Hola desde el otro lado

Como se puede ver , soy fluido en español ahora, para que todo este post va a ser en español!

Que?

Here's the translation of the above sentence: here

I will let you translate the post title on your own (its worth it).




OK, no more of that.

This past weekend, I wineried (WINE-or-ied).

This is how I winery

Wow, I am sophisticated as F**k (BTW the first * there is for 'r' and the second * is for 'an', so I am really saying I'm sophisticated as Frank....he's this guy I know who's really sophisticated).

More about that later. But first, I wanna deal with some questions that a lot of you have been asking me (actually no one has asked me anything, but I want to feel like I have fans writing in).


Q: How do you pack for a year long trip like this?

A: Funny you should ask. I actually have a picture of everything I packed (it seems everyone on these trips has a picture like this, so I wanted to be trendy)

To be clear, thats the following....

Toiletries
1 Toothbrush
1 Toothbrush charger
365 condoms
2 Extra toothbrush heads
1 Toothpaste
1 deodorant
1 Year supply contacts
1 Year supply medications
1 Nail clippers
1 Floss
1 Facewash

Clothes
2 Jeans
3 Running shorts
3 Short sleeve running shirts
3 Long sleeve running shirts
1 Bathing Suit
3 Shorts
1 Hoodie
1 Hiking boots
1 Running shoes
1 Sandals
5 Short sleeve shirts
1 Button down shirt
1 Rain jacket
1 Heavy running shirt thing

Travel Stuff
1 Backpack
1 Quickdry towel
1 Clothesline
1 Travel wallet
1 Water bottle
1 Power converter set
1 Travel surge protector
1 Sleeping bag liner
1 Eye mask
1 Travel safe
3 Locks
2 Resistance bands
1 Sunglasses
1 Leatherman
1 Travel pillow
1 USB fan
1 Electronics organizer
X Zip lock bags

Electronics
1 Macbook
1 Earbuds
1 Retractable USB cable
1 Kindle
1 Phone
1 Run watch
1 Tablet
2 Thumb drives
1 iPhone charger
1 Tablet charger
1 Battery pack
1 Watch charger
1 Dongle
1 Mouse
1 Keyboard
1 Monitor

Somehow that all fit in my bag. Actually it didn't. I had planned to only bring my travel backpack and side satchel thing, but at the very very last minute (the first time I tried packing) I found that it definitely all could not fit, so I brought along another backpack).


Q: Where do you work?

A: Here (for now):

Q: Who are your personal heroes?

A: Wow, what a tough question. I feel so unprepared to answer this. But I just turned my head to the right and our two "leaders" or "chaperones" or "camp counselors" of our trip were sitting there, so I'm pretty sure its them. So here they - Travis and Sam (Or as they like to say...Tramantha):

(Not a real picture frame)

Sam in a sweet? hat on her birthday

You prob feel like you really know them now. They are super cool and are making this trip awesome.


Q: Have you ever been to Thailand?

A: That's a weird question, I'm in Argentina right now. Why are you asking about Thailand? But if you really want to know, yes, I have been to Thailand and you can read about it here (you can also learn about Burning Man here....really you should just read all my blog posts).


And this concludes our Q&A session for this post. I want to thank everyone who participated this week and please keep on sending those questions and I will answer them in future posts (or start sending questions really).


Last time I told you about some interesting observations I had made here in Cordoba. I have a few more for you today....

• On the day that college students take their final exam, their friends "kidnap" them, strip them down to little more than underwear, cover them in paint and drive around with them sitting out the trunk of the car while they yell and honk at everyone. Then (in this same outfit), they go out to a meal with all their friends and family. Makes sense.

• Not really an observation.....but everyone here drinks Mate. Ya know Mate (Matte, Maté)

 Mate

This is not a picture of me

• Not sure if I mentioned it in my last post, but they like meat here (I really know I mentioned it in my last post ) (I am actually referencing a joke I made in my last post about remembering whether I mentioned they like meat) (this is getting too meta)

• Cordoba has like one of the only Fernet manufacturing plants in the world, so Fernet and coke is the drink of choice here....not my favorite

• Argentina had this military dictatorship through the 70s and 80s that made a lot of people "disappear". They also had a habit of taking babies away from families which they gave to military families to raise instead. This whole period is called the 'dirty war' and its memory is very much part of the culture in Argentina today. There is a group called, Madres de Plaza de Mayo, which is like mothers of the missing. So their mission is to try to identify children (adults today) who were taken from their real families and given to military families. They have a lot of political power and their symbol (a handkerchief) seems to be in the central plaza of most Argentinian cities (or the two that I have seen)

Madres de Plaza de Mayo

Last week was actually the 40th anniversary of the start of the dirty war and they had a large march through the city. Of course the US was involved in supporting the dictatorship here (as we tend to do (and continue to do (sorry for getting political(not really sorry)))) and so there is a lot of animosity towards what the US represents. Obama (seen above drinking a Mate) was in Buenos Aires the day of the 40th anniversary to help mend the relationship between the countries and actually agreed to demands to open up the CIA files on the US' support of the dictatorship in order to help find some of the missing. Coincidentally, that same day, Argentina dropped the reciprocity fee for US citizens traveling to Argentina (previously Americans had to pay them $160...just kind of as a fuck you). 

There are also grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo

Someone's being naughty

Translates to: "I come to sweep the backyard". Yeah, take that Obama

Viva la revolucion!!!! #FeelTheBern

Now, lets talk about my big trip of the last couple weeks....Mendoza. When you think of Mendoza, you should think of this:

Me, passed out in the grass on the lawn of a winery!

But first, I need to tell you about the bus ride. We took an overnight sleeper bus from Cordoba to Mendoza (about 9 hours). This bus was first class. I'm not sure why we don't have these in the US, but in the words of Borat, "I like".

No, sorry, that was Air Force One. Here's the bus I rode on:

Andy and Diane...so cute (one of two married couples on the trip)

Your seat could go totally flat, there were TVs in every seat with a selection of movies (in English even), and a bus stewardess (not sure of the correct terminology here...bus attendant? bus servant?) who served you two meals and wine. 

And that was my trip to Mendoza.

Sorry, no, there was more than the bus ride. We visited three wineries. The first was the oldest winery in Mendoza, the second was one of the newest wineries with a backdrop of the Andes mountains (unrelated to Andy in the picture above) and the third just gave us a bangin meal (a winery term) with four different types of unlimited wine (hence why everyone passed out in the grass after).

Winery #1:

The wine I am bringing back for gifts for all of you

Welcome to my home

Pancho

Winery #2:

The grapes smell of fear

Yep!

Winery #3:

Different grapes, I swear

Part of the bangin meal

Oh and somewhere in between, we took this gem:

Not feeling the wine at all

And in case you were wondering (as I certainly was), this is what an Argentinian rap battle looks like:

Another major highlight of the last couple weeks was going to the Argentina vs. Bolivia futbol match (no not soccer you Americans). This was a qualifier for the Russia 2018 world cup.....and I got to see Messi score a goal on a penalty kick, NBD. 

This being my first time at a professional futbol match, I didn't know what to expect, but I did expect your standard riots. As much as I tried, though, I couldn't get the riot going. But I suppose even if it happened they were prepared with with a moat around the the actual field.

The moat keeping fans (and the black night) at bay

The stadium was setup as first come first serve with no assigned seating which was was unfortunate since we got there right before the game started and were forced to stand on the steps by the exits. The stadium seemed pretty unpolished overall with no scoreboards, time clock or other game related indicators of any kind. Just two jumbotrons (sp?) playing random videos unrelated to the game. There were also no speakers built into the stadium and they just kinda threw some speakers around the field for sound #DiscountStadium. Overall, great experience though. I recommend it to you the next time you're in Argentina during a world cup qualifying match.

So much stuff happens here that I can't keep up with my blog. So much time has passed since my last post (and starting this post), that I'm not even in Cordoba anymore (say what?). Yeah, I arrived in Buenos Aires last night for the next stop on my trip. Thats right, its already been five weeks. How f***ing crazy is that? (the first * is for 'u', then the next * is for 'c' and the third * is for 'k'....the word is 'fucking'). I bet you thought I wrote this post all in one sitting...nope. It takes place over days of slaving away over a hot fire.

So on that note, we will say good bye to Cordoba and hello to Buenos Aires (I said, say hello!)

Good bye Cordoba

Hello Buenos Aires

Oh, btw, why has no one come to visit me yet?

Hello from the Other Side

Here I am

Here I am

Here I am

Here I am

Here I am

Here I am

Too close.....a little too close

For those of you who hoped I was dead, you're gonna be disappointed......cause I'm not dead. Boom!


I am in Cordoba, Argentina mid way through my third week with Remote Year (that itinerary is for a different group, my itinerary is here).

This whole thing is so hard to wrap my mind around. I've been here over two week now which seems insane, but at the same time it feels like I've been living this life forever. I can't even remember anything from my past life (sorry everyone). I'm sorry I haven't written sooner, but there's just non-stop things to do, so I'll try to do something more frequently and not let lots of so much cool stuff build up. 

Here's a pictures of a horse parade coming by the office:

Since I'm in a new strange land, I thought I would use an Adele lyric as my title. But I also thought I would put together a list of differing things that happen here in Cordoba (and Argentina in general (maybe...I haven't been anywhere else in Argentina yet so its hard to say)):

• Everything is sooooo slow here. You can't go to a meal and have it take less than 2 hours. Sometimes one person's meal will come out literally 30+ minutes after everyone elses and they dont seems to think thats a big deal. So much frustration! So many inefficiencies.
• Time is shifted here several hours. No one eats dinner till like 11pm (even for families). Bars start getting crowded around 1am and go till like 7am. But people still seem to wake up in the morning....they just take siestas.
• Literally (I don't take literally lightly) every girl here wears platform shoes...I dont get it
• ATMs often will have no money. They don't refill on the weekends or holidays and apparently haven't figured out how to determine when they will run out of money so that they can refill them, so theres often lines down the street for working ATMs
• Everything has meat in it...especially ham. Theres ham on burgers, theres ham in lasagne, theres hame in ham. Theres just so much unhealthy food here. I don't understand why everyone here isn't super fat (like Americans)
• People are crazy about working out (perhaps I answered the above mystery)...I see people with barbell sets in the park doing olympic lifts in the morning
• This city is such an outdoor city...every bar and restaurant seems to be outdoors friendly. They have these things called gallerias which are like long alleyways filled with bars and restaurants and shops

Thats it. Thats everything I learned about this place. Oh and theres very few English speakers. Oh and my Spanish is terrible. But I am taking a Spanish class and using this app Duolingo. But my Spanish is terrible.

This is how I tango in Argentina

This is how I running group in Argentina

This is how I foam fight with kids in Argentina

This is how I pose next to a giant head in Argentina (although I'm not in the picture)

This is how I eat a seven course meal with wine parings in Argentina

This is how I look at one of seven
courses in a seven course meal with
 wine pairings in Argentina

This is how I nap in Argentina

This is also how I nap in Argentina

This is how I think (and work) in Argentina (sometimes)

At this point, you're probably wondering, "how much did that seven course meal with wine pairing cost in Argentina". The answer is: "Like $60. Thanks for your question". 

So stuff is pretty cheap here. Definitely cheaper than New York, but I hear this will be one of the more expensive places we will visit. I will be rich by the end of my year traveling around the world. Who knew?

There's like 75 other people traveling with me as well. Here they are:

I can name exactly seven at this point. They're pretty cool though.

One of those seven is this guy, Abe:

People say we're married cause of this picture...but really, we're just roommates

At the beginning of the trip we were always traveling in groups of 30-40. Now we're down to something more manageable like groups of 15-20 as we start forming our cliques. This is what dinner looks like with 40 people (double-sided).

That guy in the middle is Mike. He's our token......Canadien

Oh I forgot to mention that they like their meat here. Like really like their meat (I know I really already mentioned this, but I thought I would emphasize it. Then I decided I would act like I didn't remember telling you, but really I do).

How do you feel about that picture Sam Levin?

And finally (for this week), we went on a hike in a national park this weekend. So I took some pictures.

It was like a Condor trek and we saw Condors....so I'm supposed to be a Condor here

There's infinity (literally infinity) more that I could write about and show pictures of, but I would never complete an actual blog post. So I am gonna cap it there for the first entry. But I will fill in more details about my Remote Year peoples and happenings and plans and Argentina stuff and everything else you could possibly think of later. This weekend I head to Mendoza which is a region known for their wine. Get excited. Oh no, I mean I should get excited. You aren't going. Unless you're a Remote Year member reading my blog...then you can get excited. But everyone else...sorry, you can't be excited.

And if you like my blog...share it with everyone you know. Even if they don't know/like me...so I can be a positive influence in those people's lives. Trust me, they need it!