We went to Arroyito, a little town with a gorgeous river.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunset on the Road
Franco took this dreamy shot from the top of the double-decker bus on the way home. It was an incredible sunset...
Agua Caliente for Mate
Remember how I told y'all about the mate drink and the special mugs they drink it out of? Well, this is the hot water tank and the mugs for sale at the bus station.
Bike Ride
snapped this bike rider girl in front of a corner shop in Arroyito, a small town we went to for a daytrip.
Dreamy Riverside
We took a daytrip to Arroyito, a small town an hour or so from Cordoba. Franco's family lived there for 8 years. They don't have much besides a really lovely river!
Suspended Bridge
(taken with my special Lensbaby lens) What a gorgeous river in this little town Arroyito
Suspended Bridge
(taken with my special Lensbaby lens) What a gorgeous river in this little town Arroyito
Bicycle Town
(taken with my special Lensbaby lens) Everyone in Arroyito rides their bikes everywhere!
Soda with Bitters!
We drink this all the time- soda water (comes out fizzy in this special bottle) mixed with bitters- an herbal drink. Mmmm... like a healthy coke!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Land of Wonders
At first when I realized I was going to be going to winter weather here in South America, I was bummed because I love the heat (well, not exactly as hot as Texas summers, but…) but now that I’m here, I’m really enjoying the chilly weather. This is the Argentina I knew before- chilly mornings and evenings, but mostly sunny and nice in the day. I love being in our warmly heated apartment after walking the cold city streets. I also am loving the tea-time they observe. They actually drink maté, which is a type of tea with a different kind of caffeine called matiena. Now you have to understand that maté is a national obsession here- it seems that everyone drinks maté all day long, seriously. You put a whole load of dry leaves into your maté cup which is actually a dried-out gourd and then you have your bombilla which is a metal straw with holes in the bottom of it. You then have your hot-water thermos (yes, it’s a bit involved to drink maté but they don’t care.) and you’re constantly filling your cup with the hot water, drink, drink, drink, then refill. Anywhere you go, everyone’s slurping on these things- it’s really funny! And there are lots of places you can get refills on your hot water- like a water cooler but with hot water. I promise I’ll take some photos of the obsession! I’ve tried it in the past, but didn’t care for it too much (it’s kindof bitter) but I’m thinking I’m going to give it another chance. I’ll let you know if I give in. Can you imagine me lugging all that stuff around Texas, slurping on my straw like that? Haha!
Another thing I love about chilly weather is I get to be a homebody and do lots of reading and cooking and movie-watching. We went to Up in 3D (and in Spanish, unfortunately…) which was so touching and really incredible! We both loved it. We rented Déjà Vu with Denzel Washington (great) and Night at the Museum I (we’re going to see Noche al Museo II this week at the theater.) And last night we rented a movie that blew my mind- I loved it so much! Have you guys seen Across the Universe? It’s about the 60’s and I guess you could say it’s a musical, but with all Beatles songs…amaaaazing! We were both really impressed by the quality of the movie- it’s an example of cinematic art, truly. I love to watch films that are a work of art, you know?
We’ve been really creative on ways to fill up our time here. For example, yesterday we went to a SUPER nerdy place- the video game lounge (what an awesome girlfriend I am!) It’s a place that has a dozen or so areas set up with a couch and a flat-screen TV with Playstations and Xboxes. You rent a station for an hour and get to play games. We thought Tennis would be a good choice, but we were wrong because it’s tricky to figure out how to make the players hit the ball. Then we switched to a car racing game and that was awesome for us (due to all my Nintendo playing years with my brothers.) While we were playing, there were two cops playing a soccer game for an hour really loudly next to us and the best thing?- they were on duty! Oh, Argentina!
When I ask my curious questions-
- · Why are those cops not on the streets but playing PlayStation?
- · Why is that dog sitting in the middle of the busy intersection?
- · Why did all those 5 cars just run the red light?
- · Why are all the DVDs at this rental place pirated?
Franco just tells me “Don’t ask questions like that- You are in Argentina, Land of Wonders!”
Another really odd thing is that no one seems to have change here. Franco says the past couple of years it’s been like this; he says the government is not making new bills or coins (which I believe by the disintegrating bills we get.) So whenever we pay for a cab or a coffee or something like that, everyone’s always asking if we have any coins to make exact change, which we usually do, but here’s a crazy story- today we were in the big supermarket and our total was 25 pesos (like 8 dollars) and we paid with 30 pesos and the lady of course asked for coins but we didn’t have any. She looked at us and said “Sorry, I don’t have any change. You’re going to have to put something back.” A freakin supermarket had no change!!! So we had to buy a chocolate to balance out the total… Weird, huh? There are some things I guess I take for granted in the States, like being able to pay with a $20 bill no problem. We carry equivalents of $20 bills and I swear, people nearly faint when we try to pay for something with it. Oh, Argentina, good thing you’re charming!
Well, we send you lots of love from the Land of Wonders!
Chau!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Daily Cordoba Life
So some of you are probably wondering what exactly we have been up to here in Cordoba. Due to the uncertainty of our immediate plans and the mmm… not-so-great economy here in Argentina, we are both living on the savings we have from our previous jobs. The positive side to this situation is that we are able to live pretty darn nicely with the currency exchange rate of dollars/Euros to Argentine pesos. It’s not quite how it was when I was here in 2004 (I was able to live like a queen on dollars then!) but it definitely makes for a very comfortable life…
It’s funny how just living daily life and enjoying every day together makes the time fly by… That’s the amazingly beautiful part of our messy love story, is that we savor spending every moment together and we definitely appreciate the simple things- going to the grocery, walking on the streets, holding hands, being in the same time zone (imagine that!) It’s lovely, it really is.
A very funny aspect of our life here together has to do with how much this American girl has to learn about life in Argentina! I can’t tell you how many times a day we are both cracking up because I don’t know how something works (a lot funnier than being alone with all these mysterious machines, let me tell you!) For example, just now as I was typing, I was getting chilly and the heater was not on. Since Franco was napping, I decided to take manners in my own hands and light the heater. It’s just a simple gas radiator, right? Well….I woke him up because I made a mini-explosion while trying to light it- whoops! Haha…oh, and don’t even get me started about the keys for the apt (they look like antiques) or the hot-water heater in the kitchen, or the old-school elevator that you have to close the gate and then the door or the laundry machine you have to turn on the faucet with a hose for….Sometimes I feel like a little kid around here- “How does this work? Whoa- what’s this for? Where does this go?” It’s funny- I’ll have to post some photos of my daily confusions!
Since I’ve arrived, we’ve settled into our apartment and are working on establishing some daily routines. We are running outside at the park a few days a week and just joined a gym. We also visit his parents and brother (they live in the neighborhood north of us) a few times a week. His extended family lives in a precious small town (where Franco grew up) called Alta Gracia and they have the family asado (barbeque) on most Sundays there….mmm…there is nothing like Argentine asados, ohmigosh! Lucky for me, I’m living with an incredible chef, so we eat amazing deeelish meals at home most days. It’s also been so refreshing for me to get back to myself and my interests- too busy in the school year to do it all! I’ve been taking more photos and am going to try to learn Photoshop even better. I get lots of time to read (oh, slow mornings with tea and a book…my favorite…) but I’m a little panicky because I haven’t found an English bookstore yet and I’m almost done with my current read (Bill Bryson’s Thunderbolt Kid) Oh, what am I going to do???? I know, I am a book nerd, and I come from a land of bookstores with a bazillion choices- I’ll just have to be less picky. They just have small Ingles sections at the bookstores here. Maybe I’ll surprise myself and discover some new books! I see loads of novels I want to read- but they’re in Spanish, which technically I can read, but it just takes the fun out of it a little, more like homework, you know?
I also have some artsy projects up my sleeve that I need to get started on. Franco is an artist as well and we promised each other we’d kick each others’ butts to work on our art this summer. And Cordoba as a city has a lot to offer- there’s always shopping (really cute clothes, I tell you!), they have quite a few nice art museums and tons of galleries, we have movie theaters right down the street, lots of cafes and dance clubs and great parks and places to walk to all around. Not a bad life we have here, no? ;) It feels good to feel so happy again, thank God! :)
Hasta luego! Chau!
Back in Argentina
So I decided to start up my travel blog again- the last update was from my big European summer trip where I happened to meet an amazing man in a crappy hostel in Madrid, Spain…little did I know how much that encounter was going to change my life forever!
The next chapter of our story was supposed to be us living together in the US and getting married in Austin in October and living our “simple happy lives together.” Well, simple is not the word we’re using these days- long story short: Franco and I are dealing with some pretty serious visa issues (he can’t enter the US as a tourist as of now) and we’re facing a few very big decisions about what to do with our future. We know for sure that we want to be together and start a family, but we are having to decide where and how to begin our lives together.
So the current chapter of our crazy love story finds the two of us happily (very happily, after all this mess!) living together in Cordoba, Argentina for the summer. I say summer but if course in the Southern Hemisphere it is indeed winter, but my summer vacation from teaching- weird, I know, tell me about it! We are living in downtown Cordoba, a busy city of 1.5 million people which I coincidentally (this is crazy-) happened to have studied Spanish in for 6 weeks in 2004. So even before I knew Franco, I was already familiar with the city and a bit of the Argentine culture. There are a lot of things I really do love about Argentina- the people are amazingly warm and hospitable, the food is great, and the culture has a fascinating mix of European influence and Latin American culture (mostly Italian and Spanish and some German as well) because Argentina is a country largely made of immigrants, especially from WWI. You can see the European influence in the architecture, lifestyle, and physical characteristics of the people (there are a lot of blondes with blue eyes even!) They observe the siesta hours, they stop everything and have mate (like tea) midday, they talk with their hands…the pace of life here is a lot slower than the US- (except for the driving- yikes!) So, all in all, it is a pleasant place to be for my vacation. And of course being with Franco and his family and friends opens up so many doors to the true, authentic side of Argentina that I didn’t have a chance to experience so richly before. But I do have to admit, there is always a nagging question in the back of my mind- Can I truly see myself living here for a year or so? And I recognize that those big decisions do not need to be made today, especially during my first week here while I’m in my honeymoon stage of this culture and this life…let’s wait til I get really grumpy and culture-shocked, k? Haha…
Anyways, I’ll be trying to update this site as often as I get a chance to. Unfortunately, we don’t have internet access at the apartment and as I discovered yesterday, if a place says “WIFI” (pronounced weefee by the way) it doesn’t necessarily mean it has a quality signal- the pub I went to yesterday had a great signal for 5 minutes and then I lost it and never got it again…
Thanks again for all the love and support you have shown Franco and I during these last really rough months- I couldn’t have made it through it all without you guys, seriously! But I thank God that the hardest times are over for now (let’s hope!) Would love to hear from you guys! Please feel free to leave comments or whatever!
Chau!
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