs in Buenos Aires, it was a lot smaller but felt more safe and just more fun. I decided then that I loved San Martin because after seeing more of the city, it actually does have a small downtown with some cool shops and some fun places to go out at night. The people there are what make it awesome. Everyone is super nice and it's really easy to make friends.
In the morning my friend and I took a cab to a mountain a little outside the main city, called Cerro Colorado. After talking to a few people about hiking the mountain, they said it was really well marked and a fun hike that should take 3 hours up and 2 hours down. So our taxi driver Carlos, who we made friends with, dropped us off at this little sign on the side of the road that said Cerro Colorado. There was a little trail so we're like ok! We can do this! Carlos drives away and we start walking. Eventually the trail turns into car tracks that lead away from the mountains. Weird... Then horse trails start going in all directions off the car tracks and we really don't know which one to take. There are no signs at ALL and we were in the middle of this huge field between the mountains and the road.
Ok, so this is our dilemma. We told Carlos to come pick us up at 5:30, because we figure if we started walking at 12 and it's supposed to take 5 hours roundtrip, that would give us plenty of time. Well, by now it's 2 and we haven't started hiking UP at all. Umm... not good. But then we see this man walking in the distance toward us. YES! So we speed walk over to him and ask him where the Cerro Colorado trail is. He was really surprised that we were so far away from where the trail was. So we speed walk back over to almost where we started, and he takes us down a turn on the trail that really isn't well marked at all. It would have been very difficult to know to take that little fork because at the time it looked like nothing at all.
So it's 2:15 and we start hiking up the mountain. That was the most difficult hike that I have ever done. It was sooo steep, some parts you could have put your hands down and just crawled up. But even the way up had some of the prettiest views. We ran into about 3 groups of 2 people who looked like hard core hikers. They had their hiking sticks and their wicking clothing and hiking boots and hats. Here were two girls in tennis shoes, tshirts, and with a little backpack of rolls and carrots. Seeing these people made us think that maybe we were a little too ambitious and underprepared, but we were determined to make it up. After 2 hours, we made it up to the top of the mountain. GORGEOUS! So breathtaking, literally, after that intense hike. The fall colors, lake, and surrounding Andes made it so picturesque. We sat on some rocks at the edge and had a snack.
At 4:45 we decide that maybe we should start going down the mountain in order to meet Carlos at 5:30. So at every stretch that was not too steep we decided we would run. We even tried running at some stretches that we shouldn't have and ended up on the ground a few times. The problem was that because there was ice on the trail around noonish and now it was around 5, the sun had melted the ice and it became a little muddy. With the combination of mud and old running shoes that don't have any traction, I fell quite a few times. One time I even landed with my hand in some pricker plant and got about 12 splinters in my hand. There's still about 3 in there. But the running/falling down the mountain paid off because we met Carlos at EXACTLY 5:30. Which means it took us 2 hours to climb up the mountain and 45 minutes to go down. Yea... we felt accomplished. And tired. And needed a nap. Or some food. Or a celebratory beer.
So we did all of those things! We went out to a great Italian-ish restaurant for dinner and then met up with our hostel friends at this really cool bar. It was up this hill on the edge of the city, and there was a pool table and some tables and the bar downstairs, with some couches in the VIP section upstairs. One of the hostel guys we met had his boss visiting for a few days, and he had come out to the bar with us. He ordered a really cool appetizer that had trout, venison, wild boar, and some cheese on it. We had some drinks then he got us up into the VIP section, where we were able to look over onto the dance floor. We sat and talked a bit, then danced a bit. At the end of the night, this guy's boss paid for everything, we just paid the tip. It was an awesome last night to an awesome spring break.
The trip definitely was a great experience. I got to see the most amazing views, and did some great hiking, spent a lot of time with some great people, spoke a lot of Spanish, and learned more about Argentina and myself. I think that traveling without a detailed plan sometimes is the best, because you get to experience whatever the region throws at you and not what you want it to give you. During spring break I came up with the sweetest job. I could be a travel writer and stay in hostels and be able to have time to work AND experience tons of different cities. How great would that be? Don't worry. I'd send postcards :)
PS ... you can look at all of my spring break pictures at this link http://picasaweb.google.com/rachel.jantz
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