Vamos River Plate!

After months of trying, I FINALLY went to a futbol game. Of course it was for River Plate (my adopted team). The game played out like this:

10:30a- Walked to Estadio de River Plate with Meredith, Christina and Rune to buy our boletos. No more of the cheap populares left. Crap. Oh well, we are going so let's spend the $50 (pesos not dolares) and get tickets anyways. Unfortunately our Colombian friends can't come now.

11:00-17:00- Run some errands, and mostly eat Danish food (my frist time) and learn how to be Danish. It was highly entertaining to try and learn to speak Danish. About the only words I understood from them all were numbers.

17:00-19:30- PASS OUT due to the incredible amount of food I managed to shove into my stomach. Rested up for the game. I was awoken by the cheers and sirens from the busses filled with the Hooligans (fan club) arriving at the stadium.

20:45- Be told by police that we could not walk our normal way to the stadium because of the section we had to enter in. Cut over a street and still walk that way anyways.

21:10- Find some seats in the lower section and begin to be amazed by the madness of the fans. I can't even begin to describe the energy and excitement they had. Sparklers and smoke flares being set off everywhere. Singing and jumping. I can see why they don't serve alcohol at Futbol games. The energy and enthusiam they have sober is more than enough. They would be TOTALLY fuera de control should they drink.

21:15- River Plate v. Arsenal begins. Unknown to me, this is the Semi-final game for the Copa Sudamerica. River Plate is the only non-brasilian team left in the running. Needless to say this is an important game that River Plate must win.

21:16-23:06- Learn a few Argentine futbol cheers. Mostly I could only understand the ones that were composed of three or four words. Now it's your turn to learn them:
Cheer 1: Vamos Vamos Vamos River Plate. Vamooooooos River Plaaaaate.
Cheer 2: Soy de River. Soy de River.

There was also some playing going on during this time. River had a few really good opportunities to score, but alas failed to follow through. There was also a point near the end of the second half at which one of the players for River got a red card and was ejected from the game. Rune explained it had to do something wtih him taking down the furthest offensive player on the field, ruining their chance to score.

23:16- Game ends tied at 0-0. Because this was a Semi-final game, it couldnt' just remain a draw. We thought it would go into overtime but the rules of this tournament put them straight into Penalty Kick time. Sweet! Everyone is very tense and excited. There is a guy infront of us who repeatdly makes the sign of the cross and keeps praying. Obviously this is one of those times when Divine intervention is a must.

23:16-23:33 Penalty Kick time. First goes Arsenal. They score. Then River. Score as well. Arsenal's second is blocked as is River's. Game now tied 1-1. Arsenal scores again as does River. Still tied. Arsenal scores. Now 3-2. River's kick is blocked. Arsenal scores again. 4-2. Game over. River loses. Damn. God must have had it out for the guy who kept praying for River to win. My guess is he's dealing with other issues (world hunger or unrest in the middle east to maybe name a few).

23:33-23:52- Almost deafining SILENCE. I was amazed at how quite thousands of Argentines could be. Me being the non-sports person I am, was smiling and joking with Meredith. Until she mentioned that now was not a time for laughter but for sadness. River is out of the Copa Sudamerica. We should all be grieving. We had to wait for all of the Arsenal fans to be let out and reach saftey before turning out the thousands of upset River fans. Probably not a good time to be wearing Maroon and Light Blue or to be a River player (esp the keeper of the ones that missed their PK's). I was wearing brown so I felt pretty neutral and safe.


Overall it was a great experience and I'm so glad we finally went. I was already blamed this morning however by a River fan for their loss last night. I assured them I would never root for River again in hopes that they perform better next time. Maybe to get back into their graces I'll just cheer for Boca in hopes that I have the same effect on their outcomes as I did on River.

fin de clases

classes have finally ended here at the UB. I have taken finals in 3 of my 5 classes and recieved grades in 2 of them. I must say, so far I´ve been pleased with the grades I have.

As of tomorrow I have just a month and a week left. It sounds like a lot more if you say 5 weeks. I wonder how I am going to occupy my time here in BsAs since I won´t have classes and only 2 finals to study for.

I am finally starting to miss home and am a bit excited to be going back. It could be partly due to the fact that the constant rainy weather here makes me depressed and that Orlando has been a bit of a selfish jerk. I know as soon as I´m back home though that I will want to be back here. If it is possible without having to pay (or pay a lot) I might see about changing my flight to come back a bit earlier.

Right now though, I must focus on my Spanish Oral final. I feel my Spanish skills have improved greatly during my time here (one of the benefits of having a Colombian boyfriend and friends). I just hope that it has improved enough to keep me on my good grade trend.

semana de inferno

This past week has been loco. I decided NOT to go to Uraguay as originally planned with my roommates due to the fact that I had 3 papers due and 3 exams this week (all by weds). So I made use of the weekend with the apartment to myself by doing the most exciting of things- STUDYING! I didn´t even go play ultimate this week because I was studying (shocker I know). It was actually really nice to have the place to myself. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed when on Saturday night I got a text message saying they were on their way back. I hadn´t planned on them returning until Sunday or even Monday.

Still I did manage to have a little fun. Took a few hour break on Saturday to visit Orlando at his job and then stopped by the Jardin Botanico to take some pictures. I was really excited to see the lotus flowers in bloom, especially since they are one of my favorite flowers.

Monday I turned in my first paper that was due to my Traditions and Cultures class (basically an anthro course on Argentine culture). I was a bit surprised whem my teacher asked my opinion on someone else´s paper, citing that I was a ¨great observer¨. I guess he could tell from my other work that I´ve turned in. I just hope he´s not disappointed by my paper. It was maybe not as well developed or written as I had hoped.

Yesterday was finishing a case study for Negocios Internacionales that was due today. And last night I had a little fun with Molly´s computer, adjusting some of the photos I´ve taken since I´ve been here. Along with doing some reasearch for the other paper I had to turn into today. I was amazed at how easy I was able to write it this morning. I woke up and it was like a lightbulb had gone off in my head. I guess the sleep did me some good.

Turned in those papers today and took another final. The third test that I THOUGHT I had (and had been studying for all week), I just found out that I did not need to take it afterall. Good thing I was not too stressed about it.

Now it´s time for a little fun. This SHOULD be the weekend we finally go to Tierra Santa, the mini Holy Land in BsAs. I´m excited. It should be so over the top corny that it´s amazing.

Iguazu Falls

This past weekend my roommate, Christina, and I went to Iguazu Falls in the Missiones province of Argentina. Iguazu Falls is located between Argentina and Brasil; however, because I do not have a Brasilian visa (and did not feel like trying to sneak across the border) we only visited the Argentine side.

The trip began with yet another 18-hour bus ride. This time I did bring homework to do and was able to read for a whole 2 minutes before they put on a very loud and stereotypical zombie movie. So much for studying on that bus trip.

We arrived at about 9:00a, checked into our hostel, changed clothes and left for the park. Let me say, Iguazu has been one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited EVER. Unfortunately there were lots of school groups and tourists, but you were able to eventually shove your way through them to get a good spot to take pictures.

The first day we walked the Upper Trails, went to La Garganta del Diablo (The Devil's Throat) and walked the Lower Trails. The upper trails gave you a good view from the top of the falls and some great landscapes. The Devil's Throat was insane with the amount of water pouring down the falls. I couldn't help but wonder where it all came from. It was a bit difficult taking pictures there due to the large amounts of mist coming from the falls. The Lower Trails were my favorite part of the day because you could see the whole falls and get up-close and personal as well.

The following day Christina and I took a "hike" along a path to the Salto Arrechea, a more hidden fall that not all of the tourists get to see. It was a 6k walk in total along a very secluded and peaceful path. Well, secluded minus all of the beetles, flies, butterflies and spiders that Christina kept trying to fight off. I felt our journey was well worth it when we finally arrived at the fall and it's own little lagoon. We waded in the water a bit, took some pictures, relaxed and then headed back to the main part of the park. Our walk in was a lot faster than the walk out due to the fact that all of the falling water everywhere made us realize how much we needed to use the facilities.

After eating a HUGE salami sandwich we headed out for la Isla de San Martin, a small island in the Rio Uraguay, which provides other views of the falls. We had decided not to take one of the boat rides under the falls because it seemed a bit unreasonable to pay $50(pesos) for a 5minute ride under the falls. Everyone I have met who did it says it was amazing, but I have no regrets about saving my ever-dwindling funds. Isla de San Martin was relatively abandoned and for good reason. What looked to be a promising spot to walk around was a bit of a disappointment. Aside from two look out points (one of which had a bunch of buzzards), there was really not much to do. Even the "swimming" was a bit of a disappointment as you could really only wade up to about your knees and were not able to swim at all. It was so hot that I took a dip anyway.

One of the best things about visiting the park was seeing all of the wildlife. Christina spotted a walking stick and praying mantis (that looked like a leaf). I found a Toucan in the trees. We also saw lots of Coati (South American raccoons basically) and these giant lizards/baby dinosaurs. The highlights however were seeing Cai Monkeys, a Coral snake (poisonous) and King snake (looks like the coral but isn't poisonous) and Guinea Pigs!

For Sunday we had planned to simply lie by the pool and relax before our plane left. Those plans were thrown out when we woke to thunder, lightening and a HUGE tropical downpour. It was such a big storm that the power in our hostel was out for the entire morning! So instead of drinking Caprahinias by the pool, we had coffee and played cards until we left for our flight back home. That's right, flight not bus ride, and I wouldn't have done it any other way.

estoy un ladron

i'm warchalking (stealing wireless from some neighbor) and using my roommate's computer. they left for the weekend to go to uraguay. i decided to not go because a) i didn't have the money and b) more importantly i didn't have the time.

in the next week i have 2 exams and three papers due. hopefully i put the next 5 days to good use. having the apartment to myself should be somewhat of a help. same with being able to get online in the apartment. but it also means i'll be able to procrastinate online (such as updating my blog and posting picutres on facebook). i'm already so enthralled by having an internet connection i forgot about the soy burgers i was making and let them turn into little black discs.

on an interesting side note. it seems that in argentina they are not as into failing students as they might be in the us. should you do poorly on an exam, you get a chance to retake it. at least with the parcials you can; i'm not so sure about the finals, but they do offer multiple days you can take them. let's hope i don't end up having to find out.

Puerto Madryn/Penisula Valdez

After two weeks of delays, this past weekend I took my first actual trip outside of the province of BsAs with my friend Meredith to see the whales, elephant seals and penguins. Our trip started out promising, with me rushing to pack my bag in under 15 minutes (almost not bringing a jacket to the horror of Molly and Orlando who would not let me out of the house before I did) and rushing with Orlando to the Omnibus station to meet Meredith for our 6:30 bus departure. Did I say 6:30, I meant 7:30. Only once I was on the Subte did I look at our bus tickets and realize that we left an hour later than I thought. I guess it´s better than leaving an hour earlier.

After spending an hour an half in the bus terminal, Meredith and I boarded our luxurious cama bus for the 18 hr bus ride to Puerto Madryn. I had been forewarned of the poor quality of the bus food and avised to bring our own sustinence. Boy am I glad we did. If you think airplane food is bad, just imagine bus food. I am still not sure what exactly it was they fed us for dinner. I can only describe the meat as ´grey and a mystery¨. The bus ride was pretty uneventful. Crappy movies, bus attendants being WAY to attentive to our needs, and sleeping most of the ride. We arrived in Puerto Madryn the following afternoon to cloudy and rainy skies. After checking into our hostel (my very first hostel stay I must admit) we rented bikes to ride down to a beach where we were told we could see the whales during high tide. I´m not sure that we ever made it to the actual beach we were supposed to; however, the spot where we finally stopped did have a fantastic view. The whales were very rowdy, jumping all over the place. As exciting as it was to see them jumping like crazy, before long Meredith and I decided to head back instead of being caught riding our bikes in the rain.

At the hostel we met two Swiss girls who had been traveling the whole of Chilean and Argentine Patagonia. They asked if we were interested in renting a car with them to drive to Penisula Valdez the following day to see the assorted marine life. Naturally, because it would be cheaper and more personal than going on a bus tour, we agreed. After going to bed early, we set out the next day with our new Swiss friends, Victoria and Sophie, for Penisula Valdez.

Penisula Valdez is a national park in Argentina. Aside from the few estancias (sheep ranches) and the tourist stops, there is NOTHING and I mean NOTHING. The landscape reminded me a lot of Eastern Arizona/Wester New Mexico. All around the penisula there are only gravel roads to get from one lookout point to the other. We managed to see a lot of sheep (which is a Patagonia specialty and delicious I might add) along with some of the unique Patagonian wildlife (the names of which I can´t remember right now and pictures I will have to get from Meredith). After making reservations for our whale watching tour in the afternoon, we headed out to see the penguinos, elephant seals and sea lions (or lobos).

Our first destanation was to see the penguinos. We almost missed the small sign for Punta Valdes and the penguinos. Arriving at the spot, I began to wonder where exactly would we see them, since the beach was so far away. No sooner than I got to the small fence did I see the about 60 or so Magellenic Penguins in the colony. It was amazing how close we were to them (although we could not touch them and who would want to get penguin bird flu anyways?). They were just hanging out in their little burrows, skwaking away and enjoying the penguin life. After taking a hundred photos, we were off to see the elephant seals.

Unfortuantely we could not get as close to these guys as we were the penguins. And the most exciting thing they did was occasionally try to move their huge blubbery bodies only to quit after about 30 seconds. The most exciting thing that happened when seeing the seals was the fact that I slipped and almost fell down a cliff/ravine towards the beach where I could have been eaten by the elephant seals. Okay so I just lied right there. I did fall, but they don´t eat people so the only real danger I was in was a result of my own clumsiness.

Then came what was to be the best part of the day- seeing the whales. The whales in this area are the Southern Right Whale, a protected species of baileen whale. We went on the last boat tour because we did not want to be with as many tourists and we were told that the whales would be more active. At first all we saw was a mama and her baby near the harbor, not doing much, just floating. The same with the next two we saw a bit further out. At this point I was not sure if we were actually seeing whales or hippos or maybe even loch ness monsters. We had some excitement when we ran across another mama whale smacking the water with her tail. Our guide informed us they did this as a signal to get their babies to come to them. The most fun happened when we encountered a group of male whales and one female whale. For censorship purposes, let's just say you can imagine what was happening. I have pictures if you are really interested. Our guide was pretty excited for all of this. Since each whale is only in heat only every three years and only for about 2 or 3 days at a time, I don´t think it is something many people see. That pretty much concluded our whale watching experience.

The following day Meredith and I walked around the city/town of Puerto Madryn, walked along the beach collecting shells for our friends and went out to the pier. The owner of the hostel informed us that you can see the whales from the pier and we had hoped that because it was once again windy and rainy that the whales would be rowdier than they had been the day before. Our guide explained that the whales behave according to the ocean waters. Therefore, if it is rough, they will be more active than on tranquilo days (like the day we were out). We did see two whales hanging out in the harbor, the most action we saw though was one sticking his nose out. We did see the other jumping a bit when we were walking on the beach but other than that, they were still taking it pretty easy.

Another 18 hour bus ride (all in the rain mind you) and we were back. It went pretty fast (since we slept most of the way again), but I was a bit sad to not see more of the Patagonian and Pampan country side. It amazes me how sparsely popluated Argentina is outside of Buenos Aires. They really are not lying when they say they have a LOT of land.

To see all of my photos (and some of Meredith´s) here is the website:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2203441&l=3035c&id=10101590

Tigre!

So this past weekend I went to Tigre with Meredith and Molly. We decided to escape the city and take a boat ride around the town and enjoy the beautiful saturday we had been given. Tigre is a town on the river delta just 40 minutes north of BsAs by train. The ¨town¨is composed of a mainland city part and then a bunch of little islands in the delta where people live in their houses or you can rent for the weekend.

The ¨roads¨in Tigre are actually water passages between all of the islands. The collectivos are not the buses they are in BsAs but boats instead. Molly asked at the tourist office for recommendations about where to go and how to get there. They told us to buy a ticket for the collectivo and to first go to Rama Negra and then take another collectivo to Tres Bocas, the touristy spots in Tigre where we could walk around and get some lunch. So we bought our tickets, got on the collectivo and began our adventure.

We were not sure where exactly to get off for Rama Negra but we knew it would be about an hour on the boat before we got there. Well it turns out the collectivo we got on did not go to Rama Negra. Instead we were dropped off at one of the islands with a museum of one of the old houses. Confusion set in as we tried to figure out how to get to Rama Negra. Fortunately we met an older man and his daughter who lived in Tigre. He explained to us about the collectivo system and helped flag down one of the boats and proceed to tell us where to get off for Rama Negra.

Once at our first stop, Meredith Molly and I were simply giddy about how green and beautiful and peaceful and serene the island was. We stumbled across a huge open field which Meredith and I took advantage of by throwing for a little bit. I had snuck the disc with us because if Molly had known we were hoping to throw, she her self would have thrown as well (a fit that is). After a few minutes of throwing in the field (which was actually probably someone´s backyard) we kept on with our exploration of the island. After walking around for about an hour, we found the community area with a small playground, soccer field, volleyball court, tennis court and parilla. We played like little kids on the playground, took a nap nand I tried to be artsy and take some pretty pictures.

Around 3:30 we decided we should start heading back, abandoning our idea of going to Tres Bocas. Meredith and I had ticket to see Swan Lake for later in the evening and we wanted to make sure we could take a shower before we went. So we headed back to the dock where we got off at to wait for the collectivo.

At the pier, a friendly island yellow lab kept us company. We named her Sol (which means sun). As we had done on the museum island, we tried to flag down the collectivos to take us back to Tigre. After three passed us just waving, we figured we must be doing something wrong. There was a couple sitting a few docks and we decided to ask them how we could get the boat to stop and take us back. They informed us that we were waiting at the wrong dock. Natually we went to the collectivo stop and hoped we would have better luck.

We were wrong. After waiting another half hour and getting passed by about 5 more boats, worry started to set in. Our friends from the dock stopped by to check-in on us and told us that there were only certain boats that stopped there, but that we had to make sure to flag each one we saw because there was not real way to tell which was which. After another half hour of being ignored by even more boats, and it now being about 4:30, a little bit of desperation started to set in. Jokingly I took out my disc and the green highlighter I had to make a hitch-hiker sign to try to get back to Tigre.

Another half-hour passed and still no collectivos were stopping. We managed to flag down a couple going in the opposite direction and ask them how we could get back to Tigre. They told us the same thing, wait there and flag down every collectivo you saw. They also told us that they only came ever few hours. Great. It was now getting late and starting to cool off a bit and we were hungry. Now our hitch-hiking plan was starting to seem more reasonable than waiting for a real boat.

We were thrilled when a collectivo eventually stopped. The only problem was it was going in the opposite direction we needed as well. We tried to get on it, to just ride it to the end of the line and then wait for it to turn around and go back to Tigre. They wouldn´t have it. We asked if they would be stopping here again going in the opposite direction. They said no. ¨Mierda¨we thought, ¨how the hell are we going to get off this island?¨ We were hoping that if by 6 or 6:30 we were still stuck there our friends from the dock would check on us, feel bad we were stuck there, and invite us to their house for an asado and to stay for the night or have their own boat and take us back.

In the mean time, I started seriously holding out my sign and ¨hecho el dedo¨for every smaller boat that was going in the direction of Tigre. Imagine our surprise when a couple with their two children stopped and offered to take us back. They were headed to San Fernando, a bit further down the river, and Tigre was a bit out of their way but their generosity was overwhelming. The father worked as a producer for Fox and gave us his business card. He said he needed more Americans for his shows and wanted us to email him. Molly still needs to do that I believe. His wife is a professor of psychology at the Universidad de Belgrano where we are studying. The whole time we could not believe our luck and that our hitch-hiking actually worked. We had resolved ourselves to staying on the island forever.

Finally we got back. Meredith and I did not have time to shower before running off to the ballet. To add to our public transportation mishaps of the day, we almost missed our stop. Luckily the driver announced that Luna Park (the site of the performance) was in one stop. It turned out to be okay though. You know it´s not that big of a deal to be in jeans and a shirt when they sell hotdogs, popcorn and other stadium food. While the performance was good, we were sad about missing Julio Boca (the famous Argentine ballet dancer) by one night.

All in all, it was a great saturday adventure.