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