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Published: September 10th 2007
Mari, Alcides y yo!
Mari, her pololo, and I at her house party in Santiago de Chile!Hola faithful readers!
I have one entry that sums up the rest of France, but seeing as it's locked in an outdated version of Microsoft Word on this laptop here, it will be untouchable until I either break down and buy it or find someone at Gordon merciful enough to buy a copy on my behalf! That said, I'm in Buenos Aires now!
I first embarked on this South American adventure out of Boston July 8th, to arrive Monday July 9th in Buenos Aires -- which for those of you interested, is now a rather famous day in their history: twas the day that it snowed here for about the first time in ...ohhh... a few decades! However cold it was, I didn't leave the airport that day, because I flew over to Santiago de Chile, Chile to spend about a week and a half with the wonderful Mari Bolyanatz. Together, with two friends she met in Chile, we invaded Rio de Janeiro Brasil, and vacationed there for the week. It was beautiful and warm, in dire contrast to the winter weather in Chile and Argentina right now (not that I'm complaining entirely, because it's still far warmer here
Mari & I!
Mejores Amigas :-) than it would be in Massachussetts during February for instance).
However, after not getting a visa in time from our consulate, I went to the consulate in Chile and basically begged the boss lady with Mari for a visa, but alas she only did me enough of a favor for the following day. That is, I missed my flight with Mari, and thought I was never going to make it to Brasil at all. Until I showed up the following day (with Mari's sweet friend/roomie Mallory), checked in, and she printed me a boarding pass. Oh what a sensational relief! There are no words. I was not about to pay six-hondo for a first class seat, and they told me that was the only other option whilst stand-by looked like it wasn't going to happen. Pheeeeeew. And so the festivities commenced, after what was a ridiculous process just to make it work.
In Rio, we visited all of the appropriate tourist attractions to include but not limited to: Sugarloaf, Statue of the Christ the Redeemer (now that was Jesus larger than life), Ipanema, Copacabana, Botanical Garden (because I can't visit a country without seeing their gardens ever), etcetera.
We drank acai (ah sigh ee) every morning, sometimes with a little granola in it, sometimes not. Yes, we vacationed in Brasil. Oh did I mention it was during the Panamerican Games?? Oh, 'cause it was.
Then we went back to Santiago for a couple of days, while Mari packed up her whole life and I pranced around downtown, marvelling at the Andes Mtns in the immediate background. Again, no hay palabras, en serio. Alcides, a few found chilean friend, took me took me on a brief downtown tour, a local contemporary art museum, and lunch with his amigos, but I otherwise didn't really explore Santiago all too much. But, what I did see, I liked very very much. And the airport wasn't too shabby either (spent a considerable amount of time there).
And then began the second leg of the journey, back to Buenos Aires. I spent severals days at a hostel in downtown BsAs, made some wonderful anglophone friends from Australia, England, Ireland and so forth, as well as a particular chilean who will now be my resident tutor for the semester, or so I decided. With them, I explored the tourist side of the city.
Mari & I Brasil beachin'
At the copa-copacabaaaana (Once I can figure out a way to upload pictures that I've taken with MY camera, maybe you'll see some stuff).
And boy is it colourful and fullllll of life. Wow. There's always something to see, do, someone to meet, and so on. This is probably the most politically aware and active city I've ever been to, nevermind lived in. People are protesting all over, for a local, national, international, individual, systemic cause. The list goes on. I love it. Argentina is now experiencing our 60s/70s movement of freedom and love. It's a revolution here, embracing democracy, and they are indeed speaking their mind. From what I can perceive, however, I think they have truer freedom than ours. I'll divulge as the semester goes on.
Then, orientation began, and went on, and on... for two weeks! This was completely different from France. I liked it, I think. It gave me time to orient myself, meet a large group of other students (albeit I'm pretty much one of the oldest people here, but I think there's like five other seniors out of the 130 of us, haha). It taught me a good deal about cultural norms and specialised vocabulary
Ice cream with a twist
Me doing the brasilian twist at sugarloaf (look carefully children!) as well, that I might not have learned.
And then I moved in with my host family: Emilia and her two daughters, Trinidad y Rosario. Grandma was also visiting for about my first whole week with them, so it was a full house! All five of us, eating dinner in the kitchen that is about the size of a Chase Hall suite bathroom is an adventure in and of itself! HOWEVER, we're moving this saturday! I just about unpacked my bags in time to have my host mother inform me that we'd be moving and soon... Who knew soon meant six days. I'll be closer to my program base, my university, her job, the girls' school. It's bigger, thus I would imagine "better", but we'll see. Currently, I'm living in Palermo, which is basically the sweetest area of the city in my mind. It's where tons of the youngsters my age hang out every night, and it's just pretty neat that way. But maybe where we're living come this weekend will have its perks as well. I'm not picky!
I would have to say, in order to paint you a picture, that my favourite night here was one
The girls at the top of Sugarloaf
View from the deck on our way up to the top of Sugarloaf! of my first with the family: Trini's birthday party. She had a small group of amigas over and they were all so hyper and full of energy for me. We played cultural trivia for hours, and it was just a blast of a time. I stayed up into the morning with them, which to Argentines is nothing (and quickly becoming so for me as well), and the next day felt like I had been "initiated". It was fun to giggle with teenagers too! It made me miss my Lynn kids a lot!
Otherwise, I've made a few close gal pals here. If we do anything, we usually do it together or in some combination of the group. They're from various parts of the states, primarily Minnesota and Oregon, but quickly becoming treasured friends. Our highlight was probably the party that one of their host family's threw for us! It was insane -- so much food, so much music, so much KARAOKE, so much dancing (yes we salsaed, it happened), and so much FUN. We were up for hours, just chatting, dancing, singing (turns out that Brooke's host mom is also inlove with The Sound of Music, thus I sang
Suspension to sugarloaf
Yes, we were in that little box too! the entire score), eating (she's also a crazy good cook), playing music (i shared my sick piano skills with the world, haha), dancing, and UGH. Gooood times.... My other favourite, was the day Jacky & I ran through Buenos Aires in search of the Japonese gardens and spent an afternoon of tranquility and serenity, surrounded by koi fish (sp?), japanese maples, tiny bridges, lakes, and awesomely obnoxious pigeons. heheh.
And now, academic life has commenced. It was just decided together, after my amazing advisor got me into a course, that I am taking two classes at University of Buenos Aires- Social Sciences: Latin American Social Thought and Latin American Social Theory. Both of my professors are pretty dynamic, if not insane, so we'll see how it goes. My classes are from 9-11pm so that's new! And then, I'm taking one course at my program, Aprendizaje-Servicio Seminario, which is basically a service-learning course likened to what we do at Gordon only HERE, so hopefully that will fill the void in my heart for Lynn (even though it only belongs to NAC). Also, one language course at UBA as well, different department of course. And finally, get this, can you believe
Brasilian coast
Gorgeous Rio de Janiero! it, I'm signed up for an arabic class! I'm hopeful, that with such a high lebanese population here in Buenos Aires, that maybe my teacher will be lebanese. Let's just cross our fingers, because nationality of teacher, hence accent and dialect, have been the things preventing me from taking a course in the past, because I'm a dialect snob. Or I'm just obssessed with my family heritage. Take your pick. But, yes, I am going to try. Updates sure to come.
And what more could there be you ask? I'm not sure either... It's been so long since I've addressed the world with my international follies, that I thought it was high time that I write to those of you who still care to read! Eventually, I will add the last entry of France... but for now, pretend you already know alllll about our backpacking experience through Spain and Northern Africa.
Ok... Well wishes to all of you! Words cannot express how my heart misses you... I can't wait to see you come winter and next semester! I cannot believe that I will be a senior and soon done with Gordon altogether and moving onto other studies. Gross,
Botanical Gardens
The Amazon Women, really just in the botanical gardens of Rio. but somebody's got to do it! As of now, it's either grad. school in Vancouver or northern Vermont or Teach America as it stands. My other crazy ideas were move to Japan for a year or so just to learn Japanese, maybe teach English there? And same deal, but swap Tokyo for Beirut... Time will tell. Any suggestions?
Much love and peace to you! Suerte! A bientot!
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mariiii la chilena
non-member comment
que weaaa?!?!
hannah. nunca supe que escribiste esto... que bkn! eres la mejor... te echo mucho de menos, espero que estes suuuuper y aprendiendo harto y APROVECHANDO como solemos hacer ;) i cannot wait till you get back here. but you sure can. hablemos pronto! cuando este arreglado el internet en mi maldito departamento, ahi hablamos!!!!!!!!! te quiero mil! besos!!