Alright, I realize I haven't provided any updates for a while, but nobody's been missing out on anything. There was a lot of watching tv, sleeping in, eating cheap, and buying some last minute presents. Today is our last day in Argentina, and I'm so excited about getting back to the US.

Anyway, the internet connection here is going really slow so I'll keep this short. Thanks to everybody who kept up with my blog this summer. I hope that it was sufficient for keeping everyone up to speed, as I didn't want to send out mass emails all the time. Maybe I'll start a blog after I get settled in Evanston and keep up with regular postings. More to come on that...

Well, I hope everybody is doing well. Catcha later.

So I'm back in Buenos Aires and I finally got around to posting something. I would like to post some pictures, though I haven't taken any myself since Iguazu Falls, so I'd have to borrow Ashley's camera to get pictures from the entire summer. Her LCD on her camera broke on the way back from the mountains, so I think I'll rather just avoid the hassle of exacerbating the problem. I think what I'll end up doing is just waiting until I get back to the US, and then I'll either put some on the blog or put a link on the blog to my webspace or something. Alas. At least there's only about 2 weeks left until I get back.

So, anyway, my last post omitted the last day of skiing, which I must say was one of finest. The lines that day were definitely the worst, for reasons unbeknownst to me, so I would say for a good majority of the day I was testing my patience rather than my skiing ability. Anyway, Joel was helpful in getting me to ski in the correct way, a.k.a. not shooting down the mountain as fast as possible, so by the end of the afternoon I was quite proud of my ability to weave back and forth among the plebeians. I bet there were those among me who looked upon and thought, ''What a stallion!''. It was a good way to finish off the trip, and I wait in anticipation for the next time I can go skiing back in the US.

For dinner that night, we made quite possibly the largest hamburgers I have ever seen in my life. We got 0.8 kilos of ground beef, which I guess is roughly 1.75 pounds between the 4 of us, so we each had a burger with about 0.4 pounds of meat on it. Mmmmmm... Haha. So we had to make them on the stove, seeing as how there was no grill at our disposal, and we mixed in some onions and egg to give it some flavor and a better consistency to stick together. On top of the burger we also had cheese, grilled peppers and onions, and fried egg in authentic Argentina style. That's all we had for our meal, because of its extensive size, and it cost us each about $1.20.

The two ensuing days we of course had our 20 hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires. The ride actually wasn't too bad, aside from our bus stopping at 6:45 am for everybody to be woken up for breakfast, which wasn't exactly my idea of a good time.

Since Friday, I've just been sitting around the apartment a lot doing some reading, watching movies, checking email, etc. to just take it easy after all the travelling we've been doing. Brock and Joel found this Israeli restaurant nearby, so we went there for lunch and had a three course meal for just $3.60 each. I had hummus, a Hawaiian-stuffed chicken breast, and a fruit salad, and it was awesome. We're thinking about going back again tonight for Brock and Joel's last meal in Argentina. They're leaving at 3:30 am from the apartment to head to the airport.

So from here until August 16th, its just me and Ashley in the city. I'll do some last minute gift shopping for everybody, and maybe hit up the cheap theaters a few more times before we head out. I'll probably post a few more times before I leave, but don't expect any juicy stories. I'm trying not to spend a lot of money so I don't have to go back to the bank again before I leave. That means my $200 has to last for food, gifts, taxi to the airport, and exit tax from now until I leave. It's a good thing that food is cheap.

Anyway, I hope all is well. I'm excited to read everyone's posts, even if they were written while not wearing glasses. Haha. Until next time....

So I'm back in Buenos Aires and I finally got around to posting something. I would like to post some pictures, though I haven't taken any myself since Iguazu Falls, so I'd have to borrow Ashley's camera to get pictures from the entire summer. Her LCD on her camera broke on the way back from the mountains, so I think I'll rather just avoid the hassle of exacerbating the problem. I think what I'll end up doing is just waiting until I get back to the US, and then I'll either put some on the blog or put a link on the blog to my webspace or something. Alas. At least there's only about 2 weeks left until I get back.

So, anyway, my last post omitted the last day of skiing, which I must say was one of finest. The lines that day were definitely the worst, for reasons unbeknownst to me, so I would say for a good majority of the day I was testing my patience rather than my skiing ability. Anyway, Joel was helpful in getting me to ski in the correct way, a.k.a. not shooting down the mountain as fast as possible, so by the end of the afternoon I was quite proud of my ability to weave back and forth among the plebeians. I bet there were those among me who looked upon and thought, ''What a stallion!''. It was a good way to finish off the trip, and I wait in anticipation for the next time I can go skiing back in the US.

For dinner that night, we made quite possibly the largest hamburgers I have ever seen in my life. We got 0.8 kilos of ground beef, which I guess is roughly 1.75 pounds between the 4 of us, so we each had a burger with about 0.4 pounds of meat on it. Mmmmmm... Haha. So we had to make them on the stove, seeing as how there was no grill at our disposal, and we mixed in some onions and egg to give it some flavor and a better consistency to stick together. On top of the burger we also had cheese, grilled peppers and onions, and fried egg in authentic Argentina style. That's all we had for our meal, because of its extensive size, and it cost us each about $1.20.

The two ensuing days we of course had our 20 hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires. The ride actually wasn't too bad, aside from our bus stopping at 6:45 am for everybody to be woken up for breakfast, which wasn't exactly my idea of a good time.

Since Friday, I've just been sitting around the apartment a lot doing some reading, watching movies, checking email, etc. to just take it easy after all the travelling we've been doing. Brock and Joel found this Israeli restaurant nearby, so we went there for lunch and had a three course meal for just $3.60 each. I had hummus, a Hawaiian-stuffed chicken breast, and a fruit salad, and it was awesome. We're thinking about going back again tonight for Brock and Joel's last meal in Argentina. They're leaving at 3:30 am from the apartment to head to the airport.

So from here until August 16th, its just me and Ashley in the city. I'll do some last minute gift shopping for everybody, and maybe hit up the cheap theaters a few more times before we head out. I'll probably post a few more times before I leave, but don't expect any juicy stories. I'm trying not to spend a lot of money so I don't have to go back to the bank again before I leave. That means my $200 has to last for food, gifts, taxi to the airport, and exit tax from now until I leave. It's a good thing that food is cheap.

Anyway, I hope all is well. I'm excited to read everyone's posts, even if they were written while not wearing glasses. Haha. Until next time....

Now I am writing to you from an internet cafe in Villa la Angostura in Patagonia. We got here a few days ago, after a 19 hour bus ride from Mendoza to get to Bariloche, and another 1 hour ride to get here. The landscape is incredible here, and we had our faces plastered to the windows for the last couple of hours of our trip here. It feels like we're in the middle of nowhere, as we drove through hundreds of small farms situated in front of snow-capped mountains and icy streams. Villa la Angostura is a very small town, with all the buildings made out of wood and definitely catered to tourists. Our hostel is awesome- the floors are heated and once again we have our own room with our own shower. We've been making our own dinners the past two nights- predominantly pasta of course due to the simplicity, but last night we also made a cake to celebrate Joel's birthday. As we lacked candles, we arranged a set of matches in a J in the middle of the cake, which made for an exciting chain-lighting spectacle after lighting the first match.

Joel, Brock, and I arranged to go skiing for three days while we're here, but I was feeling a little sore and tired today so I'm skipping the middle day so I can enjoy it more tomorrow. Ashley isn't really into skiing but she decided to come yesterday- she went up on the ski lift with us but then after getting to the top decided that she didn't want to do it anymore and took the ski lift back down. Joel, Brock, and I started off going down the easy slopes, which were probably about my level, and that was a lot of fun. Then we started going down some of the harder ones, and I was trying to learn how to ski the correct way going back and forth instead of my usual technique of going straight and trying not to fall. I must say I am getting better, but I took a few spills into some 4 foot snow banks, which took a little effort to free myself from. After a few hours of that, I decided to hang out with Ashley for the rest of the day at the bottom of the slopes, where we made a snow man over 6 feet tall and a snow dog companion. A few families stopped by and wanted to have their pictures taken with it, and who can blame them, it was a sexy looking snow man. He was equipped with a top hat (the brim was difficult), an evergreen-striped tie, and a rock-studded belt. Any self-respecting snow-woman would have thrown herself at his majesty. The dog was a different story, but luckily it retained its resemblance to a four-legged creature, so I think it was safe to assume it was a dog.

Speaking of four legged creatures, when Joel and I finished going down the easy trail the first time down (Brock switched to a harder trail about halfway) we encountered something a bit peculiar in the middle of the ski trail. I was in front and had just turned a sharp left when all of a sudden there's this cow standing in the middle of a patch of snow just looking around and chewing on something. I'm not too sure what it was chewing given the lack of anything around it other than snow, but there was definitely some excessive mastication. Anyway, upon seeing the cow, I burst out laughing uncontrollably and ended up in a snow bank on the right side of the trail. Joel, who had no idea what was going on, heard me laughing and wondered what was going on, but then he too rounded the corner and spotted said bovine and couldn't help but join in my hysterics. It pretty much made my day, and was definitely worth me crashing into the side of the trail. I went back later to see if the cow was still there, but it had mysteriously disappeared back from whence it came, replaced a dozen small children sledding on small, thin plastic circles. Don't ask me how it got there... there were fences on both sides of the trail, and since the trail was at the bottom, there was only a parking lot after that. Phantom cow I guess...

I bought another Harry Potter book today, since I enjoyed the last one in Spanish so much, plus a Spanish dictionary so I could look up definitions in Spanish. I'll probably do that the rest of the afternoon, and by tomorrow I'll be all rested up for another fun day of skiing. Weeeee! Then its back to Buenos Aires until the 16th of August. I'll post again after I get back to Buenos Aires to let everybody know what I'm up to. I hope everybody is doing well. Later.

So we have access to a computer in our hostel in Mendoza, so I´ll say a few words about what we´ve been up to. We got to Mendoza on Wednesday morning, after having left on Tuesday night at 6 pm, and the bus ride went fairly well except for the blazing heat that kept me awake for half of the night. The hostel we´re staying at is very nice. We have our own private room with key that includes a bathroom with shower, so it´s basically like hotel, but it only costs us $6/night per person, so we make out like bandits. On the first day we didn't have any excursions scheduled, but Joel and Brock signed up to do a zipline excursion for half of the day while Ashley and I walked around the craft fairs and city park. For dinner we found a restaurant that sells tacos, so Joel, Ashley, and I each got two and shared pizza while Brock got a monstrous steak sandwich. The tacos were probably some of the best tacos I´ve ever had in my life, which is funny because Argentina has like no Mexican food to buy anywhere. Anyway, that night we played some team Gin (Brock and I lost- I only ginned one time, but I did cut both Ashley and Joel when they tried knocking on me for two of the games). This morning we headed out for our first excursion in Mendoza- horseback riding and rafting- at 9 am. I´ve got to say this was probably the first excursion that I was bit disappointed during all of our travelling. I got this emaciated horse that looked like it was about to keel over and die, and it didn´t really respond to me trying to make it go faster. Plus, we took the horses through all of this brush in the mountains, so my ankles got all scratched where my pants weren´t covering them. Then, our rafting session was only like 45 minutes long, and the rapids were really weak, so that was kind of boring as well. That, and the water was freezing cold, and none of us except Ashley brought a change of shoes so we all have soaked shoes for the rest of the night. However, we´re planning to go see Pirates of the Caribbean tonight if we can find the theater, AND we found an actual Mexican restaurant 2 blocks from the hostel so we´re having Mexican food again tonight. So things are looking up. Tomorrow we have the wine tour, which I´m not really the most excited about, but I figure that they´ll have stuff other than wine which will make the excursion better. We´ll see. Anyway, I´m going to go play some foosball and get ready for dinner. I hope everybody is doing well.

Aunt Carlene and Uncle Bob, I´m glad Mom sent you the address for my blog. I found your comment about Carlena to be quite hilarious, and I look forward to any future comments you have. Have a great day!

Alright, I need to post a little bit about the travelling that I've been doing so lets see what I can remember...

Last Friday we left for Iguazu Falls by bus from Buenos Aires. The bus ride was about 18 hours or so, and was our first bus experience in Argentina. We were on one of the executive routes, so we had seats that reclined 180 degrees, pillows and blankets, and meals and snacks served to us the whole time. Plus, they showed Wedding Crashers and Dukes of Hazzard in English with spanish subtitles, so we had things to keep us from being bored.

We got to Iguazu the following morning, checked into our hotel and headed out to see the park by mid afternoon. We had been told by our travel agent to do this great adventure tour which cost $30, so we immediately did that after getting there. It consisted of a short drive through the sub-tropical forest with a tour guide explaining things along the way, and then a boat tour down river to see the falls up close. We were able to get a lot of cool picture of the waterfalls fairly close up from the bottom, which was really cool. Then the boat drivers took us in really close to one of the medium sized falls and we got soaked from the falling water. Everyone on the tour kept shouting "otra, otra", to try to get the captain to drive up close again, so we got splashed 3 times total. Needless to say, we had to walk aroud wet all afternoon after that, but I had worn my quick-drying clothes so I was fine in less than a half hour or so. The rest of the day we dedicated to walking on some of the trails and taking more pictures. The following morning, we went on one of the nature walk trails where you're supposed to get a good view of the animal life, and though it was raining we still got to see a fair number of birds and even a group of capuchin monkeys. The trail was a few miles long, and ended at a small waterfall. I took off my shoes and shirt and danced around in the water a bit, but it was really cold, and I slipped and fell on my ass twice. It was still worth it though. For the rest of the day we checked out the remainder of the trails that we hadn't seen the day before. Probably my favorite was the Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat), which was a huge U-shaped section which an incredible amount of falling water which I couldn't even begin to describe in words. You'd have to see pictures to get the full effect of what it looked like. There were also a lot of smaller falls nearby that reminded me of Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings movies. Anyway, the Iguazu trip was definitely a lot of fun, and after our two days there we caught a bus to Salta.

The bus ride wasn't nearly as good from Iguazu to Salta (which is northern Argentina, cowboy country). We had to transfer buses twice, and we had "semi-beds" which basically equated to normal seats. There were screaming babies and obnoxious kids the entire ride, so needless to say I didn't get much sleep, but oh well. We got to Salta at 6 am, and then checked into our hostel and opted to take a nap for a few hours before beginning our day. The first day in Salta we took a bus to a small village outside of the city called San Lorenzo and did some hiking along a river, taking some time to skip rocks and of course, toss the biggest rocks we could carry into the water to generate the largest splashes. We also found a small craft fair made up of the indigenous population of the region, where I bought some cool little blankets and tapestries for gifts. For dinner we had some regional cuisine consisting of locro (basically a stew), humitas (a corn-based appetizer wrapped in a corn husk), and tamales (similar to a humita, but with potatoes, beef, and other vegetables). We also the best fresh-squeezed orange juice that I have ever had in my life. They sold it by the liter, so we got 2 liters between the four of us for about $5. The next day was quite possibly the best day that I've had in Argentina. We paid for a half-day excursion of horseback riding, and left at about 9 for a one-tour ride out to the countryside. We had a short breakfast a gaucho farm (owned by Enrique, a native Argentinian 53 years old). There were 8 tourists that day including us, with the other four from Denmark and England, so everybody spoke English. Our bilingual instructor showed us how to sit correctly and guide the horses and for a few hours we walked around the nearby farming area as he explained various facts about the farming and land of the region. Then we all took tours getting our horses to gallop over short stretches, which we probably did about 3-4 times, and it was really fun. We returned to the farm by 1:30ish, where Enrique had prepared an asado (basically a barbecue) for everyone. Over a period of 3-4 hours we ate, chatted with Enrique, and listened to some music played by our horse guides on the guitar and drum. A few of Enrique's children were there, and they joined in on the meal and conversation of course. For the rest of our stay in Salta, we took a lift to to the top of a nearby mountain, did some more craft shopping (I got a hammock!), and toured the churches and sites of the city.

I could go into more detail, but I feel that this entry is long enough. We are in Buenos Aires for the next few days, and we're heading to Patagonia on Tuesday for rafting, horseback riding, and skiing for about 11 days. I'm definitely excited. If I can't post anything during the trip, I'll be sure to update you all on what went on when we get back around July 27. I hope everyone is doing well. Catcha later.

Happy 4th of July to everybody! There won´t be any fireworks for me this year, though I guess if I really wanted some I could find some somewhere in the city. Since my last post, I´ve done a few things which should probably be noted-

Friday night- We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Argentinians don´t seem to be too crazy about Mexican food, so it has taken us about a month to find a Mexican place to eat, but it was totally worth it. Of course, when we got there, we were the only ones in the restaurant, and the owner could tell we weren´t from around here, so he spoke to us in English the whole time. We figured that he probably gets most of his business from Americans so it probably wasn´t anything new for him. It was really good food- a little bit more expensive than most of the meals I´ve had here, but $6.66 still isn´t too bad for going out to eat. Haha, the funniest part of the night was the guy putting on some Frank Sinatra music for us- so basically we were back in the US for a night. It was a fun night.

Saturday- we went out to eat at a really good empanadas restaurant, and we all got dessert afterward. The dessert portions were monstruous, so we all ate way too much, but the food was really good. Afterward, we went to the Bingo place to check out the scene, and probably played for about 45 minutes or so. It was definitely crazy. I expected it to be fairly slow paced, calling out each number and waiting about 5 seconds until the next number to give people a chance to play multiple cards and check to see if they had the numbers. Man, was I wrong. First of all, we got in there and didn´t really know the rules about the different kinds of cards or how to win. So it turns out that they use a card with 3 rows and 9 columns. In each row, there were 4 free spaces, and you had to get the five numbers to fill a line, and the first person to get a line gets some small prize. To get a bingo you have to fill out all 15 numbers on your card, so it´s none of that 5 in a row crap. Anyway, it took us about a game to figure that out, but the woman is calling out the numbers about about 1-2 seconds, so you have to be extremely fast to catch the numbers to avoid missing your bingo or line. I started watching the wall where the numbers were posted to make sure I didn´t misunderstand a number or just miss it entirely. After a few games like that, we decided it would be best for 2 of us to share a card, so that made things a lot easier. We probably played about 10 games o so, maybe more, I have no idea. We never got close to winning, so we decided to call it a night before we wasted all of our money. Well, we each spent about $3, so I´m exaggerating a bit. Definitely worth the experience though.

Sunday- We went to the Recoleta fair (for like the 3rd time since we´ve been here) but this time I actually bought a few things. We also went to the Recoleta cemetary where Evita Peron is buried, along with like all the richest people in Argentina. It was definitely cool to see, though it´s kind of a giant waste of space because it´s these hugh tombs for everybody. I mean really, they´re all , why do they need to take up space. It was like being in an urban city, as nobody had tombstones. They were all buildings trying to look more important than the ones next to it. Oh well. Later, we stopped by a bakery and picked up some pastries and an apple tart, so that was pretty cool.

That´s pretty much the extent of the weekend. I´m currently defining a bunch of words in Spanish using an online Spanish dictionary, so I´m going to get back to that. I hope everybody is doing well. Catcha later.

Well, I´ll provide a brief update for the last couple of days. Ashley and I went to see The Producers on Wednesday night at 8:30, and it was really funny. I probably understood like 60-70% of the Spanish, but there were definitely some jokes that were made where the whole audience would laugh, and Ashley and I just kind of looked at each other not knowing what was going on. It was definitely much more popular than Jack the Ripper, and even though we got almost the cheapest tickets, there were still people sitting near us. In contrast, we had the only cheap tickets in the entire theater when we went to see Jack the Ripper. Anyway, the musical was really good, and it only cost us $10 each for tickets, so it was definitely worth the time and money spent.

On a less happy note, today was Argentina´s last game in the World Cup. They lost to Germany in sudden death, knocking them out of the tournament. For most of the second half, it actually looked like Argentina was going to win, as they were up 1-0. However, then their goalie got injured and a replacement goalie had to be put in- the next shot the Germans took on the goal went in to tie the game. Then in sudden death the German goalie blocked 2 shots while the Argentinian one didn´t block any. Sucks. It would have been exciting to see the team go further, but I guess top 8 is still good. Maybe now all those jerseys will go on sale and I can get some cheap souvenirs.

Being the dorks that we are, I think we´re going to play Bingo tomorrow night. Haha, I bet it´s going to be a happening scene on a Saturday night. That´s pretty much all I´ve got going on right now. I hope everyone is doing well. More to come later....