I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
Click here to view photos
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Buenos Aires (336 photos), by Jared Neuhausen
I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
Click here to view photos
Calm
Sorry that I haven't written in a long time, but the truth is it's actually been a bit quiet around here. I've been getting into the rhythm of school, which hasn't been very difficult because I don't do anything. I really only have serious class two days a week, and homework is barely existent. The most school-related excitement I've had was trying to decide a final class to take, which I finally did this past Wednesday. You may remember that I was initially enrolled in a marketing class in Portuguese that meets once per week from 7-11 pm. Well, that didn't go so well. I went to the first class, but I left after 45 minutes because I could barely understand anything. Part of the reason I had signed up for it was because I saw on the schedule that it was a class that international students frequently attend, so I figured that there would be others in the class. But there weren't any; it was all Brazilians and I didn't know what they were talking about. I checked later and the international student designation was gone from the class listing, so that went wrong somewhere. Anyway, after deciding that I wouldn't be taking that class, that created a void in my schedule that I had to fill. The next week I sat in on some finance class in Portuguese that I saw on the schedule was intended for international students. Yet there was only one other of those students, and when he walked into the room he said to me, "you know this is a post-graduate class, right?" Which I didn't. I stayed for the whole time, but that wasn't going to work out either. I perused the schedule again, and sat in on Brazilian Culture in Portuguese a few days later, which has many international students as well as many Brazilians. Although I only understand at select times, I've decided to take that as my final class and am now officially enrolled. I made it a little more difficult on myself, though, because I still wanted to preserve my two free days during the week, which narrowed down the class selection. But it's all good now and I'm content. It was finalized on Wednesday, which, in typical Brazilian inefficient fashion, was the one and only day that all international students could make changes to their schedules. So everyone was trying to do the same thing at the same time. You can imagine how that went.
But besides school things have been somewhat slow, mainly because it's rained quite a bit lately. I'd say since the last post it has rained more days than not, usually starting some time in the afternoon. And when it rains here, it pours. There's no such thing as light rain here. It's either all-out rain or no rain at all. The last few weeks I have seen the hardest rain I've ever seen in my life, as well as a couple of other days that rank in the top 5 of hardest rains I've ever seen. The Saturday night two weekends ago was when I saw the hardest rain I've ever seen. There's a hill/mountain behind my house here, and so there's a road that goes up on an incline. It was raining so hard that that inclined road was flooded. I wasn't aware that was possible. I heard from other kids here that roads all over the city were flooded and that it was just a general disaster. One of my Brazilian teachers even said he'd never seen anything like that. And it rained that hard straight for 3-4 hours, without letting up at all. It really was unbelievable. It hasn't rained now since Thursday, but before Thursday it had rained really almost every day for the past two weeks. One night last weekend I got caught in that pouring rain and storm walking near Copacabana beach, it was a little out of control.
Other than that I haven't done too much out of the ordinary for the past few weeks. The frequent rain precluded trips to the beach. On Wednesday I went to the Museu da Republica here, which is in the former presidential palace/residence. That was a very nice building, and admission is free on Wednesdays for whatever reason. Some of it was closed to the public for renovation, but in general it was very pretty. Last night I met with my teacher and some other people at a street fair in an area called Sao Cristovao. Sao Cristovao is in the north zone of Rio, which doesn't really have any tourists and is generally a less safe part of the city. It's not somewhere where you want to walk around alone. The fair's theme is Brazil's Northeast, and it was a nice time. I had some very good food.
The most exciting thing I've done is that I planned a trip to go see Rachel. I leave this Friday and will be gone for 10 days. The timing is convenient, because Rachel has spring break, and although I'll be gone for 10 days, I'll only miss 2 days of class (only one important day). The university gives school off the Thursday and Friday before Easter, and since I don't have class on Monday or Wednesday, I'll only miss one Tuesday and the Friday that I leave, but the only class I have Friday is Portuguese. We're going to rendezvous in Panama and spend the first half of the trip there before returning to Costa Rica for the second half. I was able to get a nice deal on the airfare; originally I didn't think it would be possible because all the airfare I had been seeing was very expensive. But suddenly one day I saw prices to Panama that were much cheaper than I expected, and so a flight to Panama and then to Costa Rica became much more reasonable and realistic. We're very excited for the trip.
That's about all I have for this post, sorry I don't have much more. As you can see above, the pictures from Buenos Aires have been posted. Sorry I took so long to get those up, but I hope you enjoy them.
But besides school things have been somewhat slow, mainly because it's rained quite a bit lately. I'd say since the last post it has rained more days than not, usually starting some time in the afternoon. And when it rains here, it pours. There's no such thing as light rain here. It's either all-out rain or no rain at all. The last few weeks I have seen the hardest rain I've ever seen in my life, as well as a couple of other days that rank in the top 5 of hardest rains I've ever seen. The Saturday night two weekends ago was when I saw the hardest rain I've ever seen. There's a hill/mountain behind my house here, and so there's a road that goes up on an incline. It was raining so hard that that inclined road was flooded. I wasn't aware that was possible. I heard from other kids here that roads all over the city were flooded and that it was just a general disaster. One of my Brazilian teachers even said he'd never seen anything like that. And it rained that hard straight for 3-4 hours, without letting up at all. It really was unbelievable. It hasn't rained now since Thursday, but before Thursday it had rained really almost every day for the past two weeks. One night last weekend I got caught in that pouring rain and storm walking near Copacabana beach, it was a little out of control.
Other than that I haven't done too much out of the ordinary for the past few weeks. The frequent rain precluded trips to the beach. On Wednesday I went to the Museu da Republica here, which is in the former presidential palace/residence. That was a very nice building, and admission is free on Wednesdays for whatever reason. Some of it was closed to the public for renovation, but in general it was very pretty. Last night I met with my teacher and some other people at a street fair in an area called Sao Cristovao. Sao Cristovao is in the north zone of Rio, which doesn't really have any tourists and is generally a less safe part of the city. It's not somewhere where you want to walk around alone. The fair's theme is Brazil's Northeast, and it was a nice time. I had some very good food.
The most exciting thing I've done is that I planned a trip to go see Rachel. I leave this Friday and will be gone for 10 days. The timing is convenient, because Rachel has spring break, and although I'll be gone for 10 days, I'll only miss 2 days of class (only one important day). The university gives school off the Thursday and Friday before Easter, and since I don't have class on Monday or Wednesday, I'll only miss one Tuesday and the Friday that I leave, but the only class I have Friday is Portuguese. We're going to rendezvous in Panama and spend the first half of the trip there before returning to Costa Rica for the second half. I was able to get a nice deal on the airfare; originally I didn't think it would be possible because all the airfare I had been seeing was very expensive. But suddenly one day I saw prices to Panama that were much cheaper than I expected, and so a flight to Panama and then to Costa Rica became much more reasonable and realistic. We're very excited for the trip.
That's about all I have for this post, sorry I don't have much more. As you can see above, the pictures from Buenos Aires have been posted. Sorry I took so long to get those up, but I hope you enjoy them.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Back home for...school?
Boa noite. I am back in Rio again after my trip. What a shame, right? I arrived late last night; my flight was delayed a bit, and then by the time I landed the correct bus I needed to take to get home had stopped running, so I hopped on another bus that took a very roundabout way to not even get where I needed to go, and then I took a taxi after giving up on waiting for the final bus. Didn't get home until almost 2 am, and I had school today. Not to worry, though, because my first class wasn't until 1 pm.
So school finally started. By this time, after an exciting month of February, I've kind of lost sight that a main reason I'm here is to study. There's a "study" in study abroad, after all. It felt a bit weird to have class, but the campus was bumping today. There were people everywhere. It felt like, well, the first day of school. During the language course it was pretty much just us international Portuguese students on campus plus a few others taking summer school. But it was sparsely populated. Today was hopping, though.
The classes I had today were Brazilian foreign policy and Portuguese. I have the same teacher for Portuguese that I had during the language course, and I think he's really cool, so I'm happy about that. And that old guy that I wrote about previously is in my class again, too, which of course is awesome because he made the language course. There are many new international students here for the start of the semester; students who weren't here for the language course, but arrived for the semester. Many are in the Portuguese class, including students from Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Ireland, France, and England. It will be good to meet them and have class with them. And there are also several other students who were in my language class before. So that is set up well. The foreign policy class seems like it will be good for the most part, too. That class is in English. It was introductory today, just went over the schedule and syllabus, but the content seems very interesting, which is a bonus. The teacher seems very young; he really doesn't seem much older than me. He's very enthusiastic, but maybe too enthusiastic. He was basically screaming at us the entire time today, and he was just explaining the schedule. It could get a bit overwhelming. My other classes are marketing, which I don't have until Thursday, and soccer. Marketing is the only class that actually means anything; I could potentially get credit for it for back home. It's taught in Portuguese and is 4 hours every Thursday night. It seems to be a formidable setup, but it's for mostly international students, so hopefully I'll be able to get some help. Not sure if I'll end up sticking with it, though, but I'll go this Thursday and we'll see what happens.
Now, for my trip. It was very nice. If you recall, first I went to Iguazu Falls, on the border of Brazil and Argentina. They were unbelievable. You hear people say such great things about them, but you really can't understand until you see them. There are so many waterfalls covering a great area, with so many different beautiful pictures, backdrops, and landscapes. It was really incredible. The falls are a national park, and you can enter both the Brazilian and Argentine side, but you have to do them separately. I saw the Brazilian side first, and the Argentine side the next day. They're both very, very nice, but I'd say the Argentine side is slightly better because you can get closer and see a bit more. That's not really important, though; the point is that the falls are spectacular from wherever or however you see them. The second day, from the Argentine side, I rode in a boat under the falls where I got drenched. That was cool; I tried to look up to see what was going on, but there was so much water falling that I could barely open my eyes. There were just so many beautiful views throughout the entire park. It is without a doubt one of the coolest and most beautiful places I have ever been.
In Iguazu I also went to see a large dam called Itaipu Binational Dam. Itaipu is on the border of Brazil and Paraguay and is a joint project between the two nations. I had a short excursion there, which involved a 20-30 minute movie followed by an hour-long panoramic tour of the dam and its grounds. I hadn't realized there was anything else to do in the area besides see the waterfalls, but I was pleasantly surprised by the dam. It was quite cool. It's currently the largest dam in the world, if I remember correctly, although it is about to be surpassed by a dam currently under construction in China. But Itaipu will remain the world's largest hydroelectric energy source/project. The tour and information given about the dam were fascinating; as well as the dam, Itaipu consists of a wildlife refuge, center for science studies, social/environmental responsibility and conservation projects, among other things. The project provides 25% of Brazil's energy consumption and an astounding number like 90% of Paraguay's energy. Enough from me, go look it up on Wikipedia now. The point is that the dam was also very cool.
After seeing the dam and before seeing the waterfalls, I stopped at a bird park just outside of the national park. The bird park was pretty much a zoo of birds, but it was nice as well. There were many brightly colored and huge parrots, toucans, flamingos, and other exotic birds. I also saw a peacock, but unfortunately I couldn't use my charm to provoke it to open its tail. The toucans were my favorite. They're cool and funny-looking in real life. The bird park had birds in cages but also several aviaries that you could walk into and have birds flying, walking, or sitting right next to you and you could even touch them if you desired, although probably not recommended. I enjoyed that as well.
Here's the bad news: I lost all my pictures from the waterfalls, dam, and bird park. All of them. I was a bit depressed for a while. I had tried hard to take nice pictures, and I bothered people at several points to ask them to take a picture of me in front of various different waterfall backdrops, but now they're all gone. I apologize that you won't be able to see them; I really thought some of them were quite nice. I'll get some pictures from a friend for you to see, but they won't have any of the dam or birds. I had needed to clear some space on the memory card for Buenos Aires because the memory card was full, so I deleted some old and unimportant pictures and videos. Then I went to check how much space I had cleared, and, satisfied, I clicked ok on the camera. Well, the ok gave the go ahead to then clear the entire memory card. I sat, stunned, for a few minutes, but I tried to get over it because I was about to take a city tour of Buenos Aires. So again, I apologize that you won't get to see them. I wish that I still had them.
There is good news, too, in that that did not ruin my trip to Buenos Aires. It was wonderful. Buenos Aires is a very nice city. I think the best word to describe it is pleasant; it's a very pleasant city to be in and walk around. It's calm and aesthetically pleasing, with many nice buildings, neighborhoods, and streets. Buenos Aires is very European in style; there's much European architecture, and it's called the Paris of South America. There are also statues and monuments all over the city.
I saw most of the important sites in the city, but I got most of my feel for the city just from walking around the various neighborhoods. I did quite a bit of walking, actually. I tired myself out a few days. I remember talking about how much walking I've done in other posts, too. I don't know what's gotten into me. Any way, my first full day in Buenos Aires I took a city tour by bus that drove past or stopped by most of the major sites and neighborhoods. It was a nice tour. A few places we saw were the Plaza del Mayo, home to the Casa Rosada, or Pink Presidential House, from where Eva Peron made her famous addresses from the balcony. Also Buenos Aires' obelisk, an old, very colorful neighborhood called Caminito where Italian immigrants settled and is now a hotspot for tango, a Buenos Aires soccer stadium, and two upscale areas called Recoleta and Palermo, plus more.
In subsequent days I mainly walked in depth around several of the places we had driven past. I visited a museum dedicated to Evita. It was relatively simple, but all that I learned she did was remarkable. I walked around the Jewish area of Buenos Aires, which was cool. A lot of Jews walking around and many various kosher restaurants and different food shops. It was cool to see the Jewish area, that there's a vibrant Jewish population integrated in the middle of the city. I enjoyed that.
For the final few days of the trip, I switched hostels, and unbeknownst to me before arriving, it was virtually an Israeli hostel. The owner was Israeli, and 95% of the guests were Israeli. I was the only non-Israeli there for the last two days. Really, I had no indication that anything about it was Israeli. But when I first got there I saw Hebrew on the door and the first thing I saw after opening the door was an Israeli flag hanging in the hallway, so I thought, this is sweet. The worst thing, though, was that since it was an Israeli hostel there were a minimum of 5 people smoking at all times. That was a bit hard to bear, but I was still happy to be there.
Purim was just this weekend when I was still in Buenos Aires, so I celebrated there. It was a lot of fun. There was a Chabad just two blocks away from the Israeli hostel, so I went to hear the Megillah, eat, and party Saturday and Sunday. There are Chabads all over the city, but it was nice that there was one so close. And it was nice to be able celebrate Purim with a Jewish community.
My last day in Buenos Aires I visited the grand cemetery where Eva Peron, among other famous Argentines, are buried. The cemetery has large stones/monuments/small rooms or houses that are dedicated to those buried there. I read somewhere that it's one of the 3 most remarkable cemeteries in the world, along with the Jewish cemetery in Prague, which I have also seen, and the last I can't remember. But there were many statues and carving, long row after long row of monuments hovering over you as you walked around. It was quite a cemetery. Then I stopped by the site of the Israeli embassy bombing in 1992. I guess a bit of depressing way to end my trip, but I'm glad I saw them.
So now I'm back in Rio de Janeiro and have had one day of school. To celebrate, I'm taking the day off tomorrow from school and going to the beach. That's only half true; I don't have class on Wednesdays, or Mondays either for that matter. So I'm just going to the beach. I've been away from Rio for 10+ days, so I kind of miss the beach. Rough life.
I'll try my best not to lose the pictures from Buenos Aires.
So school finally started. By this time, after an exciting month of February, I've kind of lost sight that a main reason I'm here is to study. There's a "study" in study abroad, after all. It felt a bit weird to have class, but the campus was bumping today. There were people everywhere. It felt like, well, the first day of school. During the language course it was pretty much just us international Portuguese students on campus plus a few others taking summer school. But it was sparsely populated. Today was hopping, though.
The classes I had today were Brazilian foreign policy and Portuguese. I have the same teacher for Portuguese that I had during the language course, and I think he's really cool, so I'm happy about that. And that old guy that I wrote about previously is in my class again, too, which of course is awesome because he made the language course. There are many new international students here for the start of the semester; students who weren't here for the language course, but arrived for the semester. Many are in the Portuguese class, including students from Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Ireland, France, and England. It will be good to meet them and have class with them. And there are also several other students who were in my language class before. So that is set up well. The foreign policy class seems like it will be good for the most part, too. That class is in English. It was introductory today, just went over the schedule and syllabus, but the content seems very interesting, which is a bonus. The teacher seems very young; he really doesn't seem much older than me. He's very enthusiastic, but maybe too enthusiastic. He was basically screaming at us the entire time today, and he was just explaining the schedule. It could get a bit overwhelming. My other classes are marketing, which I don't have until Thursday, and soccer. Marketing is the only class that actually means anything; I could potentially get credit for it for back home. It's taught in Portuguese and is 4 hours every Thursday night. It seems to be a formidable setup, but it's for mostly international students, so hopefully I'll be able to get some help. Not sure if I'll end up sticking with it, though, but I'll go this Thursday and we'll see what happens.
Now, for my trip. It was very nice. If you recall, first I went to Iguazu Falls, on the border of Brazil and Argentina. They were unbelievable. You hear people say such great things about them, but you really can't understand until you see them. There are so many waterfalls covering a great area, with so many different beautiful pictures, backdrops, and landscapes. It was really incredible. The falls are a national park, and you can enter both the Brazilian and Argentine side, but you have to do them separately. I saw the Brazilian side first, and the Argentine side the next day. They're both very, very nice, but I'd say the Argentine side is slightly better because you can get closer and see a bit more. That's not really important, though; the point is that the falls are spectacular from wherever or however you see them. The second day, from the Argentine side, I rode in a boat under the falls where I got drenched. That was cool; I tried to look up to see what was going on, but there was so much water falling that I could barely open my eyes. There were just so many beautiful views throughout the entire park. It is without a doubt one of the coolest and most beautiful places I have ever been.
In Iguazu I also went to see a large dam called Itaipu Binational Dam. Itaipu is on the border of Brazil and Paraguay and is a joint project between the two nations. I had a short excursion there, which involved a 20-30 minute movie followed by an hour-long panoramic tour of the dam and its grounds. I hadn't realized there was anything else to do in the area besides see the waterfalls, but I was pleasantly surprised by the dam. It was quite cool. It's currently the largest dam in the world, if I remember correctly, although it is about to be surpassed by a dam currently under construction in China. But Itaipu will remain the world's largest hydroelectric energy source/project. The tour and information given about the dam were fascinating; as well as the dam, Itaipu consists of a wildlife refuge, center for science studies, social/environmental responsibility and conservation projects, among other things. The project provides 25% of Brazil's energy consumption and an astounding number like 90% of Paraguay's energy. Enough from me, go look it up on Wikipedia now. The point is that the dam was also very cool.
After seeing the dam and before seeing the waterfalls, I stopped at a bird park just outside of the national park. The bird park was pretty much a zoo of birds, but it was nice as well. There were many brightly colored and huge parrots, toucans, flamingos, and other exotic birds. I also saw a peacock, but unfortunately I couldn't use my charm to provoke it to open its tail. The toucans were my favorite. They're cool and funny-looking in real life. The bird park had birds in cages but also several aviaries that you could walk into and have birds flying, walking, or sitting right next to you and you could even touch them if you desired, although probably not recommended. I enjoyed that as well.
Here's the bad news: I lost all my pictures from the waterfalls, dam, and bird park. All of them. I was a bit depressed for a while. I had tried hard to take nice pictures, and I bothered people at several points to ask them to take a picture of me in front of various different waterfall backdrops, but now they're all gone. I apologize that you won't be able to see them; I really thought some of them were quite nice. I'll get some pictures from a friend for you to see, but they won't have any of the dam or birds. I had needed to clear some space on the memory card for Buenos Aires because the memory card was full, so I deleted some old and unimportant pictures and videos. Then I went to check how much space I had cleared, and, satisfied, I clicked ok on the camera. Well, the ok gave the go ahead to then clear the entire memory card. I sat, stunned, for a few minutes, but I tried to get over it because I was about to take a city tour of Buenos Aires. So again, I apologize that you won't get to see them. I wish that I still had them.
There is good news, too, in that that did not ruin my trip to Buenos Aires. It was wonderful. Buenos Aires is a very nice city. I think the best word to describe it is pleasant; it's a very pleasant city to be in and walk around. It's calm and aesthetically pleasing, with many nice buildings, neighborhoods, and streets. Buenos Aires is very European in style; there's much European architecture, and it's called the Paris of South America. There are also statues and monuments all over the city.
I saw most of the important sites in the city, but I got most of my feel for the city just from walking around the various neighborhoods. I did quite a bit of walking, actually. I tired myself out a few days. I remember talking about how much walking I've done in other posts, too. I don't know what's gotten into me. Any way, my first full day in Buenos Aires I took a city tour by bus that drove past or stopped by most of the major sites and neighborhoods. It was a nice tour. A few places we saw were the Plaza del Mayo, home to the Casa Rosada, or Pink Presidential House, from where Eva Peron made her famous addresses from the balcony. Also Buenos Aires' obelisk, an old, very colorful neighborhood called Caminito where Italian immigrants settled and is now a hotspot for tango, a Buenos Aires soccer stadium, and two upscale areas called Recoleta and Palermo, plus more.
In subsequent days I mainly walked in depth around several of the places we had driven past. I visited a museum dedicated to Evita. It was relatively simple, but all that I learned she did was remarkable. I walked around the Jewish area of Buenos Aires, which was cool. A lot of Jews walking around and many various kosher restaurants and different food shops. It was cool to see the Jewish area, that there's a vibrant Jewish population integrated in the middle of the city. I enjoyed that.
For the final few days of the trip, I switched hostels, and unbeknownst to me before arriving, it was virtually an Israeli hostel. The owner was Israeli, and 95% of the guests were Israeli. I was the only non-Israeli there for the last two days. Really, I had no indication that anything about it was Israeli. But when I first got there I saw Hebrew on the door and the first thing I saw after opening the door was an Israeli flag hanging in the hallway, so I thought, this is sweet. The worst thing, though, was that since it was an Israeli hostel there were a minimum of 5 people smoking at all times. That was a bit hard to bear, but I was still happy to be there.
Purim was just this weekend when I was still in Buenos Aires, so I celebrated there. It was a lot of fun. There was a Chabad just two blocks away from the Israeli hostel, so I went to hear the Megillah, eat, and party Saturday and Sunday. There are Chabads all over the city, but it was nice that there was one so close. And it was nice to be able celebrate Purim with a Jewish community.
My last day in Buenos Aires I visited the grand cemetery where Eva Peron, among other famous Argentines, are buried. The cemetery has large stones/monuments/small rooms or houses that are dedicated to those buried there. I read somewhere that it's one of the 3 most remarkable cemeteries in the world, along with the Jewish cemetery in Prague, which I have also seen, and the last I can't remember. But there were many statues and carving, long row after long row of monuments hovering over you as you walked around. It was quite a cemetery. Then I stopped by the site of the Israeli embassy bombing in 1992. I guess a bit of depressing way to end my trip, but I'm glad I saw them.
So now I'm back in Rio de Janeiro and have had one day of school. To celebrate, I'm taking the day off tomorrow from school and going to the beach. That's only half true; I don't have class on Wednesdays, or Mondays either for that matter. So I'm just going to the beach. I've been away from Rio for 10+ days, so I kind of miss the beach. Rough life.
I'll try my best not to lose the pictures from Buenos Aires.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)