Last Weekend

Tomorrow morning the Dickinson-College-In-South-America crew is headed to Buenos Aires for the weekend. We get back Sunday night. I have class on Monday at 8:00am (which means a 5:45 wake up call). And then an exam on Tuesday. Which very realistically I could do terribly on. Not because I lack content understanding, but because my true-false (in Spanish) skills are rather low. I'd rather write an essay. Anyway the last week has been pretty full of studying. Which means that I didn't get a chance to blog about last weekend.

Friday: We got to see The Great Gatsby in its entirety without any electrical malfunctions. Success.

Saturday: The 25th of May. The day the revolution for freedom from Spain started in 1810. National pride everywhere.

These three signs were part of many on the front of a school: peace, equality, and education

Another decoration of the decked out school-front.

A zoomed out view.
That weaving is supposed to represent all of the people being part of one bigger fabric.

Blue fountains.

Marching bands

A concert in the main plaza.

Lindsey, Carrie, and I met up with three English students a couple weeks ago for a language exchange. Saturday, we went to one of their house's and a made a giant lunch and ate outside with her, her family, and the other two girls. It was a lot of fun.

The 25th is also the birthday of the River Plate futbol club. In Buenos Aires there is a huge rivalry between River and Boca. I think everyone in the whole country has a favorite between the two. River is traditionally more upper class and Boca represents the underdogs. We walked by a parade celebrating the team on our way between buying candles and a cake.

Cake and candles? It was Rachael's birthday, as well. One of the things that I am so happy with about this group of ours is that we are really good about all getting together for each others' birthdays.

All together.

I ordered pasta with pesto. Fail. That looks like all of the ingredients for pesto. Except it isn't. Those were walnuts instead of pine nuts. Plus the proportions were all wrong. Basically it was an olive oil soup.

It was  a delicious cake.
If normal birthday candles and sparklers had babies, they would be those candles.

Birthday girl.

Sunday: The studying began... and it never ended.

But Mia drew me a picture. That would be me. We're going to say that my arms are muscular.

I'll be sure to blog about my weekend adventures after I finish my exam Tuesday!

Snowball Fight

So as part of our mountain adventure on Saturday, Lindsey and I played nicely in the snow. Of course by "played nicely" I mean we had a Snowball fight. And then she hit me in the face. War. I was far too involved to photograph. Fortunately, others did. 

Let the games begin.

War.

A great time was had by all.

Carrots

My relationship with Carrots has gone steadily downhill. Until a few months ago, we were fairly amiable acquaintances. I never wanted to spend any one on one time with him, but if Carrots showed up with some friends we got along fine. This was especially true when those friends made up a group that together is called cake. Unfortunately, Carrots has been showing up more and more frequently. To the point that Carrots and I see each other twice a day most days. One day Carrots flavored my milk. Most of the time he stars, in shredded form, in some sort of salad. It is impossible to avoid Carrots when shredded. It's like he wants to be the life of the party. I don't think he deserves all that attention. But what can I do? He is so overpowering. Every time Carrots shows up now, I groan a little inside.

But, hey, if my biggest complaint is an orange vegetable, I'd say life is going pretty splendidly.   

Amazing Views

Today the majority of the Dickinsonians studying in Mendoza hopped in a van/bus/hybrid-thing-with-just-enough-seats and rode about two hours west to the boarder with Chile.

Stop number one: The lake that formed at where the damn was built in the Rio Mendoza. 

I thought this picture of Erika came out awesome.

So I tried.

Twice. 
Super successful, as you can see.

 On the road again.

Out the vehicle window. The very dry Rio Mendoza.
It is so incredible that in the spring the river can fill that whole area (up to the top of the wall like structure).

Another view. Better shot of how high the water can get.

Super simplified history: San Martin liberated Argentina and then led troops across the Andes to liberate Chile. This was part of the route:

 More views from vehicle windows:

Population 5. There are a whole two families.

 Final destination:

SNOW!

On the other side of that mountain is Chile. This is the road to get there.

Success!!!
(Just don't look too closely at my face.)

Rabbit.

And then we stopped here on our way back to lunch:

And then there was blue skies.

But this was the awesome part. There used to be an Incan settlement here. And the waters were said to have healing powers.
And then there was a hotel and natural spa type place.
And then there was an avalanche in 2005.
It remains beautiful. 

And by beautiful, I mean stunning.

Plus, if you put objects in the water for a while they come out looking like this.
Those are Coke bottles in the back.

This was at lunch and is only relevant if you took Spanish Two in high school with me.
Katie. Molly.

 More photos through the windows:

The Great Gatsby

Today was the first day The Great Gatsby was in theaters in Argentina. Because so many of us love the book, we decided to make an outing of it and headed to the 9:40pm showing. There happens to be a Starbucks in the mall that the movie theater is in and the whole thing happens to resemble something that you would associate with Florida. We were quiet happy to say that we were in the US for a bit there. So we drank our coffees and went to the movie. Nick Carraway went to dinner with Daisy and Tom. Tom and Myrtle brought Nick to their apartment. He was personally invited to a Gatsby party. He met Meyer Wolfsheim. Gatsby had Jordan ask Nick to invite Daisy to tea. Gatsby had Nick's house put in tip top shape with entirely too much fluff. Daisy was to come to tea at 4:00. The clock was counting down the minutes. Gatsby was getting nervous and it was taking the form of annoyance. He said he couldn't wait all afternoon and was going to leave.

And the power went out.

We waited and it didn't come back. So we got ticket vouchers and will go back to see the movie all the way through. It was so funny in part because it was such perfect timing.

"What do most Americans think of Argentina's president?"

I was asked this question yesterday. Answer: most American's don't know a whole lot about the politics of other nations. I went on to say that those who were aware probably didn't think she was doing the best job. I cited the economy. It was a safe answer. Most people here don't really like (more accurately: are very much opposed to) Christina Kirchner. She is something of a national joke that would be funnier if she wasn't actually running the country.

People here are politically charged, from what I've observed. I don't always agree with their views. Marxism was proved to be an ineffective form of government once. Something to do with Russia... There are a huge number of Marxists here. Maybe they missed that part of history? Anyway, politics in Argentina: Everyone votes. It's obligatory at the age of 18, but people may start voting at 16.  I think that everyone should vote. But I don't like the idea of enforcing that through obligation. Going into the reasons for that would be going way off topic. Basically, voting is a right that we have in the US. Hand in hand with our rights are our freedoms. We are free to choose who/what to vote for and whether or not to vote. In my opinion, it is responsibility to be involved in our political system by being informed and voting. But that is my opinion, and the awesome part of our system is everyone else has a right to their own opinions.

Many Argentines follow American politics. Mia and Marce had friends (a couple and their two girls) over yesterday. I had met the mother once before (very briefly) and had never met the father. Over the course of the afternoon I was asked about: my political beliefs, my religious beliefs, and my current relationship status. These are not unusual questions to receive. Political preferences: I like Obama and congress needs to be less polarized and start working together. Relationship status: No boyfriend ("Oh! You should start dating an Argentine"). It's the religion one I don't have a fast and easy answer to. The one I give is entirely too simple, to the point of not being true. But I digress. After I gave my fast assessment of the current political climate in America, I was informed that the reason he asked my opinion was that he was very curious about American politics. He felt that American politics serve as an example to a lot of the world. That when we do something in the US, other countries look and maybe repeat. Basically that while Americans see our issues as national discussions, the rest of the world is listening to our banter and what they observe influences what they do.

It's interesting to think about political involvement and the scale to which politics can have an effect, to compare the way politics are viewed in different places, to see how systems function or don't, and to consider all of factors that influence all of the above.

___________________________________________

 

Side note: Throughout this post I referred to "Americans" meaning from the US. That is because I am from the US. Here there is one continent in the Western Hemisphere, America, and everyone who lives on that continent from Canada to Chile is American, not just people from the US.  Here I am not America. I am a North American (referring to Canada or the US), una estadounidense, or a yankee. 

Empanadas!!!!!!!!

Last Wednesday, my host mom had to go teach a class and Mia and I stayed home together. We listened to music and danced and played games. We also made empanadas. These little half circles of crust filled with deliciousness are one of the most typically Argentine foods.

We paused for a photo.

End result: We filled them too full. And baked them a little long. But for my first attempt and with a five year old assistant, I'd say not bad.