Eighth Grade Speech + more!

Hey all, I know it's been a while, and that is because I realized that I still hadn't done all the homework that I was supposed to do during the six months. Because of this, I have been working non-stop on my history textbook (Four units in two weeks. Four hours a day), finishing up science, and working on my eighth grade speech. Upon looking at my recording, I give it a "mediocre" grade. But I recorded it and posted on Youtube (where else) for your enjoyment. The paper is good. The speech is not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bETSaeQFdcU

Let me the last months that I have not blogged about. In not so much detail. Ready go.

After the Inka Trail we went back to Cuzco, which was a charming town that is extremely touristy bad had some pretty fantastic restaurants. We stayed there for a few days before heading off to the Manu Biosphere Reserve, a nine-day trip through the rivers that flow into the Amazon. The second best thing after the Amazon. There we saw some monkeys. And some birds. And some bugs. Every day we spent another four hours on a fantastic boat, wind blowing in our faces with a bunch of good book time. I have been burning through the books. I just finished 1984, and am SO ready to talk to anybody about it.

Several days later we headed to the Galapagos. This was pretty fantastic. Four nine days we boated from island to island (usually during the night). It is a special feeling when you wake up at two in the morning to the boat tilting forty-five degrees to either side. You could hear my toothbrush flying from inside the shower and hitting the porthole. The guide(s) were great, and the foot was more than great. Instead of having the usual sixteen people on the cruise, the economic recession came to our benefit, and only three more people joined our family. One was an old sailor guy that I'm sure had pretty awesome stories to tell, and by the way he cut his meat, he had class as well. The other couple was Canadian, kind but quiet. We saw a ton of glowy fish that bit you, a tiger snake eel (that was its actual name) some huge stingrays and a hammer head. This was hardly "snore"-kling. Ho ho ho.

We saw blue-footed boobies, and birds that puffed up their throats until all you saw was a big red balloon. We saw sheer cliff faces that looked like they came out of Pirates of the Caribbean. It was pretty spectacular.

After our Galapagos trip (which you can find pictures of at jenson.org), we headed to Quito for a couple days, and then Tumbatu, Ecuador. This was a small village where we were working, consisting of descendants of slaves brought over during the 17th century to work the plantations. We rode there in the back of a truck, which had out-of-this world views. Our charity project for the next two weeks was to build bleachers for the soccer field.

I don't usually complain about these kind of things, but I have to say I was kind of disappointed about this assignment. The houses that many people lived in (including us) did not have bathrooms, walls consisted of cemented cinder blocks, and drinking water came out of canals that had ben used to irrigate fields. Well, that's not fair. They did have bathrooms, just with squat toilets, and running water came from a hose that was stuck in the canals. A truck with clean water came weekly to give each family a bucket of clean water. But still... bleachers?

For the next ten days we mixed concrete, scooping, picking, digging, sawing... it was tough work. In the afternoons we tried classes with the kids, art for the younger ones and English for the older ones. It depends on who you ask on this issue, but they turned out to be... difficult. The kids in the art class (well, some of them) just could not share, hitting kids, and pinning them to the ground, yelling at the top of their lungs. The soccer ball that we brought was taken the first day by the older kids, and for the rest of the trip the kids continued to think that we had it, coming to our house in the evening, calling us bad names. When we closed the door, they went around to our widows. Some of them were cute, but others found the art supplies to be something that, if they could, they would steal. There were several breaks for the door with handfuls of crayons. Other kids, when they stuck out their hands for two stickers, would get them, put that arm behind their back, and use the other. My mom was more patient than I could ever be, managing to teach art throughout our stay. By the second day I want to beat up every single on of the ignorant little-

It was great.

After we played it rustic for those two weeks (it gets tiring waking up to spiders over your bed), we flew to Panama City, Panama, which is the most westernized place we've been. I made myself several dozen PB and Js, my dad finally cooked his magical bread, and we found root beer. We spent a week eating and looking at the canal, and it was something special.

Now we are all freshened up with our American food, and we just arrived in Caracas, Venezuela. Although the place is a tad dangerous, we have been keeping to the safer side of town, only leaving our hotel for meals, and for no more than one or two hours at a time. We are going to head to Angel Falls (waterfall with the biggest drop in the world) for a couple of nights, and then we are going to relax for the rest of the trip. We have less than five weeks left! A little less than four here in Venezuela, and we spend our last week in Colombia. I've made plans, and my summer is going to be freakin' nuts!

Anyway, don't worry. There will be more blog posts in the future.

Inka Trail, foo´!

Yes, unfortunately there was an occurance in those few days that I was supposed to update the blog. That occurence was a combination of me forgetting and me really not wanting to. But alas! Here is a (probably) small post written in the lobby of a hotel with newfound internet. I will either post again, or add some more onto this post soon. For now... lets talk Inka Trail.

The basic history surrounding the Inka Trail is that there is this place called Machu Picchu (heard of it? Check the cover of your spanish workbooks) . It is supposedly pretty great. Some farmer was doing his plowing up the side of a mountain in the Andes in a rainforest(?) and suddenly came accross an ancient culture. Whodathunkit.

A trail was discovered that was paved by the Inkas. Unfortunately, this path was neither big enough, nor easy enough to support several companies trying to make mad profits off of their own culture´s history, while simultaneously having stands set up every two hours with people trying to sell you soft drinks (dont you hate it when that happens?). A new one was built, still unpaved, still trecherous, but managable. We attempted this path.

We began at five in the morning before the sun came up in our little hotel. We all piled into a huge bus and traveled around Cusco, Peru for about an hour and a half rounding up all the people. We ended up with three Swedish gals (aged 19 to 20), and three Aussies, (two were a couple, the other free lancing) a Norweigan couple, an English couple, and one other American. We really couldn't have asked for a better group.

Our guide than introduced himself as Freddy. He seemed to find it hilarious to add "Kruger" onto his name. And he didn't let us forget it.

After a morning of bus driving, hawker (people that sell you stuff) avoiding, and picture taking, we finally began the trail. 

The three days that we spent on the trail were absolutely gorgeous. Like, seriously. I can say that even though I'm male. Be quiet. 

Although the first day was accompanied by railroads and powerlines, we soon were able to stray off and go through empty valleys. The first day was pretty straightforward. We soon learned that hiking at 3500 meters (roughly 10,000 feet) is NOT the same as hiking at sea level. The small amounts of uphill we had to do left us breathless, but we quickly began to acclimate (that means getting more blood cells, which means getting more oxygen from the air.)

Our camping arrangements wasn't bad. There is a stereotype among the people hear that gringos (white people) a normally pretty rich and like things posh. Thus leading me to my next point. Although we lived in tents, and had to use squat toilets, mealtimes were something else. If you have ever been to Widji, you'll know what I mean when I say lunch time isn't usually the most formal of times. But her, oh no. We got EVERYTHING, including somethings I'm pretty sure I don't eat most of the time. At lunch time, the porters, who not only carry fifty pounds of weight up rocky slopes, but also pitch our tents, cook our food, and do pretty much everything, set up an entire tent where they set out folding tables (that they had to carry on their back) then set out over a dozen folding chairs (also carried on their backs) and then set the table with napikins for everyone a fork, knife and TWO SPOONS! I mean come on... I don't really need that much. THen we were served some soup, and then the main course, complete with meat, veggies, bread, potatoes, and many other things. At dinner we got pudding. 

The second day was grueling. Not only was five of the seven hours straight uphill, but my mom got as sick as... a dog? Even though I was healthy, I was having serious trouble that day, having to hold my sides as we went up over a kilometer. Reaching the highest point on the Inca Trail, we set down the rocks that we brought up to honor Pachamama (Mother Earth in Inca speak), and then ate our candy bars. It was at that point that more walking didn't really seem like an option. I was a little to selfish at that point to realize that my parents were two hours behind, counting the amount of steps until their next break. I headed down.

Our descent was over five hundred meters, and we quickly realized that the most efficient way of sparing our knees from telescoping was to run. After forty-five minutes of hoping boulders, and taking switch-backs at top speed, we came to our camp. It took the rest of the evening for my knees to stop shaking. 

The third day was non-descript. We did some uphill. We did some downhill. It was cold. It was cloudy. Near the end we came across some spectacular views of a  huge river running in between the mountains. We would follow that river to Machu Picchu. 

The next morning (if you can call it that) we woke up at 3:45 a.m. We had to sprint down the trail as soon as we could to get in line for the entrance to Machu Picchu. As we got in, we began brushing our teeth and watching the slower groups line up behind us. 

As soon as we got through the warden's place, we had to pick up the pace. At Machu Picchu there is a semi-famous hike that takes you directly above the ruins for ultra-cool views. Unfortunately, spots on this hike are limited, so speed was of importance. While we left the old people in the dust, we basically ran/speed walked for an hour over rocky terrain until we came to the famous ruins. Regretfully, my first thought was "Hey, this looks like my Spanish workbook". 

As we entered the ruins, we didn't have time to enjoy it, because we had to get into line for hike tickets. Glancing at multicentury-old architecture, we sprinted up myriad steps through fantastic ruins, across fabuous plains until we came to the ticket office, with a longer-than-long line streaming from it. After a long wait we received our tickets, number 375 out of the 400 available spots. Looking up at the mountain we were about to hike, I was suddenly struck awe/exhaustion. There are times in your life when you have worked for something very hard, and when you see the payoff you see it was all worth it. This was not one of those times. 

While roaming the ruins while waiting for our hike time (8:00) we could easily distinguish the people that took the train to the ruins from the hikers. There is a certain amount of smugness that you feel when you pass the obese guy with the too-tight hat strap and the large camera hanging around his neck and the guy in the collared shirt with the goofy grin who is videotaping the book that his guide is showing him.

After our hike (which can be described as so-grueling-that-I-won't-even-go-into-detail-but-let's-be-honest-that-was-a-pretty-kick-butt-view-don't-you-think?), we hopped a bus (with air-conditioning!) down to Aguas Calientes, a small town that was built purely for the purpose of the high tourist population. There we took several hot showers, several hot spring baths, and several delicious hot meals. 

Our next trip was the Manu Biosphere Reserve, which will be a different post. I want to get this one on the web so people know I am still alive. I am really bad at posting. Sorry. It's what I do.

San Pedro de Lock Jaw

This time I have an excuse. For the last two weeks I have been living in an Andean village with absolutely no internet. I got back from there a couple days ago, and I spent those days unconscious. So now I am going to take full advantage of my free day to write a blog post from Cusco, Peru. Here it goes.

         Last time I blogged, I was talking about how much I adored La Paz. After spending three days there sight seeing and such, we hopped another bus. I must say, I am CRANKING through the books. When the bus came to a stop we found ourselves in no other place but Lake Titicaca! It is something like the biggest/highest/coolest lake in the world/south america/peru. I don't really know the details. Its pretty big though.

         Copacabana (the town we were in) is at something like 3800 meters, which is roughly (very roughly) 10,000 feet. That is high. Breathing gets hard and headaches become abundant, and you feel like you suddenly gained fifty pounds overnight. Activities were limited. We eventually gained the courage to take an hour boat ride out to La Isla Del Sol, and for those of you that don't speak Spanish, that means The Sun Island. There we took a five hour hike (which would have been plenty difficult without the altitude) and saw some Incan ruins. Our tourguide spoke to us completely in Spanish, and I was proud of myself when I could understand almost everything he was saying (and in case you were wondering, this guy got a 96% on the National Spanish Exam). It was a day well spent.

         The following day we hopped another bus to Puno, another town on Lake Titicaca, about three hours away. There we got to see the Floating Islands, which I heard were made out of reeds. I really had no idea what this meant, so I expected to see a couple patches of weed growth and then go home. Instead I found out that people had actually made entire islands out of cut reeds. If this isn't the coolest idea since sliced bread, I don't know what is.

         We took a boat up to one of them, where we were warmly welcomed by a family that spoke both Quechua, the native language, and Spanish. The kids, who went to a slightly run down school, were taught Japanese, English, and French in addition to their previous two languages. Kids are raised here to help with the things that run their economy. This is namely tourism. Although it is great that they have anything running their economy, I can't help but feel a little sad about this fact.

         Then we finally took a really long bus ride (that was the only form of transportation for two weeks) to Lima, the capital of Peru. There we had one night before we began our second service project. Early that morning we were picked up by our liaison, Edwin, who brought us to the bus station (one hour away from Lima), where we would take a three hour bus ride up really bumpy roads around a huge Andean canyon-like-thing to our final destination. San Pedro de Casta. We arrived fairly late at night, taking our suitcases out of the back and carrying them (not rolling them, because the roads were made out of huge rocks) up a steep road at 10,000 feet. At the top we came across the hotel that we were going to be spending the next two weeks in. There was no hot water, the water could not be drunk because it was so dirty, there was no heating, and no internet. At the time I was pretty gung-ho about the whole thing, because going rustic is the kind of thing I do. That feeling didn't last long.

         Our first project was the greenhouse. Ever morning at nine o'clock we would eat our breakfast (which was Nesquick hot chocolate and PB & J sandwiches. We quickly realized that peanut butter was a delicacy that had to be conserved) and head out to the school which was a three minute walk from the hotel. This town is very small. The total population is about 900 people. That is less than Breck School. 

         We then would spend about four hours drilling holes in plastic and snipping wire and tying wire and lifting plastic and sweating buckets and drinking water and digging holes and placing poles and sawing wood… we worked like machines for those four days, until we found ourselves next to an eight foot tall awkward-looking greenhouse. We even installed a wooden door in the plastic. I was pretty proud of myself.

         Whilst we were doing this, my pa (I actually don’t call him pa) was working on the computers. The computer teacher at the school was talking about how he was going to get internet in two days. This made me pretty excited, but as it turns out, it took us exactly two weeks to get internet in San Padro de Casta. Although this disappointed me, the school is now able to surf the web at a very slow speed. We are hoping that this will increase the level of learning in the school.

         The next thing we were assigned to do were the Lorena Stoves. There were ten different homes that wanted us to come in and help them build them a stove. We spent an entire day having little kindergarteners help us pile bricks into wheelbarrows and bringing them to the school. Besides one mishap when I hit a piece of metal sticking out of the ground and throwing myself into one of the handles, the day passed pretty smoothly. The next two days we visited people’s homes and either helped them with the stoves or watched them make the stoves. Apparently our presence was what was making this happen, not our labor. I am still trying to figure that one out. Each time we finished a stove, we gave the family a lecture in Spanish about the benefits of Vitamin C, and what harm not having it can do. We then proceeded to juice about six oranges and give it to them. I enjoyed this part. We even got them to juice a couple tears for us. I was touched.

         The last project that we worked on while we were in San Pedro de Casta (this was the same time as we discovered bed bugs in our beds) was their museum. Since tourism is something that is a source of a lot of their income, we were told to clean up their school museum and write blurbs in English and Spanish. When we first entered the museum, it wasn’t like the museums that you are used to. It was one room filled with a bunch of glass cases with dead people looking out of them. If you continued around the room, you found tables with broken skulls and severed feet just sitting on them. My favorite part of the museum was the poster that they hung on the wall about all the morals of the Incas. One of them was (and I’m translating from Spanish) “Don’t be a traitor. The Incas may have conquered many lands and killed many people but they were never traitors”.

         We spent the next days reading really old pamphlets and newspaper articles in Spanish and French (primary sources!), painting signs, and interviewing this guy whose father was an archaeologist. All of this information that we were receiving was on the topic of Marcahuasi, a large piece of land about a two hour horse ride from San Pedro. It is known for its ruins and animal-shaped rocks. Looking at the rocks, they are kind of a stretch.

         The last days were coming to an end. Although we really were glad that we had done this, the rice and potato meals two meals a day in combination with going to bed with four layers on and taking a shower every fourth day really started to wear down on us. Lying down on my bed in the Double Tree hotel in Lima could be considered one of the most relieving things I have ever done. Then I ate a huge plate of spaghetti and fell asleep for 72 hours.

         Yesterday we took a PLANE to Cusco, Peru. In a few days we are going to hike the Inca trail all the way to Machu Picchu. After that we will come back to Cusco for another three days (where I will hopefully blog again), and then we will be off to the Manu Bio Reserve for nine days where we are going to be able to see a ton of monkeys and canoe and stay in huts and basically live the life in the Amazon jungle.

         I hope you guys are having fun in Minnesota/Kentucky/New Mexico!

 

Comments!

Fortunately, Dragon Blood was not extremely abundant.

 

We tried some coca tea, and instead of helping us with our altitude sickness, we just got a gross taste of corn in our mouth. Also, 22,000 feet is a little higher than I am going. Mount Everest is 29,000.

 

You’re right. I meant heebie jeebies.

 

You’re righ MonkAreYOu Bali (who are you?), this IS so nice site. You’re grammar is in serious need of assistance.

 

And Nicholas, as much as I love how you are trying to help me with my spelling, something tells me that isn’t what you’re trying to do. Tapistries can be spelled however I want them to, thank you very much. Turns out coca is about .5% cocaine.

 

Of course I didn’t forget Rebecca! Tell her my Spanish is getting flawless!

La Paz Te Amo

I know I blogged recently, and to blog again is something new. Since internet is not going to be a guanteed thing in the near future, I decided to update you guys on La Paz, the capital (or one of the capitals) of Bolivia.
After the hotel from where I blogged last time, we took a ten hour bus ride (can you believe it?) to La Paz. I fell instantly in love. Through the window of the taxi cab, I saw the myriad amounts of shops and stands on the streets that sold woven handbags and tapistries and gloves and hats and a bunch of amazing things that I wanted to buy. Money was not the issue in this case, but the idea that whatever I bought here I would have to carry with me for four months. I decided to leave the products where they were.
Upon closer inspection, I found out that the stores sold many things that were unexpected. The best example of this would be the many many many skeletal llama babies that we sitting in a bowl on every other street corner. Apparently these things are used for witchcraft. Whatever they were being used for, the we giving me the jibblies. I decided to leave them alone. There were other things however. Along with the lead baby llamas, I can across dead bats, fetal llamas, and ocelot hides. My original starry-eyed opinions of these stores began to deteriorate quickly.
The rest of La Paz was amazing though. Our hotel has free wifi along with a little internet cafe that i can go to if my parents and brothers are hogging all of the computers. The food is amazing too. I am currently writing this with an aching stomach because of all the Indian that I ate. To top that, La Paz is undoubtedly the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Situated in a valley, none of the buildings are more than about three stories high, so if you go to the top of one of the few skyscrapes in downtoan, you can see just a pattern of little tiny brown buildings bustling with native people. I forgot to mention, about 60% of the people living in La Paz are natives, wearing intricate clothes and carrying babies on the back. The best part is the bowler hats that the women wear, that seem to serve no purpouse, and that look like a butterfly flapping its wings the wrong way would blow it off.
Today we visited the coca museum. This museum is the history of coca leaves in the Bolivian culture, and the escalation of the production of cocain too. The english translated packet that I received was very specific in how it was made and what it does and the legality of it in certain countries. Unlike the rest of my family, I quickly became uncomfortable in the museum after the offer of coca leaves to chew on, and stepped outside. Then my dad offered me some Coca Cola.
Anway, that is pretty much it. I would reply to comments and all that jazz, but I am really tired, and my stomach hurts a lot. I am going to go read a book and sleep a lot. Don´t have high expectations on when the next post is going to be.

A Tardy Guide to Chilean Cities

Once again (and I’m thinking about setting a new standard) I am a little too late with my blog. Once comments stopped coming in about two weeks ago, I should have taken a hint. Internet is a real problem here (when is it not) and will continue to be that way for the next two weeks. So… don’t get your hopes up for a lot of blog posts.

            Here is a link for all of those who wanted to see pictures.

http://sites.google.com/site/jensontrip2009/chile

 

This is the blog that my mom writes for my family, and you don’t have to (in fact, I would prefer if you didn’t for my own personal reasons) read it. You will get to see some great pictures of what we have been doing, along with an occasional video.

            Another thing I am going to say before I get into what I have been doing,  is that if you thought that valentine’s day thing was completely original, and thus I was a completely funny guy and you just hadn’t noticed it until then, it was… not that way. I took a good 80% of that stuff from this guy called ze frank, and I was going to credit him with it until I forgot. He is a pretty great guy though. Tell your friends.

            Anyway

            Last time I blogged, I was in Pucon residing in a quite cozy cabin thing with internet. This town is mostly known for its insane amount tourism. It has pretty much everything you can do, including rafting, which I already told y’all about. Another thing we did (which comes in a close second to rafting) was our ascent to the top of this volcano that I can’t remember the name of. Beginning with a chairlift, we put on our packs complete with snow gear and weird plastic discs that we shaped kind of like a telly-tubby’s severed head, you know, with the weird hoop thing on top? We discovered what that thing was for a little later. Then we began our ascent, with our heavy boots and seemingly useless pick-axes. As we climbed the gravely rock, we used the axes as if they were walking sticks, but they were a little to short, so our hope of looking like we knew what we were doing was lost at about minute five. At our thirty-minute mark, we all sat down and ate almost all our candy. About thirty minutes after that, we ran into our first piece of snow, where we were instructed to place our pick-axes vertically into the snow on our uphill side, and kick our shoes into the side of the hill to make foot holds. This worked about as much as a submarine screen door, and by the time we had taken five steps, we were back on gravel, after an apparently useless lesson. Several minutes later, however, we were confronted by a wall of ice and snow. Sighing, we got to work, taking the closely placed steps that were carved into the snow. After another two hours and several breaks, we reached the summit of the volcano. As excited as I was, the unbearable stench of brimstone caused me to have a cough attack, and dampened the moment a tad. What I hoped to be a scalding pot of jumping lava was a steamy hole. Although they view was beyond spectacular, I covered my face with my arm, and trudged into the wind back down the hill. I wasn’t looking forward to the decent.

            But I should have. As soon as we made it off the poisonous peak, our guides told us to take out our severed heads and clip them to our belts. Together, we awkwardly clipped on the discs, nervously glancing at each other to make sure they looked as ridiculous as us. Then we walked about fifty feet to  a slide. A slide. On a mountain. It was awesome. Using our feet as breaks and our pick-axe as a rudder, we went down the hill in style. It took us fifteen minutes to sled down the mountain that took us 4 hours to climb up. All in all, a day well spent.

            After that, we took another very long bus ride. This time: 10 hours.  Awful. I did make some good progress in my book, and did get to play some quality Boggle. When the bus finally came to a stop, we were in Santiago, the capital of Chile. This city is huge, and when I say huge I mean HUGE. When gazing at it from atop a hill, it filled up pretty much all that you could see. It was like downtown Minneapolis x20. I felt pretty okay about it.

            Santiago was our first time staying with a host family. We dragged our suitcases into a dark home where we were warmly greeted my a middle aged couple and their 24 year old daughter. Only when my brothers and I hauled our stuff up the uneven staircase did we encounter the other sibling. This guy I don’t think ever leaves his room. Ever. On the occasions where I did see him over the next two weeks of our home stay, he was either playing guitar in his room, or opening our door without knocking at 11:30 at night and being inquisitive in the middle of our movie. He was nice, he just… had bad timing.

            The following day, we began our charity project, where we go to a women’s shelter, where mothers go if they’re husbands are aggressive or abusive. Our job is not a difficult one, which is just to occupy the kids from 10:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. The kids ranged from ages of 1 year olds to one 13 year old. The kids were absolutely adorable, and a good about my time with them was either tickling them, or telling them that dirt is not something that should be eaten. If you follow the link at the beginning of the blog, you will get to see their cuteness, along with a video that my mom made of the women’s shelter with really lame background music.

As for the older kids, we made up great activities for them to do, such as building bridges out of popsicle sticks or giving them English classes. I must admit, school is a lot more fun when you get to tell them that they were wrong, and not vice versa.

            Over the next couple weeks we got to know kids extremely well. On the last day, as we played Red Rover (a game that we introduced that became an instant favorite), I became a little to aggressive, and too several people down into the dust along with me as I tried to break their defense. Instead of crying, the little girls jumped on top of me, and we began to wrestle. It was a pretty epic moment.

            Since this post is getting a tad too long, I will be concise for the remainder.

            We flew out of Santiago to this town in northern Chile. This place is at a high altitude. This means it is hard to breath. We went sand boarding. It is like snowboarding, except with sand. We got to climb big sharp rocks and watch sun sets and read Kurt Vonnegut. We stayed there for two days, and then jumped on another bus (I’m getting kind of tired of them) and rode for 10 hours, and tried to catch a couple winks (and failed). We ended up in a beach-side city where I am currently residing. It is getting a tad late for me, and I’ll try to write another post soon. Unfortunately, we will be traveling non-stop for the next couple of weeks, so Internet might be a little scarce. Be cool, we’ll be 100% in a bit. Comment comment comment!

What Has Happened Since Mendoza - Part II + Valentines Day Surprise!

Time for Part II! This was truncated off of the original Part I, so it doesn’t run too smoothly at the beginning. Suck it up.

            Then we begin our hiking trip. After getting some Widji fever from listening to an hour long presentation on hiking from a twenty-something with a beard, my brothers and I rent some sweet camping equipment and off we go. The “W”, is a mountain range in the shape of (can you believe it?) a “W”. The normal trip is to take some fifty pound packs and hike for six days. Naturally, we nudged away this option for the hope of leaving our spines un-telescoped. Instead, we spent three days hiking for three or four hours one way, and then all the way back. During that time, we came up with countless inside jokes, which I won’t tell you because you aren’t cool enough.

            But anyway. The views were spectacular. There were glaciers and lagoons and forests and waterfalls and rivers and cougars and birds and sand and mountains and snow and, well, a lot more. If I ever get more than two pictures on a blog post, I’ll show it to you guys, but currently that doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen.

            Then we got on a boat. A big boat. It reminds me scarily of the Titanic, and we all know how that went down…. However this isn’t one of those posh cruises where you get three course meals four meals a day. This is a boat where four of us have to climb over each other to get onto our bunks that our placed in more-than-close proximity towards each other. For meals we get cafeteria food that makes Breck look like it’s giving you three course meals four times a day. The exterior of the ship is covered in mist, and it is very cold. But what is great about it is I get about ten hours a day to sleep, read, and do history day. (By the way, I’m reading Hunger Games. Great book. Tell your friends) I was unfortunately unaware of the creeping deadline of history day papers, and was caught off guard when I didn’t have notes in like, three subjects and no internet. But don’t worry, it’s turning out okay.

            I noticed that I often sound like a pessimist on my blog, so I’m going to point out a couple cool things. We saw dolphins and seals while on the boat. The cold air Is refreshing. My cabin in Punto Arenas had a huge forest around it so I got some good “Calvin and Hobbes” moments, and if you don’t know what that means we aren’t friends anymore. There. I said it. I’m having a great time.

             After the ship docked, we did some last minute packing and then set off onto dry land. Unfortuantely, it turned out that we had taken SO long to pack our bags that the luggage guys had missed them and they were still on the boat. While we sat in a huge waiting room, the guys sprinted abord the ship, and brought back our five heavy suitcases.

            Then we headed to an airport where we expected to rent a car, get in it, and leave in the next fifteen minutes. Over an hour later we were just…. walking around. The car we were supposed to have was in a car accident, so they had to find us another car tat had to drive to the airport from where we were before we went to the airport. Then we drove for three hours to a hotel that had forgotten that we had a reservation there or something like that. Then we had to spend a night at another hotel boardering nightclubs that reminded me spookily of Arizona. The following morning we headed back to our original hotel, which had forgotten to put sheets on one of our beds and forgot that they promised us Wi-fi. Her excuse is that her boss likes to make things up to get customers. I have several problems with that…

            Anyway, here I am, in the surprisingly nice hotel, that is in fact complete with sheets. The couches are leather, and we have our own kitchenand we have a cow rug. Actually. It is a rug – made out of cow. Like, spots included. Package deal. It is morbidly awesome.

            This is the end of Part II. But wait! There’s more! What is that you ask?

 

Well, in a few days is Valentines Day! Congratulations to everyone who has a valentine! I am not one of those people, but I can still be happy for you. I thought today I would give a short lesson on Valentines Day today.

We don’t know much about the original Saint Valentine, but he is rumored to write the original valentine card while in jail… so that’s an interesting metaphor.

Valentines day is actually based on an older Roman holiday called “Lubricalia”, where boys would run through the streets with bloody strips of goat hide, softly slapping girls as they ran, in hope of making them more… fertile. I don’t know why we don’t do this anymore… I guess some traditions just get lost with time.

The heart symbol is certainly at the core of Valentines Day, meaning several things in several places. In Christianity, it means charity, and in Ancient Greece, it was the sign of the goddess of physical love. In Sweden, it is the shorthand symbol for “toilet”, so I guess they have trouble selling chocolates in heart-shaped boxes there…

We give flowers of Valentines Day. Another good metaphor: Taking something beautiful away from where it grew up, and watch it slowly wither and… eventually die.

When you think of all holidays, Valentines Day is kind of the opposite of Christmas. On Christmas, you go to bed, hoping to exchange presents with the people that you love. On Valentines Day, you exchange gifts, hoping to go to bed with the people that you love.  The same goes for Valentines Day and Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving, we eat a stuffed bird, and on Valentines Day, we… okay, that one doesn’t work as well.

I have a small problem with Valentines Day. It kind of forces you to do something that is hard to do under pressure. It’s kind of like a “have a great idea day” or “win the lottery day”. It means less to love someone on Valentines Day than on any other day of the year. Asking someone to be their valentine is kind of like saying “well it had to be someone…”

Anyway, that is my little spiel. Happy Valentines Day everyone!

What Has Happened Since Mendoza - Part I

It, again, has been a while since my last post. If I am correct (and I could just look at the bottom of my blog) my last post took care of Mendoza. Well, a lot has happened since then.

            The morning after I wrote my last post, we all got up at some ungodly hour in the morning where the sun was not yet up. After that, things sort of passed in a blur. Took a shower, put on the clothes, realized I put on the wrong clothes, took off the clothes, put on the right clothes, brush my teeth, get my sandals on, pack my suit case, not be able to close the suitcase, repack my suitcase into a smaller size, zip the suitcase, get in the cab, watch the sun rise, get the tickets, get the breakfast, sit down to drink my tea, rip my pants as I sit down, get embarrassed, go to the bathroom, change into jeans, finish my tea, hop a bus, and off I go. The most compact hour of my life.

            The bus is seven hours long. Seven is a lot of hours. Thankfully we have the aid of simple entertainment systems. By this I don’t mean a gameboy or a PSP. I mean travel Boggle and a sci-fi book. Like I said, seven is a LOT of hours. Then of course, we have to hop a five-hour plain flight, which involves a lot more Boggle. Boggle has become the main source of entertainment for the Jenson family. A majority of our time is spent in heated competitions of word-finding mania. Eating, drinking, sleeping: these are all obstacles in the way of playing more Boggle.

            We arrive in Patagonia, Chile, the end of the earth. Punta Arenas is the farthest south on the earth I have been, at a record of 53° below the equator. That means, dare I say it, it is cold down there. At nights it can get in the low forties. Even though that isn’t very cold to you guys in Minnesota, when the only source of heat in your cabin is a stove, you feel the bite a tad more. The following morning we head off to do some hikes and stuff along the rocky beaches. We saw a monument or two, played a little hackysack. By the way, we’re attempting to play hackysack in front of every major landmark in the world. So far we have the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Iguazu Falls, and the Southernmost Point in Chile. I still suck at the hackysacking part though.

            Then we head north a tad (not making the weather any warmer mind you), and come across Puerto Natales, a similar town, known mainly for being close to great hiking. Can you imagine? Being known for being close to something famous! How awful! How ultimately absurd and completely irrational! Okay, no, I don’t care that much.

            At our hotel there (Erratic Rock, which I couldn’t help looking at for a while trying to find why it sounded so dirty to me) we get our first scrap of Internet, where I do the routine check of Facebook and my blog, and such. Turns out my addiction to internet is a little worse than I thought so these last few weeks have been good for me. In case you guys thought I was shunning you or something, internet has been awful, so don’t expect to much.

            Anyway, this is the end of Part I of “Everything that has happened since Mendoza”. Tune in next time (in about five minutes) when I will post my next entry!

hi from mendoza

Hey there. Apologies for not posting earlier. When I said "probably will not post on the first day", I really meant "will not post until it is the night before I have to leave at six the following morning".
My family and I are currently residing in a rent-a-house in Mendoza, Argentina. This place is known for its wine and for its.... wine. Wine is a big deal here. Naturally, to take advantage of that fact, I got WASTED with some Austrian dudes down at the local pub. But not really. I went to bed at ten thirty after spending two hours taking notes on Keynesian economics in the 1930s. Man it was crazy.
Our house here is quite large. And when I say quite large I mean it is almost as big as my house back in Minnesota. I have the following
Two living rooms
Two dining rooms
A loft
A room to myself
Two beds IN that room
Four bathrooms
A kitchen with meal fixin's
A personal swimming pool (no joke)
A stone pizza oven
Two grills
A lawn

So yeah, this counts as grade-A classy. I think I will be sad when I am sharing a 200 square foot hostel room with four other people and a rusty sink as a bath. Ah... what memories it will make.
The other day our family and I rented a bunch of suprisingly functioning bikes that we took to the vineyards, where, unfortunately, we did not see King Kong OR Godzilla (sorry patrick). At our first winery, I got to see how wine was made through a process of picking, squeezing, filtering, aging, and drinking. At the final tasting part, I was asked my age to see if I could drink the wine. Unfortunetely, I had to tell the truth. The guide made the understandable statement that she did not wish to go to jail. That was a fair request. I drank the wine anyway.
At the following winery, there were actual grape vines growing over the doorway to the factory. By bros and I just hung out there for fifteen minutes and at grapes, spitting out seeds as we went along. Non-seedless grapes are a total bummer.
Yesterday, we all went to on a white water rafting trip. The basic premise of white water rafting is you attempt to wedge your feet under the canvas of an inflatable raft as you hurl yourself down rapids and attempt to paddle but really smack your paddle into everyone else's. Even before we got in the water, we had walked through ankle deep mud while carrying a raft that almost weighed 200 lbs. More than one of us lost our shoes. I was not one of them.
All set in our dorky looking helmets and over-sized life jackets, we set off into the rapids. The guide made sure to encourage us to paddle as fast as we could, while telling my brother to kneel in the front of the boat and stick his head over the side. Needless to say, he arrived back at his seet more than moist. I thought this was funny until we hit a rock and my precariously perched bum on the side of the raft was lifted into the air and I went sailing off the side- only to be caught by the guide at the last minute, pulling me on board. Getting wet suddenly wasn't as funny.
Anyway, we pack up tonight to head to Pategonia, which is the southernmost tip of South America. This time we will be in Chile. Here the temperatures can reach as low as 40°F! I might have to put on a heavy sweatshirt! Haha Minnesota! I win.

Comments:
You wrote a song? That's almost affectionate! I recommend emailing it to me?

Stephanie, you are really bad at commenting first. Yes, those falls were indeed in Planet Earth. About the name Alfred? Sorry... no. Your words of advice including green cheese are... not useful....

Yes I have gotten a tan! I bet it is some paint color like "Fiji nights" or something. fiji night sounds sexy... And by the way, haircuts usually do look like the original thing, just shorter. Acute observation.

I think I am having fun too kiko

Paige... your life = pretty sucky. In pity for you, I will transfer some of my happyness towards you virtually. Whiplash and Dr. Suess also sounds pretty sucky. I'm sorry, and if it makes you feel any better: El mundo está terminando.

Loca Tia Lauri! It is so nice to hear from you. Indeed, the worst is to come. The artistic photos are sadly not taken by me, but by your brother.

Steph: here is a virtual high five for checking out my blog. You get double if you come again.

Darius: you actually sound like the world's biggest geek. Too bad I outrank you.

I'll keep my eye out for a mud skipper, but it may be hard because of the blinding joy of seeing a bunny made out of punctuation. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me.

Carmen, go away. Nobody likes you. Except not really. Congrats on emailing me. I will try to email you back... maybe

Joe, life sucks for you too! Man, everybody I know is sick! Just for you being sick, I am going to go out of my way to find a sombrero.

Thats it. I'll post again.... at a time... in the near (but maybe not so near) future.

I'm a hankerin' for some Iguazu

This is my last day here in Iguazu, home to the widest falls in the world. Let me tell you. They’re wide. Niagara’s got nothing on Iguazu. This will be the first post with pictures in it. Some of them might include me in them! And yes, I did indeed get a hair cut. As you can see, Iguazu is wide. As my family and I walked through the jungles around Iguazu we came across a small driblet (driblet? Is that a word? A dribble?) which we dubbed “Iggy Minor”. We also came across an iguana. I guess you could give him the same name.

Anyway, pictures:

Besides the waterfalls (or cataratas in Spanish), the town of Iguazu doesn’t have much worth writing about. Our hotel is cool I guess.. we have a little cabin with rooms. Well, I guess all cabins have rooms, but this one is special. Internet access is… limited. Internet is only accesable in the main lobby, which is a painful walk through gravel if you are not wearing shoes. For me, that is usually the case. My one attempt at Facebooking resulted in the keyboard bursting into flames and melting onto my lap. Six months is going to be hard.
Speaking of six months, it has really begun to hit me that I am going to be gone. For a while. With limited internet access that will reoccurringly cause the computer to spontaneously combust. It has been about two weeks since I left, and if me calculations are correct, I am a little under a thirteenth of the way through my trip. I should probably ditch the count down thing.

Anyway, I’m not gonna do the comment thing this time because I did one in comments and people kind of… stopped commenting. So if you are reading this: comment comment comment! (unless you already do it religiously, in which case you might want to put down the computer and find a good book)

I head off to Mendoza tomorrow, and I'll blog from there, but probably not the first day.

Back in the big BA

It's time for another post. Montevideo was a great experience, but the whole spanish school part kind of threw me off. I wasn't expecting five days with four hours of classes each day, and then some homework to throw in. I though I escaped homework my traveling to another continent. Not the case.

Montevideo is a small capital compared to Buenos Aires, yet still manages to pull off the smoke n' fumes kind of feel. Thankfully there is a ton of back-roads, so Benjamin (my brother for those of you who don't know) and I took a sweet bike trip on bicycles that had two gears: go and don't go. We then dropped them off at the rental place that was certainly a man's domain, what with the car posters all over the work shop, swimsuit calendars on the walls, and the glow of an arc welder on all sides. Our cuisine, for those who are interested, still consisted of empanadas (which are ground beef chunks wrapped in awesome), ravioli, and shepherd's pie. The craziest food encounter was when we accidentally bought ultrapasturized milk. I'll keep my eye's out for frozen monkey brains or something.

Now, after a day of bad translations, lost visas, grueling suns, boats on steroids, and racist/sexist taxi drivers, we have finally been able to sit down at a suprisingly awesome hotel back in Buenos Aires that has flowers on the curtains. God I love curtains.

Comments:

from now on llamas are priority, i agree. However, i need anyone who used the name "anonymous" to put their name in, because it will make me smile.

swearing in comments is frowned upon

I'll totally try to get my hands on a sombrero. God I love sombreros.

Thanks william, but i will try to get my hands on whack food before peru

Henry, to the second half of your comment.... that's what she said

Nailah, i will only speak spanish on this blog if you correctly translate the following phrase into spanish. "The fish was delish, and it made quite a dish"

I miss bus rides, but not the people on the bus rides. Yay Binghams!

geography bee... i'm totally missing out.... *sight*

patrick! follow the following instructions in order:

make a blog

post your comments as the writer of that blog (even though you don't need to write a blog)

now i can block you lovingly

I'll get started on the pictures in two or three days after a snap a couple shots of Iguazu falls, the wides falls in the world! It is going to be, if you pardon my abbreviation, quite BA

Montevideo, baby!

 My last couple days have been fairly adventurous. Yesterday, we took a boat to an island/peninsula/i don't know. After having a quasi-satisfactory meal, we hopped on a path in hope of a pleasant twenty minute hike. If only we knew.

We walked for about twenty minutes across awkwardly placed stones until we headed in a tropical forest. The path turned into overgrown dirt that resembled a path. Slowly the trees above us closed in until we had to duck from to avoid getting our eyes poked out with little twigs that seemed to spawn out of thin air. The path then split into three other paths in which we immediately took the right one, leaving me with a near-material question mark over my head. Thankfully, the muddy and buggy trail began to let up. Thats when we saw the other tourists. Scantily clad in small bathing suits, they headed the opposite direction with a huge smile on their face. It would be a great twenty minute hike. If only they knew.

Now here I am in Montevideo, Uruguay. We took an oversized boat that looked like it was on steroids across the river that divides the two countries, and then hopped onto a bus that brought us to this little school. Here our rooms consist of two beds and- oh wait. Its just two beds. There isn't even a bathroom. All four rooms on this floor have to share the same bathroom with it's one shower. The faucet also takes about five cranks of 360 degrees before any water comes out. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful place, but the water should be.... accessible.

Today I had my first classes. You basically sit in a room with a couple other people that are your basic level and listen to this guy talk away in spanish and try to keep up. I was able to do this pretty well,  but by the look of some people's faces, I was one of the few. Of course then we are asked to share some stuff about ourselves... and then I fall apart. Right now the rest of my family is taking classes. I just walked about a mile to go get some empanadas for the family. My interaction with the people is improving from "mmm.... delicioso", to actual conversations. Heck, by the end of  the trip, I'll be fluent and then some!

To reply to the comments:

Yes starrise, i know who you are. JOIA....

Unfortunetely, weird-arse food is a little hard to come bye in these parts. Cuisine mostly consists of empanadas and pizza.

I am going everywhere except Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, and those northern territories.

I am not to bummed about missing the courage retreat

No, i will NOT show off my spanish on this blog (even though it is amazing)

I am pretty sure I am not drunk

So far threats such as King Kong have not been a problem, but who knows? I have to go to some pretty monster-prone towns, like Mendoza, with all of those CRAZY vineyards.

I will have fun livin' life

Patrick, you are now limited to one comment per blog. Starting now. I mean now.

Pictures soon!

buenos frickin' aires

It is almost 11 pm my time, so this entry might be quick. it took 20 hours of flying time and layovers to get here, which was a bummer because the only meals i had was popeyes chicken and crappy airplane food. we got to our sweet apartment in buenos aires that has a view of a tree (yay). we got to eat a lot of helado (ice cream), which argentina is apparently famous for? i basically burnt off twice the calories i consumed by walking in the sun for hours in busy streets that were filled with cigarette smoke and pubs. if i was over 18, i would be having a par-tee. As for the... spanish part of south america, i am a lot worse than i thought. my slickest one-liner was ¿Qué es esto? (what is this) to a baker, in which i got a thirty second response that had the word "lemon" in it, in which i replied "Sí! ...delicioso..." I'll post again when i get to uruguay in a couple of days.

I am pretty much moved out

The air has a scent of lysol. The boxes have fresh packing tape. There is an aura of sorrow. We are about to move out.

My room now consists of two boxes, a bookshelf, and an electrical piano. My party is tomorrow, and that will be the last time I see my close friends. And if you weren't invited, either i don't know you or you were #11 on the list of 10 people that i can bring (all of you. seriously). My apologies. I still love you. No hard feelings.

On tuesday, my fam and i are arriving in Buenos Aires after a 10 hour flight. There we are going to eat, then sleep. It is going to be a party. Until then, I have to finish my history day project (actually), and pack up the remaining things that litter the ground of my soon to be ex-house.

As for the blog, so far i have confirmed two viewers. At first I was thrilled, then saddened because two is a not so big number. Then I realized that anyone who would be reading this doesn't have their laptop. So freaking subscribe to my blog! I mean, this is going to double as by journal, so don't miss out.