I'm quiting school and moving to salta?

Okay! Again, a lot to talk about because I haven't posted for like 3 weeks. So you're gonna get a whole download of my life from the past while. Ill go in chronological order mas o menos: 

    1. Dia de campo- was an excursion day with the program 

where we went about an hour out of the city to a small town and stayed on this ranch where we ate and ate and rode horses and played soccer and just hung out and ... oh yeah, ate. a lot. It was really nice to get out of the stress of the city and just hang out. I didn't take photos that day because my camera died : (.

    2. Out about in the city- I went to the zoo (kind of random), but it was cool because they have animals I've never seen before. Maybe they have them somewhere close to home but I've never seen em so it was sweet. 

Like this. WTF? is it a bunny, is it a dog? yeah, 

weird. they look like rabbit faces, the size of a small dog, but walk on 

all fours and kind of have the body of a miniature deer. 

And this? Coipo= oversized swimming rat with a beaver face. 

    But then I went to Jardin Japones (Japanese Garden) and its a cute little closed off park in the middle of the city. Nuff said.

kinda looks like Uncle David's "Two trees" print huh? 

I understand this comment will only make sense to my family 

so I have provided a second: tile and tree. cute. 

3. Viaje a Salta- I took a trip to Salta, which is a northern province in Argentina. Kirsten, Julie and I took a bus for between 18 and 20 hours north to the the more rural area to get out of the city and have an adventure of our own. The bus ride was actually exciting because we bought slightly upper-class tickets and so the food was provided, there was wine, excellent coffee, and horrible movies haha. I'm not gonna lie, the movies were bad. 

    Once we got there we walked 1 block to our hostel...which turned out out to be a little house sent from heaven. Inti Huasi is the name and it was a really chill hostel with laid back people, good music, good food, and a super affectionate black and white cat. A few of our plans failed but it ended up working out better because spending time at the hostel and kickin it with other travelers was an experience all its own. 

    We ventured around the small city into the main plaza, 9 de Julio, to the gorgeous churches throughout, and a little further out to a quaint nook called San Lorenzo. The town was cool but San Lorenzo was great. We took the city bus out of the city part and got to see all the small townish places and the land on our way to San Lorenzo where there was a little crick and green mountains and all local people and tasty empanadas (but then again, what empanadas aren't tasty?).  The day we had to leave was mos def a sad day, kirsten and I decided we're quitting school, working at Inti Huasi and traveling south america. cool huh?

Just kidding mom, don't freak out : ) I'm not quitting school.

yet. 

    Moral of the story: it was a fantastic little vaycay and a breath of fresh air to get out of the chaos of Buenos Aires, talk with local rural argentine people, and spend quality time with friends playing Uno and cooking. 

Me, Julie, Kirsten at the Bus station

Mi primero hostal : )

Our private room in Inti Huasi

Cocinando

¡Que linda la comida!

¡Que rica la comida! (This was the asado we had, I didn't cook it but it was like freakin thanksgiving. So much good.)

Franciscan church

 

La Basilica church

Inside La Basilica

Self explanatory.

and I don't even like cats, besides this one. And joey snowy miller.

Me walking in the crick

Julie, me and our australian friend sean

cute little cross.

Kirsten.

 Final note: I will be getting some more pictures from Julie when we trade pics. in San Lorenzo it was sort of misty in the background and it was a holiday weekend so all the little kids were out playing and the trees were so green it looked like a unicorn would turn the corner or something lol. Anyways, now I am back in BA which is also fun and I had my first tango class here which was really enjoyable. I forget how much I love it so I'm excited to really get into my classes. As always, e mail me I love hearing from everyone. Peace.

Kate

Aventuradoras

Okay so I have a lot to talk about! And I have muchos fotos : ), but first I have to talk about school... It is very nice. I have only been to like two of my classes but they were pretty interesting and I think I'll stay engaged. I'm only taking 3 classes here which equates to full time at ASU. 

I'm taking a spanish class which is pretty easy so far so I'm gonna try it out for another week and if its to easy I will try and transfer. Then I have a Tango class which is two-parted: theory and dance. I've only been to the theory section so far but its really cool, mostly history and learning about different cultures and where tango comes from and what it means to different cultures. Anyway, its in spanish and their spanish is hard sometimes so in that class it is a lot of lecture so I just have to really focus the whole time. And my final class?...drumroll please...acting! yeah I'm pretty stoked that I get to take a theatre class here and in spanish (or castellano : )) and with locals so it will be way different and difficult and fun and I can meet a lot of new people and yeah. Then, the cherry on top of all of it is that I only have class mon-wed so I have a four day weekend every week that I can use to travel and explore and discover (and study very very much). 

So that is school so far, the campus is not like a US campus its just like three buildings so I'll get some photos of that later. As for other adventures, we went on a group trip to Tigre, which is a river town and its really quaint and we took a boat tour and it was really pretty.

My new friend Julie and I in the freezing town of Tigre and

 enjoying a merienda (snack) que fue muy rico (really good)

This is where the river flows into the ocean 

Tigre was a few days ago, but today me and some of my friends didn't have class so we went and did a bit of exploring to the nearby neighborhoods. We walked forever to get to this town next to us called Palermo but it was really nice scenery and cool churches and trees. Palermo is where we mostly hang out because Belgrano is really safe and nice but its mostly populated with rich old people and things are over priced. Palermo is like a 10 minute subway ride so we went to this huge park they have with little lakes and statues and it was gorgeous! I went a little camera crazy so you're going to get a highly concentrated version of my palermo park album : )

Where's the parakeet?

There's graffiti all over in Palermo...and something tells me 

they aren't big fans of Bush. I'm very intuitive : )

Big movies release here not too far from when they 

do in the States so I was excited to see this

Q: Do we really look that much like tourists? 

A: Yes. Yes we do.

Cute little fountain plaza area 

Julie scarfing some cotton candy (it was soo good)

Kate's obsessed with trees #1

#2

#3

(feel free to copy paste these photos, I know you want them for your computer background : P)

The trees here are really amazing, its the middle of winter so at first I thought they looked kind of dreadful but then in some areas they are just massive and all different types. AND they have Jacaranda trees everywhere which makes me especially happy because we have those in Arizona so it gives me a little comfort of home. 

SO that is it for now, I will be doing some more exploring tomorrow and will update you all soon. E-mail me, skype me, I miss everyone and want to hear from you! 

-Kate

Orientation

Soo... I feel like I should have made another exciting post by now buuuuuttt we've just had orientations everyday I've been here. We just go over everything with our program directors and then go to the University's orientations with all of the international students in spanish and THEN in english lol so I get everything twice, lucky me right? But the exciting stuff is just walking around the city with other people in the group and going to little cafes and little bars and bakeries. (and trying to communicate effectively with a mexican/american accent when they speak soo different here). 

  Also, its fah-ree-zing! The first few days weren't so bad like i just needed a hoodie but yesterday rained from when I woke up 'til after I went to bed. And today isn't as rainy but its like 35 degrees and some full sized branches crashed into cars, which in conjunction with the driving was pretty nuts. 

Me and my roommate Kirsten after we walked like 8 blocks

     in the pouring rain at night (in flip flops....I don't wear those anymore : )

Even though it's cold it's still been fun, I bought cute boots here : ) everyone wears them and its super cute. And today my roomate and this other girl and guy and me all went to the other side of our suburb on the bus to find this peruvian restaurant and we made it there int he rain and cold only to find out that it didn't open until like 8pm and it was 4:30. (side note: they don't eat dinner here until like 9pm, they get up around 10am and on the weekends they go out starting at like 1am. kind of a weird schedule but its fun). So we ended up eating at this tiny little cafe that this one little lady ran by herself and she was really sweet and made me and my friend vegetarian stuff even though it wasn't on the menu so it ended up working out. 

I start classes on Monday so I should have more exciting stories then, and probably some embarrassing ones too since I'm gonna take some classes with locals and try to use my spanish. Wish me luck! 

Miss you all, 

Kate

El primer día

I made it! And I didn't get robbed and the plane didn't crash so I'm good. Since I have been watching lost this summer the thought was in the back of my mind that my plane would crash and I would end up on some island : ).  The flight was very long and I'm not gonna lie pretty dang boring. But on the flight from Atlanta to Buenos Aires I sat next to the kid I know from ASU so that was cool and the food was surprisingly good. 

My first day has been kind of nuts but I'm getting used to it. I live in an apartment with an older lady and another girl from my program, a guy from the UK that studies law here, and eventually some student from Pepperdine University. AND the lady's granddaughter stays here sometimes and she's 13 but its kind of cool because she speak

s english.  The apartment is on the 7th floor and really close to my classes so I like it. 

It's really (really) different here and when I first came to the apartment my roomate wasnt here yet and I was going on 2 hours of sleep and needed a shower and the lady (MaryLou) was a bit overwhelming. Nonetheless the place is pretty cute...

This is my room (and this is the bed I rented : P)

My closet, all the stuff at the top is Marylou's

This is the view from the balcony off the dining area (well the view of other buildings). 

And there's this cute Panaderia (bakery/cafe) down the street that I went to that was cool. ANd my house smells really good because Maylou is cooking and I saw some cake in the oven and I am starving so I'm stoked. Weird fact, they don't eat dinner til 9 or 10pm everyday...a bit of an adjustment for me lol but I'll figure it out. Love you and miss you all (a lot)!

love, 

kate

I am definitely not computer savy

This is my first post and just a test of how to use a blog. seeing as how I have never had any sort of web page, bear with me.