Days 2 & 3 in BA

On Saturday we went to a Tango Show which was very good. Except the food the... the wine was a disgrace and the meat was overcooked, o well...

Sunday was a free day. I took the Subway and a train out to San Isidro, which is a suburb of Buenos Aires (B.A. or Bs.As.) and had a large market going on in their central plaza. After returning to the city, we went to the Recoleta, which is where a HUGE market is on Sundays. Artists of all natures gather and sell their products.

Today we had another tour and was by boat after the boat trip we took a train to San Isidroa and were there a bit before returning to our hotel. I have not had much time to upload pictures, but I will soon enough. This weekend is the weekend before I start my second set of classes, so I have nothing planned and in which I will probably spend the days uploading pictures and videos (I have lots of videos too).

Today I went with a friend to make travel planes! I am going to Uruguay!

I will be taking a boat from BA to Montevideo, Uruguay, which should take about 3 hours and we leave Wed. morning at 8am and return about 10:30pm that same day. (oo, bad grammer, my old english teacher would kill me...) We have lunch scheduled and a 2hr city tour.


Hopefully I will have a bit more time tp write and post pictures tomarrow.

Stay tuned...

First day in Buenos Aires

We just got into BA this morning about 7am, we have a tour at 1pm of the city. On the tour I know we will be passing by Evita´s grave. We are also going to a Tango show tonight that includes a dinner.

I thought I did poorly on my exams, but came out with an 80 of the written and a 100 on the oral, so my final grade overall grade was a 93. So it was a great way to start the weekend :)

I cannot post videos or pictures yet, as these computers do not have USB ports on them.There are about 8 pèople that are staying to take more classes.

Stay tuned...

Termino!!!

I am done for the first half of the summer, I will get my grade on Friday, hopefully it will be good :) ...

Fader Museum Pictures have been uploaded in it respective library.

This past Saturday we went to a National Park near Cerro Arco and did a hike there.

It was very foggy and as we climbed in altitude...

well it was just cloudy...

(Our tour guide making Mate)

After the hike we had lunch at a resturant at the foot of Cerro Arco, then us Baylor students went Cacheuta Spa. We spent the night there. On Sunday I went walking around (take a look at the videos on the video page)

I am having problem with uploading pictures right now, so I can´t show you what the spa looks like, maybe later

More Pictures Are Up

I have uploaded several more pictures to my collection of Argentine pics. All the winery & Museum pictures are up. There are several pictures of sculptures that were within the winery. In Argentina, the dominating religion is Catholic, that being said, the sculptures depict the harvest of wine and in some way represent each station of The Stations of the Cross.

See if you can determine which ones are which. I will eventually label them in the album.

Vino Tinto y Museo Casa de Fader

Today we visited a Bodega (Winery).

The name of the winery was Luigi Bosca Winery, it has been a family rum business since 1820.

I also boght a bottle of wine (yes mum & dad, to celebrate my completion of the exahusting studing I am doing here...)

We also visisted the Fader Museum, which contains several painting by Fader within his house (the museum itself).
(Sorry havn´t had time to upload the museum pictures)

Tomarrow we have the "hike" then the Spa trip.

I have finished uploading all the pictures from the Córdoba trip.

Argentinians Become Vegitarians

Take a look at lunch...

Okay so for the explanation on the title of my blog:
Or so it is begging to look like it. Because of the problems with the farmers and the government, there is no milk in the stores and meet is becoming hard to get or it is very expensive.

I have to be brief on this blog, so the Condor information will have to wait for a later blog.

In about 2 weeks I will have finished the Baylor in Argentina program, and will be on my own as an exchange student in Argentina, therefore, I do not have any plans made for the weekends as I have had in the past. Therefore I have come up with several ideas of things to do on the weekends and will list a few below. but which should I do on which weekend? Well that is up to you! You decide where I will travel on the weekends!

Weekend Options:

1. Visit all of Mendoza´s Plazas (1-2 Days)
2. Wine Tour - Several wineries across a couple of days
3. The Extreme Adventure - can´t really tell you what this is, but I think it is extreme...
4. Visit the Serpentario (Snakes)
5. Go Whitewater rafting
6. Church tour in Mendoza
7. Church tour in surrounding towns
8. For a whole day travel on the Mendozian buses from one to another and keeping a journal for the day (more details later)
   
9. Climb Aconcagua (Don´t pick this one, I can´t do it anyways :( )
10. Stay at a winery for a couple days (tour, stay, eat, etc.)
11. Visit El Palmar National Park in Entre Rios province (long trip)
12. Ischigualasto Provincial Park in San Juan Province (easier trip)
    
13. Valdés Peninsula in Chubut Province near the city of Puerto Madryn (medium trip)
14. The 7 Lakes Route (unsure of trip duration) http://www.welcomeargentina.com/paseos/sietelagos_sma/index_i.html
15. Perito Moreno Glacier (Very Long Trip - would require a plane trip) would really like to do this one, but I will probably save it till right before I return home.
16. A trip to Ushuaia and the Beagle Canal and to watch the Penguins. This is the world´s 2nd southernmost city. (Very Very Long trip, this would also require a plane).

I will add more to the list as I think of them, if you have any ideas, please write to me and let me know about it. At some point I will have ya´ll vote for my first weekend, but for now you know what I am thinking of doing...

Time for me to go, next post will likely be next Sunday or Monday.

I have also been steadily uploading Córdoba pictures. So you might want to take a look at them. I have also made updates to my http://www.msbaylor.com website which now includes a calendar that reflects what I am doing in Argentina. I can be found a http://calendar.msbaylor.com.

As always: photos : videos : website

Also here is a quick video tour of the hostel that we stayed in, in Córdoba.
Sorry for the shakiness.

*Buzzer Sounds*

No extreme adventure today, unless you count having to follow the girls around while they shop, then that is a different story... Well, know I shall vendture into the worl...who knows what Córdoba will reveal to me...

Day 2 in Córdoba

We had an excursion at 9am this morning. We were told that it would be a hike along a river and stop in small town along the way. However, there must have been some confusion, because we took a van throught the mountain and stopped at a few places. The first place was a coffee shop, which was very nice, but

after that, it wasn´t all that great. We got back around 8pm, So most of the time we were driving around. We then headed to the Supermercado, which was very hard to find due to the fact that everthing but like 4 places were open today(el Supermercado, la Pizzaria, McDonalds, & el cine), since it was Father´s Day (Feliz día del Padre!) and we grapped a pizza. The pizzas here are a bit dirrefent and in most cases have ham on them.

Para mañana, nosotros vamos a ir en el tour de la ciudad. Estan bien? Tomarrow we are going to go through the city and basically do a self tour. Hopefully I will be able to do my "special activity" we shall see... I probably will not be able to post till Tuesday, so, Ciao! Ciao!

Pictures from today:

Some look-out point.

Where we had lunch....

P.S. The girls I´ve come with are horribly negative and it´s driving me nutters, so tomarrow I am one my own...hopefully

First Day in Córdoba City, Córdoba, Argentina

Hey guys! First day in Córdoba. We arrived nearly 2 hours later than we supposed to (10:30am) . We had a road block so we had to back track and go around. But we finally made it here. We walked through the city and looked at some of the Cathedrals.

Tomarrow we have an excursion in the country which will most likely last all day. On Monday, since it is Father´s Day weekend, there isn´t a whole lot going on; however, I am going to try to see if I can do an "Extreme activity," something I have never done before and have always wanted to do, if I get to do it, you will know all about it right here at Matt in Argentina Central :) I got very lucky, the Hostel we are staying at has an internet connected computer which allows me to right this blog and upload pics. Here are a few more pics I took today (there are more in the Córdoba folder on my picture webpage):

Fountains that move to music near a museum

Side view of a Cathedral

Farmers Protest

Palace turned into Museum

Soy Infermo

No not a soy bean fire...

I finally got some medicine today, so hopefully I´ll begin to get better.

Yesterday we wen to the zoo here in Mendoza. It is located in west Mendoza at the base of the mountains, so it begins to overlook the city.

I took a lot of video, some of which are posted throughout this blog.



We met a horde or "wild" monkeys within the zoo, and apparently they were hungry...

Another monkey video...see if you can tell what went on in the video...



The Condor (bird) stands for a a lot here in Mendoza, I´ll explain why in my next post.

This weekend we are heading to Cordoba. We leave tomorrow at 9pm to take the overnight 8 hr bus ride there. We then return Tuesday morning at 7am...take a taxi straight from the bis stop to class :/

My next post should be on Tues night, so readable by Wed ;)

PS I have posted several more videos on my video page.

Sorry to be brief its late, and I didn´t have too much time to type...till next time :)


P.S. Michael, you made a good choice of picking Spanish class you did. I don´t recommend taken it at Baylor, well maybe in Argentina...
Señor Venegas does a great job of teaching the culture in Mexico, take it to heart. I was bummed when I realized I could not go to Mexico, because I had learned so much about the culture in his class.
I just realized your class won´t be able to do the Día de los Muertos project, bummer...
Take Care.

-Matt

Week 4 Into Winter

I did not do much this past weekend. Somehow the Jordan Family Plague made its way to Argentina through me and surfaced last week...imagine that... So I slept most of the weekend.This past Sunday there was a 11 mile run through some of Mendoza´s most famous vineyards. I intended on doing it, but when I attempted to register, I could not pay for the entry fee (I kept getting an error). However it was good thing I did not, because Sunday was the day I felt the worst... o well....

Yesterday we went to a fùtbol game (soccer game), let´s just say there is nothing like a fùtbol game in the states compared to here. He paid a bit higher seat prices so that we could get safer seats. It is extremely unsafe in the "Hooligans" section. There were fireworks when the home-team came out (courtesy of the Hooligans...) especially when we scored a goal. We won 2 to 0. Goody Cruz was the home team and San Martin (which in another province in Argentina) was the losing team. Also they through a lot of toilet paper (which could last a normal family at least 2 years...) There was security out the wazoo, at least 250 policia , 30 of which had dogs. After the game is when those policia come into play. I had trouble watching the game because I was watching all the other things going on during the game. I hope I can get to another one before I return, maybe I will have my camera on me the next time :)

Yesterday after the game I took a remis (like a Taxi but safer) with two other girls and they told
their addresses first and he replied in English (which usually make me
laugh, because they know you can´t speak their language :/ ). I then I had to explain (I did it in Spanish) exactly where I lived, since he did not know where the street was. He replied to me in English "You speak Spanish very well, you said everything perfectly. Ah, finally, recognition for the language, I am finally doing something right! We then talked about the Argentina national soccer team playing the US team and how we tied them 0 to 0. It was quite nice to finally have a conversation in Spanish that I could do.

Last week an Argentinian jet showed up on the Peotanal (a no motor vehicle street in the center of the city). Just thought it was random, you never know what might show up...

Everyone was asking each other why it was there and where it came from and when it appeared...no one knew...


When I was going to school at Victoria College, I had a Spanish professor, Señor Venegas. I must say all hose weeks he spent drilling the alphabet and the pronouciation of the letters into us (ah the days...) was quite helpful. I might not be able to speak the language off the cuff, but I sure can pronounce words that I read even if I have never seen the word before and it has been extremely helpful here.
We were required to have a dictionary with us for the class, it was small, nothing big, but I still have it, here in Argentina. I keep it with me at all times, and it it has saved my butt on multiple occasions (especially when telling my host mother what I did at school). Those of you who are reading this in his class, hold on to it. Trust me, you don´t want to be walking around with huge book that is bright orange or yellow and screams "I am a tourist." Which you might be, but hey, if you can pronounce their words, what does it matter :D

This coming weekend is a 3 day weekend. Myself and 3 others are traveling to Córdoba city , for the weekend. I´ll update more on Thursday and of course on martes o miecoles.

A bit about Mendoza:

Mendoza´s motto
-La Tierra del Sol y Bueno Vino (The land of Sun and Good Wine)

Here in the city we have these massively large gutters. They funnel the water that comes from the mountains (after the snow melts) into the city. There are water gates everywhere. Each day someone goes out and opens one of the gates flooding a certain section, then the next day, the same happens further up and closes the previous gate, and so on. Here water means ¨Life¨and is very important to Mendocinos. So why I am I telling you this? I do not really know, it just came to mind on my bus ride home. However, I did fall in one onetime trying to straddle it. They are very deep (3-4 feet), so yes, I felt like an idiot...

Another day in Argentina

At some point I will be taking pictures of the city with my good camera, but I am having to go with a group just for that purpose because it is a safety concern. Unlike some places where you can just take pictures, in Mendoza, theft is the highest crime here, so you have to be very careful.

There are numerous smokers here, and it is throughly impossible to avoid it. I think I am going to have the smoke smell permanently attached to the inside of my nostrils by the time I return home!

In the past few weeks I have have "contracted" an addiction. And that addiction is to Dulce de Leche (what did you think I was going to say?). Is somewhat comparative to caramel back in the states, but not as hard and it tastes much better.

I think if I had to list the top 3 edible items consumed by Argentinians it would be:
1. Mate (Somewhat comparative to strong green tea)
2. Asado (Beef)
3. Dulce de Leche

Speaking of dulce de leche, one of our coordinators asked us if we knew what "alpha whores" were (at least that is what we all thought she said.) What she actually said was alfajores, which in an Argentinian pastry (only found here in Argentina), which is usually 2 or 3 layers of a shortbread cookie with dulce de leche in between the layers and then covered in either chocolate or white chocolate. Mmmm. Ever since I took a bite into one, I have been determining (trying) to figure out how to make them. I have even looked on the Internet, however, there is no recipe for the ones found here in Mendoza. I might have to create one....
The best one to get here is from a place called HAVANNAH, which is like a coffee shop. However they are usually the most expensive (2.5 pesos for 2 layers), I however like the ones from cafe Dün Ken which are also 2.5 pesos, but are much much larger. You decide... I´ll be bringing some home, that´s for sure...along with a vat of Dulce de Leche...

I think one of the coolest things here in Argentina is everyone (really EVERYONE) drinks Mate(dried leaves of yerba mate). This is a cultural thing here. They take a hollowed out gourd or a piece of wood shaped in the form of a vase, a metal straw is inserted into it, which has a strainer at the bottom of it. They pour mate in (relationship to green tea via the holly family), add a small amount of hot water and sugar if they wish, and sip it up through the straw. It is very bad (and rude) to move the straw, as this moves the tea Mate leaves into the straw, which is a bit unpleasant. I hope to later post pictures of all the things mentioned in here, just haven´t thought of it till now.

Hope you have enjoyed my posts thus far.

Photo Link Updated

I have updated the photo link: http://arphotos.msbaylor.com so that it opens into a collection of albums. I have taken so many pictures at some events that I have created separate albums for them to upload those pictures (will take some time to upload them all, most likely I won´t finish until I return to the states).

Day 16 or something like that

So here I am, week 3 of my Spanish education. It´s about 40-50s during the day and in the 30s at night. This weekend was the usual - Spanish speaking weekend, Snow trekking, zip lining in the Andes, Rock climbing... you know the usual...

I went ahead and embedded the videos in this blog, I hope they work. If not, click the text link above them. Also, the pictures link to a larger image, so you can see it better. So on to the news...

When we arrived on Saturday we got to the hotel and grabbed our snow shoes then headed out to the hike. If was really quite beautiful out at Aconcagua National Park.

However I do not think anyone of us thought it was going to be as hard as it was to walk in the snow. They told us about a foot of snow should have fallen, no, it was a meter of snow...

Every step I took I sunk down to my waist....it really sucked, defiantly was not my favorite activity, I think I am gonna count this as one of my 10K´s only because I was much more tired after doing this than I was after I did my last 10K.

Snow Video

After the trek we went to Puenta de Inca, a natural stone bridge and Inca runes. It was a very quick trip there, did not spend much time there, just enough to take pictures. We then hopped back on the bus and made our way back to the hotel for dinner and a night´s rest.

On Sunday we went rock climbing, repelling & zip lining in the Andes mountains. I however I did not do the rock climb, and I have no pictures of the repelling. So only proof I have is the zip line, which was the coolest anyway.

Rock Climbing Area Video

Take a look at my zip line video below. I caution you though, if you just ate, then don´t view it, wait till later ;) Also I scream like a little girl in the video, namely because I am scared of "high heights" or as a friend told me "it´s not that your scared of heights, you are scared of falling" so yeah, whatever I am scared of falling off... There was a ladder with a safety rope that you had to climb up in order to get to the platform above (my guess is 60-70 feet above the ground). Thinking back, the ladder was the scariest part, because there were rails that were a bit worn, so they were slippery, also the ladder was not straight up & down, it leaned against the face of the rock. Once I got to the platform and the guy attached me to the zip line, I looked down & flipped, I thought I can´t do this, then closed my eyes and jumped from the ladder. :P

Zip Line Video

After we did all that, we hiked out to a road so that a bus could take us back to the hotel, and then we packed up and headed back to Mendoza.

By the way these are not the only recent videos I have posted, there are more on my videos page!

That´s all for now, tuned in...