Summer

It has been about a month since I left Mendoza and began my travels to Southern Argentina. For the first week or so, I Couchsurfed in Bariloche with a strange, alchemy-reiki practicing 70 year old man as my host. I probably should have left his house much sooner than I did. I spent the week exploring Bariloche, kayaking, hiking, eating chocolate, seeing spectacular views, and even went to the local theatre and watched a musical mash up of Les Mis, Mama Mia, and Annie.

Once my friend left to continue her trip with her family, I headed over to El Bolson to begin my work on a local farm. The farm ended up being 1.5 hours away from town (walking) and did not have wifi. The work was at times tedious and physical, although I did enjoy picking fruit (grosechas and rapberries) and watering the garden. My "boss" was very relaxed and I had a co-worker from New Mexico who I enjoyed spending time with. We spent Christmas going on a morning hike to some cherry trees and then the family who owns the farm invited us to an asado (BBQ). Despite the hospitality and buena onda of the people I met there, the lack of wifi and intense isolation led me to seek another job at a hostel in Bariloche.

And here I am writing this post from the hostel I will be working at for the next month. My goal is to post here at least once a week, but hopefully more...now that I have access to wifi and a computer!!!

Raspberries and grosechas that I picked.

The house I stayed in with my boss and co-worker.

Side view of the house. Right at the base of the mountains.

Bertha, a St. Bernard puppy, and Milka a mutt.

Strange Patagonian birds that landed on our roof every morning at 6AM.

The family garden and greenhouse in construction.

Christmas morning hike. The cat I named Cuddle came with us, but we ended up losing it, Still has not returned. ː(

Christmas asado with my co-worker. So much meat.

Día del Niño and the Start of Classes

Last weekend was el Dia del Niño in Argentina. Argentina has a couple of other holidays the U.S. doesn't have such as Día del amigo y Día de la mujer. I like these holidays. Día del Niño is a day to celebrate the children in your life. To me, this holiday seems a little strange because virtually every day adults are giving to children. And, everyone is a child. Not everyone is a mother or a father, but everyone was born at some point. Regardless, it's a day to spend with family and a day to give gifts and a day to eat food. I spent the holiday with my host family and their extended family.

I gave the three kids I was spending the day with three triple chocolate alfajores. Alfajores are delicious crumbly cookies and I've eaten many, usually I go for the dulce de leche flavor. The kids were very excited and the one pictured below opened his up immediately and ate the entire cookie. I was not expecting a gift for Dia del Nino, buy my host mom gave me soaps that smell like peaches and have built in massage knobs. I was glad to be a kid again.

We ate spinach and ricotta filled ravioli with incredible meat sauce. Large chunks of meat that had been sitting in the sauce. Bread. and an ice cream cake. The ice cream cake had pink ice cream which I thought would be strawberry flavored. It was bubble gum.

Following a relaxing and fulfilling weekend, life became hectic with the start of classes. I'm trying to take a literature course at the local, public university. So I went to Literatura Argentina I for a couple of days, but the colonial Spanish proved to be too difficult. I went to a new class yesterday called Literatura Hispanomericana II and I think this will work much better with my level of Spanish. This literature class will probably be my only truly difficult course as I'll be taking two courses with the program and a dance class. I'm very excited to read contemporary Latin American authors. I've been pretty disorganized when it comes to arriving to class on time/on the right day. It's not completely my fault, though. The hours seem to change without my knowledge. I'm trying to adopt the chill, Argentinian vibe with this whole process.

Caprese torte for lunch. Sun dried tomatoes and mozarella in a crust.

When host mom is away, I will take selfies while eating torte.

An interesting lunch of canned tuna in my spaghetti...

I was walking to class when I received a text saying it was cancelled. I bought a dulce de leche chocolate bar and watched The Office instead.