Las Cataratas de Iguazu (Iguazu Falls) and Other Adventures

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in blog posts but two sets of midterms plus makeup midterms took over my life and left me with unsatisfying results.  HOWEVER I rested in between those and my upcoming finals with an amazing trip to Iguazu Falls which is a national park full of huge, gorgeous waterfalls on the border of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.  We took a bus with a group that organized everything for us(it was much easier than doing it ourselves) and was soo fun!  We met many people from all over the world who are studying here because it was a trip specifically for students and it was an experience I'll never forget!  On the way there we stopped in the province of Misiones to see the Jesuit ruins where they tried to convert the Guarani natives.  The middle picture includes Stephanie and Garrett two German students who study at UCES with us.  The ride was long but we slept through the night and got to know the people on the bus with us so it really wasn't that bad.












After arriving, we moved our stuff into the hotel rooms and headed for the pool to relax.  Later we had dinner at the hotel (it was included as well as breakfast) and talked until bedtime to get ready for the next day at the national park.

Unfortunately the entrance to the park was not included, but it was worth every penny!  First we took a boat that went directly under the waterfalls so we got a nice shower to cool us down.  We were definitely rockin the bright orange life jackets hahaa.  After that we went to a little beach area to take pictures of the falls and talk for a bit.

After our break we hiked up a hill to get a closer look at the gorgeous spectacle and got to take a few more pictures.

The views were beautiful, but we still had more to see....after lunch we continued up the hill to see Iguazu from above and the falls were incredible.

I never had any idea how huge Iguazu Falls was!  It may even be larger than Niagra Falls, but I've never been so I'm not sure.  There were so many butterflies (and bugs!) at the falls it was wonderful to see all the wildlife and different nature here.  But it was still not the end of our day....We continued on and took a tram to the other side of the falls to see La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat) which is a huge fall and all you can see from above is the foam (not sure if that's the right word) of all the water coming down.

The day was long and hot but I enjoyed every minute!  We came back to the hotel and that night we spent some time with the new friends we made on the trip...

The next day we were free to do whatever we wanted and Jessica and I decided to take a tour through the forest, zipline and rapel down a waterfall! It was scary at first but I'm sure we'll never regret it!

Before our waterfall adventure we took a few little trips to a town called Tigre which is about an hour away on the train(like BART).  There's a river, a theme park, a casino, and a farmer's market and it's a great way to spend the day outside...

You can't tell, but the plaque says Los Estados Unidos (United States) and all of us are from the U.S.

They actually still have phone booths in Buenos Aires!  Amazing since they're basically non existent in the U.S. 

We also had a very fun Halloween, Jessica, Dani, Andrea and I were all tourists and Jessica's friends who are studying in Brazil were clowns...

As of now we're in the middle of finals and haven't experienced any spectacular adventures lately with all the studying going on....I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on any trips we go on and what we're doing out here in the big BA!

Noches en Buenos Aires

Hello again! It's been a while since I posted my last blog, but unfortunately nothing too exciting has been happening except school, the gym, and going out trying to meet people.  Here are some new pictures of some of our friends and the things we've been doing....

These pictures are from the "train" we took to a bienvenido(welcome) party for Study Abroad students.  We got to meet students from all different countries who are going to UCES which is where we met many of the friends we have now.  We took the "train" to a club/bar in Palermo where we got pizza and sodas all for about $4!Another study abroad get together, the guy on the right is from Mexico and his friend is his floor mate( I can't remember where he's from).Simone from Germany..A market named after Jessica...Friends from Ecuador..Friends from Peru...Friends from Peru and also from France...More friends from Ecuador

For right now that's all I have! I just wanted to show some more pictures and let all of you know what we've been doing and who we've been meeting, there'll be more to come soon.

Somos de los Estados Unidos

My trip to Buenos Aires so far has been quite an adventure.  The plane rides were long and boring but gave way to a beautiful Argentine winter day.  My friend Jessica and I accomplished a lot on our first day abroad including registering at our school, getting lists of apartments and getting new outdated Nokia phones to call about the apartments.  My favorite part of the day was the ice cream at Volta where the flavors are abundant and just as creamy as gelato.  We explored our new neighborhood, Recoleta, and checked into our hostel.  Although the rooms there were cold we met a lot of interesting people from many places such as France, Brazil, Germany, Canada, and even someone from the U.S.! 

After an eternity of calling about apartments(it was really only a few days, but when you're stuck in a cold hostel sharing bathrooms with 20 other girls it seems like forever) we finally found a cute two bedroom apartment fairly close to our school in Recoleta.  Our apartment is also right next to the famous Recoleta Cemetary which we still haven't managed to visit but intend to do soon. 

We had our first week of school which was difficult but most of the teachers understand that we aren't from here and don't speak the language that well.  For some reason people can always tell we're extranjeros(foreigners) and ask us where we're from to which we reply, "Somos de los Estados Unidos".  Hopefully once we've been here for a while they won't be able to pick us out of a crowd anymore and our accents won't be as recognizable. 

We recently met some people in the exchange program at our school who were nice and from different countries, although there were a lof of people from Germany!  Although we're in Buenos Aires, it seems like many of the exchange students speak English and they want to speak English to us which is easier but we didn't get to practice much of our Spanish that night. 

We're pretty much settled in here now and although we're in a different country we wake up feeling like this is just our normal life, as crazy as that may seem.  We've gotten used to walking to school on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays and greeting the doorman when we enter or leave the building.  The city is beatiful and full of exciting things to do and see.  There are dogs everywhere and because of the fact that no one cleans up after them there is poop all over the sidewalks so you have to watch your feet!  We have yet to get our laundry done, but we have to take it to a place and they wash your clothes for you and when they're done you pick them up. 

We've gone grocery shopping and although they don't offer peanut butter here, we keep a jar of ducle de leche handy just in case we want to sweeten up our fruit or toast.  The milk we drink here comes in bags which you pour into a container in the fridge but they have many similar foods here.  One thing we've had to get used to is eating dinner and going out so late.  Restaurants are packed around 10pm and Portenos never get to a club before 1:30am. 

Well, that's all for my first post, I'll be putting more on later, especially when I've gone to some of the more touristy areas.  As they say here, Ciao!