Starbucks is taking over Buenos Aires!

Yes, that´s right folks....Starbucks! That addicting, expensive, delicious coffee has made its way to Argentina and into the hearts of too many people to count. When I first arrived here in Buenos Aires in June, the very first Starbucks had opened in May and the line was almost always waay out the door. To my shame, I even went once. Now, I swear that I see another one opening up everyday! I know for sure of at least 3 other ones that have opened, and they all are quite popular. I´ve never been a Starbucks drinker in the states. But here they have a killer Dulce de leche frappachino that you cannot get in the states.

It's my life

So, as a friend so nicely reminded me...I need to update my "wonderful blog" ;-)

Life! It's been crazy, relaxing, and wonderful! So I know the crazy and relaxing part is contradictory, but deal with it. :-) I'll explain.

I've finished completely with classes!! Hooray! And as for the grades?? dun da da dun....drum roll...ALL 10's!!! That's right, Sarah recieved perfect scores in all of her classes. Okay, enough gloating, I just had to say it. I was excited anyways.

However, with classes being completely over, I've obviously discovered that I have a lot of spare time on my hands. Which is nice! I can do whatever I want, go wherever I want, and not have to worry one bit about studying, writing a paper, or doing homework. Sorry to rub it in for those of you who are still in classes. Just remember, I started in JUNE!! So, here I am, enjoying Buenos Aires for another month, with no responsibility.

So what have I been up to, you ask? Hmm, let me think back. I played in a soccer tournament last weekend, which was a lot of fun. We had one game on Friday, and lost sadly. Then we had two games in a row on Saturday, of which one we tied and another we won. By the time Saturday night/Sunday rolled around I could hardly move though. I'm not used to that kind of exercise, especially because on Sat. we were down one player so we all had to play the full games.

Monday nights I continue to go to a Bible study. The STINTers run the show, but it's in Spanish with Argentine girls as well. The girls are great. I've been able to create some really great relationships and I've learned so much from each one of the girls. It's also really helped just being in a Bible study since being here. I've not missed out on fellowship or growth!

Tuesday nights I've started going to eat tacos with the Vida gang (or whoever shows up) at a place called California Burrito Company. Yeah, slightly american?? Actually an American owns the place and knows us now, since they've been going for over a year! I don't know if I mentioned it before, but eating tacos is a treat because they don't have them very many places!! If you're anything like I was, you would expect the food to be similar to that of Mexico...spicy and flavorful. However, what I have discovered, thanks to the huge number of immigrants that populated the country, is a lot of Italian food. Generally without any type of spice whatsoever. But, the food is still good! And it makes me appreciate taco night even more. :-)

Thursday night I generally make and eat dinner with my friend Kevin, as you saw in one of my last posts. It's fun because I get to practice my newly obtained cooking skills and have fun while I do it!! This past week we made pancakes, sausage, and scrambled eggs. To my disappointment, he'd had it all before, but it was still yummy.

Friday nights are Vida nights. It's just a time that I get to spend with friends, hanging out, playing games, or doing whatever. Sadly I couldn't go this past week because I got sick!! Yes, for the first time in AR, I got sick. :-( I woke up on Friday morning with a fever, headache, sore neck, and sore throat. No fun. Maybe because of the change in climate, but whatever the reason, I didn't like it. I'm still recovering, as still have a sore throat and neck. Hopefully I'll be fully recovered in no time.

This coming Friday I am planning a trip to Bariloche with my friend Andrea. Bariloche is more in the south, which I've been wanting to see for some time now. I'll be gone for a little under a week, then coming back here just in time for Thanksgiving! The stinters want to make a big Thanksgiving dinner for the Argentines, to show em what it's all about. :-) That'll be fun.

Okay, so anyways....gonna head out. Hope this was a good enough update!!

Sending my love...

Hey!!

The pumpkin we carved to celebrate Halloween! (Note: they do not have very many bright orange ones like us. Also note the yummy American candy compliments of my mommy)

So, a lot has happened since I last wrote. Where to start?! Well, we spent Halloween at a zoo! I went with a few of my girl friends here and it was a beautiful day! The weather here is getting gorgeous, although today is a scorcher...with temps in the 80's and over 50% humidity. Talk about bad hair day. Anywyas, The zoo was incredible because we could touch almost all of the animals! We got to touch real live huge lion, baby lions, baby pumas, monkeys, ride a camel and elephant, and much more!

That's real!! i just hope he wasn't drugged. :-/

Puma!!

Okay, so I wasn't expecting him to jump on my head!

Soo, that weekend we also went to La Boca, which is a famous neighborhood of the city. It's famous for the bright colors of the houses and being a place where the inmigrants first lived when they came to BsAs. If you don't know Argentina's history, the majority of the original population are immigrants from Italia and Spain. That's why this city seems so European! But the story of the colorful houses is that the immigrants didn't want to seem so poor so they stole paint from the ships that they arrived on to paint the houses. Interesting, no?

This week has been a sort of sad one so far! I ended both my cooking and tango class, which I have enjoyed immensely this past semester. I've learned sooo much about cooking, and learned things that I'll be able to use forever more! I am also grateful for having met my class...they helped me to learn more spanish and were very welcoming! And tango!! Wow, I'm going to miss dancing! It's such a fun thing and I have actually come very far in the past 4 months! But I am still hoping to go to another milonga before leaving. ANd hopefully I can find a place to dance when I get home. I love it!!

So anyways, that's my past week in a nutshell. Tonight a few of us girls are going out to have a sort of goodbye dinner, since a few of them are leaving quite soon! How sad. An experience such as this is great for meeting amazing people, but the worst part is saying goodbye. But as my mom so nicely reminded me, I never would have met these people had I not come. So I have to keep that in mind as I "despedir" my new friends!

Love!

A big sigh of relief

*sigh*

I just got two big weights off my shoulders, thank goodness! One, I handed in my final paper for my history class, hooray. It took me so long to do, mostly because I was being a horrible procrastinator. But I must say, when you hit the 5 page mark (of an 8 pager), in Spanish, with no more ideas...it's extremely hard to BS your way through it! At the end I ended up throwing in a "personal perspective" part, which I'm not sure if is legal or not. O'well...it's over!! Next week I find out my grade and say goodbye to latin american history forever.

The other weight was registering at Central for classes in the spring. Done! With the classes I need/want, so that's good. SO, now you can guarantee that I'm coming back, because I'm enrolled in classes. ;-) JK, I would come back anyways. It is weird though, to imagine being back on campus in January, living life like I never left. I'm not sure how the whole adjustment thing is going to go, but we'll see!

So this weekend was a pretty good one. Friday there was no Vida so I instead went to my friend Kevin's apt. and we made a rockin' dinner. ;-) Actually one of the things we made was a recipe that I saw on the subte (metro), which is kind of an odd place to find a recipe, but whatev. They turned out yummy!

haha, caught in the act of enjoying the food!

Saturday I went to a tango show with Abby and Krista, at Cafe Tortoni...a famous cafe in town. My tango professor does shows there twice a week, so I wanted to see what it was all about. It was a good show, with an interesting twist! Halfway through the show he and his partner went into the audience to grab a couple of victims to drag on stage with them. Well, seeing as Jose more or less knows me and knows that I should know how to dance, he grabbed me! It was slightly embarrasing, but fun. :-p I mean, I was probably up there for a total of 2 minutes, but sa-weet! haha.

Sunday I finished my paper early on and decided to treat myself to a day of rest. So I went to a park and enjoyed the sunshine for a bit. The weather is getting beautiful! :-) Some days it feels like summer in the states, even though it's just spring here. So I have a feeling the heat is going to overtake us all quite soon.

Anyways, time to get going. Sending my love!

Oh, how I wish I could explain...

Soo...update time??

Honestly in the past week or so my life hasn´t been all that exciting, therefore I haven´t written anything. I guess the biggest thing is that I have changed my plane ticket to stay a couple of weeks longer here in AR. I will be staying until Dec. 17th. I know!! In some ways it´s sad, because it´ll be that much longer until I can wrap everyone in big hugs...but for me it´s also a happy thing. Who knows the next time that I´ll be able to visit this place or these people?? I´m really living here...I´m not just here on vacation. I have my regular supermarket, my preferred park to go to and sit in, and I even have made friends with the guy at the ice cream shop that I walk by everyday! I´m becoming a part of this community and immersing myself in the culture of this country. But it´s not like before, for example, when I transferred colleges. I can´t just visit this place again when I have a spare weekend or a couple of days free. I´ve wiggled my way south, crossed the equator, and stepped into a new country!

The people in this country have made an impact on my life that I won´t be able to forget...that I don´t want to forget. And my decision to stay a bit longer has nothing to do with people at home. If it were up to me, I would fly each of you down here, one by one, and show you around my neighborhood, my city...my country. And if it were up to you, I´d be home tomorrow. But we can´t change what´s what and so here we are, with the reality of the situation...I´m staying 17 days more. I´m still looking forward to coming home and I really will be there before you know it!

I hope you undersand. *hugs and kisses!*

Adventures over the weekend

Our adventure began on our bus ride from Buenos Aires to Mendoza. I went on this trip with Krista and Andrea, but Krista wasn't with us at this point...she was to meet us down there. On the entire bus of probably 50 plus seats, there was only one other woman besides Andrea and I. We were to pick up the rest of the passengers a few hours into the trip. One of the bus drivers came and offered us mate, the communal tea drink native to Argentina. Seeming surprised when we accepted, he led us down to join him and his fellow driver in the driver's cabin to take part in the friendly ritual.

This was an experience! You always see the drivers disappear behind the mysterious curtain, but to be invited down was an honor! So we all began to chat and get to know one another a bit and form one of those temporary relationships that I've seemed to encounter a lot being down here. We got to know each other fairly well, sharing things that you don't just spout to strangers...yet at the same time we knew pretty much from the start that whne we got off the bus we wouldn't be seeing more of each other. They even allowed us to climb into the secret bed hidden behind the drivers' area and get some sleep after our bus was invaded by 30 plus chatty old people.

Arriving in Mendoza we met Krista and headed to our hostel to begin a pretty chill day. We wandered the city a bit and ended up spending most of the day in a nearby park, laying on a high-jacked blanket from my bed in the hostel. The weather was gorgeous and it felt soo good to just lie around, napping in the sun and chatting.

The next day we got up bright and early to head off and go whitewater rafting! It was my first time, so I was rather excited. We had about an hour journey to the rafting place, so we got to enjoy the scenery on th way. It was my first glimpse of the Andes Mountains!

After arriving at the rafting place, we got all wet-suited up, took some goofy photos, and got in the river. Krista said this one is flattering ;-)

After a short lesson on how to follow commands, we were heading down the coold river. We were accompanied by Oscar, our guide, and an older couple, Susan and Drew. they were there with a lawers convention and taking a little bit of time on their own to enjoy the country. They didn't speak Spanish, so they were grateful to have us as their translators! It felt good to help for once, instead of being the clueless foreigner. The rafting was absolutely beautiful because we were surrounded by the Andes with their lovely snow covered peaks. Yes, speaking of snow, the day was quite a bit chillier than the previous one and, by the time we were done with our 3 hour adventure, my fingers and toes were absolutely frozen. But here we are...still smiling!!

Sunday we got up even earlier, with even less sleep, thanks to our party hostel. We were heading to Chile!! A seven hour bus ride one way, just to spend the day there...But it ended up being a good day. We had a combination of sleep and taking in the gorgeous sights on the way there.

When we finally arrived in Santiago, we once again felt like out-of-place foriegners -- a feeling that we haven't felt in quite some time. We didn't even really know where to go because we couldn't find a map and we didn't really come armed with an itinerary. We took the metro to the "centro" and happended upon a huge park that was quite beautiful and was on a hill, so you could get great views of the city as you climbed up and up. We had some fun with photos and then were stuck.

We didn't really know what to do next, so we spotted some other "tourists" with a book of Chile and took action, asking them what else there was to see. As it so happened, one of the guys, William, was from Colombia but has been studying in Chile for a year, so he was helping the other guy out, Sandro from Brazil, showing him around the city and whatnot. So, they offered to show us around as well! I thought, sweet! Free guide. It was a good couple of hours getting to know them, eating ice cream, practicing spanish, and seeing some cool sights.

These are the two guys we met in Chile!

Me chillin' with two guards in front of the Chilean "white house"

After separating from the guys and eating dinner, we realized that we still had a lot of time to kill before catching the bus back to Mendoza, so we stopped at a cafe to kill time and spend our last Chilean money. This is where we entered into the silly stage of much fun, yet unnecessary, laughter. We must have been quite exhausted because everything seemed quite funny. First we hardly had any Chilean money left, thinking we could pay the rest with a credit card. Well, they didn't accept credit cards or Argentine pesos...the only other two types of currency we had. They did accept Euros or American money though...big surprise! Once we figured out exactly what we could buy to spend our money, the girls decided that they had to use the bathroom. Turns out there was a sign on the bathroom door saying that you had to pay to use it (not uncommon for public bathrooms)...but we didn't have enough money! There were a few other small things, but I'm not going to bore you with the little stuff.

The bus ride back was interesting with us trying to sleep, yet being interrupted by some flirty Chilean students on their way to visit Argentina for the week. At first we weren't sure if they were Argentines because of one guy's accent...but it turns out he was making fun of Argentines. The fact that he was making fun of Argentines, however, envoked some patriotism in me, which I took for a good sign.

Anyways, the rest of the trip was pretty much filled with boredom waiting in the bus station and sleeping on the ride home. But it was a great adventure!! Love to hear what you think. :-)

A first for everything!

Hola de nuevo!!

This weekend was an excellent one. Well, I guess mine really started on Thursday this week because it was Andrea's birthday so we went out to celebrate. We grabbed dinner in Puerto Madero, the richest neighborhood of BsAs where there are the most tourists. The dinner was yummy, but what came after was the best! We decided to try out a Milonga, which is a place that people go to dance Tango and Milonga, a type of tango.

When we first arrived I was quite nervous because I didn't really know what to expect. I've heard that sometimes the people aren't very open to having tourists there (depending on which place you go) and, being a beginner, I didn't want someone to ask me to dance and then get mad that I can't actually do it! haha. So anyways, we went in and got a seat. I am bummed that I didn't bring my camera, but Andrea had hers so I will hopefully be able to post pictures later. I was a dance floor with a bunch of tables and chairs surrounding it so you could watch and/or wait for someone to ask you to dance. Traditionally the way that the men ask women to dance is with their eyes. That way a woman can reject the man without making it obvious to everyone else. He looks her in the eyes and waits for her to look back at him and accept. Creepy eh? This place luckily is a little less traditional, so the men just came up and asked you.

So we were at first thinking that we would just watch because, let's face it...we aren't that good. Well, shortly after we sat down, people starting coming up and asking us to dance!! After making sure to warn them that we were beginners, we began to dance the night away! They were mostly older people, which was perfectly fine with me. I had a blast! There was one guy in particular that I danced with quite a bit and he was so patient and nice, I feel like I learned a lot! I now feel like an official tango dancer. But especially because I danced in my very first tango SHOW!!

Yes, that's right folks...I danced in a tango show in Argentina. It was a show apparently for some rich high school in BsAs, but our class did an exhibition in the middle. I arrived at the university to find my partner waiting with the biggest, most beautiful rose ever! (My partner being the handsome Jonas Melin from Sweden ;-)) Made for some great pictures!

Me with my georgous rose!

Me with my handsome partner!

Dancing in the show!

So, this weekend ended up being filled with Tango and I loved it. Thanks Jonas, for being a great partner, and hello to everyone at home!!

Hugs and kisses!