The EASTER BUNNY

Video to come...

Casa La Casita

I'm in a class this semester called "The International Experience," which is short for "we really do nothing and take fieldtrips throughout the city," and it's awesome.  Two weeks ago, the week before my Mom and Louise came down, on Thursday (which is the day we have this class on), our group traveled up to the city of Tigre, outside of the city yet still in the province of Buenos Aires, to a humble little place called "Casa La Casita."  Casa la Casita is a before-school/after-school house where kids in the area can come before and after school to do their work and hang out, and the whole building and everything is bought and sponsored by Pepperdine.  Every Thursday (not part of my class), there is a group of students in our program who go and help out/play with the kids at La Casita for something we call "Service Learning" that is a voluntary part of the overseas experience.  Needless to say, our fieldtrip that Thursday was to this special place, where we assisted the kids with Easter crafts, face painting (and other girly stuff), and had an Easter Egg hunt, followed by a game of soccer.  

You're probably wondering why I'm telling you this dry and boring story, but here comes my rationale.  I HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF DRESSING UP AS THE EASTER BUNNY!  It was pretty hilarious, the kids loved it, and I got my a** whooped.  What I mean by that is: I had candy; kids love candy; kids can be crazy; they just so happened to be crazy for candy and I was the man with the candy; a heavy pursuit ensued; a dozen kids jumped me whilst I attempted to flee in a bunny costume; I was taken down to the ground; kicked; jumped on; ears stolen; suit muddied; face paint smeared; body dripping with sweat inside the costume; extremely fun and memorable day.  I have a video of this part, don't you worry, and will try to get it up soon.

As for now, all I have are these pictures that the kids took with my camera, cause they all loved taking our camera's and showing how good at photography they are (if you can't catch the sarcasm that's unfortunate cause I'm laying it on pretty thick).  Anyway, here's an odd assortment of pics, taken by them, the charming young children of Tigre, Argentina.  Enjoy, and the video will be up soon.

P.S.  Yes, that boy is trying to flip off the camera while simultaneously taking the picture of himself.  Darling young boy.

These Pictures are Lame but...

...I didn't feel the need to take too many pictures with the presence of my Mother and Weezie, the Japanese tourists, cause I knew at just about every change of scenery I would be the subject of a new photo.  Therefore, these are the only pictures I took with the fine young gals...more to come, I promise, once they send me their hoard of pictures via internet.  

P.S.  Notice the picture of Weezie taking my Mom's picture...pretty standard summation of the trip, her making a lot of noise, drawing attention to us as foreigners, asking random Argentines to pose for pictures, etc.  It kept things exciting...I love ya Weezie!

Yeah, yeah, I know...

Okay, I'm well aware that I haven't been doing the best job as of late as far as the posts are concerned...I'm sorry, but there's a reason for that.  Actually, there are two reasons.

1) As many of you may know, my dear mother and her awesome friend Louise are down here visiting me (which has been great, might I add), and as you also may note, they do not speak the most beautifully sounding Spanish (which equates to "they are pretty poor at the language but give it a valiant effort nonetheless..."), so I have been their tour guide/translator, which has been quite the experience.  For those of you who know Louise, she might as well be a photographer in another life, so we're not short of pictures to put up on ye ol blog, it's just that we've been having too much fun for me to put up the pics, AND, we have to pay for internet to use it at the hotel (sorry pops), which has led me to, or should I say forced me into putting off my posts til later.  Sorry folks

2) Besides the arrival of these two young foxes, I don't have too much exciting to share with you all either!  

In other news, my new digital camera that I got before this trip just broke the other day (I was furious), so my Madre is gonna take it home, meaning I won't have a camera down here the rest of my stay, but don't fret sportsfans, my friends take lots of pictures, and they can't resist taking pictures of my precious face (I'm really not that self-absorbed, it's a joke), so I will still be able to keep you all up to date!  Phew, I had you worried, I know.

Signing off for now with this last salutation:

HAPPY EASTER!

Day 4: Penguins, that's about it

Day's 3 and 4

Whew, it's been a while friends.  Believe it or not, in actuality I really AM down here pursing scholastic endeavors, and that's my legitimized excuse for not having kept you all up to date on the rest of our field trip.  My bad...I gotta hit the books every now and then.  I digress.  Back to the cruise, somewhere after my stomach started feeling better, I believe, is where we last met. The third day of our journey took us through calm waters (praise God in Heaven) that were surrounded by awesome mountains and islands, and we disembarked at this one spot where we hopped back into the little boats, and cruised ashore (with dolphins blazing our trail just feet ahead), and got to do a little nature hike on an island where the indigenous people used to live, but were wiped out by "the Man" (sound familiar America?).  The scenery was awesome, and at the top of our hike (the summit, if you will), gave us an incredible panoramic view that my photography skills were unable to do justice to.  You'll just have to take my word for it, it was GNARLY!  

The next day, after traveling up further through the fiords, we got back into the little boats yet again, and this time forded the ice cold waters (literally, there were chunks of ice floating in the water) to see this awesome glacier.  Don't worry, I kept the vibe warm by sporting my shorts, cause I'm a man like that.  But seriously, the weather was so nice (which they say usually isn't the cause), and I had no problems with the shorts (except for when our boat driver "accidently" drove us under a waterfall...moron).  The glacier was unbelievable, and what made it even more exciting was the numerous times when huge chunks cracked off, accompanied by the sounds of a dozen firing cannons, and plummeted into the water below, sending little ripples through the sea.  Don't fret, it wasn't anything threatening, cause clearly I'm alive and well as we speak.

So that's pretty much it for those days...I'll try and throw up the finale sometime this weekend. Hope all is well with you lovely people back in the U.S.!  Sing "America the Beautiful" for me if you get the chance...or salute the flag or something like that.  Love to all.

Clarification

I started working on the Day 2 post yesterday, and didn't have time to finish it, so it was saved as a draft, and therefore when I finished it today, it was posted under the Tree posting, which I also made yesterday.  What I'm trying to say is that Day 2 is up, it's just located under the Tree post. Good, great, grand!

Yeah, I fell out of a tree, so what?

Here's a good pic someone took of me seconds before the fall, also right before I was bucked off my high-horse.

Day 2: Cape Horn followed by some of the darker hours of my life

Day 2 aboard the boat began with an early wakeup call at about 6:30am, and when I say wakeup call I mean the most obnoxious noise blaring over the speakers all throughout the boat (including in our rooms, speakers full blast) followed by a man speaking Spanish telling us to meet up in the Sky Lounge in order to disembark (exactly what I like to hear at that hour in the morning).  We had arrived at our first stop of the voyage, Cape Horn, a.k.a, the end of the earth. We were shuttled over to the island aboard small pontoon-esque boats, which made for an interesting time.  Here I am, posing like an a**clown (quoting Office Space, of course, as I don't choose to say those words on my own free will and accord, duh Mom).  Once again, the weather was nice, and I was optimistic about the day.  Details on how that drastically changed soon to come.  Read on...

Every semester when the group goes on the EFT, it is custom to take a group picture, all of which adorn the walls here at the casas in B.A.  Unfortunately, everybody didn't get the memo to gather for the group picture, so we're missing a few kids.  Fret no more, however, for surely enough I was not one of those goblins, and I'm sitting pretty front and center next to my friend Zack and our program director Rafa.  I don't think they read this much, so I'm gonna go ahead and say being next to them helps me look good.  

Zack, Danielle and I, at world's end.  Not  much more to that one.

Yes I know, this picture by itself is not very interesting, but that's because what you are failing to realize is that just 500 miles south of there, we come across that ever-useful hunk of land called "Antarctica."  Also, you will notice that that body of water over yonder, the southern Atlantic Ocean, is pretty much open water, meaning that it is not surrounded by islands/mountains/protection...essentially, it is very choppy, and in order to get to our next destination, we had to ford this treacherous beast, and I must admit, she had her way with me for a good chunk of time. 

Here's the pony-show procession to get to the Cape Horn monument.  If you haven't already noticed (which if you have eyes like me, that's probably the case-see: John Joyce for thanks), we're all sporting some pretty classy lifevests, a requirement when disembarking the boat.  The walk there took longer than expected, due to the fact that most people who take this type of cruise tend to be in their later years of life, so the going was a bit slow with these forefathers of ours leading the way.  Pretty much, the age gap on the cruise was incredible, as you would be hard pressed to find someone inbetween the ages of 20-60.  These poor folks had to deal with us for what probably seemed like the longest 3 nights of their lives.  They were troopers, no doubt.

Me and Zack embracing.  Yep.

Ah yes, one of my favorite pics of the entire trip.  As you can see, the lifevests came equipped with extra safety measures, including the crotch strap to ensure that just in case all the other straps fail, this one is bound to keep the lifevest nice and snug on the torso.  Every time we were forced to wear these heinous things, I made sure all my straps were buckled, including the booty floss, and tightened it as far as I could to preserve the jewels while at the same time ensuring a big old, and completely visible, wedggie.  The girls really loved it, enough to take this picture for me.  Charming, I'm aware...thanks Mikey.