Trip to Iguazu

So, first stop of my somewhat epic road trip (if I may say so myself) is Iguazu Falls/Puerto Iguazu.

Where to begin... First of all I was extremely lucky that my Dad's roommate from college and his wife gave me a coupon for 2 nights at a really nice hotel here. Although I came off a 17 turned 19 hour bus ride, with a duffel and some things certainly awry with my face and hair after such a trip.. the hotel accepted me anyway, believing I was the person who booked two nights at this shwanky place.  Yes there were some dubious looks at first, but I have certainly made myself at home here!

Down to the nitty gritty, the extremely long bus ride was not so bad. The seats recline quite a bit, and I found it a lot easier to sleep on it, even though I am someone who has issues sleeping on planes.  The guy sitting next to me was a little scary at first, being a fanatic of the Independiente, with tatoos and all... but after a small chat, explaining who I was and promising that my cursory interest in Argentine fútbol would be directed entirely to his team, he became a total sweet heart, even buying me dinner.  He got off at some point around 1AM, but in typical Argentine man style, made me promise to let him know when I arrived safely in Iguazu, that last stop of the bus, about 8 hours away.

I fell in and out of sleep, not knowing where I was really, seeing a rain storm, and finally arriving at Puerto Iguazu at lord knows what time.  After checking in to the hotel, and finding my way at that, I managed to commander my way across to the panoramic view of Iguazu Falls.  The view was incredible, and left me excited for the next days excursion to the base of the falls.

Today, even though our bus was stuck in traffic from a really bad accident for about an hour and a half with some Dutch people and a few Brits and Aussies, we finally made it.  The coatis (raccoons with long noses), toucans, iguanas and even monkeys were running wild. Even more though, the butterflies were all over the place! Unexpected, but lovely making me feel a bit like Cinderella as I walked down the paths to the base of the falls.  The view there and on the way was just unreal.  I have been fortunate enough to also have been to Victoria Falls in Africa, and I'm not sure which I like better.  They were very different, but the falls here look the way you imagine jungle waterfalls to look like.  Not too strong, just a ton spread out all over the place. As much as I don't want to use this comparison, they were sort of like the floating island waterfalls from Avatar... haha. I purchased a ride in a motor boat that took us up to the base of a few of them, and dunked us under some of them... good thing they gave us special bags for our things. I really got drenched.  Luckily today was a lot sunnier than yesterday and I dried off pretty quickly..

After this I took a short ferry ride to an Island located in between Brazil and Argentina (although it is technically Argentine..).  From there you could see a view of all the falls, and I felt as though I was in some sort of movie or epic novel.  At this point I was pretty tired and had gotten a lot of sun, so I made my way back to the hotel to indulge in some of the amenities... For dinner I went into 'town' which seems more like a border town, which is what is really is, rather than a place that takes advantage of the tourism or is built up.  Tomorrow it's off to the next leg of my journey... thankfully I'll be flying.. Updates to come shortly...

Takes Some Getting Used to...

As I have said before, I think in the previous blog, I really am starting to get used to my new life here.  My job was the first thing that really felt more comfortable with. I know the routines of the day, my co-workers are hilarious, and truly wonderful and dedicated women.  In addition, I sort of know how each kid is, how to keep them from crying, and how to get through to them.  I even look at kids on the street differently now... It's a little weird, but the kiddies I work with are a lot of fun.  I could go on and on for hours about them one by one, but I'll spare you.

The second thing that I've more or less gotten used to is the Argentine accent.  For y's and ll's the pronunciation is "sh." This is more bizarre to me than the Spain accent for sure, but it's actually kind of fun to do, and I've been actively trying to assimilate it into my speech.  This pronunciation is probably the only really weird thing in Argentine Spanish, or Castellano (Casteshano) as they call it.  I am thankful that I'm not trying to speak with Chileans, who seem to actually have a separate language altogether according to some trustworthy sources.

Last but not least, is the thing that I may actually never get used to... timing.  Some people struggle with the timing of food.  Waiting until 930ish (maybe later) to eat dinner can be really tough. But for someone who grew up having dinner around 8, 830, it's not so far fetched.  I have gotten my stomach used to this food schedule by not eating breakfast when I wake up, which is easy for me, and having lunch at around 1 or 2 pm when the kids are taking their nap. I eat a good amount, and maybe have a snack, or merienda as it's called here, with a croissant (medialuna) or a cookie (alfajor), to keep me going until dinner.  The food schedule is fine by me now, and that's not what I'm talking about when I say time... When I say timing I mean punctuality.

Disregarding this past Sunday's indiscretion, I am a very punctual person.  Argentine's, and those of Spanish or Latin blood are usually not so much.  I don't mind waiting for people (to a point of course), but I do not like people waiting for me.  I respect the laid back air and mindset that comes with the South American tardiness, and have tried to adopt it accordingly.  Try as I might, I always seem to get to the meeting point first. Even if I meticulously time it so that I will be at least 15 minutes late, I'm still waiting for a little while.  What's started to happen even is that people I meet up with have started getting to places on time, leaving me arriving late, and feeling slightly guilty about diverging from my norm.  Will I ever get in sync with cool laid back air of Argentina? Oddly enough, the hardest part about really 'fitting in' and getting used to life here has been just letting go, especially of time.  Ironically this is something that I will work on.. or should I just not, and let go? haha.  Maybe if I had a lifetime here I would, but my first month is almost up! How can I dawdle when there are things to see!

Some other things I've been up to...

As of yesterday, after my visit to Colonia, Uruguay, I feel that I have now completed basically everything that one can do here tourist wise. I have no doubt that there are myriad things to do in a big city like this, but in terms of the big cahunas, I'm pretty sure those are done.

First let me vent about my day yesterday... After oversleeping for reasons that are partially my fault, and partially my phone's fault, I missed my boat that was supposed to take me to Colonia.  Being that this is literally the first time that has ever happened to me, I was really pissed, sad, and nervous, because yesterday was basically my only day that I could really go.  I hauled my butt down to the docks, and managed to change my ticket to one in a couple of hours for only about 10$ more. Waiting at the port, I was hungry, exhausted, and obviously angry at myself.  What made it worse though, was that somehow my Sube card (metro card), that I had just used, vanished. Literally walked out of my pocket.  Being that you need a passport to get one, I was naturally pretty worried about how I would get home, and how I would get a new one, but also worried that my Argentine phone, that was also not with me hadn't decided to leave me permanently as well.  [Yes it all worked out fine, got a new card today, and my phone was waiting for me at home when I got back, via an accidental free bus ride home :) ].

Luckily I made it to Colonia eventually, and was somewhat soothed by the free champagne offered to me on the way.  The city, if you can really call it that, is really tiny, but at the same time incredibly beautiful.  It reminded me a ton about what I think Cuba would be like, except no dancing in the street, and no communism.  Although most food places were closed sadly, I did manage to get some awesome ice cream to soothe my angst of the day's events.  I only had an hour to walk around, but that turned out to be enough more or less to see the town, and to quickly walk up the lighthouse, which still functions, for a great panoramic view. I quickly walked back to the dock, only to find out that my phone had not automatically changed to Uruguayan time (one hour ahead), and that I had missed my second boat.  Luckily, the people took pity on me, and gave me a ticket for a later boat and consequentially an extra hour in Uruguay.  I treated myself to an alfajor (dulce de leche cookie sandwich) for consolation.

Yes that was a crappy day you might say. However, I still have my passport, and my boat did not sink, although if it had, I probably wouldn't have been surprised.  In spite of all these mishaps, something that I am really not used to when I travel, Colonia was beautiful enough that I still appreciated it and really enjoyed my short time there.  Although I have a general proclivity (because of my father I think!) to do rapid speed lightning tours of places, it may be worth it to stay a night or two in Uruguay, to see Montevideo, but also to see Punta del Este, a really cool beach on the other side of the coast.  I would definitely recommend some sort of trip to this place it if you come visit the area!

In terms of other touristy things, the museums here are meh.  The Evita Museum by my house, and the Bicentennial Museum behind the Casa Rosada (free) were probably my favorites so far. The big ones, despite promising Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera, didn't really have much or any of that.  

In all I'd say the markets are definitely where it's at, and the fact that they only happen on Saturdays or Sundays make them that much more special. One cool day trip, or half day trip, is El Tigre, 45ish minutes north of town.  It's basically a water world type place. Everything water compliant, including boats instead of cars, water gas stations, grocery store boats, etc. A very special place. Another thing that I've grown to appreciate is the graffiti here. There's a lot, and although it's not always interesting, sometimes there's really cool drawings or intriguing cultural and historically important messages.  

If you come down here, walking is your best bet. Don't do the big tour bus, but remember to wear some sunblock because that ozone hole they keep talking about is apparently just a bit south of us here!

Argentine Fútbol

Last night I watched my first, hopefully not last, Argentine soccer (fútbol) game.  During the match I realized that I actually had never seen a professional game before! What better place to start than in Argentina!!  I can say without hesitation that it was one of the coolest experiences of my life! I'm going to describe it in detail.. so bear with me.. I have to do it justice.

Buenos Aires has two main teams, Boca Juniors and River Plate, who are also of course arch rivals. [Apparently, they both used to have stadiums in the Boca neighborhood of South BA, but the rivalry grew so intense, that River decided to move their stadium to the complete opposite northern end of BA!]

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to be given a free ticket by a new friend, whom I met through Katina, one of the two year long JDC JSC fellows here.  The match, incredibly enough, was with River, who was playing Godoy Cruz from the Mendoza region of Argentina.  Although THE game to watch is with the BA rivals, last night's game, for me at least, was quite enough to give me a taste of what fútbol's really like here.

First of all, I had to be quite careful about what colors I wore.  The only viable colors were white and red, the colors of River.  Neutrals like brown or black are of course alright. Anything blue or even yellow would have secured my getting haggled a ton if not out right hurt, since these are the colors of Bocca and Godoy Cruz.

My new friend Avi and I took the subte to the last stop of the green line. We easily followed the red and white jerseys to the huge stadium about 15 blocks away.  The security was incredibly tight, as we wound our way to the first barricade, passing a bunch of scalpers on the way.  Realizing we had actually gone to the wrong side of the stadium we attempted to convince the police to let us cross the barricade to the other side... But this was not allowed.  The barricade was one side of a sort of canal made for the fans of the opposing team.  It was meant to protect them from River fans, and if we walked through it to get out on the opposite wall, we might have gotten hurt.  Thus, we took the long way round, and passing through the checkpoint on the other side.  Going through, I saw random people getting selected to have their finger prints taken. In the event that they turned out to be criminals, they wouldn't be let in to the stadium.  Everyone is patted down after, guys and girls separately.  Once we got through, our ticket was finally scanned and we entered the stadium.

To say the least, it was enormous, and the tickets, being a gift from a police officer, were really great. We were under shelter, (sitting on the bottom floor, shaded by the top tier of the stadium) with the middle class people, just to the right of one of the goals.  Above us were seats for Godoy Cruz, and although it was raining a bit, I was informed that if I saw heavy rain.. it was probably them trying to pee on us.  Luckily, we were sheltered either way! To my right were the expensive seats, and straight across on the top level were the 'locos,' the crazy fans, who file in at the last moment with drums, and who determine what chants to sing and when. No one starts a cheer until the locos do.

It is easy to say that the crowd was just as much fun to watch as the game.  People went crazy, and even more so since River was able to win with a 5-0 victory!  Everyone was jumping and singing River songs. I could see, even all away across the entire field, the locos, tiny specks to me, jumping up and down.  Granted there was a ton of 'puta,' 'mierda,' and some other curses that I don't even know being thrown around by everyone, kids who were probably just about 6 included, but that just made the experience even better!

Although I have a few pictures, unfortunately taken by my phone since I was nervous about having a camera, they won't do the experience justice.  Nothing can really show the enormity of the stadium or emit the intense passion and energy of the crowd.

I really hope I can go to another game, but tickets are hard to come by.  I saved my ticket as a souvenir, but I'm going to have to hide it from Roberto... he's a Boca fan, and I haven't had the heart to tell him yet that not only did I go to a River game, but by the end I was cheering and yelling 'mierda' as loud as everyone else!!

A Typical Day

Well, now that I've completed 4 full days of work, I can tell you a bit about what it's like.

I am set to work Tuesday to Friday, 10:30 ish until 4 ish at JDC's Baby Help center in the Chacaritas barrio of Buenos Aires.  Since a lot of holidays are coming up, it's easier for me to not work on Monday's since I'd probably have them off anyway.

Usually, I'll wake up at around 9, get ready, prepare myself some lunch to take with me, and walk about a block north to catch the 39 collectivo (bus) to take until the last last stop of its route... the bus depot actually. The center I work at is just across the street from there.

Catching the bus can be a little tricky and sometimes really annoying actually. Unlike in NYC, you have to stick out your hand and hail a bus. This works well, and keeps congestion down a bit I think.. Unless the bus you want is in the outside lane and can't see you because a car is blocking it's view, or doesn't feel like maneuvering in in time, causing you to "miss your bus" and be a bit later than you wanted. Grr.... The "metrocard" they use here is called a Sube. Unlike other cities I've been to, it's personalized for everyone. I had to bring my actual passport, not just a photocopy, in order to get one. From there it's rechargeable.  When you get on the bus, you can either tell them where you're going and they tell you how much you're going to pay... or you can just tell them $1.10 or $1.25, the average amount for a ride without too much fussing. The metro is more straight forward.. no hailing trains down :) and it's $2.25 without having to check out with your Sube as you have to do in DC or Paris.

Once I get to work, I am almost always with the 6 mo. to 2yr. olds, and only a couple of times, when they needed more people, or if someone was really shy or misbehaving, did I watch some 2yr. and up year olds.  When I arrived with Katina on my first day, I didn't really have a preference about what I was going to do.  Since they have anywhere from two to four 6 mo. olds who need to be carried and feed them, and only have two adults who work there normally, my extra hands were definitely most useful there. Although I don't really get to practice my spanish with some little ones, who have a similar level of spanish to me (haha) I get to talk with my co workers a bit, who are really great and friendly.

Every day is something different with the kids, but usually is playing until lunch at 12, nap time right after at about 1, until about 2:30ish some more playing or some sort of activity, and then snack time, after which the parents start trickling in. During the nap time I'll eat and they help if they need things set up, or help with some really young babies- there are only one or two.

On Fridays, since it is a jewish center, the kids learn about different holidays and do a little Shabbat snack time.  This aspect is super cool for me to see. Although not everyone who works there is jewish, it's really awesome for me to see all these little kids who are jewish learning about the culture and religion.  In addition, the more I'm down here in BA, I'm really amazed at how the whole jewish community comes together, and is in fact really quite large.  It's always been interesting for me to see and meet jews from different countries, and it never stops surprising me how much of a global community there really is.  This doesn't mean that everyone is super religious or observant by any means, but we know that we have something in common, which is not always the case when traveling far and wide. I'm excited to get to know and share more about the community while I'm here, as well as more details about how Baby Help works, who's involved, and what that's like in the context of living in Argentina.