Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires
Hello, world. Sorry I have been out of touch.. Since my last blog post, I went through the stressful two-week-without-sleep-period of finals at my University- here in Cordoba, the final exam for each class accounts for 45% of your final grade so there is an incredible amount of weight on how you do, ate alpaca in Peru- very common there, probably because they're as tasty as they are cute.. have tried my first official attempt with Salsa lessons, sat on top of an Inca temple at 12am surrounded by darkness, mountains, and the most beautiful stars I have seen yet and then proceeded to wake at 3:30am to run through the mountains in the dark to arrive at the Sun temple to see the most incredible view of Macchu Pichu by 6:30am.
Alpaca!
Some weeks before that, I went to Buenos Aires with my friend Kathryn. Her stepmom invited her and I for the weekend to go to the horse races that were being held that weekend and I saw the city for the first time since I went two years ago over winter break with my parents. INCREDIBLE weekend, four days that I would not change one moment of. We visited Plaza de Mayo, Puente de la Mujer, and had the best time at the horse races and enjoyed all of the delicious little finger foods that came with it.
Tango show in Buenos Aires
Standing at the horse races in Buenos Aires
Since I post the exciting things that I have come across in Argentina, I should probably post the not so fun experiences as well.. Several of my friends here, Argentine and American, have been robbed, although very infrequent, like any big city, things will happen and you have to be careful. Unfortunately, the same passed for me one night when I was walking home. I was with my friend Michael and walking past a park that I've probably only passed through twice in my time here, and five very young guys ran away with our cash and cell phones. The experience was difficult but at the moment, I didn't feel so anxious because Michael was so calm about it since similar things had passed with his friends where nothing bad had happened.
Soon I was too busy studying for my final exams to fret over the experience but I definitely will not forget it. My friends, Silvia and Sarah and I went to a small German town called La Cumbrecita for the day and trekked through beautiful lush forests to arrive at waterfalls and the clear, freezing cold, river. We loved it and spontaneously decided to stay the night. Some how, we each made it with the money we had brought for just the day to pay for the hostel and a delicious delicious steak grilled like a lomo with rosemary and some magical pepper. Although we had nothing to change into because staying the night was unplanned, we went to two boliches and found that Belgrano (the town next to La Cumbrecita where we stayed the night) has many preteens out late dancing, and we retired early to enjoy the city some more the next day before coming back to Cordoba and memorizing Spanish subjunctive tenses- yes!
Waterfall in La Cumbrecita
