Enough food to feed a village!!!

A couple weeks ago three other friends and I went out to eat at a Parilla near my house. Its the same parilla I wrote about about a month ago that seemed a little "mobbish". What do you eat at a parilla? Grilled Meats! We went there not only because we wanted meat but also because we wanted to order the Parilla Mixta Completa. A tray of meats made for 4-5 people to sit down eat. The picture above is what they brought us. I had an empanada, bread, a couple steaks, a pork chop and a piece of chicken then had to call it a day, and we still had food left over!!! Honestly if this meal is ordered with side items you could feed about ten people (this is what the table behind us did, only they ordered two parillas because there were 10 guys) The parilla is ridiculously cheap, 108 pesos split between 4 people = 27 pesos = 9 USD, and they are great cuts of meat. Not the cheap stuff you would usually get for 10 bux in the States.

Day 3 Iguazu: SUN!!!

Iguazu Falls on a sunny day will leave you speechless. I woke up early on Sunday to take advantage of the nice day and see the other half of the park that was closed the previous two days because of high water levels. I arrived at the park and began my walk down the path to the lower trails. I turned one corner of the path and came across a view of La Garganta in the distance. The view was AMAZING and I was speechless for a few minutes. I continued to walk around the trail and eventually made my way down to water level. I hopped on the boat and took it across to the island then hiked alllll the way up to the top of the mountain. It was a very long climb up and all these steaks I've eaten while here didnt help at all, haha.

I got to the top, walked around to see the different waterfalls and I was left speechless once again. It was just amazing how nice it was up there. During my day I saw a variety of animals, including some relative to the racoon. It looked like a mix between an ant-eater, monkey and racoon. After I finished up I realized Iguazu Falls is definitely a spot where everyone should visit just to take it the beautiful waterfalls only God couldve created. Words just cant describe how magnificent the waterfalls were.

Also moving on to another topic. I added to the right the links to my pictures and videos. Im not posting videos on the blog anymore because of the frequency of errors when I try to upload. If you want to see any of the pictures and videos I put up you will always find them on the links to the right.

For the pictures from the sunny day at Iguazu you will need to click on the link to the right for pictures and find the album labeled day 3.

Flowers and the rest of the day

Day 2 finished up with looking for some flowers around the hostel. By the time we got back it was sunny and all the rain that had soaked our clothes was gone. I went flower hunting because I have had some requests to look for flowers while here. I dont know what the flowers I have pix of are called but here ya go!

http://picasaweb.google.com/HSC02010/PuertoIguazuFlowers#

That night the friends I went to Iguazu went to some friends cabins 20 minutes away and I decided to hang around the hostile. At first it was a little boring because I was reading through Facundo for class. Then I ventured out the room over to the common area and met some cool people. I ended up meeting and hanging out with a couple french people, an argentine, a couple brazilians, an australian, a new yorker and a british person. It was a very interesting group.

All of the people were in Iguazu just to visit and they were either taking a break from school to travel or had recently graduated. I thought the australians had the neatest idea for traveling. They recently got married and decided to do a 4 month tour of South America together. They each had one backpack and started in Chile, the day I left they went off to Paraguay. The next night we all went out and ate a parilla completa and added a guy from Poland, a Californian and three more French girls, one completely french, the other a mexican-french mix and the other a bolivian-french mix. A variety of languages could be heard at the table.

Day 2 Iguazu: RAIN

After the Triple Frontera we ventured over to the falls. We arrived and it began to pour down raining. We went straight to La Garganta to see what it looked like in the rain and it was quite impressive. The water flow was intense and the sound of La Garganta was amazing. I dont have too many pictures from this day because I didnt want my camera to get too wet but the little I have are amazing.

Triple Frontera

Day 2 up in Puerto Iguazu was a busy day for me. We woke up and ventured over towards La Triple Frontera. It is the spot where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet. Spanish settlers found this area in the 1500s. While standing on the Argentine side I could see the marker for Paraguay and Brazil and Ciudad del Este off in the distance. It began to rain when I first went so I went back on Sunday with some Australians and it was amazing. Sunday was el dia del estudiante and the whole city was also celebrating the change over to spring so there was a concert right beside the marker for La Triple Frontera in Argentina.

http://picasaweb.google.com/HSC02010/TripleFronteras?authkey=l9TJozIb7U4#5249797121379004802

Day 1 Photos

Here is the link to Day 1 Photos of Iguazu:
http://picasaweb.google.com/HSC02010/IguazuFalls#

First view of La Garganta

El primer dia de las Cataratas de Iguazu

Hey Guys,
Last Thursday I left Buenos Aires for Puerto Iguazu in the northernmost point of Argentina, a place famous for Las Cataratas and La Triple Frontera. I left Thursday evening for a bus-ride that lasted 20 hours. The trip wasn't too bad. We arrived to a sunny and warm tropical Iguazu, put our bags in the hostel and left for Las Cataratas, the waterfalls. Iguazu Falls is a series of over 250 waterfalls in one area where Brazil and Argentina meet, the highest point of the waterfalls, La Garganta del Diablo (the devils throat) is about four times the size of Niagra Falls. By the time we got to the park where the falls are located clouds began to roll in so we were unable to see the falls on a sunny day.

We took the train to La Garganta and then walked along a long and narrow bridge to the falls. As we got closer the noise from the water falls became louder and louder, and we finally saw some mist rising up but the falls didnt look like anything impressive at first. Then we finally got to the end of the path and the massiveness of La Garganta left us in amazement. We saw hundreds of thousands of liters of water rushed over the sides of the falls. I cant even think of words to describe what I saw. It was just amazing to see that large of a waterfall, pretty much in the same form as when the first European settlers discovered it hundreds of years ago. As the mist rose from the water falling I could easily see how one could think that they reached the end of the world. The mist makes it seem as if the water is falling into space and there is no land below.

After we stood in amazement looking at La Garganta we decided to check out the upper circuit of the water falls. The walk along the upper circuit was amazing because we were able to see most of the waterfalls from the top of where they began to fall. As we walked down one path a monkey jumped across the path from one tree to another. I was amazed and tried to take a picture of it but I was too slow. As we came across the spot where it crossed we looked up and saw that there were about 20 monkeys hanging around. The experience of live monkeys in the jungle was pretty neat. Well, that was my first day there. When I get some more time Ill let you guys know about my second day there and how it went.

Hair Cut

The last time I cut my hair was eight weeks ago, the week before I arrived here. Over the past week I figured I had to do something about it so I looked for barber shops that would somewhat know how to cut my hair like I want it, short on the top with a fade on the sides. I couldn't find anywhere on the web so I asked my host family and they told me to go to this spot on the next block where they go to get their hair cut. I went to look up words for how I wanted it cut because I've only had to get my hair cut once in a foreign country and the lady knew how to do it just right.

I went in to the spot after class today and asked to get my hair cut and see if the lady my host family told me to talk to was there, she wasn't there so I had to settle for this guy who knew no english and I didnt remember the words for what I wanted. I guess you can see where this is going. I asked him for my hair to be cut short on the bottom and longer on the top, like a fade. So he did and the end result was a line that separated the long hair from the short hair on my head. There was no fade at all. So I asked him to make the line disappear, thats what I wanted. He attempted to do that and the line was still visible to me and he said it couldn't be fixed because he cut the short too short. So for the third attempt to please me he left the top like it was and cut it short all the way around to the top where it was long, sort of like a military cut but in an odd way. I didnt like it, so I just told him to cut it all off. After he finished I began to describe how I wanted to be lined up on the edges but after five minutes we got nowhere so I raised the white flag and called it a day. 6 hours ago I had the shaggy off of Scooby-Doo hair and now I'm sitting here typing to you looking like Mr. Clean.

What an experience.

Rural Videos

Cow getting its tail dried off..haha

Videos from the Defensa Mercado

Just some of the videos from when I went to the Defensa Mercado last month. As you can see there is a little bit of everything on this street. Sorry about the puppet show, I cant flip it around.

Bumpy Horse Ride

The sidewalks are shrinking!!!!

Haha, Friday was a warm day here, and as I walked to my tango class I realized the sidewalks were more crowded than before. The sidewalks seemed to have shrunk. The sidewalks haven't literally shrunk but because it is getting warmer, restaurants put more tables outside for people to eat at. Its really nice to be able to sit outside and enjoy the warmth. Most of the restaurants here were built for warm days and eating outside so I cant wait until we have some consistent warmth here.

Speaking of tango classes, I finished my last one yesterday. I can officially dance like a like a five year old when it comes to tango!! At the end of class yesterday, our instructors invited us to a tango club where we could dance in public. Being one of only two guys in the class I felt like I had to go because the girls would have to dance with pros and I couldnt let that happen, plus I sort of wanted to check out the tango spot. We went to a spot off Scalabrini Ortiz (a street) and paid 12 pesos to get in, not too bad. Unfortunately for you guys I forgot my camera so I have no pix but Ill try my best to describe the room.

It was a huge square room, with the wooden dance floor in the middle and tables surrounding the dance floor. The DJ plays 3-4 tango songs then plays a random salsa or pop song in between as sort of a break. There is nobody on the dance floor as the next segment of tango begins. Once a few seconds of the tango begins every one who came with someone gets up to go dance if they want to. Now the most intriguing thing for me was what the single's did to find someone to dance with. While sitting you begin to stare at who you want do dance with, once you get the person to look back at you the male nods with his head and they both get up and meet on the dance floor then dance. When I saw a guy do this I was amazed at him, every break he had someone different he danced with and it was the coolest thing just to watch him just look around, give a nod and get up and dance. The age group of the people there was around mid-thirties and up. I didnt see that many young people there and we stayed until 2 but from what my host mom was saying is that the tango is something you learn and develop over time.

Now for my experience dancing. The middle of the dance floor is for beginners and the outside is for the more experienced. When I first danced I went to the outside because I didnt know that the outside was for advanced tangoers (if thats a word) and there were less people. I didnt have to worry about bumping into people. I felt like everyone was looking at me and at first it was very intimidating to dance in front of people that have been tangoing for years. But as the night went on I became more comfortable with dancing and ended up having a lot of fun with the 3 moves I know :) Im going to definitely go to more tango spots to continue to practice and depending on how much it costs, I might continue with the class to learn a couple more moves.

Tango

Hey guys. I made it through my first parcial here for my Literatura Espanola II class. It went pretty good but was tough because I had to answer 5 questions about the Renacimiento/Garcilaso in 4 pages with quotes from the fotocopias we have for class. I had un monton of reading to go through in order to find quotes for the paper also. The whole photocopy thing for me is a whole lot more complicated than just buying a book but makes much more sense because we are able to look at a variety of opinions on topics without having to buy multiple books.

Today I went to my first of 4 tango classes. Yep thats right, tango. My program offered to partially pay for 20 people (10 guys/girls) to take tango classes. The spots for girls went quick and only 3 guys signed up including myself. We learned the very very basic tango moves today mainly just walking and how to step. It is a dance which the man leads and the woman follows but the man can do whatever and the woman just has to feel or learn to feel where to go. The posture for tango reminds me of my marching band days, straight upper body and the way we step forward is the whole heel-toe step I learned in band. Going backwards isnt much different either. When you move your foot is supposed to slide just barely over the floor. I have pt.2 of class tomorrow. Ill also be learning some salsa within the next few weeks. I have a friend from class who loves to salsa and invited me to come learn from her and her friends one weekend. On top of that I learned how to dance a little cumbia last weekend from some local argentines. By the time I get back to the states I should know a little about each dance here!

Festival Okinawense

Every week the head of COPA (the program I study through down here ) sends out an email with information about different cultural events which take place during the weekends. This past Saturday I went to a Festival Okinawa-Japon. The festival took place on la Avenida de Mayo right in front of the Casa Rosada. The festival took place because the Okinawense celebrated their 100th anniversary of their arrival to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The parade included karate, two Japanese percussion groups, a color guard and many people dressed in their native attire doing dances. I had a great time and really enjoyed the percussionists. Hopefully more interesting cultural events come up while I'm here because I love learning about other cultures in Buenos Aires, and the best thing about it is that its completely free!

It's beginning to get warmer here, the temperature today was around 72 and tomorrow is supposed to be almost 80 degrees but then a front is going to come through and drop the temperatures to the 50s.

My first paper is due this Thursday for my Spanish Literature II class. I have to write no more than 4 pages on Garcilaso and el paisaje in the poems we are reading and also relate it to el locus amoenus with reference to the Egloga I we read in class. Fun stuff! Everything else is going well with classes, this week we continue to talk about Facundo in my Argentine Lit class and talk about the radicalists of the first half of 20th century Argentina in my history class, talk about the next five chapters of Boquitas Pintadas for my COPA class and finish up our discussion on art from the Spanish Golden Age in my art class.

Heres the link to my photos from Saturday: http://picasaweb.google.com/HSC02010/FestivalOkinawense#