Buenos Aires, Argentina

We went on an excursion to Buenos Aires this last weekend!!!!

On Friday morning we met my advisor in Vina and headed to the airport to catch our flight. Going through security, immigration and everything else was super easy but hilarious because the immigration officers did 3 different things between everyone in the group and so a lot of us had different papers, stamps in different places and others didn't receive a paper. Our advisor freaked out a bit but we all thought it would be fine. The flight was quick, only about 2hrs. Once we were in Argentina we all made it through the airport with no problems and went to our hotel. We relaxed for about an hour and then went to go get some pesos. Then we met back up our advisor and we had a bus tour that I fell asleep on and we went to a tango bar. We had some dinner and learned how to tango. It was pretty funny to watch all of us gringos with the Argentinians but we all figured it out by the end of the night. After that we went back the the hotel and all went to bed.




The tango night

Saturday: We had two walking tours which lasted the whole day. We got to see the main tourist attractions such as Church's, plazas, and ended in plaza were we got to see a monumental cemetery. It was actually really cool. After that we were done for the night and a group of us went to the feria that was in the plaza. We then went back to the hotel and bought some alcohol on the way back. All of us met up and had a steak dinner together which turned out to be a little frustrating when the check came because with groups that large it is always so hard to get all of the money figured out. Afterwards we went to the hotel and went up to my room because we had four beds and so the majority of us hungout and drank. I learned a new drinking came called "Cheers to the Governor" which was fun. Then most of us went out to find a bar or a club and ended up walking around for probably like 2 hours. It was kinda frustrating because there was a girl who lives in Buenos Aires that was a friend of someone in my group with us and I thought she knew where we were going. That night ended in a frustrating way and I was exhausted from walking so much.

Feria San Telmo

On Sunday we had breakfast and checked out and then a group of us went to the feria in San Telmo which is 4 blocks long. It was really awesome and I bought some cool stuff for pretty cheap. We were so hot though because it was 80 degrees and humid and all us hadn't totally prepared for that. After walking through that for 3ish hours we got some ice cream, iced tea and then headed back to the hotel. We hungout for bit and then went to the airport and headed back to Chile.

All in all it was a good weekend and I really enjoyed getting closer to some of the other people in my program. It was awesome to see a new city but the company really made the trip great.

Below are some photos of the trip!

I am in front of Casa Rosada in Plazo de Mayo

Plaza Mayo

Paintings at a museum

Amelia and I with some guards



The scary toilet and baday at the museum



People who died in a concentration camp

Beautiful Church

 

Trips planned

The rest of my trips planned for Chile!

April 19/20 Buenos Aires, Argentina
April 26/27 Puerto Varas and Chiloe (Ancud)
May 3/4 Santiago
May 10/11 Pucon
May 17/18 Nothing
May 24/25 San Pedro de Atacama
May 31/June 1st Nothing
June 7/8 Patagonia
June 14/15 Chiloe (Castro) ?
June 21/22 Nothing
June 28/29 Vina/Valpo
July 1-12 Lima and Cusco, Peru and Santiago

I am super excited about all of this and am going to be a broke little lady but travelling is worth it and this is an experience of a lifetime.

Below are photos from my excursion with my group that was before the wine one but I realized I forgot to put them up! We went to the Fonck museum in Vina. There they have a large selection of early Chilean art, bugs and then a section on Easter island. Then we went to a Mapuche center and had a lesson about Mapuche people. The museum also had information about them so that was why we did them together. They served us some super delicious sopapillas with ahi and then we went to a hospital that uses Mapuche medicine. Then we ended the day doing loom. It was quite a packed day! I think it was on the 22nd of March.

Massive but short update

The beautiful view at the top of La Campana. On a nice day you can see to Argentina from one side
and the ocean on the other side.

At Casa Marin

Friday April 5th: Went to a Vineyard and Pablo Neruda's house in Isla Negra with my program. It was really awesome to get to go on a wine tour and experience that since I hadn't ever done that before. Also, I have now seen all 3 of Neruda's houses which isn't something everybody gets to do and is cool.

Part of their grape vines

Saturday April 6th: Had a little meltdown because I didn't make it to La Campana with my friends because of some confusion about transportation and other reasons. As a result, my family saw part of it and they decided to take me to Olmue and see the little town. We had lunch and some ice cream, it was adorable. They also danced to Pitbull on the radio while we were driving and it was hilarious. I then skyped RJ for a while.


Riesling, Savingnon Blanc, Pinot Noir

The museum in Isla Negra

Sunday April 7th: I went over to Tess's house for lunch because her family invited me over. They were having a little family gathering so I met a few of her host families cousins, and other extended family members. It was actually really good and nice to talk in Spanish for so long with them. They are really great people.

Monday: School. Yoga. Choir.

The start

Tuesday: I woke up early to go to a meeting about volunteering at a daycare (ish) thing and then went out to a breakfast place called Desayunador. Karla paid for all of us who came. I decided against volunteering because it wasn't really something that fit into my schedule and not exactly what I am looking for when I think about volunteering. I wish it could have worked out though.

Wednesday: Tutoring with Karla (this is going to be really helpful). Yoga. Cooking (kinda unsure about this because there are so many people there).

Thursday: Class. More class.

Friday: I climbed La Campana with my friend Brittney! It was so hard. It took us 8 hours of hiking and that was cut a little short because on the way down I twisted my ankle and landed really hard on my knee. I was really sad because I wanted to finish it and we instead had to call the park ranger to pick us up. Also I ripped my lululemon's which was such a bummer. I got home exhausted and went to bed super early.

Exhausted and so glad to have made it!



Ouchy

Super steep climbing

The top 2km of La Campana

Brittney and I

Saturday: I hungout with Amelia and we went to Valparaiso. We tried to find an empanada place that supposedly sells empanadas and juice for 1.000 pesos which is super cheap! But we couldn't find it so we ended up going to a place that was supposed to be Brazilian. They had amazing juice and I had a kiwi and lemon, which turned out to be a very weird, acidic, but good combination. We also split a tabla of brushetta like things. We then went and got ice cream. During all of this we read through Amelia's travel book and decided on our mini vacation locations. That was a major plus and so now we know we are going to Puerto Varas and Chiloe (Ancud).

Sunday: I went to church with Karla and some other girls from my group. It was good but we sat in the cry room and really couldn't hear what was going on at mass. Then we were all invited back to Karla's where she had prepared lunch for us. We had an amazing salad with mushrooms and cheese that was similar to brie. Then meet and potato cake things with a lentil yogurt side. Then for dessert a waffle with mint and Neapolitan ice-cream. The mint ice-cream was great because it tasted normal instead of like toothpaste (in Chile they add ginger to mint and it takes like toothpaste).

That's a quick overview of my past week and now I will start doing better at blogging!!

This is the video of my family singing and dancing.

Laguna Verde

The view before descending the big hill

On Saturday over the weekend I went to another asado (BBQ) with some other Chilean friends. We met in Bellevista in Valparaiso and bought some food and then caught a micro to Laguna Verde. This city is located to the south of Valparaiso but only about 30mins away. Then we road the micro farther into the city and then to the outskirts because we wanted to go find Las Docas. We then got off at the end of the micro route and started walking on a dirt road to the beach/water however we could not see at all. We hitch-hiked on a truck for about 5mins and then had to continue walking for about an hour more all the way down a dirt road until we saw the laguna. All of us were pretty tired and had no idea it was going to be this long. Only one of the chilean guys had been there before and so we were relying on him. When we got down we started a fire and cooked some chorizo. Tess and I had bought some avocado and so we ate that while the chorizo and chicken were cooking. We cut it up and put it on the bread. We then just all hungout there for a while, a few people drank but I was still wary of my stomach so I stayed away from that. Then at about 5:30 I decided I wanted to leave and talked with the girls about it. It was getting pretty cold because it hadn't been a very nice day and I knew we had a hour and half uphill walk to do before getting to the micro. So we all left at a little before six and walked up the big hill to get to the dirt path back towards the road and were able to hitch-hike on the back of a truck again and that saved us at least an hour, probably more since we were riding in the back for 20mins. We then caught the micro and headed back to Valpo. As we came into the city I heard a loud noise and looked behind me and somebody had thrown a rock at our micro and shattered the back door's glass. It was pretty crazy when that happened because the micro was full and somebody could have gotten hurt but luckily nobody did. Once in Valpo all of us girls took the metro back home and I fell asleep pretty early.





Sunday nothing exciting really happened.



Monday I had classes like usual but we also started our Tallers this week! This are workshops that the school offers and I had signed up for choir on Mondays and then cooking on Wednesday. Both of them are at 6:30 and go for about 1:30-2hrs. Choir was awesome and Tess and I were the only ones who were foreigners in the class. It felt so good to sing and I am so excited to see where this goes. Then today I had my cooking taller and there were a lot more foreigners. I am excited about this class and I thought we were going to cook today but we didn't end up doing that. However next week I know it will start. I need to look into finding an apron and a knife to bring to class... Not sure if I can find either of those at a second hand store but I hope I can!







Tess, Julie Ann and I in the back of a truck!