I want to be a part of BA, Buenos Aires, Big Apple

Beware of the city, it's hungry and cold can't be controlled, it is mad.
Those who are fools are swallowed up whole and those who are not become what they should become changed.
In short they go bad.

Bad is good for me. I'm bored so clean and so ignored.
I've only been predictable respectable. Birds fly out of here so why oh why oh why the Hell can't I: I only want variety of society.
I wanna be a part of B.A. Buenos Aires, Big Apple. –Madonna, from Eva Paron

A couple of weeks ago now, since I’m extremely behind on informing you of my adventures, our group traveled to Buenos Aires. And, had an absolute blast! Our trip started at 8:00 in the morning with a walk to the local bus station. We were booked on Buquebus: a bus/boat company that would take us all the way to Buenos Aires. However, we ran into trouble when 30 minutes into the ride, the bus broke down and we had to pull over. Within 5 minutes there was another bus there for us to all climb onto and travel the rest of the way to Colonia to catch the boat to BA. We reflected on how long it would have taken to change busses in the states and how inefficient public transportation is in the US. They don’t stand around because of lack of paper work, they just get stuff done.

At the boat dock we went through customs and got an Argentine stamp in our passports (my second stamp! Can you tell I’m excited?). The boat we got on was very large and very fast and was very enjoyable. If you look on a map, it travels from Colonia, Uruguay to BA, all the way across the widest river in the world the Rio de la Plata, in less than 45 minutes. After arriving, we got bussed to our ritzy hotel, checked in, got our rooms, and figured out were to go for dinner. A group of us decided on a Thai restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. The food was very, very good, especially the beef (which is supposed to be the best in the world coming from Argentina), not to mention that the building was air conditioned… The rest of the afternoon, we walked around a touristy street looking for souvenirs and were accosted by creepy, street salespeople trying to advertise for services of exotic nature. On the way back to the hotel we found 3 different outdoor apparel shops, and as you might guess I had to go inside. The last place was a Patogonia store (pretty cool being in the country where “Patogonia” is) and talking to a girl working there and found some free climbing magazines. I plan on trying to read them as a way to practice Spanish but it hasn’t happened yet.

That evening we went to a Tango dinner and show. We chose three courses from a menu of wonderful food and enjoyed it in pleasant company and in a wonderful atmosphere. I had some more Argentine beef and wasn’t as impressed as I had been in the Thai restaurant, but it was still very good. After dessert, we watched a performance of tango which went through several acts depicting the history of the dance as it developed from being something only dancing by forlorn Spanish men amongst themselves imitating their desires for women to the national dance of Argentina that it is today. I still haven’t had any kind of Tango dance lessons and don’t know if I will be able to fit them in, but I would definitely like to know how to “bailo la Tango”.

The next morning, we got on a bus for a driving tour of the city. We weren’t able to get off much and in all honesty I fell asleep at some point in the second half of the tour, but hopefully I will mention all the highlights. We started with the Avenida de 9 de Julio with is 7 lanes wide in either direction possibly making it the widest city street in the world. In the middle of the avenue stands an Obelisk commemorating Argentine independence. We stopped at the Plaza de Mayo to look around. This is the historical center of the city and the Casa Rosada (instead of a Whitehouse, they have a Pinkhouse) where the president works. Some of us went into a Catholic church on one side of the square and were amazed by all the intricate artwork and tiling and display inside. The Plaza is also historically a place of large public gathering and protest, most notably by women marching in response to people who have gone missing during a dictatorship in the not so distant past. Back aboard our bus, we drove by soccer stadium of one of the neighborhoods and remarked how the Coca Cola sponsorship symbol is in different colors so as to not be in the colors of their rivals! They take soccer seriously down here.

Thus ends the first part of my Buenos Aires Blog. More information and pictures later.

Moonlight Sonata

It's been fun to do a little stargazing while in the Southern Hemisphere, although somewhat hampered by the lights from the city. This weekend we're going camping with the rock climbing crew from the YMCA and I can't wait to see the stars out in Minas. The stars are different and I keep meaning to look up some of the southern constellations, but haven't taken the time to do so. I think I have been able to see the Southern Cross and Orion, only this mythical hero is upside down with his knife hanging contrary to gravity. In addition Taurus may be visible but I can't say for sure. Again, I'll have to look them up. For those of you out there who happen to be star buffs (yes, I'm talking to you Dad), let me know if you want me to look for anything.
Last night however, we got to see a special treat. As some of you might be aware, referring to you star buffs out there, was a full lunar eclipse. I hope that some of you had a chance to see it because it was visible to both North and South America. We asked to be able to get onto the roof of the church next door at midnight last night and stayed out until one watching the shadow of the earth creep slowly across the face of the moon. I don't remember the last time I may or may not have seen a lunar eclipse but this was really spectacular. To learn about eclipses and various other "space happenings" during school is one thing, but to actually see one of them is a very surreal experience.

El Dia de San Valentine

Entry from “The CCCC2008 Dictionary” © 2008
(in no way affiliated with Webster’s or Dictionary.com)

friend date [frend deyt] noun- a social engagement between people without romantic interest for the purpose of familiarizing themselves with another person or persons. At Casa ACU, located in Montevideo, Uruguay, the practice is for two friends, who know each other fairly well invite two others out on a “date.” Does not have to specifically be for dinner, movie, or any other stereotypical outing. Example of usage: Mark and Colter took Tina and Marissa on a friend date Thursday night.

Last Thursday, en el Dia de San Valentine, was the actual occurrence of the above mentioned “friend date.” We took the girls out for pizza at a place just around the block and sat and talked until about 8:30. Then we walked to a nearby park, Parque Rodo, where a Filharmonic Concierto was taking place performed by the Symphony of Montevideo. The concert was free and thus there were a lot of people there. Because of that we struggled to find seats and ended up just sitting in the grass, barely able to see over the heads of the people seated in front of us. This was somewhat disappointing seeing as the symphony was playing on a stage projecting out over a picturesque pond and situated in front of an old castle with the lights from the stage creating the perfect atmosphere for listening to the jazz played by the group. Mark seems to think that I’m exaggerating the description of the scenery, but I was really impressed. The only problem was when more people showed up attracted by the sound of the music and stood right in front of us. Oh well, we could still hear and we were still able to talk and have a fun time getting to know one another. The jazz compositions that they chose to play were very good, and I think I even recognized an arrangement of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.” I would have to say the only bad thing about the night was when a couple came and stood right in front of us for the sole purpose of practicing their French…as in kissing. It just made looking straight ahead a little awkward for most of the concert. After it was over, we stopped for ice cream on the way back to the house, practiced more Spanish trying to order, and I succeeded in spilling dulce de leche ice cream on my pants. Even being in a foreign country I can’t shake my klutziness.

Minas Tirith, only minus the Tirith

A couple of weeks ago now, my roommates and I decided to use one of our free weekends to travel to a smaller city northeast of Montevideo called Minas. As you might be able to tell from the name, the city first began as a mining town for gold, silver, and copper (oro, plata y cobre). Now it is a city about the size of Kalispell (30 thousand residents) and has an huge economical range: from tourism to mining and logging (paper industry), from cattle ranching to eucalyptus farming. It is also the home of the bottled water company Salus which is what we usually drink if you order water at a restaurant in MVD. The appeal here is the spring found in the sierra de (small mountain range of) Minas.
It may not seem like much to you sitting at home, but one of the most interesting aspects of the trip was buying bus tickets to the city. We certainly got to practice our Spanish and may have heard a little laughter from the desk worker as we walked away. The actually morning of our trip came the next Saturday with us awaking before 6 am to catch the 7 o’clock bus. Mark ended up feeling sick and ended up not going, so Josh and I had to trudge on without our compañero fiel (faithful friend). The bus trip was uneventful, besides a crazy dream where I thought we forgot to get off the bus and were being taken to some random place, and we arrived at the Minas station around 9:15.
At the station, we first bought return tickets back to MVD and then asked for some information at the tourism office about where some things were that we had researched. After that, we decided to walk around: a lot. The city itself doesn’t have very big blocks so it seemed to us as if we made pretty good time walking around. We saw the little museum they had, which was built in the home of Lavalleja, one of the leaders in Uruguayan independence. We also walked around and saw a cathedral and the Plaza Libertad which stands in the center of the city in memorial to Lavalleja. On our way to a rather large statue we encountered a cemetery. We went inside and I was exposed to something I had not been expecting. The cemetery was enclosed in concrete walls and contained the tombs of various people, some more ornate than others with incredible statues and carvings in the rock. But, stacked on all the walls and all the rock tombs were stone urns holding the ashes of people. There must have been thousands of them! The whole mood of the area was very somber and surreal, aided by the effect of the cloudy sky and the weather threatening to rain. Continuing on, we arrived at the huge statue of José Artigas astride his horse. Supposedly it is the largest horse statue in the world, and I would believe it: it was enormous! After walking all morning, we were ready to take a break, snap some pictures and eat lunch in the shadow of the statue.
We had wanted to visit the abandoned gold mine north of Minas and possibly get a tour of the old shafts, but we found at the station that was no bus that went out that direction. Not to be denied, we hiked the four kilometers to the mine. Along the way we encountered vicious dogs (whose bark was worse than their bite due to the chain that kept them from getting too close) and swear that the grossly exaggerated the seeming closeness of the mine to the city. We hiked a long way…only to find out that the mines were closed for the day! We were able to go into the entrance and cool down after the hike and later found an ant trail about 25 meters long or more beaten down by thousands of ants traveling back and forth between their food source of new leaves and their den. Can you imagine an ant trail about a centimeter and a half wide? Then we began the trudge back to Minas in the hot sun (yes mom, I put on sunscreen). About halfway a car containing a man and what seemed to be his son pulled over and offered us a ride. Although it took Josh and I a while to understand out what they were saying, we gladly accepted the ride after we finally figured it out. They were very helpful and friendly and told us a little more about the surrounding area on the drive home. What’s really funny is that they thought we were French tourists! Too bad I’ve forgotten most of my French from High School...
Safely back in Minas, we decided we deserved to celebrate with some ice cream, which was very good, by the way. I ordered dulce de leche (which is a Latin American version of caramel, but better) and chocolate chips. The clouds finally opened up and poured on us on the way back to the terminal, but it was welcome after that long hike. We were just grateful not to have to slog back to the city in it. For the rest of the day, we had rain off and on, but worry not, my friends: Josh and I were both prepared with rain jackets and Josh’s umbrella.
Next, we caught a bus out to Cerro Verdun, a hill (cerro is Spanish for mountain/hill) were the Virgan Mary is supposed to have appeared. They’ve set up a long, wide path up to the top with monuments at regular intervals depicting the twelve stages of Christ’s crucifixion which may or may not be familiar to some of you. It was very powerful to reflect upon, especially because of the mood we got from the surrounding weather. At the summit, people place plaques on the statue of Mary thanking her for watching over them and their family as well as answering their prayers. Also, many Catholics of Latin America, and maybe beyond that, travel to this place every year in mid-April as a sort of pilgrimage. Last year close to 120,000 people came to pay their respects the Virgan Mary, many of them completing the hike entirely on their knees! There would be a lot of bloody knees on a day like that…
On top of the mountain/hill, we encountered many, crazy juxtapositions. The large statue of Mary stood in contrast to the communication towers situated just behind her. We could see into the valley and see mining and farming in close proximity. And the whole statue itself stands in crazy the middle of a secular society. It is very interesting to think about a country like Uruguay with many non religious people and with a strong separation of Church and state, still with people willing to climb to the top of a mountain on their knees and place plaques thanking Mary for answered prayers.

Barnum and Bailey? No! La Carnaval!

If you had to sum up La Carnaval in one word (you couldn’t, but if you had to…) it would be: people. Lots of people. Now it’s not even close to the craziness of the Carnival in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I read a couple of weeks ago that things have gotten so bad in these metropolises that the candombe drum groups have to keep their performance times and places secret and only depend on people hearing the drumming and coming to watch. If they revealed where they would be, the crowds would be disastrous. They’ve had cases of riots breaking out, or on the other side of things, people making love in the streets. Naturally this is due mostly in part to the large amounts of alcohol people consume during this time.
The Uruguayan Carnaval claims to be the longest in the world, supposedly lasting over a month, but I guess we’ve only seen some the bigger events. I think the entire month is a big holiday/vacation time for most people. For what little I know of the history, the tradition has it’s roots in Africa from the many slaves that were brought to South America during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Their desire the retain their culture, as well as a desire to escape from the hardships of slave labor influenced the beginnings of candombe music and dancing. These traditions are expressed today in the parades, music, and dancing of carnival. (For more in depth, and probably more accurate information, you’ll have to search the internet on your own.)

Some of the events our group attended:

The opening parade to kick off the Carnaval happed the first week we were here and we went to watch it on 18 de Julio (the main drag in Montevideo). I may have mentioned something about it before, but I’ll show more pictures now. The parade was filled with floats of all sizes and shapes and colors representing different organizations and groups. Some dancing and singing groups accompanied the floats down the calle (street) with very comical routines and music. I think these are what they call murgas, or singing groups of the Carnaval. In addition to having extravagant costumes and presentations, if you understood Spanish, their songs are filled with witty social commentary and political satire. Unfortunately I was not one of those able to understand the jokes going on around me.

Also happening within the last couple of weeks was the festival of Iemanja. She is the Lady of the Sea (ironically stated since she came from the widest river in the world: the Rio de la Plata or the River Plate) who supposedly came out of the water at Playa Ramirez (Ramirez beach) to bless the people of Montevideo and now watches over them. I’m still a little confused over what kind of religion this has become because we saw some sort of priests/esses blesses people and brushing their worries or cares off of them. We asked some Uruguayans that we know and they said the tradition is a big mix of Catholicism and pagan religions. This mixing of religions was very common in the colonization of South America as the Spanish attempted to impose the Catholic religion upon the indigenous people of the area. At the festival, people ask Iemanja to bless them by lighting candles on the beach and building foam boats and floating them out on the water with offerings of food and drink on them. In addition to the boats and candles and random priests, we saw some different forms of music: usually drum and vocals. But, on our way back home we saw a group of Native American dancers and musicians. I felt like I was back in Montana again!

Finally, last Thursday and Friday we attended Las Llamadas. To the best of my knowledge it’s a big contest between different llamadas groups which consist of flagmen, dancers, the drummers, and the support crowd (which seemed to be either friends of the group or even carried extra drums if one of them breaks!). The drum music was intense and the rhythm vibrated your whole body. There were a ton of people there too. On Thursday night we went and couldn’t find a spot to see the show so we climbed the back of some stadium seating until we were told to get down by a policeman. Then on Friday, we forced our way onto the sidewalks beside the street where the performance was and got pretty close to the show. Uruguayans definitely have a different sense of personal space than Americans. There is no “bubble” and if you want to squeeze through the crowd, that’s exactly what you do: you push and shove and squeeze through the crowd. After we decided we had seen enough, we started to leave only to be caught in a downpour! We huddled under an overhanging roof until most of it stopped and then pushed on back toward the house.

No navagué por la red...

Our internet is stupid! The wireless is down and 22 of us are going to have to try and share 4 computers until we can get the network fixed. I'll do my best to respond to emails and continue blogging, it just might be slower than before (and that's saying a lot). Hasta luego, mis amigos.

Get a haircut and get a real job!

Today I went and got a haircut because I was tired of it being so long. It was a lot of fun and was good practice for speaking Spanish. I still didn’t understand some of the things he said, but it’s okay, I’m understanding more than I would have 3 weeks ago. Growth, I love it! I was able to ask for exactly what I wanted (as in, I printed of a picture and expressed to him that I wanted a haircut like it) and was also able to ask him to cut it shorter. One of the greatest things that I’m learning is how to deal with people. One of the things that I’m most excited about bringing back to the States is a better ability to deal with people better. I imagine having to ask people for things in a foreign language will make it easier in a language that I grew up speaking. Here’ some before and after pictures:

Before:

After:

Compañeros de Cuarto (Casa Tour Part 1)

So, I gave up on the song title thing already. I'm not really "cultured" in the way song titles. I'll keep thinking about it thought and you might see some in the future. And this way I'll throw some Spanish at y'all (that's Texan by the way).
This the first installment of my house tour, starting with my sanctuary: our dorm room. I share some pretty prime real estate with two other guys, Josh and Mark. I know them through Church back in Abilene and we've become even better friends down here. We definitely have fun! It's really interesting how three guys with completely different backgrounds, study habits, sleep habits, snack habits can have so much in common. It must be a God thing...(*inside joke, sorry*) It does help though, that we all have pretty much the same sense of humor.
For the room itself, we have 3 beds, two of which are bunked. I seem to have drawn the top bunk, something about how I like to climb things...? I don't know. There are three closets for us in the back wall with plenty of space for our stuff. Josh has his own desk and Mark and I work at a long desk along the far wall. The arrangement seems to work out nicely. The best thing about our room is the two fans that keep the air cooler all day long. It's amazing how much moving air can do. Que bueno! Me gustan mis compañeros de cuarto.

I'm leaving on a jetplane, don't know when...

I had the urge to find out just how far I was away from home and looked up some distances on Google maps:
Distance (in miles) from Montevideo (as the crow, la cuerva, flies) to:
Kalispell-6761
Missoula-6697
Abilene-5452
Houston-5149
Windsor, CA-6632
Yreka, CA-6768
Midland, SD-6151
Cloudcroft, NM-5690
Albuquerque-5834
I think that covers all my faithful readers...Ingrid and Mike win for being the furthest away! Or maybe that's sad. Although, just realize that I won't be walking, riding, or swimming home any time soon.

Clothes Line Saga

I was challenged to make all my titles have references to songs, so we'll see what I can do. I thought about the nursery rhyme "This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes..." but I felt that Bob Dylan was more precise.
We have to do all our own laundry down here, it’s really a bummer let me tell you. We have to haul all our clothes and sheets and towels to the nearest Laundromat all the way across the city with our pocketful of pesos and run load after load in the small washers.
Actually, I’m just kidding: there is a lavaderia just up the block that we take our clothes to and drop them off. Then, we come by the next day a pick it up, all neatly folded and smelling oh so clean and fresh. They’re folded better than I have ever seen and packed neatly in blue, plastic bags. It costs about 3 dollars a load and I go through about 2 loads a week, as in I bring all my laundry and it comes to about 2 loads. As for the smell: I really can’t describe it, but nonetheless it smells wonderful and is very strong. Seeing as how we are 3 male roommates our room smells poorly sometimes. When we get our clothes back we put it in front of the fan and blow the fragrance around the room. It only lasts for a couple of days, but no worries.

Shots and Stuff

Hola! Como esta? Estoy fenomenal! Este pais es muy divertido!!
(Hello, how are you all? I am phenomenal. This country is very fun!)
So, some items from the last couple of days. On Friday we woke up early and took a trip to the port to receive Yellow Fever (Fiebre Amarillo) vaccinations. The port itself has very high security, so we had to go through some fancy rig-a-maroll to get into the area itself. Thankfully no one came up on the computer as a terrorist and they lest us through gates. It was very cool to be able to see the port and all the machinery that goes along with shipping. You can really begin to understand how important the port is to the economy of Montevideo. When we arrived at the place to receive our shots, it wasn't all that impressive of a building and didn't give you a relaxing feeling of sanitation, but it was the place that we were taken and we didn't ask any questions...
After the shots (which turned out to be quick and painless) a friend of mine, Mark Foster, and I took a stroll back to the Casa via the Plaza Independencia. In the center of the plaza there in General Jose Artigas' mausoleum and a giant statue of him on a horse. Artigas is very important to the Uruguayan people because of the extent to which he lead the fight for independence from Spain and then Argentina and Brazil. The plaza is also the center of the Ciudad Vieja (Old City) which has a lot of old architecture and other cool things to see. It's also really tourist oriented and there are a lot of shops and markets that we like to see and hang out at.
Friday night, a group of us hooked up with some Uruguayan friends a hung out on the Rambla (which is a running/biking path that runs the length of the Uruguayan coast, along the beaches) practicing Spanish and having a good time. They treated us to a ride on a carnival type spinning-wheel thing at a nearby little amusement park. It is interesting to compare the safety standards of amusement rides here to those in the US...
Saturday was filled with studying, getting caught up in Math and reading stuff for the next week. In the evening we were able to escape to go hang out with our local friends again. We sat and talked at a friends house with his parents and some other of his friends many of which didn't speak english and I think I was the butt of several jokes because I couldn't understand anything that they were saying... Then we went to Ciudad Vieja again and hung out at an Irish pub that had a live band playing English music that we could see along with for a change. Don't worry there wasn't any alcohol involved on my part, so don't get your hackles up. We were hoping to be able to do some dancing, but the party doesn't start down here until about 1:30 in the morning so we had to leave before it got started. We didn't end up getting back until 2, just in time for curfew. Whew, what a crazy couple of days!

Futbol

If you’ve never experienced a fubol game, you’ve been missing out! We went to the biggest match of the year in Montevideo: the game against Nacional and Penarol, the two biggest teams in Uruguay. It was nuts! We got frisked going in and were overwhelmed by the amount of people there. For you Montana wrestling fans out there, picture the Metra 4 times as big filled with 60,000 screaming and jumping fans shooting fireworks and waving flags and flares from the crowd. 60,000 people…that’s twice the number of people in all of Kalispell, all in one stadium. I enjoyed myself immensely, even though I’ve never really been interested in soccer. I’ll have to say that I am now, those guys are amazing athletes, both of endurance and skill! I’ll have to take up some more crazy European sports like soccer and rugby, break into the international scene…all I need is a good agent. :)

Punta Trip

This last weekend we took a trip to Punta del Este with our whole group. Places outside of Montevideo, yay! Punta del Este is a town that is built on a point of land on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and Rio de la Plata. It has lots of beautiful beaches and is a major tourist destination for Argentines and Brazilians. Naturally we were very excited to travel to such an exciting place.

We got on a chartered bus early on Saturday morning and drove to our first destination: Casa Pueblo. This is the house of the famous Uruguayan painter Carlos Paez Villaro. If you’ve ever seen any pictures of a huge white house oddly shaped facing the ocean, that might be Casa Pueblo. We watched a video about his life, and it sounds pretty amazing: painting all over the world with near death experiences. I believe his son was actually in the famous plane crash in the Andes that has received publicity recently with a book (I don’t know much about it, as you can see). The house itself is supposed to be built entirely without sharp right angles, in the Villaro’s “struggle against the straight line.” He also says that the white stands in contrast to the bright colors of his paintings.

After that we traveled to the coast and took ferry to Isla Gorritti, an island in the Atlantic that has a rough history. It is littered with old cannons and batteries of centuries past. We got to hike around the island and swim in the cold ocean water! First time swimming in the Atlantic. Oh, and I put on sunscreen…twice, and didn’t get a sunburn. We had a lot of rosy/red people in the house the next day! There were loads of jellyfish in the water (not where we were swimming, of course) and several sea lions in the cove where we got on the boat. One of them was huge and would just sit and wait until a fisherman would throw him the scrap of some fish or squid he just cut up.

Towards the evening, we took a “picture stop” at Los Dedos (the fingers in the sand). I naturally had to climb to the top of one of the fingers… After that we ate on an amazing restaurant on the top of a hill overlooking Piriapolis. I had my first taste of squid and octopus in a random seafood platter. On the way to the restaurant, our bus blew a tire and we had to wait in Piriapolis to have it fixed. Que bueno! That was our trip.