Skiing at Big Sky!

Big Sky opened on Thanksgiving and life up here has been amazing ever since! I got to snowboard opening day, then I had to work the next 4 days, and now it's my second day in a row off. My work schedule as a lifty is Friday-Monday, so I get to snowboard on my days off when nobody is here during the week, which is so nice! Here are some pictures.

Lone Mountain Trail, the road to Big Sky, as viewed from Andesite Mountain.

The view from my bedroom window on a clear day - Lone Peak.

Riding up Swiftcurrent (aka "Swifty"), the main high-speed quad that takes you up Lone Mountain.

Riding up Swifty with Lone Peak in the background.

I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving break and got to play in the snow! I'm super excited for the rest of the winter, it's been an awesome start!

Life in Big Sky

I've been in Montana for a week now, and I'm still trying to get my life together. I have an apartment in Big Sky where I live with my sister, but the vast majority of my household possessions are in a storage unit halfway between Bozeman and Four Corners. Furthermore, my car is being shipped from Alaska and hasn't arrived yet, so I am constricted to bumming rides and the Skyline bus, which would be great if it wasn't in the off-season schedule, meaning there are only two buses a day and it doesn't stop on campus, only at the mall and Wal-mart in Bozeman.

However, life couldn't be better considering the situation. I have awesome friends here who have helped me out with rides, places to stay, food, and fun times. I started work training as a Lift Operator at Big Sky on Monday, and have met some cool people doing that. The mountain officially opens Thursday, on Thanksgiving, and I have the day off! I am so excited to get a full day of snowboarding in!!! Plus, the Skyline bus will have a better schedule at that point, meaning I might be able to catch it to go to my friends' house in Bozeman for Thanksgiving dinner. If not, I've already been invited by a co-worker to come to their place in Big Sky if I have nowhere to go.

Big Sky in the off-season is, to say the least, very relaxed. There is literally nothing to do, especially when you don't have a car. I live in the mountain village, which is nice because I can walk to work, but other than that I am basically stranded there. The shuttle bus that goes around the Big Sky area isn't running because it's the off-season, so I can't even go to the Meadow, where there is a little more infrastructure. So, I'm going to have to make some good friends or come up with a hobby that I can do after the mountain closes, neither of which will be a problem I'm sure.

Life will be amazing when the mountain opens! I will keep you posted as often as my internet access allows.

Hello Montana!

In approximately five hours, I will be on a plane. My brief "vacation" to my hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, is about to come to an end, and I will be on my way to Montana once again!

I haven't been in Montana since I left at the end of May, so I'm really excited to return! It is always nice to come back to friends and familiar places, and of course the natural beauty of Montana. Even better, I don't have to worry about school until spring semester, so I have a good two months to get settled in to my new apartment and new job. I start training as a lifty at Big Sky on Monday, and the season starts the following Thursday (Thanksgiving). As most of my life (aka all of my snowboarding gear) is in a 5 x 10 storage unit somewhere between Bozeman and Four Corners right now, I'm going to have to figure my life out pretty quickly. But, I am excited to have my own place once again, and to live with my sister, who graduated from Colorado State last year and decided being a ski bum in Montana for a winter didn't sound like such a bad idea (it was my idea, of course).

So tomorrow I will be in Bozeman once again. If I don't update for a while, you know where I am. That is, Bozeman or Big Sky or somewhere in between frantically trying to get my life together.

What I am going to miss about Buenos Aires.

Today was my last day of class! I have officially survived Study Abroad. I got good grades in all of my classes and now I am done!

I am leaving BA tomorrow night and going home to Alaska to visit my family for a week before I return to Montana. I have a job at Big Sky for the winter, and my sister has a job at Moonlight Basin, so we are going to live in a two bedroom apartment in Big Sky starting November 15. I'm excited!!!

Naturally, all transitional times have pros and cons. I can't say I'm sad to miss the hottest time of year in Buenos Aires (it's already been super hot and humid for several weeks, I'm surprised I'm still alive), but there are some cultural differences that I have come to appreciate, people I have met, and places I have gone that I am going to miss.

Things I'll miss about BA:

1. Agua con gas [addicting!!]

2. Liria Evangelista, my Latin American Literature teacher...she inspired me in so many ways!

3. "El Boulder," the climbing gym I started going to last week (better late than never!)

4. The people at El Boulder who have taught me more about climbing, helped me, and shared their snacks.

5. The bus lines 29 and 152 (sounds weird, but you develop a love for the buses that always take you home).

6. My host family, especially my caring and understanding host mom.

7. Parque Las Heras, which is three blocks away from my host family's house and always a chill spot.

8. Ridiculously cheap (and always organic) fresh fruit and vegetables.

9. The lady at the laundromat I go to who learned how to spell my name correctly and recognizes me every time.

10. The man at the bookstore a few blocks from my house who also recognizes me and greets me every time I come in.

11. The friends I have made that helped me survive every class.

12. The ability to sleep in as late as I want every day (both a gift and a curse).

13. The opportunity to practice Spanish every day! Speaking, reading, writing, and listening.

I would be lying if I said every moment here has been amazing; study abroad has its ups and downs. But every moment is worthwhile in the end and I mean it when I say that I have emerged as a better person. My main reason to come here was to learn Spanish, but I have learned a lot about myself and about life. I truly think that everybody should have an experience like this and not stay inside a bubble their whole life. Get out of your comfort zone! You only regret the things in life you didn't do.

Transportation.

Living in Buenos Aires has given me a new perspective on the concept of transportation.

I have had a car since I was 16 years old, and I loved driving it. When I moved to Bozeman for college my freshman year, I felt like my life was missing something without my car, and before my first semester ended I had a car again.

But as life goes on, I realize that it is much better without a car.

In Bozeman I try to only drive when absolutely necessary. I bike as much as I can, and because Bozeman is pretty small, even my friends who lived "far away" from me last year were less than a 20 minute bike away. I always took the bus to Big Sky and only drove the 10 blocks from my house to the bus stop last year because I didn't want to haul all of my snowboarding gear that far in the snow.

Now that I have lived in Buenos Aires almost 5 months without a car, I have decided I do not miss it at all. The public transportation here is very efficient, easy to use once you get used to it, and much more relaxing than driving yourself (people drive crazily here! Not to mention the immense amount of traffic in a big city like this).

Another thing I have gotten very used to is walking long distances. I have mentioned previously that just wandering around the city is a good way to get to know it but can get tedious, but if I have a legitimate destination I don't mind walking an hour to get there. In fact, an hour is nothing in the scheme of things, it's a good time to listen to some music and reflect on life, do some people watching and city observing, and get a little bit of exercise while you're at it.

Because I usually bike everywhere in Bozeman, I never took the time to walk places, because biking is far more efficient. But, when I get back I'm going to start walking more if I have time.

In the past week I have started going to a climbing gym every day that is located about an hour walk from my house. It's open until 10:00 pm, and the past few nights I have stayed basically until it closes and then walked home. When I first got here, I was afraid to go outside when it was dark out, but in reality Buenos Aires is a very safe city—don't believe the urban myths! Walking home at 10:30 pm I see tons of people outside. Especially now that it's summer and warm even late at night, there are pedestrians of every variety, people going running, people hanging out in public spaces, and people sitting outside eating dinner at restaurants with outdoor seating (dinner time is late here!). It's very safe, especially if you stick to the main roads. After climbing, it's a good way to wind down and relax while bumping some good music.

The majority of people who live in Buenos Aires don't have cars. For them, as for me, time in transport is time to relax. It's nice to sit on a bus and not have to worry about driving, and it's nice to take the time to walk and see what you're passing instead of speeding by as quickly as possible. Life without a car is simple. Live simply.

Final Essay for Literatura Latinoamericana

This is my last week of class, so yesterday was pretty intense. I had two final exams in my two literature classes, and a paper due in Latin American Literature. Being the procrastinator I am, I didn't start the paper until Sunday night, stayed up until 3:30 am writing it, was only about 2/3 done, and planned on waking up early to finish it and then study for my exams. I failed to wake up early, got up at 10:30, and finished the essay around 1:30, leaving me very little time to study as I had class at 4:00. However, I am very happy with the essay. It's about 6 pages long, and I wrote it about Roberto Bolaño's novel Nocturno de Chile and how it expresses the "collective memory" of Chile during their time of political unrest in the 1970's and '80's.

If you are literate in Spanish or just want to get an idea of what you can do after living in a Spanish-speaking country for 4 months, you should check it out. I copied and pasted it below because I'm so proud of it, hah. When I came here, I had only taken two semesters of Spanish in my life (101 and 102 last year at MSU) and was in no way literate in Spanish, nor could I even write a page without looking up 20 words and phrases and how to conjugate every verb. I still have to look up words and phrases when I write in Spanish, but it is a lot easier for me now! I am also literate enough to read books like Nocturno de Chile without looking up too many words. It's amazing how much you can learn while studying abroad...

Nocturno de Chile y la Memoria Colectiva de Literatura

La literatura latinoamericana es único en el mundo no sólo por el hecho que es “latinoamericana,” sino por lo que significa esta adjetiva. La “América Latina” actual surgió después de una historia complicada y llena de conquista, conflicto, tragedia, y lucha hegemónica. Por eso, las obras que podemos llamar “literatura latinoamericana” están escritos por autores quienes vivieron esta historia, y su parte de la historia está dentro de su literatura. Puede estar en una manera obvia o críptica, pero sí o sí está allí; en América Latina, la literatura y la historia están inextricable más que en la literatura más conocido del resto del mundo.

La que hace este fenómeno posible es la memoria, la que tiene cada autor latinoamericano, la que está latinoamericana en sí misma, y la que está parte de la historia. De hecho, la combinación de todas las memorias latinoamericanas forma la historia latinoamericana, y todas las obras escritas de estas memorias forma la historia latinoamericana como el resto del mundo la conoce. Entonces, es posible llamar esta historia “la memoria colectiva,” una cosa compartida porque “las memorias individuales están siempre enmarcadas socialmente” (Jelín 20). Es claro que toda América Latina no tiene la misma historia, pero cuando hablamos de un país durante un tiempo específico, es más fácil imaginar “la memoria colectiva.” Está hecho de todas las memorias individuales, que pueden manifestarse en “testimonios,” la forma más conocido de contar la historia de un individuo. Pero cómo se manifiesta “la memoria colectiva” es más complicada; si una obra se trata de toda la historia compartida no se puede relatarla con sólo un narrador sin llamarla ficción.

En su texto “¿De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de memorias?” Elizabeth Jelín describe la idea de “la memoria colectiva” como cosa propia de cada persona, porque “uno no recuerda solo sino con la ayuda de los recuerdos de otros y con los códigos culturales compartidos, aun cuando las memorias personales son únicas y singulares…toda memoria es una reconstrucción más que un recuerdo” (20-21). Dicho así, la historia escrito se trata de la misma cosa de que se trata “la memoria colectiva;” son lo mismo. Un libro de historia trata de reconstruir la historia específica de un grupo de gente en un lugar durante un tiempo en el pasado; la memoria colectiva hace lo mismo, pero con la dimensión adicional de la punta de vista humana. A pesar de que libros de historia están escritos por seres humanos, no están escritos en primera persona; la memoria colectiva sí está en primera persona, la primera persona de cada persona que tiene parte de la historia.

Para hacer una obra de la memoria colectiva en primera persona usando sólo un narrador, es necesario escribirla como ficción. Haciendo esto, es posible hablar de los aspectos más importantes de la memoria y su historia y ponerlos visto; “toda narrativa del pasado implica una selección,” y la memoria colectiva tiene más cosas que la memoria de solo una persona de que se puede seleccionar (Jelín 29). Una obra que se trata de esto no se puede llamarse un libro de historia, aunque lo es.

La memoria de un evento trágico sufre tanta de la dificultad de relatarse con complejidad como del temor de olvidarse. En la novela Nocturno de Chile por Roberto Bolaño, se trata de este problema en Chile después del presidencia de Allende, el golpe de estado de 1973 y la dictadura de Pinochet que siguió. La novela es una obra de ficción, pero la historia a que se refiere es la verdadera, y a través del narrador, Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix, la novela resalta como se sobrevive después de tanta trauma política y personal.

En las primeras dos páginas de Nocturno de Chile, Bolaño, mediante Sebastián, saca los temas más importante de la construcción de la memoria del tiempo de tragedia. Empieza “Ahora me muero, pero tengo muchas cosas que decir todavía” (11). Sebastián tiene el temor de olvidar su historia, la que por cualquier razón no ha dicho “todavía” pero que quiere contar antes de morir. Puede tener algunas razones para este deseo, que Jolin dice “surge de la ansiedad y aun la angustia que genera la posibilidad del olvido” (18). Esta posibilidad de olvido no es del narrador, sino de la memoria colectiva; “es el peso relativo del contexto social y de lo individual en los procesos de memoria,” el sentimiento del narrador que si no comparte su memoria antes de morirse, sus compañeros de memoria se va a perder algo importante de su historia compartida.

Otra tema de la memoria que resalta Bolaño en Nocturno de Chile es el tema del silencio, lo que Jelín llama “la contracara del olvido” (31). Hablar de silencio aquí se refiere a los silencios después de un evento trágico, la incapacidad de repetir lo que pasó por varios razones, incluso los silencios “impuestos por temor” o los voluntarios “para cuidar a los otros.” Pero también es posible que una permanezca silente por no tener una audiencia para escuchar su memoria-historia, que tiene que ver con el sentimiento de urgencia de contar la dicha memoria-historia antes de que su portador se muera. Sebastián, el narrador de Bolaño, se lo describe: “Uno tiene la obligación moral de ser responsable de sus actos y también de sus palabras e incluso de sus silencios…así que mucho cuidado con los silencios” (11). Durante la novela, el narrador permanece silente en muchas situaciones, y también nota los silencios que se encontró. Pero el silencio más fuerte del texto es lo que no está escrito. Nunca queda claro las cosas que Sebastián tiene que decir “todavía.” Y eso también es una función de la memoria de las experiencias traumáticas. Si bien “toda narrativa del pasado implica una selección,” no toda de la selección está hecho voluntariamente:

“Una de las características de las experiencias traumáticas es la masividad del impacto que provocan, creando un hueco en la capacidad de ‘ser hablado’ o contado. Se provoca un agujero en la capacidad de representación psíquica. Faltan las palabras, faltan los recuerdos. La memoria queda desarticulada y sólo aparecen huellas dolorosas, patologías y silencios.” (Jelín 36).

A través de su narrador Sebastián, Bolaño resalta este fenómeno de tener el deseo de contar algo, pero de no poder hacerlo por un problema básicamente sin solución. La represión de la memoria por razones de seguridad o de miedo o de no tener una audiencia se hace permanente después de un tiempo, y impide el proceso de mejorar la situación entera: la del portador de la memoria, la de sus compañeros de memoria, y la de su historia compartido.

El silencio compartido más inquietante del texto que por suerte Sebastián tiene esfuerzo de contar muchos años después es lo que pasó en la casa de María Canales, que invitaba a los intelectuales chilenos a su casa para “soirées” durante un tiempo en que no había muchos lugares en que los intelectuales podrían congregar. Lo que se inquieta es que el esposo de María Canales era “uno de los principales agentes de la DINA y que usaba su casa como centro de interrogatorios.” Sebastián refleja sobre el hecho que esto pudo pasar en silencio, que por un lado supuestamente nadie supo que estaba pasando, pero por otro lado alguien descubrió lo que “Jimmy” hizo una noche, pero todavía nadie dijo nada: “¿Por qué nadie, en su momento, dijo nada? La respuesta era sencilla: porque tuvo miedo, porque tuvieron miedo” (142). El silencio impuesto por miedo perturba la historia; en este caso tiene un impacto inmenso en la historia por el hecho que durante un tiempo en que ya era difícil seguir con la vida normal, uno de los únicos escapas era una casa de interrogatorios. Saber eso hierva la herida de vivir en aquello tiempo aún más, y saberlo pero quedarse mudo es aún peor.

En Nocturno de Chile, Sebastián cree que va a morir porque tiene una fiebre. Esto sirve para racionalizar la construcción extraño de la novela, que no tiene capítulos ni párrafos y que cambia de tema la mayoría del tiempo sin razón clara. Sebastián dice que tiene algo para decir, pero lo que dice es un fluir de conciencia, de memorias a veces no relacionadas, y con referencias a un “joven envejecido” que aparece en el presente pero cuyo identidad no es cierto. Esta “estructura” se puede explicar por la función de la memoria, como describe Gillis, “las identidades y las memorias no son cosas sobre las que pensamos, sino cosas con las que pensamos” (Jelín 25). Es claro que pese de su experiencia vasta de la vida, Sebastián no está seguro de su identidad y no puede contar su memoria en una manera fácil de entender. En una de las últimas páginas del libro, Sebastián admite su inseguridad de identidad: “¿soy yo el joven envejecido? ¿Esto es el verdadero, el gran terror, ser yo el joven envejecido que grita sin que nadie lo escuche?” (149-150). Surge, al final, la confesión de Sebastián de tener miedo de no tener audiencia para su memoria, de ser “el joven envejecido,” que puede ser Sebastián durante el tiempo de la memoria que quiere contar pero no puede.

La manera críptica de Sebastián de contar su memoria, a veces contando conversaciones con amigos, a veces contando historias que sus amigos contó a él, a veces contando lo que estaba leyendo o pensando cuando algo pasó, y sobre todo contando muy poco de la historia política de Chile durante su época, es exactamente “el peso relativo del contexto social y de lo individual en los procesos de memoria” (Jelín 20). A través de su narración enfermizo, lo que Sebastián está contando es parte de “la memoria colectiva,” con contexto individual y social, porque “la realidad social es compleja, contradictoria, llena de tensiones y conflictos. La memoria no es una excepción” (Jelín 37). Hay que ser un ser humano para contar historia, y la verdad es que historia no siempre es fácil de vivir ni entender, y al contarla nada de eso cambia. Una imagen verdadera de la situación de Chile durante los años ’70 no se puede sacar de un libro histórico, pero mediante un testimonio la imagen es más claro, y la novela de Bolaño se trata de un testimonio incompleto pero fuerte que crea una imagen casi roto y críptico cuyo punto no queda muy claro. Sin embargo, parece incompleto y poco claro porque eso es exactamente de que se trata, una historia trastornada que sólo se puede explicar así.

Al fin de la novela, una frase repite: “Así se hace la literatura.” Aparece después de la historia que Sebastián cuenta, cuando visita María Canales en su casa que no más es una casa de interrogatorios y Chile es supuestamente en paz, pero todavía queda mucha para arreglar. Pensando en eso, con fiebre en su cama apoyado en un codo, Sebastián dice:

“Desde hace mucho tiempo el joven envejecido guarda silencio. Ya no despotrica contra mí ni contra los escritores. ¿Tiene esto solución? Así se hace la literatura en Chile, así se hace la gran literatura de Occidente…Poco puede uno solo contra la historia. El joven envejecido siempre ha estado solo y yo siempre he estado con la historia.” (148)

El joven envejecido puede ser Sebastián, puede ser Chile, o puede ser la memoria colectiva chilena. “Poco puede uno solo contra la historia,” y por eso es necesario tener una memoria colectiva porque “en resumen, la ‘experiencia’ es vivida subjetivamente y es culturalmente compartida y compartible” (Jelín 37). Al escribir la novela Nocturno de Chile, Roberto Bolaño creó lo que Jelín llama un “vehículo de la memoria” que sirve para contar parte de la memoria colectiva de Chile, confusa, trastornada, y sobreviviendo. Así se hace la literatura.

Living with a Host Family/Life with Argentines

It is pretty much assumed that if you study abroad, you live with a host family. It's a given. You decide to study abroad and you're asked, "You're living with a host family, right? Good. It's better that way." I'm not even sure if it was a choice for me, although I think it was. I just went along with it, and I've been living with an Argentine host family since mid-June.

My host family is very nice. They only consist of my host mom, about the same age as my real mom, and my host sister, who's 22, the same age as my real sister. Coincidence? Who knows. It is nice though, as I have the freedom to come and go as I please and do whatever I want.

However, living with a host family, not to mention in a foreign country, is somewhat of a lifestyle shock after being in college for two years. When I was a freshman, I lived in Roskie, and when I was a sophomore, I lived in a house with 3 other roommates. After having such freedom for two years, and friends around me at all times, it is weird living with an Argentine family. I can't really invite people over to my house to hang out because it's not my house. I can't go to other people's houses to hang out because they live with host families too. This makes having a social life ridiculously difficult, or ridiculously expensive. Hanging out with people takes a lot of effort here. First you must come up with an idea of something people want to do. Then make sure people can come. Then make sure whatever it is doesn't involve spending too much money, because we're all broke college kids. But if you can't hang out at somebody's house, you basically have to spend money, whether it be at the bar or at a restaurant or in transit or doing any activity, everything has a price.

Along with the social life difficulties are the difficulties of adhering to your host family's schedule. In a host family, you get breakfast and dinner included. You pay for it, so you want to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, Argentines aren't big on breakfast, and they think that Americans love corn flakes. My "included breakfast" consists of corn flakes and coffee. I do not like corn flakes, so I stopped eating those a while ago and just buy my own breakfast food. Also, Argentines eat dinner extremely late. I mean ridiculously late. On Thursday I ate dinner with my host mom at 10:00 pm. Honestly, I hate that schedule. It's extremely unhealthy. I like to eat a big breakfast, a smaller lunch, and a smaller dinner, and I don't like eating anything past 7 or 8 at night. Argentines are the opposite. They eat their entire calorie intake for the day at dinner, which happens between 8:30 and 10:00 depending on the night, and then they go to sleep. I can't sleep immediately after eating. I don't even want to eat at that point. In order to be hungry at dinner time, I basically have to starve all day, which makes me incapable of doing anything productive, which I don't like either. But, I paid for dinner, I should eat it. It's a vicious cycle. I am very glad it's almost over.

This is just one more reason it's easy to gain weight while studying abroad. If you live with a host family, you can't make your own dietary choices. If you're like me and are usually hungry for dinner around 6 or 7, and you have to eat a snack to tide you over for dinner, you end up eating an entire meal you could probably do without.

But, there are pros and cons to everything. My host family is really nice, and I'm glad I live with them. They are good to practice my Spanish with and through them I have definitely been able to experience Argentine culture firsthand.

Of course, if you live with anybody for a long enough period of time, they are going to get on your nerves. It's been over 4 months, so clearly some things have started to bother me, like the late dinner time. But, as all things come to an end, I think I'll survive my last week with my host family, and I'll miss them when I leave.

Keeping Busy in a Foreign Country

Living in a foreign country for an extended period of time is quite an interesting experience. Obviously.

It starts out as a big mystery. You have to figure out everything, from where to go and how to get there to how to speak the language well enough that if you get lost or confused, you can ask somebody for help. It is at first like an extended vacation. Everything is new and exciting, there is so much to explore!

Then, you start to figure all of that out. You visit all of the main attractions, you figure out how to speak and understand the language, you eat all of the new and "exotic" foods. It is no longer vacation, it is your life. At this point, walking around like a tourist is no longer appealing. At least, not for me. At this point, I am not a tourist in this city. I live here. So I want to spend my time doing more meaningful things than walking around with a camera.

Then there is the nightlife. For many Americans who come to this city, the nightlife is the main attraction. In Argentina, as in every country in the world except for the United States, the drinking age is 18. Buenos Aires is full of nightclubs, they get a lot of big name musicians and DJs here, and it is easy to get sucked into the vicious cycle of going out every night, staying at the club until it closes around 5 or 6 am, sleeping all day, then going back and doing it all over again. I am not going to lie, I have gone to my fair share of clubs while I have been here. Ever since I was a freshman in college and went to my first Pretty Lights concert, I have loved dancing to electronic music, and the electronic scene is huge here. Although, unfortunately, the music is not nearly as good as Pretty Lights most of the time. But after a while, like walking around with a camera, going to clubs gets old too. It's the worst feeling when you wake up and the sun is setting and you realize you slept through all of the daylight. I like to be outside in the sun, so I decided the nightlife here is not for me. The clubs don't start getting good here until around 2 or 3 am, and then you are compelled to stay until 5 or 6 am (or even 7, depending on the club), and as I said, it's a vicious cycle.

So, I stopped going to clubs. I stopped walking around like a tourist. And I was faced with the problem: what do I do now?

Of course, this entire time I have had to go to class. They don't call it "Study Abroad" for nothing. But, I am taking 4 classes which are each 2 days a week for an hour and a half. So, 4 days out of the week I have class for 3 hours a day. That leaves 3 whole days of nothing and a lot of free time on the days I do have class.

Basically, I had to get a hobby. I started going swimming at the pool by my university, I started going running in the park. Even doing that I was left with a lot of free time. So finally, I worked up my nerve and went to a climbing gym.

I brought my climbing shoes here thinking it was a good idea, but I had just bought them before I left for Argentina and I have never really been a climber, so the idea of starting to climb in a foreign country was, to say the least, intimidating. I checked out 2 different gyms in July-ish, but I wasn't motivated to return. But this Thursday, I decided to go for it again. I went to the gym close to my university and realized that despite running and swimming, I am not in good shape. I think the immense amount of free time in which I don't do much at all has something to do with this. So, I went climbing again yesterday and I realized it is a really good way to utilize my free time while being active. It's too easy to get lazy, become inactive, and gain weight while studying abroad. Climbing doesn't seem like an extremely active sport, but it definitely is. I have so little upper body muscle that I can't even climb the bouldering walls at the gym (which are all slanted inwards, making it more difficult), I have just been trying to build muscle traversing from one end of the wall to the other.

I wish I would have started doing this three months ago, but you live and learn. This isn't an extended vacation, this is my life! Now I only have 9 days left in Buenos Aires and I'm just figuring out how to live a healthy life here.

You live and learn.

Only 2 more weeks of class?!

The time has been flying by here in Argentina. My mom came to visit me two weeks ago and we went on a 10-day trip to the Patagonia area, including Parque Nacional Torres del Paine in Chile and Parque Nacional Los Glaciares in Argentina, and we managed to get five good days of hiking in. It was definitely rejuvenating to get away from the city for a while.

We got back Sunday and my mom left Monday and after not studying or having class for a week, I realized I have a lot of work to do! There are only two weeks left in the semester. One week of normal class, and another week of mainly test-taking, although with a normal class schedule. Not exactly like "Dead Week" and "Finals Week" at MSU but I am feeling just as much pressure!

First of all, I have to do a final project for my Argentine Culture class that is due this Tuesday. It can be in any form and about anything, but I am choosing to do mine in paper format, so it has to be 10 pages long. In Spanish. Sounds terrible, I know, why did I choose to write a paper? My saving grace is that I'm including pictures. I'm already four pages in, so I'm feeling pretty good about it. But as with any project, I'm a little nervous about it because I didn't get a chance to talk to my professor about it, and I chose to write it about the impact on Argentina's culture of the Argentine desaparecidos (disappeared people) during the military dictatorship of 1976-1982, but with repercussions starting in 1969 until 1983. My idea was inspired by the Parque de la Memoria, if you're interested you should read into it.

Secondly, I have to write a 5-7 page paper for my Latin American Literature class. It's not due until the last week of class, two Mondays from now, and frankly I have no idea what I am going to write it about. It, too, can be about anything I want, basically anything we've read in class or another work (or other works) by the same authors we've read, or something by another Latin American author we haven't read anything by, with the teacher's approval. It's basically your standard literature class term paper, and it needs to be supplemented by two articles of literary criticism about the book/short story/poem/whatever the paper is about. Which I can't tell you, because I don't know. I haven't finished reading the last book we were assigned for that class yet, but I plan on finishing it this weekend and if I'm really ambitious I might decide to write my final paper on that. It's called "Nocturno de Chile" by Roberto Bolaño. It's a pretty confusing book to read; it has no chapters or even paragraphs, it's basically one big monologue narrated by an old man with a fever laying in bed reflecting on his life and feeling guilty about something. It supposedly has to do with the conflict in Chile during the dictatorship of Pinochet, who was Chile's dictator between 1973-1990 and was supported by the United States for either our own selfish reasons or our ignorance of what was going on while no other country in the world supported him.

The more I am here, the more I realize how little I know about the history of other countries in the world.

I am happy that now my reading comprehension in Spanish is good enough that I can read such a complex book, even though it's definitely slow reading and I have to re-read pretty much every page. But I think that is more due to the complex nature of the book than my reading comprehension.

So if I don't update for a couple of weeks, you know what I'm doing.

Happy semester!

More BA photography.

Coolest work of art I've ever seen, made up of pillars. In the "Parque de la Memoria."

Some pescadores (fishermen) on the coast of the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires.

Aeroparque Jorge Newbery. If you fly to Buenos Aires, I recommend that you land here.

Sweet clock.

This is why I love Buenos Aires.

I took this video while walking through a park in Buenos Aires today:

That's right. Dance aerobics! They do it every weekend. Awesome.

Mid-Terms

If you're an MSU student, you're probably just getting into the swing of the semester, figuring out your classes and your teachers.

I, on the other hand, am taking mid-terms, or "examenes parciales" as they are called en español, and it is not enjoyable. Especially because the way most classes work here, the mid-term counts for 20-30% of your grade. I suppose it isn't too different from the way a lot of MSU classes work; there isn't a lot of graded homework, just a few papers, the mid-term, and the final. But, when everything is in Spanish, it seems a lot worse.

Also, the grading system here is not the same as in the United States. Instead of an A-F letter system, they use a 1-10 number system, with 1 being the absolute worst and 10 the absolute best. I'm pretty sure I need a 6 or higher to get credit for my classes, and thankfully they go on my transcript as "Pass" or "Fail" so I don't have to stress too much about my GPA getting lower because of a weird grade transfer.

Today marks my 3 month anniversary in Argentina. I have to say, although at times I wonder why I even try to speak Spanish, I have gotten far better at it over the past 3 months. It's hard to notice on a daily basis, but every week gets better and now I realize that I am taking classes in which only Spanish is spoken and I just took two midterms for two literature classes in which I only wrote in Spanish, and I'm feeling good about it. I didn't even bring my dictionary to the midterms, because looking up words wastes time and I know enough Spanish that I can communicate what I want to, and when I'm reading I can figure out what words mean from the context, instead of looking every third word up like I was at the beginning of the semester.

Basically, living in Argentina has been worth every minute!

What it's like to study abroad.

I have written many things on this blog, related to fun events, travels, and a little school here and there (because isn't that the way life goes? ha, ha). But I have not really described what it is like to study abroad. So here it is:

It's like the first semester of college all over again, but this time you're surrounded by people speaking a foreign language and you're living with a family of strangers (aka host family). Sounds fun, right?

But after the initial shock, the people of the family you live with are not strangers. They are concerned for your well-being, but they give you freedom to come and go as you please. They find out which foods you like and feed them to you. They teach you interesting tidbits about the culture and the language. They become your family, your extended family that lives abroad.

The language takes some getting used to, but all you have to do is give it time and keep trying. Every day I learn more, every week I notice I am speaking better Spanish than the week before. It's amazing. I almost wish I could stay here a whole year to really get fluent, but Bozeman is calling me...

Before I left for Argentina, at the Study Abroad Orientation, I kept hearing "keep your sense of humor." I thought, "Great advice. How am I going to do that when I have no idea what is going on?" But now, three months after my arrival, I understand. Your sense of humor is all in your head, in your imagination, in your way of looking at things. I now understand enough Spanish that I can laugh at people's jokes, but even more than that I feel comfortable and happy enough here that I can step back, look at a situation, and laugh. I can sit on the Subte (subway) listening to music and people watching, and laugh. And it's all very entertaining.

At this point, the less English I hear and speak every day, the better.

Every move has an adjustment period. New place, new people, new way of life, and in the case of Study Abroad, new language. Adjusting takes time. But when you can allow yourself to feel comfortable and confident doing what you're doing, life is awesome.

And when all else fails, you always have your sense of humor.

Dash Berlin in BA

As the concert-going fanatic I am, I have recently started trying harder to get into the music scene in Buenos Aires. There is literally ALWAYS something going on, every night of the week. Sometimes you have to prioritize (especially when you're in school). But, by far the best show I have been to in a long time was last Friday at Club Pacha, when I saw Dash Berlin, a DJ from the Netherlands. I have been somewhat obsessed with European electronic/trance music for the past four months or so, so it was basically a dream come true.

As is the Argentine way, Dash Berlin didn't start playing until around 3 a.m. (there was other music before, obviously), and he kept playing until 7:15 a.m. When I finally left, it was light outside...and that's how it is in Buenos Aires. It was, to say the least, amazing. I took some videos but my repeated attempts to upload them have failed, so I'll leave you with this YouTube video:

It's Move In Day!

Today was the official "Move in Day" in the dorms for the fall semester. Reading the online article about it in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle made me slightly nostalgic for my own freshman year. Two years ago, at this time, I was moving into Roskie Hall, Room 424. Now, I'm in Buenos Aires, Argentina, already a month into the semester.

Oh, how times have changed.

I had some of the most fun times of my life in Roskie, and that was just the beginning of how going to MSU changed my life. It's amazing how many opportunities going to college opens up, especially moving to a different state to go to college. It's when you finally get to decide what you do with every second of your time. There are so many sports to play, clubs to join, community service opportunities, and ...there's STUDY ABROAD!

Going to college is only the first step in an exciting future. I would never be here right now if it weren't for my decision to go to MSU. Study abroad is truly the best way to experience another culture and learn another language (all for a reasonable price!), and coming here was probably the second best decision I ever made...the first being the decision to go to MSU!

Despite the fact that I miss Bozeman more than anything, I couldn't have chosen a better time to study abroad. "Absence makes the heart grow stronger" is definitely true. But, thanks to my study abroad schedule, I'll be done with the semester and back in Bozeman November 14, just in time for the ski season to start...and to start my job at Big Sky! Because I'm studying abroad and my semester ends at the beginning of November, I was able to get a job at Big Sky and I'll have two months of freedom to start the season, in my favorite place on earth, MONTANA.

Could life get better than this?

BA Photography

I haven't updated in a while, but I have been taking some city pictures of Buenos Aires which I figured I'd post for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Green Film Festival in Buenos Aires

This weekend the Cinemark movie theatre which is a block away from my apartment in Buenos Aires is hosting the "Green Film Festival" [literally...they don't translate it]. It's an international film festival consisting of ten environmentally-conscious movies.

I love the environment, so I watched all of the trailers and decided I wanted to see the French documentary "Home," and went with three of my friends last night.

The trailer was in English, so I was kind of expecting the movie to be in English with subtitles, although I though it was strange that it was French movie with an English trailer. Turns out, since the whole movie was narrated footage with no actual actors, it was entirely in Spanish. I was able to understand almost everything, but I had to concentrate really hard and hang on every word, and then I would forget what they had said before, and in the end I got the main idea but definitely not every detail.

It was overall a very interesting experience; the cinematography alone was excellent. They used the technique of re-touching the original footage of natural landscapes and city scenes to make the colors more vivid and bring out certain details, so at times it looked almost animated. They really overdid a lot of the colors to emphasize their point, like the color red in scenes that showed land degradation, as if the land was bleeding. The movie talked about all of the problems with resource depletion and overuse, the pollution and resources used in big cities, and in general all of the bad things people are doing to the environment. It was actually rather depressing at times, especially when they flashed depressing statistics on the screen. But of course, at the end they tried to brighten the mood by saying all each individual person needs to do is be environmentally conscious in everyday life, and after the movie everybody got an "Urbana & Orgánica" flyer about different eco-friendly places to shop in Buenos Aires. Nice.

One of the points of the movie was that the vast majority of people in the world live in big coastal cities, and that 20% of the world's population uses 80% of the resources. And that we should all stop consuming resources unnecessarily and buying cars. Which led to this thought process of mine:

I live in Buenos Aires, the biggest city in Argentina, thus I do not have a car. I am just one more person on the Subte, or one more person on the colectivo, every day. My transportation-related carbon impact is almost nothing; the same pollution is generated whether I'm there or not.

There are many people living in poverty in Buenos Aires. The unemployment rate is 21%. One thing all of these unemployed people do (approximately 35,000 of them) is walk the streets of BA at night sorting through trash, looking for recyclables. They're called "cartoneros" and they separate the recyclables and bring them to recycling facilities for a refund; that's how they make money (gracias á mi clase de Tradiciones y Culturas Argentinas para la información).

The people of Buenos Aires don't recycle, but the cartoneros do it for them. It's a strange but functional process. If the people of BA recycled, the cartoneros wouldn't have a way to make money; they'd just be more worthless unemployed people. Thus more people have a way to make money and the city is more eco-friendly because the people with money are not eco-friendly. How oxymoronic.

So what is more eco-friendly: living in a big, polluted, trashy city where public transportation is a part of every person's daily life and everybody rides an Omnibus (long-distance bus) when they want to travel to a different part of the country, or living in a nice, small town where you can ride your bike everywhere if you're motivated, but if it's too cold or just a bit too far you drive in your car, and when you want to go to a different town you road trip in your personal car, or fly in a plane? Obviously the small town is more healthy, if you actually bike most of the time, but the driving is going to happen. And of course, when it comes down to it I choose Bozeman, not Buenos Aires.

Being perfect is just not possible...but I am thankful for the bus to Big Sky for this reason, because that cuts down on the majority of my winter driving, and really it's easy to be eco-friendly in Bozeman because you can bike, walk, or take the free Streamline bus anywhere, and shop at Town & Country or the Co-op.

Basically, I can't wait to go back to Bozeman, but I appreciate Buenos Aires more every day.

¡Riddim en Vivo!

One of my favorite pastimes/activities is going to concerts. If you've read some of my posts from the previous year, you might have noticed several about the road trips I went on for the sole purpose of going to awesome concerts. So, to continue this tradition of mine, last weekend I decided to seize an opportunity to go to a concert in Buenos Aires (no road trip necessary in this city!).

The band I saw is called Riddim; they're an Argentine reggae group. I had never heard of them, but I saw a flyer for the concert on the Subte [Subway] during the week and had nothing to else to do last Saturday night, so I decided to go for it. It was at a club I had been to once before, a good size but not too giant, and the stage is elevated to basically my height, so no matter where in the crowd you are you can see everything.

I couldn't be happier that I went; the show was amazing. Riddim is a band made up of nine people, so the variety of instruments they have going on made for an awesome show. They are made up of a brass section consisting of a trumpet, trombone, and saxophone player, a keyboardist, two guitarrists, a bass player, a drummer, and of course the lead singer. They are apparently really popular in Argentina, because the crowd was singing along half of the time.

I would highly recommend checking this band out if you like reggae and want to expand your musical horizons; their website is http://www.riddim.com.ar/.

And here's another link about the show I went to which includes a music video.

It's almost time for the fall semester to start at MSU...hopefully everyone's enjoying the end of the summer!

The Semester Begins in Buenos Aires

It's probably time for me to write a post that makes it sound like I'm doing what I came here to do...study! Semester classes began last Monday at the Universidad de Belgrano, where I'm studying. I am taking four, all taught in Spanish. They have a cool program here specifically for international students in which you can take classes taught in either English or Spanish, but I of course opted for all classes in Spanish for the added challenge...because I'm here to learn Spanish, right?

The classes I am taking are:

Argentine Literature

Latin American Literature

Argentine Cultural Studies

Español Avanzado A (Advanced Spanish A)

I'm an English and Spanish Teaching major, so two literature classes in a semester is nothing new to me. However, I am notorious for not allowing myself enough time to read the assigned readings in my literature classes, and now all of the assigned readings are in Spanish, meaning it takes me waaaay more time to read them. And ideally, I should read them at least three times to understand them well. This is a slight problem, because I don't want to spend all of my day reading, and then there's other reading in Spanish to be done for my Culture class (which is no joke, the professor is quite scholarly and has high expectations of us). My actual Spanish language class is definitely the easiest for me, which I suppose makes sense, since I am faced with a much higher level of Spanish every day than is taught in my Spanish class (which slightly bothers me, but there's nothing I can do about it really). For a sample of what I'm reading right now, click here (luckily I'm only reading an excerpt of this, but still...).

Long story short, I have approximately four hours to read about 10 pages of Spanish literature and I am instead writing this blog.

Which brings me to my next point, my schedule. The schedule here is every Bozemanite's wildest dream. Classes (for my program) are offered Monday-Thursday from 1:00-7:00 p.m. Each class is an hour and a half long. Hence, this is my schedule:

Monday & Wednesday 4:00-7:00

Tuesday & Thursday 2:30-5:30

Conveniently, every weekend is a three day weekend and I have the majority of Monday free. Most buses out of town leave in the evening, so when I want to travel for the weekend I can leave Thursday night, arrive at my destination Friday morning, catch a return bus Sunday night, and be back with time to spare before class. Amazing! Too bad my bank account isn't on this travel schedule.

So, study abroad in Buenos Aires is no joke, but there's no doubt that being immersed in so much Spanish and reading so much Spanish literature is going to work wonders on my level of Spanish!

Until next time...keep enjoying summer in the USA! If you're there, that is...

Humahuaca Gorge

¡Hola a todos!

Anybody who is geologically inclined would love Humahuaca Gorge. I got to go on a day trip through it while I was staying in Salta and it has some amazing rock formations!

"Humahuaca Gorge" is basically a high altitude desert mountain pass, and includes several small towns, the most famous of which are Humahuaca (home to the most giant monument I have yet to see, pictured at right...the man in the middle is 9 meters tall!!)

and Purmamarca, a smaller town nestled into mountains made up of rocks of a rainbow of colors, a sampling of which you can see at left and below.

We also got to visit a historical site called "El Pucara de Tilcara," a town dating back to the 9th-15th centuries, before the Spanish came to South America. It is an important archeological site and in its prime was home to over 1500 people and a booming trading town; today some original adobe huts still exist within the protected area.

And finally, a fun fact...we passed through the Tropic of Capricorn, which was marked by the monument below. I feel quite worldly, because I've already been to the Equator and the Arctic Circle and travelled past the Tropic of Cancer, so now I just need to go to Antarctic Circle to complete my north-south travels!

I'll post one more blog about my vacation, and then it's back to school...I just finished my first week of classes for the semester and it was quite an experience! Have a good weekend!

Salta

The second destination of my "winter" vacation here in Argentina was Salta, where I stayed for four nights. It is nicknamed "Salta la Linda" (Salta the beautiful) because it's surrounded by mountains (albeit small mountains, and it's a desert relatively close to the Equator so it rarely snows). But, I have to agree that it is a beautiful city, much more my style than Buenos Aires, minus the climate. I was there during the coldest time of year and walked around in a t-shirt every day!

One of the city's main tourist attractions is a cable car (it's called a "teleférico" in Spanish for anybody who's interested) which takes you to the top of the nearest "mountain," where you are able to see a beautiful view of the city. There are also stairs that go up the "mountain," which I opted to take instead, and it only took about 45 minutes for me to walk up.

The main park of the city was also really cool, probably my favorite I have encountered so far. There was a big lake with a fountain in it that you could paddleboat around, and there was a little island in the middle that was basically a bird sactuary.

And finally, the city is home to the most giant monument to a General I have yet to see. It was in the middle of another cool park that was more or less at the base of the stairs up the mountain, and it was didicated to General Güemes. I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but Argentineans don't like to get very creative when they name things. The names of streets, plazas, places, monuments,

and everything else are all the same in every town. For example, every town's main plaza is "Plaza 9 de Julio" because that is Argentina's independence day. And "Güemes" is the name of a street a couple of blocks down from the street I live on in Buenos Aires. You have to love it...

Salta itself was awesome, and I really enjoyed just wandering around on the free day I had there. But it's also surrounded by many national parks and geologically beautiful areas, which I took two day trips to see, and will talk about in subsequent posts...

I hope everybody is getting outside and enjoying the summer!!!

Mendoza and Bodegas

...a continuation of my fascinating vacation blog series.

Mendoza, as I mentioned in my previous post, is a small city of a little over 100,000 people. It also is home to a vast expanse of park (which I have quickly learned is true of every city in Argentina, if you can find it).

Our hostel in Mendoza (which was named Damajuana and was quite nice, I recommend it) was conveniently located about six blocks from said vast park, so of course it was one of the first places I went in Mendoza. In the middle was a manmade lake, pictured at left.

Mendoza is also home to many scultures and other public works of art, as is true with basically any town/city in Argentina. For example, see below:

While we were in Mendoza, we were basically obligated to go on a wine tour, because the region is renowed for its wines. We elected to go on a bike tour in which we were driven to a bike rental place a little ways out of town, and from there we biked to two bodegas (wineries) where we sampled Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as some champagne.

At right: proof I biked with the lovely Andes and some out of season grape plants in the background, not to mention real snow!

At the first winery we got grouped with a large bus tour, so it was rather impersonal, but the second winery was cool because our tour guide was from England and our group only had four people in it, so she gave the tour in English and I learned many interesting facts about the wine and champagne-making processes.

At left: stainless steel wine-aging units. There were many.

At right: a special kind of wood barrels for aging of a different type of wine (unfortunately I don't remember the specifics for anybody who's interested, you'll just have to go on a tour yourself...)

The whole experience was fun because I had never been on a wine tour before, and it was fun to get to ride a bike for the first time since I left the United States! I'll never take it for granted again...

Overall, Mendoza is a very laid-back city/town, and my favorite part was probably the park. The climate wasn't quite legitimate for me, however, because there wasn't enough snow to go snowboarding even though the mountains are relatively close...definite issue! But if you like wine, it's a must when traveling around Argentina.

Next in the fascinating series: Salta!

The Mendozan Andes

I'm back from my winter vacation in Argentina, and I have a lot to talk about!

My first destination was Mendoza, a city with a population of a little over 100,000 which is about a 13 hour bus ride to the west and slightly south of Buenos Aires, pretty close to the border of Chile. It is also conveniently located about a half hour's drive from the Andes mountains, although it is most famous for its wine and is basically the Napa Valley of Argentina. I was there for a total of about 3 and a half days, during which I went on a bus tour to the Andes and a bike tour to two bodegas (wineries), and had some free time to explore the city as well.

Our first full day in Mendoza was spent on a bus (and off of it) in the Andes mountains. On the right is my first close up view, as the sun was rising. It was probably the coldest weather I have experienced in Argentina, and the coldest I will experience unless I travel far south sometime soon (which I won't). But, on the Bozemanite scale it really wasn't that bad. And as you can see, there was snow in the mountains, but only a light dusting.

Our next stop was at a mountainous operation complete with a ski lift, but I am still not entirely sure why. There were places to rent skis, but they were all closed because there wasn't enough snow, and everbody riding the lift was not skiing. The main attraction, as you can see in the picture, was sledding. Little kids were having a blast sliding down this little hill on a mixture of ice and dirt. It was all rather comical to me; I guess I was a spoiled child when it came to snow. I asked our tour guide when the ideal skiing time was, and he laughed and said there really wasn't one...that was about as good as it gets. But, it was a beautiful location nonetheless.

The "ski" lift.

At our last stop, another sledding hill, I was able to hike up a little ways to get a nice view. Unfortunately, it was my most active opportunity of the day, but we only had about 30 minutes. But, considering that I didn't have a car or very much money, the tour was overall worth it.

Stay tuned for Mendoza Part 2: The City and Bodegas!

Oficina de Migraciones = DMV

This morning, I woke up the earlier than I ever have in Buenos Aires so I could go to the Migrations Office for my 8:00 appointment to obtain my Student Visa. Some of my friends had already gone, and I had heard it was a confusing maze to navigate, so I prepared myself for confusion.

I took the Subte (subway) to a stop approximately 4 blocks away from the Migrations Office, and started to walk in what I thought was the right direction. Streets are rather difficult to navigate in Buenos Aires because half of the time there is no sign indicating which street or streets you are on at a given corner. But, some of the signs are really helpful and actually tell you which block of the street you are on (aka 3100-3200, etc). I found the street the office is on and started walking to the 1300 block, because the address was 1351. I saw nothing that looked like a Migrations building and a nice parking attendant noticed I looked lost and asked what I was looking for. Actually, he guessed it—it must happen often. He told me to turn around and go four blocks in the opposite direction...aka the 1000 block. What?!?! I will never understand this city, or their method of assigning addresses.

I managed to find the "Migrations Office," which was not just one office but an entire complex of different buildings labeled with numbers. After asking several people, I was able to figure out which building I needed to go to, #4, which was apparently half of a building containing both #3 and #4. The door to #4 said "Salida" ("Exit"), so I went to the door that said "Entrada" ("Enter"), which was labeled #3 but in the same building. Already, I had no idea what was going on.

I walked inside and saw a couple of booths that said "Information," and I thought they looked promising and told the man behind one of the booths the name of the office I was looking for. He handed me a number and pointed in a vague direction, and I wandered back to a waiting area in which other people possessed similar numbers, and had a sign displaying which number was being served at which window.

It was exactly like going to the DMV. Supposedly I had an "appointment," but I'm not sure what that did for me, because I feel like I could have done the exact same thing without it.

So, I waited for my number to appear and walked to the appropriate window. Might I add, these windows were literally windows, made of solid glass, with tiny slits at the bottom for exchanging paperwork and apparently for hearing through, essentially forcing people like me to bend down like idiots to hear what the people behind the glass were saying.

I told the lady who was supposed to be helping me that I was there to get my visa. She leafed through my passport, said one thing which I was unable to hear through the impenetrable shield between us, saw the confused look on my face, and without ANY attempt at further conversation said "I'm going to get somebody who speaks English." I told her I could speak some Spanish, but she was apparently uninterested in giving me further direction. She told me to sit down and wait.

So, I sat down and waited a further 20 minutes, when a lady finally came and asked what I needed. I said, "I'm here to get my visa. Am I in the right place?"

"You have an appointment today?"

"Yes."

My helpful English speaker apparently found this situation very hilarious, and laughed as she took me into the other half of the building...aka #4...the building I thought I needed to go to in the first place. Awesome.

There, I was fingerprinted (for the second time since I've been here; the first was when I got a background check to obtain the criminal records necessary for the visa. You think they'd have them on file?), given another piece of paper, and pointed towards yet another series of booths. There, a lady who actually tried to speak to me in Spanish I could understand took all of my accumulated documents and paperwork and gave me some papers to sign, then told me to go pay my 300 peso fee and come back. After this, I had to sign more papers and wait a short while more.

After all of that, I was given a piece of paper and told to come back in 15 days for the visa.

All I could think was, "What just happened?"

Long story short: getting your visa is like going to the DMV. And to call it an "appointment" is a joke. I'm pretty sure they just tell people to come on certain days to regulate the amount of people they have to deal with.

Oh, life abroad...what an experience.

One Month Already?!?!

[me with General San Martín at the Plaza San Martín]

Tomorrow will mark my one month anniversary of being in Argentina, and while I still have quite some time left here, it's hard to believe it's already been that long!

Today I had my final exam for my Intensive Spanish class; it consisted of a written and an oral portion. The written part was great but the oral part was much more difficult; it's rather hard to think on the spot in a foreign language, even when you have a little time to prepare. Our teacher told us what we had to talk about and then gave us about 20 minutes to prepare, and we did it in small groups. I'm not sure if that made it better or worse...

Anyway, since I haven't talked much about my class, it was five days a week for 4 weeks from 10-3. There were a total of seven people in my class and we had two different teachers who taught on different days of the week. Both of them were really nice and really good teachers! I definitely learned a lot from them, even though all of the grammar we learned was review for me, it's hard to remember everything until you've had it drilled into your head a few times.

My favorite part of class was all of the vocabulary I learned, both Argentina-specific and generally useful words and phrases. Whenever we would start talking about a random topic in class (which was often), our teachers would seize the opportunity to teach us related vocabulary, since of course we always had to speak in Spanish. It was very entertaining; I highly recommend the program!

Now I have a whole week off from school until the semester here starts July 26 (don't worry, the semester at MSU doesn't start until August 30, if you are lucky enough to be going there)!

In celebration of my successful completion of the intensive class, and to seize my only long vacation I will have in Argentina, I'm going to leave tomorrow night for Mendoza, a region west of Buenos Aires fairly close to Chile which is famous for its wine. It's also in the mountains, which is far more exciting for me than the wine aspect! I'll be there for three days, and from there I'm going to Salta, which is much farther north and also in the mountains, and contains the highest concentration of National Parks in the northern part of Argentina. I'm traveling with a friend from my program and we're taking buses everywhere, which means a looooot of travel time, but it's also waaay cheaper than flying! And, the buses we are taking have beds, so we can sleep. I've definitely driven further distances in my car (aka: Bozeman to Anchorage), so I'm just happy I don't have to drive!

If I don't have a chance to update again before I leave, stay tuned for the stories of my adventures!