Mendoza and Cordoba

So after more than a year of seeing my friend Jessica, who arrived last year to Argentina a month before I did, except never left until December, where she went for 5 months to Brazil and then traveled back to Argentina recently, we were able to meet up and spend time again in Mendoza, Argentina. Mendoza was beautiful, by far the cleanest city in Argentina. The people are super friendly, and the landscape is amazing. Mendoza is the wine capital of South America, and is best known for the Malbec grape wines. We took a tour of 3 wineries, learned all about he process of wines, the proper way to taste, drink, hold a wine glass, and check to see weather the wine is good to drink or not by smelling the wine before drinking. It was great, we first visted the Belasco de Bosquendo winery, which is of a Spanish winery, who chose to put one winery in Argentina to make Malbec wine. The next winery we visted was Norton, the biggest winery in Argentina and the most famous. In comparison to the last, Bonfanti, a small family winery, which was a much personal experience, recieving the tour from the owner of the winery. The landscape was beautiful. Mendoza is a very dry, desert like region yet has the beauty of the snowcapped Andes mountain range as a backdrop. From Mendoza, our original plan was to visit Santiago de Chile, which technically was 6 hours away, however because of a snow storm, the pass across the Andes was closed for another week, so we decided to head to Cordoba. We went to Cordoba because I hadn't been since February of 2011, and it is where Jessica had been living, we stayed with a friend in his apartment and visited the main tourist attractions of Argentina's second city. Which seemed to be even more beautiful and clean than I had remembered it. Recenly got back to Buenos Aires, but very content with this awesome trip.

Tecnópolis and debt paid off.

The other day I went to Tecnópolis. Its a temporary theme park, they are doing every year here in Buenos Aires (this is the 2nd year, I left last year a week before it started). It is an iniciative started by the President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Everything in the park is free, the expositions, the multiple museums and interactive games. Admission is 100% free and is a very cool educational experience. Another iniciative put forward by Cristina Kirchner's government (now in its 2nd term having one reelection in October 2011 with over 54% of the vote against 4 other candidates, a historic win) was to pay off the debt of the 2001 crisis that Argentina suffered due to neo-liberal policies put in place consecutively by almost every government since the dictatorship of 1976 until 2003 which included policies mandated by Washington and the International Monetary Fund, which meant taking huge loans, privatizing every service and industry and in the 1990's, pegging the Argentine peso to the US dollar, known as the "Uno a Uno" which ended in 2002 with the Corralito, which meant that the government had to block people out of their own bank accounts because of the HUGE loss of money, almost overnight, of cash in the bank during the crisis. It also led to the end of the "Uno a uno" which meant that overnight someone who had saved their pesos at the value of one dollar each, now had over 4 times less the amount of money in the bank. The private debt accumulated at this time by private industries was then made public, in other words, the government accepted to pay that debt, which now meant that the Argentine people had to bear the burden of all of the debt accumulated without their consultation. This debt of the corralito is known as the BODEN. Cristina Kirchner's husband, Nestor Kirchner (who unexpectedly passed away in November of 2010), who was president before here from 2003 to 2007, was able to pull the country of the crisis which left over 50% of the population in poverty, who in 2005 denied a trade agreement to George W. Bush, aligned with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Lula da Silva of Brazil which would have ultimately given Washington a lot of say as to which economic policies should be put in place in South America (which would obviously benefic US interests much more than those of the people of South America). Nestor Kirchner also went with Lula Da Silva (Brazil also, like many countries if not all in the region to some degree, had gone through similar demands by the IMF and their economy during the past few decades)together they presented a joint agreement to the IMF to pay a porcentage of the debt, because the full debt would be outrageously impossible to pay, that the IMF accepted and cleared their debt with both countries. Today Argentina is the fastest growing economy in Latin America and Brazil is the 5th largest economy in the world. Further more, Argentina went from over 50% of their population in poverty to having half the current unemployment rate that the United States has as well as the highest paid wages in all of Latin America. Although Argentina does have its problems, it seems like the progressive government of the Cristina Kirchner with the slogan of "Social Inclusion" is doing well for all sectors of Argentine society. You see the constant growth of the southern Conurbano zone, or suburbs of Buenos Aires, the south being known generally as poor, new sky-rise luxury apartment buildings, fancy restaurants, elegant cafes, and even multiple openings of the all too expensive Starbucks Coffee stores (where I am currently writing this blog... Missing Washington state a bit). http://www.prensa.argentina.ar/2012/08/03/32889-se-pago-la-ultima-cuota-del-boden-2012-que-puso-fin-al-corralito.php There is an article in Spanish, which I am sure with the new web browsers it can be translated to English. Fun video in Spanish about 10 years after the crisis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uARHgbw_mOY&feature=related

END OF CLASSES

So classes have come to an end once again at the Universidad de Belgrano. I enjoyed my classes, I got great grades, better than last time. However this year I do have my critiques for the University, which I felt was extremely unorganized, even more so than last year. Like the end for example when the grade sheets that we have to get signed by all of our professors weren't ever ready and we just finished the semester without them completely. (This does worry me, because I got 2 10s and 3 9s, I want my correct grades on my transcripts that will be sent to EWU). Also I just got an Email from the international study office asking me to stop by to give them the address I want my grades sent to at my Home University, information they should already have and would complicate the majority of the international students who have already returned home. But once again, the good experience of really interesting and great professors and meeting some great, fellow classmates with similar interests really outweighed the institutional mess that is the UB.

El laburo

So, I have been going to job interviews here and there, but nothing really ever panned out. Well, I have no been hired as a call center representative at the website: BuenosAiresDelivery.com I recieve orders that people place online and I call the restaurant and place the delivery order. Its a lot of fun, so far I like working there. Just fighting my way through classes now, until the end of the quarter, trying to figure out whether I'll go back to Spokane for my last classes in September or do them online. If I go back I could possibly go to Cuba in December. Its a hard decision though, seeing as I have almost a whole second/parellel life here in Argentina now.

So yeah... about that...

Well, as I was excited before about meeting kids in my classes and getting into the material. I sort of regret it now. I feel the University, as I am now remembering about last year, organizes their schedules around giving time to the American students to party. So I spend the middle of my day, starting at 1pm in class, when I could take advantage of that time to be going and experiencing the culture and/or looking for a job. I would rather start classes during the morning. Another problem I have with a lot of the students, not all, but a lot is that they came with the idea that this was some sort of vacation, mainly because their Universities don't transfer their grades as numbers or letters, rather as Pass or Fail. All they have to do is pass, so they don't care much about working hard on the material. This means that when I'm assigned to groups for presentations in class, I ended up doing most of the work. (which I like to do anyways), but its annoying when we get to the day of the presentation they don't know what we're talking about, and because they usually don't care much about learing Spanish properly, I have to back peddle and explain everything better to make sure my grade doesn't suffer. This is a rant blog. Anways, on a litter note, La Oreja de Van Gogh, a band from Spain I first started listening to when I was learning Spanish is coming to Buenos Aires and I bought tickets. Ok, so I'm not 13 any more, but I'm not going to miss one of the first bands I ever listented to in Spanish:

Classes started!

So, classes have started, and this is what I've signed up to take: Monday & Wednesday 1pm-2:30pm: Narratives of the monstorous in Latin America. Monday & Wednesday 2:30pm-4pm: Gender Studies in Latin America. Tuesday & Thursday 1pm-2:30pm: Latin American Social Movements. Tuesday & Thursday 2:30pm-4pm: Contemporary Argentine Art. Tuesday & Thursday 4pm-5:30pm: Argentine Cultural Studies. I am excited and looking forward to meeting the kids in my classes, and getting into the material of these clases, most of which are extremely interesting to me.

Beautiful Bolivia

My visa into Bolivia. It was a mad-dash process, me and 3 other Americans on our bus full of mainly Peruvians, Bolivians, and Chileans crossing into Bolivia, had to get off at the border, run from office to office to get checked out of Peru, then into Bolivia, fill out an applications, pay the fee and have it be reviewed within 30 minutes before the Bus left us. Luckily we even been some of the Peruvians back to the bus. The fee? $135 USD. The experience in Bolivia? Priceless. La Paz was a surprise, it was an extremely beautiful city, the Highest capital in the world. Snow capped mountains off in the distance. The second day, I ate at an iffy restaurant (as I was warned, that Bolivia isn't the most heigenic when it comes to food and to be very carefulo), I ended up in a La Paz hospital with an intestinal infection on an IV. However, once I got to see the city I fell inlove. The people, and the culture are so different from what I had seen (except from Northern Argentina)which is cultural similar, but much higher quality of life and better economy really stands out in comparison. http://laalbicelestesoleada.blogspot.com.ar/2011/05/northern-argentine-road-trip.html

(A Chola, typical native woman of Bolivia, generally from the country side, but that have moved to the city)

In La Paz, I met up with Jonatan, to continue the rest of the trip through Bolivia. Our next stop would be Cochabamba, the birthplace of his father. This city has the largest Jesus Statue in the world, even bigger than the most famous one in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Cochabamba, was beautiful, as Uyuni, a city in the south where the world's largest salt flats are located. We took a 4x4 into the middle of the flooded Salt Flats to explore, which was completely beautiful. After 24 hours of no sleep we left Uyuni for Potosi. Potosi was the capital former Viceroyalty by the same name which occupied the majority of the lower part of South America. This city was a gold mine for the Spaniards... literally. It was the city of the largest gold and silver deposits ever discovered by the Spanish, almost the real life El Dorado.

Finally, we ended the trip in the most non-Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. I say non-Bolivian city, because its nothing at all like the rest of Bolivia. Its a city that finds its self in the low-land tropical jungles of eastern Bolivia, instead of the High cold mountains like the majority of Bolivia's cities. Santa Cruz is the most economically developed city in Bolivia, and has the largest population. The people here have almost nothing in common with the inhabitants of their capital in La Paz, they speak with a completely different accent, they have different ways of life, they eat different foods, wear different cloaths, and are all in all, very different. The city was a nice change from the cold weather we'd been experiencing in the rest of Bolivia. The coolest part of Santa Cruz, was that in our Hostel, there was a pet Tucan, that would let you hold him, pet him, and in the morning would jump on your breakfast table and still your fresh fruit.