Bariloche

March 26- Casa Holden

So I have noticed that as the semester as gone on i have gotten progressively worse at updating this thing. ooops. haha

but so anyways, the updates in my life...

my parents and brother were down here and it was great to see them. it was fun to take them around the city and just show them all the things that i have talked about so much since i have been down here. we had dinner one night with my host family which was great that they got to meet them and my host brothers and everyone. but i said goodbye to my parents on tuesday night because they were leaving early in the morning to go to Peru and then i left thursday morning to spend easter break in bariloche, patagonia.

but bariloche was great. it was definitely beautiful and wonderful to be back in the mountains. it is also more or less lake country and so while we were there we did a lot of lake tours and all. the hotel we stayed at over looked the lake and so it was amazing to walk into the lobby in the morning and see the blue water.

anyways, bariloche... i went with my friend amy, kelsey and then amy's sister mom and dad. so it was a great group to hang out with. but we landed around noonish on thrusday and went to the hotel and dropped off our bags and everything but then we had the afternoon free so we went into the "town" part and ate lunch at this small pizza place that was really good. funny story... we randomly ran into another pepperdine student that went to bariloche for the weekend to in front of the pizza place later on during the break and he was sitting there because he was staying with his aunt and his uncle and his uncle owns that pizza place. crazy. but yeah anyways, after pizza we walking to this center area of town because they had a bunch of St. Bernard dogs and puppies sitting around in the square. they do this because you can get your picture taken with one of the dogs for 10 bucks. definitely a tourist trap but oh well you could pet them for free and they were definitely so cute!! they also had a bunch of logs where they were about to being a wood craving competition. we saw the finished products a few days later and it was crazy to see both the before and the after. but then anyways, after that we just walked around the town. bariloche is the chocolate capital of the world so we bought and ate some great chocolate and helado during the entire trip. but then after walking around dinner we went back to the hotel and swam in the pool that has both the inside and then a tunnel to the outside which over looks the lake and the water is heated so it was wonderful. but then after dinner we just went to bed because we had to leave the hotel at 8 am for a lake tour.

the following morning we had to wake up really early to leave the hotel to get to the otherish side of town where we jumped on to a boat and toured the big lake that is right in front of bariloche. it was fun to tour around and then to be able to get off the boat and "hike" around. we also went to this lake called lake frio which is some lake right on the boarder of chile and argentina. it was pretty relaxing and we didnt do much but it was a really long day (we were on the boat/lakes for 12ish hours) so after a great dinner of wonderful argentine food we went back to the hotel and watched mystic river with amys parents and then went to bed.

the next day we also had to be up early but this day was a bus tour of 7 lakes. i dont remember why it was 7 or what was important about these lakes but we basically spend the entire sitting on the bus driving around these lakes. it would have been funner for me at least if we could have walked around the lakes and been able to see more of them than just driving around but oh well. it was still fun. the tour was also entirely in spanish but i understood most of it. so that was pretty cool. i guess i am starting to get better at spanish than i think i am. but anyways on this tour we saw the shortest river in the world and also a river that branches off to both the altantic and the pacific oceans. very cool. but anyways, we drove to the borderish of argentina and chile again and had lunch and ice cream and time to just walk around there. but then we got back in the bus and had about a 3 hour nothing exciting not even driving past lakes trip back into bariloche. but then we went and ate a great dinner of steak and cheese founde which was very interesting considering that i have never had founde before but it was definitely delicious. but then after that kelsey, amy, amy's sis and our friend mike that we randomly ran into in front of the restuarant and i all went out to a couple of bars and talked and had a few drinks and everything. they definitely have a really huge night life there and some of the clubs are supposed to be amazing but we didnt go to any of them and didnt really get to into the night life just because we were so tired from the tours and adventure and everything before.

the following day we got to sleep in a little bit. we didnt have to leave the hotel until 1 so amy, kelsey and i ate lunch at the hotel and it was great food! argentine food is already really good but the food in bariloche was even more amazing for some reason. but anyways after lunch we got on the bus and headed back to the dock where we got on the boat and went to victoria island. supposed the forest on the island is where disney got its inspiration for bambi, however there was a small piece of paper sign from disney saying that this was false and that bambi was created in the 30s and disney visited the forest in the 40s. haha but it was definitely hilarious to heard the portenos claim it and talk about it all the time. but the trees on this island were definitley tight and different that any other trees that i have ever seen. but after that we got back on the boat and went to a different part of the island where we supposed to go see cave drawings and everything but we decided to ditch the group and went to the beach were amy's sis and mom swam in the freezing cold lake and were we had an easter egg hunt (this day was in fact sunday) and i happened to find the golden egg were the prize was a pack of dulce de leche oreo's. hahaha great times! I'm really glad that we can all be 19/20 and still have a great time finding Easter eggs in the middle of a forest somewhere in the middle of Argentina. haha but then after our excursion, we went to a brewrey for dinner and i tried a raspberry beer but considering I don't like beer it still tasted nasty. Then Kels, Amy and I watched this movie called Match Point and it was really weird but still good at the same time.

The following morning, we woke up and packed up and checked out. Then we walked down to the lake for a few minutes before we had to leave to go to the airport. From there it was an uneventful flight back to BA, an interesting cab ride back to Casa Holden where we had to tell the driver where to go because he didn't know the streets and couldn't follow his own directions. haha But once we got back, I went home and unpacked and checked my email and all that and then later that night went out to Acabar to celebrate one of the girls bday.

Yesterday was also an uneventful day of classes and relaxing between classes and all that. And so far today has been the same. I have a lot of homework that I have to get done and also I am going to try to finish the book that I have been reading. It is definitely great and I have time to read.

But anyways, I'll get the Bariloche pics up soon and send out an email when I do!

Chau for now!

The LIfe of Jessie

March 13- Casa Holden

So once again it has been a little while... sorry about that. This week has just been filled with classes and studying. My parents arrived down here yesterday and so i have been hanging out with them which has been great... my computer died the other day. like completely died... i cant even turn it on anymore so we bought a new computer and my brother is bringing it down on sunday when he comes down. at least it was good timing but what a pain in the ass. but yeah. i dont really have much else to say i am sure that i will have more to write soon when i take my parents and brother on random adventures through out the city. but for now... chau chau.

The Past Week

March 9- 1842 Quesada

Wow it has for sure been a while sence i updated this thing. but nothing really noteworthy has been going on hence why i havent written in this for a while. the week was just spend in class and hanging out doing nothing in between classes. last sunday i went to recoletta and walked around the fair there and then went to a random art mueso and walked around that but that was the highlight of the weekend. friday night we went to a bar and just hung out for a while and then went home. yesterday during the day we had a copa grande football match. (copa grande is the big game thing that we are all playing in that i was talking about earlier) and then last night about 30 of us went to this circus thing. well i thought it was a circus but really it turned out to be this trippy art show with trapeze artists. it was definitely different but everyone seemed to enjoy it. but yeah i have a test tomorrow so i have just been studying all day today :(

The End of the World

February 29- Casa Holden

So just to let everyone know this post might be very long. i am just going to write about the entire time all in one post so everyone is warned that this might be long...

day 1- see the previous post... i think i mentioned everything that was noteworthy in the last post. i dont remember what all i said but that night was just hanging out at the hotel and enjoying the extremely beautiful ushuaia

day 2- we all woke up and got ready etc etc. after breakfast we all loaded into 8 jeeps... 8 people to each jeep and spend the whole day offroading around the mountains and lakes of ushuaia. let me just say that this was a great day!! anyone that knows me knows i love the mountains and jeeps and offroading hehe. it was great. anyways, we spend the morning in the mountains and then started to head toward a lake during the afternoon. we got to this one lake and ate asado by it. i dont know how to make this sound as cool as it actually was but it was freaking sweet. anyways, after the excersion was done the jeeps took us to the port where we boarded our cruise boat. the boat was small, only 4 levels but it was still sweet! it was only us and older people but they were all very nice and everyone behaved really well so i dont think we pissed them off too bad. but anyways we got on the boat around 6 and it took off from the port around 8 so we spent a while exploring and just hanging out. then dinner was around 830 and i am not a huge fan of fancy upperclass food haha. i would rather just have some mac and cheese or a hamberger or something but i mean it was still good enough that we could eat... well actually the bread and fruit was good enough to eat... there was a lot of fish too that was suppostedly really good but i wouldnt know haha. anyways, after dinner we had group meetings. some of the people started this thing called the game where anyone that wanted to was placed onto a team and through out the semester the teams will compete with each other just doing different activites and getting to know each other. anyways, the following night was to be the first competion with teams competing for who knew their team mates the best. so we had a group meeting and began to get to know each other. then after that everyone just went to bed.. we were all tired and had to be up early so it was bed time.

day 3- this cruise was definitely designed for older people... everything was early in the morning. haha ok that was a joke... it was just the timing of the ship to the places we wanted to go but anyway at 7 am we reached cape horn. we all got off and walked around the island for a while. there was a lighthouse and also a bird staute thing but other than that it wasnt that exciting. it was just weird to be at the passage from the atlantic ocean to the pacific and to thing of all the history stories i have heard about all the people that lost their lives trying to do what we did on a nice cruise ship with no danger at all. but anyways, we got back on the ship and had breakfast and then just relaxed and hung out. we had until 4ish i think until we disembarked once again to an island that charles darwin collected research on and ancient indians lived on and magellan conquered etc etc. we hiked around there for a hour or two and drank hot cocco and then went back to the cruise ship. that night after dinner there was bingo and a fashion show where some of the girls and guys dressed up in the clothes that the ship was selling and showed them off to us. then after bingo we kindof took over one of the floors of the ship and had a dance party and turned the cruise ship into club pepperdine. haha we all danced for a while and then we had our competion for the game and getting to know each other. my team only missed one so we were all pretty stoked about that. then we ended the game at like 2 in the morning because some of the people were getting a little too competative and it lost all the fun. then most people went to bed but i went up the roof and hung out until like 4 or 5 in the morning. :)

day 4- thankfully we didnt have to be up until 1 pm. so i slept through breakfast and everything and then ate lunch at one. then we had time to kill... we were going to see a glacier but everyone had to go in shifts because it was a boat tour of the glacier and they could only take so many people in the boats at the same time. so most of the older people went first and all the pepperdine people took the last shift. so we all took naps and played cards and just relaxed until we left. then we pilled onto the boats and began the tour which was amazing. the glacier was crazy! so blue so big so cool there were waterfalls coming down the side of the mountian too and at times small pieces of the glacier broke off. it sounded like thunder and was freaking sweet. anyways, we were on the boat for about an hour which was long enough because it was cold. haha but then back the boat we went with some more hot cocoa and hanging out. there was a lot of down time and time to play cards and just relax which was definitely nice. i know some other people got really bored but i thought i was cool. so then we had our farewell dinner which was steak and it wouldnt have been really good except for the fact that it was so rare it was still bleeding. there was no way that i was going eat that and our waiter was too busy to get it cooked more but oh well. esta bien. after dinner club pepperdine was back and then after a few of us were just hanging out in one of the rooms talking and doing nothing. i ended up going to bed at like 3 and had to be up by 6 but oh well... its college right? haha

day 5- today was the penguin day! we woke up around 630 to take the boats out to an famous penguin island ( i dont remember the name) but it has the largest penguin habitat in the area or something. it was crazy to see the little fat men in tuxes haha. it was also weird to see how different they are from tv and movies and even pictures. a lot of the penguins were covered in poop. they defintely werent clean animals but they were still tight. it was crazy to hear there call and just watch thousands of them waddle around and swim and everything. but then we got back on the boat and packed up and just relaxed until the cruise ended around noon. it ended into punta arenas, chile's most southern city. i have been to the two most southern cities in the world haha. but anyways, we jumped onto some buses and went to the hotel where they didnt have our rooms ready yet so we ate lunch in the lobby and then got to go to our rooms for only about 30 min before we pilled back onto buses for a city tour which turned out to be very lame. it consised of going to the second highest place in the city to look out for a little while and then to a house turned into a mueso to get the feel of what an old victorian house looked like. most of us just ended up walking to the hotel from there and watching one of the pirate movies on hbo and playing this game called signs until dinner at 9. for dinner we went to this pizza and hot dog place. they started out by serving us on piece of pizza for an app and then came the hot dog. not that i was going to eat it anyways but it was pilled with all sorts of nasty things that shouldnt be on top of a hot dog. the smell and then sight alone was making me feel like i was going to puke so i sat outside most of the dinner. haha but then we got back to the hotel and some people decided to go out and go to this club but im not big on clubs so i stayed at the hotel with about 20 others... we all piled into one room and started watching mean girls on tv but then some of us got bored with the movie and so we started a gaint 20 person pillow fight. when the room was destroyed (not like permant damage just like matresses everywhere etc) we started telling ghost stories and all went to bed around 3 hehe

day 6- the last day of the eft and an all travel day :( we left the hotel at 11 and took a bus to the airport. after checking in bags and everything we had to get straight on the plane where we had about a 4 hour flight including a stop in some smallish town place. this flight only got us to santiago, chile where we were meant to have only about a 3 hour layover. during this layover pepperdine bought us lunch at a buffet and then we went back through the gate with about an hour before boarding. this hour however turned into about 3 and we finally got onto the plane at around 1030 and left by 11. this put us into ba at 1 when we were supposted to get back at 11 haha. i got back to my casa at like 3. it was weird because the door wasnt locked, all the lights were on, the radio was on and my parents werent there and i didnt know if any of my brothers were awake. it was weird but i was tired so i just went to bed. i saw my brother hugo this morning and i guess my parents are out of town until monday or so and my brothers just left all the lights on instead of turning them off like they normally do. oh well. but anyways, i unpacked last night and found out that someone took my phone out of my bag. :( i am going to talk to rafa and see if he can work his magic and get it back but if not oh well.. i will just get a new one. its not like i really care... i barely use the thing.

but anyways, that is the story of the eft. over all it was an amazing trip and i am very glad i got to have the experiences that i did. but now that i have been gone so long i am going to spend the day today watching movies, writing emails, talking to people and uploading pictures.

all my pictures from the trip, the boca game, the trip to the zoo and pictures of my house should be up later today :) check back soon!

Ushuaia

February 24- Los Cauquenes Hotel, Ushuaia, Buenos Aires

Hey from the end of the world!! I had a quick second and the hotel has free internet so i figured i would write a little because i dont think i will get internet until thursday night. to begin with, the movie night that i planned last night went really well!! the ice cream was amazing and we watched transformers and i think everyone had a really good time. but anyways today we left for our eft... aka educational field trip aka no education at all. anyways we took a flight from ba i happened to be in the window seat of the side of the plane that got to see the city as we took off amazing!!! i thought i had seen a lot of the city but i was blown away on how big it actually is it was great. but the flight was uneventful.. we landed here in ushuaia and it is so beautiful!! it remindes me of being in a mountain town in co expect 100 times better... i know its horrible to say that but it is the truth. it is also great to be in cold weather again!!! but anyways, ill let everyone know how cape hope and tierra del fuego is when we get back!!

The Past Few Days

February 21- Casa Holden

So I am not very good at updating this thing. haha life has been a little busy right now. we actually got legit homework for the first time since being here so i have been trying to do that and i am planning a movie night for friday night so i have had to work and then forms for being an ra next year are due soon so i have had to fill those out before we leave for Chile and yeah. but anyways, lets see i dont think anything noteworthy happened on monday... i cant remember do anything that day so yeah. but anyways, tuesday we had classes and then tuesday night we had convo and then our group dinner. but this last tuesday we went to a tango show and dinner for dinner. we had to dress up :( but the dinner was amazing. this show was also really cool just really long. it started out with the history of argentian and they had horses and everything but then it just continued through 2 hours of dancing and operaish singing and by the end everyone was just bored. the best part when this twin singers picked a random guy from the audience to bring on stage and sing to and dance and we got them to pick our director Rafa. it was great. we were definitley laughing very hard. anyways, we didnt get back from that until 2 am so everyone just went home after that. but then yesterday after class we went to this tango museum for tango class because we have to write a paper on this guy that the museum is all about. it was not exciting at all. it was small and didnt really explain anything about the guy.. it just had pictures and pieces of paper and stuff but oh well. we got an information brocher which will be enough to write the paper. then i went home and did hw for a while and then ate this delicious pasta dinner so good! but then around midnight i went and met some friends at a park and we watched the lunar ellipse that was happening down here last night. but then we just chilled in this park until 3 or so in the morning and happened to find this random pool hall that was hella tight and i got home at 6 this morning. then i had to be up by 8 to get ready for class and get to the casa by 9. i had my tour the city class this morning and we went to this place called tigre where there is a river and small shops and everything. we got our own private boat to tour around on but it wasnt that exciting. then we walked around the shops and everything for like an hour or so. i bought this tight soccer cleat keychain that has argentina and the national colors on it. but anyways our trip was cool but not that exciting. maybe just because i am really tired but i dont think i would have liked it that much even if i wasnt tired. anyways, after shopping we came back to the casa and ate asado and now i am sitting here writing this and killing time until class starts.

Boca Game

So yesterday we went to a Boca game and it was amazing. i never thought it would be possible but Boca fans are even more crazy than River fans. anyways, because i organized the event i had to go down to Boca around 10 to stand in line for 2 plus hours to get tickets for the safe but still good section. anyways i convinced my buddy russ to come with me and we had fun talking to these dutch people that are travelling all around south america. anyways after we got the tickets we came back into our area and chilled until all of us met at the Casa to leave around 6. we took a bus down there and other than it being hot (its hot here everyday) it was uneventful. but then we got to the staduim and the stadium is called the Chocolate Box and it is designed where the walls are as close to 90 degrees as you can possibly go so even though we had great seats up at the top of the staduim it felt like we were so close to the action. the stadium also shakes when everyone is bouncing up and down cheering so that was an adventure. the game its self was amazing with the final score being 4 to 0 with the last goal scored on a pk and the second to last goal scored with no one knowing what was going on because someone headed it but then it popped up but then someone headed it again but it still didnt go in and then it got kicked in finally and it was just amazing! however after the game we were planning on catching the bus to get back but so was everyone else so we had to wait forever and finally just gave up after empty bus after empty bus passed us and wouldnt stop so we started walking for a while until we could catch a cab but then free cab after free cab kept passing us so finally a friend and i walked for quite a while to get away from the crowd to the to where we could finally get a cab back to the Casa... what an adventure but it was so great!! im stoked to do it again! haha

Acabar

February 16- Casa Holden

So my last two posts havent really explained at all what I have been doing the past few days so i figured now would be a good time to fill everyone in on the life of Jessie. Since thursday was valentines day after tango i went out dinner with some people just to go out to dinner and then some of us met at midnight to go get dessert... well some of us went to dessert and some other people went to a bar. i went and got this amazing browine thing with some bomb chocolate ice cream in the middle with 4 squares of brownie propped up on the ice cream and chocolate sauce and nuts drizzled over the whole thing. then friday morning i had class then just hung out at the Casa during the day until friday nightish when i had my last class. i spend some time on friday working so i could organize the Boca game that we are going to tomorrow which i am very stoked about. anyways, friday night i went out to dinner with some girls. we went to this italian place down by florida street just to eat some place that wasnt around the Casa and it was definitely good to eat some pasta again instead of mostly beef and potatoes. :) but then after dinner we met up with other people and went to this place called acabar. it was a very chill atmosphere and the bar is known for having board games there that you can play which you eat or drink. i would say that it is more of a resturant than a bar but it was definitely tight and we ended up staying until around 3 am. then today i went to the local zoo and it was definitely an adventure. there were some animals there that i have never seen in my life like these huge bunny looking things that had the face of a bunny but the body that looked like the coloring of a deer and it walked like a dog... i dont know how to explain it but it was definitely weird. also there was this black bear that had a circle swimming pool in its cage but it was just walking around in circles pacing its pool. we stood there watching it for maybe 5 min and it just kept walking in circles the entire time. it was crazy!

RA

I just got back from dinner and got the email saying that i have the chance to be an ra this next year. i am so excited that i just had to write a post and everything. i was kicking the ball around when i read the email and i got so much energy that i started running in circles. haha :)

Pictures

So i finally put up a bunch of pictures on Kodak Gallery however there isnt just a link that i can copy and paste... i have to email you a link to see the pictures. why they do it this way i am not sure but the point of this story is leave a comment or email me or something and then i will email you back with the link to the pictures. There are only ones from here in BA up but ill put ones from Uruguay and everything up soon!