My Speech for My Oral Exam

For my oral final I had to write a speech in Spanish to present in class. This is my speech, given I knew very little Spanish before I came to Argentina, there are mistakes in here, some of them probably becuase I missed spelled it when I typed it in here:

Durante estos tres meses, yo viaje por Argentina. Desde Mendoza a Uspallata a Parque Nacional Aconcauqua a Buenos Aires.
He estado en Mendoza por 3 meses. He comprarado a Mendoza con todos las ciudades que he visitado.
Visité Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires es una ciudad muy grande y ruidosa y la gente en Buenos Aires no estan amistosa como en Mendoza.
Su discurso es diferente que Mendocinos. Allí ¨"sh" en vez de "j" acá, por ejemplo "llama" (shamo) allí y "llamo" (sjamo) acá.
Despues tres días allí, yo quería regresar a Mendoza. Para mi parace como se fuera "casa" o extrañaba Mendoza.
Durante mi viaje a Buenos Aires tuve expiriances interesantes, por ejemplo visite La Boca. Fue a negocio para turistas. Quise decir a una chica. "Busco remeras para mis sobrinas y sobrino." Pero dihe "Busco remeras para mis novias y novio." La chica trajo una remera mas grande que para niños. Luego me di cuenta del error y me disculpé y dije: "Lo siento es para mis sobrinos, no novios." Y ella rió. Entonces yo compré las remeras y me fuí apurado.
En Buenos Aires hay siempre algo interesante para ver. Me gusta Buenos Aires pero poco tiempo.
Cuando regrese a Estados Unidos, creo que tendré un choque cultural pero tengo mas fotos que me recoraran mi familia y amigos de Mendoza.
Mismo Jorge Luis Borjes dijó:
"Vivo en Estados Unidos pero mi corazon está en Argentina."

Plans Might Change

Had a friend on my bodega tour tell me yesterday not to go to Iguazu because there was a yellow fever outbreak going on. I confirmed it with the CDC, and was told it is okay to go there if I have had the vaccination and have had it at least 10 days in advance. So my plans to go there might change...

The Beginning of the End

So today I had my written final, tomorrow I have my oral exam. After that the other two girls that are in my class will be leaving and I will be the only one that will remain. I have 2 weeks left here...2 WEEKS!!! Time has literally flown by. On that note, I have filled my weekend with all sorts of things. I will send out a newsletter on Monday letting you know what I did, mind you, it will be interesting. Remember my mention of the extreme activity I spoke of a while back that I wanted to do??? Well I am doing it this Friday :D
I am in the final stages of preparing my final week in Argentina and where I will be traveling. After spending long (really long) hours at the travel agency, I have finally decide on my destination....Puerto Iguazú and Iguazu Waterfalls! The bus ride is going to be excruciating....34 hours on a bus, I am not sure how I am going to deal with it. I hope to completely square away my bus plans tomorrow. But I think I will be in the nicest seat possible offered for the trip...hopefully. I have looked into staying at a hostel while I am in Puerto Iguazú and it looks like its only going to cost me no more than $15 USD per night!

On a completly different note, I have been uploading pictures rrecently. If you visit the photos, you will notice that some of them have "- C" after the album name, this means that the album is complete and that no more pictures will be added to the site.

More updates to come, stay tuned in...

Plaza Independecia in Uruguay

)))Edited 7-22-08(((
I realized I put the wrong panorama here, so I have updated it, this image is 365º (you´ll see the accidental duplication...) Also to view the panorama, use the magnifying glasses in the corner of the panorama window to zoom in & out. Also Click and drag with your mouse on the picture to rotate the image.)))(((

If you haven´t seen any of my panoramas, here is one for your viewing pleasure. You´ll notice the horizon is not straight in the photo, the computer I use is to slow to handle the editing program to do that, so for now, this is how it will have to be. Also look for "short bus"...

¡Hola!

It´s been ahwile since I have posted a blog (a true blog) so I felt that it was time to do so. In my classes we have been screming through the material, with a mid-term this friday and my written final next Wed.

My last day of class is the first of August, and soon after that I will travel to either Perito Moreno or Peninsula Valdéz (area) for a few days.

After which I´ll return to Mendoza, and ultimally return to the states.

Recently I have not been doing a lot (other than school that is). I am hoping to do a wine tour this weekend. Every Monday the local english vine magazine hosts a wine tasting at a resturant called The Vines. Everybody that is there puts $90 (U$D 30) in the pot and they buy the tiop shelf wines, and nobody leaves until everything is gone. So I am thinking about doing that this monday or the next.

On Julio 9th, it was Argentina´s Independence Day, and I went with my host mother´s sister to some of the event. Before we got there, we had to stop to get gas. What intrigued me (and why I am writting about this) is that the gas system is quite a bit different here. If you ever come here, you may notice that some of the cars have yellow tanks in them or in the back of trucks, these are their gas tanks. And I mean gas, like as in not liquid. Many of the cars have been "upgraded" to this (as there is also the liquid version here). I was told that it was a little less than half the price of the liquid gas. So anyway that is a little more for you to read about concerning Mendocinos.

I haven´t really uploaded that manypictures nor videos recently, but I may have the chance to do dome tonight. It really slows down the internet when you upload them, and frankly, it is just tiring after ahwile. (not a joke, files are huge!)

I have been wanting to mention a group of friends from Baylor (now somewhere in Canada), that started the Alive Campaign. It is an organization that was created in order to bring awareness to suicide prevention. They told a friend that there was more to life, like riding on their bikes from Waco, Texas to Ancourage, Alaska...and that´s exactly what they are doing...biking something like 9000 miles this summer. Take a look at their website here to see more info about them. Their blog is very intresting and can be found here as well.

Changing my blog look

If you check my blog regularly you may have noticed that I used to change the picture at the top of this blog every so often. Well I have been searching for a cool looking template to use, and well I have it down to 5. One of them is displayed currently. I however am leaning toward number 1. or 2 or 4. You chose...either comment here, e-mail me, sign my guest book and tell me, whatever, just tell me which number you like. So here they are:

1.


2.

Preview it here!

3.


4.

For this one, it would have an Argentina picture or some sort at the top.

5.

This one as well would have the picture changed.

Do let me know what you think!

Solo in Buenos Aires

This should have been posted a while back, but it has taken me some time to type it up and post the pictures...

When I go solo anywhere, I tend to review and write everything down, so here it is:

From my Journal on July 1st 2008:

Today I took the subway from our hotel down to the stop on Florida street. I then walked around a bit until I arrived at Pacifico Gallerias (corner of Florida & Córdoba).

I mainly came to the Gallerias to find some friends that were in one of the Gallerias. I however, was in the wrong place, as they were not there. I decided to have lunch there as well. I ate at a place called the "Tea Gallery" to have a baguette de pollo (Chicken baguette) & a Coca Lite.

(Here they call Coke-a-Cola, Coca. And Coca Lite is Diet Coke-a-Cola. If you say I want a coke, you are meaning something entirely different if you get my drift...) The baguette had tomato, lettuce, chicken, and mayo. I thought the sandwich was a bit dry and coka lite was expensive for the price. The baguette was $19.95 and the Coca Lite was $7.50. The place itself is open & sit down. It sits on the second floor of the Galleria and you are able to see many parts of the Galleria.

Since it is sit down, there was a waitress that served me (like in most places, there are very few places to get something to eat where there isn´t a tip involved...)
Food - 3/5
Service - 2.5/5 it was hard to get my waitresses attention.
Price - 3/5
Overall 3/5
Total $27 + $2.70 tip

After lunch I headed to level 0 (what we call the first floor in the states is seen at floor 0 here. And what we would call the 2nd floor is seen as the 1st floor.) Floor 0 (zero) contained some stores but was mostly a food court. I spotted a Sony Style store and made my in. I found a Sony FX1 Camera on display, I had a bit fun playing with this camera quite a bit. After the store, I got some ice cream at Freddo (only found in B.A.)

There ice cream is very good and worth a try if you find one. After eating the ice cream I left the shopping area and took the subway to Independence & Lima(?) Then took a Taxi from there to La Boca (a suburb of B.A.)

I went into one of the shops with the intention of buying some gifts for my nieces and nephew. I told the lady that I was looking for a shirt for my "novias & novio"... The lady immediately went over and got a large shirt, it is then when I realized my mistake, I apologized and corrected myself and asked for shirts for my three sobrinos. Whoops... After feeling stupid and quite embarrassed, I left with some gifts and headed to a store that sold leather goods across the street. I ended up speaking with the owner for a little over 30 minutes about why I was in Buenos Aires. When I told her that I was studying Spanish in Mendoza, she first told me that I was crazy coming all the way over here to learn Spanish. And she asked why I needed to learn Spanish & that English was the universal worldwide language and that English was the only language I needed to know. I wondered to myself - then how were people supposed to by her products if the couldn´t communicate to her in her language...
Anyway, I proceeded to say (intended to say) - Thanks. I need to return to my hotel. Nice to meet you. Bye. What I ended up saying was "Gracias. Yo nesecito regresar a mi hotel. Me gusta. Chau." Which means - Thanks. I need to return to my hotel. I like you. Chau.
I realized my mistake after she laughed and said jokingly your too young for me but thanks. I literally wanted to just walk out. But I restated the part that needed to be corrected, then left quite quickly...

I returned to the hotel via Taxi, since I had not had Lunch, and I still had several hours before dinner, I decided to pick up a hamburger at the Burger King next door to our hotel, yes Burger King is here too. Their Classic burger cost me $15.50! I was starting to think that that Chicken sub I had earlier was worth it! (I guess it is somewhat the same price as it is in the States or a little more. Divide by the current exchange rate and it is about U$S 4.50.)

Shortly after inhaling my burger, some friends that would be leaving that night, invited me to go have a drink with them at a nearby restaurant. The restaurant is called BRICK, which sits on the corner of Corrientes & some other street i can´t remember . We found the menu to be quite hilarious! It looked like they typed their menu into one of those internet translators and hit "translate" then copied that onto their menu. The video above is from the restaurant as are the following pictures. There is a whole album on my pictures website in the Buenos Aires folder. The first few are my favorites. But here is my absolute favorite foto:

The Remaining 7 of us decided to go to a steak restaurant. I had a steak. I had yet to have a good piece of meat in B.A. The steak was cooked perfectly. I went to bed one happy camper.

P.S. Here is a panorama I stitched together today from Uruguay, sorry it´s not that wide, I think I would´ve crashed the computer if I had tried. Download the picture to see it better.

Uruguay!

Today we went to Uruguay. I had to wake up at 6am to be at the boat station by 7am. Julie & I made it throughcustoms within 10 minutes. Then we boarded the boat. Do realize we crossed a river and not another body of water. The river at this point is the widdest in the world. The river is called Río de la Plata, which is Spanish for Silver River. The seat oin the boat were not all that fun... They were really just airplane seats, but at least the ferry was not full that day, so we had one seat inbetween us. Sleeping on the "water bus" was not exaclyt easy, the lights were very brigh, so I guess having a sleeping blindfold you have helped greatly.
We disembarked after a 3 hour ride (about 11am now) and went throughcustoms and immagration fairly quickly. In the process we also met a guy that was from Illonois.

After immigration and all, we hopped on a bus for our city tour...first stop - Plaza Independencia.

Julia & I in Uruguay

(Their mainstreetis 18 de Julio, which is when they signed their Constitution.) We then stopped at a giftshop which everything was in U$S dollars, which was quite annoying, as there wasn´t anyone on our tour with US money, it was however very expensive to buy anything there unless you were from Europe. So nothanks, didn´t buy anything there...) We then all hopped back on the bus and headed back to the boat port. At the resturant our meal was included, but drinks were not, by the time we got done, our bill was at $270 pesos....Uruguayan pesos that is... The conversion from Argentina Pesos to Uruguayan pesos was $1 Arg. to $5.8 Urug. Pesos. Everythin was jutified though because, ice cream ranged from $26 - 86 Urag. Pesos. For our actual Lunch, we bothe had Potato Salad and Turkey Breast slices for an appertizer. This turkey breast was the first turkey I have tasted since being abroad! It tasted wonderful to me! We also had Media o Media, a typical uruguayan drink, which is like half Champagne and half white Wine. It had a very buttery taste to it, with a very strong Dulce de Leche after taste, overall very different and worth it to try. For our main plate, we bothe had Spinach Ravioli with "Alfred Sauce" at least that was what the English translation said... For dessert I had Misini? not sure of the spelling. It was very good, it had a thick light tasting whipped cream layer with that thin cake bread on top and bottom (I talked about this in an earlier blog). Then on the very top was some tye of very sweet marlamade. Overall, very good. After Lunch we boarded the bus again and continued our tour. At one point I fell asleep and Julie took over taking the pictures. We at point stopped at the highest point in Uruguay which is 516 meters and has a maritime museum on top of it (we didn´t have time to go in it) There were also cannons that we took pictures with.

After we left the hill, we headed to a shopping area. I exchanged 50 Argentia Pesos for Uruguyan money. We got some ice cream and I bought a beanie (the hat that keeps your head warm). After about and hour there, we got back on the bus to take us to the port to catch our boat. During the day Julie took at least half (really more than half) of the pictures, so there are A LOT of good pictures!
Our "water bus" left at 7:15pm, and we arrived in Bs. As. at about 11:15pm, everything went smoothly until we needed a taxi. All the taxis were charging $30 pesos from the terminal, it should have only cost $10 pesos...

Uruguayan Sunset

Pardon my spelling errors...