El Calafate

Mom and Dad got here on Saturday the 27th of December.  They were here for two days before they flew off to go see the incredible Iguazu waterfalls.  During this time I moved into a hostel and did some exploring of my own.

My Thanksgiving dinner - 10 friends ate dinner at Kansas Restaurant, where I ate 2 years ago when I was here. Broccoli, mashed potatoes with gravy, turkey on top of stuffing, and some sort of cranberry -esk sauce. 

 The view from my 6th floor room in the residence.

 My padres - my study abroad homestay family: Andrea and Gustavo.  They invited me to his birthday dinner again.

 In my wandering I found this beautiful park that had some very colorful paddle boats.

 Colorful paddle boats on the park off of Ave Libertador

 Water garbage truck

 Sat for a mid afternoon snack and coffee, and listened to this guy jam away.

 On our way out of Buenos Aires Mom, Dad and I saw a huge truck of cows going through the tolls.

 The first view of El Calafate

 We went on a tour boat of all the glaciers - it was freezing!

 Our path on the boat

 Upsala Glacier

 In front of Upsala Glacier

 Perito Moreno Glacier - the one we walked on!

 While walking on the glacier, our second day, we were stopped to look down this huge whole.

 On top of Perito Moreno Glacier with the guides

 At the end of the mini trek they brought us to a hide out on the glacier to have some whiskey and alfajores.  Alfajores are a delicious cookie that is all over Argentina and Uruguay.  In the simplest terms it is two cookies with dulce de leche in the middle and covered in chocolate. 

 Our third trip was to Chile to go see Torres del Paine.  Our guide told us that this is the first time he has seen the mountain range in four days cause it's usually covered in clouds.

 This picture doesn't need any explanation.

 A beautiful rainbow at the top of a waterfall on our walk in Torres del Paine National Park.

 Dad trying not to get blown away.

San Clemente del Tuyu

I went to the beach this past weekend with my friend Karen.  We left after class on Friday and took what should have been a 4 hour bus ride south to San Clemente del Tuyu, one of the many beaches along a strip of the coastline. However, it took us 2 hours to get out of Buenos Aires.  Note to self: don't buy a bus ticket that is leaving during rush hour.

This is what it looked like when we were trying to get out of the city, cars cars everywhere...

We arrived around 11, and found our hotel right on the beach.  All of the houses looked they the second all the walls and roof went up that was the last time anyone point any time into their houses.  So the town could have been really cute but instead everything looked like it was falling apart.  We were a little nervous when we first went out to lunch on Saturday because everything was closed except for this one restaurant.  We were happily surprised when we came back out for dinner and there was a ton of commotion and movement on the street.  It turns out that we came out during siesta time.  We quickly adjusted our schedule the next day to work with that of the town.  We would go to the beach in the morning.  Head out to find some food for lunch around 1 or 2, go back and read, sleep or watch a movie on tv, and then come back out for dinner at 8:00.

All the streets were covered in sand.

It was nice to get away from the city for a little bit, but we were very glad to be heading back on Monday to the craziness of the Buenos Aires.

I have two days left of class, I have my written exam tomorrow (11/25/10), and then my oral exam on Friday (11/26/10), and then Mom and Dad are coming down for 2 weeks on Saturday!!

Week of 11-8 through 11-14-10

I went to wine tasting, white wines, on tuesday and met some more people that had just arrived to Buenos Aires.  GIC, the program that set up my housing and classes, has wine tasting twice a month, Flavia a wine connosseur brings three bottles of wine.  Its a chance to meet people that are not in your language class or have just arrived.  Each time I have met some great people.

I have been making some new Spanish speaking friends as well, which is pretty crucial I feel to create a balance between the two.

On Thursday, I went with a friend and her roommates to an ecological reserve called Costenera Sur.  There are a ton of walking trails and it brings you to the river.  It was a great little escape from the city.  It felt like going into the intervale in Burlington, you would never know that a city was a five minute walk.

Each month we have class trips, one is optional and the other is mandatory.  The mandatory trip was this Saturday to San Isidro a 40 minute drive to one of the provinces outside of the city.  It was the cutest little town I have ever seen.  We went to go see Villa Ocampo, Victoria Ocampo´s home - An Argentine author.  It was really beautiful, and then we walked around the town market after that.

That night, about an hour after getting back, I went to go meet up with friends to meander around different museums.  La noche de los museos- all of the museums were free.  There were tango shows at some, concerts and people getting dressed up and acting at others, and some just to walk around and see what they had inside.  It was a nice relaxing night.   

Finished Working at the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation

I finished working at the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation this past Wednesday 11-10-10.  I am really appreciative of the opportunity that was given to me to work at the Foundation.  It gave me more structure to my days, and I read a lot of newspaper articles learning about the history of the foundation, and history in general. I sat in on a school visit, in a high school, which helped me to think about possible advocacy opportunities that I might want to take up in the future.  I really enjoyed getting to know everyone in the office, and it also gave me a chance to try my Spanish in a work setting. 

However, now that I am done, I have been embrasing my mornings.  I enjoy having the mornings to go the gym, explore somewhere before class, or just to sleep in relax and read.  It also came in perfect timing as I only have two weeks left in Buenos Aires before my traveling adventures start.

End of First Week of November

First of all, it's crazy to me that it's November.  It could be that I never know what day it is, and only know days of the week so when I look at an actual date I get surprised.  Or it could just be that time is moving quickly, clearly it's the second option.

This week consisted of going to a tango show/lesson at Le Catedral, meeting up with my conversation partner (she's the sweetest, always inviting me to different things), went to the Evita Museum, dinner in Tigre with friends from my Spanish class, and last but not least the Gay Pride Parade.

 Walking up to Le Catedral I could have easily have walked past it.  You walk upstairs and it's a huge old space.  I think I would label it as shabby chic. There was a tango lesson going on that I joined for a little bit and then incredible dancers took the floor once the lesson was over.

I went to Tigre with Emma, on the left, and Emily, on the right. The picture below is my friend Eve and I.  Emma and Eve are two girls from my Spanish class.  The three of them are part of a bigger group from Warwick University in England.  They were in my class last month as well.  This month the classes are a lot smaller, and I am the only American among them. There are 8 of us in class, out of 12 total in the level, this month.  There were 15 in my class last month out of 28 in the whole level. 

Here are some beautiful buildings on my way to Gay Pride Parade on Saturday 11/6/10

 The fountain and statue are at Plaza Congreso which is a block from my residence.

 Some cool paintings on a building on 9 de Julio, the 12 lane highway.  Below is Casa Rosata where the President lives, notice the rainbow flags on the top of the picture.

And the gay pride pictures begin....

 The woman that face painted my face.

 If you couldn't tell, he's trying to be a unicorn. Below, I'm with Lottie, in the middle, and (another) Emily.  I found them in the crowd.  We hopped on a party bus/a float.

Our party bus.

 This is the float that I was on.

 With Emma and her housemates.

 My new friend.

 Emma and her housemates after the parade was over, there was another stage at Congreso where the guy above in the wig was playing.

I have a lot more pictures of Gay Pride, but I figured these would be substantial to get the idea across.

Pictures from 10/31/2010

A beautiful building that I found while exploring yesterday (10/31/10)

 This is an incredible book store called El Ateneo, it was a theater that has been converted into a book store.  Where the curtain/stage is there is a cafe.  When you walk up to the cafe there is a grand piano, and you can see a huge wall of switches that was used from something while this beautiful space was still a theater.

 This building is the Residencia that I moved into this weekend.  This is where I'll be staying for the month.

 Hands down, the funniest clown I have ever seen.  I think he had a cazoo in his mouth cause that's what he sounds like. He was singing songs, controlling traffic, and running up to anyone that walked past. 

 How low would you go if a clown was taking your picture?  In the picture is my friend Amy from Evergreen College and our newest friend a cute little five year old.  We were the clowns fan club. 

 

Yesterday was a day of meandering and bumping into people. Who knew Buenos Aires would begin to feel smaller after a month.

Letters and my visit to a school

Sometimes my days at the office go by slowly reading articles, but then there are days where my mind is swimming in thoughts.  Today was a swimming day.  I was reading letters written to Padre Moreno, and stumbled upon some amazing pieces of history.  Around 1997, Moreno was sending out letters to big people in the Jewish world to invite them to an inauguration ceremony to unvale the first mural of the world to conmemorate the victims of the Holocaust.  I read a letter from Raoul Wallenberg's half brother and attached was the speach that he wrote for the ceremony about his brother.  It was pretty amazing to read!

I didn't know that much about the Foundation before I began to work with them, but I am recieving quite the history lesson from the articles and letters about the foundation.  The foundation both awards people for their civic courage and social responsibility as well as working towards the goal of interfaith.  As I am reading more about Moreno it seems that this is what he stood for.  Within this pile of letters there was one from Elie Wiesel who wrote, "Your goal of linking people, teaching mutual acceptance of differences is indeed a noble one.  May your work in the cause of peace be successful." (June 3, 1997)

On Friday, 10/29/10, I went to a school to listen to two woman that volunteer for the foundation talk about teaching tolerance, in specific discrimination.  I got to the school on time, only to find out that I was not expected and the high school had no idea who the two woman were that I was talking about because well, I didn't know who they were either.  Their first names were just written on a piece of paper for me.  I was faced with 20 minutes of miscommunication, but then Diana and Paula showed up and we were on our way to a classroom.  They showed a short movie put together by the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation that had testimonials from survivors.  When the movie was done the class recieved a little history lesson about the holocaust and the history of the Foundation.  They continued on to discuss discrimination and bring in examples that the students could relate to in order to get a discussion going.  I was sitting on the side taking notes.  I'm glad I went and experienced the education program, I am looking forward to more school visits in order to get a better grasp on the program.

Here is a picture of Raoul Wallenberg.