Day 96

And now for one last blog entry.

Technically, this isn't Day 96 as there were only 94 days in total, but who cares. I did start with a Day 0, after all. Well, so we flew to Buenos Aires, and then to Salta. Saturday and Sunday were neatly divided between Karina-and-Daniel and Mercedes-and-Nestor-and-families. Sadly, I didn't see any of my friends from school again. And now I don't know when I will. On Sunday night, we had a goodbye party at Mercedes's house. Both families showed up to it. We packed up our things into (I'm not even exaggerating!) ten suitcases and Monday afternoon, we drove to the airport. Our friends met us there, and we exchanged tragic goodbyes. And then we got on a plane, and left.

Not quite done yet, though. We stayed a few days in Buenos Aires. Monday night, we met up with Karina's nephew Nahuel (remember when he and his sister came to Salta?) who lives not far from our hotel. We went to a restaurant, and then headed back to the hotel and said goodbye. We took a tour around the city on Tuesday. We saw Argentina's White House, which is pink, interestingly. We saw Boca's (Argentina's most popular soccer team) stadium, and we saw the old wharf area, with brightly painted houses from leftover ship paint. It was a good day. At night, we went to a tango show organized by our tour. That was pretty fun. We sat next to some Brazilians. And we saw some, I'm sure, very authentic tango.

Wednesday was our last day in Argentina. Our flight wasn't until the afternoon, so first we walked around the city some more. We went to Recoletta Cemetary, where, basically, everyone famous from Argentina is buried. We saw Evita's grave. And then we just walked around some more until we had to go to the airport. And now we are done. Goodbye. Don't cry for me, Argentina.

Many, many hours on multiple planes and severe turbulence later, the four of us arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, where, to my surprise, people spoke English. What is this? A language I understand?? And now we're suddenly back home. For, I think, the first time in my life, I actually heard how people here speak with Minnesotan accents. I know we may say we don't have accents, but. We do. And now, I think, we're basically already used to living Minnesotan again, even the normal eating times. Maggie, crazy girl, has already performed in a dance recital. And next week I have two big standardized tests to take. Which I haven't finished learning the material for.

I feel like, after three months in a foreign country with a foreign language and foreign customs, I should have something wise and multicultural to impart onto you followers. I am wracking my brains trying to think of that wise philosophy, but you know it all. You know about our trips to Iguazú, to Patagonia, to Chile. You know about my cultural faux-pases I made when I first got there. You know about my troubles figuring out that weird language. You know about the friends we made together, and the friends I made in school. You know all about my experience in school, the good and the bad. And, most of all, you know how much I missed peanut butter.

I am glad to back home, and be able to see my friends again, and at the same time, I miss Argentina. The people, the places, the empanadas. But as gone and as far away as that all seems now, I know it really isn't. I'll be back someday.

Day 88

El Calafate, Argentina

I haven't since my second post written the location of my posting because it's always been Salta, but now as we're wrapping up and traveling around some more, we are now in El Calafate in Patagonia. We saw a huge glacier yesterday! It was really cool. But ok, last Wednesday we left early in the morning to Chile! Woo hoo! South American country number two! We left very early and headed North into Jujuy. Chile is a long, skinny country to the West of Argentina on the Pacific Ocean that straddles the Andes mountains from the Peruvian border in the tropics almost to Antarctica. It isn't too different from Argentina in that, like most of South America, it is Spanish-speaking (Normal Spanish, though, with none of those zha-zha-zha's they have over the border.). It took many, many hours to get to the border. We passed through all those places we went to those other times: San Salvador de Jujuy, Purmamarca, the Quebrada of Humahuaca, the Salinas Grandes, and after many hours of steady upward driving through Jujuy province's altiplano region (The combined Spanish words for high, alto, and flat, plano). It was, as promised, both very high and quite flat. The four of us got varying levels of headaches because of the altitude. We saw vicuñas, or possibly guanacos, we're not sure how to tell the difference. After many hours, we arrived at the Argentine border control. Some paperwork later, we got permission to leave the country, and then did so. But there was no Chilean counterpart to that border station. At least none that we could find. We doubled back a few times, but we saw no stop, so we headed into the country thinking we were illegal for a few hours But we weren't. They just have border control in the nearest town so that the border controlers don't have to drive hours across the Atacama desert everyday. That was where we were now, the Atacama desert. According to Dad, this is the driest place on Earth. This first town, San Pedro de Atacama (Pop. 3,264), was also our final destination. By this time it's evening, so after making sure we weren't illegally entering the country and didn't have to turn around and make the 12-hour drive again, we checked into our hotel. We tried to go out to see some of San Pedro's natural wonders, but it was too dark, so we turned around and stayed at our hotel. The entire day of driving, we were sweating in our short sleeves wondering why we ever listened to the people telling us to bring warm clothes, but when the sun set, the temperature dropped dramatically. I guess that's true in a desert. We were huddled by the fire in our layers at our restaurant (May I point out that we are Minnesotans visiting a tropical desert, and we were the ones with the most layers?) when only hours before Maggie and I had had to put bags between us so we would stop sweating on each other. After dinner, we went to bed, now cold, not hot, but still with headaches from the height.

Headaches improved, and spirit of adventure revived, we got up very early on Thursday (Again!? Why???) to see the magnificent desert around us. First, we headed towards the salt flat, trying, and failing to go to a lagoon down a rough dirt path, and stopping once more at the tiny town of Toconao (Pop. 862) and seeing its valley with ancient art. We went further to salt flat (Atacamian style!), which, unlike Argentina's, is not flat--it looks more like an endless pile of white rocks than a gigantic salt cube. And in the salt flat is a lagoon with flamingos! Cool! We looked at them for a while, watching them swim and fly around the lagoon. After that, we turned around and went to the hotel and the ate lunch downtown, and then went to a rock landscape outside of the city. I know that at least once I've used the word "otherworldly" when describing the landscape in Humahuaca or Cafayate. Apparently, whoever named the Valley of the Moon thought the same way I did. And they sure weren't wrong. The land was definitely more lunar than terrestrial. I'm not really sure how to describe it, actually. It was a series of rocky hills jutting out of the earth with sand inbetween them. It was really cool, a lot like many of the other drives we've done. We ate, again, at the hotel, and went to bed, again, early.

We woke up very early on Friday (Seriously?! How many days am I going to have to do this?!) to head back home (For a detailed report of this, read Wednesday's entry backwards.) At night, we went out with Karina and Daniel and Karina's mom.

We hung out more with them Saturday afternoon at their quincho with some friends. After that, we went to Chiara's birthday party. She had friends there, but I didn't see them much. My time was split between Francisco (who was sick, poor thing.) playing a variant of Bingo and Adri and Fran's friend who engaged in more violent, and exhausting, activities. We got her a toy dog stuffed with makeup and things we got at the last minute (Apparently we weren't the only ones who put presents off, because, as May 1st was Labor Day in Argentina [Actually, for some strange reason, this is because that's the day we used to celebrate it--because of the Haymarket Massacre {Yay, APUSH.}. I don't know why we switched dates and the rest of the world didn't when it was our day to begin with.], almost every shop was closed. Chiara got a lot of makeup from the pharmacy.)

On Sunday we left Salta to Patagonia, where we are now. Daniel lent us his car to drive to the airport since we are no longer renting our car. We left on a plane to Buenos Aires, and when we got there, we went straight on another one to Bariloche. Bariloche is a ski resort/national park town (Incidentally, it is also where my Argentine classmates are planning to go to celebrate when they finish High School.) on the side of Lake Nahuel Huapi in Nahuel Huapi National Park and not far from the Chilean border. As it turns out, we didn't have to take a day-long drive through the Atacama desert to renew our 90-day visa-free stays. We could have just hopped the border in Bariloche or El Calafate. When we stepped outside the airport and saw the tour bus, it turned out it was not, as promised, wheelchair-accessible. With some effort, Mom was carried onto bus and off again at our hotel. We couldn't go on the tour that night, but a wheelchair-accessible bus was promised for Monday. So we walked around the town. Bariloche (or Geneva might be a better name) is a little city settled by Swiss immigrants made to look like their homeland. The city center is wooden and the main street is a little one lined with little shops selling chocolate. It looks out on Nahuel Huapi Lake, so we walked down to the lake after walking around the town, and we saw a skating rink over the water. Someone (Maggie...) suggested we should go skating. So we did. Dad got frustrated quickly not being able to find out the exact formula for skating correctly (Pshh... What a mathematician.), but Maggie and I lasted longer. That was my first time skating ever, and I showed it. Funny that my first time skating wasn't in the Land of Ten Thousand Frozen Lakes, but with our Latin American neighbors to the South. We ate at a restaurant in the town Sunday night, and went to bed.

Our tour group didn't bring a wheelchair-accessible bus on Monday morning. After an argument between Dad and the tour guide, we just settled on renting a car ourselves and not worrying about the tour group. So we went on a drive to the North side of the lake and took the boat ride we had been trying to organize with them from there to Arrayanes National Park. An arrayan in a type of tree that exists in only two forests in the world: the one we went to, and one on an island in Nahuel Huapi lake. But you've probably seen one anyway. This is the forest Bambi lived in. The trees are pretty cool. Figuratively and literally. After that little excursion onto the lake, we drove back to Bariloche and stayed at the hotel until dinner, when went out and ate Italian.

On Tuesday we drove the "Tronador" route up towards the mountains. (Other than to sound like something out of "Homestarrunner", I have no idea why they would name it that.) It is just what one would expect from a route up to the mountains from a lake: a long dirt road with many views of both. At the top, though, there is a glacier. It's almost disappeared in recent years because of heating, but you can still see a little bit behind a mountain. Apparently you can hear rumbling if you catch the top of the road under the mountains at the right time. And we did. I, at least, heard a rumble from up above that sounded like thunder. Sadly, I can't tell you why it rumbles. I have no idea. We came back to the town and ate out again on our last night in Bariloche.

On Wednesday we flew to El Calafate, even further South. El Calafate is one of the most Southerly towns in the world. It's almost at the tip of the continent. El Calafate is named for a berry that grows here. Wikipedia's translation for "calafate" is "Magellan barberry". If that makes any sense to you, you know far more about botany than I do. I'll just keep calling it "calafate". Anyway, on our first day here, we (surprise, surprise) discovered that Mom couldn't get into the handicap-accessible bus, so they (quite helpfully, I'll admit) ordered a private car for the four of us. Eventually we made it to our hotel and checked in. We went to town for a while. It's sort of like Bariloche, but smaller. And then we came to the hotel and ate there.

On Thursday we took our car (and chauffeur) to Perito Moreno glacier. WOW. That is one impressive glacier. It is, first of all, gigantic. Gigantic and blue. Sadly, Mom had to stay with our driver while Maggie and Dad and I went on a walk to look at it. The glacier is at the top of Argentine Lake (the biggest lake in the country) overlooking it. Perito Moreno is one of the most visited glaciers in the world (and it's not hard to see why!) and it is larger than the city of Buenos Aires (a city of 12 million). It is just like mountain glaciers look in pictures: it's an enormous piece of jagged ice crammed between two mountains. It is white with a blue tint, and small bits are always falling off. It's too big to even see the whole thing at one time, so we took a walk from on end to the other, where Mom and driver met us. And on the way a huge chunk of ice (maybe 5 feet by 40 feet by 80 feet) broke off the glacier and crashed into the water below it. It was sooooo cool!! (Again, figuratively and literally.) And Mom even got to see it, eventually. On the way back, we saw a boat cruise up to the glacier that Mom was able to get on. So we all four got to get up close and personal to the glacier. It was amazing.

And today, we are checking out of our hotel and we are going to go back to Salta on a plane soon.

Day 78

Well, the Kennedies have come and gone, and now we're looking at the end of the trip coming up already. In a few weeks, we're getting on a plane headed to Atlanta, Georgia. And before that we are going to Patagonia and possibly Bolivia (fingers crossed!). I will be happy to see all my friends again in Minnesota, but right now I'm more sad than happy that I wont be seeing my friends here again for a long, long time (scary thought: some of the people here I will probably never see again). School has ended and now I wont see most of the people in my school again. That's a sad thought.

Well anyway, I apologize for, for the umpteenth time, being slow on my blog. This time I was caught up with the Kennedies visiting and school ending. The day before they got here, Tuesday, was Francisco's 7th birthday party. We bought him a toy--some sort of Transformer-like thing--at the toy store in the mall. Present at this get-together were Francisco and his immediate family, his grandparents, one of his friends, and us. Francisco had a birthday party with all of his friends on the weekend. The thirteen of us (Even Pablo got off the computer to celebrate his brother's birthday--but don't tell him I said that) gathered around the dining room table most of the night with 7-year-old Francisco at the head, smiling behind his cake. It was fun (despite the lack of caterers and speaker systems!). We didn't stay any later than very-late-for-a-school-night(-by-our-standards) because we all had school in the morning. As we were leaving, Nestor and Nico arrived, late, as usual.

Maggie, by this point, has been counting down the days she has to stay in Belgrano (and I get to keep going and seeing friends). On Wednesday it looked like two-and-a-half more weeks. With so little time left, I have sort-of given up on putting effort into anything school-related/paying attention in school. So I don't really have much to say about my school subjects, except for English. I have stories. In English on Wednesday (or possibly Thursday, I don't remember), we were studying conditional sentences ("If this, then this"). One girl wrote on the board, "If my family haven't money, they won't have to buy the food." When she went to correct the sentences, she asked someone what was wrong with the sentence, but they couldn't answer. So she picked up the chalk, crossed out the word "the", and moved on to the next sentence. Wait, wait, wait. What about that glaring error related to the topic at hand which makes the sentence almost incomprehensible? And then later, she wrote herself on the board, "If I were a marcian (No capital, no T), I would go to the space." From behind me, "Profe? Shouldn't it be 'go to space'?" Profe rattled off some linguistic jargon, and Juli relented. I turned around and said so the teacher couldn't hear "She's wrong." Juli was elated. She told a dozen people, who all agreed our teacher doesn't speak well (They all say, "That's not English she's speaking, it's German!). The sad thing about that is that I know that, as much as I like to laugh at my teacher's knowledge of English, there are probably teachers at home who have taught me Spanish worse than that (On a related note, I had a great idea while I was making notes to myself of what to write in my blog: there are probably approximately the same number of English teachers in Argentina as Spanish teachers in the US, why not just have them trade places and solve both language problems? If only I were president of the world, everything would be so much better.)

Back to the real world, in which I, sadly, do not hold any positions of extreme power, Jay and Freda and Jack and Max came! Yaaay! They caught an earlier flight than their evening one, so we saw them in the afternoon. We walked around for a while downtown, looking at both historic churches, a museum with art, and the peatonal (pedestrian mall), and we ate empanadas at the MAAM restaurant. Then we went back to our house for the rest of the night.

Thursday I skipped gym for the second time that week, and instead hung out with the Kennedies downtown. We walked around Plaza 9 de Julio for a few hours, many spent in MAAM, the Museum of High Altitude Archeology (The acronym doesn't really work in English. MHAA...). Then we, or I, took the Kennedies on the teleferico, the cable car, up to San Bernardo hill while Dad drove up Mom and Max (Maggie was at dance). We looked out on the city again, and then rode back down and went home. We had to make multiple trips to the bread store to fill up Kennedies, both of the Haunsperger and of the French varieties, not used to eating so late. And at night, we went to Mercedes's and everyone met each other and, after some hesitation, a bilingual game of jumper-cables and running around was on.

We had no school Friday. Friday was the anniversary of Salta's founding. So we slept in. In the afternoon, we went downtown, and then to San Lorenzo (Remember the duende story? Maybe not. It's a getaway little town outside the city. Friday afternoon I went on my first ever horseback ride. It was fun. The horses went slowly, so I enjoyed it. We, Maggie, Freda, the guide, and I rode horses along the hills to some spectacular views of the city below us. It was a good first horse-experience. After our hour horse ride, we went to the mall, and then at night we went to a peña, the same one Mom, Dad, and I went to one of our first days. Max and I both fell asleep at our table by the end.

On the weekend, we took another two-day trip to Tolombon, this time with the Kennedies and Karina and Daniel and Karina's mom. To fit us all in two cars, Dad rented an embarrassingly enormous van that we took, along with Daniel's car through the quebrada to Tolombon. We stopped at all the stops. The goat place. The empanada shop, which was closed. The Devil's Throat, which we decided to come back to. The slab of rock shaped exactly like a toad. The "Three Crosses" viewpoint. Finally we arrived to Tolombon. We lunched, late, in Cafayate, the bigger town that Tolombon is next to. Jay, Jack, Max, and I snuck off and had ice cream. The late-afternoon-early-evening we spent in the pool. In the evening, we took a tour of a winery. It was short. Our tourguide had interesting English speech mannerisms (Mmm? Mmm? Mmm.) that we enjoyed. I had a second first at the winery: my first wine-tasting, which is illegal here, too, but nobody heeds the law. I sipped four wines. One was actually pretty tasty, but the others were "feos" in my opinion. We ate dinner at the hotel all 13 of us, and then one by one, headed to bed.

The last day of the week started with a dip in the pool, then Dad and I tried to hike over to the mountains we could see right near our hotel, but it ended up all being blocked off. We had an amazing lunch under the trees at a big table, with men asado-ing right next to us. In the afternoon we headed home. We stopped at the Garganta del Diablo on the way back, and we walked up it. That thing is really cool. We stopped once more at the goat place, and then headed straight home.

Monday we skipped. Maggie and I played hookie and instead we took a long car ride to Salinas Grandes with the French Kennedies in our gigantic van. Last time we went there I didn't give a good enough description, so now I'll put in all the flowery language the salt flats deserve. The last part of the drive takes you through all the mountains and valleys of Purmamarca and that area. Lots of pretty pictures. The Salinas Grandes are in the "puna" part of Jujuy, which is the high desert part. The road wind up mountains and goes through and over them. When you reach the summit of the road, you can see the salt flat down ahead. The unexpecting tourist will think they are looking at a lake, because the flats shine like water. But no. He is in for something much cooler than that. With eyes fixed on the body that he only realizes isn't water when he sees a road and cars driving on it, he stops staring only once he's down the far side of the mountain and he sees something moving out his side window. It takes a second to see the strange, tawny creature against the strange, tawny landscape, but that animal is a vicuña, a relative of the llama that is a little smaller and has a longer, slimmer neck than its cousin. The luckiest of tourists, as the Kennedies just so happened to be this past Monday, will see in addition to vicuñas, donkeys (We saw babies! They were so cute!) and rheas (The South American cousins of ostriches). After that colorful display of fauna, a blazingly white desert lays out through the front windshield of our Goliath. There are mountains in every direction, but we are in the altiplano, the high plains. It's flat all around us. Outside our windows, the scenery changes very suddenly from a Southwestern-style desert to a landscape from the moon. The road that is built over the salt flats is simply a ridge running straight through them, which we drove across. In the middle of the flat is a store, made of salt, that sells salt-related souvenirs. The salt in the ground, I should explain, is solid, as if we were tiny gnats walking across a cube of salt. And it's tessellated. The ground is made of hexagons and pentagons of salt. After a stop at the souvenir store, which wasn't even entered except to use the bathroom, the van rolls on off the road onto a path over the salt further out, where it finally stops at its destination. The salt on the ground is sharp. I would have thought it would be smooth, but it is jagged and it hurts to touch. It tastes, if you were wondering, like regular table salt. And it is mined (Sadly, because that means it is disappearing.). It is mined by using some sort of machine to take out huge slabs of salt at a time, which leave rectangular pools which fill up with water. Several dozen photos later, the van packs up and turns its back to the white salt flat to head back up the mountain. We got home late, and it's not hard to imagine why we stayed longer than we expected. Early the next morning, Jay, Freda, Jack, and Max, left Salta. I think they went to Iguazú Falls and then to Buenos Aires, but don't quote me on that.

In history Tuesday, we watched Gandhi (apparently in Northfield they watched the same movie the same week), and the teacher Maggie hates so much announced she was retiring just as we were leaving. Besides that, not much notable. It was an early day (but my last one!) and a culture day (but my second-to-last one!), but it wasn't too bad. I did some hanging out with people. Gym was basically the same as always. I didn't understand what the rules were until we were most of the way through it. Tuesday night, though, was when Mom and Dad told me they had set the date and that we would be leaving on Friday. I announced this via facebook. At night, Mom and Dad and Maggie went out with Karina and Daniel, but I stayed home.

Wednesday was when everything changed for me in school. Suddenly I was, again, the center of attention for my last three days. I don't think I spent a single break by myself from Wednesday on. Wednesday was my last day of Religion (That wasn't my favorite class, but then again, it probably wasn't my least favorite.) and of English (I never ended up correcting her about anything even though I had pictured myself doing so. I guess that wasn't really realistic considering I barely ever spoke, even in English, in her class.). No more "April, Wednesday 21st". Aw. At night, Mercedes, Chiara, Francisco, Nestor, and Nico came over for dinner. A large game of pillow fighting resulted.

Thursday was my last day of a number of classes. My history teacher came by and kissed me on the cheek in Argentine fashion before she left. I talked to people all day long. I had gym after school, but since it was raining, it was cancelled and I ended up having to walk home.

Friday was my last day. I was sad about this, but Maggie was happy. I had seen on facebook the night before a note sent by Luluu to most of the people in my class saying to bring things for Friday, but I let on that I hadn't seen anything. On the way into school I saw Joche carrying a large plastic bag sideways. After assembly, I walked into the room and saw that a lot of people had brought in things for a party. And, apparently our TIC teacher had already been asked, we had a party first and second hours. There were two homemade cakes, one from Joche and one from Juli and Mer. And there were a lot of other snacks, too. We pushed our desks together and ate and took pictures and toasted and they gave me a card and a present--an Argentine soccer jersey, that I'm wearing as I type this. I liked my party. The rest of the classes went as they always do. My culture teacher told some of the people in my class that I was smiling because I didn't have to see them anymore. I'm not going to miss that class. I had thought that I was going to go to the mall with my class after school, but I didn't. I said long goodbyes to most of my class, and then Dad picked me up and we left. Goodbye Belgranoers! Les extrañaré!

Friday evening we went to Mercedes's. I played with Francisco and Adriano while the adults were at the table, as usual.

We had Chiara all day Saturday and Sunday. Saturday morning we made empanadas with Karina and Daniel and Karina's Mom here at our house. I woke up late so I missed most of the empanada-making, but I was up for the end. After empanadas, we drove up a quebrada a ways, up the way the famous "Train to the Clouds" goes, but we didn't go very far. It was a short, pretty drive. We stopped in Campo Quijano on the way back, the place that the best brand of dulce de leche is named after (It isn't made there, though.). We went to San Lorenzo at Maggie's request (To see a cute waiter! She's such a 13-year-old-girl.). We spent the rest of the day at home with Chiara.

Sunday we cooked the empanadas we made Saturday--empanadas are best if they are given a day of rest. We ate them with some of Karina and Daniel's friends at their "quincho", country house. We stayed there most of the day. Then we came home and dropped off Chiara.

We didn't go to school Monday. Eight weeks is too short. It feels like I just started at Belgrano, and now I'm done. Three or four months would have been better, like we did in Liverpool eight years ago. Instead I slept in and studied AP Stats and AP World. Ugh. I can't remember the last time I said this, but I would have rathered go to school than stay home. I am having serious troubles studying statistics. I just hate doing it and can't force myself to do it for more than half an hour. I don't know how I'm going to take a four-hour test in a few weeks. History is better.

Today I slept in again, and then did some more AP studying. After school, some of my friends, Luluu, Anto, Cami, and Desi, (All girls, a fact some family members enjoyed.) came over here to eat breakfast like yankees. We made farmers' potatoes with onions, peanut butter toast (We have peanut butter now thanks to the French Kennedies!), bacon (Which was the primary reason they wanted to know how yankees ate breakfast), and eggs with ham. For dessert, Mom made brownies. It was quite a feast. I put on my Argentine "remera" for the breakfast. They stayed for a few hours and talked and then we said long goodbyes, even though we have plans to make plans to see each other again. Since then I have finished and posted my blog.

Day 63

Now, look at this! Only two days later! Pretty good, huh? As a side note, is anyone still reading this? I've noticed the comments have disappeared. Well, anyway. I'll write to myself if no one else. Um. So Friday night was Mercedes's birthday as I said.

We showed up half-an-hour late at 9:30, and apologized for our lateness, only to find we were the first people there! Argentines aren't known for their punctuality. But the party was amazingly huge! It was like a wedding! The furniture was all rearranged to create two large spaces inside and out. It surrounded by chairs Mercedes had rented from a birthday service place. On tables were neatly arranged snacks on trays on a fancy tablecloth. And there were people in the kitchen cooking. But more than that--there were waiters who carried snacks on trays! And a huge sound system outside! And a professional videographer! Fifty people came to the birthday. It was gigantic. For a few hours people stood around and talked. I, during this time, went back to the hallway/bedroom area with Adriano (Partly to play with him, but partly to avoid having to greet dozens of people and partly to not be offered food by waiters all night). A few hours after everyone got there, Mercedes gave a little speech about her birthday and blew out the sparkler on her cake. Two and a half hours after the party started, Mercedes's boyfriend Nestor showed up and tricked her into thinking he got her a bag of avocados (To my fellow males, Mom and Maggie have informed me that this is a big no-no boyfriend-wise). A few hours into the party, people, at great urging, began to dance to music. Some people knew how. None of us did. I swayed in the corner while Mom and Dad and Maggie and Chiara danced their hearts out next to me. We danced for a while and played with party whistles and confetti. At two a.m., we were the first to leave. The party didn't end until 5 or 7 (which salteños all seem to manage to say with a straight face)! And while I'm on the topic of birthdays, Chiara's 10th and Francisco's 7th are both coming up while we're here.

We had left early because Sunday morning we left to go to Cachi early in the morning for what the guidebook said was a four-hour-drive each direction. After four hours (and exactly zero minutes!) of sleeping, reading, and looking out the window as the hills rolled by us, we arrived in a village of 4,000 with the first view of snow-capped Andes (As impressive as the Andes are, the snow doesn't compare to what we have all year long [see Day 0].) towering over the valley. It was a beautiful day in Cachi, but we didn't stay long. We first went to the central square for tourist info, then we went to a restaurant and ate really good stuffed peppers and quinoa, and then we went to various vistas around the town and saw views of the beautiful Andes and fields of red peppers drying in the fields. Then we headed back down the stunning drive down valleys and around mountains above a layer of fog toward Salta. We got back around 8.

I had a pretty good day at school today. I'm pretty sure I failed my language test and I have a ton of homework for philosophy, but all in all, it wasn't too bad. We four of us went to an Asian restaurant--our first time since Minnesota--after school, but it was very bad.

In other news, four weeks from today, we leave Salta. It's weird to think this is coming to an end. It's gone by so quickly. Also, Aunt Freda and Uncle Jay and Jack and Max are visiting Salta on Wednesday! Jack, if you're reading this, we already have a girlfriend ready for you. She's only nine, but she'll be ten soon and she knows you're coming and wants to meet you all.

Day 61

Tuesday, my early day, started with language, and was followed by math. After that is history. I (and Maggie) have a new history teacher since last week. Apparently the teacher we had had for the first four weeks was just a substitute for this teacher. The first thing I noticed about her was that she wears an incredible amount of purple eyeshadow (It goes all the way up to her eyebrows! And it's bright purple!). And the next thing was that, of all my teachers, she is the most interested in me. And that's not really a good thing. I got an interview the first day (Where in the US are you from? Is it really cold there? Are you related to John Kennedy?). And then another on the second. Not only that, but she asked me (twice) to define "imperialism" (for the perspective of someone from an imperialist power, I'm guessing) and several other questions, and she asked me if I understood after every point she made to the class. Ahh. Too much attention for me. We got a take-home test due Thursday, but when she came over to explain it to me, she took half of my test back to her desk with her. So I didn't have it to do my homework. Oh, well. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. After that is culture. For Tuesday's class, we were (apparently) supposed to have had researched a "counterculture" and be ready to present it to the class. She went though everyone in the class, and at the very end of the hour (literally as the bell was ringing) she called on me (sadly the bell did not save me; she had the class stay until I answered), and I told her I didn't have it. She said to bring it in for Friday or "I'd get a big, fat '1' " (our 'F'). Well, it have been worse. I had gym after school. I don't really think I like gym so far, partly because we keep playing different games and it takes me most of the hour to figure out what's going on. Tuesday night we went out with Karina and Daniel to Jack's. I (in a lemon mood and not, as everyone else always seems to be, in a beef mood) ordered lemonade and lemon chicken. It was the first lemonade I've had here (which is really saying something; I normally drink two or three glasses a day). It was pretty good. The chicken was good too. For desert I had (I didn't know this when I ordered it) a gigantic ice cream sundae with wafers and corn flakes in it. (While I'm talking about deserts, I should mention a recent find: at the bakery we go to often to buy little cookies, we found a cookie that is just a thin biscuit, with an two-inch-thick level of dulce de leche covered in chocolate. Yum. [Side note: as I was writing that parenthetical, I reached into a bakery bag to see if there were any left. Sadly there were none.])

Wednesday I had econ (My teacher is finally back after about three weeks), then English, then religion (I had to give a presentation with my group, but I didn't know what we were presenting, so I faked ignorance [I've found this to be very helpful in these situations. A little "I no speaks Spanish" goes a long way.].). In TIC we went back up to the computer lab, and I, again copied answers (This time, though, everyone else was copying too). I'm not sure why we were in the computer lab, because we never used the computers. We didn't do anything Wednesday evening. Well, I did a fair amount of worrying about my history test due the next day.

But it was Ok. After English, my history teacher asked whether I had the test, and I said no, and explained. So she had me borrow Juli's test and said to turn it in Tuesday. She also had Juli (or maybe Juli did of own accord) correct my test. There were surprisingly few errors (especially for having finished it in the 15 minutes before class). I'm going to go back in time now to first hour. Thursday was picture day. When I got to school, instead of wearing our regular gray uniforms that look like lab coats, almost everyone was wearing a dark blue vest. I guess we were supposed to wear something different today. Oops. I sort of stood by the side not knowing what to do while my class was getting ready to pose for a group picture. My preceptor (The administrator who runs everything related to my class.) saw me and told some boy in another class to lend me his vest. So I got that done and returned his vest and put on my lab coat. And then it was individual picture time. But I managed not to be seen while the photographer went through people to take their picture. Ok, now back to my surprisingly-good history class

My teacher was actually impressed with my history test. She gave me a thumbs up, and I was feeling pretty good about myself (and my procrastination abilities). And then the day took a turn for the worse from which it did not recover. I haven't said yet, that Maggie absolutely hates this new teacher. She is trying to help our Spanish by singling the two of us out in class (where all the other teachers either treat us the same or give us different homework [such as my philosophy teacher]), but this singling out is just too much for Maggie (and I'm not exactly loving it). She came home really upset one day saying that the teacher had made her read aloud to the class two whole pages of her work, and then corrected her grammatical errors. It's not exactly surprising, then, that she wanted me to talk, in Spanish, about imperialism. And then she asked whether the United States was being imperialist in Iraq. Erm... Yes seemed like the correct answer, so that's the one I chose. And then, Can you think of other examples of your country's imperialism? I stuttered and started for a while. Are there other ways your country is imperialist? You can tell us your real opinion, we won't judge you. Well, I don't know! Maybe... How about your war over the Falklands? Isn't that imperialist, too? But again, "yes" seemed to be the opinion of the other 35 people listening to my words, so I chose it again. Ok. We think so, too. (You think the country I come from is trying to create an empire out smaller, poorer states like yours? Thanks, that's comforting.) I was shaking at the end of this interrogation. She wasn't mean, just a little, um, uncomfortingly (Yes, that is a word.) curious about my political views. There was also, "Are you a Democrat or a Republican and which is your state?" hidden in there, which was a much better question in my opinion. "Demócrata y demócrata".

I got another quite-personal questioning in economics, this time about money. This one wasn't anything I was so adverse to answering. Are you upper class, middle class, or lower class? (Well, Ok. It wasn't anything I was thrilled to answer.) I said middle class (And I think that's at least close to true. I don't know. I don't pay any attention to family finances.). Are you well-off? Does your family go on trips often? Does your family have a car? Yes, yes ("He's been to China, profe!"), and yes (I didn't mention that our "car" was actually two mini-vans). Those aren't things Argentina's middle class can afford, she explained. And then she moved on to other things. I was begging my philosophy teacher in my head not to say anything to me in class (Are philosophers much richer in the United States? Do you feel bad about your philosophers imposing their philosophies on other countries like Argentina? In what other ways is your country horrible?), but luckily she didn't. The one good thing about being singled out all day was that my classmates remembered that I was in their class. Before, people had started to, well, not ignore me; they're very friendly. But I have spent a few breaks sitting on the bench outside the room by myself, or standing a few feet behind a circle of people hoping they would invite me to talk with them (not that I would understand everything they said anyway). But now, I was never without someone to talk (or not talk) to, like on the first day. I was very happy.

I went home and took a long nap after school. But then I had to get up for gym. Oh boy. The first activity was just taking balls and throwing them at the other people (Coach: "two pesos to whoever hits Oso's head!" No one ended up winning this, though there were tries.). I partook as minimally as possible (Kennedy! Get animated! Throw that ball at somebody!), and ended up not throwing any balls at anyone. The second game was to tag every person on the opposite team while they were confined to a rectangle marked by orange cones (I was lucky enough to get tagged early.). After gym, I worked on homework for a while (Or, at least, I opened up my books and tried to keep concentrated), and later we had an asado at our house. Mercedes and Chiara, and Nestor and Nico, and Karina and Daniel all came over for dinner. I bailed on the steaks, and had the less meaty option of a hamburger and potato salad (Yes, surprisingly, the less-meat option involved a hamburger. I know I've defined it before, but an asado is just meat. And lots and lots of meat. People here like their meat.) I had a good time making drawings with Maggie and Chiara of "Paco" the goat (You probably don't remember us inventing him weeks ago on the drive back from Tolombon.) being killed by Maggie or Chiara. But I was exhausted (I'm always tired at dinnertime. One thing I can't wait to go back to is the normal mealtimes.), so I snuck away and went to bed.

At this point I still hadn't researched a counterculture, so I got up early to do that. After some deliberation (I didn't want to choose a US counterculture because that would just be Amerocentric of me, but I couldn't find one non-US-related.), I chose the hippies and wrote a little page (direct from Wikipedia, and translated by me) about them. In TIC, we took a test I hadn't known about. I never know when it's kosher to use notes, because sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. I used my notes, and he didn't stop me. The questions were all questions we had answered in classwork on Wednesday, but it turns out my group had #3 wrong (Sorry, Martín, for the wrong answer!). In stats we had another test I was unaware of. This I didn't need notes for, though (Beginning-of-the-year stats? I did that in September.). Except that I forgot to find the standard deviation, and I just made up answers to things like "What are the steps in the Statistical Process?" that other kids had memorized. Oh well.

In culture, she had me read what I had researched. I made it short. I summed up the first half-page, and just ignored what I had written about hippies in other countries (which may not have been the smartest thing to do, given what she thinks about me). When I was done, I looked up at her. She was standing right in front of me. She didn't react to me stopping reading. A few second went by and then Juli behind me said, "Sam, are you done?" "Yes, I'm done." We both looked at the teacher again, but she was still silent and looking at me. "Um. Ok, how about some applause for Sam?" offered Juli, and a few people started clapping, but then the teacher took her eyes off me and stopped them. "Why are you giving special treatment? Most of you couldn't even hear what he said. I had to stand this close to hear him. How do you know whether what he said was good?" And then the applause stopped. Later in the class, she had been talking about something else and said "I treat all my students equally with respect." Someone in the back said, "What about Sam?" Thank you, person in the back!! But she just ignored that. At the end of class, she called out everyone's grades so they could write them in their gradebooks (I guess there's no FERPA here!). Most of the grades between 7 and 9 out of 10, and I don't think any were below 6. I am, because I enrolled late, at the end of the otherwise-alphabetic list the teachers have. "Trundo, 7." she called (I changed some letters in the name so not to release it on the internet). "Zafaz, 8. Kennedy." Wait, there was a period after that. She was supposed to say a number. Like "4" or "2". Then she came around to sign what we wrote. When she got to me, she saw I didn't have anything written, and then she wrote in the date, and my score and signed it. I tried to crane my neck to see what number she had written. My book said "8 (ocho)". I was shocked. Then she put her hand on my shoulder, pointed to the number 8, and said in slow Spanish, "This is your score. Your presentation was very good." Wait, what!?! What happened to that teacher who hated me and said all those things about me!?! Then walked on to sign other gradebooks and someone collected mine and put in the box while I sat in stunned silence for the rest of the hour.

I think I've been too harsh on my school so far. I've only focused on the things my culture and history teachers have said to make me feel uncomfortable and unliked. But my other classes really aren't that bad. Literature was actually pretty enjoyable. We were studying for a test on Monday, and all I had to do was copy what the teacher said, and I could listen to the conversations around me. Friday night we went to a travel agent to see about going to Patagonia (where Mom really wants to visit) and Bolivia (where I really want to visit). She's looking into both.

And today is Saturday. I slept in late today (Yay!) (Which meant I missed some sort of graduating-class trip to somewhere, but I wasn't really sure on the details of it, and I haven't yet told Mom and Dad anyway [this blog is going to be the way they find out].). Since then I've been mostly working on homework and this blog, actually. Tonight we are going to go to Mercedes's birthday party.

Day 56

Ok. I'll be honest. I'm really tired of this blog. I was never exactly thrilled, but there was a point where I didn't mind. Now, it's just tiring remembering everything I did and putting it into a blog. But don't worry. The magic of English high school graduation requirements will keep this blog going, if infrequently.

Thursday, I had English. My English teacher definitely favors me. Well, not so much favors, as is nice to more than the rest. Next history, then economics. For two weeks now, my econ teacher has been gone. And lastly, philosophy. She assigned three pages of translation for the weekend. Just for me.

Viernes (see how I'm just slipping the español into my words?) started with Technology of Information and Communication. For the umpteenth time, he dictated and we copied. Stats test third/fourth hour. I don't think it went too badly (Numbers are the same in English and Spanish, after all.). I have decided just to take advantage of not understanding all of what my culture teacher says. I copied down what was on the board about "counterculture". Every day so far, culture class has followed basically the same pattern: there's no work, the teacher just has a lecture/discussion. She starts off the lecture, then she starts calling on students for opinions, and then in evolves into an argument between teacher and pupils, with the teacher eventually just giving the students her opinion. My last class was language, and then I came home. That night, we went to Mercedes's house, with Nestor and Nestor's friend Eduardo. I can't remember whether I've mentioned Eduardo before. Dad and Maggie met him at a photocopy shop. He heard them talking English and (as he speaks fluent English) introduced himself. It turns out he is friends with Nestor. Mom and I met him on Friday. Now here is the weird part: he is Argentine and had only once visited the United States, but he had a Texan accent. Apparently he speaks English only with his Texan friends. Nestor made "puchero", a boiled meal. Some of the things, I have to admit, might have been a little too strange for me (bone marrow?), but it was not a bad dinner. We stayed extremely late, as always.

Saturday we went to the salt flats of Jujuy. It's a long drive, but it was worth it. The salt flats are just simply a flat desert made of sand that stretches for miles around. And they are amazing. I don't how else to describe it. I feel like the salt flats were striking enough to deserve a long paragraph, but that's really all it was--which is what made it that cool. For a long ways around, it's completely flat, and in the distance, you can see the Andes mountains. The sand is bright white, so much so that you need sunglasses to see. The landscape is completely devoid of plants and animals--I'll say it again, there is nothing but salt. It is the strangest, most amazing landscape. On the way back we saw vicuñas, which are basically long-necked llamas.

Sunday we had dinner with Karina and Daniel and friends, and then we went to their friends Lily and Carlos's house for a while.

Monday after school we did nothing. We stayed home all night and ate in.

Tuesday we went to watch Maggie dance at her studio (She looks pretty much the same as she does at home.), and then we looked at some churches downtown (They were very beautiful, but we didn't stay long because it was Easter Tuesday and there were things going on.), and we went to a restaurant for dinner.

Wednesday was the last day before Easter break. In TIC the last hour, Noel asked me to write something on his binder ("Just write whatever"). He had taught me the word "vago" a few weeks earlier, which I think means just "dude", so I wrote on his binder, "¡Hi Noel! ¿How are you?" Then I crossed out "How are you" and wrote "Oh, no. I mean, ¿What's up, vago?" I didn't think it was too original, but he did. By the end of the class, everyone had been shown or told what I had written.

Thursday we made empanadas at Carlos and Lily's. This took all day. We made dough, chopped meat and potatoes and onions, cooked the filling, then rolled out the dough, and tried (and failed, for the most part) to twirl the filling into the dough like they do here. That night we ate the empanadas at the house of another friend of Karina and Daniel's.

Friday evening we went to Mercedes's house and ate tacos that Mom and Dad had made. The people there (some of them anyway) had never had tacos! It's weird to think about from our norte-americano perspective. I think we (or I, I shouldn't generalize) think of Mexican food as basically what everyone South of us eats, but that's not true at all. Mexican food is much more foreign to them than to us.

Saturday again we went to Mercedes's with (as usual) her four kids and Nestor. We each brought different dishes this time.

Sunday we drove South to Cachi where you can see the Andes (Apparently the mountains we can see are really just the foothills!). Well, not quite. We tried to. But it was so foggy we ended up turning around. We went out to dinner again with Karina and Daniel and Lily and Carlos.

Today, finally. School is back on. Nothing exciting to report, though. We only stayed home after school.

Ok, I'm sorry about the one-sentence days. But there were just some days I have nothing to say about (And I'm really tired of being so far behind on this blog).

The days are ticking away quickly now. Strange and sad as it seems, we're planning our return now. Maggie has been begging for weeks to be let out of school a week early, and it looks like it might possibly happen now. But no promises, of course. I have been constantly reminding myself that I have to study AP Statistics, but I am incredibly far behind. I'm actually ahead of my classmates in AP World History, but I'm having some troubles forcing myself to do math. Oh well. Maggie is boy crazy. This is nothing new, of course. She's been boy crazy for a while, but it's gotten worse now that the boys are tanned, have accents, and play soccer (Evidently, playing soccer automatically make you more attractive. Maybe I shouldn't have quit my little 4th grade league). There was one boy who smiled and waved at her twice, and she has not stopped talking about it. Completely unrelated-ly, Maggie's interest in taking evening walks by the park has spiked since we've been here.

Day 44

Friday night, still fuming at my ridiculous teacher, I had two plans. One was with school friends to go to a dance or something, and the other was to go to Mercedes's house with Mom and Dad and Maggie. I ended up going to Mercedes's because my friends didn't call. I don't know whether I was supposed to meet them somewhere or if they were going to my house, or what. But I ended up playing hide-in-the-dark with Adriano and Francisco and Chiara and truco with Mercedes and Nestor and Mom and Dad. Have I mentioned truco before? Truco is an Argentine trick-taking card game involving sly gestures to your teammates and a code of signals you aren't supposed to let anyone else see. We came home late and exhausted.

Saturday was a sleep-in day. We left the house to go to the mall, but ended up not going. Instead Maggie and I took a cable car, a "teleferico", to the top of San Bernardo hill at the edge of the city. Karina and Daniel had already taken us here, but we hadn't gone on the cable car. That was cool. We drove back down with Mom and Dad and stopped at a statue of War of Independence hero General Güemes (gway-mace). We went downtown to the bank, and then we stopped to eat hot dogs. Maggie got a "Pancho (Spanish for hot dog) with a poncho (Spanish for poncho)", which was a hot dog covered in a layer of cheese (at least it looked like cheese...). I was happy with my hamburger. After that, we looked at hotels for Aunt Freda and Uncle Jay and Jack and Max, who are now coming to visit us! Yay!! The Victorian and the Hotel Salta both had rooms. Then, we went to the mall to look for peanut butter and unsweetened chocolate. But the supermarket at the mall, like the entire city, apparently, doesn't have those. So no peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for us. Maggie went to a birthday party of a friend Saturday night. As far as I know, she liked it.

Sunday (The end of the weekend already? How does it go by so fast?) we lazed around in the morning (Or, what morning I was awake for, anyway), and then we went to Karina and Daniel's asado house in the country (As they explained, that's basically what country houses are for: barbecue). Many of their other friends were there, some of whom we had met before. I spent a good part of my time in the pool, after asado lunch. I even did a little homework from the pool. And I got a horrible sunburn. Relatively speaking, we got home early Sunday night. I finished up my homework and then went to bed. Not ready for another 7 a.m. morning.

But it came anyway. Funny how it always does. Math. Break. Spanish. Break. Philosophy. Break. More philosophy. Home. Tried to take a nap. Couldn't fall asleep. Facebook instead (my solution to many problems). Eventually did my homework. Tried to start my blog. Ended up on facebook, again. Read. Dinner. Went to bed. Tuesday.

Tuesday is an early morning. Which, combined with the fact that I have both culture and gym, makes it my least favorite day of the week. Spanish. Math. History. In culture, I kept my head down and desperately hoped there would be no anti-yankee rants today. There weren't. Yes. No seventh hour. I got out of school early. Since today, Wednesday, is a national holiday (It's national day of remembrance. Of what, I don't recall. As long as I get school off, I'm happy.), I barely went home at all. I first went to the mall with Luluu and Anto and someone who's name I don't know. We ate McDonald's (Their choice, not mine. But maybe they think I love McDonald's because it comes from the same country I do.). Then they were going to go back to school to go to gym, and I was going to call home from there. But just outside of McDonald's, we saw Tomás and Facundo (His name is usually shortened to the first three or four letters, but with so many English-speakers reading this, I think I'll just leave it seven) going the opposite direction. So I went with them instead. We went a few blocks past the mall to a hamburger stand, where we met three other people I didn't know. They all had hot dogs and lomitos, but I had nothing since I had just had McDonald's. Also, 2/3 of the table was smoking the entire time. 1/6 of the table was coughing the entire time. Tomás's Mom (thank you!) gave me a ride home because Dad was too busy to come pick me up. And right when I got home, I had to change out of my school uniform and into my blindingly white gym uniform. At five, gym started. We walked onto the field and I got handed a green jersey. But there was no explaining of the rules, as I was expecting. Instead there were 15 or 20 boys who were really into handball, and one who had no idea why there were four nets and teams of eight rather than three walls and teams of one. "Kennedy! Run! Catch the ball!" Um, coach? What do I do with the ball when I catch it? Luckily for me, the coach only said that once, because then my team noticed me and started throwing me the ball even if I wasn't waving my arms. When I got it, I immediately threw it to another player in a green jersey like mine. And that was how it went. I tried to stay close to other green players so that I wouldn't have to block or intercept. And at six, I was thanking God I didn't have to pretend I knew how to play this strange sport anymore. I was the first one out of the building and I hopped right into Dad's car so we could get out of there.

A few hours went by. Again I had two plans for the evening. Mom and Dad invited over for dinner Mercedes and Nestor and kids (Three kids came. Two stayed at home.) and Karina (Daniel was out of town.). I was also invited to a hamburger-party-like-thing out somewhere. And I went. In the middle of dinner here, Paau and Mer picked me up and took me to a--well, I guess we would call it a club. When they finish high school (my class will in a year and a half), Argentines go on big trips with their graduating class. They were talking about a ski resort in Patagonia and even Disneyworld in Orlando. And travel agencies ingratiate the students. "Snow" travel encouraged us (Or, I should say, "them". I'm not going.) to go to Bariloche through Snow when they graduate. When Paau and Mer showed up at my door in high heels and dresses, I was a little worried that a T-shirt and shorts would be too dressed down. But when I got there, everyone else was dressed like me. It was a little weird to see people I'd never seen outside of uniform in regular clothes. We, about fifty of us, were seated around a long table in a badly-lit room that wouldn't have fit anyone else. When we got there, everyone applauded, and I kind of think it was for me, because everyone was looking at me. I'm not really sure why, though. I sat down in an empty chair at the of the table and was asked by my classmates if I wanted anything. I said no, but they gave me a Coke and some pizza anyway. The pizza was definitely the worst slice of pizza I've ever had in my life. But I might have been the only one sober enough to taste it. Everyone else (as far as I could tell, that's not even an exaggeration) drank beer. For, I believe, the first time in my life, I was pressured to drink. But I stayed dry the whole time. At one point when some guys offered me a drink, someone, I don't remember who, told me not to eat or drink anything from them. I smiled and said, no, I wouldn't. But she didn't smile. "No, really. Don't accept anything." And she was right. Later that night they offered me unprocessed cocaine. Another first: being offered drugs. Actually, even seeing drugs. Aside from the excessive lawlessness (that is a lot to put aside), I had fairly good time. I just talked to people and posed for pictures. There was no dancing or the promised hamburgers. It only lasted an hour, which I was kind of happy about after being cornered by a bunch of 15-year-olds offering me cocaine. Speaking of lawlessness, I and seven other teenagers crammed into a car without working seatbelts and driven by a kid who may or may not have real license. I was a little glad I was the first one to be dropped off. When I got home, The five adults were still talking at the table, Maggie and Chiara were asleep on Maggie's trundle bed, and Nico and Pablo were on Mom and Dad's bed, one asleep, one watch TV. I told them all where I had just been for a while, and then after that the conversation turned to other things. After a while Karina left, and then I went to bed (at three) while Mercedes and Nestor were still here. I woke up at 2:30 p.m. (good thing I had the day off). From 6:30 to 7:30 we went to Mercedes's and talked/played for a while, and then picked Maggie up from a birthday party and came home.

Sadly, this vacation was only one day long, so I have to go do homework and go to bed now. But before I go, I'm going to do something I haven't before (a radical new approach to blogging!): I'm going to ask a question (You don't really have to answer it. It's mostly rhetorical. [I mean, you can answer it if you want to.]). Is Argentina a third world country? If you've been keeping up on this blog, then you've already read pages and pages about Argentina (more of my sarcastic writing than you need in a lifetime), so your guess is about as good as mine. I don't really know. In some ways it seems like it is, and in others not. And with that intriguing and stimulating thought, I'll log off.

Day 39

I had culture today. So you already know it was not a good day. TIC and Stats passed by at a glacial pace. One of the breaks I was in the room, and the other I was outside with people. And then came culture. She started off by going over the homework I didn't understand, but I was lucky enough not to be called on. Then she talked about what made Argentina Argentina. The other people in my class mentioned dulce de leche and empanadas and grilled meat. One of the girls in my class suggested asking me what I thought of when I thought of Argentina. So, even though I had understood the question, Juli, who sits behind me, translated the question into English and asked if I knew the ball-point pen was invented in Argentina (I didn't). But I didn't really have anything to add to the list, and the teacher was having a discussion with the rest of the class, so I didn't really say anything. Then Juli told the teacher this. I almost added something like "gauchos" or "tango" while she was speaking. I didn't realize that she was going to tell the teacher. "That's because North Americans don't even think about Argentina, " my teacher concluded. "We have a concept of the world, but North Americans don't see anything outside of North America. They have no concept of what Argentina is and they don't know anything about the planet outside their country. North Americans don't even think Argentina is a part of America--". I stopped her. "Wait a minute, professor. I may not have known the ball-point pen was invented here, but that doesn't mean I don't have a concept of Argentina. I know that Argentina is the land of gauchos and tango. I know that dulce de leche comes from here, and empanadas, too. I had heard of Patagonia and Iguazú and Buenos Aires before I got here. I had known where Argentina was, what its capital was, what language was spoken, and that it stretches from the Andes mountains to Tierra del Fuego years before I knew I would be coming here. I know that Argentines love soccer and hate Brazil. I know that Argentines eat crazy amounts of beef, and that they smoke like chimneys and drink like fish. I know that thirty years ago your president declared war on Britain over the Falkland Islands. I know that Argentines are just as overly patriotic as yankees, even though they still all wished they lived in France. I know that Argentina has accepted dozens of Nazis as refugees and not let them be tried in international courts. I know that people here are so racist as to shock people in the United States and horribly offend African-Americans. I know that Argentina disappeared and killed tens of thousands of politically active citizens only a few decades ago. And, on top of that, I know that Argentina has a horrible education system. Now, how many people in this room had even heard of Minnesota before I came here?"

Except I didn't say that. The words were in my mouth, ready to be spoken, but, instead, I sat, as always, silent. And I let my teacher tell me I was a hypocrite and a xenophobe and a chauvinist.

Day 38

Ok, I have spent all of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday catching up in this post. So you better appreciate this.

Last Wednesday was day 30, which means I have been here for over a month now. So. A third done. It's gone by fast. So, econ. The teacher checked that we had binders, which I didn't, but luckily I'm not on every class list. English next. Our homework had been to list advantages and disadvantages of different forms of entertainment, but apparently we were supposed to have listed every possible form of entertainment. No one had known that, and she got mad. Teachers. Expect you to know what the homework is without even assigning it. Well, anyway. Then she told to list social problems (Actually, she was more redundant: "bad social problems in society". Every English teacher in the States just winced.) She called on me. I said "crime", even though I was thinking "poor education". Fourth/fifth hour is religion. At one point when she was walking around she asked me my religion. When I shyly answered, she smiled and made a joke. Phew. During one of the breaks, birthday-girl Mer reminded me it was her birthday and asked if I was going. I said yes. So, after school was over I walked to the mall with her and a few other people in my class. When we got to the mall, we met a whole bunch of other people in the food court. I met her family, and then sat at the end of the table with people I knew. We ate (Empanadas for me. Yum.), then left for Mer's house. I went in a taxi with two other boys from my class. I desperately tried to fasten my seatbelt, but it was stuck in the seat. After a while I realized that we would be there before I got it free. So I rode like a salteño. A salteño very much wishing he could buckle himself in. At the house there were fewer than the thirty-or-forty people at the mall. Maybe twenty. (Oh. While I'm on the topic of birthday sizes, Chiara also went to a birthday party on Wednesday that had three hundred people! That's so big it needs to be italicized!) It was a medium-sized house. Maybe slightly smaller than medium by the standards of McMansion country. I was in a bedroom with (almost all) girls from my class, trying to keep up with the conversation. They went on facebook and looked at someone's album named "disgusting". It was pretty disgusting. After a long, gross series of pictures, I went out back where other people were sitting around a table. Again, conversation I didn't really take a part in for trying to understand it. And that was pretty much it. I was one of the last people at the party (partly because Dad took an hour to pick me up when Maggie's playdate's Dad insisted he stay for mate). It was pretty fun. Awkward, yes, but it wasn't too bad of a party. Mer also invited me to a second birthday party on Friday, which I accepted. Wednesday night the four of us went out with Karina and Daniel to "El Monumental" restaurant.

Thursday began with English. That is, March, Thursday 11 began with English. More about bad social problems in society. History, she told us about the book we should buy. Jump to the future--I have my book and was looking through it when I found the paragraph on the US Civil War. And it is pretty funny (At least for someone who just went through AP US History). Here it is:

"In 1860 the president Abraham Lincoln (Already false--Lincoln wasn't president until 1861), who was anti-slavery (False, he didn't come out against slavery until 1862) and represented the interests of the North (Actually true--the only part of this sentence that is), announced his decision to ban slavery (Um. Are you joking?). The Southern states separated and the Northern states considered secession unacceptable (Hey. We did not start that war. They did. It's their fault.). So began the War of Secession (Secession?? You might as well call it "Northern Aggression"), which lasted four years. The North won, and in 1863 (Nope. Try again.) the abolition of slavery was extended to the entire country."

Sigh. And that's how everyone in my class thinks the Civil War happened. Back to the past--econ went fine, and philosophy gave me other homework instead of what the class got. It was to translate two pages about philosophy from English to Spanish. I don't know whether that means she thinks she has to give me other homework or if she just wanted to see how good my Spanish was. Thursday night we went out to the movies with Mercedes, Pablo, Chiara, Francisco, and Adriano. We watched Alice in Wonderland, "Alicia en el País de Maravillas". It was dubbed so that Francisco and Adriano could understand, but that also meant we only understood varying amounts. It was very fun, though, to go out with them to see the movie (and Tim Burton made a pretty nice movie, if he did ignore the original plotline.)

Friday was supposed to be birthday-party time for me, but it ended up not being. Anyway, first school. "TIC", then stats. I was supposed to have 10 pesos brought in for this class, but I didn't have it. Luckily, I wasn't on his class list. I'll bring it in next week. Culture was another lecture-day. But it was all spoken, no board use. I have yet to write a single word in my notebook about this class. In Spanish we read some quotes from authors about how great literature is. I think it's universal: literature teachers are most obsessed with how great their subject is, closely followed by math and science teachers, with teachers of vague humanities (any class that has "communication" in the title, basically) at the bottom. She's nice, though. It was a good class. Weekend. Finally. Maggie and I went to the mall and watched the first movie that was showing. It was The Edge of Darkness. Subtitled, thankfully. I decided not to go to the birthday party, possibly because of the large amount of alcohol promised to me. I used the excuse that we were going to Humahuaca the next morning, which was true. At Maggie's suggestion (or maybe, insistence), I had bought a CD of one of Maggie's favorite people for her, which Maggie then kept.

Saturday and Sunday the four of us went with Karina and Daniel and Karina's niece, nephew, and niece's boyfriend to the Quebrada of Humahuaca, in Jujuy, the province just North of Salta (which, as everyone in my school told me, doesn't compare to Salta's beauty. I'm not so sure. It was pretty amazing.). We left Saturday morning. It's a several-hour drive to Tilcara, where we stayed. We drove straight up from Salta to Purmamarca, our first stop. This is how I pictured the Andes. Purmamarca is a tiny village nestled between giant mountains. The people live by farming llamas and alpacas and by making various handicrafts. Handicrafts, while I'm on the subject, are everywhere. Mom was in heaven. Even I bought something, at (I think) Daniel's suggestion: a chullo hat (For those of you unfamiliar with chullo hats, they are the native costume of the North American tribe of Nordic-skiers [Hey, I can make fun of whoever I want. I have a chullo hat handwoven from alpaca fur in the tiny Andean village of Purmamarca. It even has pictures of llamas on it.].). Purmamarca, back on topic, is right near the "Hill of Seven Colors", where seven colors (eras) of rock can be seen on top of each other (This sounds like the kind of thing only a geologist would enjoy, but it was actually really cool-looking. I've never seen anything like that before.). Words cannot even describe Purmamarca, so I'll include pictures. It was spectacular. The nine of us ate in a restaurant adjoining the central square, and then we headed back onto the road winding through postcard landscapes of sloping mountains and traditional villages. We got to our hotel in Tilcara in the afternoon. Maggie and I quickly discovered a hammock and were glued to it for several hours. The first place we went was out of town to a pucará, a ruin of an Omaguaca (Amerindian) fortress. We crossed a very scary wooden bridge to get to it, but it was closed. So we went to the town center and walked around. Tilcara is very similar in feel to Purmamarca. It is a slightly-larger town hidden in between Andes mountains between Argentina and Bolivia. We went back to the hotel (i.e. the hammock) in the afternoon and some of us took naps. We went out that night to asado grill. I had what was called a traditional meal of pulled-apart meat with a fried egg on top. It was all right, but the people who had grilled meat didn't like theirs.

Sunday was equally fun as Saturday. We saw the pucará. It was pretty cool. It was a hill with the ruins of an Omaguaca settlement. At the top was (I'm not really sure about this) a sacred platform (I think?), which we took off our shoes to walk on (we didn't have to, but we did anyway). We also went to Humahuaca, the town with the same name as the quebrada. All along the road are the same fantastic landscapes I described in Tolombon (short interjection--Sorry, but I have been working for days on this and am now wanting to be done with it, so my descriptions may be a little quick. I will put in pictures.). Humahuaca was very like Tilcara and Purmamarca--a small Andean village. After that we came home with a stop in San Salvador de Jujuy, the province's capital and only city, for a snack on the city square (which of course involved looking at and buying handicrafts). So that was, in a nutshell, as they say, our trip to Humahuaca. It was very fun. I can't help but notice the parallels with our trip to Tolombon: it's a drive of a few hours through amazing landscapes that we did with family friends over a Saturday-Sunday (I'm not sure if I liked one better than the other. Not that I could say if I did. Dad has told so many people here about this blog that I now have to tiptoe around my opinions. [And he wonders why I say "I don't care" or "I don't know" so often.]). We got home late and I stayed up later finishing homework (which I didn't get finished).

Monday was an alright day. Monday was the start of gym, which I think I still need to update on. I have very little to say about the school day. My schedule was math-literature-philosophy. I handed in my translation of the philosophy papers (which I had finished the hour before in literature. Don't tell.), and my lit teacher seemed happily surprised at how much Spanish I knew. During my two breaks, I was doing my philosophy translation rather than going out to the courtyard where almost everyone else went (and, secretly [I guess not so secretly now that I'm posting it on the internet], I was kind of glad to have an excuse not to have to stand awkwardly in the corner until someone took pity on me and invited me into their group.). And so went my day. Maggie had gym a few hours after school. She has volleyball. She made some new friends (at least from what I understood, which is not much concerning 13-year-old girls). She has been sad recently about her friend situation. I'm not sure she wants me saying anything about it, though, so I'll just leave it at that (I don't think Maggie reads this anyway). Oh, wait. I was talking about gym, and then I got sidetracked (can you tell it's 12:34 a.m.?). We have extra gym uniforms, they are a blinding white: a white shirt with white shorts, white socks, and white tennis shoes. And we look ridiculous. I don't think gym went badly for Maggie. She was in a classroom the whole time (my kind of gym!). She also started dance on Monday. She is taking a crazy amount of dance here, just like at home: ballet, Spanish dance, jazz, and Carribean dance (basically, everything available to her except Irish) for a grand total of 8 hours a week. Again, as far as I know, she enjoyed it. She said the people were nice. Meanwhile, back at home, I just worked. I read a chapter of my history textbook, a chapter of my statistics textbook (Have I said yet that I am still studying world history and statistics to take the AP tests at the end of the year? Well, I am.), I did my homework, and I did a crazy amount of blogging (this is time-consuming!), but I clearly did not catch up because it's Thursday.

Tuesday. Tuesday, for the first time I took notes during class about what to write in my blog. So, here are my notes put into sentences. The first break I was all alone for the first time. The novelty of a 'yanqui' is wearing off, I guess. I was one of the last people out of the class, and then I didn't see anyone in the courtyard I knew, so I sat on a bench until break was over. The second break was better. I had a circle to stand in. My third note is that we have to pay 20 centavos for every photocopy the teacher, or we ourselves when the teacher doesn't bother, makes. That means every sheet the teacher hands out. My fourth note is that I am in love with empanadas. Man may not be able to live on bread alone, but if that bread is wrapping chicken and potatoes and spices, I think he just might. I think I could make every meal out of empanadas. And, as a person from a state famous for its rotten fish, I appreciate good local food. So, school. Tuesday was an early day. I tried to follow with some success in language, then connected the dots on my desk in my head while the math teacher explained seventh-grade algebra to students who didn't understand, then I didn't pay attention in history as the teacher dictated to everyone--not me--who didn't have their book the exercise we were to do, then I looked down and acted small in culture class. At five I had gym. I was also in a classroom the entire time. Apparently, as I read online, the handball I had heard of involving hitting a ball with your hand over a net to the other player, is only American handball, while in the rest of the world handball is something much more violent and with an unlimited number of penalties. Great. From what I saw of the other people in my class, though, they all seemed pretty short and skinny--not the football player-aggressive build who would go out for such a sport. That's a relief. That night we went to Karina and Daniel's country house, with the people we had gone to Humahuaca with and some more. Well, what can I say? I feel like I'm a broken record saying every time we go out it's 'fun'. But it was. We had asado. Mom made peach cobbler. I didn't finish my homework when we got home.

Ok. I was really lucky yesterday. The two teachers whose homework I didn't finish were both gone and we got study halls instead. That was amazing. And we didn't do much in English or TIC, either. I spent my 15 minute break inside the classroom, but I had other people to talk to in the other two breaks. I played games with other people in class during the breaks. I was recruited by a number of salteño soccer team fans yesterday. Am I a fan of "Gimnasia y Tiro" or "Juventud Antoniana"? After school, we came home. I actually had a very productive day. I did the homework I was supposed to have done and the homework due today. And I did an insane amount of blogging. Maggie had gym again, and then dance at night. Maggie got to her dance school at 7:30, and then heard that her ballet class started at 8:15, so she waited outside. While her other class was in session. Oops. I nearly caught up with myself last night. I was on Wednesday when I heard Mom and Dad come home from their dinner date with Mercedes and Nestor at one a.m. So I ran into bed to pretend I had been asleep for hours.

And now today. English-history-economics-philosophy. Nothing exciting except that my econ teacher was gone again, so I played games with other people. There was one like a North American game involving tapping hands, and if I remember what it's called I'll say. Another was basically Concentration 64, without the hand-clapping (which wasn't very fair for me, except when we did names and I could come up with a bunch of English names they had never heard of before.). I was invited to, I think, four get-togethers. One was to go to the mall this afternoon, the next to a disco (I think) tomorrow night. The next to San Lorenzo, a town a ways from here Saturday afternoon, and one to go play paintball. I went with Luluu in my class and some people I hadn't met to the mall where we stayed for a few hours and ate and window shopped (actually, this last one should be in third person). At four (when I had to be at handball at five), I started calling Mom and Dad. No answer. No answer for half an hour, actually. At that point I was on a bus home, where I waited for them until they came back from going to the pool with Vanesa and Nahuel and Guillermo (Karina and Daniel's relatives). I ended up not going to gym because I would have been so late.

And now, drumroll please..., I have officially caught up my blog to the present! Woo hoo!

Day 29

I had a pretty good day today. It might have been my best day so far. Maggie didn't, though. She had a horrible day. So, last night, as I said before, we went out to dinner with Karina and Daniel. It was, as always, fun to hang out with them. I hadn't taken enough of a nap, though, so I was falling asleep at the table when we were wrapping up at midnight. I had an early morning, too, because it's a Tuesday, so I was exhausted getting up. Hungrier than usual, too, for some reason. Well, anyway, language was first. The topic was hands. The various uses of the word "hand". After class was the usual school assembly. I could actually parse a few of the words the speaker said; this week is the week of the woman, if you didn't know. Math was next. More about regular old lines. I used my first break to go to the bathroom. One thing about the bathroom I forgot to mention (I was too caught up in the lack of toilet paper) is that the flusher is a string to pull coming down from a basin of water on the ceiling. I've never seen something like that before. But I wont spend my post talking about toilets. My third class of the day was history. The teacher came over to me and asked me if I understood the sheet she passed out. I told her more or less. Then she told the whole class that I was very good at Spanish and had made very few mistakes in the what I had turned in to her already. I was beaming at the end of this. I didn't know teachers ever said positive things.

The teachers, on an unrelated note, are called professors in my school, which, like in the US where "professor" is shortened to "prof", the students shorten to "profe". At first I thought they were saying, "prophet", as if they were asking Jesus himself whether "elección" has one C or two. Another interesting thing I've been meaning to tell you is the seating arrangement. We each chose our seats on the first day, and though I think we can change, no one does. I noticed last week that the front was entirely boys and the back was entirely girls, almost opposite of what it would be in the US, and then later I noticed that the sides are all boys and the center has girls. As it turns out, when I got a good look of the room, the boy/girl divide is a neat curve: the front and sides are all boys and the center and back all girls. Not a single student was sitting on the opposite side of this line. Not even me. Now back to my day. My last class was (shudder) culture. I tried to work on the activity, but of course there were things I didn't understand. I managed to finish the activity, though, and when I turned it in, the teacher actually smiled at me. Full on smile. Not a grimace. I left school in high spirits. Hot (I am wearing a long sleeve shirt and a lab coat in a Miami summer sun), tired (I had only gotten 5 and a half hours of sleep), and hungry (I was feeling faint in history and only a little better after I ate two granola bars), but great. I have too much homework, either. Oh, that reminds me, I should talk about Maggie's day.

While I was up walking on air, she was down in the dumps. She had spent hours and hours answering questions about computers for her computation class. Her teacher looked at her work today and said, "you need to redo this in pen". She was also chastised for the size of her drawings and the fact that she didn't use the backs of her paper. She was called out for her hours of work more than the people who didn't do the work. So, she had to redo her entire project tonight. Our cleaning lady came today. I felt a little awkward sitting on the couch while someone was cleaning our house for us. Apparently Mom and Dad did too, so we went to the mall and ate stir fry (a meal that was, shockingly, before nine and consisting of more than just meat). I really am craving peanut butter. I don't know how people here live without it. Of course, they do have dulce de leche here, and I'm not quite sure how I ever lived without that before.

One more thing before I go to bed (this was a short post for me!): ito. The suffix -ito in Spanish is used to make things smaller. For example "perro" means "dog", and "perrito" means "little dog". "Un momento" means "one moment", and "un momentito" means "just a sec" or "a jiffy". I already knew this when I came here. What I didn't know was that Argentines love this suffix. Everything but a St. Bernard is a "perrito", and every momento is -ito unless it will actually take a while. Some words are rarely used without -ito. I kinda like this. It makes everything seem cuter here.

Day 28

So. To my blog.

First, Thursday.

I had English first. It wasn't too difficult to get through (she did write "March, Thursday 4th" on the board again; I guess she just doesn't know). We read (with a fair amount of ease on my part) an article about how people were going to theaters less. Translating it was harder, but I actually managed to translate almost all of it (except "screen"; how do you say "screen" in Spanish?) This was the first time I actually finished the classwork before anyone else. I did have a small linguistic advantage. Some of the students even asked me for help. Fifteen minute break: I spent idling around until someone in my class called me over to them. History was uneventful (now read that sentence a second time; I didn't notice when I first wrote it). She talked about something historical and didn't write anything on the board, so I have no notes. In economics, there was a student election. I'm not sure what it was for. Something at the end of the year. Everyone who wanted to be elected raised their hands and had their names written on the board. The top four people would be chosen to do whatever at the end of the year. Then the teacher went down the line and let everyone choose two people to vote for. Everyone heard who everyone voted for. I was aghast. There was no way I could do that. It quickly became clear that a boy named Oso (which is Spanish for "bear") was going to win. By the time the teacher got to me (I sit in the last row), Tomás and Mer were second and third. I was frozen. I couldn't say anything. The teacher thought I didn't know what was going on, so she had someone explain the vote to me (and offer their opinions) while she finished the last row. Fourth place was a dead tie. Oh, great. My vote is the one who decides who the fourth winner is and who the last loser is. I froze. I couldn't say a word. The teacher, of course, thought I didn't know what was going on. She explained to me again that they were voting. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I couldn't choose one of those girls I had never spoken a word to over the other. Eventually one of the students brought over the two girls who were tied for fourth and showed them to me and told me to point. I was almost laughing at this point, but I was still frozen in my flabbergastion (I am proclaiming that a new word). The teacher realized (finally!) how uncomfortable I was and walked away. She quickly did a revote for the two remaining candidates and there was one clear winner. Ok. That wasn't too fun. But I'll look on the bright side. I searched facebook for "Oso", "Mer", and "Tomás" (I was too freaked out to even remember the names of the two girls I was supposed to choose between). I found all three, and friended them and all of their friends I recognized. Philosophy was only thirty minutes and involved a small article to analyze with a group. I came exhausted and hungry because like every other day so far, I hadn't eaten anything in school. But actually, besides the election, my day wasn't too bad. Also, I forgot to mention that we chose sports for mandatory gym class. The choices were track and field, volleyball, handball, and one other that I forget. I chose volleyball as my first and handball as my second. That was a stupid choice. I should have chosen track and field in stead of volleyball. Volleyball is, I think, the sport for sports players in this school (in other words, I basically signed up to play sport competitively with people who, in the United States, would be football players). Uh oh.

Friday went pretty well, too. TIC was first. TIC, remember, is my technology class that is taught by a man who hasn't yet figured out how to bring a projector into his classroom. Friday was more dictation. He went through an entire textbook table of contents (complete with telling us where to put commas and colons) because he couldn't be bothered to get photocopies. That class was dull. Third/fourth I had statistics. This was the first day of statistics. It is my only other class taught by a man. He gave broad and vague generalizations, like all teachers, here and at home, do, about what statistics is and why it's important. Sigh. During the second (I think it was the second) break, someone invited me to their birthday party on Wednesday. Other people have said we should do things together and not done anything, but her friends repeated this today, so I think it's a real thing. I have no idea what one does at a 16th birthday when everyone has been telling me how much people drink here. Or, really, any customs. I'll figure it out. My fifth/sixth hour class was culture. With the teacher who doesn't appreciate the culture I bring to her class. But Friday's class wasn't as bad as Tuesday's. Meaning, when I was singled out, I knew what it was for and gave a long Spanish response. Take that, teacher who thinks I don't speak her language. She had us read an article about why humans developed cultures and then asked what we thought about some cultures thinking they're better than other cultures (the United States was not unmentioned in this lecture). I gave her the answer she wanted, though, so all was good. My last class of the day was language. She gave some sort of in-class thing that I didn't understand, so I just sat there. She doesn't check our homework anyway.

The weekend! YAAY! At 6:00, we got a call from a bilingual second grade class in Northfield to talk about Argentina. They asked us questions in English about what Argentina was like, the food, our school (Maggie and I tried on our uniforms for them), and the earthquake. It was cool. Besides our call, we didn't do anything all night.

Saturday morning we left with Mercedes, her parents, and four kids to Cafayate. Cafayate is a small town in the South of Salta province, about a three hour drive from here. The drive is the most amazing part. It starts flat, but surrounded by mountains in the distance, as is Salta city. But slowly the mountains come closer to the road, and the villages look less billboardy and built up, and more like one would expect a rural Andean village to look: goat pastures upon goat pastures with elderly, provincial people who don't have a chance of speaking a word of English. Then the mountains get even closer and there are no more towns. As a person who grew up in the Great Plains, I cannot even describe how tall the mountains looked to me. You couldn't even see the tops of some of them because they were lost in clouds. We turned 90 degrees around the base of one mountain and we were suddenly in the quebrada. A quebrada, as I'm sure you remember is that ever-so-useful Spanish word describing a certain type of river that flows through two mountains. Ok. So to picture the amazing landscape before us, picture putting a Southwestern canyon in the Rocky mountains, and having both deciduous forest and sandy desert in view. Then make all of the rocks a gorgeous rusty red and slant the entire canyon's strata, making it look like some earthquake millions of years ago shook the canyon until it fell on its side. And finally, running right through it, let a small, dry-season stream run slowly in the dead-flat center, as if that tiny stream had no idea of the fantastic, otherworldly, Martian (Ok, I have plenty of adjectives, but no nouns to describe this geologist's heaven. Oh, actually, I do have one.) quebrada that lay before us. And now you know what a quebrada is.

Our hotel was not actually in Cafayate, but the town next to it called Tolumbon. Cafayate and Tolumbon are both in the in desert right behind the quebrada. We spent all of Saturday afternoon and night in our hotel, mostly by the pool. Maggie and I both put on sunscreen, but got terrible burns. Maggie and I also snuck in to the building behind the pool, just to say we snuck in. It was just an office, but it was thrilling for us. For dinner, I had kid. Glossy kid, to be precise, was how it appeared on the menu. It was actually very good. The night was spent chasing boys around the hotel grounds.

I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but Sunday was Dad's birthday. He is 51 years old. We spent the morning of his B-day getting ready to leave, and then left. We stopped in Cafayate for lunch. On the drive back through the quebrada, we stopped at the important stops. There was the rock that looked exactly like frog (It was crazy. It could have been a sculpture.) and there was "La Garganta del Diablo" (flashback to Iguazú!), which means "The Devil's Throat". This was a sort of canyon-let that had been tipped on its side by an earthquake or water and gravity, so that we could walk up into the cave/canyon-let while going down the strata of rock. I have a number of pictures taken up into the cave that look like they were taken down into the cave because the bottom is now at the top. It was amazing. Back on the road we retraced our steps stopping a few more times at lookouts or reststops. Then we drove strait home and spent the rest of Dad's birthday at home.

And that brings me to today. Monday. Week two. My first class of the day was math. Apparently we were supposed to have binders, but enough people didn't have one that she stopped checking before she got to me. We also got gradebooks today, in which the teacher records our test grades (there are, I guess, no homework grades) and gives grades based on about 8 tests a trimester. After that, I have nothing life-changing to report from math class. Language was uneventful, too. We took notes from a dictation (which teachers here do way too much for this foreigner's taste) on coherence and cohesion of writing. My two breaks have been spent meandering around until someone adopted me, because the excitement of a North American has mostly worn off, but I still don't feel like I know anyone well enough to invite myself into their group. (Actually, that's not completely true. During my first break I used the bathroom, which has no toilet paper. In the entire bathroom. Thankfully, toilet paper was, um, not necessary for what I was doing, but what if it had been. That was so strange. I even looked in every stall, and none had any place for a roll. But now I know. Either before school or after.) My third and final three-period class was philosophy. Philosophy today was up in another room where the projector is, so that we could have a powerpoint. The philosophy teacher was not in the mood for misbehavior today. Two students were sent into the hall for talking, and two more were sent out for using phones. In our third break, of five minutes, I went downstairs to the courtyard and talked to Maggie. When break was over, I went to line up like we always do at the end of break, but no one was there. I decided to go up to the classroom to see if we were supposed to have already come back. We were. I was late with one other guy. We weren't punished, but she wasn't happy. Hopefully she realized that at least I had no idea what was going on. Well, at the end of class we got a lecture on behavior. She said we probably wont go back to the other room with the projector. Rats. This afternoon I spent a while writing this blog. And doing various other things. We went to a neighborhood protest of a proposed cell phone tower to meet neighbors. I pointed to Mom and Dad that we were going to a political demonstration in a South American country that, a few decades ago, was a dictatorship known for disappearing political activists. But when does anyone listen to me? We went for about five minutes. Dad was too shy to go up and talk to someone (even though he suggested we go), so we just walked away. Tonight we're going out with Karina and Daniel (I think for Dad's birthday).