Iguazu

So Saturday morning I woke up and flew to Iguazu with Art. It was supposed to be 1 1/2 hour flight, but there was fog, so we circled for another 2 hours. When we got in, we decided to go to the Brazilian side of the falls - so, oh yeah, I went to Brazil - but first, we stopped in a hosteleria (hotel/hostel) that Art had been to before. [Check out the picture. That place was 100 pesos - about $30 - and it had two beds, a private bathroom, cable TV, a closet and desk. Breakfast included.]

Then we got on another bus and went to Brazil. When we got off, a group of English speakers gathered together to work our way toward the falls. This included me and Art, then David, who was Welsh, and two Korean girls, Young-A and Young-Ming. I totally thought they were Korean-American by their accents, but they were Korean-Ecuadorian. They spoke Korean, Spanish, and English fluently. Damn them. I made sure to get a picture with the two of them as part of my continuing effort to use this blog to make Devin jealous.

The falls were pretty cool. We walked around a bunch and took a million pictures. You can see more of it from the Brazilian side, but you're further away for the most part. That is, except for this walkway that goes right out over one of the falls, where we were getting sprayed with mist, so I don't really have any pictures of it. I did take one of the walkway itself from above. Afterwards, there were a bunch of these South American racoon animals with no fear of humans. No fear because I think humans feed them all the time. We did not.

On the way home, we stopped at the Brazilian get-your-passport-stamped place, and there was some confusion on the bus. David jumped off, but I don't think he really needed to. The thing is, they didn't bother to stamp us on the way in - we got an exit-stamp on the Argentine border, and later we got an entrance stamp coming back in. Brazil pretty much said "don't worry about it if you're just going for a day to look at the falls." So we lost David for the time being.

We went back to the town with our hosteleria and met up with Young-A and Young-Ming for dinner. Young-A (23ish, right in picture) is a student in Seoul studying English literature and linguistics, Young-Ming (28ish, left) studied tourism in Ecuador and is now a flight attendant. They are sisters. We had been sitting around for a long time at the restaurant when David stumbled upon us. He'd had a really difficult time at the checkpoint, especially because he doesn't speak Portugese (and speaks Spanish with a thick Welsh accent), and at one point they were threatening to take him to the British embassy all the way in Sao Paul. I don't know why the dude got off the frickin' bus when none of us did, but we were glad to see he made it out alive. A big dinner for the four of us (David got a separate bill) with 2 big 1L bottles of Stella Artois was 135 pesos. They included the amount in dollars: $37.50. Everyone else had meat/fish.

In the morning, we woke up early and met up again to head to the Argentine side. There was a lot of walking through jungle-type areas, and some trains to get around. There was also a large group of Japanese people with an Argentine guide who spoke Japanese (while I was with Korean-Ecuadorians speaking English). They were pretty awesome. One woman had a green poncho with Waldo on it, and you can read what it said in the picture. Young-A kept making fun of them.

We got some pretty good views of the falls - I think from this side you get more up-close and personal with the actual "fall" part of the waterfalls. The first picture is from "Garganta del Diablo" or, "The Devil's Throat."

The last thing we did was go on a boat tour of the falls. This was both a great and a terrible idea. Great in that it was the most fun I've had in a long time. Terrible in that I got soaked and only brought one pair of jeans to Argentina, let alone Iguazu. So I stayed wet until I got back to Buenos Aires hours and hours later. Oh well, it was worth it. After that, we said goodbye to the Young's and booked it to the exit to catch a taxi to the airport.

Our flight was delayed in the airport, so Art and I went outside and took pictures in an empty fountain. Everything was laid back and pretty fun. All in all, it was a great weekend.

After classes, I went with Alex and Tiana to eat in a small organic-friendly juice bar type place. I got a smoothie and a wrap with hummus and tofu and it was all very good. Cheap, too. Have I noted the cost of food down here? [incidentally, it's not just veggie food, either. The Argentine peso dropped in value around 2007, I think, and the dollar's doing very well by comparison. They were about 1:1 10 years ago. Alex and Tiana get meat almost every day at lunch, and it looks good. Their bills aren't much more than mine.]

We went to see Up in English, and I really liked it. Well done, Pixar.

When I got back, I went running and didn't get lost (for the first time ever).

I talked on Skype for a while with this guy Art, and we're going to go to Iguazu falls this weekend. It's up North a bit, so I had to buy a plane ticket to get there and back over the weekend, but it was $276 round trip, and how many times in my life will I have this opportunity? It's supposed to kick Niagra Falls' butt, and anyways I've never been there either.

Then I decided it was time to shave. This is how it works out: in the middle of the room, because there's no mirror or sink in the bathroom, nor is there a mirror in the washroom.

Wednesday

Check out how Ernesto "Che" Guevara got his nickname.

After classes today, we went to another vegetarian restaurant that one of our teachers had recommended. It's hard to see in the picture, but in my best attempt to make Devin jealous: I had some really good manicotti with tofu, ricotta, and spinach covered in a mozzarella cheese sauce. It was another meal for 126 pesos, with two big bottles of beer. Since the exchange rate is closer to 4:1 than 3:1, that means it was a little over $30 for the three of us.

We took a taxi to a movie theater to try and catch the next showing of Up, but we'd missed the English showing by a few minutes. Maybe we'll try again another day.

Tomorrow, there are plans to go out for a beer/some wine after classes with some students outside of our group.

New Purchase

Pre-purchase: "hey, you lookin' for someone to rob!?"

Post-purchase: "Call me Che"
Wool coat + scarf = 250 pesos. I payed with a card, got an exchange rate of 3.78, and therefore payed $66 altogether.

Public Enemy Number 1...

... is the alarm clock. It has been my whole life. So this morning, I was absolutely sure that I had set it the night before, and equally sure that I hadn't turned it off yet that morning. [You can see in the picture that I bought a wimpy travel alarm clock. The thing is, wimpy travel alarm clocks don't wake me up. My extra-loud alarm clock doesn't really either, but I digress...] So I'm pretty sure I turned the alarm off without waking up and registering the event in my memory.

This made me very late for classes today. I missed the first three hours. Seeing as how there are only two weeks of classes, and 5 hours a day, I was upset.

I had to hurry to get up and shower, and take my clothes to the laundromat on my way to school (because I'm running out of everything now). We have a new student this week. Her name's Janine (sp?) she's at Harvard for undergrad. I don't like making first impressions like that, "hi! My name's Scott. I'm three hours late to class and haven't shaven in a week! [see figure 2 for detail on my I-look-like-I'm-homeless-but-still-can't-grow-a-proper-beard style]"

This week, all of our afternoon classes are at the same time. So afterwards, Tiana, Alex, and I went to Florida to look for some jackets and bags. I'm a cheapskate I guess, but I can't find a coat I'm willing to pay $100+ for. Maybe I'll be more motivated when it's a little colder.

I came back and went for a run. I meant to go about 45 minutes. I got lost again (as always), so it ended up closer to an hour. [See figure three for details of Scott after hour long run.] I told Leo, "siempre estoy perdido," and then reflected upon how true a statement that actually was.

Sunday

I thought I was going to get some laundry done today, but Diana says the laundromat is closed on Sundays. So I've been wearing my business socks...

I went down to San Telmo, where they have an antique fair on Sundays. It was pretty touristy and not all that different from an American flea market. I had lunch there and worked my way toward the waterfront. Across this sweet bridge that swivels in the middle, they have a number of docks just inland, where I found some exotic cuisine. I believe one of them is pronounced Hoe-Tears, but the second one baffles me. Their crazy Native American words with T's next to G's...

I went out toward the ocean, which they call a river, since it's kind across a giant delta from Uruguay. There's an ecological reserve there, which I heard is built upon all of the scrap material from the city. I believe it. I don't know if you can see in the pictures, but the "beach" there is made up of discarded chunks of bricks and mortar. Anyways, you can't tell when you're walking around there, because it's covered in grasses and trees and birds. (On my way there I saw some wild parakeets eating raw meat. I didn't know parakeets ate steak; it weirded me out a little.)

I was kind of stuck in the ecological reserve a little. I walked in from one direction to check it out, and thought I could get back out wherever, but not so! So I swung over to the water front on the Eastern side, and then to the far end on the Northern side, where I thought I could get out, but not so! So then I walked all the way back to the Southern tip. Altogether I think I walked about 4 miles just in the reserve.

After I left, I saw some more sweet graffiti and made my way back to the apartment. Diana made some dinner, and I bought a bottle of the nicest wine at the grocery store for about $5.

The Subways, etc.

So the subways here (Subte) are weird. Someone's always selling something or putting on a performance and asking for money. Last night, there was a dog beneath my seat (stray dogs are everywhere). When we reached the last stop, I thought the dog was in for trouble... but he new the drill. He got off with everyone else, calm as can be. I mentioned this to Marta, the leader of Grupo de Ingles, and she said the dog is a regular. He rides the D-line from one end to the other, gets off, walks around to the other side, and gets back on.

This morning, I was getting on the Subte and trying to step out of the way. As my sisters will tell you, I tend to bump my head when I travel. So I did, and it hurt a little. I shared a sympathetic smile with a stranger on the bus. I thought of him as my subway friend. He was pretty well dressed, probably a business man.

I rode past a few stops, facing this guy.

So then when it was time to get off, I felt a pressure on my waist. I looked down, and my camera holster was unzipped and empty. I looked over and my subway friend had betrayed me: he was holding my camera!

[Now Nina or Devin will tell you that I have a bit of a temper, which only flares up in situations where it's kind of a bad idea. Like when traffic cops yell at me. It's not something I control very well.]

My immediate reaction was to yell (in English) "Give me back my camera, motherfucker!" The passengers all look over, and I'm thinking I might be getting into a fight on the subway in South America - not a good idea, not something I want to do. But the guy's holding my $200+ brand new camera, with all my pictures on it, and I've just called him on it before even thinking.

So then I grab back the camera. He doesn't really fight it, he just hands it back. He looks me right in the eye - and here's the part that really gets me: he shrugs. After all, what was I going to do? I didn't want to fight him, there were no police in sight, and the camera was back in my hands. It was so weird - how respectable he looked, how brazen his attempt was, how unrepentantly he shrugged...

One part that I omitted before is that everyone last night had a story about being robbed or someone attempting to rob them. For this reason, I'd buried my wallet in an inner pocket in my bag already, and put my camera in front where I could feel and see it. It's now buried deep in my bag when I travel, too.

So my heart was pounding for almost the next half hour. I met up with Alex and Tiana at the Cementario del something. It's wear Evita is buried. I took a picture, cause I guess that's what you do, but I don't really know much about her. I just know she looked like Madonna and sang a lot. That's a joke.

After that, we walked around and saw a male model posing near this huge building with columns in front. Then there was this giant flower sculpture, and Tiana took a picture of me and Alex in front of it. After that, they found a vegetarian restaurant nearby in their Lonely Planet book.

Good call.

We ate so much food. It was all vegetarian, and we shared a bottle of organic Malbec wine which was delicious. Altogether, with lots of food, wine, bottled water, and coffe, it was 124 pesos. That's less than $40 for the three of us.

So yesterday I saw the most awesome van ever. It was pretty baller.

I finished up classes and went exploring downtown. I visited the touristy areas (Florida) for the first time. Snapped a few pictures where the sky looked greyish at the time, but they came out with this cool eerie blue.

Later, I tracked down this group that meets once a week on Fridays at the end of one of the subway lines. They meet to speak English, and I thought, "hey I know English." So I went out to this Argentinian equivalent of a Sizzler and sat around waiting for these guys. We met up, and I talked with a few different people. After an hour or so, we went to a restaurant to celebrate one dude's birthday and the rules relaxed a bit so that they could speak Spanish (which helped me). I met some cool people. Marta, who started the group (middle), is a psychologist who volunteers at an orphanage which is unique in that it allows families of children to stay together. Art (far right), who is an expat from San Francisco and a stock trader in a "former life," was explaining that the government tried to shut down the orphanage and separate the children. This happened for complicated reasons -- it more or less comes down to the building being worth a lot to sell or rent out -- and a few weeks ago they sent in riot police to forcibly remove the children. So then the community pulled together and protested, and blocked the police from entering, and Marta and a few others spent the night in the orphanage. I guess they removed about half the children, and 15 or so are still there. Crazy.

Oh yeah, and then the bus ride home at 2am was one of the most exciting and scary experiences I can remember. I thought I was going to die, and there was a couple standing up, making out. People make out everywhere in public here. It's weird.

No posts the past couple days...

I've been going to class, coming back, running, studying a little and tooling around on the internet. Nothing too exciting the past few days.

Alex, Tiana, and I have been trying to grab lunch in a 25-minute break between classes, and have had difficulty finding a place with quick service. It's more laid back here I think. Or at least you only sit down for a meal if you have a good hour. However, the food is dirt cheap. Did I mention how cheap the food is? Cause it's inexpensive. It doesn't cost much, is what I'm trying to say.

Today I tried to go to Recoleta in my 2 hour break between classes, because it's supposed to be a sweet place to shop and I kind of want to buy a heavier coat for next week, but I got a little lost. I stumbled upon another political rally. For the sake of my many mothers, I've made sure to include in the picture the line of police, the steel fences, and the reporters between me and the action. I know that's not going to calm them.

I kind of wish I could take snapshots of all the random things I've seen. I saw a guy go by on his bike with handlebars that were so narrow - it literally looked like he put his hands around the stem, and then cut off whatever extra handlebar there was. It wasn't a fixed gear and he wasn't a hipster, though. It was a mountainbike, and he was just some weird Argentinian. THEN, immediately after the guy, another dude rode by on one of those beach cruisers and it had the hugest, most exaggerated handlebars ever. I laughed out loud and people thought I was crazy. [Against your will, you've just taken part in another installment of "Scott is amused by disparities in handlebar width" storytime. Sorry. It won't happen again.]

My host mom Diana was home tonight. She introduced me to a friend of hers -- an on-again-off-again boyfriend, as I understand it. He was very friendly and surprised Diana by knowing pretty good English (she's known him 5 years and never knew he spoke a word of it).

Unfortunately, she's told me that I'm not allowed to do laundry here. That's one of her stipulations because of a previous experience with a student or something. I'm a little disappointed about that, especially considering you have to go through my bedroom to get to the laundry room, but no big deal. Maybe I can meet some people doing laundry this weekend.

So our apartment has a scary elevator. I don't really understand how it works, and it's only got a little fence between you and the floors as they go by. The thing would probably have been illegal in the U.S. 50 years ago. It's only big enough for two people, really.

Yesterday I was trying to get off on the first floor when, before I could open the gate, someone else pushed a button and I shot right up to the 8th floor to greet them. A girl got on and asked me what happened. I started to explain, and she blurted out, "you can speak to me in English." They all know I'm American at one glance.

Just now, I was coming back from running, waiting for the elevator, when another guy walked into the lobby. (Now, another thing I don't understand about the elevator is the numbering system. There's an EP and a IP or something, then floors, 1, 2, 3, etc. I just push the EP button and it takes me to the lobby.) So when the light above the elevator said "EP," I tried to open the outer door. I guess I had the system wrong, because the door wouldn't open. For some reason I still don't understand, this also freed the elevator to go back up for someone else on like the 12th floor. That really pissed off the guy who'd just walked up.

I said I was sorry, and he scowled. Then another guy came up and asked if the elevator was working okay. I said I was sorry, it was my fault. The first guy told him that the elevator was working fine, but the neighbors weren't, and that I couldn't understand anything. I smiled, because what else do you do, right? Then we had an awesome three-person ride in a two-person elevator.

Other than that, my day's been great. Today I started classes. I met my classmates. There are two of them. Their names are Alex and Tatiana (I think?). They're an American couple from North Carolina, a rising med II and an entering med I, respectively. We had lunch together, and they're both very friendly. I had a private lesson in the afternoon, and I have homework to do tonight. There's a chance I might learn something useful, no?

In response to the comments on the political rally: you'll notice that I'm zooming in from across a busy street, with the traffic and the cops between us. [It took me so long to find something dangerous and then I just couldn't seem to get any closer! Ah, shucks, maybe next time.]

More Graffiti

Here's some more cool graffiti I saw earlier today:

Buenos Aires is a strange place.

So I went exploring again tonight, and made my first attempt at using the subway system. It's 1.10 pesos/ride, which is like 0.35 cents or so. Not bad.

Near the city center, I saw a protest/demonstration/political rally blocking a couple lanes on one of the main strips, with police officers directing traffic around them. They were chanting things I couldn't make out, and if you can see in the picture, they're waving flags with nice hammer/sickle symbols. There are Argentinian elections coming up soon, and the socialist party here is not the joke it is in Los Estados Unidos. To each their own, I suppose.

What I don't get is that the socialist party seemed to be demonstrating in front of a theater. Later, I walked into a giant mall in the middle of the city, with all sorts of different expensive-looking shops. But the socialists weren't in front of that. Barney was.

I went running in the area surrounding the apartment, and found out that one of the streets behind mind (Avenida de las Corrientes), has a number of mannequin factories. Strange, no?















I kept wandering around, and found a park with a small lake in the middle. Today's a holiday, which is why my classes haven't started, and why lots of people were out enjoying it. They also have lots of sweet graffiti in the park. It seems to be one area where they look the other way.

I think I just heard the most musical car horn ever. Instead of a tritone, it was a trill. I think if I heard that, the effect would be less, "hey get out of my way," and more, "please, cut right in front of me."

I'm going running to explore some more. Will try to take some pictures.

Host Family, etc.

The host family is nice. We're in a tiny apartment, but I have my own room with bathroom and internet (!). It's a middle-aged woman (Diana) and her 24-year-old son (Leo). He looks a lot like Van to me. Seriously. Only he has darker curlier hair and speaks mostly in Spanish (though his English is good). His futbol team won for the first time in a while today, so they both think I'm good luck.

I wasn't wearing the mask in the previous post for the whole plane ride, that was mandatory for the de-planing only. I'm not really sure who or how that helps, but that's what they wanted, so that's what I did.

I went exploring today, and saw some cool old buildings, but I realized that I'd left my SD card in the computer, so no pictures from that desafortunadamente.

While exploring, I stopped at a restaurant to eat 4 different empanadas with a coke that came in a glass bottle cerca 1973, totaling about $7.00 USA. Tonight, my host mom is making pizza.

Arrived in B.A.

That was one long flight from Atlanta to Buenos Aires. Luckily, I got a business class seat and that was pretty awesome. I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (okay), and then took a sleeping pill and was out for a good 5-6 hours.

First Post

I'm new to this "blogging" technology, so we'll see how it goes. Basically, I intend to use this to keep in touch with everyone while overseas. Although I'm not really "overseas," but "really far away through one continuous stretch of land (with the exception of the Panama canal)."

Right now I'm sitting in the Columbus airport (free Wi-fi, hurray!). I'll have a couple hours in Atlanta, then an overnight flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I'll arrive at 7:45am, so I should have one full day to get accustomed before starting classes.