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Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Embarassing Music.
Oh hello again. I know what you´re thinking. "I thought you were dead." "I´ve lost interest in this blog." "How much would could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?" If you are my sister Julia, you are thinking "Oh my god, I can´t do anymore school. I have to get a real job now." Ah haha. Sucks to be youuuu. You can all relax and feel better knowing that I now own an "awesome possum" shirt, WITH a picture of a possum on it? Well I don´t...but if I did, I realize I´d be much cooler.
Soooo, I went from El calafate (the glaciar), about...a month ago, to Buenos Aires Argentina. Buenos Aires, is a fantastic, beautiful city. Except it is full of vampires. Honestly, the hours that argentinians choose to live their lives HAD to be picked by throwing darts at a dartboard. "Ughh...okay. So we are going to eat dinner at 10pm, then go out till 5 am. Well get up at 10am, work till 1, then have a 4 hour nappy time, then work till about 7. How does that sound? Good? People like that? Evita what do you say? You´re down? Alright, perfect, on to making steak cheaper than lettuce..." Its completely backwards. On the positive side, the rumor about 3 dollar steaks the size of your calf are true. That was incredible. My time in BA consisted of joining a gym, going to said gym, exploring the city a little, and watching TONS of TV. Aaron and I had rented an apartment which turned out to be beautiful. It was extremely spacious, with a large back patio, 2 full bathrooms, about 4 bedrooms. It was awesome. And...maybe most important of all, a washing machine, and a big couch with cable tv. When travelling from hostel to hostel, you come to really miss lying in your boxers on a big couch watching sports, movies, etc. You just dont get to do it. I mean you can try, but they´re always like "put on some pants" or "dude, come on, we´re gonna watch the bridget jones diary." Now I´ll sit through bridget jones, but who wants to wear pants on a saturday. Not this guy. So after sort of regaining myself, working out a little, taking a few weeks of spanish, the month of May had flown by. While in BA I got a chance to go see a Boca Juniors soccer game which was pretty interesting. Its like being at a football game. Except everyone cares. Well thats not true, the awesome section was there to get drunk. But a lot of people cared. Still has nothing on a good bills tailgate. If you find yourself in BA, or Clean cheap NYC as I like to think of it, go to a steakhouse called La Cabrera. Everyone will tell you this. And you´re going to think "I don´t want to go there, everyone is going there, its going to be sooooo touristy." Stop being an idiot. It´s amazing. You always do this! You miss out on good things, because you want to be the non touristy tourist! You pulled this same move in Guam!
So yeah, La Cabrera has the greatest steak in the world. And with an appetizer that could feed St. Louis, and a couple bottles of wine, your dinner will come out to about 25 dollars US.
After embarrasing myself learning how to tango, and a beautiful city tour which I should have taken the first day there, but instead took on the last (I knowwww mommmm, you told me to do it the first day....I KNOWWWW) I headed up to Iguazu falls. I stopped in a place called Rosario. The amount of time I have allotted to Rosario is about the amount of time Rosario deserves. So anyway, I´m on to Iguazu falls, a nice little town of nothing. Played a mud soccer game which stained my feet for about the next week, and ate delicious barbecue. Everyone you ask before you see the falls say "they are amazing" which means your immediate mental reaction has to be "They are probably ok, you are probably just an idiot who gets too excited over things." Then you go to the falls, they are amazing, and you return and tell everyone how amazing they are, and they think you are an idiot. It´s a vicious cycle.
From there headed up to Rio de Janeiro, which from all accounts you would think is about as safe as having the name Dinesh and trying to get on an airplane. People make you think that if you have anything in your pockets, the locals will see it with their x-ray vision and hold you up with one of the 12 weapons they are carrying on them. Rio is beautiful, and if you don´t stay in the wrong parts of the city, quite safe. I stayed in a neighborhood called Botafoga. It has its own small beach, a 10 minute walk to copacabana beach, and 20 minute bus ride to Ipanema. The trade off is that I got to walk around at night, and go have beers on the street there, while the people staying in Ipanema would lock themselves into hostel compounds at sunset. Anyway, Rio ruled. Met an awesome group of fun people at a dive hostel, enjoyed the beaches, and finally stood in front of Cristo Redentor which has been a lifelong dream. I always thought I´d do the arms out pose in front of it. Then when I got there, I realized that everyone doing that is completely ridiculous. I kept hoping big stone jesus would kinda swat them off the mountain. Off to Salvador..aka..Bosnia.
Salvador de Bahia in the North of brazil was described to me as a wonderful relaxed atmosphere with a mix of African heritage and Brazilian tradition. Now it is a lovely mix of african culture and new brazilian traditions. However, wonderful relaxed atmosphere? Salvador made Rio at night seem like Disneyworld. Unknown to me, the bus that I took from the airport was held up at gunpoint the day before. At the same time I took it. It was held up again two days after I took it. You´d think maybe the tourist information desk lady would have helped me a little and let me know this? Nope. No doubt, she definitely has a promising career as a Navimag counter attendant. Before I was made aware of this safety issue, I took the liberty of walking basically through the entire city on foot on Sunday. I guess lucky for me, Sunday almost no one was out, and I´ve adopted a policy of walking fast when I´m alone and acting like I have somewhere to be. I duck into corner stores before I look at maps. It works, seriously. Salvador had some beautiful buildings, and nice beaches. But you are CONSTANTLY being hassled to buy necklaces from one of the billion people selling them. About 3 people in my hostel actually tried to nicely say no, and eventually were robbed by these necklace people. Salvador was the worst. And yeah, I know, people are gonna say "No, its amazing, blah blah blah blah" Good, go there, have fun. They have to rob someone to keep their economy going. Better you than me. So based on recommendations, I bit the bullet and dropped about 35 days worth of my budget on a plane flight from salvador de bahia to Bogota Columbia.
Bogota is everything that Salvador isn´t. It is incredibly safe. The people go out of their way to help you around. The museums are beautiful, you can walk around at night with little to no issue. There is also a restaurant called "Pita wok" which has the most delicious and healthy pitas on the face of the earth. Im staying at an incredible hostel called "the cranky croc" which has a beautiful tv room with a big screen and hd dvds. Its right near Monserrate, and all of the museums. The views in the soon to be posted pictures are from Monserrate. Beautiful. Breathtaking. The nightlife here is a lot of fun, I´ve learned to Salsa (which...I´m not terrible at. I´m a very poor dancer. But I´m a decent salsa dancer. (shut up sam (Sam is my college roomate who can dance quite well, and is currently shaking his head thinking "there is no possible chance Dinesh is ANY good at any kind of dancing. Dinesh dancing looks like a fish riding a bicycle.")))
I´ve rediscovered reading on this trip, which comes at quite a price. You see english books in South America are a commodity. Strike that, english books that aren´t about a passionate love affairs struck down by conniving socialites are a commodity. I´m pretty sure Anne Rice has exclusive rights to sell all english books in South America. So what that means is that if you search for an english bookstore, you´ll find a small section with 2 books worth reading, marked up at about 150%. So after plopping down 25 dollars US for Obama´s "The Audacity of Hope" (a MUST read) while reading on the back of the book "Price $6.99 US" and another 40 dollars for "The World is Flat" I´ve decided I really like reading again. Its quite inspirational. Getting me to the title of this post. I have been scouring itunes for good background, don´t pay attention to it, reading music. I´ve come to find, this music is Amy Winehouse. Make fun of me, say I´m a loser, but Back to Black is perfect reading music. I´m going to go so far as to say it´s a really good album. There. I said it. I feel a lot better.
Two days ago I was accidentally involved in a huge student protest. There are pictures and video on the link. It was incredible. It was halfway through reading Obama´s book which made me feel pretty awesome about free speech and demonstration and the will of the people. I joined in for a little bit. It was a blast. The police were actually pretty chill about everything. They were protesting a rise in tuition prices at the Universities. Why aren´t US students doing this? Colombia is actually becoming quite the progressive society.
Anyway, thats what I´ve been up to. Sorry Mom, Buenos Aires pictures are on my other memory card, which is in my bag back at the hostel. I´ll upload them next time. New pics are of Rio, Salvador, and Bogota. Hope you like, hope you are all well.
Soooo, I went from El calafate (the glaciar), about...a month ago, to Buenos Aires Argentina. Buenos Aires, is a fantastic, beautiful city. Except it is full of vampires. Honestly, the hours that argentinians choose to live their lives HAD to be picked by throwing darts at a dartboard. "Ughh...okay. So we are going to eat dinner at 10pm, then go out till 5 am. Well get up at 10am, work till 1, then have a 4 hour nappy time, then work till about 7. How does that sound? Good? People like that? Evita what do you say? You´re down? Alright, perfect, on to making steak cheaper than lettuce..." Its completely backwards. On the positive side, the rumor about 3 dollar steaks the size of your calf are true. That was incredible. My time in BA consisted of joining a gym, going to said gym, exploring the city a little, and watching TONS of TV. Aaron and I had rented an apartment which turned out to be beautiful. It was extremely spacious, with a large back patio, 2 full bathrooms, about 4 bedrooms. It was awesome. And...maybe most important of all, a washing machine, and a big couch with cable tv. When travelling from hostel to hostel, you come to really miss lying in your boxers on a big couch watching sports, movies, etc. You just dont get to do it. I mean you can try, but they´re always like "put on some pants" or "dude, come on, we´re gonna watch the bridget jones diary." Now I´ll sit through bridget jones, but who wants to wear pants on a saturday. Not this guy. So after sort of regaining myself, working out a little, taking a few weeks of spanish, the month of May had flown by. While in BA I got a chance to go see a Boca Juniors soccer game which was pretty interesting. Its like being at a football game. Except everyone cares. Well thats not true, the awesome section was there to get drunk. But a lot of people cared. Still has nothing on a good bills tailgate. If you find yourself in BA, or Clean cheap NYC as I like to think of it, go to a steakhouse called La Cabrera. Everyone will tell you this. And you´re going to think "I don´t want to go there, everyone is going there, its going to be sooooo touristy." Stop being an idiot. It´s amazing. You always do this! You miss out on good things, because you want to be the non touristy tourist! You pulled this same move in Guam!
So yeah, La Cabrera has the greatest steak in the world. And with an appetizer that could feed St. Louis, and a couple bottles of wine, your dinner will come out to about 25 dollars US.
After embarrasing myself learning how to tango, and a beautiful city tour which I should have taken the first day there, but instead took on the last (I knowwww mommmm, you told me to do it the first day....I KNOWWWW) I headed up to Iguazu falls. I stopped in a place called Rosario. The amount of time I have allotted to Rosario is about the amount of time Rosario deserves. So anyway, I´m on to Iguazu falls, a nice little town of nothing. Played a mud soccer game which stained my feet for about the next week, and ate delicious barbecue. Everyone you ask before you see the falls say "they are amazing" which means your immediate mental reaction has to be "They are probably ok, you are probably just an idiot who gets too excited over things." Then you go to the falls, they are amazing, and you return and tell everyone how amazing they are, and they think you are an idiot. It´s a vicious cycle.
From there headed up to Rio de Janeiro, which from all accounts you would think is about as safe as having the name Dinesh and trying to get on an airplane. People make you think that if you have anything in your pockets, the locals will see it with their x-ray vision and hold you up with one of the 12 weapons they are carrying on them. Rio is beautiful, and if you don´t stay in the wrong parts of the city, quite safe. I stayed in a neighborhood called Botafoga. It has its own small beach, a 10 minute walk to copacabana beach, and 20 minute bus ride to Ipanema. The trade off is that I got to walk around at night, and go have beers on the street there, while the people staying in Ipanema would lock themselves into hostel compounds at sunset. Anyway, Rio ruled. Met an awesome group of fun people at a dive hostel, enjoyed the beaches, and finally stood in front of Cristo Redentor which has been a lifelong dream. I always thought I´d do the arms out pose in front of it. Then when I got there, I realized that everyone doing that is completely ridiculous. I kept hoping big stone jesus would kinda swat them off the mountain. Off to Salvador..aka..Bosnia.
Salvador de Bahia in the North of brazil was described to me as a wonderful relaxed atmosphere with a mix of African heritage and Brazilian tradition. Now it is a lovely mix of african culture and new brazilian traditions. However, wonderful relaxed atmosphere? Salvador made Rio at night seem like Disneyworld. Unknown to me, the bus that I took from the airport was held up at gunpoint the day before. At the same time I took it. It was held up again two days after I took it. You´d think maybe the tourist information desk lady would have helped me a little and let me know this? Nope. No doubt, she definitely has a promising career as a Navimag counter attendant. Before I was made aware of this safety issue, I took the liberty of walking basically through the entire city on foot on Sunday. I guess lucky for me, Sunday almost no one was out, and I´ve adopted a policy of walking fast when I´m alone and acting like I have somewhere to be. I duck into corner stores before I look at maps. It works, seriously. Salvador had some beautiful buildings, and nice beaches. But you are CONSTANTLY being hassled to buy necklaces from one of the billion people selling them. About 3 people in my hostel actually tried to nicely say no, and eventually were robbed by these necklace people. Salvador was the worst. And yeah, I know, people are gonna say "No, its amazing, blah blah blah blah" Good, go there, have fun. They have to rob someone to keep their economy going. Better you than me. So based on recommendations, I bit the bullet and dropped about 35 days worth of my budget on a plane flight from salvador de bahia to Bogota Columbia.
Bogota is everything that Salvador isn´t. It is incredibly safe. The people go out of their way to help you around. The museums are beautiful, you can walk around at night with little to no issue. There is also a restaurant called "Pita wok" which has the most delicious and healthy pitas on the face of the earth. Im staying at an incredible hostel called "the cranky croc" which has a beautiful tv room with a big screen and hd dvds. Its right near Monserrate, and all of the museums. The views in the soon to be posted pictures are from Monserrate. Beautiful. Breathtaking. The nightlife here is a lot of fun, I´ve learned to Salsa (which...I´m not terrible at. I´m a very poor dancer. But I´m a decent salsa dancer. (shut up sam (Sam is my college roomate who can dance quite well, and is currently shaking his head thinking "there is no possible chance Dinesh is ANY good at any kind of dancing. Dinesh dancing looks like a fish riding a bicycle.")))
I´ve rediscovered reading on this trip, which comes at quite a price. You see english books in South America are a commodity. Strike that, english books that aren´t about a passionate love affairs struck down by conniving socialites are a commodity. I´m pretty sure Anne Rice has exclusive rights to sell all english books in South America. So what that means is that if you search for an english bookstore, you´ll find a small section with 2 books worth reading, marked up at about 150%. So after plopping down 25 dollars US for Obama´s "The Audacity of Hope" (a MUST read) while reading on the back of the book "Price $6.99 US" and another 40 dollars for "The World is Flat" I´ve decided I really like reading again. Its quite inspirational. Getting me to the title of this post. I have been scouring itunes for good background, don´t pay attention to it, reading music. I´ve come to find, this music is Amy Winehouse. Make fun of me, say I´m a loser, but Back to Black is perfect reading music. I´m going to go so far as to say it´s a really good album. There. I said it. I feel a lot better.
Two days ago I was accidentally involved in a huge student protest. There are pictures and video on the link. It was incredible. It was halfway through reading Obama´s book which made me feel pretty awesome about free speech and demonstration and the will of the people. I joined in for a little bit. It was a blast. The police were actually pretty chill about everything. They were protesting a rise in tuition prices at the Universities. Why aren´t US students doing this? Colombia is actually becoming quite the progressive society.
Anyway, thats what I´ve been up to. Sorry Mom, Buenos Aires pictures are on my other memory card, which is in my bag back at the hostel. I´ll upload them next time. New pics are of Rio, Salvador, and Bogota. Hope you like, hope you are all well.
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