Cafayate y el Tren a las nubez (Train to the clouds)

          I usually start my blog posts with an apology for not writing more often, but this time I will just tell you that I wanted to wait until I finished two important trips so I could write about both of them in one post (So I should just say sorry for being lazy). Its been about a month since my last post and I have stayed pretty busy since then. Since I have returned to school, I have gotten back to my normal routine. I think of school as more of a requirement, its not something I enjoy but I don't have a choice. School is just part of the experience. We get out of school at 1 every day, thats when the fun of my day begins. Being that I am almost 8 months into my AFS experience, I have finally reached the point when I can truly enjoy myself. I don't have to struggle to communicate anymore or use a map to get around Salta, this is the time to have fun and enjoy the rest of my experience. With only three and a half months left, my mind set and goals have changed a little bit. I am spending even more time with my friends and family and planning different trips. I don't want to leave with regrets or the feeling that I missed out on an opportunity. I am also working really hard on improving my Spanish. My Spanish is good, but it's the little things that I adjust that will make my Spanish even better.
          I went to visit my host families horse in Jujuy again, but this time they let me ride! I was really exited even though I wasn't allowed to trot or canter, I was just happy I could ride a horse again.

          On April 21st, I went to Cafayate with other AFSers living in Salta. Cafayate is about 4 hours South of Salta. It is famous for its beautiful wine country and some of the highest (altitude) vineyards in the world. We arrived late Friday night and went out to dinner. The next morning we woke up early and headed to the wine festival. It was the perfect weekend to visit Cafayate because they were celebrating their second annual wine festival. It started at 9am with breakfast and tea and then we moved on to other activities. First, we got to help harvest the grapes. It was a lot of fun and I had no idea we were going to be able to help. Not only is the scenery gorgeous, but how many people can say they helped harvest wine grapes!? I mean really!!!

Later we sat down to eat lunch and enjoyed listening to different bands from all over the province of Salta. The stage was breathtaking. It actually looked like the bands were standing on the vines of the vinery with a spectacular view of the city of Cafayate and the Andes Mountains in the background.

Next was the wine tasting!! It was actually really cool and as you can imagine, the AFSers were very exited for this part of the festival. They explained how and why they use a specific type of grape to make the wine. Just by looking, feeling, and tasting one grape, they knew how many days it needs until its ready to be harvested, if it would make good wine, or even how rich it would taste once they made it into the wine. 

The festival ended at 6pm and we headed back to the hotel to rest. Later that night we went out for dinner to the coolest empenada place I've ever seen!! They had every type of empenada you could imagine, but that wasn't evven the best part. The walls of the restaurant were covered with names and notes left behind by the people who traveled through. Before we left, we wrote AFS and all of our names and a list of the countries we're from. Italy, Austria, Germany, Thailand, Switzerland, and the United States! I love that we were able to leave a piece of us behind. Thanks to AFS I have friends from all over the world :) 

The next day we went to the wine museum, visited a another vinery, and finished our trip with wine flavored ice cream. 

Even though the trip was short, it was a lot of fun!

(One of the many landmarks we passed on the drive back to Salta.)

          Easter weekend had to be one of the best weekends I have had so far while living in Argentina! 

I got to catch up with a friend I met at the orientation camp in Buenos Aires. Luke has also been in Argentina for about 8 months and is from Australia. He was visiting Salta on vacation with his host family. It was great to get to catch up with another AFSer. Sadly he had to change host families and didn't have as pleasant of an experience that I have. Listening to his experience makes me appreciate mine even more. I was lucky enough to be placed with a family that I grew to love and treat like I would my own. My experience has still been difficult at times, but mine doesn't begin to compare to his. He has now switched host families and is a lot happier. When we didn't have school Monday, Tyler (another AFSer from New Jersey) and I took him to see the monument and downtown Salta. It was nice to be able to show someone around Salta and show it off a bit. I love Salta and I was very fortunate to be placed here. After all, it's nickname is Salta la linda, Salta the beautiful.

Thursday and Friday I got to out and spend time with friends and Luke before he went back to Neuquen, Argentina. Saturday was a big day! I finally got to go on the famous Train to the clouds. The train to the clouds or Tren a las nubes is known famously to be the most amazing train in the world, the one that takes you to the clouds reaching a height of 4,220 meters about sea level on the 217 km trip. The train departs from the city of Salta, passes though the Valle de Lerma, enters the Quebrada del Toro and finally reaches La Puna.

This is the end of the train ride 4,220 meters above sea level, La Puna. This is when the train stops and prepares to turn around for the ride back to Salta.

This picture was taken in San Antonio de los Cobres at 3,774 meters above sea level.

I found the most interesting part of the train was learning why it is so unique. In every dar there is a tour guide who explains everything, I thought it was nice to be able to not only enjoy the scenery, but learn as well. The number of spirals, viaducts, tunnels and other twists and turns that the train passes through arises from a decision made by the designer of the project, the US engineer Richard Maury. Maury was given a small budget and an almost impossible task, but he took into account the principle of adhesion of train wheels to the railways and the laws of physics, ruling out the funicular system commonly used, so that the train may safely reach the expected heights. The train has no cogwheels, not even for the steepest slopes, since the railways are peculiarly arranged, running though a system of zigzags and spirals it allows the train to slowly make its climb to the clouds. The Train to the Clouds is one of the leading tourist attractions in Salta.

          These past eight months have gone by so fast and it's still hard to believe I only have three months left. There are a lot of things I am looking forward to in these next three months. In May I am am going to Iguazu and in June my mom, dad, and brother are coming to visit me! 

I know these next months are going to go by extremely fast, 

which gives me even more reason to live every day like my last.

(I didn't mean to rhyme, but that sounded pretty good!)

Thats all for now! Thank you for reading :D

Vacation in Argentina!

          Vacation in Argentina was a lot of fun!!! I've pretty much been to all of the major tourist sights in Northern Argentina but it was good to finally see Cordoba, Mar del Plata, and Buenos Aires, three highly important cities in Argentina. We left Salta on the 18th in the new pick up truck and headed to Tucuman (3 hours by car) for my host Dad's 50th birthday party/ family reunion. The party was beautiful. My dad was very pleased and you could tell how happy he was by the way he was glowing.

The day after the party we drove to Cordoba (7 hours from Tucuman). Unfortunately it was more of a pit stop so I wasn't able to see a lot, but to me it looks like another big important city. We spent the night and continued our journey to Villa Gesell (12 hours). We stopped to have lunch in the city of Rosario. Rosario is home to the Virgin Mary. People travel to Rosario from all of Argentina to visit the land believed to be touched by Mary. We stopped to visit the Church of Mary. I was in shock by the amount of people waiting in line, the elderly, pregnant women, the homeless and poor, etc.

After a realllllllyyyyy long day of traveling, we finally arrived at our apartment in Villa Gesell. Our apartment was in the perfect location, one block from the beach and two blocks from the center/boardwalk. Out of all the places we went, I liked Villa Gesell the best, which was great because thats where we stayed :) Its not too big or too small, It's just right. My favorite thing besides the beach, was being able to walk to the center. The avenue seams endless with stores, restaurant, and arcades.

Villa Gesell included many fun days at the beach. I even went swimming with the lifeguards. My host dad told them I'm a swimmer and they invited me to join them at 10am. It was the first time I really swam in the ocean. Once we got past the waves, we swam about 500yards out, then another 500yards with the current, then back to shore. It was really fun!! And I even shocked the lifeguards when I beat them, haha! We (my host dad and I) also played beach volleyball with some kids in there 20's. We played about 10 games until the sun went down, it got pretty intense. 

The boardwalk!

On the days when it was raining or too windy to go to the beach we visited a new city/town. All of the cities on the coast are really close together. First we went to Mar de Las Pampas to visit some friends who were staying there. 

It was nice to get to spend time with kids my own age. We had a lot of fun! They also have 5 kids.

Horseback riding is really popular in Las Pampas. They have some of the best trails on the coast. The trails led us through the woods and over the sand dunes. It was one of the best trail rides I've ever been on and I figured out why... Argentineans are so laid back they were like, Go ahead and gallop if you want, just be careful. Most trail rides the leaders are more concerned with safety, but I say, "forget that, who needs safety anyways?" So some of the other experienced riders and I got to gallop up and down the sand dunes :)

We finished our time in Mar de Las Pampas with a camp fire :) No smores, I'm pretty sure that's an American thing.

Our next stop was Carilo. We stayed at the beach in Villa Gesell in the morning, then went to Carilo to look around and have some coffee. Carilo is pretty much the Hamptons off the coast of Buenos Aires. It is where all of the celebrities have their large beach house get aways. Carilo is gorgeous! Walking around in the center feels like you are in a forest on an island, it's very rustic, yet still Modern. 

There aren't any roads, just sand, and lots of it.

I loved the shops! They were a lot different from anything I've seen in Salta.

We finished off a great day with a nice cup of coffee and dulce de leche pastries. YUM!

Next stop was Pinemar. Pinemar is more of a city. We stopped at the pier which was lots of fun because it was a really windy day....

As you can see!

Our last stop before heading to Buenos Aires was Mar del Plata. Mar del Plata is a very important city. It reminded me of San Francisco, only the buildings were much taller. It is about an hour away from Villa Gesell, so we left in the morning. We stopped for lunch and went to the street with all of the famous outlets. My parents bought a lot of presents for their kids. After walking, a lot, we went to have some coffee in the center. And lastly, we stopped in front of the famous government building. You can see in the pictures that it was about to rain. The clouds were INSANE!

We got to watch an electric storm on the way home, no rain, but CrAzY lightning!

We stayed in Villa Gesell for almost 2 weeks. It was really nice to relax and enjoy the beach. We were there until the 3rd when we went to Buenos Aires. I was so exited!! I couldn't believe I actually stayed in Buenos Aires for 4 days when I first arrived in August, but all I saw was the airport. Buenos Aires is HUGEEEE!!!! I wasn't expecting that at all. It took us an hour to go 15 blocks, and 15 blocks is considered close. Buenos Aires is about 2 times larger then NYC.

I was lucky that my host parents had to go to Buenos Aires for a wedding, if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to visit. Most of the people who don't live in Buenos Aires, hate it. I think BA is beautiful. It's a lot to take in at first. We were only there for 2 days so I didn't get to see much. Buenos Aires is one of the most unique cities I've been too. Every neighborhood or section of the city has its own downtown and center. Overall, BA was beautiful to visit, but I would never want to live there. I was also lucky that a good friend of mine, James Romanik, just got there the week before and is studying in BA for the semester. It was nice to see a familiar face. It will be something we will always remember, I mean really, what a coincidence! Buenos Aires was great, but after almost 2 and a half weeks, I was ready to go back to Salta. We hit the road at 8am and went strait to Tucuman (12 hours). We spent the night in Tucuman for my host sister's Birthday. The next day my dad had some business to take care of so we didn't actually end up leaving Tucuman until 10pm. We got back to Salta at 2am, this past Tuesday. I had already missed five days of school from the vacation so I had no choice. I slept for about 4 hours and went to school at 7am. It was a really long journey and really long day, but full of great experiences.

          Tuesday was my first day back to school, FINALLY! I have had a lot of summer vacation recently... I felt like my brain was either going to explode or fly away. I switched my class this year which is a lot better. I'm surrounded by my closest friends and i'm taking classes i'm interested in. We're taking Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Computer Science, Ethics, Spanish (like English back home - literature), Sociology, History, Phycology, and English. Yeah, Its a lot! And this year, now that I understand almost everything, I actually have to do all the work, which I'm actually happy about. It's a good challenge.

          I've almost been here for 7 months now, the time is going by SO fast. This experience has come with its ups and downs, and I would be lying if I said it wasn't hard. I miss home A LOT, I miss my friends and family, but that just comes with the experience. This has been by far the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm finally at a point now where I feel things are really good. Now that I'm in the home stretch, with only 4 months to go, I'm feeling the pressure. In these next 4 months I have to really perfect my Spanish, study and focus in school, and spend as much time as I can with my friends and family. These past 7 months have gone by reallllyyyy fast, so I can only imagine the next 4. 

*The other day I got to meet the new exchange students. Two of them go to my school, a girl from Austria names Sofi staying for the semester, and a girl named Anki from Germany staying for a year. And I FINALLY have a fellow American! Tyler is from New Jersey and is staying for the semester. I'm really exited that our AFS family is growing again. 

Pre update, update

Okay, so A LOT has happened since the last time I wrote. 

I rode bareback... in shorts which wasn't very comfortable.

I continued the summer fun by going out with friends. 

My host parents planned my 17th birthday party. Asado of course :) Plus, we celebrated my birthday on Super Bowl sunday... so I made them all watch American Football. haha :P

And lastly, I officially became an only child. Ro, my host sister, headed of for New Zealand, and Matu, my host brother, went to Tucuman to start college. Therefore, I am now an only child. I miss them, A LOT! 

          So... my summer vacation is slowly coming to an end. My host dad bought a new pick up truck to make it easier for us to take longer rode trips (He scratched it the second he got it, HAHA). Friday the 18th we packed up and headed for Tucuman, where my host dad would throw his longly awwaited 50th birthday party. The party was especially special because it was the first time in a long time that his entire family was able to get together. Mothers, grandmothers, cousins, nephews, nieces, aunts, etc. The party was considered "small" and it was mostly family with the acceptation of about 10 people, and there was about 100 people. The difference is, when I say family gathering im talking about 20 people at the most... they mean about 100, and they were still missing people. (LOL) The party was perfect and just what he wanted and more. After the party ended we headed to Villa Gesell, on the coast off of Buenos Aires. We'll be here until the 3rd and then I finally get to see Buenos Aires!! We get back the 5th and then school starts... FINALLY! I'll give you more updates once I get back! 

(Love and Miss you all!)

ALMOST Half Way Mark!

          Sorry it has been almost a month since my last update. Being that I am on Summer vacation right now, the last thing I've wanted to do is write, but I think its time. Summer has been amazing so far! I know its hard for you all to imagine that its hot here when its 2 degrees back home, I still have a hard time believing it myself. I spend my days tanning, relaxing by the pool, going to swim practice, and I've even starting taking this Aerobics class (like zumba). I stay busy during the day and go out with friends at night. Summer freedom in Argentina is amazing! I'm enjoying every second of it.

Fun in the summer sun :)

          Since it has been a while, I will fill you in on the big events you've missed. Number one, my host brothers graduation dinner. I'd compare it to prom, but the whole family is invited. It was a pretty big deal.. they all had their red carpet entrances and they even hired a host for the night. By the end of the night, two cooks hit the dance floor carrying meat on fire above their heads!!! (Sadly I don't have a picture). It was pretty over the top.

This is a pic of my goofy sister and I on the special night.

         Event number two, I went on a day trip with my AFS friends. When we all get together it is always fun. We left at 8am and headed North to the province of Jujuy. The scenery is spectacular, I've never seen anything like it. One second we drive by mountains that look like they've been chopped up and filled with Cacti, and the next minute we come across the most colorful mountains range I have ever scene. We even visited the ruins of the Native Tribe of Jujuy. I find culture and anthropology fascinating, therefore I was the only one not sleeping when our tour guide explained the history of the tribe and architecture. They built their houses out of clay and rock. Jujuy is HOT so I found it absolutely amazing how the second you walked into the structure it felt like it was air conditioned. All in all, it was an beautiful day with my extranjeros (foreigners). 

(2 Italians, 1 from Germany, 1 from Switzerland, 1 New Zealander, and me! GO USA)

Our "boring" tour guide and in the background a statue made to show what a person from the tribe looked like.

          Sadly, a few of my AFS friends have left or are leaving soon. They were either only here for the semester or have already been here for a year. We had one last get together at my house to drink Mate and candy from the US that my Aunt Terri sent me for Christmas. They loved the candy! It will be sad to see them all go :(

Extranjeros for life! :)

          Next it was Christmas!! Christmas this year didn't really feel like Christmas because I'm so used to the traditions in the States. Christmas in Salta is a lot different. Since we eat dinner at 10:30, we celebrate Christmas at mid night. Once it hits mid night, everyone in the city lights off small fireworks (the illegal kind in the States). We went to a family members house to eat and celebrate. At mid night we gathered on their balcony that had the best view of Salta with the Andes in the backdrop. It was a beautiful moment standing on the balcony, looking out at the city and fireworks. It reminded me how blessed I am to be here celebrating the holidays in another country. After some fireworks and kissing everyone on the cheek wishing them a Merry Christmas, we opened a present. I say "a present" because they don't celebrate Christmas like we do with an unnecessary amount of presents, they celebrate it with food and family and enjoy each others company. After the family dinner, I went to a friends house around 3:30am to celebrate the way the kids do. Overall, it was a great night.

Family...

{From far left, Matias, me, Edu, Papi, Mommy, Satiago, Rosario, and my grandma.}

 and Friends :)

          New Years is celebrated almost the same way, just a little more Champagne and more fireworks. We went to Tucuman to celebrate the New Year with my Grandmother. The next day we went to my oldest uncles country house. The house was on a farm and it was absolutely beautiful. The pool, tree house, patio, asador, and so much more. We spent all day in the sun and had some really good food. Just another amazing day! :)

YUM!

         After New Years life was relaxing for a a week or so. Then January 12th came along and it was my host dad's 50th birthday! We threw him a party at the house which took days of preparation because we had to find out how to fit 40 people in such a small place. Well we did it, and it was beautiful, he was very happy with the night. My host dad is great. He is caring, generous, and loving. I am so lucky to have him in my life. He is a true part of my family now, and I can say he will always be part of my life :)

Feliz Cumpleaños Papi! <3

          It has been an amazing month. I have been living here for a bout 5 months now and I love every second of it. I have learned to experience and enjoy life because time goes by SOOO fast! I added a count down to my blog, but I'd like to think of it more as time awareness. My time here has had its ups and downs, yet overall it has been amazing. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss my family over the holidays. I had a great talk with my parents on skype the other day which is just what I needed. I do miss them, but its not because I'm having a bad time here, if anything, my time here is better then ever. I miss them, but I'm looking forward to them visiting me in June. I can't wait to join my two family's. I love them both So much. February 1st is going to be a big day in my family. Rosario leaves for New Zealand the day before and Matias moves to Tucuman to start college, making me the only child left home with the parents. I will miss Ro and Matias a lot!! Its definitely going to be hard to say goodbye to my sister. We've gotten really really close and I'm not really sure what I'm going to so without her. All I know is that I am very exited for her because I know she will have an experience of a lifetime, like the one I am having right now. My Birthday is also coming up, February 6th. I still can't believe I will be turning 17 in Argentina. My life is so exiting right now and I am just loving every second of it. 

Ta Ta for now!