Technology

I think maybe I just have trouble writing what I'm thinking about on the computer. It does not come easily but I wanted to quickly post about my trip to San Rafael for the weekend. We went with our "speaking partners" who are argentinian students who've volunteered to give us practice speaking spanish and so that they can practice their english a bit. We rented a bus and drove over night to San Rafael which is in the provence of Mendoza to the west of Cordoba. We went white water rafting with by far the most beautiful surroundings of the four other times I've gone rafting, really great rocky mountains that made me want to go exploring so bad! I wish I could have captured it but I wasn't about to take my camera on the boat. I'm a bit tired of structured trips like that though because for instance, I don't really like white water rafting but just by coincidence I've been so many times and I just really wanted to go walk around the beautiful mountains! I love mountains! But that's ok, I'll have other opportunities. One of these weekends I want to go to Mendoza and rent a bike so I can stop and explore the Andies a bit. Oh and I figured out that I don't need to be budgeting so much! So that leaves my options a little more open for traveling. I have nine days off in May of which four will include Iguazu falls with two friends which I'm really excited about and then I don't know for the rest! Salta? I'd like to go to desert... anyway I'll figure that out later.

So after rafting we went rappelling and zip lining which was fun but of course my favorite part was the beautiful view. (I have pictures of all of this on facebook and picasa). Then on the way to the hotel we played some music on the bus which was really fun. I gotta learn some more Beatles songs, good for all occasions. Its big but I was really glad I brought my guitar. Also it meant that I got two seats to myself and got some sleep. I should have brought it to Buenos Aires instead of my computer hands down. That night we played a lot of music. I had really missed singing and harmonizing with women's voices aka ANNA I MISS YOU!! It was great and the Band was a big hit and Olivia brought her harmonicas--hit the spot. The next day, Sunday we went to a winery and went through and saw all the grape pressers and squishers and squashers. Unfortunately on the way back the drivers got lost and we couldn't find a gas station that the bus could fit in and someone pooped in the toilet on the bus so it stopped working and the downstairs smelled really bad, and we ran out of water so we finally got back to Cordoba at 3:00 in the morning. Luckily I had the earliest class and it was only at 11 but it was still annoying. Everyone was so sick of being on that bus! And to make matters very much worse the movies were horribly terribly bad and when they ran out of horribly terribly bad movies they played music videos for at least an hour. I was very ready to hitch hike home after the music videos. It was weird, such a small thing like a hundred 25 second clips of aggressively assaulting pop culture made me feel farther away from Amherst than ever. It completely 'put me off' as they would say but I went out for churipan (really good sausages with anything and everything you do and could possibly want for 10 pesos) with my friend Alexis and we had some good conversation about the crazy consumer culture in Cordoba. She's not from Amherst and agrees that things are out of hand here in a very plastic way. I've heard people say things like, "When walk out my door and see all the beautiful things in this world like our trees and our technology, I just can't imagine that there's not a God," and also "Oh I went to New York City once, it was truly beautiful. It's just so modern." I'm still processing.

On the upside last night I went to a tango lesson with a few friends (not from argentina but from Holland, Switzerland, and Brazil) and it was great! The first couple of dances were really hard but after that I was surprised how easy it was after I stopped thinking. It was really fun and only 15 pesos so like a few dollars for 3 hours! I really liked it and had a lot of fun so we're going to go to Salsa at the same place today, Thursday and I know a bunch of people who do that so I'm excited! Oh and tomorrow I'm going out to Capilla to spend the weekend with Noah and we're going to meet my friend, Reena from Alaska and an Argentinian friend of hers there and camp out on Mount Uritorco. Ok gotta run to my bus!

I'm Alive!

Posting on my blog is like remembering to catch up with an old friend I haven't called in a year. Where to start. Well so I stayed with Noah on his farm for a weekend which was great and beautiful and relaxing and wonderful and not long enough. The farm is about a two hour bus ride away and 21 pesos which is like $5. Then I went to an Argentinian birthday party (with Cristina's cousin Patricia who I've been exchanging guitar lessons with) where they were dancing....capoeira, how frickin cool. Oh and I made some friends at the park who were playing guitar and speaking english. We have a lot in common and they're all from the south so that's cool cause I haven't really spent much time with all people from Mississippi and Tennessee before. On Sunday, me and Noah celebrated our one year anniversary :), didn't celebrate 4.20 on Tuesday :(, learned a few new songs on the guitar, both of the kids got chicken pox, I found a really good pizza place, and studied my butt off for my argentinian history and latin american history midterms which I had today and did well on. I still haven't taken any tango lessons which I want to do but I need to find someone to go with!!

Then last night I went to a party at a house a block away where a bunch of international students are living, taking spanish, and working with children in the villa miserias which are basically what they sound like, towns of misery except that I think they're more like neighborhoods. Noah and I had meet two of the girls who are living in international house at the post office cause none of us could figure out where to buy stamps. One of the girls is still here but the other girl's parents flew her home a week ago after someone broke into their house and she had a seizure. They were having a party so there were about 15 people just sitting around at the table, eating, drinking, playing cards, talking. They had the door open cause it was hot and two guys walked in with guns and tied everyone up. Tied everyone up. Guns. Yes crazy. They took four lap tops and then all the cameras and cell phones. Then apparently the girl we met had a seizure and really freaked the guys out so they left. And two weeks earlier their house was broken into while no one was home and other things were taken. Oy. I haven't been robbed at all luckily but wow. It's definitely obvious when someone isn't from Argentina and really obvious when someone isn't from Latin America so a house of international students is a pretty obvious target. It's some combination of trying to wear ethnic looking or 'outside of the box' clothes (women here generally wear white or really light really tight blue jeans with really tight tank tops and then a small scarf) nice backpacks, and sometimes skin color for instance if you see a black person they are definitely not from Argentina. I wish I could tell if I look a lot like a tourist. Probably some days more than others. Noah definitely looks like a tourist but not a tourist anyone would want to rob haha.

In terms of emotional stability I've been in and out, up and down and around. In other words there is no emotional stability haha. It's weird, when I'm feeling great I honestly believe that things are getting easier and that living in Argentina is great but then when I'm feeling down I honestly believe that things haven't gotten any easier and that I haven't learned as much as I would like to have which stinks. For example right now the latter seems ridiculous. Of course it's getting easier and of course I'm learning things! I've definitely been thinking a lot about why I'm here, why my life itinerary has me in Argentina. I don't regret anything but all the reasons I wanted to come here seem so feeble compared to what this experience is, so feeble that they hardly even relate, all because of one thing: I assumed that I would understand what I was going though, that I'd be able to feel my consciousness shift, that I'd be able to compartmentalize my new thoughts and the new things I was learning, that I'd be self aware enough to understand what I was going through! Feels like I'm stopped terrapin station ha. Well we'll see what the next three months have in store. Lista.

Up down and in between

So after 1 lost bag, 1 night on an outside couch, and 1 awful stomach virus we decided to fold in our cards for going to Chile. We did have half a good time though. We went to Puente de Inca which was really cool, I'll post pictures. And took a beautiful bus ride through the Andies of which I'll also post pictures. Noah's still sick but I recovered pretty quickly after the night bus back to Cordoba where I threw up the worst of the virus. It sucked and now Noah doesn't have a cell phone or his journal or debit card (which has been canceled) or favorite bandana but of course, he's Noah so he almost immediately snapped back to his chipper happy self. Amazing. I've been feeling very high and low. These last few days mostly low but today turned out good. The social scene here is just so frustrating. I understand that I'm having a very different experience in Argentina than everyone else but I just can't connect with anyone! Its so weird. But today I was reading in the park and met some new people who I immediately clicked with. It was quite a relief, I was starting to believe that Amherst was really more of a bubble than I had thought. So I spent a lot of time with them and we'll definitely see each other soon. I hope that I just haven't been able to find my right circle of people. Maybe this is it. It'll have to wait though cause this weekend I'm going to visit Noah on his farm in Capilla! I'm really excited to have a relaxing weekend away from the city just reading and playing guitar with Noah in the country side. When I get back I'm going to start going to Yoga a few blocks away and look into taking some tango lessons :). So updatesss....hmm

IM GOING TO EARLHAM! Thats a big one.

Oh and I'm exchanging guitar lessons with Cristina's cousin Patricia whose's 26. I'm teaching her Jack Johnson and she's teaching me Samba. I love it.

Connections connections, a guy in my hebrew class knows a girl from my program, Rachael from church and another guy in hebrew class knows Jeremy Aronson because he's trying to start Ultimate frisbee here. Crazy things going on! (btw Jeremy is from Amherst, a member of the JCA, went to DC with me on Panim el Panim, was in my english class, and is also here living in Cordoba in his gap year coincidentally).

Of course! I did Passover at the Habad House which is one and a half blocks away on my street!! It was a great experience and I had a lot of fun. The food was pretty bad but I met a lot of interesting people (there were about 180 people there, pretty much all around 23 and pretty much all traveling Israelis). The seder was in Hebrew which I couldn't understand but that was ok because the Rabbi was really drunk and hilariously picking on random people and asking them what they thought the meaning was of his ridiculously long anecdotes. It was a seder to remember.

Sums it up, will try to check in more often. Thanks for tune'n in folks.