Baba's in Argentina

2007-01-13T21:07:00.000-03:00

Hola from surfing heaven!

I am currently in Montañita, Ecuador, a charming surfing town. I have been here for 3 days now, and surfed for two. I was in Salinas with the girls, and stayed there for a week after the girls left trying to get my health back. I got a nasty case of food poisoning and basically spent 4 days in my hotel room, thank god the girls helped me get a great hotel room with cable tv, otherwise I would have died! So I just watched tv all day long and ordered soup from room service, it was nice, except for the feeling awful part!

But after that I was ok, and I was able to enjoy the beach and sun. I even met Paivi (another student that was with us in Argentina) in Salinas by coincidence. I also managed to try out wakeboarding, which was fun and I also went scuba diving, which was so great, since it had been like 5 years since I had been scuba diving.

I am really enjoying my time here in Montañita and learning how to surf has been so much fun. Surfing is hard but fun, and I definitely have many bruises to prove it. The waves have been good for a beginner like me and the people have been really nice. This town is just so relaxed and easy going, I don´t want to leave, but eventually I will have to....but for now I will enjoy as much as I can. Also at the moment I am travelling alone, which has been different, and I have been able to practice my Spanish, I have hardly spoken anything else.

Back to enjoying the beach, sun and surf....

Chau, H

2007-01-03T17:11:00.000-03:00

Location: Guayaquil, Ecuador, Airport
Travelers: Tiina & Anni

We are just waiting for our flight to get to Costa Rica. The last few days we spent on the coast of Ecuador near Guayaquil, in a place called Salinas. Unfortunatelly Heini had some bad food and her traveling to other beach resorts in Ecuador had to be postponed for a while. Knock on wood, cause I have had no bad experiences with food so far during the 6 months.

Two more countries to go, or 3 actually, if the US counts. My traveling for the next two weeks will be Costa Rica; one week, Mexico; 6 days, the US; flying through LA and NY. Of all the countries visited so far (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ecuador) I really must say that Ecuador has been the worst experience so far. The people here are so completely clueless and slow, (a.k.a. jäässä!!!) that it's a miracle we're still alive. And, this is by far the most expencive country we've been to. Since the official currency here is the American Dollar, everything is at least double price to Argentina. Thank god we didn't stay here for longer...

It's almost boarding time now. Two more weeks and I'll be home. Looking forward to get some milk, ruispalat and battery. Things that I have missed soooo bad during the last 6 months. See you soon!

-T

2006-12-24T15:54:00.000-03:00

Feliz Navidad!!!!

We are currently spending our Christmas in Lima, Peru with the family friends of Tiina. There are four of us here, Heini, Tiina, Anni and Kaarlo. We all met up in Lake Titicaca in Peru about a week ago. Before that Kaarlo and I (Heini) were in Bolivia and Tiina and Anni were in Chile.

Lets go back a bit to about a few weeks ago. On Wednesday December 13th, Kaarlo and I met in Salta in northern Argentina. From there we took a night bus to the border of Argentina and Bolivia. We got to the border in the morning on thursday and the process over to the border of Bolivia was interesting. We had to walk across town, cross a bridge, go through Argentinian immigrations and then Bolivian immigrations, where we had to photocopy our passports for some weird reason, and then we got our passports stamped and entered Bolivia.

The border town on Bolivias side is Villazon, which is at 3440m above sea level. We smartly decided to walk uphill, with boys following us with carts waiting for us to crumble. We managed about 5 blocks before collapsing and agreeing to let the boys help us (and ended up accidentally paying them more than needed since we didn't know any better). Altitude definitely affects ones body, especially if you exert yourself on the first day. After walking uphill we suffered for like 6 hours of headaches, lightheadedness and dizziness, not so much fun. Its weird how at that altitude you just can not seem to get enough air. We only stayed in Villazon for a few hours because there was nothing there. We took a 19hr train to Oruro, up north, which costs us 18 euros each. The train was not as bad as we thought it would be, and they actually showed movies on the train, they were in Spanish, but had English subtitles.

We got to Oruro on Friday December 15th in one piece, and we were the only foreigners at the train station...very amusing. We were still suffering from the altitude, as we found out later when we had to climb three flights of stairs to our hotel room and were out of breath completely. It was like we had ran a marathon. We decided to splurge and stay at a better hostel/hotel, called Hostal Hidalgo. We got a room for ourselves, with a private bathroom and a tv for 7 euros each. It was nice to relax after the 19hr train trip, just watching tv (thank god for cable). We had an interesting lunch and dinner in Oruro. Lunch costs us a total of 1 euro altogether, and it included a salad, soup, hot dish of rice and meat, dessert and soda. It was really good for that price. For dinner we went to a lamb restaurant where the owner regretfully told us that they were out of lamb heads, and only had legs. Lucky for him we were not in the mood for heads after seeing them being eaten at the next table (for example a father gave his baby girl an eyeball to chew on...yummy) But the lamb was excellent, it came with potatoes, corn and these black potatoes they have in Bolivia, that were actually good. The whole meal including soup and drinks was 3.5 euros altogether. The cuisine in Bolivia is nothing too special, but for those prices incredibly good!

We left Oruro on Saturday December 16th via bus to La Paz. We hadn't bought tickets, all we did was go to the bus station and listen to guys yelling out destinations and jumped on one of the busses to La Paz, which costs us 1.5 euros each, a 3hr trip. The bus was in suprisingly good condition, didn't have any chickens or other animals inside, and it was actually a real bus! We snacked on Salteñas on the way, which are these salty dough pastries filled with rice, corn, tomato, spicy sauce...soooo yummy!

We got to La Paz safely and the first view of the city was incredible! La Paz is situated in a valley, with tall buildings in the middle and houses built on the slopes. The valley is uneven so there is a lot of up and downs, making it tough to walk around, especially since La Paz is at 3660m. But the city is amazing, so different and exactly how one would picture a south american big city, filled with cars, people, and hustle and bustle. We explored the city and bought a lot of souvenirs (I bought a llama/alpaca poncho for 4 euros, in Finland it would be like 100 euros and Kaarlo bought a local guitar called Charrango for 45 euros, which would be a few 100 in Finland). The great thing about people in Bolivia is that they dress in traditional costumes, well only the women do. Women wear these bright colored dresses that come down to below the knee, with bright tops, have their hair in braids, and wear top hats. They usually carry things on their backs in a cloth, either food but mostly kids. Men tend to just wear normal clothes. But its really great to see it, and that they still adhere to traditions, and majority of the people in Bolivia are of indigenous descent.

In La Paz we really splurged and stayed at a 3 star hotel, we had a great room, tv, minibar and roomservice (which of course we had to use). The hotel was Columbus Palace Hotel and costs us 15 euros each, but it was worth it, especially the buffet breakfast that was included. It was nice to stay in a real hotel, luxury! We ate Bolivian food in La Paz, which included chicken, pork, potatoes, and quinoa (a special type of rice/grain that only grows at this altitude and so good). We did order pizza from roomservice cuz we just had to, and it was one of the best pizzas ever! On Sunday December 17th we decided to head toward Lake Titicaca, but before that we went to this hill in the middle of the city where you could see the city 360 degrees, amazing! In La Paz it was the same thing with the busses, went to the station, heard them yell Copacobana and got on a bus. This time the bus was smaller and our stuff was tied to the roof, but no chickens yet. The trip costs us 1.5 euros and lasted 3 hrs.

We got to Copacabana which is on Bolivias side of Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is at 3800m and is half on Bolivias side and half of Perus side. We stayed at a 2 star hotel in Copacabana, called Hotel Ambassador, which was not so great and costs us 4 euros per person. The room was ok, had 2 good beds, but we constantly had flies, the water stopped working, we either had boiling hot water in the shower or freezing cold, and our tv was something from the 50's with 2 black and white channels. But at least we had our own room!

On Monday December 18th we decided to visit Isla del Sol (the birthplace of the sun and the world according to ancient inka and other religions). It was great to see the island, saw some ruins, a sacrificial table, and hiked for 2 hrs. Lets just say that even though we were sorta used to the altitude, it was still tough to walk uphill at over 3800m. We also managed to burn our faces pretty badly, since the sun is a bit stronger....not fun. The weather in Bolivia changes, one moment it will be cloudy and rainy and then it will be sunny. In La Paz we were lucky, the weather was nice but got cold at night. It rained in Copacabana since it is the rainy season, but as soon as we got on the boat to go to Isla del Sol it was sunshine all day. (Perhaps its because Isla del Sol means Sun Island, I guess it never rains or gets cloudy). But it was really cold in Copacabana at night, due to the altitude. I ate the best fish in Copacabana called Trucha, (taimen in Finnish), so yummy and a specialty here!

On Tuesday December 19th, we decided to head to Puno, Peru a city next to Lake Titicaca on Peru's side, because we had agreed to meet Anni and Tiina there. We took a bus from Copacabana to Puno, took 3-4hrs, and costs us a bit more at 3 euros each. The bus was good and filled with tourists, we hadn't seen many before that (except in La Paz). We got to Puno safely and found the girls at the hostel we had booked called Inka's Rest. The hostel was really nice, we had this apartment to ourselves with 2 bedrooms, dining table, living room with a tv, kitchen and bathroom. Tiina and Anni were feeling awful after travelling 48 hrs from Santiago de Chile, and suffering from the high altitude. So we just hung out at the hostel, watched tv, ordered pizza. The owners were so nice and helped us out with so many things and completely took care of us.

On Wednesday December 20th, we decided to visit some of the islands in Lake Titicaca. We took a tourist boat (not fun, but no other choice) and spent the whole day sightseeing. First we saw Islas Flotantes or Floating Islands, which are literally islands that float on water, made out of reeds. They were really interesting to see and the people living there were really nice. It was such a different life that they lead, and it was amazing to see a part of it. We also visited another island called Isla Taquile, which was a regular big island but had a group of people with their own culture and language. We had to walk up this huge hill to the top of the island, which was ok for Kaarlo and me since we were semi used to the altitude, but horrible for the girls who were suffering. It really does affect you. The culture on the island was really interesting, the men and women and even children all wore traditional dress. Men had straight pants with shirts, a colorful belt and a hat that looked like a Santa or Elves hat. The hats were all red if a man was married and half red/white if single. The women wore colorful skirts, and shirts, either in yellow or white for single and any other color for married, and a black shawl over their heads to protect them from the sun. The whole community was really interesting to see upclose. We also had lunch on the island, ate some quinoa soup (so good) and fish with potatoes and rice. The one funny thing about Peru is that most dishes come with meat and rice and french fries (or other potatoes). They mix them in dishes here, not too bad but just different. After a whole day exploring the islands, we were all tired, which meant another evening of watching tv and eating pizza. So worth it! We decided to head toward the famous Machu Picchu the next day, but we'll save that for another blog.

Kaarlo and I had a great time exploring Bolivia and we will definitely go back, because it truly is an undiscovered treasure. Most travelers don't go there, but they should because there is something special and different about the country. Now we are exploring Peru together, which we will tell you about later as also post pictures later, can't do that at the moment. After we might go to Ecuador, Costa Rica or something....we will let you know. But so far, it has been amazing to see so many things.

Happy holidays
-H

2006-12-14T21:44:00.000-03:00

Current location: Santiago de Chile
Travelling with: Anni

So, we have now changed location as our school ended. Chile was the first country we came to after Argentina and we'venow spent here 4 days in a very lovely house of a friend of Anni's. But more about that later.

On our way here we stopped in the beautiful wine city Mndoza, rightnextto the Andes in the west. There we of course had to visit some vinyards.

Anni in a bodega

We also went to a "water park" near Mendoza for a day. Unfortunatelly there was a thunderstorm that day but it lasted only a little while. It was kind of like a big perk with lots of warm pools and litle beaches. Very relaxing.

View of the park

After that we continued with the bus to Santiago de Chile. It was supposed to be 6 hours but due to a national holiday there were hundreds of people in the boarder, so the trip ended up being 9 hours. As we got here, Tomas (Anni's friend) and his father were there to pick us up from the bus station. As some of you might have heard, the former dictator of Chile, Pinochet, died 4 days ago. The very day we came here. So, there were a lot of people rioting on the streets burning stuff. Therefore we have not been able to see the center of the city yet. The situation has cooled down already but still during the night we are told not to go to the center.

People lining to the Mililtary academy where they had Pinochet's body.

Luckily we live in another neighbourhood more to the north. And what a house this is. The family includes mom and dad, Tomas and his twin brother Simon, big brother Ian, a cousin wholives upstairs and a random amount of cats. There is also the maid Marcela who is basically the mom of the house. Don't get me wrong, she's probably 25 years old and really nice, but she's the one who does everything here! We are so getting used to this service. She cleans up the whole house every day, changes our sheets, brings us clean towels, cooks our meals and brings them to the table ready made on the table, and basically does everything!
The house is great; 3 floors, a pool, and the family also has 4 cars. We're kind of thinking that they might be a little bit rich.... The TV upstairs kind of explains it all:

The first thing we did here was that we went to a nearby shopping mall to look for some guide books that we have been meaning to buy. Didn't find the book, but something better instead:

Moccha frappuchino with mint, by Starbucks. Gotta love this country...

Tomas and some of his friends took us to a summer place by the lake about an hour away from here. They say it's a great place for wind surfing and such, but this time we were just chilling out in the beautiful place.

The buildings of the area.

Me by the lake (oh yeah, I dyed my hair veeery dark...It feels weird...)

So that's about everything from this trip. We were yesterday at some guys house watching the final of the South American soccer cup. Chile lost... But we had a lot of fun anyway. King's cup was a great success once again.

From here our journey continues towards Peru in a few days where we'll meet up with Heini and Kaarlo. If I have a chance, I'll let you know what's going on there.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

-T

2006-12-07T21:52:00.000-03:00

Hey everyone,

Our time here in BsAs is coming to an end...Yesterday we the last day that we were all together in Buenos Aires for the last time, and we definitely celebrated it well. Because coincidentally it was also Finland's Independence day, and we had received invitations to the Embassy's Independence day party, which of course we were all excited to attend.

But first we had our Chau Finlandia party (going away) a week ago on Saturday. We needed to have a party to say bye to everyone and celebrate our time here. We ended up having it our place, and we had so much alcohol left over from other parties that we needed to get rid of it. So in Finnish fashion we made punch (booli) with frozen strawberries. We also served some Salmari shots to people, which was fun! And we had some jello shots, since in Finland its kind of hard to make them but here they have jello! The party was fun, and went on at our place until like 3am.
Our fridge filled with jello shots...

The group and our USA culture course teacher Griselda, who came to our party. She was such a great teacher and so much fun!

Boys and Anni taking some jello shots...

Tiina and Anni left today for Chile, travelling through Mendoza (city in the west of Argentina, filled with wine). I will be leaving on Monday for Bolivia travelling through Salta (city in the north that we visited a few months ago). We finished our classes here and actually managed to pass all of them!!!! We are so happy to have passed them, we were kind of worried about not passing history and the thought of returning to Mikkeli for 3 weeks wasn't exactly enticing, but no worries, we managed to pass and with good grades! On a scale from 1-10 (10 the best) we got a 7 for History (hardest course ever with a not so understanding teacher, Tiina did her exam while being horribly sick because she didn't have a choice), a 9 in Hotel Management and a 10 in our USA culture course!!!! Yay for us!

Anyhow, so now our time here is over and we are ready to conquer the rest of Latin America. We are travelling from Argentina all the way up north to Mexico (well not all of us). Tiina and Anni now headed to Chile and I will be heading to Bolivia. We will all meet in Peru and travel from there together to Ecuador. In Ecuador we will decided where to go, probably to Panama and Costa Rica and then Anni and Tiina head for Mexico to catch their flights and I return to Argentina. We shall see and try to write about our trip as often as we can.

But on to the events of last night. We had received invitations to the party, and we got all dressed up (buying fancy outfits) and arrived at a huge house, that turned out to be the ambassadors house. The ambassador is a Finnish lady who has lived here for quite some time. The property was amazing, a huge house, huge yard, swimming pool. (why couldn't we live there during our exchange?) The party was great, there were a lot of people from Finland and Argentina. There was great service, good cocktail food and drinks of course. We even got karjalanpiirakat and graavi lohi!!!! It has been awhile, and they both tasted soooo good. Anyhow, we were there for like 4 hours or so, just enjoying the atmosphere. Also the band that was playing was the band of one of our friends here, Sergio, the only band that plays nordic music. Sergio is so funny, we met him during the first week of classes here and he spoke some Finnish to us...what a shock! In addition Kaarlo sang a Finnish song with the band, which was awesome! After the cocktail party we headed to the center and went to Plaza Serrano, this area with a bunch of bars. There were a bunch of us Finnish people just hanging out and having fun for the last night together in Buenos Aires. Definitely had a great time celebrating our last night and Finland's Independence Day!

The ambassadors house...

At the independence day party

The four of us, Kaarlo, Anni, Tiina, Heini looking all fancy...

The band with Kaarlo singing...

The Finnish after-party group, us and some other Finnish people that live here...

-H

P.S Tiina and I have dyed our hairs darker....hehe, a fun change. I dyed mine because I wanted a change and then realized that travelling is a lot safer because we won't attract as much attention not being blond. Then Tiina dyed her hair as well, cause we figured it really is better for us. But we both like our new looks =)

2006-12-01T11:19:00.000-03:00

Hi there!

Just thought I might tell about our courses now that they are over. Just to let you know how super efficient the people are here... This is mostly related to our lovely history teacher Hilario of course...

Sooo, we had 3 courses here, 2 in spanish in 1 in english. The spanish ones were Gestion Hotelera (Hotel Management) and Historia de Argentina del siglo XX (Argentinean history in the 20th century), and the englsih one was USA: from the melting pot to the multicultural mosaic.

The hotel and the usa courses were great! Paniego, who was our teacher in the hotel course was super helping with us! We could do everything in english that we wanted, exams, projects etc.. He also explained some stuff to us in english and gave us all of his personal notes after classes. Otherwise he was really nice with everyone (except for the 2 "cool" girls shethrew out of class about 3-4 times) and everybody liked him. We made some friends in that class. One was the Edu sitting in front of us who always tried explaining terms to us with his non existing english, one was the guy with the beard who randomly helped us with stuff and one was Julle (yes, has a connection to a certain Julle from Mikkeli.... And no, his real name is not Julle....) who's life intention seamed to be major sekoilu.

The professor in the usa course, Griselda, was also awsome!!! She is a woman who can't hold one thought for more than a minute. Kind of reminds us of a mix of Josianne and the mother from My big fat greek wedding. She was so interested in the Finnish culture and always was asking for our opinions about stuff. We even had a presentation about Finland, just some random what-so-ever stuff about everything in Finland starting from sauna culture ending to our school's parties. We made some great friends in that class! Everybody was super friendly with us and we've been going partying with some of them during the 5 months. There was also the assistant of the teacher, Sergio, who is a major Scandinavian fan, speaks finnish, loves Nightwish (hence the long black hair...) and was totally turhan fileissä when some finnish people came to his class.

The third class, History, then again was a different story.... Hilario is definitely something else. During the looooooong course we hardly understood anything he said. Less did we understand of his notes on the whiteboard. We made no friends what so ever, except for the exchange students from our lovely neighbor country Sweden, aka. the Hurrit; Reza and Ulf Gunolf(greatest name on the planet!!). The exams were completely impossible (questions in spanish of course, wecould write in english though) but somehow me and Heini got a 7 from the first exam. I just did my second exam yesterday and now we are just waiting for our grades to see if we have to go do the finals. Inboth exams we have just been making up a completely new history for this country. I mean, seriously.. Can anyone remember about 40 presidents in one century and everything they did!?!?

But, now it's all over. We are definitely gonna miss our school, especially the lovely girls from the cafeteria who remember exactly what each of us want in the morning.
All good must come to an end.

Today and tomorrow we have some farewell parties with the exchange students. If we still have time we can post some pictures from the parties.

Just for the end, here's a picture of the history white board. Niiicceeee!!!!

T

2006-11-30T23:18:00.000-03:00

Hola again!

More travelling stories. This time it was me and Anni who went to experience the marvellous bus system of Argentina. Or in this case, Brazil.

Last weekend we took some time off from studying, well, wouldn't have studied anyway, and headed for the beautiful waterfalls of Iguazu in Foz do Iguazu, Brazil. We decided to go to the Brazilian side to get stamps on our passport of course, and also cause the tickets were cheaper than those to the Argentinean side. Of course we didn't realize that the bus staff would also be speaking only Portuguese. Which still is not really one of either of our's languages... We by the way diagnosed that portuguese sounds like a combination of spanish, german, dutch, danish, hebrew and russian. You go try making some sense of that then...

Well, the bus was basically ok... NOT! It was semi-cama, meaning a little better than the traditional Express Bus in Finland, but not the luxurious business class seats. And, the very weird Brazilian bus staff had some obsession in keeping the temperature super low, about 19 degrees (which is freeeeezing, FYI). We had so much fun following the monitor on the bus that told the temperature. We also got the awsome, allready experienced straight-out-of-a-car's-trunk- meals. The same cold steak and cold rice with a random bun desert. Yummy.

Well, after 18 or so hours we arrived to Brazil (Anni was completely pissed of cause she didn't get a stamp on her passport!!!) we took a taxi to our hostel, Paudimar. Brazil is e-x-p-e-n-c-i-v-e! The cab ride cost us 30 smth Reales, aka. 55 pesos, aka. almost 15€! I haven't spent more than 5€ in BA to a taxi once!! Seriously... The hostel was really cool. It was basically in the middle of nowhere, close to the national park with the falls, so we didn't really go to the city at all. There was a bar, restaurant and pool in the hostel to entertain us. Especial entertainment could be found from the long lost Smirnoff Ice bottles found from the hostel bar. This kind of luxury can't be found in Argentina, you know?

The first day we went there we went to the Brazilian side of the falls for a few hours just to do some trekking and see the falls from that side. Really impressive I must say! The place is pretty much in the jungle so everything is really beautiful. Here are some pictures of the Brazilian side:

A lot of small falls

Some bigger falls

Us in front of some Brazilian falls (and why is one of my hands amputeted.....???)

A nice little racoon hanging around the trekking paths

On the first night we were really tired and after quite a suspicios dinner at the hostel we decided to go to sleep. After one set of Smirnoff Ice's of course.

For the second day we booked a ride to the Argentinean side of the falls from the hostel. Now here's how to NOT act in these situations: The ride left at 8.30 on sunday morning, so we had the alarm on at 7.45. Plenty of time. Right? Well, what we realized two minutes after the alarm went off was that this is Brazil, not Argentina, meaning that they don't have the same time. Right..... So actually it was 8.45 and our ride was gone 15 minutes ago. All we could think was that thank god we didn't pay for it yet. This guy came knocking on our door asking if we were supposed to go to the falls today, and we of course replied that yes, but that our alarm was on the wrong time. Then, to our surprise, he said that the ride is still waiting, can we be quick? What?!?!? So,we jumped out of bed and asked if 5 minutes was too much. He said it was, so we were ready in 3. And so without washing our teeth, putting on contacts, or eating breakfast we left for this 9 hour trip. We were quite a sight in the mini bus with our sleepy looks. But we made it!

The Argentinean side was a lot bigger than the Brazilian side of the parque so we spend the entire time walking around seeing all the different falls. In the middle of the walking we took a boat ride to go under one! We were completely soaked after that obviously, which was actually good cause it was burning hot that day. We also did some swimming from an island in the middle of the falls. Overall, the whole place was totally worth seeing!!

A lot of water falls

Us in front of the falls

Devil's throat, which was HUUUUGEEEE as is everything in Brazil. Except that this one is in Argentina. Anyways...

View from the Devil's throat to the Brazilian side

One of the boats with which we also took the ride

Sight from the boat to the fall that would soon make us completely soaking wet

That one on the left down is the fall under which we went to

We also saw some cool new animals:

The lovely Tucaan bird (well, Tukaani anyways in Finnish...)

Big ass lizard. It actually looks bigger on the picture than it actually was.. Maybe 30-40cm tall. Or smth like that.

Little monkey!!! We saw a couple but they were really not loving the camera a lot, hence very bad pictures..

Crocodile! Actually this one was a baby croco, only something a bit over 0,5 m, no big ones were on sight...

That night we decided to destroy the rest of the Smirnoff Ice stock the hostel had in it's bar (which was like 5 bottles.... blaaaah) and made some new friends with some Swedish guys and a British guy. Turned out they were coming to BA too on the same bus with us, so we had some company too on the way home. The ride to the bus station took a while, about an hour with 3 busses but after the one waaay to expensive taxi ride we decided that it would be worth it.

Theway home was pretty bad. The bus was still cold, (fortunately our newBritish friend had a sleeping bag we could borrow) we had to study history, and I got sick with something that caused really high fever, which turned out to be some kind of virus (still recovering). On tuesday morning we landed back to dear old BA.

And that was our trip to see the Iguazu falls. So wanna go again...

6 days left in BA.... Where did all the time go.... See you all soon!

T

2006-11-13T12:05:00.000-03:00

Hola from del fin del mundo (end of the world)!

We got back a week ago from our 10 day south of Argentina travel. We spent 10 days touring as much of the south of Argentina, also known as Patagonia, as we could. We travelled by bus (because flights cost too much), and ended up spending around 120 hours on buses altogher. Some buses were great others were awful, but in the end we survived and saw many amazing places. Our group consisted of Heini, Tiina, Kaarlo, Anni and Hanna (Anni's friend visiting from Finland). Our trip began on 27.10.06 and we got back on 07.11.06.

The gang waiting for the bus...

Friday 27.10 - We left Retiro Omnibus Estacion at 15.00 travelling with Andesmaar (bus company) in the business class. Little did we know that the buses in the south, later on during our travels, do not have business classes or anything, just regular seats..not fun. Our bus trip to our first destination Puerto Madryn, 18hrs south of Buenos Aires was strange. The bad side was the food sucked and our bus guy kept mopping the floor. Seriously, our food came from the trunk of a car, it was cold meat and rice, so not yummy. And the guy mopped the bus floor like 53 times, he even mopped the floor during the night while we were sleeping!!!! He also insisted that we wear our shoes all the time (which we did not do, who wants to wear their shoes for 18hrs!) Not to mention during the night the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and some guy came in with a flashlight and checked everyone, it was weird to wake up to that. And at some point our bus went reverse instead of forward. Weird stuff happened during this trip, probably stuff that we don't even know about.

Saturday 28.10 - We arrived in Puerto Madryn on Saturday morning and got to our hostel safely. We stayed at hostel Postel del Catalejo for 2 nights, a great hostel. On Saturday we walked around the city and on the beach, enjoying the beach and sun.
Puerto Madryn Beach

Playing on the beach...

Finding weird signs on the pier, no diving allowed over a fence?

Sunday 29.10 - We had the most amazing day on this day, we had arranged an excursion to this national reserve called Peninsula Valdez to see the nature and animals. Our first stop was whale watching!!! We went on a boat trip to see whales, and boy, did we see them. The whales were amazing. The coast was filled with mommy and baby whales, the moms were about 18m long and the babies like 10m, not exactly small. The most incredible thing was that they came so close to our boat, they actually swam underneath it, not the most secure moment. The pictures of the whales can not describe seeing them in real life, it was just awesome! Also during the whale watch we saw one of the baby whales playing in the water, flapping its tail in the air, completely hilarious. The whole experience was just incredible and surreal!!!

The girls getting ready to do some whale watching, Hanna, Tiina, Anni and Heini

Mommy and baby whale

The whales got this close...

Close up of whale, you can see the head and blowholes

Tail flip

After whale watching we drove around Peninsula Valdez, the national reserve, to see elephant seals and penguins, and other wildlife. We went to this coast where we saw many elephant seals. The shore was mostly filled with huge male seals and then baby male seals due to the time of year. Elephant seals live on the coast for 4 months of the year and spend 8 months in the water. When we were there most of the mothers had already left leaving the men to fend for themselves. The elephant seals basically were just resting and lying around, enjoying the sun.

Big male elephant seal

2 Baby elephant seals...so cute...

After seeing the elephant seals we drove to a small pinguin colony, and saw pinguins up close. The pinguins in this area are different from those found in Antarctica and actually enjoy the warmer weather. We were literally less than a 1 m away from the pinguins, they were so cute.

Mr.Pinguin, such a model....

After seeing the pinguins and spending a whole day out and about, we headed back to Puerto Madryn and had a great dinner. We went to have seafood at a local restaurant, since the area is known for its seafood (except for Kaarlo, who had a craving for meat).

Kaarlo and his meat

Monday 30.10 - We spent the day chilling in Puerto Madryn before leaving at 18.00 towards Rio Gallegos, a city 18hrs south of Puerto Madryn. The bus company was the same Andesmaar, with business class seats, thank god. And this time the food was a little better, and this time the bus guy only mopped the floor a few times!!!

Tuesday 31.10 - We got to Rio Gallegos around 13.30 (all of our buses during this trip were late by like 1-2hrs) and switched to a bus to take us to El Calafate to see glaciers. Also it was Kaarlo's birthday on this day, which we decided to celebrate later, not on the bus. The bus to El Calafate was our first southern bus, that was not exactly of the best quality. But thankfully the trip was only 4 hrs. We got to El Calafate safely around 19 and we were going to go to a hostel we had booked before but was really expensive, so thankfully we met a hostel person at the bus station who had a hostel for half the price, so obviously we decided to go with that hostel. It was so cold in El Calafate when we got there, we even needed to buy hats!!! El Calafate was a really cute town, it was like an Alpine town, with a small center that was all wooden, very cute but very touristy. Our hostel was definitely not the best of the bunch, but for 3.75€ per night, you can't complain. There was no heating at the hostel, just a stove with fire coming out of it, the walls were paper thin, so you could hear everything, but at least there was hot water! Also the hostel was called Guerrera (meaning warrior), so I guess the hostel may have been through a few wars by the looks of it. We stayed at the hostel for 2 nights before moving on.

Wednesday 01.11 - We woke up early, sometime before 8am, excited, because we were going to see the Perito Moreno glacier today. The day before we had booked an excursion to see the glacier, we got it for cheaper by buying it when we got there. It was also good to buy an excursion because we saw alot more that way then buy going independently. The glacier is located about an hour and a half away from the city, and we took a minibus there. We were so excited to go see a glacier, that once we got there it was just too amazing. We had the chance to go by boat to get closer, but it was kind of expensive so we decided not to and good thing we didn't, because we actually hiked as close to the glacier as we could get.

Perito Moreno Glacier, so amazing, the pictures do not do justice!

The gang and the glacier, we were really there!

The glacier was amazing, it still seems like it wasn't real. The glacier is around 60m high and about 14km long. We hiked really close to it and it was just amazing.

Glacier up-close

After hiking, we went to this area that is built for viewing the glacier up close. We probably watched the glacier for like an hour, completely mesmirized. Also we were lucky enough to see huge chunks fall from the glacier, which really made our day. We didn't think that we would be lucky enough to see pieces fall, but we did. First we saw small pieces fall and we were so happy and then all of a sudden a huge chunk fell and we literally screamed, and obviously took videos and pictures. When the chunks fall, they make such a huge sound, like thunder!

Pieces that have fallen off and are now floating on the lake

The glacier after a piece fell off, it was bright blue underneath

The glacier seemed to go on forever

After the glacier and all the excitement, we headed back to El Calafate. We decided to celebrate Kaarlo's birthday at a great restaurant that had great food. We would have really wanted to eat lamb, a Patagonian delicacy, but it wasn't the best season for them, so we had to settle for regular meat, which in Argentina is of course absolutely amazing!

El Calafate city

Phone booth in El Calafate....E.T call home....

Thursday 02.11 - We went to sleep last night at around 11pm and got up today at 3am, because our bus for Rio Gallegos left at 4am, and we needed to catch the bus to Ushuaia that left Rio Gallegos at 8am. So you can say that we were a bit tired when we left El Calafate this morning. The bus to Rio Gallegos was pretty full, but we took over the back seats and went to sleep. We switched to the Ushuaia bus in Rio Gallegos, which was not the best bus. It was not in the best condition, and not the most comfortable for the 14hr journey to Ushuaia. The best part was that they had movies, but unfortunately the movie that they showed was the new Hitler movie in German, with Spanish subtitles and to make matters worse it was dubbed in Polish!!! And when something is dubbed in Polish, it means that one guy speaks all the lines in a monotonous voice, so not fun to watch. So basically, it was a great movie. At least after the movie, they showed Pearl Harbor in English! It was apparently a war theme day.

Our bus trip went ok, despite that it took forever and in the middle of the trip we had to take a ferry, and we ended up waiting for almost 2 hours for the ferry. Also we had to go through the Argentina-Chile border, meaning lovely passport control! Things went smoothly, no questions, got our stamps. Except that when we were about to enter Chile, the bus all of a sudden turned around to go back to Argentina and two passengers had to get out. And after that we were able to continue through Chile to Ushuaia. It still remains a mistery to us what happened, were the passengers on a most wanted list or what....i guess it will remain a mistery..

We got to Ushuaia at around 22.00 and had a hostel reserved. But unfortunately something had gone wrong with our reservation, so we ended up having to go to another hostel, called Refugio del Mochilero, which turned out to be a really great hostel! Our hostel was close to the center and really great.

Friday 03.11 - We woke up early to try and find an excursion for today. We ended up deciding on a boat tour around the Canal Beagle, which flows between Argentina and Chile. Ushuaia is a really nice city as well. It is surrounded by the sea and mountains. It was not as cold as we thought it would be, it was colder in El Calafate. We walked around the city during the day, and did some tax-free shopping and souvenir shopping as well.

At the end of the world

Far away from Buenos Aires...

Ushuaia

We also went to a museum about the Yamana's, which were the original inhabitants of the Ushuaia area. The musuem was really interesting to see and we learned alot about the history of the area. Not to mention that the Yamana's did not wear any clothes, even in the freezing weather, because it was warmer without clothes because they would get wet alot in the water. But I think we were happier wearing clothes in Ushuaia, this time...

We went on the boat trip in the afternoon, and the weather was quite windy, which was alot of fun on the boat! We were on a small boat, and had a lot of fun. It was good to be out in the nature and not in a bus! We sailed to the lighthouse or Faro and took plenty of pictures. Then we also saw elephant seals and many different birds. We also sailed to a protected island that is in the middle of the canal, and on one side you can see the Andes of Argentina and on the other the Andes of Chile.

Ushuaia from the boat

Not cold at all...

Me enjoying the ride...

Lighthouse a.k.a Faro en español

Tiina and elephant seal island behind her

What a cute couple...we saw elephant seals and birds during our boat trip

Chile was on one side (in this pic), Argentina on the other

Celebrating being in between Chile and Argentina

Tiina found her dream house in the middle of Argentina and Chile

We were on the tour for around 4 hours and enjoyed every minute. After we got back we decided to have dinner, and this time we really wanted to find some lamb! We ended up going to an All-you-can eat buffet and had some great lamb. The lamb was good and so was the rest of the food.

Delicious lamb a.k.a cordero en español

Saturday 04.11 - We left Ushuaia at 5am to drive back to Rio Gallegos, and then on to Cueva de las Manos (Hand Caves), an ancient site. Our bus was not the best quality again, you see, this time sun roof hatch on the bus, on the ceiling, decided to fly off, causing a very annoying cold breeze. The bus driver ended up looking for the sun roof, finally finding it and attaching it back on the bus, and the bus was able to continue on. We got to Rio Gallegos an hour before our next bus, so we just waited at the bus station. We got on our next bus to Perito Moreno (city, not the glacier, around 10hrs north), so we could go visit the Cueva de las Manos. This bus was not the best quality either with not the best seats, like all the other southern buses. The bus also played a great movie, it was originally in English, with Spanish subtitles, but dubbed in Korean or Japanese. They really know how to pick the movies here.

Chilling at the Rio Gallegos bus station

Sunday 05.11 - We finally arrived to Perito Moreno 24 hrs later, that is from Ushuaia. So we spent a whole day on a bus after finally arriving at our destination. From Perito Moreno, we had arranged an excursion to the caves, so we met with our tour guide a 50 year old man, who took us to the caves. At the time we didn't know but we had to spend another hour and a half on a minibus to get there, and hike for almost 2 hrs to get to the caves. It was great to finally be close to the caves but the idea of hiking after sitting on a bus for 24 hrs and not having a proper meal, didn't really excite us.

We hiked down a mountain and up a mountain...we hiked to what you can see in the middle of the pic, in the middle of the mountain

Extreme hiking, crossing a river

We hiked in the middle of this valley

However, the hike was not that bad, just a few heartattaches, and such, but it was really great. We hiked down a mountain, crossed a river, and hiked up a mountain to see the caves. We finally saw the caves 29hrs later from the point of starting our trip, so it was definitely a great feeling to finally see them. The caves themselves were not exactly caves, but more like wall paintings. The hand paintings were 7000 years old, and consisted mostly of hands.

The famous, amazing hand paintings

Us and the hand paintings, they were really protected, so they surrounded by a fence

A hand with 6 fingers, the tribes tended to reproduce within causing deformities and other problems

Hands and other drawings

Hands on different parts of the walls

The gang and the caves behind us

After seeing the paintings, we had to hike back to our minibus and drive back to Perito Moreno, to catch our bus towards Puerto Madryn. Our bus from Perito Moreno to a city Comodoro Rivadavia, toward Puerto Madryn, was the worst bus ever! The bus was seriously falling apart. The seats did not work, everything looked like it was from the 80's and once we got to Comodoro Rivadavia 5 hrs later the bus almost broke down. The bus driver could no longer get the bus to gear 1, but had to start from 2, which was interesting when going uphill or after stopping. For a second we thought we might not get to Comodoro Rivadavia to catch our bus to Puerto Madryn.

We finally made it at 23.00 and had 2 hours to chill before our bus left. We had a wonderful dinner at a gas station, but it was the best dinner at that point because we were starving and hadn't had real food since Friday. The food was burgers, but it felt like the best burgers at that point. After dinner we got on our bus to Puerto Madryn, this time on a bus that actually worked.

Monday 06.11 - We arrived in Puerto Madryn in the morning and had all day to chill before our bus left at 18.00. We were able to go to the hostel we had been at before to shower, since it had been a few days. It was probably one of the best showers in a long time! We spent the day being out of it because we were so exhausted. It was a good feeling to finally be on the bus in the evening to be headed back to Buenos Aires. And it was a great bus to be on, the same company Andesmaar, and no mopping this time and better food. And absolutely wonderful seats!!! It definitely felt amazing to be in the business class seats again, what luxury!

We got back to Buenos Aires on Tuesday 07.11 at noon, and we were happy to be back home. The trip was great, but definitely tiring to be constantly on the move. But we saw alot and it was definitely worth it!

- H

2006-10-25T20:57:00.000-03:00

Hey hey hey!

Remember how we told you about our super hard courses? Well, turns out that whether the courses were not that hard, or we are just extremely good students! Me and Heini have been getting some seriously good grades. Hotel management, Tiina:8 Heini:9, USA course, Tiina:9 Heini:10, History, Tiina:7 Heini:7. Say what?! Just to make things clear, the scale is from 0 to 10, 4 is a pass and you need to get a 7 to avoid final exams. So far so good...

We've been doing some more exploring of the city. Anni, Päivi and I went to the zoo of Buenos Aireswiththe guidance of our Amigo UADE Diego. We saw some cool animals, pretty much the entire cast of Disney productions was present. The weather that day was pretty exhausting. The hottest day in some 60 years in Buenos Aires in October. 34 degrees. But no complaints. Summer is finally here and we're enjoying every single second of it. I also visited the cemetary of Recoleta where they have almost all former presidents and the famous grave of Evita. The cemetary itself was unbelievable! There are mausoleums of all sizes, colors, styles... Breathtaking.

We will be leaving to Ushuaia this friday. That is in the very south of Argentina. Schedule includes glaciers, whale watching, cavo de los manos etc. Expected weather: Cold. Very cold. So, we'll be posting some unnaturally long postings again after the trip. And one more posting about our trip to Uruguay is still coming..

Besos,

T

2006-10-10T10:53:00.000-03:00

Hola gente, sorry for not getting this blog written earlier about our trip to Uruguay in the beginning of October but here it is...

We spent the first weekend of October in Uruguay, visiting the cities of Montevideo, Punta del Este and Colonia. We left on Thursday and returned on Sunday.

Thursday 05.10.06- We went to the Retiro Omnibus Estacion once again to take off for a different country this time. Its funny how Uruguay is closer in distance than Salta (where we were a few weeks ago). Its cheaper to travel outside the country than within. We needed to go to Uruguay to get our tourist visas renewed because they only last for 90 days, and due to certain circumstances we were unable to get the student visas earlier....hence we went to Uruguay. There are two ways to get to Uruguay from Argentina, either via bus or ferry (well of course you can fly too). We took the bus there and the ferry back. The bus trip took 7 hours. We left at night and celebrated my birthday on the way there, as I turned 23 on the way. I got the best present, some jewellery (hehe) from the finnish crew, and it was such a suprise.

The bus trip was fine, except that they woke us up in the middle of the night when we crossed the border. We had to get up, take all of our stuff, get off the bus and go through customs. The funniest thing was that all us foreigners just needed to stand their and smile and they let us through and back on the bus. They didn't even want to look at our stuff....hmm.....good to know!? But back on the bus and towards Montevideo we went.

Friday 06.10.06- We got to Montevideo at 8am, had breakfast at our hostel and then went on a 3 hour tour around the city, with our guide Ivana (who was the best ever). The only problem was that we had hardly slept and we were sooooo exhausted, but we managed to stay somewhat awake during the whole tour. (hyper active anyone...nah)

The city of Montevideo from the highest point in Uruguay, meaning that Uruguay is a pretty flat country...

Anni and Tiina and Montevideo

Ivana, our tour guide

Some kind of parliament building...

Modern transportation in Montevideo....just kidding, we also have horse carriages in Buenos Aires, in the middle of the city....

After the tour we ate some really awesome food and had our first medio medios. They are these drinks in Uruguay where they mix white wine and champagne, soooo yummy. We hadn't had anything to eat in forver so the medio medios kind of went to our heads and we were ready to go to sleep. We went back to the hotel and crashed for like 4 hours. Well I crashed for a little less and then went jogging around the pier and beach, it was so gorgeous to run by the river, which looks like the sea. The whole shore of the river has a boardwalk, and there were so many people either exercising or relaxing. And everyone in Uruguay drinks mate, more than they do here. I don't know if we explained mate completely to you guys, but its like tea that you drink out of this special cup, through a metal straw. You first put Yerba herbs in the cup, pour hot water on top, and then drink through the straw that has a filter at the end, so you don't get any herbs in your mouth. But everyone along the shore was drinking mate....if only I had, had a camera while jogging.

After everyone woke up we were ready to party....ok, well not exactly. We had dinner at our hostel, we had Chivitos, which is the "food" in Uruguay, everyone eats it and knows what it is. Its like a hamburger, with meat, ham, cheese, egg, lettuce, tomato and anything else you want to put in it. It was actually really good.

The famous Uruguayan Chivito

Diego and Tiina enjoying some chivitos....and Diego showing off some Uruguayan beer...

After our chivitos we all went to our tour guides Ivana's house, where we had drinks waiting for us. We had red wine, white wine, vodka, orange juice, beer, etc.....so the finnish crew decided to teach the rest of the people a little card game called King's Cup. Lets just say that playing this game, in spanish and english while drinking is not the easiest of things, especially when it comes to rhyme time (a part in the game when you have to rhyme with the person sitting next to you). The whole group loved the game, and loved it even more after a few rounds....hehehe

The boys at Ivana's house, in the middle of King's Cup, Diego in the middle and Kaarlo on the left, looking so excited...

All of a sudden after the game, Diego and Ivana come out carrying this huge birthday cake with 23 candles lit, for me!!! I was so utterly shocked and suprised! My first suprise birthday party ever!!!!! I was so speechless, I didn't know what to say. It was amazing, and everyone sang happy birthday in english, spanish and even finnish! The cake was amazing, it was a traditional Uruguayan cake, with cream, merengue and peaches, it was so yummy. I believe it was called Chavo. But there was also a big suprise for everyone which was a magic show. The brother of Diego and 2 of his friends are a magic group and they put on a magic show for all of us. It was alot of fun and amazing!

Me and the magicians....

After the magic show the whole group went to a boliche (club) to party, called W!!!! We were able to get into the VIP area, and we felt like stars! The place was huge, with different floors and areas, and so many people. We had a blast dancing the night away. It was definitely my best birthday ever!!!!

The girls at the boliche, Anni, me and Tiina

The whole group at the boliche..

Saturday 07.10.06- We woke up after sleeping for like an hour, so we were extremely exhausted. We had breakfast and then we were off to Punta del Este. We all slept on the bus trip there (suprise, suprise) but it only took an hour and a half.

Me on the way to Punta del Este, you could say we were a bit tired....

Our first stop on the way to Punta del Este was this really cool house, that was also an art museum/boutique. The house is owned by this famous artist Paez Vilaro and the house is called Casa Pueblo, and it took 30 years to build. It was all made by hand, white and incredibly huge.

The group infront of Casa Pueblo

One part of the house

The view from the house

Inside the house
Casa Pueblo was filled with many different forms of art, from paintings, to sculptures, to everything and all influenced by the many countries Vilaro has visited

A crooked bridge on the way to Punta del Este, it was a lot of fun to drive over, like a rollercoaster...

Punta del Este was really nice, like the St.Tropez or Cannes of Uruguay. Gorgeuos, huge houses, long streches of beaches and everything else. Punta del Este is a different beach city, because in the middle of the beaches is a point where the ocean meets the river that flows between Argentina and Uruguay. From this point you can see that on the left and right the color of the two waters are different.

The group at the point, or Punta

We walked around Punta del Este and then chilled on the beach, and saw the dedos! There is this sculpture in the middle of the beach which is fingers coming from under the sand....fingers=dedos. The water was a bit too cold, but some people were still swimming and even surfing! Maybe next time so will we. We also saw the punta=point, where the river plata meets the Atlantic ocean. We had lunch at a really great restaurtant with the best seafood, we tried local fish, shrimp and prawns, so good, and we had some Clerico (same drink as in Tucuman) with our food. The clerico was so good because it was made from fresh fruit and of course white wine. The funniest part was when we got the cuenta (bill), the total for the 5 of us finnish ppl was like 2500 Uruguayan pesos....imagine paying 2500, too funny. In euros it was less than 100, pretty cheap....

The beach

Race ya....we got to the water and ran back, the water was freezing!!!!

The fingers from a far

The group and a finger....

Tiina chilling on the beach

Sunset on the drive back to Montevideo

After visiting Punta del Este we headed back to Montevideo. By this time we were all crazy tired and acted as such. We decided to have dinner at a nearby restaurant, which had really good pizza but crappy service. They had a whole list of different pizzas but all they were serving was mozzarella pizza. You could have a sandwich with ham, tomatoes etc...but you could only have pizza with cheese. It was good, but funny. Also the service was extremely slow....it took forever and our waitress kept mixing up our order. When we left the restaurant we noticed that the name of the place was La Pasiva (the passive), that explained the slow service...hahaha

Avoid restaurants named La Pasiva

We all went back to the hostel after this, and some stayed up until 3am playing cards.....

Sunday 08.10.06- We had to wake up early again to go to Colonia....we were all so not morning people during this weekend, everyone got up like 5 min before we had to leave and we were always like an hour late...Ivana met up with us and we all took our mini bus to Colonia. It was about a 3 hour drive to Colonia, so it was perfect time for us to sleep and sleep we did.......we all were woken up at some point and took to a museum filled with collections of pencils, ashtrays, key rings by the million. It was amazing, there were so many collections within the museum from all around the world, we even found a Finland Vodka ashtray!!!!!

Finlandia vodka ashtray in the middle of the shelf, in Uruguay....

After the museum, we were taken to a mysterious place, our suprise for the day, we had no idea what to expect.....we all waited with excitement, and we pulled up to a bodega!!!!!!!!! (winery) We were given a tour of the winery, and we were of course able to sample some yummy Uruguayan wine called Tannat. We also present Ivana with a gift for showing us around and being such an awesome tour guide!!!

After the winery, we headed toward Colonia. Colonia was such a cute, antique city. We walked around and saw old buildings, ruins, museums, old cars, and shops....couldn't resist buying a few souvenirs....especially since in Colonia you can pay with Uruguayan pesos, Argentinian pesos and dollars! We spent alot of the day on the shore of the river, just relaxing and then eating some helado (ice cream). We found pehmis (soft ice cream), the flavor was vanilla and dulce de leche (a local caramel), it was sooooo good! After all this fun, it was time to head back to Buenos Aires.

We took the ferry to Buenos Aires, also known as the buquebus, about 50 euros round trip. The ferry resembled Silja Line, without the cabins and 50 floors. This ferry only had seats, tables, cafes, and of course a tax free shop!!!! But for some reason the tax free shop did not sell Lonkero or Siideri (finnish alcohol) no matter how much we tried to find some...not a good shop at all!!!! We were so ready to buy a few cases to go......maybe next time. The ferry ride was so much fun, it only took 3 hours, we spent the time playing cards and daring each other. The other passengers were not so pleased with our loud group....but who cares, we had so much fun! It was the best part of the trip, because everyone was having fun...

The whole Uruguay trip was a great success and even though we were only there for 3 days it felt like 10!!!! Don't know whether that is a good or bad thing...hmm....but regardless we had fun! Maybe we'll go back someday, its not too far away......until our next trip, which is to Ushuaia, the southernmost city of the world!!!!

- H

2006-10-09T16:01:00.000-03:00

Hola todos,

As you have read (hopefully) in the previous post we went on a little trip to the northwest of Argentina. We had an awesome 10-day trip and saw things we have never seen before, including the middle of nowhere and the end of the world....So in this blog we will go through the details of our trip for those who may be travelling in this area or for future students, so you know where to go and what to avoid...etc...

We pre-arranged our trip in Buenos Aires by reading travelling giudes (a.k.a Lonely Planet) and seeing where and how we should go. We bought our bus tickets from Retiro Omnibus estacion (bus station), chose a company called La Veloz del Norte (which was really good), and chose seats called Cama Coche (which you saw in pictures in the previous blog, basically seats that resemble business class plane seats, but a little more comfortable). We decided to take the bus from Buenos Aires to Salta on 15.09.06, leaving at 10pm and arriving in Salta at around 5pm the next day, meaning the trip took 19 hours. It sounds bad, but it was actually not that bad, they showed movies in English with spanish subtitles and the busses have free soda, water and snacks and of course a bathroom. Also we got pillows and blankets. So the trip didn't actually seem as long as it was. On the way back we took the same bus company, but went from Tucuman to Buenos Aires on 25.09.06, and the trip only took 15 hours. The whole round trip costs around 80 euros. Not too bad, considering that flying costs 800 euros.

Our La Veloz del Norte Omnibus

The itenarary of our trip was Buenos Aires to Salta, on Sunday 17.09.06, we rented a car, a good company is Localiza (located in different parts of argentiina), for 3 days. We needed a car that was big enough to fit 5 ppl, and our mochilas (backpacks) and we needed to have free kilometers because we would be driving around alot. Our whole car rental costs around 200 euros, so 40 euros per person, not too bad, and the gas altogether costs like 50 euros during the whole 3 days and we drove like alot (don't remember exactly how much, but around 1200km).

Saturday 16.09.06- We stayed at Hostel Los Cardones, which was really nice. Only a few blocks from the pub street and about 10 from the center. Not too bad. The rooms were nice, showers good, a peaceful hostel, price was about 3.50 euros per person per night, including breakfast. Breakfast here in hostels is either pan (bread), or medialuna (sweet croissants), or tostados (hard toast), and jam, dulce de leche (like melted caramel, really yummy), fruit, coffee, tea, juice.

Sunday 17.09.06- we left Salta in the morning and headed toward San Antonio de los Cobres, this is the route referred to as the "Tren de las Nubes", meaning there is a train that used to go to 4000m, that was amazing, but no longer functions so the route can only be driven by car. On the way we saw many amazing views. But during this time of year it is so dry, so the rivers and scenery is completely dry. The roads are not the best in condition, mostly ripio, meaning gravel (no pavements in sight). The cities along this ruta (route) were supposed to be cities, but for example Santa Rose de Tastil was supposed to have 1000 houses but it looked more like 10.
The whole drive back and forth took around 10 hours, with stops etc...but there is really nothing to see at San Antonio de los Cobres, a small town, bigger than the others on the way, but nothing special. The scenery though is amazing because you are driving in the middle of the Andes. Also check that your car AC works and that the car has a CD player and you have cds, our AC broke, we had a CD player but no cds, and the radio worked but couldn't pic up any channels in the middle of nowhere. It was so much fun....not...

There were many non-existent cities like this on the way.....

San Antonio de los Cobres, a city with basically nothing, but the largest along this ruta....hehe

This is one of the larger Rios that we saw, but right now as you can see it is lacking agua (water)

After San Antonia de los Cobres, we drove back to Salta and then continued along ruta 9 to Jujuy. We thought ruta 9 was the straight route there, but unfortunately it wasn't. It would have been a greate route, except that it was night time, completely dark, and it went around and through the mountains, meaning dangerous and scary to drive. So if driving at night take ruta 34, which goes around the mountains, not through. But during the day definitely take ruta 9, because its gorgeous, you go through forests and dry land. Also we got a new car in Salta before driving to Jujuy, with an AC that worked and a cd player, so were good to go.

Along ruta 9, with the geyser, this is the beautiful green scenery that we saw, different from all the dryness elsewhere.....here at an altitude of 2000m...

We arrived in San Salvador de Jujuy (, at night, found a hostel, ate at a crappy restaurant with the worst service called Dancing Zorbas or something like that. The food was great but the service awful, we left a 10 centavo tip (thats 0.025 euros). We stayed at a Hostelling International hostel called Club Hostel, which was really nice and had a pool!!! So great during the summer. During the time we were in this area it was soooo hot, like 25-30 degrees celsius.

Monday 18.09.06- We left Jujuy in the morning to drive up north toward Humahuaca and the Tropic of Capricorn. First we drove to Purmamarca, where theres the Cerro de Siete Colores, hill of the 7 colors, which was touristy but amazing to see because there were hills that had seven colors. Definitely a place to see and only 154km from jujuy. After Purmamarca we drove to Tilcara. Tilcara was a very cute, artisty city, definitely worth seeing. From there we continued to the Tropic of Capricorn, just to say that we have been on the line where the tropics divide. After this we decided to turn around as we had been travelling all day and decided to return to Jujuy for the night. We stayed at another Hostelling International hostel, don't recall the name, but not as good as the Club Hostel. But this is where the others had the famous bucket of strawberry daiquiris, can't believe you can actually get daiquiris to go in this country.

On our way to Purmamarca....pretty dry...

Us and the Andes.....

Cerro de Siete Colores....the picture can't describe it, filled with many colors.....

In Purmamarca walking through the city...

In Tilcara....maybe purchasing some souvenirs....

Tuesday 19.09.06- We has breakfast in a pool house, where we were the only foreigners and not to mention the only girls...thank god Kaarlo was with us to protect us. We had medialunas, jam, and coffee!!!! After this we took the ruta 9 back to Salta. Jujuy was an ok city, but nothing special. It was filled with a million heladerias (ice cream shops), so if you love ice cream, its definitely a place to go. The ruta 9 during the day without scary things was amazing, completely gorgeous and a place where we saw the geyser.

We arrived in Salta in time to go to our regular restaurant where we had eaten the first night in Salta. An amazing restaurant with the best food and service called, La Cava de Piedra at Mitre 81, plaza 9 de julio. After eating, we drove up to the top of this mountain next to the city with a view of the city. It was great to see Salta from up high, and Salta is really a big city and our favorite city in the northwest area! We stayed this night at Casa de Abuela (Gramma's house), a really cute hostel, about 5 blocks from the center, but quite far from the bar area. It was good for that night, because all we wanted to do was sleep.

The city of Salta....it was great for walking around, shopping, etc....it had everything...

A pretty church in the square 9 de Julio, near our regular restaurant

The appetizer at our "regular" restaurant Cava de Piedra in Salta, it was beans and salsa that you ate with bread.....so yummy....

Tiina at the top of a mountain in Salta....how pretty.....

Four of us at the top of the mountain....Anni, Heini, Päivi and Kaarlo

This is how close we got during out trip....we even slept in the same bed....ok, no this is at Casa de Abuela, we got to share a bed....it was a really nice hostel, it was a cute house

Wednesday 20.09.06- We returned the car in the morning, and left with a minibus to go to the base of Salta rafting, where we where going to stay for the night and participate in many activities. It took us around 2 hours to get to the base, but we slept the whole way, so we have no idea where or how we drove. But we got to the base, which was a really nice base. We got changed and our first adventure was rafting. We were first taught the rules, and basics, put on our lifejackets and helmets and got ready. We took a bus to the place where we started our journey. The whole rafting experience was amazing, we went down the river through mountains and uninhabited areas, absolutely gorgeous and peaceful. We saw fossils and wild horses, had fun singing songs, or more like chants, and even swam in the river. We were all soaking wet by the time we finished rafting, but it was amazing nevertheless.

The rafting bus

The professional rafting team, ready to row....

Or not, sometimes swimming is just more fun...or in this case going with the flow.....

Or maybe just to do some gymnastics...

The whole rafting crew

Our team and our mascot, Wikey the dog....can you believe it, a rafting dog, who was probably better than us!

We are ready to go

After rafting we were freezing, because it was warm but not hot...but thankfully we had an asado waiting for us at the base. (meat and more meat). The asado was amazing! After eating and sunbathing for awhile, we were ready to start hiking up a huge mountain. During the rafting we were with a bunch of other people but hiking was just our group, so the 5 of us and our guide Hector Vargas. Hector was so much fun, but didn't speak English, only a few words, so it definitely helped with our Spanish because we could only speak Spanish. We hiked up this huge mountain, it was hard, but thankfully nobody fainted. And once we got to the top, the view was amazing!!!! So gorgeous. And since it was winter/spring, it was still so dry, so everything was just starting to grow. It usually starts raining at the end of november, when everything blossoms and the whole area is completely green. We hiked up and down the mountain and came to this area where a river usually flows. But not during this time, so it was fun to walk in this dry river and see areas that are usually under water. We got to this point of the river where there is a waterfall and we had to rappel it down. It was amazing to rappel, since we had never done it before. After we came down, we climbed up and came down again. We had the best time ever.

Us (Tiina and Heini) on top of the world...sort of

Hector, our guide

We all came down all the way from up there..

Tiina showing us how and actually being able to do it despite being afraid of heights, she overcame her fear during this trip and we are all very proud of her...

Then we also climbed all the way up (Heini showing her moves)

Then sometimes we fall down (Heini on her heinie)

But then we get up again (always laugh at yourself)

And others follow our lead by climbing up and coming down... (Tiina working her way up)

With the same kind of big bang.... (Tiina also landing in the same groovy way)

After such an activity filled day, it was time to take a long needed and wanted shower and have some dinner and drinks. We were the only people to stay in the hostel, it only had two rooms, so it was just the five of us, Hector and Marco (another guide). For dinner we had Maria's (the cook there) famous pizza, which was the best pizza we have ever eaten!!!! So if you ever go to Salta, go do an excursion with Salta rafting and have Maria's pizza!!!! She made the whole pizza herself, it had tomatoes, ham, cheese, etc.....the best ever! We spent the night sitting infront of a bonfire, drinking wine, eating, and singing finnish songs, while Kaarlo played the guitar. The most peaceful, relaxing night, under the stars in the middle of nature.

Enjoying some Maria's Pizza

Yummy...yummy

Thursday 21.09.06- We woke up with a small resaca (hangover), but not too bad. We had some breakfast and were ready to start our canopy adventure. Canopy is hanging from a wire and travelling along it between two points, so much fun! We first hiked up to the starting point and then went along 9 canopies, and hiked alot. Canopy was incredible, flying through the air, the sun shining, feeling the wind against your face....amazing....

The official canopy crew...not

The view from the top...

Tiina in her canopy wear

Me enjoying the view
Tiina doing her thing....

After canopy we returned to the base, had some asado again, and then sunbathed along the shore of the river. Then it was time for us to say goodbye to the base and go back to Salta. This time we were awake during the trip back to Salta, and the route was amazing, gorgeous scenery.

Some sunbathing after canopying.....

On our drive back to Salta from Salta base rafting, amazing scenery...which we were able to see as this time we were not sleeping..

We got back to Salta and were supposed to stay at a hostel near the center of the city, but for some reason it was full even though we had a reservation and we had to stay somewhere else, they had booked us for another hostel called hostel Prisamata, which was close to the bar/restaurant street. Prisamata was a great hostel, definitely recommend it. It only costs us 4 euros per night. The hostels are really cheap.

Friday 22.09.06- Tiina was feeling sick the night before and during this stay, so she needed to rest during this day, which was unfortunate because we had booked a cabalgatas trip (horse trekking), so only Kaarlo and I ended up going. Anni and Päivi ended up driving on ATV's instead. Horsebackriding in Salta was amazing, we went with this company called Sayta, the owner Enrique J.Carbia, the most amazing host. Definitely recommend them to everyone. We had the best time riding, the horses were amazing, we rode western style. After riding we had the best asado in the world!!! It was incredible, and also the salads with the asado were the best ever, all kinds of different salads and grilled vegetables. Also we were served wine that is exclusively bought only by Enrique, which was one of the best wines ever. We had an awesome time.

Heini and her horsie, loved riding, it was so much fun, I had missed it so much. I am definitely going to continue here as it is affordable.

During the night we met Hector (our Salta rafting guide) in Salta and had dinner together at our regular restaurant....wish that restaurant was here in Buenos Aires. The food in the northwest was amazing because it had more flavor. In addition they had delicacies such as lama meat, which was really good.

Our last night at Cava de Piedra....we are gonna miss that place..

Saturday 23.09.06- It was time for us to head to Tucuman, a city about 420km south of Salta. We rented a car again that we dropped off in Tucuman so that we could see the sights on the way. Our car rental costs around 100 euros altogether. The car was our Fiat Fire, which was red and absolutely horrible, but the only car we could get. It had no AC, and no cd player. So we had to drive with the windows down and sing to keep ourselves entertained. We are now an accomplished singing group and ready to tour the world, as long as we have a Fiat Fire and no AC!!!! We were supposed to see the sights and drive through vineyards.The trip from Tucuman to Salta usually takes about 5 hours, but we wanted to take an alternative route, that was supposed to be beautiful, but we didn't know the road was only ripio, through mountains, and awful, so the trip took us 14 hours!!!! Hence, we didn't exactly have time to visit vineyard, or anyting, and we were extrememly exhausted when we got to Tucuman. So the trip was from Salta along ruta 33 through Cachi, along ruta 40 to Cafayate along ruta 307 to Tucuman. Cachi was a small city in the middle of the mountains, Cafayate would have been great because there were so many vineyards there and from Cafayate to Tucuman there would have been the ruins of Quilmes. We can only imagine. But we did see amazing scenery on the way, and it was not that bad. But now we know better for next time. So instead of driving through the middle of nowhere, take ruta 68 to Cafayate if you want to see it or ruta 9 directly to Tucuman. But during ruta 40, we did go through this amazing direct road called La Recta del Tin Tin, which is a road at about 3500m altitude in the middle of the Andes. On this route we were in the middle of nowhere and we saw snow on top of the Andes. After this route, we entered an area with rock formations that looked like we were on the moon or something. So the trip wasn't absolutely awful because we did see things that we otherwise would have not seen. But because of the lack of AC and the windows down, we were covered in sand, because the road was ripio. So all of our stuff including ourselves were full of sand....fun stuff....

Space-like rock formations...spooky

For a second we didn't know if we were on earth or somewhere else....

Our crappy ass Fiat Fire car.....never again with this car....we know what to avoid....

We got to Tucuman safely after the 14 hours and found our hostel called Oh!Hostel, which was painted green, so easy to spot. We returned our car and went to grab some pizza and wine and ate at the hostel and went to sleep. By the way the people in Tucuman speak in the weirdest way, they speak super fast and mumble all of their words....so hard to understand...

Welcome to Tucuman...at night...

Sunday 24.09.06- Our first day off, with no plans, and time to rest. We woke up, had breakfast and spent the day sunbathing on the terrace. It was absolutely the best. The weather was great and it was like 30 degrees celsius! After sunabathing all day, we got ready to tour the town of Tucuman. Tucuman was an ok city, but we all preferred Salta. We walked around the city and we were trying to find a restaurant/bar area. We were told to go to this certain place, and due to the lack of finding taxis we ended up walking 10 cuadras (blocks). We walked through really shady areas and got to the bar area, which ended up being an area with nothing but a Wanted poster for some murderer. So we jumped into a taxi (finally one when you really need one) and headed back to the area where our hostel was.

Wanted poster, if you see something similar elsewhere, remember to run like the wind...or take a cab...

We ended up at this great restaurant called Plaza de las Almas, with like 5 floors and outside tables. We had a whole lot of food and jarras of Clerico (which is like Sangria, but with white wine and really good) but we also had Sangria. At this restaurant we were joined by Javier and his friends. Javier is a guy that used to live in Buenos Aires, who is the friend of the BScBA's that have been in Argentina for the past few years. So we met with him and had a great time.

The restaurant

The group with Javier and his friends

The first time during the trip that Kaarlo was able to hang out with the boys....he was in heaven...not fun spending 10 days with a bunch of screaming girls...

Monday 25.09.06- We woke up with a resaca and spent the day sunbathing since our bus didn't leave until 17 or so. We got some great ice cream and just rested. We left Tucuman by bus and headed back to Buenos Aires.

Overall our trip was an amazing success. We had the best time ever and definitely recommend the northwest of Argentina to everyone. The people are great, the weather is awesome and the food in incredible!

Next up we headed to Uruguay, which we will tell you all about in our next blog.

- Heini

2006-09-29T18:30:00.000-03:00

Como andan todos?

So, we have been travelling in the North as some of u might know. We came back home last tuesday morning just in time to start our Hotel Management project for thursday! How Mikkeli style is that... :)

Some facts about travelling:

-Choose the best form of transportation.

Busses here are great! Think of business class in planes and you'll get the idea.That's us in the bus just starting our 19 hour trip to Salta from Buenos Aires.

- Prepare for loooong and boring trips.

There's NOTHING in between big cities. Officially nothing... Middle of nowhere just got a new meaning... This is the only building in probably 200 kilometers or something.. 7am, breakfast, I need to say no more.

-The best way to travel and see places is to rent a car. But make sure that when u rent one to drive to the mountains u don't get a volkswagen polo with a 1.6 l motor. Jääpoolo.. :)
The official car show girls. And boy. Becoming more like a girl after sitting in the same car for 10 days with the girls...

-Always keep your camera ready with u. You never know when you'll see some awsome tricks by mother nature.
The all-so-not-expected geyser in the middle of nowhere. Niiiceee!!

-Remember to have a regular restaurant in every city. That way you'll get better service.

In Salta in a great restaurant with awesome food! Less than 140 pesos (35 €) for 5 peoples appetisers, food, dessert, drinks, wine, beer........... I'm loving it.

-Remeber to avoid McDonalds when travelling. And detect all such related to it.
McPato. A.k.a. McDuck. Duck as in Donald Duck. U do the math. Crazy Argentineans...

-Go shopping for local stuff in local places.
This is in the valley of 7 colors or something like that. Shopping for handicrafts.

-Also see the sights.
The mountain of 7 colors.

-Be on top of the world

Heini somewhere in the Andes. Over 4000 meters of mountain beneith us.

-Go crazy every once in a while
The craft. :)

-Visit big cities.
Well, basically there is a house so it is an urban zone...

-Do something you've never done before.

Heini trying a little cayak.

Kaarlo doing Canopy and fooling around as usual.

Kaarlo riding a horse. You go cowboy!!

Anni doing the Canopy Superman-style.

All of us getting ready for some Canopy.

Heini doing Rappel.

All of us hiking in the beautiful nature of the north.

-Enjoy the beautiful nights in the mountains.

Us girls sitting by a fire in our base camp of the adventure place where we did the hiking, rappel, canopy, and rafting.

-Party every once in a while.

Tiina, Päivi, Anni and Kaarlo drinking 7 Strawberry Daiquiries that we had para llevar. So take-away daiquiries. I love this country... :)

-See places you've never seen before.

The Tropic of Capricorn. That's the northest point we went to.

-Try to avoid dangerous places.

Carrera muerta. Not promising the safest drive. We survived.

2006-09-14T22:09:00.000-03:00

Yes, we are still alive.. We got extremely depressed by the fact that Carlitos has left our blog... So we have not been able to produce any kind of text what-so-ever...

Honestly speaking, nothing much has been going on and we have actually been concentrating on things such as school for a while. We are going though some difficulties with courses and projects that need serious actions (a.k.a. probably dropping a course and attending some open university course back in Finland... Heini was by the way supposed to have a Vilho Mäkelä's Macro exam today in the Finnish embassy... Guess twice whether she did it or not...). Oh yeah, did we tell about the Mexican night we arranged? The little organizers have made their entrance also here in BsAs as us girls decided to gather the exchange students (or some of them) together in to a Mexican restaurant to enjoy some dinner. Here are some pictures of the event.

This is actually from the after party.. Or another party.. Well, anyways Carlos and Tiina learning some local dances, most probably Cumbia under practice here.

Oh, other thing that happened. We had a party in Delta, that's about 45 minutes firts by train and then 1,5 hours by boat to a lovely summer place of some Argentinean girl. The party was alright, there were probably about 100 people. One thing just sucked: no one remebered to mention to us that this party would be outside.. And it was Freezing!! And there we waited untill 3 in the morning. And after that the boat trip and the train back home.. So I (this is Tiina writing now...) got sick and was sick the whole next week. ANYWAY, back to my point, this was not the big happening, the action was before the party. As we were on out way to the meeting point in the notorious Retiro we tried to be really cautios of any suspicious people hanging around since this is known to be one of those places where people should not go after dark. So, it was only 7pm, and we didn't think anything would happen. Me, Anni and Päivi (Heini was home sick) were closing our meeting point near the Retiro train station as suddenly I noticed some little guy coming behind Päivi thinking that he is probably a poor little boy begging for Päivi's food (shewas carrying a pizza box). Well, turns out he was not so innocent after all. It took me a second to notice that there were actually 4 or 5 of them and they first grabbed Päivi from behind (perus niskalenkkiote) and tried taking her bag. Then some other guy grabbed a hold of Anni's bag and was threatning her with a broken bottle. At this point any normal human being would scream and let go of their bags. But not us Finnish girls. Nooo... I started hitting the guys with my wine bottle (what?!?!) and we just fought back for a while and then they ran away. I even ran back to get Anni's watch that had dropped during the struggle. Hello?? This is not a way to act in a situation like this?! Well, it was all over in probably 10 seconds and we are all ok. We were just a little bit shaken up after this but gladly the other guys were near by. And our dear Carlitos actually saw us from the other side of the park but couldn't see that is was us but thought that we were some Argentinean kids fooling around.. Not exactly..

Tomorrow we have to return to Retiro and face our fears us our trip to the north of Argentina starts at 10pm from the Retiro bus station. Let's hope weäll have better luck this time. So we'll be travelling for a week and a half in the north, in Salta and Tucuman to be more exact. We'll post some thoughts and pictures from the trip when we get home.

Besos chicos!

T

2006-08-28T21:27:00.000-03:00

Hello again!

Now we have officially witnessed an argentinean protest! And against Finland!!! This happened last thursday, that's August 24th. We got a phone call after we left school on thursday around noon from Tatu who was at work in the Finnish Embassy. He said that we should definitely come and see the action goin on there. First we were a bit hesitant of going, but he said that it was ok and people were calm so we had no reason to be afraid. They had a lot of banners saing nice things about Finland..

For example this one says: "Miksi haluatte olla Hitlerin kaltaisia tällä vuosisadalla rakentaen tehtaita jotka ovan uudenaikaisia kaasukammioita jotka tappavat molempien maiden asukkaat sekä luonnon ja eläimet" roughly translated: "Why do you wanna be like Hitler in this century by building factories which are like new gas chambers that kill the people and the nature and animals of both countries". What a great thing to say about the Finnish people... But they didn't really have a problem with us. Many people came to us asking where are we from and when we said Finland they didn't make a big deal out of it. One guy gave us a small lecture but was not blaming us "normal people" of anything. Overall the atmosphere was calm and people were mostly singing songs. There were a lot of policemen though... Here's some pictures of the place of action.

Then today (monday) since we have no school, Heini and Tiina decided to go turist in Buenos Aires. We explored the famous Boca area (you know all those colorful houses?) and tried to avoid the infamous Boca area (that would be the ghetto...). After some wondering around La Cancha, which is the football stadium and home of the team Boca, we found the area of Caminito which is where the pretty small streets are filled with houses in all possible colors.

We tried staying on "this side" of the railways since we have been told the other side is not the safest in the world... Althoug this side was not one of our favorites either... You could definitely see that this is one of the poorest places in Buenos Aires. Most of the buildings were falling apart and cars had no doors, headlights, paint, nothing. But the kids there could really enjoy themselves! In every street and in every basketball court and field there were little kids playing soccer. And they are really good! This is truly the place to see the football stars of the future. And since this is the location of la Cancha, the big stadium, soccer can be seen everywhere in Boca. There're numerous stores selling soccer accessories, flags on balconies, writings on the wall etc. We sure have to go there on a Sunday to see a match. Just have to remember to cheer for Boca, not for example River, the other soccer team of Buenos Aires.

Tomorrow we're planning on going to another turist tour. We'll tell you more about that later...

2006-08-26T13:09:00.000-03:00

This is Tiina infront of a Sushi place at the mall's food court. The food court is great with cuisine from everywhere. This was Tiina's first time eating sushi so we had to photograph the moment, and she actually liked sushi!!! Yay since Heini loves sushi.
Heini and her beloved posessions. This is one of the days that we went shopping at the mall near our place. We can not resist the pull of material goods.
This is a typical bus here in Buenos Aires, this bus goes right infront of our house. Each bus is different here, they come in different colors and conditions. Its funny, but every bus that we have taken to school has been different from the other ( I guess no HKL finnish busses here)
Heini at the park near our place. The park is really big, and the weather was really nice on this day. People were out having picnics and children were playing soccer. The park also has a dinosaur museum which we are planning on visiting-
Tiina at the market place/park near our place

Our balcony!!! The sun shines towards our balcony all the time, its gonna be great during the summer. We also bought some chairs for our balcony, so that we can sit outside...
Our apartment building!!!!!!!! Isn't it pretty?

This is the way you paint walls in Argentina. This is the view from our classroom, we noticed during class that two guys were painting the outer walls of our school building. The process looked kind of shaky and the equipment not so sturdy. There was one man sitting on a swing lowering himself from the tenth floor down to the bottom via ropes and painting the walls at the same time.
Here is a close up of the process. During this moment the man sitting on the swing pulled out his cell phone to text someone, we couldn't stop being shocked by this process of painting the walls.
Tiina and Diego (one of our Argentinian friends) at Anni and Päivi's housewarming party.

Kaarlo and Tatu at the housewarming party, you can see that they definitely feel at home here in Argentina amongst the drinking culture.

Heini and 3 chicas from Argentina at the housewarming party. The girls and guys here in Argentina are really friendly and great to hang out with.

Heini and Tiina in our hotel management class. Our class is on the 4th floor and as you can see we have a pretty great view outside.

2006-08-26T12:12:00.000-03:00

The past week has gone by far too fast. Our first week of proper school last week, hence proper due to the fact that Heini was sick for the first week and we didn't have all our classes yet, went really well except for the fact that we were really tired. We are not used to getting up so early to go to school as well as not understanding everything in the classes. The first week (which was officially the second week of school) went by quickly, we just went to our classes each day and pretty much went home after classes because we are waiting for a modem to be delivered to our house that has two internet connections.....unfortunately that modem still has not arrived and it has been about 2 weeks now..I guess in this part of the world, it takes awhile...

We are really enjoying our classes, our history class on wednesdays is still a bit of a blur due to the fact that the vocabulary used is quite hard. We are understanding mostly everything in our thursdays hotel management class which is really great and in addition the teacher is fun and good. Then on fridays we obviously understand and do well since its in English. But the class is the best, the teacher is really great and the students are all so nice and for the first time we can truly communicate without a language barrier. The course is also interesting because we are studying culture and in specific the minority groups in the US which allows us to talk about culture also in Argentina and Finland. We have spent the last two classes discussing the similarities and differences between Argentina and Finland and we have learned a whole lot more about Argentina and the mentality of the people. For example we learned that Argentinians consider themselves Americans because they are a part of the continent America where as Americans from the US consider themselves to be only be Americans and no one else. So it was interesting to find out that people in South America do not consider themselves Latin Americans or South Americans, they consider themselves Americans. So for anyone who is coming to this area its important to not offend and state that Argentinians are not Americans, because in reality they are as much American as Americans in the States are.

Anyhow, so for the first and second week of classes we took the subway or Subte to school, meaning that we first had to walk 10 min at 7am to the closest Subte stop, take a subte for 20 min, get out to change subtes to another line and walk for 10 min to that stop, then take the other subte to the stop infront of our school. This meant that our total trip in the morning took around 45 min and was very annoying. So this past week, our third week of school, we decided to give the bus lines a try. The buses here go everywhere and from anywhere and every 5-10min. They drive fast and are not as full as the subtes. So last Wednesday we took a bus to our school for the first time. Our bus stop is around the corner from us and we managed to get on the bus ok, pay the 80 centavos one trip costs (about 0.20€, a bit cheaper than Finland), managed to be able to sit down during the trip and get to the bus stop near our school in 25 min. Then from there it only takes us 5 min to walk to school. So from the first day of our bus trip we have not looked back, we are definitely only taking the bus to school from now on. The funniest thing is that we take a bus that goes at 7.15am from our place that has been empty, but once we took a bus that was 5 min later and that was completely full. I guess a 5 min difference here is a real difference. The traffic is usually pretty bad here, but the time that we go to school its not too bad yet, but only 5-10 min later it starts getting pretty bad.

Lets see what next, ok so our third week of school (or Heini's second week) went really well. We are getting the hang of things and feeling more at home here. Also our Spanish is improving fast and we understand a whole lot more now. Speaking is still a bit hard, but we are getting there. We once again last week got lost in a mall near our house for 5 hours...oops. We don't know how it happens, I suppose its like the Casino effect, we just walk around this huge mall that is thankfully really close to our place, and don't realize that we have been there for 5 hours. Our record to this date is 7 hours, so we are trying to break that, before we run out of money. We have also been super tired because we haven't been able to sleep well, not just because of shopping or anything else. We are supposed to go to sleep by 10pm so that we get enough sleep, but most nights we only end up getting 4-5 hours of sleep, which is why its great that we have plenty of coffee shops in our school, waiting for us in the morning. We already have our "kantapaikka" meaning we go to the same coffee place each morning, and they already know our order. We always order the same thing, Heini has a Apene Cortado Grande (coffee with a little milk) and Tiina has now started drinking coffee (Heini is a bad influence) and usually has a Cappucino Suiza, which is basically hot milk, chocolate, cinnamon etc...with a little bit of coffee. But yeah, so the cafe ladies know us and know what we order....

So yesterday was Friday and we obviously had to go out, but yesterday was special because we organized a Mexican dinner for about 40 students from our school. We originally planned it for 10, but suddenly we ended up having a whole lot more people. It was a lot of fun, we went to this mexican restaurant that we had never been to nor did we know it was good, but it turned out to be the best place. We are thinking of having regular mexican nights. Eating at a restaurant is extremely cheap here and they have so many restaurants and so many different cuisines. Usually we have spent about 30 pesos per person for a good meal including drinks, which is about 7.5€!!!!!! Can you believe it. We both spent that amount for two delicious dishes and a few margaritas (really yummy ones). Its insane how cheap it actually is. Our total bill for 40 people was 800 pesos, which is 200€ including alot of drinks and alot of food. In Finland it would have cost 800€. Its great for us but sad for the local people, because for them the prices are expensive and the wages here are extremely low.

The mexican dinner went extremely well, we had a lot of fun and met a lot of people. We didn't even know half the people that came, but it was great because it was a mixture of Finnish, German, US, French, Danish, and Argentinian. And everywhere you could hear a different language but mostly Spanglish, a mixture of Spanish and English. At one point we were even talking to guys from the States in Spanish!! Its funny that people are speaking Spanish to each other even though they speak English, its good but weird. After the mexican dinner people split up into little groups and headed to different places. A few people had to go home, some went a bar and the rest of us went to a house party held by some people from our school, two Irish boys and french/argentinian girls. The party was alot of fun, we just hung out talked to people and had a great time. From there (this is about 2am) people decided to continue, one group went to this huge club called Opera Bay (which has room for like 5000 people) and another group went to a bar. We were not in the mood to go to Opera Bay, but we are definitely going there some day, so we decided to go to the bar. The bar ended up being this small house thing which was really cool. There we danced cumbia (a local style of music, similar to salsa type dancing but different, where you dance with a partner) as well as salsa and others. The dancing culture here is great because you dance with a partner and your partner twirls you around and its a lot of fun. We are definitely enjoying our time here.

Overall the past week has been great and gone by fast. We are both still trying to get over this damn flu virus whatever thing we have, so that we can feel 100% well.

2006-08-17T16:24:00.000-03:00

We have officially started school!

After some serious struggling with selecting the courses, we've picked 3 good ones. We had to change one of the courses since the professor didn't quite understand that we are not native spanish speaking people, and our beggings that he would speak a little bit slower didn't get to his head. So that was for the international negociations. As we were looking for other courses to replace this one we were happy to discover that our school actually does have courses in English, unlike we were previously informed. So off we are tomorrow to a course about the US' cultural issues. Our other courses here are wednesday mornings Historia del Argentina del Siglo XX (20th Century history of Argentina.. duh!) and Gestión Hotelera (Hotel management) on thursday mornings. And since the USA course is on friday mornings, we hardly have opportunities to party during the week. Or at least party and sleep...

So now that we started with school let's tell all about it! Or at least something.. Going to school in the morning is really weird. At the subway station Independencia (right next to our school) there's a huge amount of young people rushing out of the station over the street to our school's doors. And by huge amount I mean hundreds. Crazy. We have student cards that we use to enter the building and due to the rush we have to wait in line to get in. And after that we have to wait in line to get to one of the 8 elevators. We have already gotten used to taking the stairs 4 floors up since the elevators are hardly an option with the other two hundred people wanting to use them in the morning.

We have 3 hrs 15 min of class per day. That includes a more or less half an hour break (mañana mañana...). On the break it's possible to get some refreshments from one of the many cafés in our school. If you are willing to wait in line. Again. All the classes have breaks at the same time, so a queu with 50 people is pretty normal. Luckily we have coffee and coke machines on every floor to cheer us up with a great 40cents coke bottle!

So much for school, we're still to find out what is in the mysterious -4 floor of the school...
We'll probably have some more stories after the weekend as Anni and Päivi will be having their house warming party on saturday. And hopefully some party pictures!

2006-08-13T15:26:00.000-03:00

Alright!! Finally some pictures!! I'm sorry that the pictures and the texts don't really go side by side, since the preview here doesn't really work. Enjoy! :)

First of all, up here you can see the two most important things for us here in Argentina: our school UADE and shopping. :)

We got a little excited at this huge shopping mall... Everything is so cheap!

Here's a picture of us girls (Tupu, Tiina's friend, then Heini, Tiina and Ilse, Tupu's friend from Chile) having some bubbly at a fancy club that some of you may remember us mentioning earlier... ;)

This is a picture from our first week here when we actually thought the weather would be warm here... Oh, how wrong we were...

Then there's us at a subway station on our way to the Finnish embassy.

You can see how wrong we were about the weather.. The picture is not that clear but that is the hailstrom we were telling about.

Then some sights. Here you can see the main street of BA, called 9 de Julio. It's actually 3 streets next to each other, and it's one of the only two-way streets in BA. On the background there you can see the Obelisk.

Here's Kaarlo and Heini on our very first day here.

Then we have some party pictures. First here's a picture of a great night club called Mint where we went last week. It was a huge boliche (nightclub, remember?) next to the river. The picture on the bottom is also from Mint. We were pretty much the only blonde girls there... :)

This is the tango place Tatu took us a couple of weeks ago. You can see some people learning how to dance there. Definitely gonna go there again!!

From now on we'll try to post pictures more often. Now that we got the Internet at home. Thank you for your patience. More to come...

2006-08-09T14:07:00.000-03:00

Okei. Here's a picture of our livingroom (that would be Heini and Tiina..). Sorry that it's so small, but it took about 15 minutes of downloading. So once we get the internet at home (this is downloaded from school) more pictures will come. Be patient.

2006-08-09T13:25:00.000-03:00

This is our new apartment!!

We finally found an apartment. This was last Thursday. Finding our place is also the reason why you haven’t been able to hear anything from us in a while since our Internet won’t arrive until next week. Thank God we have wireless net at school… So here’s how it went. On Thursday after Spanish class Tiina and Heini left in a hurry to see an apartment in Palermo Soho. It turned out to be perfect for us with lots of color and good rooms for both of us. Remember the apartment from friends with the purple walls? Well, that’s what our apartment is like. Only smaller. But we’re loving it. The only thing that is missing is a microwave, but we hope to find one somewhere at a low-cost.

Anyway, back to Thursday. After seeing the apartment we had to go back to school for some orientation classes. Those were then from 2pm to 4pm. After that we rushed back to the office of the agency through which we found the apartment. After an interesting chat with the agent we found ourselves giving him money for reservation. Neither of us still really knows what actually happened, it all went so fast. But we did get the price down about US$ 55 per month. So that was good. Then on the next day we moved in at 6pm and decided to have a party right away. Of course…

So earlier that day on another day of orientation we invited some people from our school as well as some of our friends we had gotten to know over the two weeks. So, the party started at 9pm, which meant that we had 3 hours to do an inventory with the owners in the apartment, go to the store, get showered, dressed, fix some food and unpack. And we did it! Almost… The first guests arrived at about 9.45pm so we were ready by then. And the party was a success. We had more than 30 guests in our 60m2 apartment. After that we headed to the nightlife of Palermo. We met some local people from our school and they took us to a boliche (which is how they call nightclubs in here) with a live band. We girls were just a little bit tipsy, so we kind of missed the band… But we had loads of fun anyway! ☺

The next day after some hangover, headache and pizza we were ready to go partying again. First we headed to Tatu’s place for some wine, empanadas (sort of like small pastries, filled with different things like meat, chicken, cheese etc… A.k.a. paikallisia lihapasteijoita) and good company. From there we separated as the two of us left for a big boliche called Mint and the others went to some house fiesta of someone. The Mint was great! They had two sides, one playing first some R’n’B and HipHop music, which later changed to some dance/house music. The other side played more rock and local music, such as Robbie Williams (who is by the way coming to Buenos Aires later this fall to perform and every boliche here is playing his music all the time), U2, Green Day etc. There was also a terrace outside from where you could see the river right next to this beautiful boliche area.

The rest of the weekend has pretty much only been lying in front of the TV doing nothing but ordering in. And of course settling in to our new home.

Sorry for not being able to post any text in such a long time. Now that school starts we’ll be able to do that in school, and as soon as we get our Internet working we’ll keep you posted.

Hasta luego amigos!

2006-08-07T18:38:00.000-03:00

Argentinean BBQ guy back at the hostel.

2006-08-07T17:57:00.000-03:00

The old dog isn't dead... it's waiting.

Hi! It's me Carlo here. It seems I'm a bit lazier writer than girls but I try to put up something. Last three weeks have been great and I'm now trying to write something from the guy's view point for all the male readers. Where should I start...

The food: Food around here it's absolutely delicious, especially the beef. I've never eaten steaks so tender and tasteful than here. And that's not all the price is about 4 to 6 times less than back home. The food around here is not so spicy than in other parts of South America, but it's tasty anyway. Food have lots of influences from Italy and mediterranean area. Lots of very high quality pizzas and pastas are sold in every restaurant. But my favorite is the beef, it's really good.

Beverages: Two main drinks over here are beer and red wine. The best known beer here is the local Quilmes. It's light and very similar to the finnish lagers, other beers are pretty much similar stuff. The quality of the wines varies but usually they are pretty good. All the wines are produced locally. Drinking here is not very expensive, but one should watch out for him/herself when drinking in bars. Because, in bars these guys put on about two or three times the amount of alcohol into the drinks than in Finland. I found out about this when I once left the bar absolutely hammered (,anyway I don't think it is a bad thing).

The girls: Ok, this is the one you guys really want to hear about, I suppose. Girls over here are beatiful, but... also pretty shy. I think it's because of the whole macho culture around here, the guys go talk to girls not the other way around. Also some guys have told me that the girls over here can be quite too dramatic, I think it has to do something with whole latino thing. I will research this subject more and keep you posted. I still have this sort of a language barrier between me and the local people, that kind a makes things more difficult.

I end my report here and hope all you people have fun, it's sure that I do. Hasta luego!

2006-08-03T23:19:00.000-03:00

We got an apartment... More to come... :)

2006-07-29T12:27:00.000-03:00

We’re back. (Friday 28.7)

It’s been a few days now since our last post. Our days here have gone by pretty fast, we’ve mostly been apartment hunting, partying, watching TV and shopping.

First of all, our mission this week: Find an apartment. Mission failed… We have come to the conclusion that we have to decide between a good location or a good price. We have seen the worst ever apartments here in good locations and great apartments in lousy locations.

The other girls were lucky enough to find a place and our own Carlos also found accommodation with some Argentinean guys. Now it’s just us two girls looking for a place. Let’s hope we’ll have better luck next week. Starting Monday we will be calling a lot of places, searching on the internet and walking around the city trying to find the perfect place for us. There is no way we are going to live at a hostel for 5 months, but we just have to be patient and hope that we will find a good place.

It was absolutely horrible waking up this morning, the worst morning we have had so far. We needed to get up before 9 to take a Spanish exam to test our knowledge, and of course being us, we didn’t study and we went out the night before. We only got three to four hours of sleep but managed to get to school on time for the test. Perfect. We’re starting a Spanish course next week to improve our non-existent language skills. The exam was not exactly what we thought it would be. It consisted of three parts. The first part was a grammar part, which was not so bad (despite having forgotten most of our Spanish grammer). The second part was a listening comprehension, which was a bit harder with some weird radio commercial conversion that we had-no-idea-what-it-was-about. So that didn’t go too well. But then the last part came as a surprise to us… The oral part… Which was not so nice. We had to individually talk to the teacher in Spanish so that she could test our speaking skills. Lets just say that after little sleep and a tiny hangover, we were very hyperactive and did ok, although most of the conversation consisted of of "sí"s and "qué"s (yes and what). We actually did better than we thought and were both placed in the intermediary level class. So not the beginners, which proves that we have actually learned something in Mikkeli!

So that was it for the exam. We also had a cultural experience a few days ago as our Finnish friend Tatu took us girls to a tango club. It was a really nice place with a huge dance floor, tables surrounding it and classes for beginners like us. They also had a little show with the professional level dancers demonstrating their skills, dancing tango in such an amazing way! We met some more local people there who were eager to give us private tango lessons so that the next time we go there we could actually dance a little bit.

We have also experienced our first winter storm here as two days ago we first got some heavy rain and after that it started to hail some egg-sized frozen pieces (a.k.a. helvetin isoja rakeita). It was crazy, we have never seen anything like that and neither had apparently anybody in Buenos Aires, because we were all shocked and captivated by the occurrence. It was awful though because car alarms started going off, windshields broke and people could have seriously been injured. After the hail stopped it continued to rain like cats and dogs. We ran though the rain for about 10 seconds and got soaking wet. Which obviously was the perfect excuse to shop, because we needed dry clothes!! So in we went to a huge shopping mall and headed for the first store and bought some jeans (really nice jeans). After a few hours of shopping (and a few hours on the next day and probably many more days to come…) our hostel room’s floor cannot be seen anymore. We seriously have bags, clothes, shoes etc.. everywhere…hey what can you do when there are two shopaholics like us shopping in a country with ridiculously low prices.

Anyhow, today has been the coldest day here since we arrived. The wind is freezing cold and it’s been about 10 degrees Celsius. So we haven’t really wanted to wander anywhere, but we did have to go see a few apartments. Taking a taxi there because we were so tired, but the taxi only costs us 12 pesos, or 3€ vs. Finland where it would have been like 20€. So traveling by taxis is really cheap as well, which is really great. Since we got back to the apartment we have been chilling and watching tv. We did try to order Chinese food, but apparently none of the Chinese restaurants in this area deliver…so we had to settle for some really great omelettes and empanadas, which wasn’t exactly settling since they were delicious.

We wanted to go out tonight with some other exchange students we met today at our school, but us girls are too tired to do anything. We are literally stuck in front of the tv in comfortable bean bags. Tomorrow we are going to continue our apartment hunting and also go out at night. Can’t wait.

P.S. Those pictures are coming... The Internet at the hostel is just sooo bad that it's impossible to post pictures.

2006-07-24T01:01:00.000-03:00

Party Miguli style. That’s what we did last night…

Our days have gone by pretty quickly as we’ve been looking for an apartment all the time. We´ve been going from one agency to another, seeing lousy apartments… The price range so far has been super high and next week we have to start looking again. We are hoping to find some reasonably priced apartments with amenities like an inside bathroom (yes, el baño can also be outside in the open air…). We hope to find something next week because after that our school starts and it would be nice to have settled somewhere before that.

Our first shopping tour has been completed. Between some apartment viewings we had time to explore the enormous amount of stores of BA. The other girls went to el centro, the main shopping area, but us girls stayed in the more expensive area in Palermo to find some nice little boutiques. All the stores we visited (including a Nike, Puma and Roxy) were quite expensive for the locals but for us it was heaven as everything was at least twice as cheap as it is back home. And the collection of for example Puma shoes was incredible! They had about 20 different types of shoes that we had never seen before in our lives. As we continued our shopping tour we ended up at the Cerrano plaza where we found a Saturday market. A lot of jewellery, handicrafts, clothes etc… And everything ridiculously cheap, of course.

We got an invitation from a Finnish guy called Tatu who works at the Embassy of Finland here in BA and who also goes to our school here, to his housewarming party. We were interested in getting to know some people from the area so the three of us decided to go. We even got our hostel’s weekend receptionist named Daniel to guide us through our first bus ride here. There were some exchange students and local friends of Tatu’s at the party, which was cool, a good mixture of people from all over. This was the first time our Spanish was really put to the test. We managed pretty well even though we had to turn to Tatu for help quite a lot of times. We had some vino tinto and cerveza at the party (well not only some, this was a Finnish guys party anyway ;) ) and for our surprise also a little bit of Salmari.

Somewhere around 2-3am we finally got out of the apartment to go to a bar (which don’t really have a closing time in this country). Our first option had a pretty long line so we decided to go for a more quite bar. In the bar we only had one or two drinks, but oh my god the amount of alcohol. If in Finland you get a vodka coke (a popular drink here) you get about 4cl of vodka and maybe 1-1,5 dl of coke. Well, it’s hard to say how much alcohol they put in a drink here, but Tatu had to tell the bartender to stop pouring vodka in the glass when it was a little over half full. So the proper amounts here go about 10cl of vodka and 5cl of coke. And the price of this luxury yesterday was 10 pesos per drink, which equals about 2,5 euros. Take that Sedu Koskinen!

At around 6am us girls were still up partying and together with some Finnish people and some locals. We decided that it would be a good time to get some food. So we headed to an Italian guy’s house, one of Tatu´s friends, to get some of his super-good pasta. Truly, this pasta was an experience. At last at around 9am we headed home. We were extremely tired and went straight to sleep.

As we finally got up at around 5pm Sunday afternoon, it was time to get some food. One of the employees at our hostel helped us order some pizza to the hostel (which is by the way incredibly good here!) and later in the evening we had a barbeque night here at the hostel which meant all sorts of meats, salad, bread and grilled vegetables. The dinner also included either wine or beer and the cost of this; an amazing 16 pesos, aka 4€. Not too bad.

Now it is time for a good nights sleep as tomorrow we have to keep on searching for apartments. Fortunately every local person we have talked to has offered their help in finding a place with a reasonable price. Our first week here is now over, and we’re looking forward to many more. We’ll be adding some pictures later on when we get our own Internet connection. The one at the hostel is not exactly the fastest or most working version… For now you’ll have to settle with only imagining things.

Our first week and weekend here was a success, we have so far survived the mañana life here in BA as well as the night life...we are definitely beginning to fit in....

2006-07-21T12:51:00.000-03:00

Day 3
Today is the first official hangover morning. Us girls decided to go out with some friends who came to visit us from Chile. And what a night…

Before going out, we got a lot done during the day. Kaarlo was still feeling a little dizzy and decided to stay home as we girls hit the road. Our first target was the Finnish embassy just to let them know we are in the country. There we met a Finnish guy who goes to our school and who promised to help us in any possible way he can during our time here.

After that it was time for the ultimate task of the week: apartment hunting. So off we went to Palermo, one of the nicest and safest areas to live here (not to mention the area where the nightlife is located), to visit some real estate agencies. Finding apartments turned out to be quite difficult. The most common type is a one-bedroom apartment and as we were looking for some with two to three bedrooms we started to get pretty frustrated. Finally we found the perfect agency with some perfect apartments, which we’re about to go see today. Hopefully we’ll be lucky enough to find a place this soon.

Hopefully by the time we go searching for an apartment our hangover will ease up. We are planning on going to have breakfast at a local café, a delicious omelette sounds good right about now. But now more about our first night out in the lively city of Buenos Aires. We had heard that the night life in Buenos Aires doesn’t start until about 2am, so we were eager to see if people were out earlier as we were on the move around 10pm. We were looking for a bar type setting in one area of BA, but we only found restaurants with live music, which are great, but filled with families, so we decided to continue our search.

We decided to head toward Recoleta, another nice area of BA, and ended up on this street with a bunch of restaurants, bars etc… We ended up here, because we were fortunate enough to have a great taxi driver who suggested places to us. We were walking along the street when we saw this place that said Disco, so we decided to check it out. It was a nightclub, but the bouncers said that before 1.30am the place is a restaurant and after that it turns into a nightclub. So we were a bit early. Then we came across a place that said La López Nightclub, that looked extremely posh, but we figured we would ask them about the place.

Thankfully our friends from Chile were able to talk in Spanish for us, because after being here for only two days, we were yet to be fluent. The bouncers at the door invited us in for some free champagne, which came as a shock to us, but we decided to give it a shot. Who could pass up free champagne? We walked into the club and it seemed very exclusive, with an entrance that was a glass floor over water, to expose a black club, with red velvet seats, and a modern décor. We started to feel kind of out of place. We walked closer to the bar and noticed on our left two gold poles on a stage, and we realized we were in a strip club. Pretty good for our first night out. We proceeded to get free champagne, and a welcome toast from the owner of the club. You could say we felt like VIP’s.

After a few glasses of champagne and some company of local hombres, we decided it would be better to leave this somewhat suspicious place to head towards some more authentic Argentinean bars. So we headed to Palermo to find a perfect area with loads of different kinds of bars, restaurants and nightclubs. Our cocktails turned out to be a little bit stronger than the typical Finnish 2cl of alcohol drinks… After one drink we decided to go home since we were still a bit jetlagged. By the way, it’s pretty cheap to use taxis. A 10-block distance costs about 5 pesos, which is a little over 1€. Also the subway, or Subte as it’s called here, is almost free. One trip costs 0,70 pesos, that’s about 0,20€. So we’re loving this country!

Now we’re off to go see those apartments. And trying to get rid of this hangover by getting some delicious breakfast…

2006-07-20T10:24:00.000-03:00

Finally here!!!

Day 1. Totally lost, and totally excited! Arrived at the Eze-something airport at around 8am with everyone around us speaking Spanish at lighting speed. Fortunately we had a ride arranged from the airport to our hostel, which is located quite near the center of Buenos Aires. After some heavily needed showers (20 hours of traveling is NOT the most pleasant experience…) we were ready to start our 6-month adventure in Buenos Aires.
The hostel is great. People here are super-friendly, and one of our hosts, Manuel, was eager to assist us in any way. We started off with some breakfast (or desayuno) in the hostel and then settled in to our rooms. Then we were ready to start exploring the city despite our extreme jet-lag-tiredness.

First look at the city was overwhelming. Big streets, loads of people and even more cars. As we were walking along we suddenly spotted our school, which would have been hard to miss due to its huge size. From there we continued over the main street, which has 16 lanes. After some wandering through the small streets of old Buenos Aires we arrived to the downtown of BA where all the business- and financial centers are located.
Once we turned around the corner to arrive to the main square of downtown called Plaza del Mayo, we came across a large group of people chanting/protesting against something. This something could have had something to do with the Uruguay pulp factory situation, so we decided to quickly disappear from the area. Then we saw a big HSBC sign and decided to go and exchange some money. That appeared to be easier said than done. The minimum amount to be exchanged turned out to be 500€ which poor students like ourselves obviously didn’t have. At a more local bank we finally got some pesos in our hands and off we were to go and spend it.

Now our mission was to get some working cell phones (Saunalahti turned out not to exactly work here… Fortunately one of us has Elisa so we were not in total darkness) and that was also easier said than done. Finally we found ourselves at a Movistar office with no English speaking salespersons to give us new phone numbers.
After this adventure that took like two hours we were in dire need of lunch. After seeing many many McDonalds’ and Burger Kings, we were determined to find an authentic Argentinian restaurante. Unfortunately, despite the food being delicious, our unaccustomed stomachs couldn’t quite handle it. A few of us left the restaurant with a touch of food poisoning. The super-shoppers survived from this horrible fate, and headed to the nearest department store. Super-shoppers had some difficulties resisting the 5 peso t-shirts (that’s about 1,5€) but managed to go home with only a few new things.

Now it’s 7.30pm and we are beat from all the walking, talking and shopping. The hostel has arranged a pizza-barbecue, but we’re probably going to miss it and just go to sleep. We have to gather our strength for some more shopping later on… And of course the main duty of the next two weeks; apartment hunting!

Ciao ciao!

2006-07-17T11:58:00.000-03:00

We'll be in touch...