I left home, drove up to Portland, spent the night with my aunt and uncle, flew out the next morning to Atlanta, connected to Buenos Aires, took a bus for 45 minutes through Buenos Aires to a different airport, and flew from that airport to Còrdoba city. Factoring in the time difference and counting layovers, it was about 23 hours of travel. My host parents picked me up at the airport, where I managed to make a cultural mistake within instants of meeting them. I hadn´t been briefed in Argentine greetings, and in the states we´ve pretty much got the handshake, and the hug. So went they went in for the kiss, I was like, "Oh, ok, hug time" and I gave them both montrous bear hugs. I´m sure it freaked them out at least a little. We went directly from the airport to a gas station for a soda. Gas stations here are weird. First of all, there´s a chain called Petrobras. Secondly, the little indoor areas to by junk food have tables and chairs. And when I bought my soda the lady offered me a glass. Which I apparently should have taken. It´s cool to drink from a bottle if you´re walking around or in a car or whatever, but it seems like if you´re at a table (which you are in a gas station, trip) you use a glass. Always.
Let´s see then. When we got to the house my host dad pretty much went straight to work preparing the asado (barbequeueue). He pulled out two scary big pieces of meat, and then a scary huge knife, and started trimming away. We ate in a scary huge dining room called a quincho, which is apparently reserved for special occasions, like my arrival, and when there are a lot of people in the house. Which actually happens a lot. Cousins keep dropping by, and friends, and grandparents, and uncles and aunts, and I don´t even know. It´s endless. Anywhoozles. There are two other dining rooms in the house, one of which we use most of the time. I´m not totally sure what the purpose of the other one is. The table´s a little bigger, and we have used it a couple times when the grandparents were over, but I don´t know. Oh, yeah. One weird thing about dinner was it was the first time I saw a siphon. They drink club soda like crazy here. My family explained the system to me. Most people buy big bottles in the supermarkets, but family and quite a few others get siphons delivered in big cartons, and then they put empty ones outside and get replacements. They pay per month for all the soda they drink, and the service. Like a milk man, but for club soda. Crazy.
After dinner and most of the next day were really awkward, since I was trying to get my bearings, but my host parents assumed my disorientation was discomfort that they could actually do something about, and kept asking me what I wanted, and my host siblings (who are older than me) hovered around me a lot. That night, after dinner WAIT. Ok. Dinner is anywhere from 9 to 11. People meet up to go out at 11 at the earliest, they sit around and drink for a few hours, and then they head out at maybe 1:30 or 2. The clubs close at 6, so getting back around 6:30´s probably pretty typical. Alright. Now you´ve got the ridiculous time line in your head. But yeah. After dinner that exact thing happened, friends of my host brother started showing up, the parents went to bed, and we all hung out in the quincho. It was a thursday, so one of the clubs was open. They don´t usually go out on weekdays, but it was one of their birthdays, so they did. Except the club was full. So we went to the casino. I know now, after touring the south, that every city has a casino. Even cities you can´t really call cities. It was pretty boring. I didn´t gamble, so I just stared and the crazy flashing lights for 45ish minutes before they called it quits and we went home.
The next day I left for the south trip. Oh jesus, I have to describe the whole trip. Well... we drove for like a day and a half or some crap, during which the exchange students got to know each other a bit. A significant plurality were from Germany or Austria, two the two lingua francas (is that Latin, or French? Because I only know how to pluralize one) wound up being English and German. We wound up in Punto Pyramides, which is a tiny town that basically only exists because of tourism. The town is on a bay that´s the whale spawning ground of the world or something. There´s crazy amounts of whales there. We saw lots. We went to a peninsula where we saw penguins and sea lions, and the bones of a whale. Ok, it was called the Reserva Provincial Penìnsula de Valdès, if you feel like googling it.
We then drove for another ridiculous period of time to El Calafate. We had a free day, and the day after we went to Perito Moreno glaciar. That I demand that you google. Or go see yourself. Oh wait, I figured out how to upload photos to the blog. Here´s a picture of the glaciar from way up high.
Here´s us getting ready to climb it.
After El Calafate we drove to Ushuaia. This was a silly thing to do. First of all, there´s not really anything in Ushuaia. Granted, it is the end of the world, but it´s on the island of Tierra del Fuego, and Argentine Tierra del Fuego is not connected to the rest of Argentina. We had to pass through Chile, which meant four customs every direction. First Argentina has to make sure that you´re not smuggling any cocaine or whatever OUT of their country, then Chile has to make sure that you´re not bringing in any agricultural products that could have parasites on them, and then when you leave Chile they have to make sure you´re not taking OUT any fruits, and then Argentina has to make sure you´re not bringing any cocaine in. It´s no fun. Ushuaia was just shopping and a boat ride out to some islands with sea lions and powerful laxative plants. Then we went back through the freaking customs up to Esquel, but we didn´t really do anything there.
We then went to Bariloche. Bariloche, I´m not sure how to explain. Oh! This should be illustrative. Before I came down, I saw a photo album my host brother had entitled Bariloche. It turns out it was of a trip he took with his classmates to Bariloche, but based on the content I assumed Bariloche was Spanish for debauchery. Yes? This is the reputation of the city. Tons of tourists go there, and they´re supposed to have the best clubs in the country. I got badly sick in Bariloche, so I didn´t take part in the debauchery, but I heard it was tons of fun. We had a one night stop in San Martin de los Andes on the way home, and that was it. Oh yeah, and we visited a bunch of national parks with forests and mountains and lakes and after a while they all started to look the same.
I´ve been back home now for a few days, I´m on antibiotics, I´m drinking water from an empty Fernet bottle, I´m going to get lung cancer from the second hand smoke, breakfast is just cafe con leche and maybe toast, they freak out when I tell them about eggs and bacon and pacakes and waffles and oatmeal and whatnot in the morning, siesta is the greatest invention since whatever was the greatest invention before sliced bread, since sliced bread isn´t really that great, I reacted a little too favorably the first time my host mom gave me dulce de leche and she´s now trying her hardest to give me diabetes, aaaaaaaaaannndddd the maid is really cool. And mate´s the shit. If you managed t read the whole thing, I´d like to take a moment to give you my respect.
