Two Months!

As of last Tuesday, the Tuesday that just past, because today is Friday, I've officially been in Argentina for two whole months! Wow! I sometimes feel a lot like I don't belong, but there are times when I fit right in, too, and it's been an interesting time. One of the hardest things to get used (I mean there are probably a lot, but this is what I'm thinking about right now) is that people here are a lot colder than I'm used to. Like temperature-wise. Like, it was 75 today, and everyone had their jackets on. I'm so confused. And this is like a warm fall kind of, so it makes even less sense to me. Also, we were watching the news tonight, and there was a full 15 minute segment about mosquitoes. Like, I know they're annoying, but how is this news?? But it's going well.

Many things have happened since the last time I updated you, so this will just be a post of me going through my magical journal and seeing if anything interesting happened.

Starting about three weeks ago: my host family celebrated Passover! I did not know they were Jewish, but they're at least Jewish enough to celebrate this holiday, with interesting food and family time. I will tell you about the food in the food section later. My host mom's son took a lot of pictures with his good digital camera, because I don't think he has a phone? But that's okay, no judgement here. Mostly I spent the night entertaining the one-year-old, who I love. She is my favorite. And she also like actually likes and trusts me now? And she always wants to feed me her tomatoes, because Matilde never gives me any because she thinks I don't like them, which is not true, but I can't make her understand but it's fine, but the baby feels bad that I don't have any tomatoes apparently. She's very considerate. But also, they just gave her a whole plate of tomatoes for dinner one night, and I was very confused, because if I were a baby, I would not be a fan of this arrangement, but she just stabbed them with her fork and shoved too many in her mouth at once. So I guess it's fine.

That same week, I went on my first real trip! Some other people from my group and I took a bus to Mendoza, Argentina, so that was really cool! Our bus was supposed to leave at 5pm, so we got to the bus station at a reasonable time of like 4pm. But our bus didn't leave until 7pm. No. It arrived at 7pm, so we probably left at like 7:30. But we had some fun bonding activities, such as buying beer and drinking it? And buying wine and putting it in water bottles to smuggle it onto the bus? So that was fun! And then it took like 2 hours to go what should have taken half an hour, and we were all starving, (I told Emily, my seatmate, that I was hungry probably like 18 times in two hours, I'm sorry Emily), and they were making us watch weird, terrifying movies, like The Last Witch Hunter and Jorge Curioso so it was a bad time. And I didn't really sleep that much, because buses are hard to sleep on. And the drive that was supposed to take 14 hours took 18 hours, but when you add in all the waiting it was like 21 hours, but you know what? We all made it there and didn't die. So that's good.

We stayed in a hostel that wasn't super great, but it was very cheap, and also it had a turtle mural on the outside wall, and also we had some very VERY good asado (which is like barbecue, basically just meat, yes, Dad, you can call your grilling asado if you want.) So it wasn't all that bad! The shower was a little cold. A little is probably an under exaggeration.

On the Friday when we were there, we decided to go for a hike! So we got up early that morning so we could get to the bus station to take a bus up the mountain to another mountain path where we could eventually reach a waterfall! I think the bus ride was very interesting itself, and was full of good mountain scenery. It was like an hour and a half, and then they just dropped us off at the mountain trail and said, "Yo we'll be back in like 10 hours, try not to get lost" and then left.

It was really nice to walk through the mountains and stuff and feel like I was actually doing adventuring, but also, this mountain hike I think was literally the hardest physical thing I've ever tried to force my body to do. I, the small infant from Minnesota/Iowa, apparently do not do well at high altitudes. After like two hours-ish of hiking, I had to tell the rest of the group that I couldn't do it anymore. Like, that's not even a lie. I would know if I were lying to myself because I would feel bad about it, but I was not lying. I could not go any further up that mountain. And I was disappointed, but I really did try my best. I took my time on my way back down, because the rest of the group still had about 5 hours of hiking to do, so I was in no hurry, and I wanted to catch my breath, and make sure my legs weren't permanently damaged.

As a reward for you still reading what is inevitably going to be a kind of long blog post, I will now share some pictures of the scenery that I took on my way down:

 Wow here are some good mountains! (I'm experimenting with where I can put words and text I guess? I kind of like the aesthetic of this. It's nice and not so many words all the time. Why do I talk so much?)

Above is one of the streams that I had to cross both up and down the mountain path. I was not a fan, because in traditional Minnesotan fashion, I was unprepared in the clothing department. I wore shorts on this hike, because I was hot when we left the hostel, but that was a poor decision. Good job me. So walking through cold running stream water was not a fun time, and my feet probably caught hypothermia.

This (above) is the nicer part of the path. By that I mean we didn't walk directly through trees. But it was still full of rocks and danger, but it was nice and pretty. To the right is a great view of a mountain, along with the first sign of fall that I have really seen my whole time in this lovely country. Quite scenic.







Also, I have some ponderous, contemplative videos I recorded of myself coming down the mountain. One is kind of long (like 5 minutes) and the other is a short follow up video to the other one. I kinda want to put them here? But I'm not sure if anyone wants to watch me ramble about weirdness for five minutes. We'll see. I'll think about it, and you can try and convince me.

At the bottom of the mountain, I found a hut to eat lunch in, which was good, but scary. It was made of stone and had graffiti all over it, and I called it home, because it kept the wind off me, when the wind blew only from one specific angle, so it was good. Yeah, good.

The rest of the trip was spent hanging out with our friends, and partying at the hostel with the hostel "peeps" as is the vernacular. They were very nice, if not clean, and as I mentioned above, they made us some good meat. So it was all worth it. The other people in my group went on a wine tour, but as I am not a fan of wine, I didn't really want to spend a bunch of money on tasting things that are like drinking the elixir of death itself, so I stayed home and probably napped and hung out. There were also many journeys to find milkshakes in Mendoza, brought on specifically (as I understand it) by the weirdest fast food chain I've seen called Kingo's which advertised 30 peso milkshakes, but failed to provide. So we had to settle for more expensive milkshakes, and also it was raining, which was good? But overall we had a fun time!!

The bus ride home was less eventful, although it still took a very long time. I did not get home in time for my class, which was actually okay with me, because I had not written my essay for class. Remember the last post in which I mention avoiding writing an essay by instead updating my blog? Yeah, it was that essay. That I still hadn't done. It's fine. This school doesn't really count, does it? I don't think so.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty uneventful, apparently, according to myself, who keeps my own journal? I've been sick for a while with a nice cold. I went to four pharmacies the other day to find some sort of Kleenex and I failed in my quest. I was the saddest. Also, I hurt my knee doing something (I keep saying it was the hiking, but I'm not actually sure, but we'll keep going with the hiking idea.) I think it's mostly getting better, except when I have to climb stairs. It only vaguely hurts now. (Also, unrelated, people here have made fun of my for how I say "vague" and I'm not even sure how I'm saying it weird. It must be that Minnesota accent coming out now.)

And I've played with a baby a lot, because we are friends. My translation professor thinks I am cool because I speak English and actually come to class, which is nice. I think he only knows my name and no one else's. I'm basically the teacher's pet and I don't actually have to be good at school because he knows I don't know Spanish as my native language. So that's good.

Tomorrow I'm going to a polo match again, so that will hopefully be fun! Matilde warned me to wear sunscreen and bug spray because of all the sun and mosquitoes that will apparently accompany me everywhere I go. And I think that's all the exciting news! Wow! So many things! I hope I didn't forget anything. The next trip I'll probably be taking is to the giant waterfall called Iguazu, so I will be sure to tell you all about that adventure when it happens! Bye forever!!

PS: Fooooooddddd?????:

• Two new kinds of wine, both red, both terrible
• Matzá - unleavened bread for Passover
• New torta with fish, cheese and egg
• Literally raw fish in a cream sauce - the worst
• Quiche of fish? (Why was there so much fish??)
• Matzá balls in chicken broth (still not a fan, good thing I'm not Jewish)
• Knish - kind of like empanadas but specifically Jewish, they have potatoes and onions, at least the ones we had here!
• A new pizza flavor with beef slices, bacon and olives (we gave all the olives to Benji because is the fiend who likes them)
• A drink called Suizo, that was apparently supposed to be like a mocha, but it still tasted too much like coffee for me
• Mente chocolate - a different drink that was cold and delicious and had no coffee!

PSS: Here is a picture of Xander in Mendoza, hanging out on the window sill, listening to some chill guitar music played in the open air

Okay also PSSS: Sorry I never do this and I know this is so long, but I'm putting this at the end so you can skip it if you want. But here are the videos of me rambling like a fool. The first one is long, beware!

Ha okay sorry, apparently the file is too big for Google to handle? So I lied. Maybe I'll send the videos to you if you specifically ask me. Sorry fiends. I tried. 

How To: Rain

Hello friends! It's been a while, but here I am, back in traditional Jen style, writing a blog post when I should actually be writing an essay. Don't worry about it.

So, it's been raining here for like three days straight, which is a fun time. It's hard to do things while it's raining in a city where most of the transportation involves walking. Like, you can take a bus or the subway, or the train, but it's a little hard to get to the specific point where you need to be when everything is on a schedule and fixed route.

I'm not like a huge fan of rain, mostly because I have to walk in it, and then everything I own gets wet. I finally remembered to bring my umbrella on Sunday when we went out to brunch, but previous encounters with rain have been less fortunate.

Walking here in this city in general is an experience, ranging from interesting to downright dangerous. (Usually not that dangerous, don't worry.) But when you add in the element of rain, I feel like it gets to a whole new level of chaos. All of a sudden, the traffic "laws" that were barely followed in the first place are completely neglected. It's like rain makes it impossible to see out of windshields or something. Pedestrians wander aimlessly through crosswalks, even when there are cars coming, people jump out in the middle of the street to avoid puddles or holes in the sidewalks, and children fight each other with their overly large umbrellas.

Also, there aren't super good drains here, so like water pools quickly and easily. The streets where people actually drive are usually okay, but by any curb, or any slight dip in the road, there can be nearly five inches of water. And like, cars aren't really that considerate, so if you're standing by a curb, patiently waiting to cross the street, like a good pedestrian, cars will zoom right past you and spray the water all over your nice legs. And then you will be cold and ANGRY.

I kind of always didn't believe that cars spraying water at people was a thing that actually happened. You see it in movies, where the scene is super sad, and some person has just been broken up with by their one true love, and it's before the part where the other person realizes that they've made some huge mistake and they have to rush back to their ex-lover before they realize they're too good for the other person, and so the one person is just standing on the corner of the street in the rain, because of course, if it's a sad scene there's gotta be rain, and in order to distract from the heteronormativity of the scene (because there have been thousands of these scenes in movies before this one, obviously, and the producers have to make sure their love scene stands out from the crowd) a car will pass by screeching its tires and inevitably add insult to injury by splashing gallons of sad rainwater upon the unsuspecting distraught abandoned person. And are you just so upset by the loss of your true love that you can's see a car zooming past you? I mean, to be fair, it's usually dark in these scenes, and also you're probably already soaking wet from the heavy downpour, but really though. You should be able to avoid this problem altogether.

But now I feel more sympathy, because it's hard to know whether or not a car will actually hit the puddle that is directly in front of you, or if it will glide gently past into the rainy abyss. It's all a mystery.

One of my favorite things about walking in the rain is counting how many little old ladies have gone out of their house without their umbrellas, and instead just tie a plastic bag around their head like a makeshift shower cap. I mean, I guess if the thing they're worried about is their hair, getting wet, they've solved that problem! I've seen like five or six of these ladies, and all their jackets are soaking wet, but their hair is perfect and fabulous, so I guess they know what they're doing.

One of the weird things about rain and living in an apartment is that it sounds a lot different from rain landing on a house. In my house, the easiest way to know if it's raining is to go into the hallway or bathroom and LISTEN FOR THE RAIN ON THE SKYLIGHT YES WE HAVE SKYLIGHTS THEY ARE COOL AND YOU'RE JEALOUS. But here, I'm on the fifth floor of an eleven floor building. But my window in my room goes to the outside, so I can hear the rain. But it just sounds like someone is inconsistently pouring a bucket of water down a metal slide. And sometimes it sounds like hail. It so hard to tell how much it's actually raining. Unless you stick your head out the window, which I could do here, because there are no screens. It seems kind of dangerous. Someone could fall out of one of those things.

I hope it stops raining soon, because I'm getting tired of all these puddles, and having to watch out for people who aren't paying attention to where they're walking because the rain has covered their glasses in tiny little drops of moisture, and now they can't see (usually that's me it's fine). And also, I'm leaving on Wednesday to go on a trip, and I really want it to be nice weather! But also the trip is like 14 hours away by bus, so there is a possibility that the weather there is not the same as it is here. But also also, with all this rain and humidity, my clothes that my host mom washes for me are not drying, and if they don't dry, I won't have anything to pack for my trip, and therefore will not have anything to wear, which could probably ruin the experience more than a little bad weather. Who knows.

PS: Foods? I don't even know what I eat anymore. I'm sorry.

• Unidentified food from a sketchy grocery store - they looked like onion rings, but were definitely not onion rings?
• Dulce de leche with brownies ice cream
• Mashed potatoes + "goulash" - does it count if I've had these things separately before, but this time they're mixed together? And have weird vegetables? It's like a hot dish. Don't worry
• A waffle with cheese - surprisingly good, despite my distrust of cheese in general
• A chocolate candy shaped like a turtle filled with what tasted like a new and interesting form of the cream in those delicious Cadbury Creme Eggs that I miss super a lot, especially because it's almost Easter
• Remember how I'm going to spend all of Easter riding a bus home from Mendoza? What a good way to celebrate
• Bon-bons - I probably have had something like this before, but I'm going to count it because they were very weird and I don't remember anything else that I've eaten in the last two weeks

PSS: Here is a picture of Xander sharing a tiny chair with my host mom's granddaughter's doll, whose name is Bebé. (Which means Baby for anyone who couldn't figure that out). Bebé is even worse at looking at the camera than Xander is!