escudo

Two years pass by and I'm back in the city of the beautiful Buenos Aires. After being in Paris for New Years, I can truly say there is a Parisian swagger here. The city is full of life, culture, and style; something unexplainable that one can only experience with their own five senses. Saturday: Arrived early and walked Recoleta. Saw the musical "The Beauty and the Beast." Sunday: Woke up early and went to Tigre which is just outside of Buenos Aires Provincia. Lost my wallet and later that night went to a Boca match. Monday: City tour all day. ... read more

Concepcion was the largest city hit hard by the 8.8 earthquake which struck back in Feb 28th. I was fortunate enough to visit and tour Concepcion as well as the surrounding areas. I distinctly remember the night when the earthquake hit; I was home in bed, watching CNN(what are the chances of that?) A news ticker on the bottom of the TV read "Earthquake hits Southern Chile" I Immediately tried getting more information from Chilean websites but none worked. I tried calling my family, but the lines were down. At that moment, Chile did not exist. All modes of communication were down(except for facebook and twitter of course). Wednesday we toured a neighboring city called Dichato which was hit hard by the earthquake. Dichato, which was once a quaint, quiet, hiddem gem, turned into a bare ... read more

We arrived to Cordoba late Friday afternoon. I figured we would have no problem catching a bus from Mendoza to Cordoba, however since most students are on vacation, everything was booked so we had to catch the 6 AM bus. We arrived to Mendoza Thursday night around 9. We had two choices. Either go to a hostel for the night and pay 30 pesos per person, OR put our luggage in storage and explore the vida nocturna in Mendoza. Now that I look back, we definitely made the right decision. As soon as we left the bus terminal we met a Chilean that had been living in Argentina for the past year. He was not hesitant at all to pay for our bus fare and lead us to the best all-you-can-eat buffet in Mendoza. We had ... read more

Bariloche is one place I will definitely visit again. The views while cruising through the cordillera were spectacular. Patagonia is a beautiful region, and I wish I could explore the cities further south. Bariloche is centrally located, surrounded by mountains, lakes, and rivers. There is a distinct European type construction of houses and buildings here. Kinda reminds me of Teluride, Colorado. There is one street loaded with chocolate stores. These chocolate stores are called ¨chocoletarias.¨ The most well-known chocoleteria is called ¨Mamoushka,¨and upon entering felt like I was in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. All of the oompa-loompas are local argentines that wear these funny colored outfits with matching hats. I´m not a big chocolate eater, but I bought some chocolate for family and friends anyway. A popular look-out point near the city is called ... read more

Chileans celebrate "Semana Santa" or Easter by fleeing to the beaches for the holiday weekend. A short car ride away is Valpo and Vina. Many Santiagunios may also choose to go to the south of Chile to places like Pucon or to the beautiful beaches in the north like La Serena, Las Tacas, or Puerto Valero. I had originally planned to head south with my friend Cat on Thursday. But of course ticket prices had doubled, and Pucon isn't exactly the cheapest place to hang around during a Chilean holiday. I'm taking an overnight bus to Pucon tomorrow. The ticket cost 12.500 CLP or about 25 US. On Thursday the tickets were going for about 30.000 CLP 65 US for the full-cama which was a bit more than I needed. By taking an overnight bus we'll ... read more