Could it be that I have made it to my last country-destination of this trip? Yes, I decided to save Peru for another trip because I got to Brazil a week ago and decided that I just couldn´t cut this part of my trip short. I was originally planning 3 weeks in Brazil and 3 weeks in Peru, but then I realized that I had a bit less time than I thought, so I said "ok 3 weeks Brazil, 2 weeks Peru." But ONLY 3 weeks in Brazil? No way. So here I am, in Brazil, coming home in just less than a month. And what will I be doing for the next 30 days? Exactly what I´ve done for the last week... sit on the beach.
Now don´t get me wrong. Sitting on the beach is hard work. I have to wake up in the morning, eat a huge (and delicious!) breakfast of fruits, cheese, and coffee. Then I have to put on my bathing suit, cover-up, and flip-flops, take my brazilian flag towel, sunscreen, and water. Finally, I have to decide which beach to sit on that day. Or at the beginning of the day, because we could always decide to move if we want to. Yes, life is tough here in Brazil. I don´t know how I will survive.
What do we do while we sit on the beach? Well yesterday, we were at a beach on Ilha Grande (and island a few hours south of Rio), and my friends and I went in the water, played in the sand a bit, and towards the end we even got a boogie board from some guys who didn´t want it anymore. So I boogie boarded for a few minutes, snapped a few photos with our new toy, and then left it for someone else to play with. In addition, I´m doing a lot of reading and writing--I just read Brave New World in 2 days, which I have been waiting to read since I read 1984 in Mrs. Fisher´s 10th grade English class. I´ve aslso been playing a lot of guitar, which makes me very happy. Like everything else here.
Anyway, I can´t believe that I will be back in the US of A in less than a month. Kind of sad, but I´ve been doing a lot of daydreaming about the summer and next semester on the long busrides. Being the optimist that I am, I have begun already looking forward to what will come after the grand adventure is done. But I can´t say that all that daydreaming is making me wish that I were coming home one minute sooner...
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The end of chapter II
Hello everyone
First order of business- new photos.
It´s been a little while since I wrote a blog entry, but that doesn´t mean that life has become boring or slow-paced. In fact, the past few weeks have been so packed with adventures that I have not had time to write about them (sense the not-so-clever excuse?). In short, I spent a week and a half back in Buenos Aires and then came out to Iguazu Falls, which is on the border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Tomorrow at this time I will be on a bus to Rio de Janeiro for the third leg of the trip.
What have I done in the last few weeks? Well let´s start with Passover. I spent first night of the holiday at a Beit Chabad Passover seder of about 300 people. It was in a hotel in the middle of Buenos Aires, and the room looked like it was prepared for a wedding, not a Jewish holiday meal. It was quite an interesting experience being at a seder with so many people (most of whom were Israelis). The rabbi did a good job of keeping everyone´s attention in the beginning, but by the end he was yelling as loud as he could to be heard over the chatting at each table. I spent most of the time wishing I was home with my family, but at least there was kosher meat (which I ate every day in BA, by the way).
The second night of the holiday I went with my friends to a local Jewish family´s home in Villa Cresco, which is one of the Jewish neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. I was much more nervous for this seder. In contrast to Beit Chabad, where I was not worried that we would leave a word out, I was told that this family did not know the first thing about the seder and that my friend and I would be running it for them. Turns out that that was not entirely true--they knew some of the songs and understood the basic storyline--and they were extremely excited about every part of the seder that we prepared. It felt great to be in a home with grandparents and babies, and of course it was also a great opportunity to practice my Spanish on locals who don´t drive taxis or work in hostels.
Okay exciting event number two of the week was my skydiving adventure. Yes- I jumped (or was pushed) from a plane and landed successfully with my feet on the ground. My general strategy to avoid chickening out was to not think about it, but in truth I decided about 2 months ago already that I was going to do it before I left Argentina. So I woke up in the morning, went out to a field 2 hours outside of Buenos Aires, got in a plane with an instructor (who was attached to me, of course) and a cameraman, and the next thing I know my stomach is in my throat as I plummet 3000m down to the ground. I don´t know which part was more fun... before or after the parachute opens. You definately have more time to enjoy the view once you aren´t racing headfirst towards the ground, but I think nothing can beat the feeling of the freefall. Maybe now I´ll even start going on roller coasters, huh?
Last exciting thing of the week and then I´ll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing before you decided to stop by this site and see if I posted anything (aren´t you glad I did?). Today I went to see the Iguazu Falls from the Argentinian side. Now if I´m not mistaken, Iguazu is the widest waterfall in the world (or the place with the most waterfalls maybe? I know its not the tallest...) Anyway it didn´t really matter to me what record it holds- all that was important was how incredible magical the place is. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I spent the day with a bunch of friends wandering around billions of gallons of pounding water. Since it´s been a little while since a place of nature really took my breath away (maybe a few weeks), it was refreshing to see a spectacular park like this. It reminded me, once again, to thank God for our wonderful world and the natural beauty that it hosts.
Anyway, like I said, tomorrow I´ll be off to Brazil for Part III of the adventure. My friend with whom I just traveled for the past month and a half flew to Panama this week, so now I am with a few other girls. Once again, I feel like I am starting a new piece of the experience. New country, new language, new sites, new people. New music and dances and food, and maybe even a new bathing suit. Who knows, really...
First order of business- new photos.
It´s been a little while since I wrote a blog entry, but that doesn´t mean that life has become boring or slow-paced. In fact, the past few weeks have been so packed with adventures that I have not had time to write about them (sense the not-so-clever excuse?). In short, I spent a week and a half back in Buenos Aires and then came out to Iguazu Falls, which is on the border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Tomorrow at this time I will be on a bus to Rio de Janeiro for the third leg of the trip.
What have I done in the last few weeks? Well let´s start with Passover. I spent first night of the holiday at a Beit Chabad Passover seder of about 300 people. It was in a hotel in the middle of Buenos Aires, and the room looked like it was prepared for a wedding, not a Jewish holiday meal. It was quite an interesting experience being at a seder with so many people (most of whom were Israelis). The rabbi did a good job of keeping everyone´s attention in the beginning, but by the end he was yelling as loud as he could to be heard over the chatting at each table. I spent most of the time wishing I was home with my family, but at least there was kosher meat (which I ate every day in BA, by the way).
The second night of the holiday I went with my friends to a local Jewish family´s home in Villa Cresco, which is one of the Jewish neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. I was much more nervous for this seder. In contrast to Beit Chabad, where I was not worried that we would leave a word out, I was told that this family did not know the first thing about the seder and that my friend and I would be running it for them. Turns out that that was not entirely true--they knew some of the songs and understood the basic storyline--and they were extremely excited about every part of the seder that we prepared. It felt great to be in a home with grandparents and babies, and of course it was also a great opportunity to practice my Spanish on locals who don´t drive taxis or work in hostels.
Okay exciting event number two of the week was my skydiving adventure. Yes- I jumped (or was pushed) from a plane and landed successfully with my feet on the ground. My general strategy to avoid chickening out was to not think about it, but in truth I decided about 2 months ago already that I was going to do it before I left Argentina. So I woke up in the morning, went out to a field 2 hours outside of Buenos Aires, got in a plane with an instructor (who was attached to me, of course) and a cameraman, and the next thing I know my stomach is in my throat as I plummet 3000m down to the ground. I don´t know which part was more fun... before or after the parachute opens. You definately have more time to enjoy the view once you aren´t racing headfirst towards the ground, but I think nothing can beat the feeling of the freefall. Maybe now I´ll even start going on roller coasters, huh?
Last exciting thing of the week and then I´ll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing before you decided to stop by this site and see if I posted anything (aren´t you glad I did?). Today I went to see the Iguazu Falls from the Argentinian side. Now if I´m not mistaken, Iguazu is the widest waterfall in the world (or the place with the most waterfalls maybe? I know its not the tallest...) Anyway it didn´t really matter to me what record it holds- all that was important was how incredible magical the place is. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I spent the day with a bunch of friends wandering around billions of gallons of pounding water. Since it´s been a little while since a place of nature really took my breath away (maybe a few weeks), it was refreshing to see a spectacular park like this. It reminded me, once again, to thank God for our wonderful world and the natural beauty that it hosts.
Anyway, like I said, tomorrow I´ll be off to Brazil for Part III of the adventure. My friend with whom I just traveled for the past month and a half flew to Panama this week, so now I am with a few other girls. Once again, I feel like I am starting a new piece of the experience. New country, new language, new sites, new people. New music and dances and food, and maybe even a new bathing suit. Who knows, really...
Monday, April 6, 2009
On the linguistic front...
Hey everyone
So I am currently in Cordoba, Argentina. It´s the second largest city in Argentina (after Buenos Aires, of course), and it´s quite a nice place. There are seven universities in the city, so I could theoretically compare it to Boston, but there´s really no comparison. In contrast to Boston´s historic and orderly nature, Cordoba is a bustling city of parties and bars. After a fun weekend in the city, my friends and I decided yesterday that it was time to explore the surrounding area, since we heard that there were many nice little towns in this provence. So off to Villa Carlos Paz we went.
Villa Carlos Paz is a relatively small town and as far as I could tell, it´s not a tourist hot spot. Which was exactly what we were looking for. The attraction in this town is Lago San Roque, a nice lake. We planned to go sit next to the lake, but ended up sitting on a beach on the river that leads to the lake itself. It was great to be surrounded by local families instead of just tourists- it was like being on vacation from vacation for the day.
One of the people I went with is a lovely girl from Belgium who is in Argentina for a few months working. Why is she so interesting to me? Because she speaks French, English, and Spanish. And as a linguistics student, I have been having a ball observing her and her language habits. French is her mother tongue, she learned English in university, and until two months ago she didn´t speak a word of Spanish. But now not only is her Spanish pretty good, but her Spanish, her third language, has totally messed up her English, her second language. Her sentences are half and half (just as interesting to me is the fact that I have no trouble understanding her Spanglish, assuming that she doesn´t slip any French words in). I´m working on figuring out the patterns of which sorts of words she says in English and which come out in Spanish. I know that I´m supposed to be taking a break from college but I can´t help myself... I´m still a dork, even when I´m traveling far away from home.
As for my own language journey, I´ll write more about it soon because it´s also interesting (at least it is for me). In the meantime, I´m heading off to Buenos Aires tonight and that is where we´ll be for the beginning of Passover, which begins Wednesday night. So for all of you celebrating, chag kasher v´sameach. And wish me luck finding what to eat for a week here. And to my family, I love and miss you all very much and I hope you have a wonderful time together at the seders!
So I am currently in Cordoba, Argentina. It´s the second largest city in Argentina (after Buenos Aires, of course), and it´s quite a nice place. There are seven universities in the city, so I could theoretically compare it to Boston, but there´s really no comparison. In contrast to Boston´s historic and orderly nature, Cordoba is a bustling city of parties and bars. After a fun weekend in the city, my friends and I decided yesterday that it was time to explore the surrounding area, since we heard that there were many nice little towns in this provence. So off to Villa Carlos Paz we went.
Villa Carlos Paz is a relatively small town and as far as I could tell, it´s not a tourist hot spot. Which was exactly what we were looking for. The attraction in this town is Lago San Roque, a nice lake. We planned to go sit next to the lake, but ended up sitting on a beach on the river that leads to the lake itself. It was great to be surrounded by local families instead of just tourists- it was like being on vacation from vacation for the day.
One of the people I went with is a lovely girl from Belgium who is in Argentina for a few months working. Why is she so interesting to me? Because she speaks French, English, and Spanish. And as a linguistics student, I have been having a ball observing her and her language habits. French is her mother tongue, she learned English in university, and until two months ago she didn´t speak a word of Spanish. But now not only is her Spanish pretty good, but her Spanish, her third language, has totally messed up her English, her second language. Her sentences are half and half (just as interesting to me is the fact that I have no trouble understanding her Spanglish, assuming that she doesn´t slip any French words in). I´m working on figuring out the patterns of which sorts of words she says in English and which come out in Spanish. I know that I´m supposed to be taking a break from college but I can´t help myself... I´m still a dork, even when I´m traveling far away from home.
As for my own language journey, I´ll write more about it soon because it´s also interesting (at least it is for me). In the meantime, I´m heading off to Buenos Aires tonight and that is where we´ll be for the beginning of Passover, which begins Wednesday night. So for all of you celebrating, chag kasher v´sameach. And wish me luck finding what to eat for a week here. And to my family, I love and miss you all very much and I hope you have a wonderful time together at the seders!
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