Summer Days Driftin Away ♫

Hello readers!

As some of you might know, I started school today. *sigh* Summer vacation is no longer in existence for me. Although I suppose I've been a bit spoiled by having two summer vacations in one year. Because I didn't do to much this summer besides relax and have some fun, I can't really think of much to talk about. Only that today was the first day of school and I already felt like falling asleep in class. I had the thought that if I understood the lesson better, it would be more interesting for me... I was wrong, now it's boring and the teachers know I understand better therefore contemplating actually making me do something this year. Not only is iboring, but there is another aspect of nodding off:

Try having about 3 months straight of sleeping in till 12:30 p.m. or later in the day no matter what time you went to sleep the night before... and then being rudely awakened when having t now wake up at 6:30 a.m.

Actually, for almost the entire summer my alarm was set for around noon... if it wasn't set, I ended up sleeping until who knows when. Some nights, I think I even got over 13 hours of sleep. Lucky me you say? Bah! Bad habit, and now I'm paying for my extreme slothfulness.

On other news, this past S...s...aturday (are weekdays capitalized?) was my elder sister's 21st birthday! Yayy! And I because I just couldn't muster up the effort to ship- or pay for shipping-something to her, I made a video. And I'm just a little proud of it, just a little... ;) only because it took me for-ev-er to figure out the new version of iMovie. Anyway, here's the link if you haven't already seen it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js22tSYRoJM

AND.. did I mention she gets here in Argentina less than 2 weeks?!!? yeah... I probably did, because I'm pretty damn excited.

A few comments before I put up some pictures (yes, please contain your excitement).

• If anyone so desires to hear or see more of something or anything I haven't talked about, please leave me a comment/email as to these desires. I would like to put up more posts, but many times I just don't know what to post about.
• If it happens to be another of your desires... Here is my mailing address if anyone feels so inclined to send a card or anything for my nearing birthday... *cough*30th*cough*.... hint-hint. That was a little selfish, but really some people have asked. :)

Krista Reeves

196 Cayelli St.

Comodoro Rivadavia, Chubut

Argentina 9000

• And finally, free hug coupon to whoever can tell me what song and what movie the title of this post is from. (Malia, Dad-I'm sure you know, give someone else a shot :D).

Now, on to more exciting things:

Some pictures from my summer!

In Rada Tilly on the beach with Franziska!

Party, Party

"Mexican Night" at Ele with the exchangees

Yeah, I still got skill (oh and that's my very lovely new foreign exchange weight belly stickin out ;D)

Fun on New Years

Me and Becky!!

Catchin some rays... of cancer most likely... jk mom, jk ;)

Relampagos! (go look it up)

My blog just got a makeover!... The result of an extremely bored exchange student. hehe. :)

While I'm posting, I might as well put up a few pictures I took the other night.

Wednesday night around 9 pm I was in Rada Tilly staying at a friends house. At this hour, we could hear thunder starting and lightening hitting the sky. Excited we ran out to the beach (she lives pretty much on the beach) and looked around. It was amazing! The sky had turned a bright pinkish color in some places and there were crazy shaped clouds everywhere. Looking out over the water there was fog starting to roll over toward the land. Eventually, the fog reached us and we were enveloped. But you could still see the tops of the hills peaking out over the low clouds.

The thunder didn't stop, and every 10 seconds everything was lit up by lightening bolts. Seeing as we were standing on the beach in almost the middle of a thunder storm, I thought it a goodidea to go back inside. But it was too beautiful and magical... and there were other people still there too. So we stayed taking pictures and marveling at what was happening around us.

Soon enough, I could feel the electricity in the air. The little hairs around my forehead were literally almost standing on end. That's when I decided I wanted to go inside.

It wasn't until it actually started raining and the lightening was about on top us that I convinced my very stubborn friend from San Francisco to head towards the house.

Once we got there we pulled two chairs to the big windows, lit a candle (electricity was out) and watched the rain pour down for at least and hour and a half. The electricity didn't come back on until the morning. It was truly a good night.

The next morning, we found out some bad news though. In Comodoro, 3 people drowned it rained so much. Apparently they shut down the roads and everything was insanely flooded! When I got home my host sister even told me that our kitchen had flooded and they had cleaned it up earlier that day. But I can still see where the water came through the roof.

It. Was. Crazy.

Now I only have one question: If it rains this much, how come there's no damn plants here?!

A few pictures:

This last picture is what I like to call "All you need on a dark stormy night". Peanut Butter. Some of the only good tasting beer from Argentina. A candle. And homemade peanut butter cookies... that were made in the dark I might add. :)

DDL

Dear readers,

I'm sorry to have made the realization that I have not posted for quite a while. This is due to the fact that there hasn't been much to post about. So I've decided to talk a little about some "normal things".

Almost the entire month of January my host family was in Buenos Aires, as I previously mentioned. While they were gone, my days consisted mainly of waking up late, taking a shower, eating, surfing the internet, occasionally walking to the grocery store and cooking when I was bored. I was worried that I was wasting my time away doing these things, but I found reassurance. There is a forum out there for exchange students all over the world, where we can chat, complain and share experiences. While reading this, I noticed that most of the people in South America who have summer vacation right now were going through exactly the same thing I was. Boredom is just part of the process.

But enough about that. The family is home now and the house is once again crowded. I'm currently sharing my bedroom with my host sister until the older kids go back to University in Buenos Aires.

Last night was actually my host mom's birthday. I wanted to bake something for the party that night but I also wanted to make sure that people would like it. One thing I've realized in Argentine society is the lack of variety. The meals (as good as they are) tend to be the same thing over and over again.

Usually meat as the main course, like cooked chicken or parrilla (what they call the grill) grilled hamburgers. With a side of perhaps potatoes or zapallo (I don't know what it translates to, but it's some kind of bright orange squash) and once in a while rice. Also with salad consisting of iceberg lettuce and some tomatoes drenched in oil, vinegar and lots of salt (coming from a family of spinach salads everyday, can't say it's my favorite).

Many other times we have pasta, empanadas or pizza delivered from the family's business, La Chacha. Empanadas are very tasty of course, but I like a variety of sorts in my diet.

As I complain about this repeated routine, I must point something out: If one of them were to come to the U.S. they would possibly think the exact same thing. "Ugh, spaghetti again tonight?", "I've eaten so much broccoli I think I'll start turning green" (p.s. I haven't had broccoli in 51/2 months, since I left... I don't even think I've seen it here), "Why are there so many kinds of cheese and why can't I find another kind of mozzarella?!"... etc. I could go on but I think whoever is reading this gets the point. Everything we do, think, eat, whatever it is, is what we are used to. And when this accustomed routine changes, notice is found that the way we live isn't the only or the right way. And maybe, just maybe, we enjoy this new routine so much we move or change all or some of our ways. As for me, I still enjoy the good ol' American diet... especially a real breakfast, which doesn't exist here.

Anyway, I was talking about Lili's birthday. Searching through recipe after recipe (which I admit is something I actually very much enjoy doing), I found something that was dead-on perfect: "Brownies with Dulce de Leche".

➜Tip for future Argentina residents/travelers/etc.: You make something you think they won't like, slap a dollop or two of Dulce de Leche on it and you just created their new favorite food.

Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration... but close enough.

So along with my now-gone-brownies, there was cake with a layer of DDL (future reference: the use of DDL stands for 'Dulce de Leche'), DDL flavored ice cream covered in almonds and Apple Strudel... without DDL. Surprised? Me too.

One of my observations with this strudel made me chuckle to myself. The pronunciation of strudel here is along the lines of 'estrrudul' (the 'rr' is rolled of course). Thanks to Franziska I know the pronunciation in Germany is something like 'streusldkjd' (some german guttural sound). I sat for about 5 minutes marveling at this revelation, until I realized it was almost gone.. so i ate some.

Before the dessert was even brought out though, the enormous hunk of meat the caterers brought was fired up. By this, I mean literally. Once it was cooked throughly, two giant sparklers were stuck in it and it was lit on fire. This is where Happy Birthday was sang... for the first time. The birthday song I'm sure many of you know in spanish.... 'Feliz Cumpleaños a Ti' etc. But here in Argentina it's somewhat different. It goes along the lines of 'Que los cumplas feliz', with a faster rhythm.

And so the Asado (meat) was cut right off the mass onto the waiters plates. The festivities progressed...

This isn't by far the first party of this kind I've been to, just thought I would share a little bit of tradition. It's also an excuse to post, since I haven't done that in a while either.

My future schedule looks a little something like this:

March- School starts

April- Northern Argentina Rotary trip

May- Parents come

June- Return to States June 21

And there will also be a few side trips in between those I'm sure, seeing as my sister will be coming to Argentina in March for 3 months and would like to visit her. But for now I'm enjoying the last of my summer... my extremely windy... dust blown... summer (as the doors shake).

Until then...

Bienvenidos 2010

2010 is here!!!... and that also means there's only 20 days left until I've been here 5 MONTHS! Thats half my exchange! But I think I need to let everyone know what I've been up to lately...

My last blog talks about my traveling to Corrientes. It was great! I loved seeing and experiencing a different part of Argentina, and let me tell y

ou... it was different. The main thing was probably the heat. After not being in heat or humidity for a very, very long time, it took some getting used to.

Most of my time there was spent like this: 1:00 p.m. Wake u

p and lunch. 2:30p.m. The poolside for the day. 6:00p.m. Activity (shopping, or hanging with

friends). 9:30p.m. Dinner. After 9p.m..... night life!!

The night life was so cool there. They have something they call the cost line (translated into english), where its a long walk with restaraunts and clubs right nex

t to the huge river. And throughout the entire night there are people hanging out, talking, drinking and partying next to the river. And the clubs are o

utsid

e, which is really nice for a change.

Anyway, because all the things I did went somewhat in that pattern... I'm going to put up a few pictures to show the rest.

Part of the coast line in the daytime.

When returning to Comodoro, I had quite an interesting flight experience that I'd rather not go over again... once is enough for me. Long story short: 2 Delays, Slept in the airport, another 2 delays and a cold and rainy start to Christmas Eve.

Christmas celebrations here all happens on the 24th. For dinner

, it was Asado of course and lots of dinner guests, all of which were family members. This is a picture of the table we set for the night.

After dinner, while enjoying some chocolate and such the hour strikes midnight and the entire family runs outside to celebrate Christmas day. Fireworks were going off EVERYWHERE. All the families of the neighbors came out with their same glasses of champagne to greet the neighbors and watch the fireworks. And I'm pretty positive that the fireworks that were being set off a couple houses down would definitely be illegal in the States. I even got to see a couple of the traditional mini hot air balloons go up in to the sky they call: Glo

bos. They were my favorite. Although the dark stop

ped me from getting a nice picture of them, here's a picture I found on Google:

After everything started to slow down and people started going back inside for a second glass of champagne, it was time for the kids to do their own celebrating.

On Christmas and New Years, just about every teenager from Comodoro Rivadavia heads down to Rada Tilly Beach where they meet up with their friends and party until far after dawn breaks. Here's a picture of the sunrise I was there to see:

... and yes, those are all people behind me. We left Rada Tilly and headed back to Comodoro around 9:00 a.m. You can only guess that I didn't wake up until around 4:30 p.m. Chrismas Day.

As much as I absolutely missed my family and a traditional Christmas these last couple weeks, it was definitely an experience well worth experiencing.

New Years was pretty much the same thing. This time with less p

eople but still some good food and fireworks and champagne at midnight. And again, to Rada Tilly. But this time I didn't get home until 9: 30 a.m.

And so... starting the 4th of January I will have some quiet time. I have found out recently that I will NOT be switching host families and I am the only exchange student in this situation. Good thing I like my family eh? Back to being alone.... my host mom is having a surgery and has to go to Buenos Aires for it. All of her kids who live up there (including my host sister who lives here) are heading up there on the 4th. Until the 11th, it will be just me and Vilma in the house. On the eleventh, Vilma is leaving to Buenos Aires also and my

host brother Juli is coming down to stay with me. And because my German host sister, Franziska switched to her next family, I will have what I haven't had in a while... quiet time for myself. And it will be weird, but I'm looking for to something a little new.

Here are just a few more pictures from my holidays.....

Me and my host abuelo with the yummy piggy :) Man I have opened my eyes a bit.

The siblings. All of them in the house right now, plus two.

Vamos al Norte!

Hey everyone... here's a little update of what I'll be up to the next couple weeks...

 

Today, actually, I will be hopping on a plane to fly to Buenos Aires. On Saturday, I'm going to be taking the ACT's. After this "lovely" and extremely long exam, I'm going to be heading up to a different province, Corrientes. 

I have some friends from Taos who are actually from Corrientes and only moved to Taos about three years ago. For those of you in Taos, Raquel and her family. Seeing as their father still lives here in Argentina, they come down for every Christmas and Summer (U.S. seasons). I get to stay with them for about ten days!

I'm so excited to get to see them and travel to a different part of Argentina, experience something new! I could do without the detour in Buenos Aires, :| , but hey! Its all worth it in the end I suppose!

Hasta luego

K

A few more pictures...

I've decided to put up just a few more pictures from my South Trip.

The Americans
Left to right:
Tucker-North Carolina, Gil-New York, Laura-NY, Miles-Washington, Emily-New Jersey, Drew-Colorado, Sarabeth-Vermont, Emily-Virginia, Me- New Mexico and Catherine- New York
Me and Torrun (Norway) at the bottom of the Glacier

The Group
The countries (no specific order): USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway and Japan.

South Trip: Patagonia

Wow. Where to start... I honestly don't know. I just got back today from my 16 day long tour of the South. Because I can't possibly explain everything that happened each day, I've decided to put 1 or 2 pictures up from each day and explain a little about them.
Day 1
Not too much happened this day. I got on a bus.
Day 2
After leaving Comodoro Rivadavia and arriving in Puerto Madryn I met all 55 of the other exchange students that would be on the trip.That day we took a small tour of the city where we walked along the coast and saw a few famous monuments. Sorry there is no pictures for this day, I wasn't quite on top of that yet.
Day 3
This day we took a full day excursion to Reserva Provincial de Valdes. The picture on the right shows some of the many sea elephants that lined the coast.
Later that day, we went to a small town that I don't remember the name of, but it is popular do to the tours it gives to go see Whales, and even possibly sometimes Orcas. Unfortunately, we did not see any of the orcas.
The picture below shows a tiny bit of one whale. It was hard for me to not just watch and actually attempt to capture a picture.

Day 4
We left Puerto Madryn heading towards Calafate. On the way, we stopped to see the continents biggest colony of Magallanes Penguins are living. This was definitely exciting for me. Seeing penguins was one of my big interests in the trip. It was hard to pick just two photos to show of this, seeing as I took at least 60.


The picture on the left shows only a fraction of the penguins and their habitat. Now picture this, but times 50. On both sides.
Wanna know how close I got? The picture below shows one penguin, but is not nearly as close as some of the others came.
Day 5
After one of the many nights spent on the bus, we arrived in Calafate for lunch. This is where the main tourist attraction is Lago Argentino and holds the Perito Moreno Glaciar. For the rest of the day, we had free time. This is when we got to just walk around the town, do some shopping and explore a bit. In all, I think that Calafate was one of my favorite places. The town reminded me of a small town you could find in Colorado, a bit like San Martin. The picture on the left shows just a little hint of Lago Argentino. What we ended up seeing more of the next couple days.
Day 6
This day we took went to see the Glacier and more of the lake. We traveled around the lake all the while seeing many different kinds of vegetation surrounding it. On the way up to the Glacier, it began to snow and the windows fogged up. But even though this stormy event was happening outside, the forest on either side of us were brilliantly green as always. Now comes a hard part for me. Trying to find a picture that actually shows how amazing the glacier was. It was one of those sights that no one will ever be able to appreciate and truly understand until they see it for themselves, something that can't be captured on camera. But here is a few sample photos of this amazing phenomenon.
These pictures I took of the Perito Moreno Glaciar. One of the only continuously growing glaciers in the world.

Day 7
This day was indescribable. We had the option of paying just a bit more money and being able to TREK across the Glacier. Seeing as this is a once in a life time opportunity, there was no way I wasn't going. After strapping on our crampons and bundling up (even though it ended up not even being that cold) we had a small educational talk about the glacier and we were going up. The following pictures were taken on the Trek.
If you look closely at the picture above, you can see the two lines of people. One heading up and the other coming down.

Looking back at the way we had come. And of course, Whiskey and Alfajores at the end. (Alfajor: and Argentine chocolate candy that contains two or three cookies sandwiched together with Dulce de Leche and covered in chocolate. Aka, the dessert that makes you gain far too much weight if you eat too many in one month).

Day 8
Not nearly as exciting as the last couple days I might say. This day we traveled all the way to the End of the World, or Fin del Mundo. This is Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. Before we got there though, we had to go through many hours of bus ride. In between "oh so fun" bus time, we had to stop for a long time to go through customs and migrations (because the only way to get to Tierra del Fuego is through Chile). The catch here, is that about half the kids on the bus were throwing up from a 24 hour stomach flu that was going around. And I, unfortunately, was no exception. Not the funnest part of the trip i might add. And yes, I just used funnest. Not sure if its a word but I'm not exactly gaining any english knowledge here.

Day 9

Upon arriving in Ushuaia I was stunned. Although we had all been seeing the Andes mountains for over a week now, we hadn't seen them up close. They are huge! So close it seems like you could just go hiking in them like the back foothills in Taos. Because were still coming out of winter, there is still snow on top of the peaks but a guide said that in the summer the snow melts. Because we arrived late in the night, we had a free morning to do as we pleased. And that afternoon we took the bus up into the mountains for an amazing panoramic view of the city. Again, another place that you can't capture in a picture... though I tried. After this little scenic tour, we had the afternoon free to do some "tax-free" shopping.
This photo on the left shows the view from my hotel room. --- In this photo below I sit with the view of Ushuaia and the mountains in the background.
Day 10
On this day we took a tour with a guide through the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego (I'm counting on you english speakers to at least know what that means). That night after dinner, Rotary had a "treat" for us. Because that week it was three different people's birthdays, they rented the upstairs dance floor of the restaurant and hired a dj. Even though we would have rather them let us go out into the town and do what we want until 5 am in the morning, we were still thankful. And we were even allowed one beer! Wow... they were cuttin loose.
The photo on the left is pretty self descriptive...
This photo on the right is only part of the amazing landscape.

Day 11 & 12

I am combining these days simply because the only thing that happened was nothing. From the morning of day 11 to the evening of day 12, we were in the bus. In total, it was about a 34 hour bus ride. Woo hoo. I do have one picture though. To get through from Chile to Tierra del Fuego and back again, you have to take a ferry across the

Strait of Magallanes. Because last time we did this 20 minute boat ride, I was about to be sick I didn't see much. Now, I saw the most incredible thing. While sitting inside staying out of the chill wind up top, someone down the row screams, "Look at de fish!" Not sure what was going on, I looked out the window too. And sure enough, along side the boat there were black and white dolphins jumping in and out of the birds the boat produced. So I grabbed my camera and took it up to the top of the boat. While holding on the the railing so the wind wouldn't blow me over the edge, I looked around and was truly inspired. On either side of the boat, there were hundreds of these bizarre dolphins jumping up and down. Because of the small amount of time and the time it took to actually take a picture, I only got a couple semi good ones.

Day 13
After arriving in Esquel and having a free day for resting, we were off that morning to head to San Carlos de Bariloche. On the way there, we took a tour through Parque Nacional los Alerces. Where we again, saw some amazing sights and mountains. One thing about Esquel that is a little different, is that everything is so green! Compared to most of Patagonia which looks like the dessert. We then continued the trip to Bariloche and arrived there mid evening.
Picture on the right---> Left to right: Belgium, USA, France and USA (me).
Day 14
The next morning in Bariloche, we went up to again see a beautiful view of some beautifulness (yeah, i know.. i just said that). Later that day, we got closer to the famous hotel called Llao-Llao. I don't really know what's so famous about it, but it looked mighty expensive. Later that day, we went to a very famous Chocolate place in Bariloche, that is known about throughout all of Argentina. And yes, I ate lots of Chocolate on this trip. Don't worry daddy, christmas is around the corner ;) The building on the land that is tanish, is the hotel Llao-Llao.
That night the Rotary people decided to cut loose ONE MORE TIME, and took us to the very expensive, very popular Grisu. Because I'm sure I would get in trouble with some of my friends by putting some of the pictures up, I will put one up of some of us before we left the hotel. Left to Right: Canada, USA, Norway, USA and Denmark
Day 15

On this day we traveled from Bariloche to San Martin de los Andes (where I had my Orientation meeting). On the way there, we were supposed to stop at the famous 7 lakes. But we had a bit of a problem. Because the weather had been so rainy lately, the dirt road was very muddy. And our big tour bus did not take well to that. After sitting in the bus at a 45 degree angle tilted to the right for an hour and a half, we finally decided to get out and start walking. And so, about 50 kids were walking along the muddy road in the rain in the middle of the forest. The fresh air was great, I enjoyed it. Until the other bus which had only around 10 kids in it came back to get us. Our bus. In the mud.

In San Martin de los Andes drinking milkshakes :)

Day 16
And so came the day where we all went our separate ways. Seven of us getting dropped of in Cipoletti and 4 of us traveling back to Comodoro. The rest of the kids were all headed up North to Cordoba, and from there to their home provinces. In general, majority of the kids on the trip were from Northern Provinces, and I met some really great people.