When I was making my plans to travel around South America, my brother Neal specifically told me that I had to hit Bariloche. His description of it was "latin america meets swiss village meets disneyland meets boulder colorado." I figured with a description like that I had to go there!
I took an overnight bus from Puerto Madryn to Bariloche. When you are traveling overnight buses in South America, you have a choice between "cama" seats and "semi-cama" seats. I took "cama" for the 19 hours down to Puerto Madryn from Bariloche. The rows are only three seats across (2 seats and then just one by itself on the other side of the bus). Although the seats don´t fold all the way down, they do go down pretty far and are fairly wide, so it is easy to be pretty comfortable. dinner was a chicken breast with veggies, bread and a little dessert. to drink you could have coke, sprite or a small bottle of red wine. I went for the wine just to try Argentinian wine, but couldn´t finish it, it was SOOO intense! wow! Breakfast was some croissants and toast. Just a very pleasant ride. Ok so then to go to Bariloche, I decided to go cheap, gott the semi-cama seat b/c how diff could it really be???...uh A LOT! these buses now have 4 seats across, which means the seats are a lot narrower. dinner was just a ham and cheese sandwich, muffin and coffee. breakfast was this packaged cookie thing and coffee. so moral of the story - even if it is more $, always go for the cama seats! LOL
I really wish I had pictures of Bariloche to show you b/c the place is absolutely gorgeous. I was able to buy a kodak disposable camera, so at least I will have some photos!
The city faces this gorgeous lake and range of mountains. When I arrived the water in the lake was this gorgeous royal blue color!
The first day, Wed, I was there I just walked around the city, ate lunch...
Thursday I signed up for an all day tour in a National Park. The tour was led by a guy Caesar who drove the van and a girl Pia who explained everything in Spanish and English. There were probably about 10 of us that day. Pia did a great job talking about the history of the area, as well as info on all the plants and animals of the park (what I was of course interested in!) The first hike we did was a 20 min hike to see a cool waterfall. Nothing will ever be Iguazu falls, but this was still pretty cool! What was super fun though was that since the water in the river was in a protected national park and was coming straight from melted snow on the mountains, we were able to fill our water bottles with fresh mountain water. It kinda went against everythingI had ever been taught about hiking/camping..but man was that water tasty! (didn´t have any problems from drinking it either!) I did this twice during the day - sooo super cool!
After the waterfall we took an hour for lunch. Then it was off to see the black glacier. What´s amazing is that I have taught my students in FL about glaciers carving out valleys, but it is kinda hard to picture a glacier when you live in South FL. So seeing all of this in person, was amazing. The valley was huge and green and flat. At the end was a huge dormant volcano covered with this glacier that has ice that is 200 meters thick! (haven´t taken time to figure out the conversion there, but it´s THICK!). There are tons of mini waterfalls where all the ice is melting from the summer sun. Because all the sediment is volcanic, the ice at the base of the mountain is black and really doesn´t look like ice at all. This girl and I wished we could have touched it just to make sure it wasn´t just piles of rock or dirt!
It took us about an hour and a half to get back down the mountain, most of us snoozed b/c we were pretty tired from our hikes. I did wake up in time to see a lake that we had passed earlier. When we saw it that morning it was a pretty blue color. But now that the sun was setting, it was this GORGEOUS turquoise color. Just absolutely unbelievable! It´s amazing to see all the beuaty that God has created!
I definitely need to get back to Bariloche somehow b/c I know there is more to see and do and I just didn´t spend enough time there. I did buy super yumy chocolate and drink a drink called submarino - they steam milk and then give you a small chocolate bar to put in it to let it melt!
Friday morning before I headed out, a girl named Erika and I made a run for one last tourist spot. We took a ski lift to the top of a "mountain" (lg hill really) and saw a view that literally took my breath away: tall mountains with some snow still, multiple blue lakes with islands in the middle. She took a bunch of photos for me/us, so I hope that I can get them and post them. it was amazing!
I am now in Chile and will try to get photos and a blog up soon about that! I was able to buy a SUPER sweet camera while I was here and I can´t wait to start posting photos!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
My time so far in Argentina
I am officially in Argentina and have been for about a week now.
Ok to get this blog started, the first thing you have to do is to think of the typical Italian accent in your head (you know, like Godfather, Sopranos…). got it? Now, instead of saying the words in English, say them in Spanish...now, you have an idea of what the Argentinan accent sounds like. Throw in some “sh”´s for ll´s or y´s and you are good to go! LOL It´s really funny to hear actually and quite difficult to understand at times as well!
On Thursday, (1/14), I took a 2 hour bus to Colonia, Uruguay. This is a SUPER cute tourist town. It has shops, restuarants, beaches (didn´t get to those though) and old artifacts/museums to see. I grabbed lunch and then walked around for awhille just enjoying the scenery.
I found the lighthouse here and spent the dollar to go up to the top. Here is a pic of the lighthouse and me at the top of the lighthouse.
After that I took a boat across the Rio de la Plata. Apparently this is the widest river in the world (haven´t actually checked that fact out yet though, but it was pretty wide!). It takes 3 hours to cross from Montevideo and 1 hour to cross from Colonia. Fortunately, it was a very calm ride!
In Buenos Aires, my friend Silvia had her younger brother come and meet me at the boat terminal and help me get to where was I staying. I was able to stay with single girl from church named Marina for the few days I was there. I hung out with her and another girl Silvia and somehow completely missed taking a pic of them…how did I manage that?
Since the next day was Friday and most people were working, Pablo (Silvia´s brother) came and met me again to take me on a tour of Buenos Aires (he is currently unemployed so he had the free time!) I can´t even begin to describe the journey we took that day. We just kept walking and walking and walking and walking and walking and..well you get the point. We started about 1pm and ended around 7pm, with only a few rest stops. To say I was exhuasted after walking in the heat for 5-6 hours, doesn´t quite describe it! LOL!
But I did get to see an amazing amount of the city. It is definitely bustling like NY, but the city has a very old european feel to it.
We started off at this huge cemetary they have.
Eva Peron is buired here (think “don´t cry for me argentina”). This is a photo of her site.
Photos of the city:
I met Silvia later and we went out and had a wonderful dinner together. We ended up eating at this local grill place. We got this HUGE piece of beef, chicken breast, HUGE plate of fries and a 1.5 liter bottle of Coke all for like $13/14 TOTAL! Unbelieveable deal! To our right were these two old guys who started talking to us after seeing all the food we had managed to order, without realizng it. Then there were two young guys (like 18/19yrs old) to our left who had a guitar. Alter they had finished their meal, the older guys asked them to play for everywhere. We then spent the next two hours just hanging out listening to them play guitar. They played everything from Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd (english songs for me) to Argentian artists. Another guy at a different table even joined in on the singing sometimes. It was like some movie where everyone breaks out into song and dance! SO SUPER fun!
**side note. People in PY seem to eat dinner around like 9/10pm. People in Uruguay and Argentina don´t eat dinner until like 11pm! Our dinner at this grill place started at like 11pm and we were there until like 1:30am!
Saturday we woke up to rain, so we actually didn´t do that much day at all. But after my 5 million mile trek the day before, I was more than willing to just chill out!
Sunday I got to go to the Buenos Aires church. Everyone was so sweet and so excited to say hello to me. After service, I hung out with a few singles and saw a bit more of the city. We went to this really pretty rose garden area. I would love to come back and visit in the spring when a) it wouldn´t be blazing hot like it was that day and b) I am sure more of the flowers would be in bloom. But there was a huge lake and just green area everywhere – so pretty!
Sunday night I hopped on an overnight bus to Puerto Madryn. The bus ride was fairly uneventful. The only downside was about an tour outside of Puerto Madryn, the police were pulling people over for a drug check - like 6 police officers and a dog all got onto the bus. Turns out two 20-something boys on our bus ended up having drugs. So we all had to sit there and wait for about an hour and a half. We finally ended up leaving them there.
But I did finally make it to Puerto Madryn.
The hostel here in Puerto Madryn, is SUPER nice. I got in and went and hung out at the beach for awhile. The area is so strange here because the land looks like this brown scrub brush desert (very AZ), but then next to it is the bluest of blue oceans! The contrast in colors is amazing!
For those of you not in the Facebook loop, I got up for sunrise this morning, since I knew it would be the last time for awhile I could see sunrise at the beach. yep 5:45am I was up and out the door. The sunrise was absolutely gorgeous.
Here are a couple of pics.
Well somehow in that process, I dropped my camera in the sand (I have taken this camera with me to the beach a MILLION times by the way and NOTHING has ever happened!) and it is now ruined. To say I am sad/ticked off at myself would be quite the understatement. I had plans to see penguins and dolphins today, but ending up canceling it since I needed to use the money to buy a camera. yea, pretty much stinks. So I post this all on Facebook and my brother decides to "raise" $ for me to get me a new camera since apparently it is going to be quite expensive to buy one down here. He unfort knows since the same thing happened to him and Laura when they were traveling down here. I am truly humbled by his generous spirit - something I definitely need to learn to imitate. The penguins WILL be seen though, just not this trip. Apparently in Oct/Nov/Dec whales come over here to breed (or feed, not sure really) and I have already started planning that trip. So I will def be seeing the penguins when I return at the end of 2010.
So I have just been chillin´in Puerto Madryn today. I found a cool Oceanography museum and I will be off to the beach here in a bit after my photos are all downloaded. I am taking a 9pm overnight bus to Bariloche tonight. I will spend a day or two there before making my way up to Santiago.
Well off to the beach now!
love and miss you all!
Ok to get this blog started, the first thing you have to do is to think of the typical Italian accent in your head (you know, like Godfather, Sopranos…). got it? Now, instead of saying the words in English, say them in Spanish...now, you have an idea of what the Argentinan accent sounds like. Throw in some “sh”´s for ll´s or y´s and you are good to go! LOL It´s really funny to hear actually and quite difficult to understand at times as well!
On Thursday, (1/14), I took a 2 hour bus to Colonia, Uruguay. This is a SUPER cute tourist town. It has shops, restuarants, beaches (didn´t get to those though) and old artifacts/museums to see. I grabbed lunch and then walked around for awhille just enjoying the scenery.
I found the lighthouse here and spent the dollar to go up to the top. Here is a pic of the lighthouse and me at the top of the lighthouse.
After that I took a boat across the Rio de la Plata. Apparently this is the widest river in the world (haven´t actually checked that fact out yet though, but it was pretty wide!). It takes 3 hours to cross from Montevideo and 1 hour to cross from Colonia. Fortunately, it was a very calm ride!
In Buenos Aires, my friend Silvia had her younger brother come and meet me at the boat terminal and help me get to where was I staying. I was able to stay with single girl from church named Marina for the few days I was there. I hung out with her and another girl Silvia and somehow completely missed taking a pic of them…how did I manage that?
Since the next day was Friday and most people were working, Pablo (Silvia´s brother) came and met me again to take me on a tour of Buenos Aires (he is currently unemployed so he had the free time!) I can´t even begin to describe the journey we took that day. We just kept walking and walking and walking and walking and walking and..well you get the point. We started about 1pm and ended around 7pm, with only a few rest stops. To say I was exhuasted after walking in the heat for 5-6 hours, doesn´t quite describe it! LOL!
But I did get to see an amazing amount of the city. It is definitely bustling like NY, but the city has a very old european feel to it.
We started off at this huge cemetary they have.
Eva Peron is buired here (think “don´t cry for me argentina”). This is a photo of her site.
Photos of the city:
I met Silvia later and we went out and had a wonderful dinner together. We ended up eating at this local grill place. We got this HUGE piece of beef, chicken breast, HUGE plate of fries and a 1.5 liter bottle of Coke all for like $13/14 TOTAL! Unbelieveable deal! To our right were these two old guys who started talking to us after seeing all the food we had managed to order, without realizng it. Then there were two young guys (like 18/19yrs old) to our left who had a guitar. Alter they had finished their meal, the older guys asked them to play for everywhere. We then spent the next two hours just hanging out listening to them play guitar. They played everything from Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd (english songs for me) to Argentian artists. Another guy at a different table even joined in on the singing sometimes. It was like some movie where everyone breaks out into song and dance! SO SUPER fun!
**side note. People in PY seem to eat dinner around like 9/10pm. People in Uruguay and Argentina don´t eat dinner until like 11pm! Our dinner at this grill place started at like 11pm and we were there until like 1:30am!
Saturday we woke up to rain, so we actually didn´t do that much day at all. But after my 5 million mile trek the day before, I was more than willing to just chill out!
Sunday I got to go to the Buenos Aires church. Everyone was so sweet and so excited to say hello to me. After service, I hung out with a few singles and saw a bit more of the city. We went to this really pretty rose garden area. I would love to come back and visit in the spring when a) it wouldn´t be blazing hot like it was that day and b) I am sure more of the flowers would be in bloom. But there was a huge lake and just green area everywhere – so pretty!
Sunday night I hopped on an overnight bus to Puerto Madryn. The bus ride was fairly uneventful. The only downside was about an tour outside of Puerto Madryn, the police were pulling people over for a drug check - like 6 police officers and a dog all got onto the bus. Turns out two 20-something boys on our bus ended up having drugs. So we all had to sit there and wait for about an hour and a half. We finally ended up leaving them there.
But I did finally make it to Puerto Madryn.
The hostel here in Puerto Madryn, is SUPER nice. I got in and went and hung out at the beach for awhile. The area is so strange here because the land looks like this brown scrub brush desert (very AZ), but then next to it is the bluest of blue oceans! The contrast in colors is amazing!
For those of you not in the Facebook loop, I got up for sunrise this morning, since I knew it would be the last time for awhile I could see sunrise at the beach. yep 5:45am I was up and out the door. The sunrise was absolutely gorgeous.
Here are a couple of pics.
Well somehow in that process, I dropped my camera in the sand (I have taken this camera with me to the beach a MILLION times by the way and NOTHING has ever happened!) and it is now ruined. To say I am sad/ticked off at myself would be quite the understatement. I had plans to see penguins and dolphins today, but ending up canceling it since I needed to use the money to buy a camera. yea, pretty much stinks. So I post this all on Facebook and my brother decides to "raise" $ for me to get me a new camera since apparently it is going to be quite expensive to buy one down here. He unfort knows since the same thing happened to him and Laura when they were traveling down here. I am truly humbled by his generous spirit - something I definitely need to learn to imitate. The penguins WILL be seen though, just not this trip. Apparently in Oct/Nov/Dec whales come over here to breed (or feed, not sure really) and I have already started planning that trip. So I will def be seeing the penguins when I return at the end of 2010.
So I have just been chillin´in Puerto Madryn today. I found a cool Oceanography museum and I will be off to the beach here in a bit after my photos are all downloaded. I am taking a 9pm overnight bus to Bariloche tonight. I will spend a day or two there before making my way up to Santiago.
Well off to the beach now!
love and miss you all!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Uruguay
If you are looking for a location with a big city, super friendly people, beaches and nice weather, then Uruguay is the place for you! Not entirely sure why, but I have always wanted to visit Uruguay and so this of course had to be my first stop on this month long trip of mine! The whole country just has a really good vibe to it . Montevideo has a NY look but with fewer people and nicer people. The country has beaches, but also these cool forests with oak/maple-like trees and some evergreens. It has been hot during the day, but then this super cool breeze comes in at night and cools everything down. I am really enjoying this country a lot! One plus I would give the FL beaches over the UY beaches though is that the ocean water is MUCH warmer!
So, I took a plane to Montevideo on Thursday (1/7) and spent the night in a local hostel. Here is a view of Montevideo from the plane.
After that I took a 4 hour bus ride to a town called La Paloma. It is a really cute beach town just east of Montevideo. I found the hostel, grabbed a bite to eat and then hit the beach! The ocean reminds me A LOT of the ocean off the coast of California. The waves can be big here and the water is CRAZY cold. It actually took my breath away a bit when I finally jumped all the way in! After trying to body surf a bit and getting tossed by the waves, I decided it was time to just chill on the beach! There were tons of people hanging out on this Friday. I noticed that many people loved to play this kind of paddle ball game on the beach. Two people have tennis raquet-size ping-pong paddles and they hit what looks to be like a racquet ball back and forth to each other. Tons of people were playing this!
It started to get pretty chilly, so after like 4 hours I decided to head back to the hostel to shower and change. Across the street from the hostel was this cool arts and crafts fair going on. Tons of booths with local crafts, even some clowns/jugglers for the kids to watch. I bought a cool necklace and ate some fair food. Once place was putting cubes of ham and cheese on a shish-kabob stick. Then dipping it into some kind of batter and then frying it. Prettty tasty actually!
The next day I took a bus to Punta del Este – another big beach town on a penninsula. I actually ended up staying in a hostel west of the city in a place called Maldonado. Sooo not impressed with directions on these hostel websites b/c I have spent a lot of time walking around asking people where to go!(the directions for this place was “hostel is 800meters from bus terminal” ummm??? ) But I eventually found it. I ended up taking s short nap before heading off to the city. I walked A TON that day. I didn´t necessarily mean to walk most of the pennisula there, but it just sort of happened! I did walk to the very end point of the penninsula and took some photos – if you look close enough, I am sure you can see Antarctica behind me! LOL
After that, I ended up finding another little arts and crafts area where I was able to finally sit down and eat and chill for a bit. Most of the other restaurants I came across weren´t open at 6pm!
I then made my way to a beach on the west side so that I could sit down and watch the sun set! It was so pretty just to sit and watch the sun dip below the horizon. In the final stages of the sun setting, everyone just stopped to watch, take pictures and then they all clapped. It was pretty cool!
It was now 9pm, getting dark and time to head back. But I first decided to go see the finger statues in the sand. I don´t really know the story on them, but they are pretty funny to see up close – big too! Only the thumb is shorter than me. After that it really was dark and time to head back! Fortunately I found some other hostel people on the bus and I followed them back!
The next day I went to another hostel east of Punta del Este in a town called Manatieles. This is a much smaller beach town (only one road with shops and restaurants). But TONS of beach area! I grabbed some lunch and then spent another 4 hours on the beach! (definitely improving my tan down here LOL). The water was SUPER cold here as well so I didn´t spend much time in it. I did however decide to do the bungee-trampoline thing they had set up on the beach. It was super fun, super exhuasting and definitely made me super motion sick! But I am still glad that I did it!
Monday I came back into Montevideo and am currently staying with a young married couple from my church (for those who don´t know, my church has sister churches all over the world). Pablo and Rosa and their one-year old daughter have been nice enough to take me in for a few days.
I have quickly realized that I am not really hostel material. I have stayed in a room with anywhere from 4-6 girls. Most of them are 20-somethings who want to LEAVE for the party at like 3-4am. I´d rather try and sleep so that I can enjoy the sites the next day. Unfortunately, these two ideas haven´t always meshed well...aka I haven´t really slept well since I left PY. So I am VERY grateful to be in an apartment with friends and have my own room. I am going to do my best to limit my hostel staying for the rest of my trip!
Tuesday (1/12) , while Pablo and Rosa worked, I spent the day touring around Montevideo. I hit the old part of the city, which is really cool. It starts with Plaza Independencia, which has a statue of the founder of UY. Behind the statue is this HUGE door. Apparently the city used to be surrounded by this huge wall and this door is the only thing left of it.Behind that is this cool pedestrian area filled with tons of shops and restaurants. It was really nice to walk around here.
This is a photo of Palacio Legislativo (some type of government building).
Here is a picture of the coast
I decided to stay in Montevideo another night. I have done a TON of walking in the last week, and decided I just needed a day to chill, download photos and rest. Tomorrow I will visit Colonia, UY a city north of Montevideo. I will walk around there a bit, then take a boat over to Buenos Aires. My plan is to stay in Buenos Aires until Monday.
I have been making a list of observations about UY – here are the top 5 I thought you all might find interesting.
1) For those of you who know Spanish, the accent here and in Argentina is very different! Y´s and LL´s make a “sh” sound. So for yo, it is “show” or calle is “cay shay”. VERY differnt and rather difficult for me to understand sometimes!
2) When greeting people on Paraguay, you kiss each other on both cheeks. However, guys only greet girls this way. They will usually just shake hands or something with another guy. In Uruguay however, you greet with just one kiss and everyone does it. Girl/girl, girl/guy and even guy/guy.
3) Unlike Paraguay, and even some places in the US (ha!) car drivers will actually stop and let pedestrians cross. In PY, you have to decide if you can cross fast enough before the approaching car will hit you!
4) Smallest bill is a 20 peso bill, after that you have a 10,5,2 and 1 peso coin. Everyone counts back your change to you too.
5) “Normal” pizza here comes without mozzerella cheese. You have to pay more for the mozzerella cheese! (WHAT?)
So, I took a plane to Montevideo on Thursday (1/7) and spent the night in a local hostel. Here is a view of Montevideo from the plane.
After that I took a 4 hour bus ride to a town called La Paloma. It is a really cute beach town just east of Montevideo. I found the hostel, grabbed a bite to eat and then hit the beach! The ocean reminds me A LOT of the ocean off the coast of California. The waves can be big here and the water is CRAZY cold. It actually took my breath away a bit when I finally jumped all the way in! After trying to body surf a bit and getting tossed by the waves, I decided it was time to just chill on the beach! There were tons of people hanging out on this Friday. I noticed that many people loved to play this kind of paddle ball game on the beach. Two people have tennis raquet-size ping-pong paddles and they hit what looks to be like a racquet ball back and forth to each other. Tons of people were playing this!
It started to get pretty chilly, so after like 4 hours I decided to head back to the hostel to shower and change. Across the street from the hostel was this cool arts and crafts fair going on. Tons of booths with local crafts, even some clowns/jugglers for the kids to watch. I bought a cool necklace and ate some fair food. Once place was putting cubes of ham and cheese on a shish-kabob stick. Then dipping it into some kind of batter and then frying it. Prettty tasty actually!
The next day I took a bus to Punta del Este – another big beach town on a penninsula. I actually ended up staying in a hostel west of the city in a place called Maldonado. Sooo not impressed with directions on these hostel websites b/c I have spent a lot of time walking around asking people where to go!(the directions for this place was “hostel is 800meters from bus terminal” ummm??? ) But I eventually found it. I ended up taking s short nap before heading off to the city. I walked A TON that day. I didn´t necessarily mean to walk most of the pennisula there, but it just sort of happened! I did walk to the very end point of the penninsula and took some photos – if you look close enough, I am sure you can see Antarctica behind me! LOL
After that, I ended up finding another little arts and crafts area where I was able to finally sit down and eat and chill for a bit. Most of the other restaurants I came across weren´t open at 6pm!
I then made my way to a beach on the west side so that I could sit down and watch the sun set! It was so pretty just to sit and watch the sun dip below the horizon. In the final stages of the sun setting, everyone just stopped to watch, take pictures and then they all clapped. It was pretty cool!
It was now 9pm, getting dark and time to head back. But I first decided to go see the finger statues in the sand. I don´t really know the story on them, but they are pretty funny to see up close – big too! Only the thumb is shorter than me. After that it really was dark and time to head back! Fortunately I found some other hostel people on the bus and I followed them back!
The next day I went to another hostel east of Punta del Este in a town called Manatieles. This is a much smaller beach town (only one road with shops and restaurants). But TONS of beach area! I grabbed some lunch and then spent another 4 hours on the beach! (definitely improving my tan down here LOL). The water was SUPER cold here as well so I didn´t spend much time in it. I did however decide to do the bungee-trampoline thing they had set up on the beach. It was super fun, super exhuasting and definitely made me super motion sick! But I am still glad that I did it!
Monday I came back into Montevideo and am currently staying with a young married couple from my church (for those who don´t know, my church has sister churches all over the world). Pablo and Rosa and their one-year old daughter have been nice enough to take me in for a few days.
I have quickly realized that I am not really hostel material. I have stayed in a room with anywhere from 4-6 girls. Most of them are 20-somethings who want to LEAVE for the party at like 3-4am. I´d rather try and sleep so that I can enjoy the sites the next day. Unfortunately, these two ideas haven´t always meshed well...aka I haven´t really slept well since I left PY. So I am VERY grateful to be in an apartment with friends and have my own room. I am going to do my best to limit my hostel staying for the rest of my trip!
Tuesday (1/12) , while Pablo and Rosa worked, I spent the day touring around Montevideo. I hit the old part of the city, which is really cool. It starts with Plaza Independencia, which has a statue of the founder of UY. Behind the statue is this HUGE door. Apparently the city used to be surrounded by this huge wall and this door is the only thing left of it.Behind that is this cool pedestrian area filled with tons of shops and restaurants. It was really nice to walk around here.
This is a photo of Palacio Legislativo (some type of government building).
Here is a picture of the coast
I decided to stay in Montevideo another night. I have done a TON of walking in the last week, and decided I just needed a day to chill, download photos and rest. Tomorrow I will visit Colonia, UY a city north of Montevideo. I will walk around there a bit, then take a boat over to Buenos Aires. My plan is to stay in Buenos Aires until Monday.
I have been making a list of observations about UY – here are the top 5 I thought you all might find interesting.
1) For those of you who know Spanish, the accent here and in Argentina is very different! Y´s and LL´s make a “sh” sound. So for yo, it is “show” or calle is “cay shay”. VERY differnt and rather difficult for me to understand sometimes!
2) When greeting people on Paraguay, you kiss each other on both cheeks. However, guys only greet girls this way. They will usually just shake hands or something with another guy. In Uruguay however, you greet with just one kiss and everyone does it. Girl/girl, girl/guy and even guy/guy.
3) Unlike Paraguay, and even some places in the US (ha!) car drivers will actually stop and let pedestrians cross. In PY, you have to decide if you can cross fast enough before the approaching car will hit you!
4) Smallest bill is a 20 peso bill, after that you have a 10,5,2 and 1 peso coin. Everyone counts back your change to you too.
5) “Normal” pizza here comes without mozzerella cheese. You have to pay more for the mozzerella cheese! (WHAT?)
Sorry if this post was a bit lengthy, but with all my beach time it was just hard to get to an internet cafe! LOL ;)
Hope you all are doing well!
hugs
hugs
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Hello and Happy New Year to you all!
Thought I would post a few quick photos before I head off on my next adventure. I am leaving tomorrow for a month long trip around Uruguay, Argentina and Chile! Right now school is on summer vacation, so I am going to take advantage of my vacation time and see more of South America! I will definitely be blogging and posting photos to Facebook - so stay tuned! =)
My sister left today after visiting with me for almost 2 weeks. We had a FABULOUS time together!
We spent Christmas with Yessi and her family (parents, brothers...). The tradition here is to eat a big meal at like 11pm on Christmas Eve. Then "ring in xmas" together at midnight. Then everyone opens their presents at midnight and sleeps for a lot of xmas day!
This is a picture of the mangers they have here. Most every house has one - they vary in size. But apparently you always leave fruit out for Baby Jesus to eat.
This is a drink we had that night called “clerico.” It is wine, chopped up fruit (apples, pineapple, bananas…) and then usually soda or juice – ours had soda. It was quite tasty!
However, I did bring the Christmas cookie decorating tradition to Paraguay. My mom was nice enough to send down all the fun goodies to decorate the cookies (everyone LOVED LOVED the red hots!) Most of you have participated in that with me, so you know how fun it can be! Everyone loved it down here as well! In fact, Yessi said that I am required to send her the cookie decorations every Christmas so that she can keep the tradition going!
After xmas, Anne and I headed off to see the Iguazu Waterfalls together. It really is just a beautiful place. There are a series of multiple waterfalls. It rained a bunch that morning, so it was a bit foggy/misty that day. But they were STILL so gorgeous!
We got completely soaked from all the mist and the rain, but it was worth it when a butterfly landed on my shoulder and started drinking some of the water from my shirt – SOO COOL!
While we were in Brazil we ate a fun dessert called Tapioca. It seems to basically be Brazil’s version of the crepe, but it is made from tapioca. They cook the powder on the grill first and then fill it with sweet or savory items. We went for strawberries, chocolate, coconut and condensed milk – SUPER yummy! (Anne and I have decided that unlike people in the US, the latins definitely have a love affair with Dulce de Leche and condensed milk! LOL)
For New Year’s we ate dinner with some friends at another couple’s house. Apparently everyone is supposed to wear white for New Year’s Eve, which is why we are in all white here.
After everyone had rung in New Year’s with their families, (about 1am), everyone (mostly singles from church, but a few marrieds too) started coming over to this house to get the party started. I danced until about 4am. We left after that though since we had just gotten back from Brazil that day. I am told though that people continued to stay and dance well after 6am! We slept for most of New Year ’s Day! LOL
Frank and Liz, the kids and Anne and I all went to a small town nearby called Aregua. We ate at this nice restaurant outside. It is mango season here and there are mangos everywhere. There seem to be two types of mangos. One is huge and purplish on the outside – probably the type most of you are familiar with. The other type is smaller and more yellow. The problem with this type is that it is very stringy inside the skin and therefore hard to eat the fruit/juice. Frank taught us the best way to eat them. You first knead the fruit. Then tear a small piece off the top and just squeeze/drink all the yummy juice out. I am officially addicted!
We also visited the lake nearby – very pretty.The water was super warm, but apparently not super clean!
I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday with friends and family!
I can’t wait to post photos from my trip!
hugs
Thought I would post a few quick photos before I head off on my next adventure. I am leaving tomorrow for a month long trip around Uruguay, Argentina and Chile! Right now school is on summer vacation, so I am going to take advantage of my vacation time and see more of South America! I will definitely be blogging and posting photos to Facebook - so stay tuned! =)
My sister left today after visiting with me for almost 2 weeks. We had a FABULOUS time together!
We spent Christmas with Yessi and her family (parents, brothers...). The tradition here is to eat a big meal at like 11pm on Christmas Eve. Then "ring in xmas" together at midnight. Then everyone opens their presents at midnight and sleeps for a lot of xmas day!
This is a picture of the mangers they have here. Most every house has one - they vary in size. But apparently you always leave fruit out for Baby Jesus to eat.
This is a drink we had that night called “clerico.” It is wine, chopped up fruit (apples, pineapple, bananas…) and then usually soda or juice – ours had soda. It was quite tasty!
However, I did bring the Christmas cookie decorating tradition to Paraguay. My mom was nice enough to send down all the fun goodies to decorate the cookies (everyone LOVED LOVED the red hots!) Most of you have participated in that with me, so you know how fun it can be! Everyone loved it down here as well! In fact, Yessi said that I am required to send her the cookie decorations every Christmas so that she can keep the tradition going!
After xmas, Anne and I headed off to see the Iguazu Waterfalls together. It really is just a beautiful place. There are a series of multiple waterfalls. It rained a bunch that morning, so it was a bit foggy/misty that day. But they were STILL so gorgeous!
We got completely soaked from all the mist and the rain, but it was worth it when a butterfly landed on my shoulder and started drinking some of the water from my shirt – SOO COOL!
While we were in Brazil we ate a fun dessert called Tapioca. It seems to basically be Brazil’s version of the crepe, but it is made from tapioca. They cook the powder on the grill first and then fill it with sweet or savory items. We went for strawberries, chocolate, coconut and condensed milk – SUPER yummy! (Anne and I have decided that unlike people in the US, the latins definitely have a love affair with Dulce de Leche and condensed milk! LOL)
For New Year’s we ate dinner with some friends at another couple’s house. Apparently everyone is supposed to wear white for New Year’s Eve, which is why we are in all white here.
After everyone had rung in New Year’s with their families, (about 1am), everyone (mostly singles from church, but a few marrieds too) started coming over to this house to get the party started. I danced until about 4am. We left after that though since we had just gotten back from Brazil that day. I am told though that people continued to stay and dance well after 6am! We slept for most of New Year ’s Day! LOL
Frank and Liz, the kids and Anne and I all went to a small town nearby called Aregua. We ate at this nice restaurant outside. It is mango season here and there are mangos everywhere. There seem to be two types of mangos. One is huge and purplish on the outside – probably the type most of you are familiar with. The other type is smaller and more yellow. The problem with this type is that it is very stringy inside the skin and therefore hard to eat the fruit/juice. Frank taught us the best way to eat them. You first knead the fruit. Then tear a small piece off the top and just squeeze/drink all the yummy juice out. I am officially addicted!
We also visited the lake nearby – very pretty.The water was super warm, but apparently not super clean!
I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday with friends and family!
I can’t wait to post photos from my trip!
hugs
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