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...