"Spring" Break pt...whatever let's just finish this

Don't know if the creative title tells you anything about my state of mind, but yeah. I think I've blogged enough about my break, don't you? All that's really left to talk about is how I didn't pack enough socks and I kept having a weird dream that I was married to Chandler Bing.

Oh, and Bariloche. That place was pretty important.

Bariloche is in the northern part of Argentine Patagonia, AKA Switzerland for people too cheap like me to go to Europe. It's lots of mountains and lakes, and is very very beautiful. My friends and I were very fortunate because we picked a hostel on top of a hill. It was a bit of a slog to get up all the steps, but to be able to see something like this every morning, it was well worth it.


On our first full day me, Sarah J, Lizzie, Jenny and I took a chair lift up a mountain. It was cold, but we got to see awesome things like this on the way up and from the top.

Did I mention the chair lift was called "The Gringo Trail?" Gringo doesn't have nearly the same connotation as it does in other parts of Latin America...but still. Really?

Lizzie decided to take on the Gringo Trail barefoot.




On Friday, me Lizzie and Jenny braved the pouring rain to go to a multi-trek on Tronador. Tronador is a mountain in Nahuel Huapi, South America's first national park. It was gorgeous, and we got to see A BLACK ICE GLACIER.

It's black because when it slid down from the mountain, it picked up a ton of volcanic ash. It was a pretty tough hike (partly because I was stupid and didn't bring a coat), but was definitely a highlight of the trip. Well worth the 7 or so hours of cold wetness.




That concludes my blogger presentation of my "Spring" Break travel extravaganza! Next stop on the globe is...Uruguay! Or as one of my professors here calls it, Argentina's Canada!

Reality Check

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled "Spring" Break broadcast to get you up to date really quickly with what I´ve been doing since I got home from my trip.

I got stuck in a riot.

On Sunday afternoon my friend Danielle and I went to an Israel Independence Day celebration being hosted by the city. There were speeches, music, and dancing and there was a pretty decent sized crowd. The event was happening on a blocked off street near the Casa Rosada, and Danielle and I were near the back.

All of a sudden we heard a loud bang, some screams, and then people just started to RUN. Since Danielle and I were in the back (and short), we didn´t see the group of 25 protesters burst out of the nearby subway station with signs and weapons. They had sticks and nunchuks, and just started hitting people and screaming in Spanish. We started to run too.

I`m still not really positive who they were. Some people in the crowd were shouting that they were Nazis. Articles I´ve been looking at have said that they were anti-zionist, pro-palestinian, or anti-semetic. Now, these things don´t always have to go hand-in-hand so I can´t really say for sure who they were. Some people are starting to speculate that the rioters were hired just to create a ruckus.

People started shouting for the police, who took a really long time to come. Oh, there were police there--I saw them talking on their cell phones and walking away. Some went to help, but most didn´t. Three people ended up being injured. The front page of most newspapers yesterday showed a young Jewish man holding his head. There was a lot of blood.

Danielle and I ran to the other side of the crowd, away from the protesters. Once the police got their shit together, the program started again and people started coming back. It took about maybe...another 30 minutes for an ambulance to show up, and it came in from the wrong side of the stage so it just had to back up and go around the block to get to the people that needed help. And security still seemed sketch, so Danielle and I booked it.

Argentina has a history of anti-semitic and anti-Israel attacks occuring. In the 1990s the Israeli embassy and a Jewish cultural center were blown up. In addition, the South American nation was a hub for Nazis fleeing Germany after WWII.

But I never thought these things would directly affect me during my semester in Buenos Aires. I´ve essentially been able to be open about my Jewish-ness here, and suddenly all at once I´m not so sure that´s a good idea. I appreciate better now why many Synagogues in the area and the Hillel building still check our IDs and passports before we can come in.

In Argentina, the past is always having a major, direct effect on the present. Sunday was definitely no exception.

"Spring" Break pt. 3: Santiago

I'm leaving for Uruguay this weekend, and I'm still not finished posting about "Spring" Break! I'm just going to have to put my homework off more, so I can play more with this blog. Not a problem.

Anyway. We stayed in Santiago for less than twenty-four hours, from Sunday night to Monday night. So I really didn't get the best impression of the city, but it was still cool to see.

For one thing, we found what has to be the craziest municipal park in the world. You have to sign a guestbook when you enter, and instead of sprawling out it sprawls UP. It's like in a giant spiral upwards, until you reach a little tower at the top and you can see the entire city.

The view from...err...pretty high up in the park. Towards the top there was a lot of smog, and made it kind of tough to take good pictures.


The park tapered off at at little tower at the top. Not for those afraid of heights or steep steps.


The high tower from below.


The park was full of beautiful fountains, sculptures, and buildings such as little chapels and memorials, and just pretty things like this. There was also a garden dedicated to Darwin. Jardin Darwin.


Me from the top, Sarah J and Brenna from below.

Afterwards we wandered around a little more, and got some lunch. I got a traditional Chilean soup, which basically consisted of chicken broth with a steak and some huge chunks of veggies thrown in. Strange, but REALLY good and something I hope to recreate.



Lizzie found a Dunkin' Donuts.

Neruda. Te Amo.

So on our last day in Valpo we made a quick stop at the number one place I wanted to go in the city: Pablo Neruda's house.

Yeah, of course I reserved an entire post for this. I'm spreading the Gospel of Neruda!

I didn't make it to all three of his houses in Chile like I originally hoped (although Jeremy Green did, the lucky bastard), but the opportunity to even see one was absolutely amazing. You can really tell that Neruda built it with love, and each piece of furniture and little knick-knack was picked carefully. The house is full of hundreds of odds and ends, from colonial-era maps of Chile and Japanese screens to a stuffed baby penguin chilling out behind the bar.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures of the inside of La Sebastiana (which is eclectic and super-stunning), but here are a few of the outside:

The view from the patio. Not bad.

Me trying to look "contemplative" on a bench carved with Neruda's silhouette.

The house itself, which is now a museum.

Also, here is a poem Neruda wrote about La Sebastiana, which ironically I read for the first time the morning we went. It just made me love the house even more, made me more excited to see what this magnificent poem describes. And after visiting, I can say that this poem definitely captures the crazy, romantic, eclectic vibe the house radiates in every board and nail.

This is translated from it's original Spanish. No, I didn't do the translating :(

To "La Sebastiana"

I built the house.

I made it first out of air.
Later I raised its flag into the air
and left it draped
from the firmament, from the stars, from
clear light and darkness.

It was a fable
of cement, iron, glass
more valuable than wheat, like gold--
I had to go searching and selling,
and so a truck arrived.
They unloaded sacks
and more sacks.
The tower took anchor in the hard ground--
but that's not enough, said the Builder,
there's still cement, glass, iron, doors--
and I didn't sleep at night.

But it kept growing.
The windows grew,
and with a little more,
with sticking to plans and working,
and digging in with knee and shoulder,
it went on growing into existence,
to where you could look through a window,
and it seemed that with so many sacks
it might have a roof and might rise
and finally take firm hold of the flag
which still festooned the sky with its colors.

I gave myself over to the cheapest doors,
doors which had died
and had been pitched out of their houses,
doors without walls, broken,
piled on scrap heaps,
doors with no memory by now,
no trace of a key,
and I said, "Come
to me, abandoned doors.
I'll give you a house and a wall
and a fist to knock on you.
You will swing again as the soul opens,
you will guard the sleep of Matilde
with your wings that worked so much."

Then, too, came the paint,
licking away at the walls;
it dressed them in sky blue and pink
so that they might begin to dance.
So the tower dances,
the doors and the staircases sing,
the house rises till it touches its crown,
but money is short--
nails are short,
door knockers, locks, marble.
Nevertheless, the house
keeps on rising
and something happens, a beat
starts up in its arteries.
Perhaps it is a saw, seething
like a fish in the water of dreams,
or a hammer which taps
like a tricky condor carpenter
at the pine planks we will be walking on.

Something goes and living continues.

The house grows and speaks,
stands on its own feet,
has clothes wrapped around its skeleton,
and as from seaward the spring,
swimming like a water nymph,
kisses the sand of Valparaiso.

now we can stop thinking. This is the house.

Now all that's missing will be blue.

All it needs now is to bloom.

And that is work for the spring.

"Spring" Break pt. 2: Valparaiso

What to say of Valparaiso...

It was heaven on earth. I was always really excited to go because I knew Pablo Neruda had an amazing house there, but it wasn't prepared for the rest of the city. It's all built on the side of a steep hill, so all the streets are really steep and twisted and narrow.

We didn't do too much there, other than walk around, shop, and eat. But that's all we really needed to do. It was amazing just to be able to wander and find new things. The whole city was like a maze, and every corner had something new and interesting. Just walking down a street we ran into performers, demonstrations, and even an impromptu fashion show.

I'm just going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

"Spring" Break pt.1: Driving Through the Andes and the Importance of Listening to Customs Control

So after a brief fifteen hour bus ride to Mendoza, me and my friends Sarah J, Brenna and Lizzie hopped on a bus for Valparaiso, which is a port city on the coast of Chile. The bus took eight hours, but felt like longer because we had to get off the bus to go through border control.

A note to travelers: when a country says "don't bring produce across the border, we'll make you pay," they mean it. Both literally and figuratively. A woman on my bus tried to bring AN APPLE across the border, and after an hour and a half hold up (by which point we all wanted to flog her), she had to pay approx. $170 American for that piece of fruit.

Anyway. The Andes Mountains. Very pretty, very much larger than these photos make them out to be, and very twisty turny.

Yeah, we drove down that. And I may have raised my hands in the air like I was on a roller coaster more than once...

Three other shots of the Andes, where I have decided I want to build a cabin and be a crazy old hermit that gives water and fruit and sage advice to wayward wanderers.







I'd write about more of my trip in this post than just a bus ride, but the Internet isn't giving mama any sugar today.

Home Sweet Buenos Aires...

Hellooo!

I`m back from my fantastically awesome "Spring" Break, and I have to say...

I never want to take a bus again as long as I live. If my calculations are correct, I was on a bus for a total of 61 1/2 hours during my ten-day break. Some of the movies they showed on these buses included:
-Transporter 3
-Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
-Lakeview Terrace
-The Best of Mana
-The Women
-Latin American music videos from the 1970s

I started losing it around Orsono.

Here´s a lovely illustration of where I traveled.



Right now I`m playing the catch-up dance with my classes and internship, but I will definitely post later some photos and commentary on exactly what I did to terrorize South America.