Sunday, November 30, 2008

Buenos Aires completed

Saturday night we ate in Palermo Viejo at Sarkis, which serves Middle Eastern cuisine. I have missed Middle Eastern food, it was so delicious! We ate hummus, meat stuffed grape leaves, tabouli, baba ganoush, and pita bread. This was the appetizer, and we planned on splitting a main course dish, but we were so stuffed, we couldn't eat anymore. It was amazing food.

Sidenote: So many people speak English in BA, it was rather odd for us. It seemed like the majority of people we would hear speaking were English speaking.

Danny and I were walking home from dinner, talking about how it's a regular occurrence to walk by an apartment building and get sprinkled with some type of liquid. Most of the time it's condensation from peoples air conditioners falling, but every once in a while you will see people dump things out of their apartment window or shake out a rug, without looking below. Coincidentally, Danny mentioned that a few days ago someone barely missed him when they threw some water out their window. Immediately after, I felt something pour on my shoulder and splash on my clothes. I thought that someone had thrown water on me, but when I looked down it was a brown substance. A bird pooped on my shoulder! It was SO gross. I felt SO dirty. I was thankful that this happened after we ate dinner.

Sunday:
We walked by a church in the morning and it was the sweetest sound to hear people worshiping. We haven't been to church for so long and I am craving it. We felt so much comfort hearing the people singing.

We caught the subte to Recoleta and went to Feria Artesenal, an artists market-the biggest artists market I have ever seen. It made Portland Saturday Market look small. I personally like the feel of Saturday Market more, but it was fun to experience this market. I wanted to stay for longer, but Danny insisted we go to our next destination, the art museum. Can you believe he was the one insisting we go to an art museum? He's been more into art lately than I have been. It was the most amazing museum I have ever been in. It's called 'Museo Nacional De Bellas Artes'. Almost every famous artist I can think had their work in this museum. Pollock, Picasso, Rodin, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir...The list goes on.

Sadly, we were on a tight schedule, so we only got to see the first floor of the museum. We headed out to see La Recoleta Cemetery. It contains the gravestones of the most influential people in Argentina. We didn't get a chance to see Eva Peron's (Evita's) burial place because we were in too much of a hurry. There is a picture of the cemetery on Danny's Flickr page as well as some others taken in Buenos Aires (http://flickr.com/photos/dvarner/).

We ate the fastest we've ever eaten and raced back to the subte and raced to our hostel from their to make it in time for the futbol game. We were late and got scolded by the women waiting to drive us to the game. Ooops. The game was Rivers vs. Agentina Jrs. Unfortunately, our team lost (the Rivers), but the fans continue to cheer for them-it's really cool. They cheer DURING THE WHOLE GAME. I knew they were seriously crazy about futbol games, but I didn't realize the extent until I sat by a lady from Buenos Aires and she gave me the scoop.

The opposing teams wait for each other outside the stadium after the game and fight each other. She told me that people kill each other. I don't know how regular of an occurrence the killing is, but we had to wait for a half an hour or more after the game was over to leave because it's too dangerous to leave right away because of the fighting. The security guards have the visiting team leave first. They don't serve beer at the games (because they are crazy enough without alcohol) and security guards are everywhere. It's very different than any game I have been to before.

Monday:
We arrived back home at 7:30am. We had to hurry home so Danny could get ready for work, and I had my final exam for my group class to study for. I had my last group class on Monday, it was kind of sad. I am going to miss my classmates and my teacher, but my brain is really happy about it. I was taking classes for 5 hours a day with about an hour or two of homework. I think it was too much for me. I really felt like my Spanish speaking abilities decreased because my brain shut down.

Now, I can think clearly again. I didn't realize how much of a strain it was on me until I completed the class. I feel more free now. I am still taking classes for 2 hours a day, but that's a pleasant amount. Learning a new language is really hard. I would love to be fluent one day, I am SO FAR away from that, but I think I can do it. I need to find a way to use it when I arrive in the US. I am kicking myself now for not taking classes in college. Oh well, you live and learn. Danny and I have talked about having our kids go to a bilingual school. I think that it is a wonderful skill to have. Then our kids can teach us!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Tango video

This is a little shot of of some of the people dancing at Tsunami tango.

Lazy Day


I am being really bad and not writing about Buenos Aires yet. I am procrastinating. We tangoed last night until 3 am, and it was so fun. We both loved it.

We have been pretty lazy today, watching movies. We were going to go paragliding, but the weather is too bad. We'll see if it clears up for tomorrow. There has been thunderstorms the last two days. Today it shook the doors it was so strong. It also brought us this HUGE grasshopper. I put a dime next to it to show you its scale. I didn't know they could get this big.

Friday, November 28, 2008

This is what Christmas is all about...

Check this out:

http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

THANKSGIVING:


It reached over 100 degrees yesterday. I had to run all around town looking for different ingredients. They don't have stuff like brown sugar in just any store, you kind of have to hop around to find it. I went to 5 different places to get all the stuff I needed, and I went to two of those places three times because I forgot things. It did not feel like Thanksgiving. It ended up getting better. The power went out twice in our apartment, I always like it when the power goes out. It's a reminder of a simpler life.

The bird, and the whole meal turned out wonderfully. I really enjoyed making it. I put way too much pressure on myself about it, but in the end I was able to relax and enjoy it. Danny bought an apple pie for us that was out of this world! We have a bakery right by our place and they have a gift with baking. At the end of the night we made a list of things we were thankful for. My list had 11 in-depth things, and Danny listed 112 things. We are so different in our approach to things, it's funny, and sometimes tests both of our patients (a lot). In the end we both wrote about how we were thankful for our differences- it gives us both a new perspective.

Tonight, Friday, we are going to go to the Tsunami Tango place again. I never put the tango video up because it was too long and it wouldn't upload. Danny spent a few hours trying to compress it, but it didn't work. I will bring my camera tonight, and record a shorter video for you guys to watch. I still have the other one on my laptop, so if you want to watch it when I get home, just ask. I will post the rest of the Buenos Aires blog sometime tomorrow.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!

I want to be at home SO bad right now. I want to spend Thanksgiving with my family and loved ones. I bought a turkey yesterday, from Walmart :-) It is the only place that has turkey around here, or at least that anyone knew of. It was our first time taking a taxi. I was nervous, but it was great. I can't tell you more about Buenos Aires now because I don't have anytime. I need to go get all the rest of the ingredients for cooking a Thanksgiving dinner. I feel like a real grown-up. I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner! crazy. Wish me luck. No matter what, i will put a picture of my turkey on the blog, even if it's a disaster :-) I love you guys. Have a wonderful time celebrating together. I miss you!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Buenos Aires


FRIDAY & SATURDAY:
Friday night we caught the bus at around 10:30pm to go to Buenos Aires (BA). As I mentioned in a previous blog, they do this so you can sleep while traveling. Danny and I love the idea that we are accomplishing something while we sleep. We ate dinner on the bus, they showed a movie, and I fell asleep about 15 minutes into it. I had a pretty good sleep considering we were on a bus. We arrived in BA at about 7am, and were able to observe the life around the bus terminal. This is a very common area for thief's to practice their act.

I can be a little feisty at times (if you didn't know that already), and I was very determined to not have someone steal from either Danny or I. So, I was on the look out, and carried my mace in my hand. I watched different thieves, and took note of their methods. Often times they work in teams and they give signals to each other We were circled on at least two different occasions, by some guys who were interested in taking our belongings. I have a lot of nerve sometimes, and I just looked them in the eyes and told them (without telling them) I knew exactly what they were doing. From what I have heard, they tend to go after people who are not paying attention to what their surroundings.

Oh my gosh, I just realized why I was so determined to not be stolen from, besides the obvious reasons. When I was a kid, about 11 years old, I was in the mall and I had a bag full of Christmas presents for my friends and family. I naïvely set the bag down, without being aware of it, and turned around later to find it was stolen. I was so heartbroken and upset that someone would steal from a little girl, and on Christmas. On that same shopping trip I had a fanny pack full of quarters, and I was in the arcade, and I felt something touch me, and I looked down and a man had his hands around my waste trying to steal my fanny pack. I turned around and he left- I couldn't see his face. It was one of those loss of innocence times where you realize people cannot always be trusted. I felt powerless in both those situations, and now I want to do what I can to be aware and prevent it.

I am writing a lot, and the internet is going in and out, so I will post this section and put more on a little later....

Okay, here's more:
So, when we arrived we figured out how the subte (subway) worked. We checked into our hostel in Palermo. We stayed at Hostel Suites Palermo. It is in an old mansion which used to be a geriatric home. It was a very nice hostel with cute rooms, which have french windows that open up to overlook trees, buildings, and pretty pink Bougainvilleas. I left the doors open to the window, and in the morning it was a dream to wake up to the sun shining in.

We basically explored for the first day we were there. I was overwhelmed with the size of the buildings. They are huge. I felt like an ant. We strolled through San Telmo and saw the Plaza De Mayo, where the mothers of 'the disappeared' protest on Thursday (An amazingly sad story, if you want to know more you can ask me about it.) At the Plaza we saw a bunch of people filming for a movie, it was pretty fun to watch. We saw the Casa Rosada (Pink house), which is their White House. Their president is female, Cristina Kirshner, and we thought she probably liked working in an enormous pink building.

We visited 9 de Julio (The day Argentina gained it's independence), which is the widest street in the world. It's nine lanes wide. Standing in the middle is a famous icon of the city, the obelisk. It's a regular gathering spot, especially for fans gathering after a futbol game.

I have to go buy a turkey, so I will continue more later, sorry for the pauses.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Vamos a Buenos Aires!

We are going to leave in a couple hours for Buenos Aires. I am super excited. We are going to a futbol game (American Soccer). It is huge down here. The fans are crazy and super passionate, and I am excited to be a part of it. I love sports events, it's fun to have a bunch of people toogether cheering for one thing. Well, two things (each team), but you get what I mean. I better go pack. Please pray for us if you think of us. For everything, but also our safety. There's a lot of robbery that happens there, and we are obviously American, you get my drift... I have to run. I will fill you in when I get back.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008



Pictures of the asado portion. We put a few posts up today, so scroll down to "Los Reartes," and you'll understand :)

Medialunas


I can write on the blog too:) About every block in Cordoba has a 'panaderia' or bakery where the sell all sorts of goodies. One of the more popular treats is the 'medialuna' which translates to 'half moon' or known back home as a croissant. Well I got a good tip on how to make a DELUXE medialuna breakfast from our friend Paula we went camping with last weekend. Following her advice, I made a visit to our butcher, Alberto, and got some sliced ham and cheese to prepare for my breakfast. Then this morning after picking up some fresh medialunas I cut each one in half stuffed it with the ham and cheese then placed it in the oven for till they got tosty hot. Sooo GOOD! I was so happy with them i took pictures.



I had to put my new friend on here too (Mr. Frog). In Spanish, frog is 'sapo'.

Los Reartes



Sorry I haven't written for a while. I think my brain got so overwhelmed with information that it just stopped receiving new information and turned to putty. We went camping last weekend with two other couples from Danny's work, and had a great time. We went to Los Reartes, near Villa General Belgrano, where we went to Oktoberfest.

For some reason the rain and cold weather are really refreshing here. It reminds me of Oregon. Don't get me wrong I don't want as much of it as Oregon has to offer, but it's refreshing every once in a while. Anyway, it rained on Saturday, so we waited until the afternoon to go, in order for the weather to clear up. We left at about 3pm. We hung out, set up, and we went shopping for our dinner.

They talked in Spanish the whole time we were on our trip, and I think that's part of what started my brain to feel overwhelmed. I felt like I got worse at my Spanish afterward. I liked learning new foods and stuff in the grocery store though. It is really fun to shop with people from Argentina because they know exactly what they want. What I mean by that is that there is a typical way of doing things here. They have specific traditions.

I have negative associations with traditions. It's a close brother of 'rituals'. I don't like rituals, I guess I just don't like rigidity. But these traditions are fun. There's a reason why they continue to stick around.

Back to the schedule. At about 9:30pm we started building the fire for the asado. I love watching the preparations for an asado. I feel like I am getting a sneak peak into something rich. We ended up eating at around 11pm underneath a open grassy roofed hut. It was so cold. One of the couples slept in their car for the night. We could tell they were not used to camping. They both brought rolling suitcases that contained about a weeks worth full of clothes, funny stuff. We were really thankful because they let us borrow their sleeping mats. All we brought was a blanket off our bed. We were a little unprepared. They were really generous and let us use some of their sleeping stuff.

The next day we laid out in the sun, had a BBQ, and played 'Truco', an Argentine card game. Two other guys came to meet up with us. We went in the river and splashed around for a while. While we were in the river we set up little stacked rocks on one big rock, and saw who could knock them over first. It was a simple game, but for some reason it was so much fun. It was a really beautiful place. Good food, good company!

Thursday, November 13, 2008

No sé.

Hello loved ones,
I am tired, and I need to finish school work, so I'll keep it short. Holy cow! It's 10pm. The day is flying by. Okay, so now I am going to school for 5 hours a day. It's really hard, but I really like it. Some days I feel like giving up, and some days I feel invigorated. I talked to one of the guys who works at the university for about an hour after class today (in Spanish- his name is Pablo). WOOHOO! Don't get me wrong, it's not fluid, beautiful, Spanish (Castillian really), but I am formulating sentences and I can understand people (somewhat). Pablo is studying to be a Spanish teacher, and I am studying to be a Spanish student :), so it's really good practice for both of us. He gave me some really good feedback that gave me some encouragement.

It's always good do have a reminder of how far you've come. Because, when you're in it, sometimes it's hard to see the progress being made.

I got some really terrible news today. One of my brothers friends, Adam, died yesterday of a heroine overdose. He was my brothers best friend growing up, and he was someone special to our family. He always had a special place in all of our hearts. Danny and I had a memorial time for him tonight. I think about how much hurt Adam's family must be going through. I am sensitive to the fact that some of you are going to get bugged or triggered that I am writing this, but these are my thoughts. When I hear about something like this I think about all the other people involved, and how it's going to affect them. I wonder what he was thinking before he died. What motivated him to use again? I think about how much positive change pain like this can bring to other peoples lives as well. I think about A LOT of things.

To be perfectly honest I feel sort of overwhelmed with the pain in the world. It's hard for me to not to take it on at times. It has been bombarding me lately. There is a lot of desperation around the world right now, and I can't pretend like it's not there. I know this is a really low time for people, and probably several of you reading this. I am praying for a lot of you. That's all I know how to do right now, is pray.

Some things to think about:
-"What can I learn from this?"
-"Life's lessons are repeated until learned." -NMT (Not my thought)
-"I cannot change or heal what I do not acknowledge." -NMT
-Compliment people when the things come to your mind. Don't compliment people behind their backs, say it to their face.
-Don't put other things before your own sanity and serenity.

So much for keeping it short :)

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Paintballing group


Someone in the group had a camera, and e-mailed Danny this picture, so I thought I would put it on here. I started taking classes for 5 hours a day. Oh my word! We'll talk more later. I have to eat dinner. I hope this post reaches you with a smile!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Restaurante Adentro




Last night we went to an outdoor restaurant- we loved it. Do you ever go to a place that makes your soul sing? You get this feeling of inspiration and creativity that makes you feel like dancing. Well, that was this place for me. I have imagined owning a restaurant before, and pictured what it would be like, and so many of my ideas were lived out in this restaurant. Great food too!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Paintballing


Today we went paintballing with about 20 guys and 2 girls from Danny's work. We had so much fun. We had never been before and we loved it. We split up into two different teams and were given a mission. We had four missions total. For instance one team had to go into a house and rescue a hostage, while the other team defends it. Each team gets a chance to attack and defend on each mission. It was outdoors in a forested area. We were dodging in and out of trees, crawling on the ground on our stomachs, running up hills, and crossing streams.

Danny has welts all over his body. The paintballs move at 300 ft/sec. I feel bad for him. I managed to only get hit twice. Once in the face mask and the other just skinned my leg, so I am welt free. During the game I was crawling toward some trees and I heard a guy rustling in the bushes, so I pushed myself up to get a better view, and I stuck my hand in a cactus bush. So my injuries came from a cactus, not the paintballs. I am still picking little slivers out of my hands.

This was all in 90 degree weather, so we sweat like pigs. We had to wear triple layers and long john's to protect oursleves from the bullets. Needless to say, we were exhuasted by the time we were done. We came back home and took about a 4 hour nap. I want to go paintballing when I get back home too, so if you are into that sort of thing, let me know. We can get a group together and go.

Unfortunately we forgot our cameras, but Danny took this picture with his phone. I feel a little doofy putting this picutre on, but Danny assures me I should. What can I say, I was pumped! So much fun!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Lunch Spot



This is where we ate lunch in Villa Carloz Paz. I am kicking myself for not taking more pictures, because it was such a cool place, but, here's a little glimpse.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

US ELECTION DAY

It is so strange to be an outsider, listening in on what is happening with the US election. This is a historical election and there is a part of me that wishes I could transport there to be a part of it. Some of you might wish you could transport somewhere else to get away from it :-)

This weekend was a relaxing one. We went to their museum of modern art, ate at a well known Lomito restaurant (Lomito's are sandwiches with thin beef strips prepared with a lemon flavored sauce-they are delicious), and we went out of town to Villa Carlos Paz. Danny and I have really enjoyed the different art museums here. Like all art museums, some of the work is unexplainable and just weird, but some of it has been my favorite work I've seen.

We went to Villa Carlos Paz on Sunday to go to a swimming area. It's where the Cordobes go on hot weekends in the summer. But we didn't not find anything remotely close to what we saw in the brochures. The Willamette River looked clean compared to the water here. We are pretty certain the swimming area was on the opposite side of the town from where we were. We will probably go back later when some of Danny's work buddies can show us the spot. We went to one of our favorite lunch spots yet. It wasn't because of the food, although the food was good, but the atmosphere. There was a glass divider between the dining area and the 'quincho'. The 'quincho' is the whole area where the meat is cooked on the parrilla. There were 4 whole goats hanging over the parrilla and several rows of meat, slow cooking for hours. We loved watching the asadors (the men who prepare the asado) at work.

We went to a huge market place over the weekend as well. They do not waste meat around here. There are tongues, heart, brains, kidneys, livers, intestines...the works being sold at this market. I like to try new things, but brain, heart, and tongue will not be on my dinner plate. They have skinned whole goats, pigs, cows, hanging. It is an amazing site to see. I love market places. They make me feel alive. There is so much activity, creativity, community. People are there enjoying food and each other company. Qúe rico!