Argentina

Haven't updated in a while mostly because the purpose of my blog was to inform my family of my whereabouts and doings, but since they have been with me for the last few days there have been easier methods of communication. I showed my mom and my sister around Buenos Aires for three days and acted as a guide. On Wednesday we flew to Iguazu Falls which is the biggest waterfall in the world with over 5,000 cubic meters of water passing over the falls every second. To put that in perspective the next biggest falls, Victoria Falls, has 1,000 cubic meters of water pass over it ever second. And, according to wikipedia (a widely respected reference), Iguazu is the 4th most spectacular natural wonder after the Sergenti Migracion, the Galápagos Islands, and Grand Canyon. We took an obscene amount of pictures but unfortunately we don't have the cable to upload them. The falls were amazing, but the Disneylandification surrounding it was cringe worthy. We walked a shit ton, it was h...

the plane flight dad peter and michael, you have a long day ahead of you, the flight to georgia isn't too bad, everyone has personal tv's and there is inflight trivia which is very entertaining! then, the georgia airport is pretty weird and can only be descirbed as a giant mall with planes, but we found a pretty good restaurant on E level about halfway down the walkway. anyywayy The flight to Buenos Aires is verrrryyyy long, but i thought it was really interesting... unlike flights to mexico that are completely full of tourists and English orientated, on this flight you feel like you are going to a new place. Our flight was about 60-40 for spanish speakers which came as a surprise to me, also you cannot identfy argentinians from tourists except hearing someone speak(of course we will standout anywat on behalf of our height). Day 1: We rode a 45 minute bus into Buenos Aires, then from the bus stop took a taxi to taylors apartment, we arrived slightly earlier than taylor though...

40 basic things to keep in mind about Argentina in no particular order: 1) It's really hard to get change (coins) and you must guard any coins you do have with your life as you'll need them for buses 2) Almost all streets are one way, so watch the hell out 3) Dogs shit wherever they want so watch your step 4) Cross walks are little more than stripes of paint 5) There are rampant stray dogs and cats as Argentinians don't like neutering their pets 6) All keys are big brass old looking ones and I don't understand why 7) There are no black people... at all 8) If you buy something try to use a bill that is no more than double the price of the item. Only in select places can you try to use your $100 pesos notes 9) When you withdraw money from ATM's withdraw in odd amounts so you get smaller bills. For example instead of $200, withdraw $190 so you get a fifty, and two twenties. 10) Tipping in restaurants is more lax, around 10% is fine 11) Only take taxis that have Radio...

Before you leave: Pack light. By light I mean one carry-on that you can maneuver in airport/bus terminal settings. We will have washing machines in each place so just bring a few things. If you are curious about what to bring you can see the list of things I brought. Although it is summer, have a light water proof jacket as it can rain. The best is to bring generic clothing so that we don't stand out as much. The other day I saw a guy wearing a "Party till you Puke" t-shirt. Probably avoid stuff like that. People will know we are foreign, but they shouldn't be able to tell if we are from the United States or Europe. There is some anti-American sentiment, not much, but some. It's best to keep a low profile. Argentinians call Americans Yankees (pron. Jahn Keys), in case you happen to hear it. Bring a small towel as you will never be amazed by it's versatility. Don't bring things that are expensive/flashy. No computers, I already have one so we ...

Got back from Mar del Plata last night and it was amazing. We nearly didn't catch our bus because there was a Madonna concert right when we were leaving so every single taxi was full of people. I stood on the side walk for a solid 20 minutes without seeing a single taxi that was "libre." In the end to get the taxi, I had to run across the road with my luggage and flag down a taxi on the opposite side. We got to Mar del Plata at 8 a.m., took a morning siesta, and were at the beach by noon. The beach was freaking packed with people, and there was a bunch of beach venders selling hot dogs (panchos), ice cream, fruit salads, umbrellas, beach mats, ankle bracelets, and other beach related items. The beach was full of tourists but they were all Argentine tourists as I didn't hear one word of English the whole time I was there outside of our group. One of the guys in our group who was from Holland for some reason thought that his skin had adjusted to the sun even thoug...

Alright, we got our shit together and we're going to Mar del Plata, aka beach. We did this shit so last minute it's amazing. We reserved our hostel and bought our tickets today, both of which were the last ones remaining. We leave tonight at 3 am and we'll get there at 8 am, to sort things out/have breakfast, and then beach time. Bus tickets in Argentina are too good of a value. This 5 hour trip, ida y vuelta (round-trip), is $134 pesos (40 bucks). So I've packed my things up in my small back pack and I'm leaving in like 2 hours. Of course my legendary towel will be making the journey. I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone of the importance and multifuctionality of towels. 1) Head support for plane/bus rides 2) Useful for laying on beach 3) Wet and twist for use as weapon 4) Use as turban 5) Use a boat sail 6) Use for a picnic 7) To dry dishes 8) Stuff in pillow case for use in Pillow Wars (I did this) 9) Make shift pillow 10) Blanket for warmth 1...

First a random fact before I jump in with things: The Peacekeeper, below, was a MIRVed missile developed by the United States during the Cold War. Each rocket could carry up to 10 re-entry vehicles, each armed with a 300 kiloton warhead (twenty times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II). The reason I share this is that I think its awesome that we named the most destructive weapon ever developed by mankind that was 200 times stronger than the bomb used on Hiroshima The Peacekeeper. Here's another picture of the testing they did that shows how it delivered 10 different 300 kiloton payloads to 10 different targets. I finished with school today. I turned in my two essays, one on the roots and end of the Cold War, and the other on comparing Reagan's Rollback policy to the policy of Containment in the first years of the Cold War. In the end both reports ended up being 10 pages each double spaced and I devoted two days of my existence on this earth ...

This is probably the first ReadMe you have ever read. When I saw this bar graph I was thoroughly surprised. I don't know if you can read it, probably not. But the red bars show the number of military deaths in WWII and the orange bars show the number of civilian deaths. Basically, the Soviet Union and China got pummeled, and Poland Indonesia, and India had almost entirely civilian casualties. If you scan down to the 7th or so allied force you see the United States. In WWII, the US lost 1 soldier for every 52 that the Soviet Union lost, not even counting civilian deaths. The pie graph shows that over half of the WWII deaths were Allied civilians, followed by Allied military, and finally Axis military and axis civilians, in that order. Ok, enough of history. I have been living an extremely sedentary life style these past few days. Basically, I have just been studying and getting ready for my remaining two final exams. The marketing test on Monday, which seems easy but that is...

Have you actually listened to the lyrics of Pink Floyd's Time, fuck it's depressing. Anyway, last Friday I went to a very hip restaurant with some of the exchange students. It's amazing because everything was a price you would expect it to be in dollars in the US, except it's pesos. Sorry Mike Zhao, it's probably the same thing but not in your favor in England. So, despite being in a very chic restaurant and ordering two beers, I only spent about $20. After dinner we wandered around, and randomly stumbled into that Magic themed bar that I went to a few months ago. We got seated right in the front and played drinking games until the show started. The game was awesome because it included the "Draw Master", "The Great Escape Master," and "Bull Master." Essentially, at any point in the game, the Draw Master would shout "Draw" and point a hand pistol at the group. The last person to copy would become the new "Draw Maste...

On Thursday night after the awards banquet, the guy and girl soccer teams went to the house of one of the players for an enormous feast. This guy had an amazing house with a patio, bbq, and pool and we cooked up some amazing fire grilled pizzas. I paid 20 pesos and got all I could drink beer and fernet, and all I could eat pizzas. Pretty good bargain I'd say. Anyway it was a good cap on soccer season. But now for the main event: La Guerra de las Almohadas, which means the Pillow War. With the fenomenon of the internet has come an even greater fenomenon, "flash mobs." Basically they are massive demonstrations organized over the internet where people do amazingly absurd public stunts. For example, in Grand Central Station (I think), hundreds of people froze in mid action at the exact same time for 5 minutes, and then simultaneously unfroze as if nothing had happened. Well the flash mob we did wasn't so flashy, but it was definately more mobby. We had an enormou...

Quilombo is a great word. It refers to any sort of a chaotic disorganized and generally bad situation similar to a "cluster fuck". It's roots are quite racist as quilombos were the small villages that escaped slaves set up it South America to avoid slavery. Apparently they were so badly organized that now the noun is applied to anything chaotic. Other great terms: me estás jodiendo: are you shitting me estoy al pedo: literally, i'm farting around (doing nothing) estoy impedo: wasted tirarse un pedo: fart la concha de la lora: equivalent to "mother fucker" but doesn't translate well, neither does, la concha de tu madre. People says these things all the time even though they are among the most offensive things that one could possibly say in the English language. pelotudear: dick around (pelotudo means dick, like jerk) googlear: to google que paja: how shitty/borring pajero: bum/lazy person purro: weed chupar huevos: suck balls tener una resaca: to hav...

Tomorrow is the last day of classes for me. That means I survived a quarter of waking up at 6:30 am in order to walk ten blocks to the train station, taking the train, and the subsequent 15 block walk that ensued. I suppose that means that 8:30's at UW are technically do-able, although I'm not eager to try. I am sitting in an internet cafe to write this blog as my beloved computer and link to the outside world is still inoperable. It costs 3 pesos an hour, or a little less than a dollar. That's the kind of cost I'm willing to expend to stay in contact with you guys. Take note. I am completely finished with one class, I have an easy final and presentation in another class tomorrow, and in the remaining classes I have a final exam and a final paper (Marketing and International Relations). We finally got the air conditioning set up. We had the machine for a few weeks but in the old building we are in, we didn't have the right voltage on the outlets so we had t...

Well things seem to be winding to a close which is sad. We had our last soccer game on Saturday and after the game to wish me goodbye, the team made a circle around me and we jumped around and yelled and they pushed me around the circle like a pin ball. We won our last game 5-0 by the way. It seems like our team really came around in the end after a difficult begining of the season. We are having an awards night on Thursday so that will officially be the end. I got really close to a lot of the guys on the soccer team and they took me right in as the token foreign guy. Things have to end though I guess. Another example of things ending is that my sister is getting her driver's license in under 30 days which will end the safety of everyone else traveling on the roads. Last night we had the goodbye party for the exchange students, which was amazingly fun, but when they played a slideshow of photos from the quarter it seemed to sink in to everyone that things are coming to a cl...

Alright, you probably won't understand this blog but basically after the tournament, the team sent around this chain of emails which basically says, hey guys, even though we lost, we played really fucking good and I'm proud to be a part of this team. I just thought I'd post it, if you don't understand Spanish there is no point in reading it. If you do understand Spanish, you'll notice that just like us in english, they use a lot of abbreviations when they type. Later. Gracias a todos: Chicos quieria de verdad agradecerles por las ganas y el futbol q pusieron todsos este fin d semana.Hoy cuando llegue a casa la verdad q estaba muy orgulloso de ser parte d este equipo y de haber jugado tan bien al futbol como lo hicimos estos dias.Pase un fin de semana espectacular con ustedes y no quieria dejar de hacerselos saber. Nuevamente les agradezco por la entrega y la garra q pusieron en todos los partidos y por todo lo q corrieron con este calor tremendo. Me es un lujo y ...

i am tired as hell and typing on a french keyboard so excuse the brevity of this post. this week end was la Copa Taylor or the Taylor Cup for our soccer team and it was a huge tournament hosted by San Andres that hosted teams from Chile, Uruguay, and Argetina. The tournament included soccer, rugby, rowing, swimming, basketball, chess, hockey, and tennis. In the soccer bracket their were ten teams so in the priliminary rounds we had 2 groups of 5. In our first game the other team forfeited, and we won the next three games 1-0, 2-0, and 3-0 respectively. This was all on Saturday and the games were just 40 minutes each. It is full fleged summer here so having a tournament with games longer than this would be death. Inbetween the second and third game the team went to McDonalds for lunch. wtf? I was opposed to it but they didn't understand what the big deal was. McDonalds has perfected their business of getting kids to go to McDonalds when they are young and still forming their...

well, bad news. the power adapter for my computer broke and i'm at the moment computer less. it's also super frustrating to type on this french keyboard i'm using because qll of the letters qre fucking out of the right plqce: m, a, q, z, w, and basically all of the punctuation are in different places and it is a nightmare, example; the auick brozn fox ju,ped over the lqwy brozn dog: this zill mqke blogging very difficult: also; its a huge hassel to replace my pozer cord because dell is only online and if i order it i zill hqve to do customs again: so my plan is to send it dirrectly to another exchage students house whose parents are coming in two weeks and have them bring it to me: in the meantime, hozever, i will be crippled without my computer with finals coming up and intership applications: dell is pretty garbage because now both my battery and adapter don't work: for the last few months i had a land locked lap top that had to constantly be plugged in: also; i...

Nearly a week has floated by without any updates. The weeks seem to really be floating by right now. It's already November and I have been in Argentina for almost 4 months. The thought of returning back to my life at UW almost seems as absurd as going back to high school. It seems like the distant past and I know that I am much different now after just 4 months than when I left. My research on the Bonderman as well as my class in International Relations, and being a student along side people from around the world has made me see myself as more of a global citizen than whatever I was before. I want to travel, I want to learn languages, and I want to see things. I've been researching scholarships and it seems like there are a variety of grants/scholarships that can help me do this once I graduate from college. There is, of course, the dilemma between starting my career and traveling, but hopefully I can resolve this by doing both. I would like to work/live in Brazil for ...

I voted today from Argentina. My parents sent me the ballot, I completed it, and dropped it off in the US embassy. Before going to the embassy I assumed it would be a little oasis of America but no. I had to speak Spanish to get into the place and I had to go through a security check point. Anyway, I am proud to say that I have voted, although being from Washington and with our beloved electorate college my vote doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference. Why the hell do we still have it? It makes the entire election become the decision of a dozen or so "battle ground" states. Just think, if we hadn't had it in 2000 we would have avoided the worst president in the history of the United States, according to some, George W. Bush. L.B. Johnson was pretty bad as well. So I handed the sealed envelope to the employee in the embassy and he said everything was good. But think, the employee could easily shred my envelope after I had left, or he could put it in a ...

I have befallen a series of unexplainably unlucky events. Te explico: 1) My green Colombia rain jacket was ripped when I entered my room because somehow my door knob caught of hold of a loose piece of fabric on my coat and ripped it. Has that happened to anyone else? I didn't even know that could happen. 2) There was a piece of dried spaghetti on a wooden spoon, and like any normal person I tried to use my finger nail to scrape it off. Unfortunately, the spaghetti noodle broke off and stabbed underneath my the fingernail of the thumb and broke off. I pulled most of it out but the very end broke off and is still about 3/8 of an inch underneath my fingernail and I am unable to get it out. The story is weirder because the day before we had been talking about how the Viet Cong would shove bamboo underneath prisoner's fingernails as a means of torture. Well, dried spaghetti noodles work just as well if there is ever a scarcity of bamboo. 3) During the soccer game, I got blaste...