Buenos Aires June 13-16, 2008

My last day of school was June 12th and I flew to Buenos Aires the following day where I met up with Maya and Terra. They had already been there for a few days and had rented a furnished apartment in a neighborhood called Recoleta. Buenos Aires is a huge city with a population of over 10 million people. It has a very European influence.....lots of really cool old buildings, cafes, artisans, markets, and tango. The wine and steaks are amazing and cheap. I fell in love with this city immediately and wished that I had more time to explore.
Here is some more information for the interested:
Buenos Aires Information


So, I knew that it was winter in Argentina and had carefully checked the weather reports which said about 60 degrees. That didn't sound too bad to me, but it turned out to be very windy which made it feel a lot colder. I immediately bought new gloves, a hat and scarf which I wore permanently for the rest of the trip. BRRRR! It was cold!

Our apartment

On my first night in Buenos Aires we went to a really cool bar that was an old mansion. Check out Maya's blog for a link to the bar called Milion and also lots of other great pictures of our trip. Start with the archive "Jen's here" to see the link and more pix.
terramaya blog

Floralis Generica in Plaza Naciones Unidas, Recoleta
opens its metallic petals every morning and closes them again at dusk

we spent a lot of time trying the wonderful red wine in many unique and fun cafes


This is an area of town called La Boca. There were a lot of brightly painted buildings, cafes, tango dancers in the streets, artisans selling all kinds of stuff and fun statues and paintings. It is an older part of town and a fun place to spend the day

Puente de la Mujer (Women's Bridge) in Puerto Madero:

We went to the Recoleta Cemetery where Evita is buried. This was like nothing I have ever seen before. It is a maze of narrow streets that goes on and on lined with elaborate mausoleums. Many of them had windows so you could actually see the coffins. Very interesting place.
Recoleta Cemetery

Casa Rosada (like the white house) in Plaza de Mayo

more government buildings surrounding
Plaza deMayo

Cheers to Buenos Aires.
Thanks for a great time
I hope to return!

one last link...thanks again to Maya I have now learned how to save my pictures on flickr and link them so that you can view all of my photos if you would like to see more. Let's see if it works:
more pix

Cartagena

Yes, I had another puente last weekend and headed to Cartagena with Jenna, Jen and Sarah. Cartagena is the #1 tourist destination in Colombia. It has a population of around 1 million people and thrives mostly on tourism. It is on the Caribbean coast. It has its share of high rise hotels on the beach. It also has the old city which is surrounded by walls, like a fort. It is really amazing! Inside the walls there are lots of old buildings with cool architecture, high balconies, plants, cobblestone roads, horse drawn carriages, massive churches, street performers, and lots of things to buy from very pushy sellers on the streets. Great restaurants too! And crazy hot and humid weather. I loved it! It is about a two hour flight from Medellin. We arrived on Friday night and left on Monday afternoon. I want to go back when I have more time to see all of the sites. This trip was short and spent mostly on the beach and at the pool.

We wore these shirts on the way there. This is in the airport and yes we are cocktailing!

We spent a lot of time at the hotel pool
And when we weren't at the pool we were across the street at the beach.
Jen and I are getting massages on the beach.

This is the view from our hotel room. That is the old city in the distance

Dinner out in the old city.....yummy fresh fish!

This is one of the churches in the old city at night

There were many of these copper statues all over the place

street show....men on stilts

more pix of the old city

Landslides in Medellin

So a few weeks ago it started raining and seemingly never stopped. The rain caused many landslides around Medellin. I live in the valley and take a windy road up the mountain to get to school. The landslides closed this road and made it impossible for us to go to school several days. It was kind of crazy because we didn't know from day to day whether we would be able to get to school the next day or not. But it was nice to have surprise days off. Also, the first day it started we were all rushed home early with very little warning so we could get down the mountain before it closed. Now, we are back at school, but we are on shorten days. Also, we have to take a different road to school. It takes over an hour. Yuck! But luckily there is only one week of school left.
These are some pictures of one of the main slides. Don't worry I didn't take them. These came from the newspaper. But I have seen a lot of it and it is pretty wild. Entire mountains have seemingly collapsed and there are HUGE boulders, bigger than buses in the roads. Crazy! Luckily it has stopped raining for a few days and the mountain seems to have stopped falling!

my new nephew

My new nephew, Aiden James Stuckey was born in Riverside, CA on May 21,2008 to Rebecca and Donnie Stuckey. He looks just like his dad and his older brother, Ryan.
I can't wait to see him!

The happy family at Thanksgiving

What beautiful writing Ryan has and he is only three years old.
I miss you and love you and I can't wait to meet your baby brother!!

Bogota

I had yet another long weekend at the beginning of May. We had Thursday, Friday and Monday off from school so it made for a nice travel weekend. I decided to go to Bogota with Tina, Paula, Jennifer and Jenna. Bogota is the capital of Colombia. It is a few hundred miles south east from Medellin but it takes about 8 hours to get there on a bus. We opted for the 40 minute plane ride. Bogota is very high in elevation at about 8,000 feet. It is in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains, very green and lush. It is also very cold. It rains a lot and the average temperature is in the 50's. This is probably the only thing that I didn't like about it. It is a huge city, around 10 million people. It had lots of museums, shops, cool architecture, an old part of the city, and best of all, lots of great food. It had much more of an international influence so it had tons of great restaurants. We spent most of the weekend eating! I forgot how much I missed great cuisine. We have good food in Medellin, but there is not much of a variety. In Bogota, we had curry, middle eastern food, great sushi and amazing Italian. They also had a microbrewery with great beer. I discovered my new favorite drink....vino caliente, kind of like mulled wine, great on a cold wet night in Bogota. Our favorite was the Mexican restaurant we found on the first day. It was so exciting we spent an entire afternoon there eating everything on the menu and drinking margaritas. I know I live in South America, but look at a map. You are A LOT closer to Mexico than I am. They don't do Mexican down here. Anyway, it was a great trip!!!

Our first stop was Hard Rock Cafe. I know!!! But the $20.00 burger was worth every bite and the ambiance reminded me of home

Our Hotel

The fabulous Mexican restaurant with great Margartas

We spent the afternoon in The Plaza Bolivar

feeding the birds

seeing some cool buildings

and meeting some very interesting people

This really cute old man drew a picture of Tina in like two minutes when we were in the plaza. Then later that night he was standing outside of a club we went to miles away from the plaza so I had to get my picture.

Jenna riding an alpaca in the plaza...lots of laughs!

The clown/mime that made balloon thingies for all of us

And another very weird clown/mime doing a show

We took a tram up to one of the peaks overlooking the city called Cerro de Monserrate. There was a church up there, beautiful paths to walk on, some restaurants and an amazing view of the city.

We had several fun nights out in the city. Lots of great clubs and dancing. Of course, it was always raining. This guy was well prepared with the biggest umbrella I have ever seen

A guy on stilts performing in one of the clubs

And just to make sure I don't forget where home is.....