Final Thoughts

So I'M HOME!  I've actually been home for about 3 weeks now, have gotten some temp work and am on my way to full time work.  But it doesn't feel like I've been home that long as I'm still kind of settling in.  Thanks to all who visited Toma Mate!  I'm going to post one final "Things I wish I had known before going to Buenos Aires post" as I feel like there was a lot of stuff I learned the hard way that might help out future visitors.  I also may or may not finish my top ten list.  Otherwise I'd say this blog is just about done.  I think I may be addicted though, so I will continue to post at my new blog: http://misseliz.blogspot.com .  Take a gander if you wish & thanks again for reading :)  

No. 2 Sweet Jesus alive, the Argentines know how to do dessert!

Right before leaving for this trip I spent a few weeks living with my parents. One morning I came across my dad unwrapping a Payday at 9 am.

"Dad, what are you doing? It's 9 o'clock in the morning. Shouldn't you be having cereal or toast? An English muffin perhaps?"

His reply: "Elizabeth, I'm an adult. I can do whatever I want."

I've found that the Argentines have a similar attitude when it comes to their love affair with sweets.

(Imaginary dialogue between me and the population of Argentina)
Me: "But you're thin and gorgeous; shouldn't you be eating healthy foods low in calories and sugar to stay this way?"

Argentines: "Soy Argentino. I can do whatever I want. I'll eat a breakfast of medialunas filled with dulce de leche, a lunch of ice cream, alfajores for a snack and still be más flaco y guapo que vos. Jejeje."

I seriously don't understand how (especially the women) are able to stay so trim with the abundance of sweet things all around and their steady consumption of them. It's incredibly annoying, as being the child of a man with not one sweet tooth, but a mouth full of sweet canines, incisors, bicuspids, and molars, I have quite the addiction to sweets myself, however I am lacking the Argentine mentality or superpower or whatever it is that keeps sweets from taking up residence in one's waistline. But anyway, the point of all this is that Argentines love their desserts and I am going to miss their unabashed, sin verguenza manner of eating them.

This, my friends, is a land of desserts, and delicious, scrumdidlyumptious ones at that.

First of all, there are bakeries ALL over the place. Seriously, you pass one every few blocks, where medialunas (croissants) and other facturas (pastries) are abundant and cheap. One of my favorite cafe snacks is tea with a few medialunas on the side.




Another treat that you can get just about anywhere is the alfajor. There are all sorts of varieties. There are artesanal alfajores (left), which you're likely to encounter at a bakery and are essentially dulce de leche sandwiched between two soft sugar cookies sprinkled with coconut, and sometimes dipped in chocolate. There are also a number of packaged ones you can get at the grocery store or at kioscos. While I don't like those nearly as much because they don't have the same homemade quality, they still are pretty darn delicious. Havanna is probably the most popular packaged alfajor and kind of an elitist brand with its use of silver and gold foil wrappers and cost that is about double the price of other brands.

As I said, alfajores are filled with dulce de leche. However, this isn't the only way to eat the caramel spread that has been called the Argentine counterpart to America's peanut butter. Dulce de leche can top, fill, be drizzled upon (or globbed onto depending on your mood) fruits, cookies, pastries--you name it. I've even witnessed Argentines eat it plain on a spoon. My favorite thing to do was dip granny smith slices into it as it has a very similar texture and taste to that of caramel apple dip you can get in most grocery stores back home.









For the equivalent of about 20 cents each, the bon-o-bon is quite possibly one of my favorites, with its light crispy shell and creamy, smooth peanuty-flavored filling, all dipped in milk chocolate. The best part about bon-o-bons is that they're so rich just one will satisfy your chocolate/sweet cravings. Though when offered more it's pretty hard to say no.



So yes, these are the sweets I am going to miss, though Lord knows it might be a good thing for me to get back home and no longer have the temptation, as one can only justify so much dessert eating after going running. However, living at home I probably will have no problem getting my dessert fix as my mom is a bakeaholic.

Sidenote: I may or may not be bringing home some of these delectable delights, so if you're interested in trying one, give me a holler!

The end is near...

This is my last week and I've decided the best way to finish up is to do a 'top 10 (or so) things I'm going to miss about Buenos Aires' series, though not in order as I'm coming up with them as I go.

No. 1 The street art of Elodio
We first noticed the work of Elodio--a 23 year old Chilean street artist who has art all over Buenos Aires and Chile--while living in our first apartment in San Telmo. I don't really know much else about him, though via google I've managed to find his blog, photostream and YouTube profile. Though there is a lot of street art in San Telmo, Elodio seems to be one of the more prolific artists, and you can encounter his li'l guys every couple of blocks. I didn't realize just how much ground he covers until Eriks and I moved to San Telmo a second time and got to know the neighborhood even better. We frequently came across new Elodio people while walking to UBA, church, or Parque Lezasma. His consistent style makes his art instantly recognizable, and whether stumbling upon a new work or passing one because you know it's there, seeing Elodio's work is a real treat. I found myself intentionally walking down the calle Peru to class just so I could pass his robot, boy riding a dog, and boy holding a teddy bear. While one could talk about his use of color, balance, design, honestly, I think the main reason I like his work so much is that it's just so dang cute. And, of course, it includes a depiction of a robot and ewok-like dogs and teddy bears. Now that I'm in Recoleta I don't regularly pass it on my walk to school, and I'm already missing the warm little happy feeling I get seeing it. If you find yourself in San Telmo, keep an eye out for the street art of Elodio, though it's hard to miss.

Elodio Blog
Elodio Photostream
Elodio YouTube

Changing roommates

Eriks left on April 15th--his 7 months were up and he had a family wedding to get back to. As a kind of final activity we went to dinner and to see Rent with some friends, which was fun, though because it was in Spanish and I had never seen it before, I totally couldn't for the life of me figure out who had AIDS and who didn't. Luckily Laura and Gwen both knew the English version quite well and were able to fill me in during intermission. It was a




really nice time and a good last thing to do. While I was completely willing to go out to fancy dinner (like we did before Moni left) or do whatever else Eriks wanted to do his last day in Buenos Aires, he (being Eriks) decided what he really wanted to do was just have a movie marathon with yummy snacks as, after living here for so long we've seen/done most of the things we've wanted to do, and this just gave us the opportunity to relax and hang out. Saying goodbye was pretty hard as I'd gotten so used to having the guy around, but I know we'll always be good friends and we'll see each other again sometime in the near future.

I was a little worried about getting lonely being so used to having a roommate to watch movies with, eat the food I cooked, go to church with, play games with, etc. However I've kept busy going to Spanish classes and going out with friends from those Spanish classes, and since he left I've consistently had new roomies to fill his shoes. The first was a girl named Jenny who is down from San Diego to teach English for a year. I met her through Gwen (a friend from CMRS also down here doing the ex-pat thang for 7 months now); apparently they went through the same TOEFL program and their teacher put them in touch. Jenny didn't have anywhere to live, and as Eriks had just left and there was an empty futon in the apartment, I offered it to her until our lease ran up. She stayed for just about a week and it was really great. She had brought down Season 2 of The Office and Pride & Prejudice which made for a few good relaxing nights. We also went on a couple of runs around Puerto Madero together and went out to eat and to bars. Jenny managed to find an apartment a few days before I checked out my flat and went to Azul for the second time, which worked out perfectly as it meant that I got a few days to myself but wasn't living completely alone since Eriks left.

And now I have these two girls as my roomies. We get along for the most part, though Bonnie sometimes gets a little too fresh, occasionally chewing on my hair when I'm sitting on the couch and kneading my stomach and (strangely) boob/chest area. I'm cat-sitting for Steve, a friend from church who is away on a business trip (he works for the U.S. Embassy). I really lucked out as otherwise I'm not sure where I would have lived these last two weeks in Buenos Aires. I guess I could have done the staying in a hostel thing, but let me tell you, living in this 3 bedroom 4 bath apartment on the nicest street in Recoleta is a lot more comfortable! It was kind of a trip going from living on the border of La Boca to living in the most luxurious of barrios, with the Plaza Hotel across the street and a Louis Vuitton boutique kitty corner to the apartment entrance. Though I'd say at this point in my life, San Telmo is probably more suited to my lifestyle, it's been nice getting to reside in a slightly more pampered, pleasant looking part of town. It's also great because I'm only a few blocks from the MALBA and a couple of miles from the Palermo parks, which is ideal for running. (I've started training(ish) for the SF Marathon in August. I don't know if I'll actually do it, but it's got me running regularly which is good.) While the cats as roommates aren't that different from Eriks in the sense that they get hungry a lot, I feed them a lot, they like to watch movies with me and they're are pretty talkative, I think the whole not having opposable thumbs thing and not speaking anything but cat language makes me still miss having Eriks around a little, as it means they can't even offer (regardless of whether they actually do or not) to do the dishes or participate in an occasional game of Palabras Cruzadas or Cribbage. Though perhaps I'd actually win if I played them...

But at this point I've only got about 5 days until I go home to a house that's constantly full of people, between my parents, Max our German exchange student, and friends/visitors, so maybe I should value this time of having a lot of living space all to myself with only two cats to share it with.

Azul

Eriks and I were asked to accompany a group from St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Bloomington, Minnesota as translators during their week-long trip down here working with their sister church in Azul. No one in the group except for Pastor Mark spoke much Spanish (and Mark at a beginning level), they were keen to have a translator. They found out that Eriks was down here from his grandma, who is a member of their church, and got in touch with him to see if he'd be interested in filling that position. Eriks, thinking his two classes at the UBA weren't quite enough, asked if I could join and if we could act as a translating duo. Mark said they'd love to have us both, and so there we were, committed to going on a church trip as translators. I have to admit, I was quite nervous being the primary translator, and up until actually arriving in Azul, we had no idea exactly what kind of work the church would be doing other than that there had been some talk about a meeting about the budget. However, I figured that if God wanted us to do this, He'd give us the words.
And He did. We made it through a lot of conversations and situations I don't think there was any way for us to prepare for. We were faced with a variety of tasks, from translating prayers to breaking down the language barrier in counseling sessions; in one day I found myself going from translating a discussion about the future of the set-up of the church's preschool with a state representative, to being on a local Argentine radio station interviewing the pastors and staff of St. Luke's. While by the end of it all we were both exhausted, we both feel this trip was such a blessing. Through it, not only did we get to meet and befriend some wonderful people from St. Luke's, we also got to have an experience that we both believed our time down here was missing. Yes, we'd traveled a lot and gotten to know some great people, and through church I'd done a bit of volunteer work here and there. However, we both felt that, for the most part, our time down here had been kind of, for lack of a better word, selfish. This being said, the trip to Azul, coming near the end of Eriks's time here, was the perfect final





activity for both of us because it allowed us to see a part of the country you don't really get to know as a tourist and to truly get to know the people--to eat dinner with them, to converse with them in their homes, to befriend them. And I think we both felt (even though in a small way) it was an opportunity for us to leave this country that has treated us so well, a little bit better off. Plus, it was so much fun working with the kids at the preschool (I think I was missing working with kids because I haven't babysat in over 7 months!). Eriks learned how to hold babies, which is good since he's going to see his new godson for the first time this summer. It was also great to really connect with one of the families, the Olivas, as I tend to like having a family away from home when I go to other countries. There are a ton of different ways that I feel this trip blessed my life and I just feel so grateful for getting this opportunity. So way to go Grandma Harriet for mentioning we were down here!
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As I said before, I really connected with one of the families. The youngest daughter, Dani, dances and invited me to come to Azul to see her perform last week. So I made the trip one more time a week ago to say goodbye one last time before I leave. It was a really different experience going on my own, and I definitely was missing the whole St. Luke's group and Eriks as the bus pulled into Azul. But it still was a nice trip. Dani was wonderful as Little Red Ridinghood, and I got to have some great conversations with the family over homemade parilla and just hanging out. We also spent Friday in Mar del Plata, which I didn't think I was going to make it to and made me excited to return to the Pacific, which will be in exactly a week. As much at home as I have felt during this trip, meeting such genuinely good people and enjoying myself, I feel content with my time down here coming to an end. It's passed by quickly, but at the same time has been really full in so many wonderful ways. I have no regrets, nothing I wish I could have done or seen, but rather am leaving with a whole suitcase full of stories and memories of experiences--like that in Azul--that I never expected I would blessed with opportunity to have.

Fuego

I almost forgot about something rather interesting/exciting/a bit terrifying that happened in mid-March. In the middle of the night, fast asleep sometime around 3 am we were woken by our doorbell and shouts of "Fuego!" in the courtyard. There was an apartment in our building on fire.
While it didn't spread to any other apartments and no one was inside, after putting on jackets, shoes and grabbing our keys and telephone (in retrospect passports might have been a good idea) we stumbled out into the courtyard and could see giant flames leaping out of the window and licking the outer wall of the apartment a floor above ours and two over. The apartment building was evacuated and we were all left standing out front in the thunder and lightning as firetrucks pulled up and firefighters ran in and out of the building with hoses.
It was all over in a little less than an hour. We heard that it might have been caused by lightening striking a wire, but it's hard to say. I guess that kind of thing happens fairly frequently here. All I know is that no matter how many fire drills you go through, you're never entirely prepared for the real thing.
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After that experience, when the smoke descended upon Buenos Aires a few weeks ago from the fires out in the countryside (if you didn't read about it in the news, check out this BBC article), when I woke up to the smell of smoke and a sore throat, my immediate thought was that it had happened again. Fortunately there wasn't another fire in our apartment building, though it still was pretty awful having to walk around and breath in smoky air. While it made for some rather gorgeous sunsets with the hazy air absorbing the tangerine rays of the sinking sun in the evenings and making the sky kind of glow, I found myself with a constant sore throat and many people were even wearing face masks. While the smoke was deemed 'not dangerous' by officials, it certainly wasn't comfortable and I can't imagine what it would have been like if I had asthma. But after a week and a half it cleared and the BsAs aires were bueno once again.

March: Back in BsAs

It was really nice to get back to Buenos Aires. I'm not quite sure how people go backpacking for so long. I love traveling, but I don't know if I could live in hostels for more than a month. The apartment ended up working out perfectly size-wise and in terms of location. Plus it had a DVD player which was excellent because it meant we could actually watch movies we picked out, rather than the random assortment provided by Argentine television stations or bus services. There was a movie store a few blocks away that we quickly became regulars at.

It was really great to catch up with people from church and friends. Eriks friend Allison also came to visit which was fun and a good reason to stop bumming around watching movies but actually go out (we had a pretty lazy first week back claiming that we were 'recovering' from our trip). I also started a two-month long 2 hr/day, 4 days/week Spanish language course at the University of Buenos Aires which I'm still taking and really enjoying, especially because the people in the class are fun and come from a variety of different countries: england, scotland, brazil, france, china...the list goes on.
Between classes and visitors and movie watching the month passed by quickly. Before we knew it we were celebrating Easter with people from church at Kevin's and packing for our final trip while in Argentina acting as translators for a group from Eriks's church in Minnesota, St. Luke's. I think I'll wait to post about that experience as it deserves its own post.

Last Stop: Iguazu

Our final destination was Iguazu Falls. It took about 26 hours to get there which was way too much time. I actually ended up getting sick at the end (I think I caught some kind of flu) which meant our first day in Iguazu I spent in bed at the hostel. Luckily I was feeling much better by the next day.
Iguazu was a great way to end our trip. Even though it was overcast, the falls were gorgeous. While Iguazu was a bit touristy and felt almost like a zoo with a little train that takes you to the Gargantua del Diablo (Devil's Throat) of the falls and well paved paths to the other vistas.
Iguazu was really enjoyable, though I have to say I enjoyed going to Machu Picchu, El Calafate and Ushuaia more. At the same time I feel pretty lucky to have gotten to go and for this trip overall.
That evening we left for Buenos Aires, both pleased with how the trip went and ready to settle down for a little while.

Salta

We spent a week in Salta and it was lovely. After a very active first two and a half weeks of our trip, we decided to take our week at Salta as a time to relax. And it was exactly the place to do that as the pace of life there is pretty slow. We walked around the city a lot, got ice cream, hung out in the plazas, read, and went to the movies. Three times. I actually already blogged about this while I was in Salta, so I'm not going to spend too much time on it and if you want to read it, here's the link. But here is a brief overview of the main things we did in Salta and some photos:

Walking to the top of Cerro de San Bernardo















These are some views of Salta from the top. We decided to walk though you can ride in the gondolas.













This (female) dog followed us all the way from our hostel up the hill. We couldn't lose her or figure out why in the world she wanted to walk up some 1,000 steps with us. We discovered she was female on the way back down the hill, as a male dog joined our party of three, trailing closely behind her.



Trips to Hoyts
We went to Hoyts three days in a row. We started out with There Will Be Blood and loved it. The next day we saw Charlie Wilson's War and then the following day Cloverfield, and they progressively got not as good but it was still fun to go to the movies.

A desperate attempt to get back to Argentina

As we hadn't booked any bus tickets ahead of time, getting back into Argentina was quite the ordeal. Unfortunately there wasn't a bus that went directly from Puno to Salta, which I guess is understandable as it's probably in total about a 40 hour journey.
So from Puno we took an overnight bus to Tacna; in Tacna we caught a small hour long bus that took us through customs across the border into Chile. Apparently you can go via taxi, and there were a number of cab drivers who were trying to take us, but (obviously) that's the more expensive route and I was bothered by how persistent they were. So we asked around and found a bus for about a fourth of the price. We were the only foreigners on the bus though and stuck out like sore thumbs, but I was happy to have used my Spanish to avoid a tourist trap.
We arrived in Arica sometime before noon only to discover that all the buses to Salta (or anywhere in Argentina) were booked up until the 30th of February! However there were buses to Calama, a quiet city in northern Chile where there was the potential to catch a bus into Argentina. We booked our tickets right away, converting pesos and leftover Soles to Chilean pesos because they wouldn't take credit cards. The bus didn't leave until that evening around 9pm, and thinking that we weren't going to stay in Chile very long we decided not to get out Chilean pesos, but rather try and live off what we had--about the equivalent of $4USD--for the day. This meant that we spent most of the day on the beach. I was feeling so gross after over 24 hours in buses that I went for a swim in the ocean in my underwear! Luckily there weren't too many people where we were so I think it was okay.
It was extremely hot, so we tried to spend most of the day under palm trees. Even though we put on sunblock, we both managed to get sunburned; however, other than this and feeling overall gross, it was actually a really nice, relaxing day spent playing cards, reading and walking around.
Our big purchases for the bus ride to Calama with our $4 were bottled water, a package of crackers and a bunch of bananas. Hey there big spender. No wonder Eriks lost so much weight on this trip! It ended up being enough to last us until the next morning when we arrived in Calama around 6am. Nothing opened until 7 so we waited around and asked which bus companies had trips into Argentina. Unfortunately there were only two.
Someone was watching out for us, because as it turned out there were only a few more seats available on a second-class bus to Salta with the service Geminis. It didn't leave until the following morning, but after that there was nothing until early March, so we found an ATM and got out enough money to buy those tickets rent a hotel room.
We accidentally took out more Chilean pesos than we actually needed (it's hard doing the math when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of pesos!), but decided that we deserved to have a day of comfort after our roughing it to the extreme, so after showing and napping, we went out for a big lunch and dinner and ice cream too! Calama ended up being a beautiful little city and a wonderful place to take a break from the bus riding.
The following morning we hopped on our bus to Salta. The ride too something like 16 hours but it ended up not being too bad. The desert was beautiful and we even got to see some salt flats which was neat. We got into Salta at about 10pm and boy did it feel good to be back in Argentina!
















desert somewhere in Chile nearing the border of Argentina









Salt flats in northwestern part of Argentina...I'm not quite sure where exactly. It was really neat to see though as we didn't get a chance to go into Bolivia to see the salt flats there.



















Beautiful desert landscapes outside of Jujuy



























The colors of the mountains were unreal; reds, oranges, yellows and even green sometimes (not from plants, but the actual rocks/minerals were a jade green color!)