Surviving in BA with no money

So I STILL haven't gotten my debit card back, but this experience has been teaching me a lesson in money management. So what do you do when you are broke in a big city?

#1 - do not eat out. This is definitely the biggest point. An empanada here, a coffe there...those things add up. Luckily I can just eat at home off of what my host mom buys, which is literally just eggs and bread. Which brings me to..
# 2 - learn to cook a lot of different things using only eggs and bread. So far I've made scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelettes, egg sandwhiches, and french toast. This is a really great way to save money, the only downside is that I'm starting to seriously hate eggs.
#3 - Walk, walk, walk. Taxis are not even a word in my vocabulary right now. Things are actually a lot closer than you expect them to be, and usually a brisk walk isn't too bad. When you absolutely cannot walk, public transportation is pretty cheap too, though not as cheap as free.
#4 - Occupy your time with free activities. Basically so far for me this means going to the gym and watching tv, but theoretically there are a lot of museums and parks and stuff to go to.
#5 - Borrow money. yeah it's a cop out, but there are some things i just can't miss out on...world cup qualifyer game? delicious chinese lunch? going into debt was definitely worth it, and anyway, it's the american way right?

Trip to Chile

I just got back this morning from a series of bus rides from Chile, where I was viting my friend Liz in Valparaiso. Valpo is a town on the coast of Chile, and though I thought it would be small and have a beachy feel to it, it is a lot more like a city than I expected. My friends on the program Steffi and Danny came with me, which made the long trip over more bearable and a lot more fun. And although we spent basically a whole day getting in and out of busses (25 hours each way), the 5 hours through the Andes is so beautiful it felt like that was the reason we came over ...and if natural beauty isn't your thing, they also give you lots of food, play bingo for prizes, and show movies. Here's an idea of what we were drivng through:





We spent a night in Santiago before finally heading to Valpo on Thursday; Liz was a really great tour guide and had a bunch of stuff for us planned out already. We met her host family, who is really cute and funny and super friendly, and then got to know her city for this semester.
The first thing I noticed was the amount of graffiti, and not just words or random tags, but beautiful murals and artistic designs. Here are a few:



We also took a boat ride and saw all the Navy ships and the view from the water, which was really cool. The day was a little cloudy though, so I'm told I missed out on the truly breathtaking sights. We explored nearby Viña del Mar, which had a more upper class feel than Valpo, went to a couple museums, and saw one of Pablo Neruda's houses.

I also got to see Maggie and Alex again, which was exciting considering I hadn't seen them since our South American travels took us in different directions at the end of February.

All in all the trip was a great success, except for the one little hiccup where my wallet got stolen out of my friend's bag. While I was in Valpo with Liz, Steffi was still in Santiago and had a thief slit her purse open and steal my wallet out of it. Even though it completely wasn't her fault at all she felt really awful about it and paid me the money that was in my wallet, so I didn't end up losing anything really besides the old wallet, my debit card, and driver's license. Now I just have to wait for my new debit card to get mailed to Buenos Aires, so my next blog post might be about how I survived in BA for a week on $15...

Reflection

Today I realized I had no idea what the date was. Not just the day of the month; no, I didn't even know what day of the week it was. Instead of being alarmed or upset at the total disregard I gave to matters such as date and time, I realized it was a sign of just how much I have adapted to the culture. At home, we live our lives on a strict schedule of appointments and deadlines. Here, schedules are just a rough guideline of when things can be expected to start, and nobody takes them too seriously. Somebody here once told me that the only things that start on time in Argentina are soccer games and movies, and I have yet to prove him wrong. The flexibility with which Argentines seem to live their lives is one of my favorite things about the culture - in a city of 3 million people, not a single person is in a hurry. You will never see an Argentine sprint for a departing subway or running for the bus. They'll catch the next one. It was hard at first slowing my pace down to match theirs, but once I did, I found it intoxicating. I've learned to enjoy the time I spend on public transportation, walking to school, or waiting in line. As an American, my instinct tells me I am losing time with these purposeless activities. As an Argentine, I've been able to see that it's not time wasted at all; in fact it's time very well spent, noticing things I might otherwise overlook and just generally finding some time to myself in this huge, busy city. Living at this more relaxed pace I have been able to more fully appreciate my surroundings and my abroad experience in general; I hope to keep it up once i get back to the US so I can see what I've been missing all these years.

Today

...I was accidentally in a parade. I'm working on figuring out what it was for, but it was very, very confusing.

Insomnia

I don't need sleep. Why would I need sleep? Besides the fact that I haven't been sleeping, and tonight is a great opportunity for me to do just that...but apparently my body thinks instead 6am is a really great time to be awake. So I am awake. But my loss is your gain, because I guess I'll do something productive (my homework? no.) and update you all of what I've been up to.

In reference to my last post, I actually am not in the UBA class anymore, and have instead elected to take a much more challenging course: Technique of Tango. Tango is the national dance here, and most of the other Argentines in my class have natural dance abilities, or because I'm taking it at the national institute of movement arts (IUNA), have honed their craft for the past 10 years. I figured 4 years in high school taking an elective that included modern dance (read: rolling around the floor) qualified me to study at their level. I'll let you know how I compare in a few weeks.

The really exciting thing I recently did was go to a World Cup qualifier game between Argentina and Venezuela (4-0 woo!). I almost didn't get tickets, because by the time I showed up to buy them, the cheapest section was already sold out, and the line extended for 6 long blocks to buy the remaining tickets. Luckily though, some other students on my program were basically at the front of the line and saw me walking, and offered to buy me a ticket. Awesome. The crowd was insane, Maradonna was the coach, Messi played incredibly...basically one of the best experiences ever. Here's what it looked like:

(The group of people I went with. Thanks to the three on the far left, back row, we all got tickets)

(Playing the national anthems of each country before starting the game)

Besides that it's been pretty much the usual, playing soccer and hanging out at night with friends. Oh I also found out that girls playing soccer in Argentina has the same stereotype as girls playing softball in the US, which I found pretty funny. But also very enlightening of how people at my gym must percieve me - a girl wearing shorts and a t-shirt (men's attire), generally the t-shirt bearing some sort of soccer reference. Cool.

My mom, Sara (my sister), and our family friend+daughter flew in on Saturday, so this next week should be pretty busy with me playing tour guide. If only I could get some sleep beforehand...

Boring Academic post mostly so I remember what happened...

March 17th...my first actual class since early December. Besides being a little bit nervous about directly enrolling in Argentine classes with Argentine students speaking and learning in Spanish that I may or may not totally understand, I wasn't totally sure my brain would even function at an academic level after such a long break. So how was my first day of school, you might ask? Well....

I arrive to the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) for my Social Sciences and the Environment class, which I am actually still on the waitlist for, with about 30 minutes to kill. Luckily Sarah is in my class, so as we walk in the front door, I am only slightly less overwhelmed than I might have been had I been alone. Posting the classroom numbers online would be silly and chaotic obviously, so instead somebody at UBA has elected to make a posterboard at the front with a long list written in tiny font directing us to our class. The halls are packed with students in semi-hippie-ish clothes, handing out flyers and pamphlets about workers rights or student bus fares or whatever they are passionate about. It is a club fair for a cause, and I feel like I am in the 60s protesting Vietnam or fighting for civil rights...except it is 2009, I am in South America's #1 ranked university, and of course it's all happening in Spanish so I don't quite understand what it going on.

We finally get to our class, which only has more graffitti and political posters, spray painted philosophical messages etc, on the walls. The professor comes in about 10 min late and we get started, a nice appropriately sized class of about 10-15 people for the space we have, I think to myself. I am wrong. As the class begins and the professor introduces himself, students trickle in late one by one. Now, in the US, if you are 20 minutes late for a class, you slip in and sit down quietly. In Argentina apparently, you walk across the room to your friends, kiss them each on the cheek to say hello, exchange a few words, and then sit down. The professor does not even bat an eye, and this continues to happen over the course of the next hour. There are now about 30 people cramped in this room.

And then, disaster: he tells us we are all going around the room to introduce ourselves, tell everyone our experience with environmental studies and say why we wanted to take this class. Ahhhh! Um...I took this class because it made me have no classes Thursdays or Fridays, and I know nothing about the environment except there's this thing called global warming happening? I can tell this will be the wrong answer, so I prepare something else in my head and no joke practice it at least 20 times, making sure I have conjugated the verbs rights and used vocabulary that does not make me sound like a 4th grader (and conveys a little more interest in the class). I present myself to the class, and phew now that that's over, I can relax. The professor begins lecturing, and to my dismay (and every other American in the classroom, about 6 total), I don't understand a word that comes out of his mouth. Well. Instead, I take the reamining 2.5 hours left of class to observe my surrounding. A couple differences between UBA and Gtown:

1. Mate. This is a type of tea Argentines drink literally everywhere, and they carry it around in these special cups and pass it around amongst their friends. It's everywhere, sortof the way everyone has nalgenes. As one student is talking to the professor her neighbors are passing mate in front of her face to the next student over, whispering over her voice and completely disregarding the fact that the teacher is trying to talk to this girl. This doesn't phase anyone in the class, so I guess Mate>Professor.

2. The amount of graffitti on the wall, I know I just mentioned it, but everything was seriously covered, stenciled rats next to ideological messages, mobilizing calls of action urging fellow students to unite for a rally on May 29th, and painted signs taped to the blackboard, which nobody takes down nad I assume we will just learn to live with. Halfway through the class there is a knock on the door, and a group of 5 students come in, give a speech about workers rights and how they need our money (I think thats what they said), and just walked around the class with a collection box. The crazy thing is, almost everyone put something in, and bills too not just spare change.

Despite my not understanding anything that happened, I really liked the class and the prof was really nice

My other class at the Universidad Catolica de Argentina (UCA) was a lot closer to a class I might take at Georgetown, and I definitely understood a good 90% of it (yes!!). There's a good amount of reading for both classes, and I'm still trying to figure out how much of it I really need to do (unfortunately, I think it's all of it if I want to understand what's going on in the class).

Other than classes, I've been busy traveling a little bit. We went to Mar del Plata last week, and yesterday three of us took a trip to el Tigre, a nice nature-y suburb of BA, just for the day. We had some steaks and just relaxed, which was definitely very nice.

Today I might dedicate to Wikipediaing everything I didn't know about Argentine history, so I can follow a little more easily. I also think I might look into getting a tutor, offered for free through the program, because people have said it really helps. We'll seee...

Ciao!

Like anything and anywhere, there are good and bad things about Buenos Aires, and I am slowly discovering both of them. As a service to both myself and anyone curious about this city, I will list the things that I am learning:

GOOD:
- There are a multitude of things to do; famous musicians come through (Manu Chao a few hours ago, it was great!), fun circuses, fairs, and museum exhibitions to visit, and celebrities (although only Argentine ones) around every corner

- Delicious restaurants to try

- Exposure to the Spanish language (obviously), thus making it easier for me to learn it. This including watching Watchmen here in BA, an interesting experience (I give it a 6/10...feel free to let me know what you thought of it in the US)

- Cheaper than the US

- Behavior on the subte (subway). Although usually it is literally as packed as possible, there is still room for the subway staple: the person trying to make money by whatever means possible. The people who entertained me today were particularly good; on the first ride an 8 year old girl juggled on the moving car wile holding a small child ( she received a standing ovation), and my connecting subte had these African drummers/saxaphonists who managed to rouse people to their feet to dance before they both got off at their their stop. They didn't even ask for money. This would never happen in New York, where not only would we never deign to look these people in the eye, we would also never stand up out of our valuable seats and applaud.

BAD:
- Many people on my program have been robbed or pick-pocketed. One girl has been held up at gunpoint, a few have been robbed multiple times, a couple have been threatened by knife, and while some have run away successfully, most have been successfully robbed. Tonight at Manu Chao, three girls with purses (luckily I do not carry a purse) got their bags slashed, and then through the slash in the purse offenders stole whatever he/she could reach. I actually just realized I have a few small, almost unnoticeable cuts in my palm, I'm sure because of jumping up and down next to somebody holding some sort of purse slashing tool (.....a knife.) It is a dangerous city, though not so bad if one exercises street sense and caution.

- A lot of ham, on everything (which is clearly bad for me). Description of a hamburger: meat, bun, ham and cheese (jamon y queso), if you want to pay extra you can get lettuce and tomato. This also happens to be the description of everything: most sandwhiches come with jamon y queso, as do many of their pastas and empanadas, pizzas, and meat dishes like steak (yeah, they put ham on steak. what!?)

- 24 hour delay on episodes of Lost and The Office

-No laundry machine in my building, I need to walk two blocks to the laundromat to pay to get it sone


I like BA a lot...but I'm not sure if this list of Good vs. Bad works out in my favor?

Barenaked Ladies (get it?)

It's been one week and I am exhausted. Living in a city is great, because there is always something to do. The only problem is that there is always a group of people going out to do it, and I am compelled to sacrifice sleep for the possibility of a fun night out or the chance to explore a new barrio. I've been to museums, plazas, clubs, all sorts of restaurants, shops, street fairs, cafés, used almost every subway line and am in the process of deciphering the system of colectivos, or busses. Not to mention going to our program headquarters at FLACSO everyday for orientation sessions and class selection periods. It's definitely my own fault, and I could easily say no the next time a concert or shopping trip comes up, but where would the fun be in that? It's easy to get swept up in the hustle and bustle of the city, and our program coordinator was not lying when she told us Argentines in BA, or porteños, don't really sleep. Ever.

So, what specifically have I been up to? A few days ago, I joined a gym, which I think makes me a legitimate city dweller now that I can say "my club.." Unfortunately, my conception of what one does at the gym is very different from that of the rest of the female clientele. My idea of a workout involves sweat, strain, and comfortable clothing. The porteña idea looks more like this:


That is actually a picture from the gym website (http://www.gymfitnesscenter.com.ar/fotos.html) Sometimes they will actually put clothes on, exclusively small and tight so they can just walk around the gym with their personal trainers and look great because they don't actually have to work out to look that way. It's a little ridiculous, but also kindof funny.

Sometime next week I might try and get in on a pickup soccer game, and ton of people on the program play soccer so there's also the option of renting a small 6 v 6 field and getting a group together for that. Everyone seems really excited in general about each other and being in BA, and I'm glad I'm making friends from other schools instead of sticking within my Georgetown bubble (which would be easy since about a fourth of the program is Georgetown kids).

The only bad thing that's happened so far hasn't even happened to me, but still makes me feel terrible. Last night right after a girl left her cab to go into her apartment, 3 men on the street cornered her, put a knife to her throat, and robbed her. She was literally 10 feet away from her front door. Things like that are obviously horrible, and a sobering reality check for anyone who thought Buenos Aires would be the same as Suburbia, USA. I've been careful about asking the cab driver to wait for me while I open the door to go inside, but last night's incident definitely reinforces the idea of safety in numbers and smart traveling.

But other than that, the city is great and I'm seeing more and more every day!

Home sweet home!

I don´t have time for a long blog post, but I just wanted to get some things down so I don´t forget my first few crazy days here in BA. My host mom, Leticia, is a single woman with 2 grown children and 3 grandchildren. But don´t let that fool you...she is an active, funny, social butterfly who looks like she´s max 45. We live in swanky Palermo, where there are a lot of fun restaurants, cafes, parks, movie theaters, cute boutiques, street fairs...basically everything I could ever want. AND she cooks me two meals a day? I must be in heaven.
We´ve been doing a lot of orientation stuff (signing forms, learning about public transportation, and later today starting our spanish placement exams), but we´ve still had some leftover time to explore the city. Maggie and Alex are still techincally on their traveling tour and are hanging out in BA since they don´t start their program for a few days, so it´s been cool mixing new program friends with familiar faces. We´ve been going to restaurants and museums and stuff together, which is really cool. We all came over to my house last night (because my host mom is super nice and let me invite a bunch of friends over) and watched the Oscars. In Spanish....good practice I guess.
Classes don´t actually start until somewhere between March 16th and April 1st I think, so hopefully I´ll be able to discover more about BA in the next few weeks uninterrupted by homework and classes (noooo)

***UPDATE***

I FOUND PICTURES. THIS IS THE ICE CREAM BANDIT:



I guess she wasn't wearing a Dora the Explorer shirt, and I don't know where her "dad" was while these pictures were being taken, but whatever...

The Ice Cream Bandit

I only have a few hours left in Chile, and although I've still been having a fantastic time, all this traveling is definitely starting to catch up with us, in different ways. I'm (hopefully) getting over a cold right now, and it seems like everyone is just generally more tired/strung out than during the exciting first few days of this trip.
Arica was great, and definitely an upgrade from Puno. We hung out on the beach for a couple days, cooked some pretty great meals for ourselves, and then on the last day took a surf lesson. It was only my second time trying but I think I did alright. Alright meaning I only drank Pacific ocean water a handful of times, hit myself/someone else with my board twice, and hit my head on the ocean floor just once. Our instructor made us do all this yoga and jogging before even getting in the water which I think passersby thought looked funny, but they were sadly mistaken because actually we looked really, really cool in our wetsuits. Seriously.

(We also looked...strong?)

Our hostel was also amazing, and our host, Kurt, was basically the man. Much better than the hostel we're at now in San Pedro de Atacama in the Atacama desert. Fun fact: Atacama is the driest desert in the world. Seeing as how water is thus a problem in this town, they shut it off at certain times/whenever they want, an inconvenience for those who enojy brushing their teeth, showering, flushing toilets, etc at night. Despite the not-so-great hostel, SP de A still turned out to be a great town to visit. We went sand surfing, which is just like snowboarding except that if you put any weight on your front foot, things like this happen:

After sandsurfing, we were taken out to the top of a mountain to watch the sunset, a really nice idea in theory but it was super windy/sandy, so I don't think anyone actually watched the sunset as much as turned their backs away from it and the wind and gradually noticed it getting darker. It was also cool to go up there with the guys who took us, who were locals and brought us to a not touristy spot so we wouldn't be bothered by other people. They were like our cool Chilean friends who were hanging out with us sandboarding and watching a sunset, but that we also had to pay 25 bucks each or else they wouldn't hang out with us. Some of my favorites from the top:

(Walking up to the top)

(View from the top, Bolivian mountains in the background I think?)

(Sunset!)

Today we leave for Calama, where we stay and night and then fly into Buenos Aires. We're only there for a couple of hours though, and then we take a ferry over the Uruguay for the end of our trip. We've all been killing time in our own way, and me and Sarah took a walk outside the town and just admired the beautiful surroundings for a little bit and played around with our cameras.

(Houses where people visiting Atacama stay in when they don't want to pay for a hostel)

(View from right beyond the touristy part of town)

Finally, I guess I should explain the title of this post. I just bought some mango ice cream. It's very good. As I crossed the street from the ice cream store to the Internet cafe, a cute little girl being held by who I assume is her father, but may have been her Ice Cream Pimp, stuck her adorable little tongue out and reached for my ice cream.
"Aaaaah!" she said. It was very enderaing. As they approached, I felt I had no choice but to give her some of my as of yet untouched ice cream, which she happily ate off of the very same spoon I was going to use myself. BUT, instead of being satisfied, she and her ICP proceeded to hound down my friends, demanding a share of whatever treat they had purchased for themselves. ICP of course manuvered the streets with the ease and confidence posessed only by those who have been doing this sort of thing for years.
Anyway, this girl slobbered all over everyone's ice cream treats without so much as a thank you from either her or ICP, and I just wanted to warn anyone thinking of visiting Atacama to be on the lookout for a girl, about 2"3, dark complexion, pink Dora the Explorer T-shirt, and dangerous appetite for treats that are not hers.

Rounding out Peru

So we didn't actually end up visiting the ruins in Cuzco because we are feeling pretty exhausted, so instead we went out for a really great lunch at a hole in the wall place overlooking the whole city, and then went exploring. The girls went shopping for a little bit while the boys walked back to the hostel, and I got a few pieces of jewelry for pretty cheap. I'm glad we took the time to walk around and see more of the city, because I didn't have that great of an impression of Cuzco when we arrived, and I liked it a lot more after walking around some.

(The view right next door to the restaurant we had lunch at)

(One of the nicer areas of Cuzco)

Also, fun fact: apparently it is Carnaval time in South America. This means that young boys buy plastic balloons at the local stores, fill them with water, and throw them at me. We got hit by a few different groups...they would sneak through alleys and follow us, and then ambush us from the front in a group of 5-10 people. When we tried to go buy some water balloons and get our revenge, the woman at the store refused to sell them to us. Conspiracy.

My debit card wasn't working for a while but I got it fixed, finally, although I guess I'm not 100% sure because I haven't tried to use it yet. I haven't really had the time to, because we left Cuzco yesterday morning at 6:45 (I'm really starting to get sick of waking up so early), and have been busy ever since. We took took a 10 hour bus to Puno, which is a town on the border of Lake Titicaca. The bus we took was cool because it made 3 or 4 stops at really interesting/beautiful places, like old Incan ruins unlike the ones we had seen earlier in our trip, and the highest point on our route called Abra la Raya (it was so cold! And there was snow on the mountain peaks, it was so weird to see in a country that is in summer).

We got into Puno at around 5, when we realized that we happened to be visiting during the exact time period where they celebrate "Virgen de la Candelaria", which I just looked up and is actually a lot more interesting than I originally thought. It celebrates a statue of the Virgin Mary that magically was able to protect itself when others tried to do it harm (paralyzing a man's arm when he tried to throw a stone at it, for example). Apparently Puno is one of the biggest three celebrations of this in all of South America, which we definitely did not know before planning our stay here. People come in from all over Peru and neighboring countries to partake in the celebration; already we've run into the owner of the hostel we stayed at in Cuzco, and a girl we met who organized the trivia night we went to a few nights ago. There are daily parades, fireworks and big parties and dance competitions in the street which is awesome, although the influx of tourists has made prices go up a little (not that things are expensive...today I had empanadas, a 2.5L bottle of water, bananas and chocolate for 1 dollar). It's fun, except not this morning at 6 am when the parade started up again. I am not sure what their reasoning was behind banging on drums through streets at the crack of dawn. Actually, as I write this they've started again. When do they sleep!? I tried to upload a video which is taking forever so I got frustrated, but take my word for it, it was cool.

We took a boat out to visit some of the floating islands today; it's super weird that people are still living the way the inhabitants of these islands are. Their houses are made from this bamboo-like stick called tortora, and it covers the ground as well. Literally all they have on the island are houses, if they need a doctor or education or anything they have to go in boats to the mainland. We had a tour guide who sat us down on the island and explained to us pretty much everything about the islands, and then after she was done the local inhabitants each approached a few of us to invite us into their (tiny!) houses, made of tortora and tarp. The man whose house I went into told us about making it and then showed us a bunch of crafts he and his wife made personally. It was pretty awkward because none of us wanted to buy the overpriced merchandise he was trying to guilt us into purchasing, but he was sitting in front of the door and had been really nice...eventually I bit the bullet for everyone and paid 20 soles for an alpaca wall decoration thing, which if it wasn't worth it for the quality of the cloth itself was at least worth the price of my escape.

(Us eating crazy grass stuff that the locals chew on. Also, a boat they made out of tortora to get to the mainland)

Tonight we're probably going to go out to a bar or cafe and try and catch some of the festivities, although I think tomorrow is the main event. I'm going to have to be careful with my money for the next couple days though because I only have less than 40 soles left (about 13 bucks), and that needs to last me all of today and tomorrow. Next we're taking an overnight bus into Chile to go to a beach town, which should be a really nice change of pace from all the activity we've been having. It will also be nice to not have to wear a sweatshirt and raincoat everywhere too, especially since I only brought one sweatshirt down here with me. Gah beeaacchhh!

Peru - Day 2

So I'm finally here! Me and the rest of my group (7 people in all) flew into Cuzco where we spent the night, then bused over to a town called Aguas Calientes so that we would be closer to Machu Picchu when the first bus left at 5:30 am the next morning. We got up bright and early so that we could get there before all the other tourists, and it was definitely worth it. Machu Picchu is one of the most breathtaking sights I've ever seen, and the relative lack of tourists in the whole village made it seem even more special. Here's what it looked like from one side:


At 10, we hiked up an adjoining mountain called Huayna Pichu (spelling?), which was definitely really challenging because of how steep it was, the occasional rain showers, and the high altitude which made breathing difficult. Also, I'm not exactly a seasoned hiker, but finally gasping my way to the top was totally worth it. There was a great view of all of Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains, which was really cool. The original plan was to hike back to our hostel from there, but we ended up buying a bus ticket back, catching a train back to Cuzco, and for the most part everyone passed out either on the train, an hour after getting back in to the hostel, or both.

(Us at the top of the mountain!)

We also met some cool other travelers who are staying in our hostel in Cuzco, and met up with them at Machu Picchu, which was fun (they're in the picture above). I really like how friendly everyone is, and open to making spotaneous plans and taking unplanned trips. It's a much more exciting way to see new things than trying to plan out every last detail. We're going to visit some more ruins tomorrow, and then I think we're going to try and leave Friday morning for Lake Titicaca (I can't wait). Hopefully some of our new friends come along too!

Still in New York...

So I'm not exactly in Argentina yet (and I won't be for another few weeks), but I thought I'd start blogging anyway...mostly to figure out how to do it off this site. I'm in packing stages right now, and my goal is to get everything into one bag, which probably won't happen. On Sunday, some friends and I fly down to Peru, where we'll visit Macchu Picchu and a few other cities before bussing down to Chile. After about a week there we're flying/ferrying to Uruguay to go to the famous Punta del Este before finally going to Buenos Aires to start orientation at the end of February.
I don't know what Internet access will be like, but I'll try and post pictures whenever I can!
Hasta la vista, baby