"Life is like a hot bath. It feels good while you’re in it, but the longer you stay in, the more wrinkled you get."

Let me start off with the title of this post...

So just the other day (today) I was looking through a load of quotes and sayings about life, change, love and the such looking for just the right one that could describe something about my time here (yeah I was trying to get all philosophical... and sound super smart). But the more I looked, the more I just kept thinking of this one that made me laugh... And I really don't have a good reason why I decided it was my favorite, seeing as it's not at all in the least very philosophical. Except maybe that because it made me laugh, I chose it. Because I believe anything that makes you laugh is something good. They've been right along, laughter truly is the medicine in life. That and love. And health. And all that good stuff... but you know, psh, who needs that when you're happy and smiley right? :)

Moving on....

HOLY SWEET MOTHER OF BABY JESUS!(excuse me). 1 WEEK?!! 1 SMALL. TEENY. INSIGNIFICANT. WEEK?!

Yes people, it's true. I will be in the United States of America in:

7 Days 16 Hours 15 Minutes and approximately 53 seconds... 52... 50... 48.... etc.

They always said how fast exchange years go, but even though I had the long days... and long nights, I never really imagined it would go THAT fast. I can't believe it. It's weird. That is the word I've chosen, weird.

Weird to think I will be in a completely different country that I've lived my entire life in but am now not completely accustomed to it.

Weird that I will be seeing the people I love and have missed for almost a year.

Weird after living in such a surreal-like dream world I will be going back to reality.

And of course it's also scary, sad, exciting, good, and crazy.

Now that I've updated you all on that, let me tell you about a little something that happened in this past month I haven't written...

MIS PAPAS estaban en Argentina, conmigo, viajando por 2 semanas!

MY PARENT were in Argentina, with me, traveling for 2 weeks!

It was the most amazing thing getting to see their faces in real life and not over the webcam all the time. Oh and my sister was there too of course ;)

Here's a little of the mischief we got into:

Yes, you guessed it... the windy city of Comodoro Rivadavia.

The family my father lived with in Mendoza 33 years ago.

Horseback riding fun in Mendoza. Cabalgata!

Malia looking quite silly in Bariloche... she broke her ankle after that..... totally kidding.

Rotating restaurants on the top of hills in Bariloche? Ummm.... I think YES.

Buenos Aires middle eastern food restaurant... delish.

That's all for now! I'll be seeing many of you in a week! :D Can't wait!

Besos

K

Weedeos!

Hey peoples!

I have some exciting newssss :) If any of you have read my past blogs and know about the video I made for my sister on her 21st birthday, you probably know I have a youtube account. Recently, I have been uploading videos of Iguazu and will continue with videos of my other journeys and adventures. The link to my channel is:

www.youtube.com/user/KristaReeves

Enjoyyyy!!

Oh and the title of this post relates to a special "hermanita" of mine from Germany who always mixes up her W's and V's in English... it's adorable.

Besitossss xoxo

K

Viaje al Norte=Best. Thing. Ever.

The beginning of the trip started off as a District Conference, so there was only 23 of us students from Patagonia. This picture is in the Cordoba province. It is a mini Jesus like in Brazil, but... mini. :)

The following is the Sunday before we met up with all the other students. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but typically Sunday is a day to always eat Asado. Some families do it every week, in others only on occasion. Anyway, this is our sunday Asado. Nice to have good weather

After the group of 55 students was together, we had an overnight bus trip to Mendoza. Upon arriving, we went to a winery... of course.


The morning after we headed up into the cold mountains and saw Mount Aconcagua. Everything up in that range was beautiful! These pictures are of: Mate cups being sold, me with the mineral bridge thing and posing in front of Aconcagua.



This next photo is of a shrine we stopped by in a small village. The legend goes that a mother was hiking through the desert with her newborn baby in search of her imprisoned husband. She soon died of thirst, but the baby lived off of the milk in her breasts. She is now seen as a saint in this part of Argentina and people of the community donate their own water to that of the community almost daily. Along with many other traditions...

These next pictures were taken in the land of La Rioja. This was crazy! Everybody kept saying it was kind of like the Grand Canyon. The group shot is of the all the American's showing our PRIDE! ;) The other one is of Me and Grete, from Estonia... never heard of it? Look at a map :D



Along the way in our many hours in the bus, we passed amazing landscapes. This is just one place we stopped to take pictures because it was so pretty. And that's also a picture of the bus I just spent quite some time on.

Later in the day from when those pictures were taken, we stopped at a little place known as The Ruins of Quilmes. And later arrived at the small town of Cafayate in Salta Province. Where we enjoyed WINE ICE CREAM, and pretty much anything to do with wine. :)

After some nights there, we headed out on the way to Salta Capital. And we passed some great sights, I'll tell ya that! That's me feeding a Llama... if you couldn't tell.

Finally we made it to the Capital. And boy is it amazing! I really liked this city, out of the many we went to. I don't know quite what it is, but it just seems to have so much personality to it. One of the days we spent going to different small villages outside of the Capital and eventually ending up in Jujuy... a different province and capital. The food picture is of something they call Locro here. Usually consisting of big corn kernels, meat and things I'm not too sure about. But its quite yummy!

After our stay in Salta... it was eventually time to move on to the next and most breathtaking adventure of the trip. Iguazú and its Falls. Seeing as there is absolutely, inconceivably no way I would be able to put up all the pictures to summarize what I saw there... I will try anyway.

For the first part of our visit there, we had the chance to go underneath the falls. Yes, I know. It was cool. As you can see in one of the photos, there is a boat just like the one I was on heading toward the cascading water. After we changed into dry clothes we continued for the rest of the day to walk along the constructed pathways and see all that could be seen. It. Was. Incredible. Thats all I can say. Also all around the place were these strange animals that look like a mix between raccoons and anteaters, but I don't remember the name whatsoever. The next day, everybody except the American's and Canadians got to go across the Brazilian border and see that part. Unfortunately, to do this... we North Americans would have to pay a fee of 100 and something dollars. So no, I didn't see that part. But it didn't matter, after one day... I was all waterfall-ed out.

This was truly one of the best experiences of this exchange and also of my life. I would definitely recommend it if anybody was looking for something new.

All in all, I already miss all my friends from the trip and I can't believe I'm already going back the the States in about 40 days.

Sorry it took so long to get these fotos up and that this post isn't quite like the south trip one... But I just don't know how long this would get if I explained everything!

Not sure when my next post will be... there's a chance I will be returning to Buenos Aires again in a couple weeks but if not, then you'll probably hear next about my parents coming on May 29th! Yay!!! I'm so excited to share with them the things I've been experiencing for this past year. Anyway, until then everyone!

Besos

Chau

Get Prepared People!

Hello all!
It has been quite some time no? And if you've read my past blogs, you probably know why.

Before I start the long and, well... very long story of my journey for the past month, I have a few things to say:

Sunday on the second of May I had to do one of the hardest things in this exchange yet. Simple question:
How do you say goodbye to 50 exchange students from all over the world you've just spent the past month with knowing that you will probably never see most of them again?
Not only did I spend the past month with them, most of them I know from my District meeting in San Martin to the South Trip which also lasted quite some time. Although I only live with a few of them in my city and have several other people I see every single day from Argentina, I have the feeling that in the future the ones I remember most will be these students.

As I lay in bed last night after almost three days of bus traveling straight, I should have passed out when my head hit the pillow, but I couldn't. Thoughts, images and feelings were rushing through my mind each stopping for less than half a second. Flashes of cliffs, laughs, conversations, gigantic waterfalls seemed far more important than sleeping. This past month of my life is probably one of the best I've had.

And good thing I have the pictures to remember it by! Oh boy do I have pictures... over 1,100 i believe. You can only imagine how hard it is going to be for me to explain what I did on this trip like I did for my South Trip blog. That's why I'm not going to, I know... hold the tears. Instead, I am going to put up several of my favorite pictures that were taken and talk some about each one.
Enjoy!!

Alright I'm sorry everyone, my pictures are being weird and not uploading right. But when I figure it out I'll be posting them!!!!

Barely Time to Breathe, but I'm Lovin' It.

Heyoo readers!

If you've been keeping up with my blog, you probably know why I'm posting this. That's right! Because I just saw my sissyy!! :)

At this very minute, I'm sitting at the kitchen table downing some coffee and homemade granola (yeah, I'm talented like that ;)). In about an hour, I leave for the bus station and a short half hour after that, I leave for Cipoletti. And from there, places such as: Cordoba, Mendoza, Cafayate, Salta and Iguazú! I believe I'm even going to cross the Brazilian border into their side of the falls :D. I only got one word for you: STOKED!

Now, onto my past adventures...

On Friday when I arrived in Buenos Aires I was sooo excited to see my sister, and yes you can probably imagine me running across the airport into her arms like in the movies. Well actually it wasn't that dramatic, but pretty close. After meeting up with her, we returned to her apartment and I met her family and settle in.

Let me tell you, for the first 48 hours or so, I don't either one of us stopped talking. Every time one of us started a story, the other would interrupt with another something to say that they were reminded of, it was intense. Anyway, on Friday we walked around her part of the city some (Recoleta) and had a delicious dinner of Sushi. The only thing left on our plate was a tentacle with sucker-things that we both decided we really didn't want to eat. That night we went and saw a movie, I tried to help her get used to staying up past 11 30pm... it was hard, I'll tell ya that. ;)

On Saturday we went to Florida (a very busy street with lots of shops and venders) and after to Puerto Madero. Not only is Puerto Madero the most expensive place to live in Buenos Aires but it's also home to Puente de la Mujer. If you've read my past blogs, I probably explained more of this. We had a nice lunch there andwalked lots, good lord am I not used to exercise of any kind... it was hard... and that is sad. These are a few pictures from there:

Now comes the disappointment... and I'm so very sorry for it. But I think the more weight I gain, the more memory loss occurs. I believe they're connected. :) (and that was totally an excuse, but it's going to have to work). I cannot for the life of me, remember what we did the rest of that day. But I am pretty sure that there might be a Blog out there with a post almost just like this one.... hmm... go here:

maliaatdartmouth.blogspot.com

And it's just as well, I don't actually have all the time in the world right now.

On Easter Sunday, we headed off to Palermo Woods. On the way there, a parade of horse drawn carriages and riders came down one of the main streets in the city. I mean, 100's of them! We had no idea what was going on, but I'm sure it was some sort of procession for the special day. Here's a picture:

After that we walked to the part of the park where there is supposed to be over 1000 types of roses, it was sooo beautiful!

Then being us, we rented one of those boat things with the pedals like a bike? You know, you pedal and it propels you or whatever. Anyway:

That night, we went to see the Broadway show of La Bella y La Bestia... or, Beauty and the Beast. Being Argentina and all, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. But I'll tell you something, it definitely impressed me! and Malia I think! The set was incredible, the actors were good and the big number songs were very well done! All in all, we were very happy to have seen it.

Uh oh... I must have just gained a pound because I'm having trouble remembering what we did on Monday. Omg seriously? I'm going to have to get back with you guys on that one... I'm a little stressed right now too, trying to leave and all that. That's gonna be my other excuse. But I know that that night we went out to a really nice Indian food place and it was very satisfying indeed! Picture:

Anyway, on Tuesday we did some shopping and went to a climbing gym in the city that Malia wanted to look at. I watched her climb... i know, how lame. But I'm a fatty now, so I have the right to be lazy like that. Also because there were like a ton of mighty attractive pro men in there I might add, and I wasn't about to look like a drowning spider trying to climb a wall. :)

For dinner that night, we decided to make her family a traditional New Mexican meal. I brought the dried posole mom sent me and we found beans and taco shells in the international section of a store. I also had some packaged green chile and red powder for red chile enchilada sauce. Since we wanted to make sure they would actually eat something of it, we put everything separately and let them make their own tacos with chicken and other condiments. They loved it! And we were so happy! :D Then it was time to say goodbye :(.

At 11pm that night, I caught a flight back to Comodoro.

I've been here for less than 48 hours and I'm leaving very very soon so I must say goodbye! But be sure to check back around the end of April for a extremely long blog I'm sure! :)

Until then everyone!!!

Chauuuu <3

Happy April Foolssss

Hello everyone!

Ok... wait for it.... waittt...... bum, bum, buuummm! My age is officially changed to 17 years old! Woooooo!... Damn, I am getting old. ;)

Just here to let everyone in on a little update.

Tomorrow is one of the most exciting days of my exchange. I GET TO SEE MY SISTER! :D I'm so happy! I haven't seen her since around May or June of last year, so time is due!

I will be arriving sometime tomorrow in the afternoon and staying with her and her host family until Tuesday next week.

Does anybody else know what this weekend holds in store? Yes, you're correct. Easter!

But here, it's called Semana Santa (saint week). And I expect the city of Buenos Aires to be hoppin' with people, parties, fun, celebration and Jesus! ;)

I'm going to recall to you a memory I have from... oh wow... 5, 6? years ago.

Me and my family were in Cuzco, Peru at this very time. And let me tell you, waking up that Sunday morning to lots and lots of bells tolling was incredible. Looking out the window I remember seeing venders on the sides of the streets selling, palm fronds I believe? I think we even bought something... It's some kind of sticks and plants in the shape of a cross with a tiny picture of Jesus in the middle. But my point is, it was a very busy day. And I'm not quite sure if Argentina will be somewhat the same, but I guess I'll find out no?

Anyway, back to my travel dates. After a very late arrival Tuesday night, I have Wednesday and half of thursday to do laundry, rest, repack, and then I'm off to Cipoletti for a District Conference! After some days in Cipoletti... I then leave for Cordoba and from there.... wherever the wind shall take me. Totally kidding. More like wherever the bus of many, many exchange students shall take me. Yes. The NORTH TRIPPP! I'm also very, very excited about this.

I will try to post after I get back from Buenos Aires if I have time. If not... then keep a weathered eye on the horizon. ;) (10 pts for who can tell me what movie I just quoted).

Until then....

Besitos

Back to Shool

I know. Don't look at me like that. I meant it. I personally took the time out of my "oh-so-busy" day to spell the title of this post wrong. Want to know why? I tell you why...

As I was writing in my journal not too long ago, I started talking about going back to school. It wasn't until days later when I went to put another entry in that I realized in the last entry I had misspelled school as "shool"... it gets better: Not oncedid I make this mistake. Not twice. But three times. Instead of smiling in irony and giggling at this, I felt the pit of my stomach drop.

Yes people, it's true. I am slowly but surely losing my way with academics and english, and have been doing so for quite some time apparently. I am now dreading facing my once beloved Honors English teachers in shame upon my return to Taos High.

But that is mainly what this post is about: Shool... oops, School (pardon my cheesiness).

Today I started my second week back and I'm most delighted to find that it seems to be getting just a little bit better. But I think this may be due to the fact that I am reading an excellent book that keeps me entertained in class (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... if anyone was curious). Although this is what I end up doing with my time during most classes, I do participate here and there. Mostly in my Language class, because the teacher is nice and it's the only one that remotely interests me. There is actually one other, Culture. Yes, I have a class about culture. But again, it's quite interesting. Especially seeing as I'm now studying culture in a place where it is very different than my own.

For your very special convenience I have a nice typed schedule of my classes sitting right here that I worked hard on (jk... they gave it to me. Damn, I cannot crack a real joke today):

Lunes (Monday)-

Cultura (culture)

Sistema (sytems)

Lengua (Language)

Derecho (Law)

Martes (Tuesday)-

Ingles (english)

Quimica (Chemistry)

Tecnologia (Technology)

Matematica (Math)

E.F.M (Educacion Fisica- Physical Education)

Miercoles (Wednesday)-

Economia (economy)

EDI (uhh... not too sure really, read on)

Sistema

Jueves (Thursday)-

Ingles

Cultura

Lengua

Quimica

E.F.M

Viernes (Friday)-

Matematica

Sistema

Tecnologia

Derecho

----That's it folks. My everyday week.

I start at 7:35am and end at 12:45pm (wednesdays), 1:15pm (Mon, Tue, Thur) and 1pm (Fridays).

Now for the classes, I'd really rather not spend too much time talking about these but I will give you some idea.

Culture and Lengua I already talked about.

Sistema translates to Systems and I'm pretty sure the full title is Sistema de..something... I forgot, I'm sorry. But I've come to realize that it's like Financing. Quite boring I might add.

Derecho means Law. Again, this one I don't have too much to say about. Maybe later on in the year I will know more about all these classes (or not), but for now you will have to deal with the summarization. So... Law... yeah, pretty self explanatory.

Ingles=English. I have 3 words to describe this class: Easiest. Class. Ever. And yeah, I think you know why. The worst part is, the teacher actually makes me do the activities. What I end up doing, if someone isn't asking me for the answer, is the entire worksheet while the teacher is talking about number one still and then read my book. When she asks me for an answer, all I have to do is look at the paper and give it to her. Sometimes I read something to the class in english and I feel like God, the way they look at me. They love it. And that makes me love doing it. Or other times I will try and help someone, but I've realized I'm really quite a bad teacher so that usually fails.

Quimica... Chemistry. Well. Hm. What to write. Well I guess I can say that I had this same teacher last year, and although I didn't like her much then I'm warming up to her now. And as a matter of fact, this might be one of the only classes that I try or pay attention in... because some of the material I actually know.

Economia=Economy. Man I'm really bad at the whole school deal. Again, I'm sorry I dont have anything to say. It's boring. And I can get away with doing nothing or pretending I don't understand, so that's what I do.

EDI=.... ?....

I believe this class is one that switches according to the week. Sometimes EDI is quimica, economia or something else. It really confuses me. And I don't even remember what it stands for.

Matematica. Math.

This class is alright. Because the teacher is on the stricter side, I do pay attention. And if I happen to understand what is going on, I'll attempt the work. But otherwise, I take notes and try to figure out what the Mathematic words in Spanish might happen to translate to in English, seeing as my dictionary is not a Calculator or Encyclopedia... it doesn't help much with this.

--And there you have it. It's not very informative, but maybe after some weeks I might talk about it more. But probably not. Because this subject of talking isn't nearly as exciting as other things. And also because the more I look at my calender, and the more I fill empty spaces, the more I realize I will not be in school that much this year. :)

Oh, and I've gotten a few requests (mostly last year, teehee) to see my school uniform. Mind you, these are not very good quality photos or very flattering of myself, for that apologize, but it shows you the main idea.

The only thing different is that I will end up wearing dark grey tights later in the year due to the cold.

Until then...

Besos

p.s. Estimated time or arrival for Malia Reeves: T-minus about 5 days. :D :D :D