Buenos Aires!

Our trip started the tenth of September when I got up early at 6am. By 6:40 I was outside my apartment building watching our security guard brush his teeth and make his breakfast while I waited for my friend Heidi. By 7:30 we were on a double decker bus with 4 other friends to start what would be a 26 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires Chile. Since most of our classes were cancelled for the week of September 18th because of Chilean Independence day we decided that it was a great opportunity to head to Argentina. The trip from Vina del Mar to the Chilean, Argentina border was absolutely stunning. Driving into the Andes was amazing. We started with farmland and by the time we got to the border we were in lots of snow and cold weather. We even got to pass by Portillo a very famous Chilean ski area, very famous with powder pigs.

The man I sat next to on my flight from Texas to Santiago was going to Portillo to host a telemarking workshop there. There was even evidence of avalanches! It took us for

ever to get through customs at the border but once we got back through it was crazy how fast the scenery changed. We went from lots of snow to red desert looking dirt. We also got to drive past the vineyards of Mendoza and man were they pretty. I can't wait to see the vineyards when there are actually grapes on the vines. It was really interesting for me to see the landscape change when we were driving and also the levels of poverty change. You might see a shanty town and then up the road see a new development of mansions.

Once in Buenos Aires (after 26 hours on the bus!) we hiked to our hostel. We stayed at Art Factory which was the coolest hostels I have ever seen. They have graffiti type art painted all over the walls. It was a

very friendly, comfortable and clean place to stay. I was very very impressed. It only cost us about $4 a night, of course we were sharing a room although it worked out nicely that we had four girls and two guys in our group because the four girls were able to share a room and not have other roommates and the two guys shared a room but also had other roommates. Even the shared bathrooms were decently clean! I totally recommend Art Factory to anyone who is looking for an awesome place to stay in BA. I loved staying in the hostel because we got to meet a lot of neat people. A lot of the people staying there had been travelling for a year or more doing world tours. Many of the evenings we sat either in the bar at the hostel or in the roof top patio and just talked with the other hostel residents.

The first night we were in Buenos Aires we took part in an all you can eat parrilla (bbq) that the hostel offered. For $35 pesos (about $7 American dollars) we ate all you could eat steak, potatoes, salad, and bread accompanied by all you could drink wine. It was really a neat experience to sit down with about 30 other ho

stel residents and share a meal. The conversations all the way around the table were very interesting, many tales of places visited!

Day two in Buenos

Aires we went exploring. We got off on a late start because our two guys slept in late because they had stayed up late drinking and were still drunk at breakfast. Once we finally got moving though we got lots of site seeing in. We started out by going to the Plaza Maya which was pretty. I think there had been a night race the night before I wish I had known I would have loved to have cheered the runners on. After the plaza we went and had a tour of the Casa Roja the Argentinian equivalent mas o menos of the White House. It is there main government building in Argentina but the president does not actually live there. It is very ornate and was really nice to see. The tour was free and the guides were awesome, there were some non Spanish speakers in our group and the guides did a decent job of explaining the tour in English as well. Obviously if you speak Spanish you are going to get more out of the tour. After the Casa Roja we went to the Cementerio de Recoleta which was unlike any other cemetary I have ever visited. The cementaries in Argentina consist of family tombs that could pass as small houses made of rock. Many of the tombs you can look in and see the piles and piles of coffins some of the coffins were even rotting. It was by far the creepiest cemetery that I have visited before but part of that might have been that it was at sunset. To add to the creepy factor there were many black cats wondering through the cemetery. That night we hung out with many of the other residents of the hostel in the hostel bar, it was awesome to speak spanish with citizens of Argentina, Brasil, and Venezuela. Whenever we said that we were from Chile the Argentinians would always make fun of how the Chileans speak, it was really funny.

The next day we spent a good amount of the day exploring and visiting the artesian fairs. Buenos Aires has a lot do really cool fairs and places to buy lots of different things. I was on the hunt for the perfect "mate" cup for myself. Mate is the tea of Argentina it is made from an Argentinian herb that is soaked in the hot tea water and the drinker then uses a special straw to drink the tea. Many of the mate cubs are made from gourds because the Argentinians say that the gourd adds an extra flavor to the mate. You can also find metal with a leather cover, and wood mate cups. It was really neat to just explore the city and the many shops. Argentina's exchange rate is very favorable to the American dollar so I was able to find lots of fun gifts. Sunday night was very lowkey because I wanted to get to bed early so I could get up early in the morning. Monday was my 20th birthday so my friend Sam and I were going to take a ferry to Uruguay and spend the day over there. When we went to buy the tickets online though we found out that we had to have a notarized note from our parents if we were under 21 so obviously that did not work. Instead we decided we would get up early and go explore more of Buenos Aires. We went to bed and the rest of our friends stayed up drinking. Around midnight one of our friends came in and asked for the key. Now in order to unlock or lock our room from the inside you need the key. When my friend left I told her not to lock the door because if she did she would lock us in. As she left she said "Happy birthday" and what did I hear her do but lock the door. So hear I am the start of my 21st year of life locked in my hostel room in Buenos Aires with my sleeping roommate, awesome! Well I figured won't be a big deal they will come back soon enough and unlock the door and go to bed. 2am rolls around and there is banging on the door..."LET US IN!!!" I kindly explained that we couldn't let them in because we were locked in. Both of my friends were very very drunk so they could not comprehend that we couldn't let them in and were very upset at us. Eventually they remembered that they had left the key with the front desk and let themselves in. We got both of the girls into bed (a challenge since one of them was on the top bunk) and thought everything was ok until about an hour later we woke up to the sound of puke hitting the floor. My friend puked from the top bunk onto the floor and then on the other side of her bunk as well onto the wall, her bag, and onto the hair of our sleeping friend on the bottom bunk. So for the start of my 20th birthday I got yelled at by very drunk friends and then had to clean up their puke. What an awesome way to start the day! It could only get better from their though. Sam and I got up later than we hoped but got out the door and went walking down by El Puerto (the port) and got to go on an Argentinian navel vessel that is now a museum (costs about 50 cents to enter) and a training vessel for the Argentinian navy. We also went to the Immigration museum which is free and is definitely worth visiting. The museum currently is pretty small but if you get the chance talk with the curator, he is awesome. He came and gave us a personal tour of the museum and told us many things that we would not have known if he hadn't spoken with us. It is really impressive how organized the immigration system for Argentina was. In one complex the immigrants arrived, had a place to receive meals, find work, take classes, and live until they found permanent housing. After that we hopped the metro (really worth using, only cost about 60cents for a ride!) and went to Polermo and Polermo Hollywood. We enjoyed a wonderful pasta lunch accompanied by some of Argentina's famous r

ed wine at an outdoors cafe, what a wonderful way to spend your birthday. After that we walked around and did some shopping. When we returned to the hostel my other friends had bought me some cheesecake from one of Buenos Aires wonderful bakeries so we celebrated my birthday again. After a nap we woke up around midnight and got ready to go out. We started that night at the Red Door Pub where you literally had to walk up to an unmarked door and ring the doorbell to get in. Then we went to a club that the bartender at the hostel had gotten us VIP tickets to. There we met people from all over the world as well. By the time we got back to the hostel the sun was rising and it was 6:30 in the morning.

Four hours after going to bed we were up and at it again, we had to be on the bus by 5pm so we had some last minute things to buy before catching the bus. After shopping we hopped on the bus so we could get back to Chile to celebrate "El Dieziocho!" All in all Buenos Aires was a wonderful place to visit. It was really neat to think that I went from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. I would like to go back eventually there is so much more to see and do in BA, it is an absolutely huge city.