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!