subte

¡Hoy, tomé el subte por la primera vez! Lucía y yo arreglamos a almorzar hoy en Puerto Madero, dónde se queda su universidad, UCA. Comimos en un lugar que es parecida a Mc Donald’s. jaja, nunca como en lugares como así en EE.UU. o acá. Fue insaludable, y muy rico! Después tomamos el subte, porque ella lo usa todos los días para ir a clase. Nunca lo había usado porque no hay un parada cerca dónde vivo, entonces tendría que caminar 20 minutos para llegar al subte y no es muy útil. Había gente tocando la guitarra, pidiendo dinero, como hacen en los trenes también. Estaba emocionante!





Today I used the subway for the first time! Lucia and I met in Puerto Madero, where her university, UCA, is to eat lunch. We ate at a place kind of like McDonald's. haha I never eat at places like that in the U.S. or here. It was unhealthy, yet o so good. Afterwards we took the subway, because she always uses it to go to class. I never use it because the closest stop from me is a 20 minute walk away so it isn't that useful for me. There were people laying the guitar, asking for money, just like in the trains here. It was exciting!

Folclore

Today Virginia told me about a concert by Facundo Saravia going on and I'm glad she did! I really enjoyed it. He sings folkloric music, which I really liked in Salta. I hope I can buy a C.D. of his. It was only like 4 blocks away from me at the Colegio de escribanos and it was free. I hope I can go to a tango show they will have there next week!







Last Sunday I finally met Virginia's family! They were really great, I loved it. I went to Virginia's sister, Mariana's house. Her husband is Jose and they have 6 kids, 17-5! They were so cute, they made me a welcome sign! And they were all really excited and talkative, I could barely keep up with everyone!

They took me to the Cathedral, and I go to go inside the museum and then up the tower! What I liked alot about the view is that you could see the other tower (that is so tall that from the ground you can't see any of the details) and the statues/figures and details of it. Kind of like the hunchback of notre dome. They are so high and like, by themselves but I could see them! haha idk.

I loved their kids though. Mariana picked me up at the bus station with her 2 youngest sons Jose and Nacho (9 and 5). Jose started telling me a story in the van, and I swear he did not stop to even take a breath! haha, and finally I was like, okay you have to slow down or I won't understand! so he would talk really fast, and then his mom would explain it to me. haha it was so cute. And Nacho would hold my hand (he was born almost completely blind, I forgot to have him play the piano for me, Virginia says that he can and he's 5!) and he wanted to sit next to me when we ate lunch. The first 4 are all girls, and the one that is 11, Rosario, was so impressive to me, she would explain everything to me. Like when we went to the museum to the cathedral. Virginia told me that she is the "public relations" of the family, which is a clever way to put it. They were all really cute.



I also got to see Virginia's brother's family. He has 3 girls and I had met them all about a year ago when they came to visit Virginia in Greensboro. Diana and I took their oldest 2 girls to the jewelry making store near my house. I couldn't really talk to them at the time, it's funny that now I can. Even if I am not fluent when I get back, at least I won't be scared to speak and practice with people anymore! Anyways, I hope I can spend a weekend there with them soon!

International Taxi Day

This past Friday I went to the International Book Fair. It was definitely impressive, and DEFINITELY packed. I think I would have liked it better if the books had been organized more by genre, instead of stands of different bookstore companies, but who knows how that would work, I'm just referring back to the old days at St. Pius' bookfairs in the library. I absolutely LOVED the children's books though, the illustrations are so cute and beautiful. There was a stand by the United States along with other countries. The one for the United States had a few books, but the whole theme was space travel. It had a big model space ship, and a cardboard spacesuit with room to put your head in for pictures. And it had a huge timeline about our past and next space travel plans. I bought a book of Maitena comics, she writes comics that are geared toward women and their "problems" it's funny, when I know what all the words mean! Haha, Vicky and I took a quiz on the back that was really funny. We both got the results of muy alterada, or very mad/crazy, the 4th out of 5 options. One of the questions goes, You find out that your boyfriend has been lying to you about everything, A. you don't believe it at all, he always tells you everything, B. you ask him about it, C. you burn all of his shirts and break a chair with his head. They had alot of events going on, like book signings, during the week too there. It was definitely huge.






Saturday night Vicky, Amalia, and I went to San Telmo, one of the oldest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, for dinner. It seems really pretty, they have alot of roads that are cobblestone. I need to go sometime during the day. There are alot of streets named after different countries, and the restaurant we ate at was on the street Estados Unidos (United States). haha.










Sunday I went with Vicky to La Plata. We ate at McDonald's before we left and the McDonalds' here are realllly nice, I mean compared to ours. It's 2 levels, at the bottom the have a cafe along with McDonald's stuff, and at the top they have a computer zone! with really nice computers! haha and i think there was a playplace up there too. When we were leaving her apartment to go, we noticed alot of commotion, and like these cars coming by slowly like a parade, and music and honking and like, spongebob and barney and I don't remember what else. But anyways apparently it was International Taxi Day. Haha! I got to meet two of her friends in La Plata. We went to a cafe for awhile. The word for tea is te, and te is also the pronoun? I can't remember the grammatical term, for you. so the teas had names like te amo (I love you) or te espero (i wait for you). I thought it was cute.

On my way home, when I was on the bus on Callao, as we approached Santa Fe, the traffic was really bad, because there was another manifestacion. The government and the campo are still not finding a resolution. I mean it's just a huge mass of people blocking most of the street and hitting pots and pans or clapping, or honking their horns. I couldn't get a good picture though because the bus I was in was moving.

I joined a gym here and I really like it. I missed be able to work out, and my body def did too. okay, chao chao!

Salta La Linda

Can you believe I have been here for 2 months already! Only 2 months to go! I'm going to be sad to leave.

I just got back from spending a week in the north of the country. I stayed with Marta's daughter-in-laws' family. Of course, like the rest of the people I have met, they were really nice and treated me well. They have a 22 year old daughter named Laura who helped me out alot. I stayed in the little house that they have on their property separated from the main house with her. It is so beautiful there, and the house is up on a hill so you can see the rest of the city from above!

Laura works for a tourist company as a translator for Italians, so I bought excursions through them. The first thing I did was went on a city tour of Salta, then I went to the Museum of Archeology where they have the 3 mummies found frozen in one of the mountains from the Inca period. I only got to see one of them, because the other 2 have to be kept in really cold temperature. It's pretty neat, their bodies are completely preserved, organs and skin and everything. I also went with Laura that night to see the orquestra of Salta play, her boyfriend places the contrabass, soloist. It was nice, because I had been wanting to go to something like that, the only thing is I had a headache by that time because I was looking around the museum beforehand.

The next day Laura had to translate on a tour, and I went on the same tour with her. We went through the Quebrada de Humuahaca, we stopped in a little town of Purmamarca, and also Tilcara and then Humuahaca. The route there was so beautiful, the mountains are all around you and they are of different colors, for example the cerro de los 7 colores.

On Friday I went on a tour without Laura, to Cachi. I think I loved the landscapes that we went through on this day the most. At first the mountains were lush and green, and then it changed to desert and we reach this area that is the Parque Nacional de los Cadrones, which means the Park of the Cacti. They were so cool! I don't know why, but I really liked them. So we got to walk around there some. We stopped in a little town to eat lunch, and it was really pretty and outside. And then finally we reached Cachi, which is a town in the mountains that has some colonial buildings still. Only people of indigenious ancestry live in all of these places that I visited.

That night we went to a Pena, and I loved it! It's where people go to a restaurant and play folkoric music. It was so fun, and the people that played and sang were so good. Laura and I went with an Italian girl named Valeria that we had met on the excursions, she is living in Buenos Aires too.


Saturday we went to the Salinas Grandes, which is where the ground is covered in salt from when an ocean used the be there. The way there was of course surrounded by mountains and different vegetation. We drove the same route that the Tren de los Nubes goes, but the train is closed right now, so it's nice that I still got to go the same route. We stopped in a little town to eat lunch too. And we saw llamas! I love them, they are so cute, and now I can say that I've actually seen them!

All the places that I went were very pretty, but I spent most of the time in the van, we drove so much. I covered alot of ground, first on a 20 hour bus ride there, and then on these all day excursions around Salta and Jujuy. It was beautiful (but pretty cold, brrr) and I really liked the Basombrios, they were great and it was nice hanging out with Laura, someone my age and really interesting. Now, I have to go back to school work! You can look at more pictures by clicking on the title of this post.