Lima!!!

I'm in Lima! So here begins the third and final leg of my South America experience. Ok, I know I was supposed to talk about ArgtenTime in this post, but right now I'm in a super good mood, so I don't want to dampen it by talking about something negative. And I think it would be a good idea anyway to first see what it's like in Peru and then be able to compare the two countries and how they handle time similarly and differently. I want to see if it's true what people say about all of Latin America being like that, or if Argentina is just especially slow. Uruguay and Brazil certainly are more efficient and time-conscious than Argentina, from my limited experience. We'll see about Peru.

I am loving my host family and house in Lima so far. The couple is so friendly and helpful, we've had great conversations, and they have taken me around to help me get stuff I need, like going to the bank and to the supermarket. From talking to other people in my program, it seems like all of us have better living situations than we did in Buenos Aires. In BA, we were all in apartments, and here, we're in houses. My room and bed are much bigger, I get a lot more furniture and necessities in my room (like a study desk, a nightstand, a hamper, trash can, a lamp, and a bunch of other things that my host mom in BA didn't provide). And my own TV in my room! A lot of my friends here have their own private bathrooms and balconies, which no one got in BA. I was hoping to get a private bathroom since the housing description they sent me said there were 4 bedrooms but 5 bathrooms, but it turns out there it's because there is a bathroom next to the dining room and another one up on the roof. So my host mom and I are sharing a bathroom, but that's fine. The bathroom here is much nicer than the one I used in BA anyway. The floors are much cleaner, and the kitchen, dining area, living room, etc. are much bigger than the ones in my apartment in BA. Also, the Wi-Fi connection here is infinitely better, so far as I can tell (it doesn't cut out for several minutes every few minutes). The only complaint I have is that my blanket kind of smells of sweat, but I can ask my host mom to change it out.

Although all of us have much more luxurious accomodations in Lima than in BA, I don't think it's because the standard of living is higher (probably the opposite is true). I think we just probably got placed in wealthier host families. Lima is less safe than BA, so out of safety concerns, ISA probably felt that it was necessary to place us all in the nicest areas where wealthy families lived. The house I'm in feels pretty safe, it's got a whole alarm system and everything. My host dad was trying to show me how to disarm the alarm whenever I enter or leave the house. When I enter the house, it's pretty easy. I unlock the two locks, open the door, I close it and lock the two locks, then dial the alarm code before it goes off (I have 45 seconds). However, leaving the house is much more complicated, since the dialpad to disarm the alarm is on the inside, and I can only disarm it when the door is closed. You have to open the door, then lock the two locks while the door is open to trick the alarm into thinking the door is closed, dial in the code to disarm the alarm, then you exit the house, stick the red key in the top keyhole, the blue key in the bottom keyhole, then you close the door as far as it will go (the two locks are in the way, so it won't close all the way), then you have to turn the keys (red one clockwise, blue one counterclockwise) so that the locks retract just enough to not be in the way of the door closing all the way, but don't retract all the way and alert the alarm that the door is now unlocked again. The host dad let me practice this, but I ended up setting off the alarm, and he had to call the security peeps to tell them not to come over because it was set off by accident.

One thing I like about Lima is the diversity here. There are so many different races and so many people who have mixed ancestry. This is a welcome change from the homogeneous European look of Buenos Aires. I've experienced a few instances of racism while in Buenos Aires (denied admission into a club, refused service at a bar, and just comments on the streets, mostly from the older generations), but I think it will be much better here. Here, I've seen a bunch of people of asian descent around who seem fully integrated into society and live amongst everyone else (they're not limited to just being restaurant/shop owners in Chinatown or simply tourists, like the way they are in Buenos Aires). Just by looking at the commercial ads or presidential campaign ads throughout Lima, you can see the racial diversity (mestizo, white, amerindian, asian, black, mixed, ect.). There are minority groups and also mestizos in Buenos Aires, but you will NEVER see them in ads or commercials because they are very much looked down upon there. By just looking at the ads, you would think 100% of the population in Argentina is white, and that blond people make up a huge proportion (which they don't; the vast majority have brown hair). In this respect, I think Lima is much more like big cities in the US, like a melting pot where people of different races can co-exist. That was actually another one of my big complaints about Buenos Aires, their Aryan superiority complex.

Anyways, I think later this afternoon ISA's gonna give us a mini tour of Lima and also give us a safety orientation, so I'll write more about Lima some other time.

If I have time today, I'll write about my trip to Mendoza last weekend.

Did I forget to mention? LIMA IS ON THE BEACH!

Brazil and Uruguay

Hey, sorry I haven't updated in a while! I last talked about a pro of Buenos Aires, so I guess I'm supposed to talk about a con next, but since so much traveling has taken place since the last time I updated, I'm gonna have to save the con for the next post.

As you guys probably saw from my facebook photos over spring break, I went to Brazil and Uruguay with my mom (and if you haven't seen them, you should go look at them). Although I had a bunch of photos from Uruguay, and I don't know where they went. I think they're on my mom's computer, so when I get back to the US, I'll look for them again. The only photos I could find were the ones I took at the airport (also on fb), but that's lame.

Our first stop in Brazil was São Paulo, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and the commerce center of the country. On the first night, my mom's friend who lives there took us to a classy churrascaria (pronounced shoo-ha-sca-ree-a, this is an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse) where they had the absolute most delicious cuts of meat I had ever tasted in my life, no exaggeration. If you go through the whole visa process and then fly down to Brazil just for this one meal, I would tell you that it's worth it. In addition to an all-you-can-eat buffet on the side, waiters come around with these large metal skewers with huge chunks of meat, and they'll cut off a piece for anyone who asks for one, without limit. After dinner, we went to see the São Paulo samba parade, where different samba teams competed to be the best. Each team had I think one hour to show off all their fancy costumes and floats and samba skills. It was extremely colorful, the floats were really cool, the music was lively, and the place was packed with rowdy people cheering for their favorite teams and singing along to the music.

The next day we spent at the beach in the nearby city of Santos. We walked around and shopped. We had lunch at a seafood buffet, although it wasn't an all-you-can-eat buffet. You get a plate and grab whatever you want from the buffet, then at the cashier they weigh your plate and the amount you pay is proportional to the weight. This kind of pay-by-weight buffet restaurant is popular in Brazil (although the churrascarias I think are always all-you-can-eat). After lunch, we hung out at the beach some more, sipping on juice straight out of a coconut. In the evening, we took a ferry across to the city of Guarujá, where we had dinner.

The next day we flew to Rio de Janeiro (hyu-jee-zha-nay-ru). Since all the hotels in Rio were booked by the time we made reservations for that night, we ended up getting a hotel in the tiny city of Niteroi, so when we got out of Rio's airport, we had to take a ferry across to Niteroi with all our luggage. Having heard so many stories about the dangers of Rio, we were so scared we were going to get held at gunpoint and robbed. In fact, throughout our trip in Brazil we were constantly very cautious, but nothing bad happened in the end (although maybe it was BECAUSE we were cautions that nothing happened). After dropping off everything at the hotel, we walked along the beach at Niteroi for about half an hour, but there wasn't much to see, although the outside of the contemporary art museum looked really cool. So we decided to head back to Rio. It was difficult figuring out how to take the bus to the ferry station, but we managed it through my Spanish and extremely limited Portuguese skills. Once in Rio, we noticed all these people in costume walking in the same direction, so we followed them. And soon enough, we saw what their destination was. We had entered a massive street party crowded with people (including families with kids!) in outrageous costumes, vendors selling junk food, and tourists taking pictures. My mom and I joined in on the festivity, taking pictures. There was a guy on the streets selling colorful wigs, so we each bought one and paraded around in them. It was a ton of fun! After we were all partied out, we headed back to Niteroi, where we had dinner in a nice little restaurant overlooking the beach, and where I once again got to practice my broken Portuguese.

The next day we moved all our stuff once again across the ferry to Rio (we had managed to reserve hotels in Rio for the rest of our time there). We got lost trying to find our hotel and managed to bust the wheels of one of our suitcases. So finally we gave up and just took a taxi. After we were all settled in, we spent the day laying out on the famous Copacobana beach sipping on Caipirinha, Brazil's national cocktail. I didn't take a picture of it, but I grabbed this one off the internet to show you. At night, we went to one of the biggest malls in Rio to do some shopping. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that all of the stores would still be closed for the Carnival holiday. So we ended up doing nothing but eating dinner at the mall (it was delicious, though).

As much as I don't like simply being a tourist going around on a bus, we decided it was a must on our last full day in Rio, especially since there are so many things to see in the city and so little time. So we booked a full-day tour of the most famous sites in Rio. We got to tour a lot of cool places. We took a cable car up Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain), and the view up there was gorgeous. There were a lot of stairs to climb, and the day was very hot, but it was worth it. Our next stop was the Cathedral of São Sebastião, which was a cool cone-shaped building covered with stained glass windows. The inside of the cathedral was amazing because you are surrounded completely by colored stained glass with the sun shining through it. After the cathedral, we went to the big football stadium Estádio do Maracanã. We had lunch at a cute little churrascaria. Then the higlight of the tour: the famous Christ the Redeemer statue (Cristo Redentor, pronounced kreesh-tu-hay-den-toH). We took a train up to the top. There were water droplets misting down on us, and at first, I was like, "oh that's so nice of them to mist water to cool down tourists on such a hot day", and then I realized that it wasn't man-made water mist. We were up in the clouds! It was so cool and refreshing I could have just stood there all day. We finally climbed to the top and saw that famous statue that is practically synonymous with Rio de Janeiro.

 

 Finally the tour was over, and we asked the bus driver to drop us off at the Copacobana beach so we could spend some time there again (we didn't get to have dinner there last time). We had dinner at this little outdoor cafe right on the beach. However, in the middle of our meal, it started pouring like crazy. We had gather up all our stuff and hide out under the umbrellas for a while. Luckily the rain eventually ended and we were able to finish our meal in peace.

We flew back to São Paulo the next day, where we spent a few hours shopping at the mall (since we didn't get to do that in Rio) before our flight in the evening to Montevideo. I love the airport in Montevideo. It is by far the classiest, nicest airport that I have been to in South America. I also liked Montevideo itself a lot, because it was very clean and nice and not at all crowded (or at least the district we visited). There were so many really unique, pretty beach houses. It looked like a very high-class suburban area on the coast. We took a midnight stroll on one of the biggest streets in Montevideo and through a cute little plaza, and we felt completely safe. The next morning, we walked around some more. The people there are super friendly. This would be a  really nice place to get a vacation house and visit every winter (which, don't forget, is their summer). I'm very sad that I can't find the photos that I took of this place. Then at midday, it was time for us to go to the airport to head back to Buenos Aires.

The airport is located about half an hour away by taxi from the rest of the city. When we were in the check-in line, my mom all of a sudden burst out crying and practically collapsed to the ground. Scared, I desperately asked her what was wrong. She had suddenly realized that she had left her passport and ALL her money back at the hotel. She hid them under the mattress in order to keep them safe, but ended up forgetting that it was there. And although it was unfortunate that this happened, out of all of the places in South America that this could have happened, I'm glad it happened in Montevideo. Everyone there was super nice and helpful. The lady at the counter immediately rescheduled us for a later flight, called us a taxi to take us to the hotel and back, gave us a free phone card to call the hotel, and when we were having trouble using the payphones, she called for us to ask the hotel staff to look for my mom's things. All this was done quickly and efficiently, without any hassle. The hotel manager himself went to our room to look for it, and then held on to it for the half hour it took for us to take the taxi back. While this sounds simple enough, we have to not take these kinds of things for granted in South America. Not every city would have been as efficient or as helpful. Although we ended up having to delay our flight and pay a lot of money for the hour-long roundtrip taxi ride, I was really thankful that in the end, everything turned out alright, and with relatively little hassle. Buenos Aires I knew for a fact would not have been as responsive to situations like this. Sure enough, when we got back to BA, we couldn't find my mom's suitcase, which had all our clothes in it. We asked the airport staff to help us, and it took them a long time to have anyone available to help us. Finally, they took down our contact information and our description of the suitcase and told us to wait back at the hotel while they looked for it, and that they would send the suitcase to our hotel as soon as they found it. My mom urgently needed the suitcase because she was leaving to Iguazu early in the morning the following day. We got back to the hotel and waited for them to call us. Several hours later, we decided to call them ourselves, but no one picked up at either of the 3 phone numbers they gave us, even though it wasn't yet closing hour. We asked the hotel staff to help us call them, and the hotel manager left a message on their machine. And they still didn't call us. Finally, late that night, they called us back. When I asked if they found the suitcase, they said, yes they found it a few hours ago. If they found it a few hours ago, why didn't they call us like they said that would???!!! Of course they didn't have a response to that. So I asked them to send over the suitcase to the hotel immediately because my mom was leaving at 5am the next morning. They told me it was impossible to send it over at that time because all of the staff had already gone home. They promised to send it at around 8am the next morning. Even though my mom will have left by then, I saw no other way, so I agreed. The next day at 8am, no word from them, and suitcase nowhere in sight. Finally, at 2pm, they called me to tell me that they were gonna send over the suitcase immediately and that it would be at our hotel in only half an hour. Then at 4pm, two whole hours after the phone call, the suitcase finally arrived. Broken. With a missing wheel. (This was the suitcase that we busted in Rio, but the wheel wasn't MISSING, it was slightly busted but still usable before we left for BA.) Now, if this infuriates you, wait 'til you read my next post, which is about the biggest downside (I promised you a con!) of Buenos Aires and other places in Argentina: the inefficiency and unresponsiveness, and the complete lack of this notion called time.

But stay tuned, because after that post, I'll be continuing on about my travels to El Tigre and Mendoza!

Nightlife

Pro: Vibrant Nightlife

• Yes, I know, big cities in general have a great nightlife, but there are some important things to mention about the nightlife in Buenos Aires. The clubs here are called "boliches", and they're generally open after midnight. However, that doesn't mean people go at midnight. In the US, most people are heading home from the clubs at 2 or 3 in the morning. Here, the boliches don't start filling up until 3. People have really late dinners here, so often, they'll have dinner at 9 and enjoy a glass or two of wine at a restaurant or at home, then they go home to take a nap. Then at around 12 or 1, they meet at a bar and order a few drinks. They'll sip on their drinks and just chat with their friends, order another round and continue hanging out. Many Americans have the mentality that they must get drunk before or at the club. But in Argentina, they don't have to get drunk to go dance. Most don't. (This contributes to the porteños thinking of Americans as loud and obnoxious. Not only does speaking a different language make you stand out, but you're also in a huge group of very obviously drunken foreigners. When you see drunken people out at night making a scene or throwing up, they're generally not locals.) So anyway, the porteños often leave the bar at 3 or 4 to go to the clubs, and they stay out late into the morning. The latest I've stayed out is until 7am, but many porteños don't get to bed until 10 or 11 in the morning. Obviously, every night varies, but from what I've seen so far, what I described above is a typical night out.

• Depending on the club, the entrance fee is generally cheaper than in the US. Which is why foreigners are so eager to pay to get in, not realizing that if they take the time and did some research, they can find always find out ways to get into clubs for free. After staying here for about a few weeks, you start realizing a lot of little tricks. (Useful info if you're planning on visiting BA some day!) Most clubs will either have a list of people who emailed the club beforehand (and all you have to do is find out the email address from a flyer and email them and you don't have to pay!), or a list of VIP names, and if you can find out one of those names, you can mention that you're with them (even if you don't actually know them! you just need their name) and you can get in. If you tag along with porteños who know people at the club, not only can you get in for free, you can also get into the VIP section (unlimited drinks, holla!). Some clubs will partner up with a bar on a certain day of the week, so if you go to that bar first, they'll hand you fliers or tickets that will get you into that club for free later that night. There's also a website I accidentally stumbled upon, infoboliches.com.ar. This website has a bunch of ppl who work at clubs who give you info on who to contact if you want to go to that club. It also gives you info on when a certain club has ladies night or nights when everyone gets in for free, and general info like the address, which nights are the most popular to go, etc. Once I wrote a post on the website saying it was my friend's birthday and that we were looking to go to a certain club. Within a few hours, 3 ppl who work at different clubs had facebook messaged me about letting my friends and I into the club, including a girl who works at the club that I specifically mentioned I wanted to go to. If you come to BA, definitely utilize this website.

Iguazu Falls

Last weekend I went to Iguazu Falls! It was my first time outside of Buenos Aires since I got here. Here are some of the highlights of my trip. These are only a few of the photos. You can find the rest on my facebook. I will also have videos up soon on facebook.

On Thursday evening, I got on the bus with the rest of the people in my program. The bus ride was really long, but it was fun because we all got to chill and watch some movies. The bus arrived in the region of Misiones (the region where the Iguazu Falls are located) on Friday morning. The dirt here is red, and it stains clothes and shoes and will never wash out, so I brought my clothes that I didn't care about. It was pouring when we got there, and so everyone rushed to buy these cheap flimsy raincoats that rip after the first use. We visited a Jesuit museum that showed what things were like when the Jesuits missionaries first came to the Guaraní people (the indigenous people of this region). It was kind of boring except for some cool Guaraní artifacts and some recordings of the Guaraní language.


Then we visited some ruins of an ancient city, which was cool. After the ruins, we went to an estancia (a farm) that grows yerba mate. Mate is very popular in Argentina, but it is especially popular in the region of Misiones because there are a lot of estancias that cultivate the yerba. Here, people drink mate multiple times every day, and in a way, mate is like a staple here. Mate contains a lot of mateína, which like caffeine, helps you stay awake. At the estancia, we had a delicious lunch (soooo much food) that the people at the estancia prepared for us. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out, playing card games, and drinking mate, which was a lot of fun. We also got to try some tereré, the "summer cousin" of mate. With mate, you put the yerba in the mate cup and add hot water (well, there's more to the technique than that). Tereré is very popular on hot summer days because instead of putting hot water in the yerba, you put cold juice (usually orange juice or lemonade) in the yerba. The drink is cool and fruity but it still retains its original mate flavor. After the estancia, we drove for a couple more hours to our hotel, where we had all-you-can-eat buffet for dinner (although I was already so full from lunch).

All day Saturday was devoted to our day tour of the Iguazu Falls. The Falls were enormous. And breathtakingly beautiful (no photo can ever capture its beauty, you have to see it in person). We walked all day through it and still didn't get to see all of it. But of course one of the things we got to see was the famous Garganta del Diablo (Throat of the Devil). We also visited various other falls in the Iguazu National Park. There were a ton of butterflies there who weren't afraid of people. A lot of these butterflies will just randomly land on you and stay there for a good 15 minutes while you walk through your tour, as if you're wearing the butterfly as an accessory. There were also a lot of other wildlife there, including these cute opossum-like creatures that are native to that region of Argentina. During a tour of Iguazu Falls, we took a ride on a speedboat which took us to areas were the water fell, and we all got completely soaked. It was a lot of fun. In the evening, we returned to our bus, which on the way back to the hotel stopped at the point where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina almost meet (although they don't actually meet, since there is water separating them). Each of the three countries have an obelisk of its flag colors near the edge of the water. You'll have to go to my album to see them. Anyways, afterwards we went back to the hotel.

The next day, we got to visit a Guaraní village, where the indigenous people have preserved their way of life. They showed us a bunch of cool animal traps that they made. They also showed us a type of fruit that they grind up and mix with water to make a tea used for contraception. Then a group of Guaraní people performed a few songs in the Guaraní language. At the Guaraní village, I bought a bow and arrow, a blow dart, lots of necklaces and bracelets made from a native plant seed, and feather earrings. After we left the village, we had some time to hang out and eat before we headed to the airport.

It was a really fun trip, and you definitely can't go to Argentina without visiting the Iguazu Falls.

This is the last week of my current class, and then after my final exam on Friday, I have a week of spring break before my next class starts. So of course I'm taking this opportunity to go to Brazil for Carnival! So excited. The only that that disappoints me is that I will be leaving for Brazil the day that Shakira comes to Buenos Aires. Oh well, I'll have a lot of fun at Carnival, and I'll be sure to write all about it when I get back!

Buenos Aires - Safety

Since I presented a pro last time, I will talk about one of the biggest cons of my experience here.

Con: Unwanted Attention and Danger of Getting Robbed

• As a woman, especially as a foreigner, you will receive a lot of unwanted attention from men whenever you're in public. Unfortunately, machismo is still very much a part of the culture here, and many men (including married ones, as long as their wives aren't around) feel that it is perfectly ok to harass and hit on women in the streets and in the clubs. If you plan to visit Argentina and you're female, expect to get hit on an average of at least three or four times a day (but this also depends on how often you are out in public). These can range from innocent "Que linda sos" to annoying kissy noises to really lewd comments to even outright inappropriate touching. Fortunately, most of the time it's on the milder end of the spectrum. When this happens, the best thing to do is to ignore them and keep walking. If you show any signs that you've noticed their attention on you, even if it's a negative reaction, this will often invite them to continue hitting on you. One thing I dislike about living here is that when I'm by myself in public, I've learned to avert my eyes and walk faster whenever I pass by a group of male strangers. Even when they just simply say hi, I ignore them, because I eventually learned that if you're only trying to be friendly and return a simple greeting, this is sometimes enough of an invitation for the guy to start behaving inappropriately with you. Not all guys here are like this, but enough of them are so that I have to take this precaution and behave in a such a way that in the US if I walked around like that I would probably seem like some anti-social freak with no self-confidence. In the clubs, many guys will even try to kiss you without asking you first, and trust me, telling them you have a boyfriend is not a deterrent in the least. They'll just say, "So? He's not here right now. It's just a kiss." The best way to get away from a creepy guy at the club is to tell him you think he's ugly. Then you'll hurt his pride and he'll finally leave you alone. When riding in a taxi alone, for the most part I've had no problems chatting with the driver and being friendly, but this did one time result in a pretty scary situation. Avoid taking independent taxis that don't work for a company. The ones that do work for a company will have the words "Radio Taxi" on it.
• So far no one has tried to rob me, but I have enough friends who have been robbed that I am always super cautious and keep my hand securely over my purse at all times. There are pickpockets here that are really tricky and often you'll not even know you got robbed until later when you can't find something or you discover there's a slit in the bottom of your purse or that your pants pocket is gone (not just the contents, but the actual pocket itself!) However, as annoying as it may be to discover later that you were robbed without noticing, you should be thankful that it wasn't a confrontational robbery, which also happens here. People can come up to you with a weapon and tell you directly, "You are being robbed. Give me everything you have." I don't know what I would do if I were to get into this situation, although I've been advised to never fight back or refuse or call out for help, and that I should just hand them everything and get away unharmed. Even if there are a lot of people around, the people usually will just mind their own business and not help out if you are being robbed or even beat up. So the safest thing to do is to not fight back and just do what the robber tells you. Though the ISA staff told us that there was one year when a group of students were out drinking at a park, and someone came up to them with a gun and told them to give him everything. So they handed the man everything. Then one of the guys in the group told the man if they could at least have their bottle of vodka back and he can keep all of their other stuff. So the man agreed and gave them the bottle back, which the guy immediately smashed on the man's head. The man fell to the ground with his head bleeding, and the group took back all of their stuff and his gun. Once they found out it was actually a fake gun, they all ganged up on the man and started kicking him and hitting him. The story was really funny, but I almost felt sorry for the man. He thought it would be so easy to rob some group of stupid drunk Americans, and then he received the surprise of his life. That's probably the last time he ever tried to rob any tourists.
• Anti-Americanism: It's no secret that Argentines hate Americans. The first book I saw at the university bookstore was about why Argentines hate Americans and why many of the things they believe about them are myths or overgeneralizations. I hope many Argentine students take the course that requires that textbook, because it would probably help alleviate some of the anti-American sentiments. Now that being said, most of my friends and I have never run into problems with anti-American Argentines. It seems that they like American individuals (simply because they like tourists in general), but hate Americans as a nation, if that makes sense. They're friendly and helpful to you as an individual, but they have extremely negative feelings towards the American people. They think Americans are obnoxious, egoistic, rude, and ignorant. Many of the impressions they have of us are true to some extent, but many of them are also because they don't see the full picture. For example, they think Americans are always getting drunk and yelling around in the streets at night (I don't do this, btw). What they don't realize is that the Americans are behaving this way because they're on vacation with their friends, but they don't act like this normally at home. The Argentines don't see how Americans normally act in the US, so they can only judge us based on how we act in their country. Or another example is that they think all Americans are rolling in money. Even though it's true that the average American is wealthier than the average Argentine, the reality is still different from how they perceive it. They don't realize that they are only seeing a select group of Americans: those who can afford to travel abroad. They also don't realize that we tend to spend more money abroad then we do at home. Like at home, I would not be going out at night all the time or going shopping for clothes and souvenirs once a week or eating at restaurants that often. We're also not as conscious about comparing prices since we are not familiar with the country. Argentines know what's considered a good price for something, they know where to get the cheapest stuff, and they know their way around enough so that they can compare the prices at various different places. Americans are not as familiar with this information, so they will buy things at prices that Argentines would consider too high. This adds to the impression that Americans have too much money and spend it carelessly. Anyways, so you can see why people here can have distorted views of Americans. Despite their hatred for us, for the most part they are friendly, or at least they don't usually try to harm you. But be cautious. There was one instance that happened recently where a group of friends were just hanging out in public and speaking English, and some Argentines came out of nowhere and started beating up the two guys in the group (they left the girls alone), and the guys got seriously injured and had to go to the hospital. Sometimes just to be safe, some of my friends lie and say they're from Canada when asked where they're from.
  

Anyways, I've been working on this post for too long, so I'm going to end it now. Besides, I just got back from the Iguazu Falls, so I want to write about that.

Buenos Aires - Food (Original title: Buenos Aires - pros and cons)

When I first arrived in Buenos Aires, I thought, "Wow, this looks exactly like Taipei!" And I have heard many other foreigners here compare it to other big cities they know. So first and foremost, Buenos Aires looks like a big city. I was having a discussion with some people, and we seemed to agree that when you go to a small city or town or village, you get much more of a distinct characteristic feel that belongs to the culture. However, when you get to big cities like NY or Paris or Buenos Aires or Taipei, most of them on the surface seem to belong to one culture: big city culture. Big buildings, crowded streets, tons of traffic and pollution, lots of public transportation, bright lights at night, billboards everywhere, etc. However, when you stay in the city for a period of time, you do start seeing the differences. I've outlined some of the pros and cons and added important cultural notes and vocab about them.

Empanadas

Pro: Food!!!

• Argentina is a carnivore's heaven. This country is well known for having some of the best meat in the world. According to Wikipedia (therefore it must be true), Argentina has the highest consumption of red meat in the world.
  
  Some of the most popular types of food here include:
  - Empanadas, which are like large dumplings with a tough pizza-crust type skin around it. There are also variations of it. I think a "canasta" (which literally means basket) is an open empanada. It has the contents and has the same pizza-crust skin around it, but it's made so that the top is open so that you can see the contents inside.
  - Milanesas, which are thin steaks of chicken. If you say "milanesa a la napolitana", they add cheese and tomato sauce on the steak, and it is soooo good.
  - Pizza, pronounced "pixa" so many Americans including myself have trouble identifying what it is until they see it, then they realize that they're talking about pizzas. The pizzas here are not at all like American pizzas. There's no tomato sauce, and it has an extremely thick layer of cheese. Personally, I prefer it with the tomato sauce, but that's probably because that's what I'm used to.
  - Chorizo, which is a really delicious sausage. Although it is not at all spicy to me, it's probably considered one of the spicier foods in Argentina.
  - Tartas are not tarts! They are like quiches, like a pie of cheese with vegetables and other ingredients in it.
  
  There are of course a lot of different types of food here, and I don't know the names to a lot of them. And of course they have food that is found everywhere in the world, like sandwiches and salads and soups.
  
• A funny thing that I noticed as a general pattern is that it seems like almost all of the breadstuff that have ingredients in them, such as empanadas, sandwiches, pizzas, canastas, etc., have their ingredients in pairs. Some common combinations are jamón y queso (ham and cheese), queso y cebolla [pronounced say-bo-sha] (cheese and onion), jamón y tomate (ham and tomato), queso y choclo (cheese and corn), cebolla y espinaca (onion and spinach), but there are also a lot of other pairings found (although with pizza, queso is always one of the ingredients). I haven't yet found any that have more than two ingredients, though. And if you order, let's say, a "sandwich con jamón y queso", be prepared to get a sandwich with nothing but ham and cheese between the bread. In the US, you would probably expect some lettuce or tomato, maybe a little mayonnaise or something. Here, don't expect it unless it specifically says "lechuga" or "tomate" or "mayonesa" [ma-sho-nay-sa]. And you'd probably be sacrificing either the ham or the cheese in order to have one of these, since ingredients are offered in pairs. Although usually, you can ask for mayonnaise or olive oil or ketchup, and they'll hand you a small packet of it.
• Argentines do not like spicy food. There are places where you can find spicy cuisines, but for the most part, there is nothing spicy that is native to Argentina. I love the food here, but I miss spicy food. My friend offered to make her host family tacos to give them a taste of the Mexican cuisine, and they asked her to put very little spice in it. So she put much less spice than she normally would and afterwards said she couldn't taste it at all, but the family wasn't able to finish their tacos because they thought it was way too spicy. My host family, too, cannot stand anything with the least bit of spice in it.
• At a cafe, if you ask for hot chocolate (the weather here is super hot because it's summer right now, but the air conditioning in my classroom makes it super cold), they give you two bars of solid dark chocolate and a cup of hot milk. I was dumbfounded when the cashier handed me two bars of chocolate. I looked confused, so he told me I had to go get in another line to get a cup of hot milk. You put the chocolate in the milk and stir it to melt it. It's called a "submarino", a submarine. It was delicious, but this was the first time I ever made hot chocolate in this manner, and I was really intrigued. But these kinds of surprises are what make different cultures worth experiencing!
• Many things in Argentina are much cheaper than in the US, like clothes or alcohol or transportation (taxi fares here are so cheap!). Unfortunately, food is not one of them. My roommate here and I were talking about how this makes it very difficult for people living here. They make much less money than they would doing the same job in the US, yet such a basic everyday necessity has such a relatively high cost. Argentina, especially Buenos Aires, has a pretty high cost of living relative to how much they make. In the US, most people are retired when they hit their early or mid sixties. It's very common for people here in their 70's or 80's to still be working and not planning on retiring soon, and many of them lead very difficult lives, with long working hours (much longer than the typical work day in the US), commute for hours every day if they live outside the city (because the living cost in the city is prohibitively high for them), and sleep very little. Sorry, that's off the topic of food, though.
  

  

  Milanesa a la Napolitana

So my original plan was for this one post to be all about the pros and cons of Buenos Aires, and now I realized how long just one of them is, and it's getting really late now. So I think I'm just going to present one or two each time I post, alternating back and forth between pros and cons.

Intro

My excursion to El Tigre and the beach today got cancelled due to the rain, so now I have some free time and decided to start a blog. I won't bore anyone by writing about my daily activities here (unless something special or unusual happens). Instead, I'll share my observations and thoughts about Buenos Aires and Argentine culture (and then about Brazil and Peru later). Of course with any experience, there are ups and downs, so I'll share both of them. First, an intro with a summary about my semester here (skip to the next post if you just want to read about the culture here).

My time here has been divided up into 3 parts:

  - For part 1, I spent the month of January in Buenos Aires doing volunteer work in the slums in Buenos Aires province 3 days a week in the afternoon, and spending the rest of the time in the city, living in a student residence. This was the time when I learned the most about the city and its culture. I didn't have classes, so I had time to explore the city, learn the transportation system, and go out almost every night, and also because I wasn't provided with food, so I had to go grocery shopping (in addition to buying other things I needed, like a camera, cell phone, toiletries, currency exchange, etc.) and I learned that transactions here are done very differently from what I'm used to in the US. This month was also the time that I was able to meet locals (they call themselves "porteños") as well as people from all over the world and of a range of ages. I've met people with some of the most interesting lives (definitely one of the pros of traveling), but I'll save that for a later post.

- For part 2, I'm still in Buenos Aires, but now I'm living in a different neighborhood, and this time with a host mom and another girl in my program. I'm with ISA now (during the first month I was with a program called Road2Argentina). After R2A had forced me to be much more independent (the program provides housing and a few activities, but everything else you pretty much figure out with your friends), I was unaccustomed at first at how much ISA shelters its students. Food is provided by the host family so you never have to cook or go grocery shopping (this does help me save money, though), your laundry is done for you, all of the excursions and tours are included, and most of your day is taken up by classes, so you only have time in the evenings or on the weekend to go out to the city and explore it, and having to wake up early for your classes limits how late you can stay out on weekdays. Also, almost everyone I've met in my program is an American student in their second or third year of college (I think there's one Canadian), so not as much variety as there was in R2A. I have classes 5 hours a day at the University of Belgrano (but my professor is engaging, so it often goes by really quickly). It's a different experience from the first month, but there are many things I like about it. I like that I have a host family to interact with and speak Spanish with. My class is also helping me improve my spanish a lot. I like the planned excursions that ISA provides. I'm totally excited about going to Iguazu Falls next weekend. And while going out almost every night during the first month was fun, it would have been really unhealthy to do that for long, so I'm glad the classes are making me go to bed early on most weekdays and saving my liver and my money. It's also really great to have my own room. And the times that I do go out at night with friends are fun.

- There's a week-long break from Part 2, during which I will go to São Paulo and then Rio de Janeiro for Carnival. Then I come back to BA and part 2 continues with a new class. There's also a four-day weekend two weeks after the first break, so I'm thinking of planning a trip to Mendoza to do wine tasting (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I took a wine-tasting course during the first month with R2A). In total, Part 2 is 2 months long, from Feb through March.

-Part 3 starts in April and goes through May. ISA will fly us to Lima, Peru, where we will take another set of classes at the University of the Pacific. Argentina is great, but I'm glad I'm going to get a chance to experience yet another culture. Some of the planned excursions during that time will go to Cusco and Macchu Picchu and the Peruvian Amazon Jungle. The Amazon Jungle excursion sounds amazing (4 days of exploring and camping out, boat ride down the river, swimming with pink dolphins, spotting monkeys and tons of other wildlife), but I am concerned about the recent outbreak of a particularly dangerous strain of dengue in that region, especially in the jungle where there are tons of mosquitos. Hopefully by the end of April, there will be fewer mosquitos because it's winter, but I'm still scared. I looked at some pictures, and this is not a pretty disease. You start growing weird rashes all over your body and then hemorrhaging out of them (there was a picture of a kid hemorrhaging out of his face!). There have already been several deaths from the outbreak. Anyways, it's too early now to be able to tell what's going to happen and whether or not the trip will get canceled. Even if I don't end up going to the jungle, I'm sure I will have an amazing time in Peru.

So that's the outline of my semester. Now I'll write a post about my thoughts on the culture here in Buenos Aires.

Edit: Ok, I changed my mind. I'll write about it later today or something. I want to get out of the house right now.