Salta, exams and Kirchner

Im very sorry for my very late reply. I have been really busy with studying (yes, also in Buenos Aires you have exams..) and I went away for a week and a few weekends. So I couldn’t find the time to write anything… Now my exams are over (luckily), so I finally have some rest and I’m able to write something as well.

Las Wednesday Nestor Kirchner, the former president and husband of the current president, died quite unexpectedly. He was the president that pulled Argentina out of their financial crisis of 2001 and because of that was loved by quite a large part of the people. Argentina is a country with tons of protests (a bit like France). So after the people heard about the death of Nestor, they all went to Casa Rosado (the government-building) and Plaza de Mayo with many banners. It was very impressive to see thousands of people standing in line to see his body for example. There was a line of approximately a kilometer!

But besides this, there are also more funny things happening in Buenos Aires that stipulate the difference between BA and The Netherlands. Last week for example was a national holiday (día del Censo) in which the government of Argentina was going to ‘count’ their inhabitants. This entails an obligatory day off for everybody in which you had to be at home between 8am and 8pm, because the ‘counter’ would come by to ask you some questions. Therefore, the entire city was closed… Crazy! They also came by my house and besides the normal questions like age, they also asked me if I was a man or a woman, if I could read/write etc. It felt like an interrogation haha!

Like I mentioned before, I made my first exams in Spanish and I must say that it went quite ok! Luckily, the teachers told me that I could write my answers in English, but the questions were still in Spanish. Exams here are a bit different than at Tilburg University. For example, during one of my exams, the teacher arrived 20minutes late to give us the exam. Besides that, on the paper it said we had 90minutes to make the exam, but after 2 hours still nobody was done and the teacher just let us work until we were, because he didn’t wanted to ‘rush’ us. Haha!! In Tilburg you can’t imagine this. The people that overview the exam will stand in front of you within 1 minute after the time is up, to tell you that you should hand in your exam or you will not pass for sure. This country is amazing!! Haha ;)
But not everything is as easy as this sounds… Next Tuesday for example, I have to give a presentation for my course about leadership. A great part of my grade for the course will be based on this presentation and I have to present alone, in Spanish for about 40min... Besides that, the professor interrupts every 3 sentences with comments, questions or a clarification. In addition, if he doesn’t approve the presentation, you have to do it all over again… Aiaiaiai!!

But now a bit more cheerful news: a few weeks ago I went on another trip for a week. This time, the trip brought us to Salta! Amazing!! To go there I had to skip a week of classes, or well, skipping is a big word. I told my professors, who loved the fact that I wanted to discover their country and gave me some extra tips! One of them even changed the date of an extra class to make sure that I wouldn’t have to miss 2 classes of his course. Whaha amazing!

Salta is a city in the northwest of Argentina, quite close to the Bolivian border. Here you can find the most astonishing nature. Every time I go on a trip in Argentina, I start to notice the diversity of this country even more. The entire nature changes after a few kilometers. Really beautiful! Due to the location of Salta, it is like a desert-city. But not the desert you might know from Africa, but one with a beautiful mountain- and rock-landscape. When we arrived there during the evening, it was still 25 degrees (against about 10-15 in Buenos Aires). Besides that, the city has a really relax vibe. This was the first time I really had the ‘I’m on a holiday’- feeling (sitting on a terrace outside, with a nice drink, it’s still warm and you’re with friends… Amazing!)

On our first day we rented a car and drove to a few small cities around Salta. The first village we went to was Purmamarca, near Cerro de los Siete colores. This is a mountain that has 7 different layers in 7 different colours. Very pretty! Besides that, the village lies at 2000m above sea level. Then you really notice that you’re Dutch (and not used to high altitudes). The air is really thin there, what I noticed immediately when breathing. Besides that, I was exhausted after jumping 4 times. Very strange! After Purmamarca, we drove to the Salinas Grandes. This is a huge salt flat, where used to be a lake, but is now all dried up. Again very impressive! There is absolutely nothing there, so you can’t see any depth, which results in hilarious pictures. You can see a few of them on my site with pictures (for address: see below!).

Nice detail, on our way back, we by accident took a wrong turn and ended up on a road that was as small as a bicycle lane in Holland (but is an official two-lane-road), with about 10000 curves, a mountain on one side and a very steep valley on the other. On top of this, there were cows, horses and donkeys on the road, which resulted in us almost hitting one (black) cow because we couldn’t see it in the dark (and of course there were no streetlights…). But luckily we didn’t!

The rest of that week we went along the tren de las nubes (an old miner-train), discovered Salta (including the government-building were we got a gran tour after we showed interest in the secretary, who didn’t had anything else to do :D) and we did bungee jumping. On the last day we rented another car to drive from Salta, through Valles Calchaquíes and Cafayate to Túcuman. This was really amazing (again) with the most beautiful views! The pictures will show you what I am talking about.

Last week I visited a real Argentina soccer-match for the first time and I can tell you Ajax-Feyenoord is nothing compared to the fans we have here. People here are crazy about soccer. It is there number 1 sport and nothing comes even remotely close to the popularity of soccer. During the match people were screaming, singing, dancing, jumping etc. Very impressive! The match itself was ok, but to be honest, I didn't see that much of the match because I liked it a lot more to observe the fans of both teams haha! Again, you can find pictures (and a movie, that will give you a better understanding) on my internetsite mentioned below!

As you can read above, I am still enjoying every part my exchange and stay here.

Next time, I promise to write you guys a lot sooner!

Beso!!

P.S. for pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/110288743403368342020/

La vida hermosa!

Hello everybody,

It has been a few weeks since my last post and a lot has happened over here. This week will be my 4th week at the university already, I’ve been on another trip and have learned a lot more about the Argentine culture. My Spanish is getting better, but I wouldn’t call it really good just yet. I am now able to have a small-talk without too much effort, but when people want to talk about something more relevant or about the past (including accompanying conjugations), it gets a lot harder… But the upside it that it cannot get worse, only better. So I just keep practicing with my roommates, fellow students and Argentines. The only bad part is that my classes aren’t always that clear, but fortunately my classes are very small and I have very friendly fellow-students and teachers that are more than happy to explain everything to me or –if necessary- translate some verbs. Those small classes were a bit strange in the beginning. Especially since one of my courses is with only 6(!) people. My university is very small, that is also why we only have 12 intercambio (exchange) students. On the one hand, this is a real shame, but on the other, it makes it a lot easier to make contact with Argentine students.

As I highlighted very brief in the beginning of this story, I’ve been on another trip a few weeks ago. This time we went to Iguazú; the most famous falls of southern America. They are located on the border of Argentina and Brazil with approximately 90% of all the falls on Argentine soil. With 14 exchange students I’ve met through the Spanish classes we went to Puerto Iguazú, a city in the north of Argentina that exists solely due to these falls. After a bus drive of 18 hours (which was quite comfortable I must say) we arrived in this small town at the end of the afternoon. We spend the rest of the day finding a hostel and visiting a viewpoint where you can see two countries that border Argentina; Paraguay and Brazil. This was nice to see, but not really special.
After a very good meal that night (I love group discount!!) we got up really early the day after to visit the famous falls. After being in a jeep and in a boot for a while (we took the touristic route :P) the falls finally caught my eyes and I must say, I was stunned! I am usually not really the nature kind of person (I like culture a lot more) but this was beautiful! I have never seen anything that comes only remotely close to this world wonder. The amount of water that comes down is at the same time rough, with a lot of noise and power, but at the other hand its very pretty and peaceful. Incredible!
This was before I saw Garganza del Diabolo (devil’s throat). You get there by walking on a very long bridge above the water, while walking there you get really close to the edges of several waterfalls, but this is nothing in comparison to the end of the bridge… I have never seen such an amount of fast running water in my entire life!! Wow! You could really feel the power of these falls. 1500 photos later it was honestly hard so say goodbye to this view…
Because the falls of Iguazú are stationed at the border of Argentina and Brazil, you can also take a look from the Brazil side. Here you have more the ‘overview’. You can compare the difference to a movie; on the Brazilian side you’re viewing the movie and on the Argentina side you’re the actor. The Brazilian side might sound a bit boring, especially after you’ve literally felt the falls, but that is definitely not true! When you’re in Brazil you’re able to see a lot better the size of the area and the amount of falls. Here it was again hard to say goodbye… Nice detail by the way; we smuggled to people across the border. Don’t worry, they weren’t drugs dealers or anything like that, but just two of my friends from the US and Australia that otherwise had to pay approximately E120,- for one day in Brazil. The funny thing is that it was really simple to get them over the border. Maybe a bit too simple actually…
The rest of my stay at Iguazú I went back to the argentine side and I’ve did some active work by abseiling and ziplining. A lot of fun!

Now I am living a more normal life again. I’m going to class and starting to behave more and more like a real porteña (citizen of Buenos Aires). But I still realize that I am in a totally different culture and on the other side of the world. The fact that the sun goes the ‘wrong’ way reminds me every day. I will probably leave for another trip within 3 weeks. This time I will probably go to Salta, a city in the northwest of Argentina where you have among others the highest train in the world. Nice detail: my teachers like the fact that I want to travel and therefore don’t really mind if I have to miss a exam because of that. They are more than happy to reschedule this exam ;) haha!

You can again find pictures when following this link!
http://picasaweb.google.nl/110288743403368342020/

I’ll keep you posted!
Besos, Joni

First weeks

Hello everybody,

It has been quite a while since I posted my last blog and many things have happened in the meantime.

First of all I will start with the best news ever: I have a place to live!! After 2 weeks without privacy, living from a suitcase and the feeling that you're bed falls apart when you turn around, we found a really nice house in an amazing area of Buenos Aires; Palermo. I am currently living here with the other 4 dutch people, a letvian girl and a girl from france. In this 'barrio' (district) of Buenos Aires you can find many pubs, restaurants, bar and clubs. Besides that, many students live here as well.

Besides that, today was my third day of 'real' classes. We have a drop/add-period the first 2 weeks, which means that we can try every class we want and decide afterwards which we like the most. This is a very good system since it is usually quite hard to figure out what a course is about by just reading 3 lines in Spanish that should describe it. The first 3 days I tried finanzas de la empresa (finance), relaciones economicas internacionales (international economical relations), liderazgo (leadership) and analisis politico II (political economy). The last 2 I really liked, so I will definitely choose those. About the other courses I am still a bit insecure, but tomorrow I am also trying another course about labor economics.

As you might have noticed, I had a one week gap inbetween my Spanish classes and the start of my university and I used them wisely because I went to Mendoza and Chile together with Bjorn (the other student at UCEMA)! In one word: amazing!

In total we spent around 48 hours in a bus, but it was all worth it. Especially since busses here are really ok. Like airplanes actually, including the food and movies. We left Buenos Aires Wednesday evening and arrived in Mendoza Thursday around noon, where we spent the rest of the day exploring the city and a big park that lies right next to it. In the evening we had the most amazing dinner ever. An all-you-can-eat parilla (Argentine barbecue) including vegetables (which is quite rare over here) and an amazing desert. On Friday we went to Maipu, a town nearby Mendoza. Since Mendoza lies in the most famous wine area of Argentina, all the land surrounding it is covered by wine branches and olive trees. An amazing view! In Maipu we cycled around and visited several wine farms, olive farms and chocolate-making farms, where we got a tour including several tastings :P. That night we went out the entire night since we had a bus to Santiago at 7.30am. Because it is completely normal here to leave a club at 7, we decided beforehand not to book a hostel, but just go to the bus immediately after the club, and it worked out completely fine! Haha!

In the afternoon we arrived in Santiago the Chili where we were invited by the people from our hostel to join a pub crawl. Even though I only slept about 3 hours during that night (morning actually), I was definitely up for it. Especially since this was the only partynight we could join in Chile since we would leave at Wednesday. The pub crawl was really fun and as a proper student, we stayed in the last club until the lights were switched on :D

On Sunday we slept quite late, which was not a problem at all since this was our only day of rain during our entire trip. We did manage to view some famous buildings and squares of Santiago. Monday we got up early to join a free tour around the city. A really good opportunity to see a large part of the city and also get some background information. After the tour we climbed the San Cristobal. A hill in the middle of Santiago on which you have an amazing view of the city. We ended this lovely day with a terremoto. A local drink that consists of the cheapest wine ever, a very strong drink and pineapple icecream. Sounds a bit strange maybe, but trust me. It's delicious!

Tuesday we went to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. Two beautiful and quiet cities two hours from Santiago that are build against a big hill. Very pretty and totally different from the big city next to it! That evening we went to bed early in anticipation for one of the longest bus trips I have ever experienced; 22 hours! But it turned out to be fine. Busses here are really great!
You can find picture by following this link: http://picasaweb.google.nl/110288743403368342020

Even though I came back of this trip a week ago, I will leave this evening for another trip to the Iguazú-falls (google it!).

I’ll keep you posted!
Beso

The beginning of a new adventure...

Hello everybody,

For all of you who do not know me yet, my name is Joni Koch, I am 20 years old and about to stay in Buenos Aires for 6months in order to have one of the best international experiences possible while being in university: studying abroad.

I arrived in this massive city last friday after a long flight that included all the prejudices; crying babies, delays, running to gates, and no space to put your legs properly. But the flight was fine, and I arrived in Buenos Aires around 9.30 am. I started this adventure with 4 other students from Tilburg University that I met because of the exchange program (we found out that we were all going to Buenos Aires for the coming semester). These exchange-mates are: Jelle, Bjorn, Marieke and Rik. Rik and Jelle will both be studying at Universidad Torcuato di Tella, Marieke will go to Universidad Católica Argentina and Bjorn and I will study at Universidad del CEMA. Their company made the flight a lot better!

Upon arrival we were picked up by the hostel where we booked our first nights in Argentina. It was well arranged, but on the airport I found out that I was really in Latin America. The guy that picked us up, spoke absolutely not a single word of english. So here we were: 5 students from tilburg university, that have had only 1 year of spanish, in a country were even the lady behind the 'international assistance-office' doesn't speak a word english. In really crappy spanish including hands and feet we were able to get what we wanted, but still it startled me. How on earth will I ever be able to live here for 6 months!

Our hostel is fine, great actually. The only thing to complain about is the cold. When coming from 30degrees+ in Holland, 7 degrees feels a bit cold. Especially when almost none of the buildings have a heater inside, but we'll get used to it. Besides that, in a month or so the winter will end and spring will begin. I heard that spring is the best period of the year to visit Buenos Aires, so I am really exited.

My first days were filled with getting to know the area where we are staying and the city as a whole. Buenos Aires is fantastic! It is the perfect mix between the size of a city like Manilla, the cosiness of a city surrounding the mediterranean sea and the glamour of a city like Bangkok. Sounds great right? Well, it is!
Besides that, We have (of course) also had a first glimp at the going out-scene of Buenos Aires and I must say that The Netherlands is nothing compared to this. First of all, there are only clubs here (so hardly any pubs) and the timing is very different. A club doen't start to get busy before 2am and a party will therefore last until at least 6am and sometimes even longer. It is therefore very common to take a short nap before going out (as Marieke calls it: 'the disco-nap'). Besides that, positive discrimination is very normal here. Usually girls hardly have to pay to get into a club while guys do haha! As we would say in dutch: 'die kan je in je zak steken' haha! Furthermore, the music is really good and people are dancing everywhere! I could definitely get used to this ;).

But of course we also have to focus on the important stuff and the reason why we`re here. I am currently following an intensive spanish course in order to get used to the argentina way of pronouncing their spanish and to refresh my memory again. The course takes 4 hours a day, 3 weeks in a row. So let's hope that my spanish will improve rapidly. Although, I must say that I have already experienced some improvement (woehoe!). After these weeks my classes will start, which will be entirely in spanish so if it hasn't improved much by then, it will anyway.

Besides following the spanish classes we are also searching for an apartment here. Today I got my first positive reply and I hope to stop by the place soon.

I will keep you posted!

Besos, Joni