Day 1: Ushuaia

The journey began on Saturday when we all flew out of a local national airport in Buenos Aires and headed due South to the southern-most city in the world, a little place I like to call Ushuaia.  The flight lasted three hours, and after passing a good amount of that time by watching the always-entertaining "Dave Chapelle's Show," I looked out the window to note that we were descending upon a tiny strip of runway on a small island surrounded by mountains, pretty much a hit-or-miss (a.k.a. hit or die in the ice-cold water below) type of landing, and thankfully our pilot pulled through in the clutch.  We arrived at about 7:00pm and headed straight for our hotel, which was an amazing place, situated right on the water, where we checked into the rooms, ate dinner, and hung out around the hotel that night.  The next day, Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, and then it was off in the Land Rover Destroyer squadron through the surrounding wilderness of Tierra del Fuego.  We had an AWESOME time, I was in a car with seven girls and a dope driver (dope=cool/nice/awesome), the sun was shining (I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt), and we got to see some pretty amazing sights. Observe...

This was taken when we arrived at our hotel in Ushuaia, Los Cauquenes Resort and Spa (www.loscauquenes.com), and what you're seeing is the view from the back porch.  The hotel was awesome, I got to sleep in a bed in which I wasn't able to feel the wooden planks beneath the mattress, and the shower was powerful and had hot water.  Not to mention, the breakfast made an attempt to serve bacon, although it wasn't really cooked fully, but I didn't complain.  Good experience to say the least.

Our first stop in the brigade of Destroyers was at an overlook of this cool lake, Lago Escondido, I believe, and as you can see, the weather was phenomenal.  The scenery reminded me of home, and the mountains in Colorado.  Our driver, Bismarck, was the only driver that spoke conversational English exceptionally well, and I had some cool conversations with him while we were in the car, including talks about the Bulls of old, as he used to play basketball himself.  He said if he were to go to the U.S., he'd go to Colorado first (he's a hippie outdoorsman), and then to Chicago next to see the United Center. 

Me and a few of my lady friends (there's really too many to count!) at the scenic overlook.  As you may be able to tell, the two girls on the outside are twins, and the one on my far right (in the picture on the left) is one of our R.A.s.  All three of these lovely ladies rode in my car, and without a doubt, we had the best car in the group.  Also, notice the flower in my right ear. That's a little hippy trick I learned from working at summer camps in the mountains of Colorado.

Not quite sure about this one actually.  what I will say is that throughout the day, and at various other times throughout my stay down here, I've been pioneering the bringing back of the wearing of coats/sweaters/sweatshirts around your waist.  It's a really catchy look if you ask me.  Watch out for it's return any time now.

Me trying to be artsy in my photography.  Turns out it's not all that great, but I find it good enough to include in the post.  Take that Norman Rockwell.

Here's our group and the lineup of the Destroyers parked on the shore of the biggest lake in the region, which seemed to stretch on for ever.  The rocks were really flat, so we spent a good chunk of the time skipping rocks on the water...mindless entertainment.  One of my friends accidently threw his girlfriend's camera into the water while trying to skip a rock, as it was tied around his wrist and somehow came loose.  That was unfortunate.  To get to this spot, we did some serious off-roading, serious enough to the point where we had to get out of the trucks and leave it up to only the driver.

We then drove to a different area of the lake where we parked the cars and got out to walk to a campground where we would eat lunch and hang out.  As most of you don't know, I'm in charge of filming and putting together a final video for the whole trip (which also entails receiving a steady flow of pesos...solid), so I had the camera with me the whole time.  During the hike to the campground, I thought it would be a good idea to climb this tree and take an ariel shot of the group walking.  Being the outdoorsy Colorado macho-man I am, I started scaling this tree, thinking it would be nothing.  Out of nowhere, I lost my footing, and slipped off the trunk of the tree.  In a heat of panic, I reached out for the small branch nearby, which held my weight for, oh, 1 second, and then decided to snap, sending me falling 10feet below onto the ground by the water.  I popped right up, as I knew everyone was watching, and played it cool...

...saying, "Oh I'm fine, I'm fine, don't worry, that was nothing!"  I looked down at my arm, and turns out the tree got the best of me.  I just laughed afterwards at how humorous it must have been to see me falling from that tree.  What a schmuck.  Anyway, I only sustained minor abrasions, and am completely fine (no, I'm serious this time).  Plus, chicks dig scars.

This is the view from where we stopped to eat lunch.  It was awesome cause the guides had found this spot the night before and went ahead and had everything set up for us when we got there.  We had a nice little Argentine BBQ in the middle of the woods on a beautiful day, with steak and chorizo, Coke, water, wine, and bread, and I was content.  It was incredible.  My arm was a bit irritating though.

Somehow this picture got put out of place, but just go with it anyway.  After our long day in the wilderness and in the Destroyers, we had an hour to kill before getting on the cruise boat. Therefore, we decided to walk around the city of Ushuaia, and sure enough, found an Irish bar just two blocks away.  Me and my good friend Claire, a fellow individual blessed with Irish-blood, decided that we needed to take a picture next to this overwhelmingly creepy gremlin (supposed to be a leprechaun I think) sign that says you're in the southernmost Irish pub in the world.

Here's the group of ladies and I outside our car during one of the stops.  Bismarck was a trooper for putting up with us the whole day, but I'm sure he loved it, and was definitely glad to have me in the car to balance out the excessive amounts of estrogen.  He was a crazy guy, and some of the stuff he told us about isn't suitable to be posted on this family rated blog.  

The crew once more, with Bizzy B in the middle, outside of where we met to board the ship. Awesome day.

View of the incredible sunset while we were leaving the port in Ushuaia aboard the good ol' boat (stories to come later).  I've received calls from photography agencies wanting to sponsor me for my framing of this shot.  I haven't found an offer that is suitable to me yet.  

Our home for three nights, and the sight of Stomach Explosion Fest 08 (room 204).  Enough said.

Journey to the End of the World

I finally arrived home at 3 AM this morning after a long day of travel yesterday, a return trip from our week-long journey to the end of the earth and back.  It was an amazing time, and there is so much that I have to share.  I figure the easiest way to do this will be to add separate posts for each day of the field trip, so that's exactly what I'm gonna do.  Call it a travel journal, call it an excursion flow-chart, call it whatever you may, but regardless of the name, the truth remains: it will be the most riveting thing you've ever read. 

I'd start with the first post now but my stomach has ulterior motives right now...spelled out in ink that looks like "lunch."  

Have no fear, I will return and blog my little heart out, but I just wanted to put this up so you all know I'm still alive.  I know it's been killing you for the past week, and I appreciate your compassion and concern (hahaha)!

Educational Field Trip

In a few hours we will be leaving the beloved city of Buenos Aires and heading down to the southern-most city in the world, Ushaia (I think I spelled that wrong), and then on Sunday, we're gonna jump on a cruise boat that will take us through the fiords of Chile...pretty exciting stuff I know, curb your enthusiasm.  Needless to say, we have everything planned out by travel agents, we're staying in some pretty nice places, we get fed three times a day, and best of all (it's beginning to sound redundant), the school is paying for it all!  I'd love to give you the itinerary right now, but I don't feel like digging it out and typing it up.  I'm not sure if I will be getting internet down in Cape Horn, but if I do I'll keep you all posted.  If not, which I'm assuming because they still haven't invented the wheel down there, I will post extensively upon returning to civilization.  Wish me luck, as I only have one pair of jeans, sweats, and two thin jackets...but I'm a man so I'll survive!   

Maximo and Catalina

Every Monday night my entire "family" down here comes over to our house (the parent's house) for dinner. The Pistani's have 5 children, one daughter, who is the oldest, and 4 younger sons, with the youngest being 23, and he lives here with me. It's definitely a cool tradition, and it goes to further emphasize the strong value placed on family and time spent together. This is a video of Maximo and Catalina, the kids of Luciana, the oldest daughter. They're pretty funny, annoying at times, but cool to have around.

Tribal Music and Dance on Vimeo

Tribal Music and Dance on Vimeo
Originally uploaded by tannerjo

Here's a link to a different video site I belong to...the quality will be better

Tribal Music and Dance

I went to this fair with three girls (both a good and a bad decision) one of the first weekends we were in Buenos Aires, and while they were shopping extensively, something I had no desire to do, I snuck over to where I was hearing this cool music, and saw this completely foreign, unknown, yet very cool martial arts/fighting dance thing going on. It was awesome.

City Tour via my new best friend, Big Blue the Bike

So yesterday I had no set agenda, and after waking up at 1:00 in the afternoon (rough, I know), I said to myself, "Self, why don't we go explore the city."  And that is exactly what I did.  I set off from my house, with no defined destination in mind, and aboard my new best friend, Big Blue the trusty bicycle, I headed off into the unknown.  I rode through a cool park with a rose garden and a lake in the middle, went past the zoo, down to a fair in Recoleta, cruised to the downtown area, and rode through the narrow streets full of stores, shops, people, etc, and ended up going to a friends apartment where we spent the rest of the afternoon.  I had an awesome time, got to see a lot of the city, gained a stronger sense of direction in this enormous city, and saw things/places I haven't yet seen here in my busy 2 week stay.  The scary thing is, after hours of biking around, I had only scratched the surface of a small area in proportion to the rest of the city limits.  

Uruguay...check that one off the list

Well, last weekend I experienced my first traveling expedition within South America as a group of friends and I decided to venture across the Rio de la Plata and explore the land of our friendly neighbors to the north, Uruguay.  Don't ask me why we chose to do such a thing, for I feel it was a combination of anticipation to travel, a last minute premonition, and most likely a rash decision.  That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the trip, it's just that it was a lot of traveling for a short stay that wasn't anything all that special.  Don't get me wrong, we had fun and made the most of the situation, but not without a handful of obstacles along the way.  Observe...

The journey started in Buenos Aires, at the subway station right by our school's casa.  We were about to get on a train that would take us to another subway line we needed to connect to in order to get to the port where our ferry was waiting to take us up to Uruguay (the ferry was cool, by the way, a glorified airplane if you will) when our friend Danielle somehow managed to let her cell phone slip out of her hand, onto the floor, off the ledge of the platform and under the oncoming subway.  When the train passed and picked our jaws off of the floor, we found her phone safely nestled away from the tracks, yet out of our reach.  Thankfully a worker helped us retrieve the phone and we were shortly on our way (a little late, might I mention).

So we arrive in Colonia, Uruguay at about 10:00pm, and hope to catch a bus to Punta del Este, a hopping beach resort up the coast about 5 hours, but are disappointed to hear that the next bus doesn't come till 6am, so we pass on that offer, purchase tickets for a bus to Montevideo, the capital city, at 8am the next morning, and find a hostel just up the street for the night.  It was my first hosteling experience, probably won't be my last, and I don't know what to think about it.  Here's our room.

Fast forward to the next day as we wake at the crack of dawn to catch our bus to Montevideo.  The ride lasts about 2-3 hours, due to countless stops in the middle-of-nowhere-Uruguay, and we're finally there.  The bus station was in the ghetto, and our first impression of Montevideo was surely suspect.  My friend Zack, shown in this picture, put his feelings into his own words, but they don't merit repeating on this family-rated blog.  Anywhoo, we got a taxi to the beach, where they said there were nice hotels, and after an extensive search for hotels, we finally found the right one.  This is us at lunch, which has nothing to do with what I just said. 

Here's me and Danielle outside of our lunch spot on the beach, a place that seemed like a good place to eat, but was a bit more pricey than we had hoped.  Figuring out the check took a good 20 minutes, as we constantly came up short on the final amount, for as we would come to find out, paying for things in a large group is a nightmare.  That grew to be the theme of this trip.  Zack would always remind us that it doesn't really matter, for the money down here, whether it be the Argentine peso or the Uruguayan peso, is just "monopoly money" anyway.  

A view of the beach area where we were at.  Don't let the picture deceive you, for the weather was really nice for us most of the day.  In Uruguay the rain comes and goes like you wouldn't believe.  After we finished eating, we went back to the hotel, got our suits on, and ventured to the beach, where we were met by our dearly beloved friend, the sun.

View from our hotel room...not much more to it.

Zack in from of our hotel, the sight of yet another money blunder, as it took about 30 minutes to settle the 2 room bills.  For starters, the minibar in one room got cleaned out completely (3 cokes, 2 bottles of water, a beer, and a sprite or something), which caused problems with money flow, and a phone bill was also racked up on top of that, so we ended up paying the last part of the bill with coins, I kid you not.  The receptionist at the counter was laughing at us, as he should have been.

The beach was definitely the highlight of our trip. We all had a blast swimming in the scummy, opaque, and probably toxic ocean water that was surprisingly warm (another warning sign we utterly disregarded).  Nevertheless, despite the inherent risk that we signed ourselves off to by setting foot in the water, we had a good time and stayed there most of the afternoon.  I was digging this guy's suit.  Great pattern.

Another view of the beach...definitely not a white sandy beach like you'd find in Mexico or something, but it sufficed.  It wasn't crowed either, probably because the sand was coarse, the ground rock hard, and the water dirty.  Just throwing that out there.  

Thank You For Smoking

Yeah the movie is good, but in the context I'm talking about, I'm relating it to a whole different thing: this country called Argentina.  Pretty much everyone smokes...all the time...regardless of age...and time...and consideration of the health of others.  It doesn't bother me, but I just thought I'd throw it out there cause it's way different than in the U.S.  The tobacco industry must love this "Southern" America.  

Also, dogs poop all over the streets and sidewalks which is always good.  It's the perfect combo, the aroma of dog sh** and cigarette smoke.  Excuse my French, but that's how I feel.  If anyone would like I could take a little snapshot of a fresh pile next time I'm walking around.  Let me know, cause I'd love to.

Comments

Abs, I took your advice and changed my settings so that anyone can post comments, regardless of whether you have a Blogger account or not.  I didn't even know it was set up that way...sorry!

Beef, it's what's for (breakfast/lunch/dinner)

Well, scratch breakfast off that list, for the poor souls down here simply have not yet discovered the joy that comes via a plate of bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns.  Too put it more frankly, breakfast sucks here.  It's nonexistent.  During one of our first orientation meetings down here, they broke the tragic news to me to not expect to ever see bacon or eggs on my plate for breakfast.  Knowing this in advance, I went into my first breakfast experience prepared, or so I thought.  Then I rounded the kitchen corner, sat at the table and muttered something completely incoherent in Spanish to my homestay mom, and was was utterly dissappointed to find that a bucket of crackers would have to suffice my churning stomach until 1:00 in the afternoon, when the population of this country STARTS to think about lunch.  Weak sauce.  

But that's besides the point.  What I meant to say is that beef is god down in Argentina, and I have been a "worshiper," so to speak, ever since I stepped foot off the airplane from the U.S.  I can't do it justice in electronic print...EVERYDAY!!!  But you won't hear my carnivorous self complaining...I feel like a young child being served cake every day for every meal (menos breakfast lest we forget).  But the thing about it is, the beef (carne, so they like to say), is never marinated, spiced, or nothing.  Bland.  Again, I'm not complaining.

Another cool thing that pertains to food (sorry if I'm boring you but if you haven't already noticed, I'm a pretty big fan of food) is that every Tuesday night, we have a short gathering called "Convocation" in which we talk or listen to a speaker, and then afterwards we go out to dinner on a group, to various restaurants every week, and the best thing about it, IT'S ALL ON PEPPERDINE'S TAB (which roughly equates to Dad's tab, essentially)!!!  Call it "abusing the system," but last Tuesday we went to a relatively expensive restaurant called "Kansas" that serves American food, and our table (along with all the other Pepperdiners, 60 in total), ordered whatever our little hearts so desired.  IT        WAS         AWESOME!!!!  I had a chicken caesar salad, a huge rack of ribs with a baked potato, and one of every appetizer.  In addition, on Thursday's we always have an "asado," which means a BBQ in our native land, in the backyard of our school's casa.  Once again, all you can eat, on Pepperdine's bill.  I love it.

Needless to say, food is a big part of my life, and I've been doing just fine down here in B.A. Mom, you'll be proud to know I've been trying tomatoes because these people are obsessed with them.  They still give me chills, but I'm trying.

Como se dice "Super Bowl" en espanol?

So a big group of us "gringos" went to a restaurant/bar called "Drink Gallery" last Sunday to watch what should soon be considered a holiday in the United States, our beloved day of eating, drinking, eating some more, doing nothing, munching out, sitting on the couch, gathering with friends and eating more food to celebrate an event simply known as "the Super Bowl."  God Bless America.  Drink Gallery is cool cause it definitely is an American bar, run by Argentines of course, that made us foreigners feel at home through its array of typical "college dorm posters" decorating the walls, classic rock and roll hits bumping at high decibel levels, and waiters and bartenders who speak our precious language (rare, I know).  Needless to say, we felt at home.  The game was AWESOME, one of the best I've seen in a long time, as I was one of the few people there who actually PICKED the Giants to win (I have it recorded on paper), although most of the crowd was cheering for them anyway.  My friend is a huge Patriots fan and was absolutely IRATE when they lost...which made me happy.  It sucked that we didn't get any of the commercials, so I'll have to watch them online if I so desire.  My favorite part of the night, besides the Giant's unprecedented victory, was during the halftime show when Tom Petty struck the first chord of "Free Fallin" and the crowd (at Drink Gallery) went nuts.  By the time the chorus came around, the whole joint was in the midst of one great big sing along.  AWESOME!  I'll say it again, God Bless America!

G-G-G-G-G-G G-Unit!

I forgot to throw this up the other day after our bus tour around a small portion of the city.  We were in an older, historic part of town in this plaza where there are many commemorative statues, old buildings, and places of historical importance, and now-a-days, there is a lot of graffiti in this area, particularly political graffiti.  I had fun looking at the different taggings on the walls, amused by the things that people said, and in general by the political ideology (radical) of the artists.  Then I stumbled upon this BRILLIANT work of art, and couldn't help but looking like a Japanese tourist, pulling out my camera and capturing this hilarious inscription that will forever remain on this building in the city.  East coast RAISE UP!

Mi Casa

So my homestay father has been a vet for thirty years down here in Buenos Aires, and like my cousin Abby was telling me, that is a vocation that brings in mass amounts of flow (which translates into "money," "cash," "dollar bills" for you older folks, no disrespect intended).  Even more, as one of his sons, a brother of mine down here, was telling me last night at dinner, Juan (the dad) has been working as a vet for thirty years now, and teaches classes for vets at a local University, so he is very experienced and one of the best in his field.  All that having been said, I live in a fairly nice house, surely on the upper end of the spectrum for living in the city down here.  Having talked to a bunch of my Pepperdine homies down here (again, "homies" roughly translates into "friends"), most live in apartments, and some have very small rooms to live in.  One way or another, I was lucky enough to be put on board with this family, and have a very nice, large (so to speak in terms of life down here...) room, and my own bathroom down those crazy spiral stairs.  Yeah baby!

As for explaining the pictures above, as I failed to put captions next to each one...

• Spiral stairs leading up to my bedroom--essentially I live in what feels like a belltower, in a very modern section of the house that is disconnected from the kitchen, living room, and the parents' room.  Me and my broski Agustine (21 years old), live over in this section, and it's pretty cool.
• View of what looks like run down projects/crack houses out my window--okay so my view isn't beachfront, but I'm not complaining.  There are may tall buildings around our house that are currently under construction...the AWESOME thing about that is the clinking and clanking that begins promptly at 7am every day (note the sarcasm here, as you obviously can't hear it).
• View from my bed--pretty self explanatory, but I might add that my bed is rather narrow, which is fine, and rather uncomfortable, which is not fine.  I'll stop short of saying that it is like a prison bed, because 1) I can't say I've frequented prison lately, and 2) It's not all that bad...but my back is a little sore.
• Desk--not even necessary to put a picture of this up, cause quite frankly, who cares, but I did anyway
• Another view of the room and the back-breaker
  

That's all for now folks...thanks for reading.

Hola a Buenos Aires!

Greetings and salutations from the southern hemisphere of our lovely sphere (A.K.A globe/earth) where I write in the bustling city of Buenos Aires, Argentina!  So it's been a few days since I've been down here, and the reality of the fact hasn't quite settled in yet.  In the last few days, less than a week's amount of time, I have endured a 14 hour trek aboard a lovely LAN aircraft, eaten more meat than I have in the past 2 months (that being my Christmas break), watched the Super Bowl in a foreign country for the first time in my life, inhaled more second-hand smoke than one should in an entire lifetime, learned how to navigate the area close to my house and school, served as a passenger in taxis more than I have in my entire life, went to bed at 5:30am the other night, and clogged my host family's toilet, to name just a few occurrences.  

From the time my host family picked me up at our school's "casa," (actually we have two adjoining ones, both millions of dollars, a sight worthy of it's own posting, which will surely come later) to the time I returned to the casa later that night to go out to a bar with the group, not a lick of English was spoken.  Coming into this semester, I was fairly confident with my Spanish-speaking abilities, but I was quickly dethroned from my high-horse once I was forced to mumble out incoherent, poorly conjugated, scrambled sentences to my host family.  Over the past few days, my confidence has grown, and I'm starting to catch on to the odd accent/dialect that is spoken here in B.A.  I have Spanish class for the first time in 10 minutes, and with class everyday, immersion in the city, and constant practice, I'm sure my Spanish will improve.  Needless to say, it is a whole new experience, a challenge to be sure, yet quite entertaining at the same time.  

There is so much more that I want to say, but time will not permit me to meander in the blogosphere any longer, as Spanish 252 is beckoning me.  I promise to throw up some pics and more postings later, after my class hopefully, as I have a lot to share!  

Much love to my peeps in the U. S. of A. and any other supporters worldwide!  TJ Out!