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.