Sustainable Flexibility

Coming back from Argentina and settling back into hectic life in Williamsburg created a weird disconnect within my life. One of my well intentioned drunk friends gave me some odd advice at my welcome home party. "There are two kathleen's now...an argentinian version of you and an american one. You have to just do the best you can to be the American version of yourself." I didn't realize how good I have become at multi-tasking, compartmentalizing and essentially minimizing certain facets of personality depending on the circumstances. I also didn't realize how truly exhausting it is on all levels. What I do in one part of my life is inextricably linked to what I do in another part of my life.

I had a holistic epiphany during a particularly difficult Vinyasa Yoga class on Wednesday. Vinyasa is a completely new type of yoga for me and really challenges me in a way that I know will improve my normal hot or bikram yoga practices. This class was being taught by the most ridiculously talented instructor I have ever seen. The things Staci can do with her body are Cirque De Soliel quality...truly. Anyways, my life perspective was tweaked during triangle pose on a random wednesday thanks to this woman's expertise. She commented to me that because my backbends have gotten so deep lately, I am compensating by essentially collapsing my shoulders in alot of positions.

Over and over, people have told me "If you're too open minded, your brains will fall out". I have recently began to realize that you can be too flexible in yoga and in life if you ignore your body's subtle cues that tell you where your limits are. I have always been an odd combination of flexible and problematically stubborn so limits, deadlines, and structure have been constant enemies of mine. I went to a seminar yesterday on "mindfullness" as a healing practice. Mindfullness is a part of holistic healing that focuses on truly engaging in the moment. It's harder than it seems.

A quote that particularly resonated with me-

"Many people have learned to block out feelings, or never learned how to be aware of some, which means they often don't recognize an emotion in themselves until it's become extreme. This does not mean that one lacks emotional responses to things that can happen, just that one's emotions are mostly operating out of awareness and on autopilot."

It goes on to talk about how sometimes we do things either consciously or subconsciously to dull those emotions, so they tend to escalate. It makes sense, that we get addicted in a sense, to whatever type of person, substance, food, or situation we put ourselves into. These are my random ramblings of a busy mind, but sometimes putting things in writing makes them more clear. On my agenda for the week is preparing for a debate on psychoactive drugs, a research paper on meditation as a behavioral modification to manage stress disorders, preparing for a presentation on implications of head coverings for muslim women in france, a tab at the college delly with my volleyball team to celebrate winning moonball, my last meeting as an executive for Every 2 Minutes and of course, plenty of yoga!

My roomate Megan goes to yoga sometimes as well (Doug went once before he swore it off, and billy wants to go but he is too busy training to save lives as a military man) and made a comment one evening this week. "Oh, I think I'm going to go to yoga tomorrow." I enthusiastically said, "Oh, I'm going to go too!" and Billy and Doug laughed and said, "Are you also eating lunch tomorrow Kathleen?" The sad part of it is that my yoga practice is more crucial to my happiness than eating lunch would be.

La concha del arquero!! World Cup madness and life in Argentina

I have been absolutely terrible about updating this blog lately which I am sure that I will end up regretting because this has EASILY been the most fun segment of my trip. Some nights michelle, Eliana and I will cry because we think about how much leaving eachother is going to suck but they are always brief and mixed with actual laughter because we realize how ridiculous it is to waste our time here with tears.

So what's been going on these last few weeks? Emily's parents came last week and took the girls out to Pizza Bacci (Oh that savory deep crusted spinache pizza is like anything else I have ever tasted) and it was a strange little connection back to charlottesville/american culture. They were very sweet and enjoyed hearing our perspective on Argentine culture after being introduced to it themselves.

BEING HERE DURING THE WORLD CUP IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!!! There is so much excitement and argentine paraphenalia all over the place and the city literally shuts down when a game is going on. Last Sunday for the Greece game we went over to Yami's house to watch with the entire extended family and were slightly late (Argentime does not apply to soccer...). Isidro requested that we bring his soccer ball, so we were dribbling through a lifeless la plata on the way. Argentine spanish is already very intensely expressive and when you add in emotionally charged soccer games to that you have a recipe for some very colorful expressions. My host family is just as fun to watch as Maradona is on the sidelines. Michelle and I left about an hour after the game had finished to go do work in Oliverio's (our favorite cafe...the waitresses now all talk to us like friends) and still the streets were ALIVE with excitement, blue and white, and lots of car horns.

This Friday night was a pretty laid back one, we came home from class at around 830 pm (Don't even get me started on how painful that class is...we would die if it werent for the 15 minute break in between) to find the table filled with snacks, beer and family. It actually rather fondly reminded me of a Doyle family gathering :-) We all hung out for a long time and I have a particularly funny strand of pictures taken by or at the insistance of Francisca to remind me of the night.

We didn't get to bed till late despite not actually going out anywhere so we naturally spent half of saturday sleeping. Michelle opted to stay home from dinner and eat leftovers as they were having a seafood bake at Yami's house and she doesnt like seafood. That was her loss, it was DELICIOUS, and I even tried kalimari for the first time. A couple that they were friends with was there so naturally I spent alot of time playing with their kids. One of them was a tiny child who couldn't have been more than 1 and a half and could still sort of sing the K'naan world cup song, it was one of the most adorable things I've seen in a long time.

Saturday night was a BLAST thanks to David's planning. Me chrissy michelle and david met up at Eliana's house, drank a cafe irlandes to warm us up from the cold weather (Chrissy was a bartender in England so knows the right proportions for everything), we split a taxi to Alexia's (an awesome french exchange student) where everyone was meeting to hang out before the birthday party. David had brought Fernet Menta (a mint variety of this herbal liquor that's so popular here) so we mixed that with sprite and the night was off to a phenomenal start. A pair of other french exchange students and argentines came to meet up with us in our efforts to safely imbibe before the night of dancing, of course.

Around 3 we got a text from Alvaro's friend that said the bar was already filling up so we had better hurry (we later found out that was code for- it's a little empty here and I want the rest of my friends to come). But we left alexia's around 3 and walked the few rainy blocks to the boliche. Since david had already got us our entradas we didn't have to wait in the line or pay the cover charge and went straight to the dance floor. Going out in Argentina is quite an experience...the drinks are cheap, the music is loud and highly danceable but the gender dynamics are very different than what I'm used to. I'm not sure if it's a function of being in a city or being in a foreign city but there tends to be large groups of guys that all come together and large groups of girls without much intermingling except for explicit romantic/sexual intentions. We were one of the few truly co-ed groups there i noticed, but as most of us were paired up within or outside of the group it wasnt that noticeable. We have learned that Argentine males don't appreciate subtle rejection and as soon as they hear you speak and realize that you are foreign you are going to have to forget being tactful unless you want to invite their chamuyendo (sweet talking...haha). At first we would talk to almost anyone just because it seemed like the nice and respectful thing to do, but now we'll pretty much respond to advances with. "Gracias, me voy con mis amigos, no te quiero hablar mas...chau" Within the cultural context if they are going to be aggressive with their advances it is only fitting to provide an equally decisive response!

That is not to put any judgement on what seems to be a culturally ingrained way of gender interactions. We've had the luck of meeting great Argentine boys who treat us with all the respect in the world. There just seems to be a more direct way of approaching things which is pretty refreshing. While we were watching the world cup game on Sunday (everything in this post seems to relate to the world cup!!) after our night out with the Bacci clan I was joking with michelle about a text that she got saying- SOS HERMOSA (you're beautiful!) and our 5 year old cousin chimes back- "No mas que vos!!" (no more than you!!). We died of laughter...they truly are socialized to know how to flirt since birth it seems. I don't think I have felt so stereotypically argentine as when I was holding a mate and cheering for Tevez' goal after just having eaten asado.

I love my life in Argentina so much!!! I miss and love my family and friends from the US. HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY to my older brother Kevin who turned 23 yesterday, Love you!

Green Mango Gatorade

I was going to go for Blue Ice Gatorade. It would have been a safe and familiar choice like a chai latte after a bikram class. I found myself being impulsively and chemically drawn to the green mango gatorade instead. I paid my 4 pesos and cracked it open on the walk back home. It was brighter than any liquid I've ever consumed without medicinal intent. Bold. Expressive. Maybe it isn't the type of gatorade I would drink every day of my life, but today it presented a fascinating new experience that wont be available to me for the rest of my life.

I think I have settled for being bright bold and expressive on an aesthetic level for fear of incorporating those ideals into my being at an internal level. It is easier to take a tequila shot, wear blindingly bright colors and bitch to your friends about how true love, peace and happiness cannot exist in a world so close minded than it is to OPEN your mind to the possibility that they may actually exist.

For all that I try to generalize about the 'culture' of argentina for descriptive purposes, my real inspiration has come from the individuals. Anyone can get lost in the system, the collective, the politics. I have been inspired by trivial details and large feats alike: a woman who has had a child due to a wartime rape, a friend who is still as in love as the day his boyfriend moved to the opposite hemisphere, a disillusioned band who offers us pot instead of coffee and hopes to change the establishment with lyrics of love and simplicity, a tango teacher with an affinity for profane cartoons who moved to argentina without speaking spanish, a little pudgy cousin who claims, "manana no existe mami", a woman who believes in free love, lace stockings and acyrillic paint and militant peronism who is not willing to mute herself to appease anyone else, a pair of sisters that don't call themselves such, but are better feminists than anyone I have met, a roomate pursuing her dream of international development in guatemala despite being constantly berated by a conservative family, a friend who is not shrinking back from the redefinition of love exploding his safety bubble, a woman who's brother was taken from her and finds the courage to lead unintentionally ignorant american children past his monument, a refreshingly respectful boy who openly treats women better than the machismo framework of his society, a grandfather with wrinkles of joy despite fleeing his fatherland for years and putting his family's life over his pride.

I am constantly challenged and inspired by the bright, bold and expressive individuals around me. Don't be afraid to drink it in today.

Diversion, divertirse, de-vertere, to turn ones' self away from
etymology poses eternal mysieries
I dont want a distraction. evasion. hiding place.
I want abond. an attraction. a yoke.
with myself and my wind stained silver converse
with the schoolgirl holding her mothers hand out of love or fear
with the old vixen in the bright pink pants who puffs her cigarette like she's 20
with the bearded man serving as the collective tail of 3 dog. the aimless follower.
with the graffiti. the plants on the patio. the crosswalks.
with this microcosm of reality

5 months is way too short for a study abroad experience. You can only spend so long living in the moment before you realize the depth of the bonds you created. It is the little things I will miss about this place: making fun of Eliana's random affinity for the black eyed peas, how our maid seems to think michelle owns no shoes and puts all of hers in my closet, passing the artesenia on the way to class, sitting on the floor of the loft listening to charly garcia blogging when I should be doing work...

I didnt realize how much I loved it here until this weekend. I have phenomenal friends and families in two separate hemispheres. For every creepy similarity there is between my two lives there is a contradicting irony. It's like a flash sideways out of LOST.

Pics from the Iguazu adventure (taken by Michelle)

What have you always wanted to scream into a waterfall?

Grab a cup of coffee or a mate goard...this one's going to be a long one!

Part of our class at the comission "Indigenous rights and the environment" was a trip to Puerto Iguazu. Iguazu, or as they write it there, Yguazu is a small sliver of Argentina between paraguay and Brazil. It is a small town, but gets alot of tourist traffic because it includes the national park of Misiones and las CATARATAS (which are in the running to become one of the next 7 wonders of the world!). It was also a great chance to get to know our professor, Gisela Juare who is one of the coolest people I've gotten to know in Argentina. Alex said it best when he described her as the type of person who could easily be in the film an Avatar- she is tall and graceful with a fervent love for nature and a way of connecting easily with everyone and everything around her. She took great care to plan the trip with our interests in mind. We left La Plata Wednesday morning and drove to the airport in Buenos Aires. It was strange to be in an airport for the first time since arriving here and even stranger to think that the next time I enter Ezezia will be to fly home on July 17th. (mark your calendars and come visit me!!)

When we landed in Iguazu I felt like I was in a different country entirely. Several of the formative works of argentine literature Martin Fierro and Facundo claim that argentina consists of 2 parts- the province of Buenos Aires and the "rest" of the country. I certainly saw the link. The land, people, and wildlife appeared completely different. We stayed at STOP hostel which was right next to a tango bar that had a mural painted of Che Guevarra and Eva Peron dancing the tango...if that's not essentially the argentine stereotype I don't know what is. We were lucky to discover the JOY of 2x10 peso cocktails during happy hour. Our first Portuguese lesson of the trip came from the drink name- CAIPIRINYAS...I don't know the literal translation but we were all extremely fond of them and even our trip leaders enjoyed several before dinner.

Thursday was kind of a slow day because some of our plans were impeded by the flooding of the localities wherein we planned to travel. We met with a woman named Angela who is very esteemed within all parts of the community because she started a bilingual school in the area. Though Argentina doesn't have a high indigenous population comparatively (2%), a large portion of this percentage is found in this northern province. Angela explained to us a little bit of the dynamics of the Guarani tribe we were going to spend time with the following day. She made a comment I found unsettling and offensive about how "white American feminism is merely a power struggle". It took me a long time to process her perspective but in the end I took away from it that she didn't want us to judge their gender relations based on our societal framework. I have found throughout this experience that the things I am most passionate about tend to be also the ones that I am most ethnocentric and closed minded.

No Caipyrinhas tonight as we were all preparing for a midnight soccer game and an early morning. Emily, Michelle, Alex and I had made some friends in the hostel earlier in the afternoon that invited us to come play soccer with them at a nearby small indoor field. In a group of Argentine and Brazilian males my soccer skills were less than exemplary but all of the spectators particularly loved when one of the 3 of us made a good play or stole the ball from one of the men. One of the Brazilian men kept yealling what sounded to us like- "choque monito" (little monkey crash...), and at the end of the game we asked him what it meant in Portuguese. It turned out he was saying "jogo bonito"....I suppose beautiful play makes alot more sense than little monkey crash.

Friday morning we loaded up into the back of a pickup truck and drove about 20 minutes past civilization on red dirt pathways till we reached the bilingual (guarani and castellano) school. It was down a mountain by a watering hole and appeared to have about 5 different tiny classrooms divided by sheet metal. The celebratory sign read "hagamos una Argentina con Raices"- "Let's make an Argentina with Roots" and I feel that well encompassed the goal of the school- to tie the guarani culture with Argentine nationalism. They were celebrating the bicentennial of Argentine independence from Spain so the directors of the school spoke and each class gave a dance performance. I felt extremely out of place and slightly uncomfortable at first but we had some time afterwards to joke around with the kids before heading back to the center of their community. They slept in simply constructed wooden lean to's, used an outhouse, and the soccer field was clearly the center of attention. The young boys were playing soccer all afternoon as the girls were helping the older women with food preparation and cleaning. We got to play a full game against the females of the community- that was a spectacle! At first they were demolishing us but we managed to come back and hold our own. I was playing goalie and I certainly have the battle wounds to prove it.

It was beautiful to me how soccer served as an icebreaker to ease the cultural differences between the two groups of us. It didn't matter that we were pretty bad, we still managed to establish a level of trust and friendship throughout the game. Afterwards we ate with them- pasta cooked in a HUGE pot with a reddish oil and a bit of chicken. I was excited to see the boys starting a game of pickup volleyball and scarfed down the rest of my food eagerly in hopes of playing a sport I felt more at home with. It is easy to see why these people are in such great shape and so evidentally happy. They were active and social all afternoon long. Bettina posed an interesting question to the group- "what help do you think you need from the rest of Argentina to continue thriving?" I didn't quite understand the answer but it seems to me they straddle a fine line between not wanting interference and being slightly afraid for their sustainability in an evolving word.

It was an excellent and powerful day for everyone. We spent the night at the hostel (more caipyrinhas of course) making friends from Australia, Austria, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, and the UK. I am now convinced you can meet the most fascinating and eclectic people at a youth hostel. I learned about German soccer, portuguese diction, and that it's cheaper to film reality TV shows in Argentina than Brazil. A memorable quote from our goofy German friend Claudius "Sometimes I don't like to make party. I just like to be in nature. Beautiful nature." It was weird to be on the other end of the linguistic spectrum, that is communicating in our first language while everyone else was communicating in their second. Michelle and I went with the crew for late night hotdogs then called it a night. Some of the other group members may have regret their decision not to do the same the next morning when we had to be out and about by 9. The next day in the hostel they had changed the Happy hour time to read- HAPPY HOUR- ALL NIGHT LONG Caipyrinhas 2x10, Tequila Shots 2x10. I think its safe to say we had a fun group.

While Friday was one of the most culturally interesting things I have witnessed, Saturday was easily the most incredible natural spectacle I've seen. I will add pictures of the waterfalls...but just know that no picture could accurately capture how incredible they are. We got a bit of the Amazon experience (catered toward tourists...clearly) and hiked through the jungle a bit before seeing our first falls. We saw a large variety of gorgeous butterflies, toucans, and aardvarks. Aardvarks seem to be this region's equivalent of the WM squirrel infestation. I literally saw an aardvark steal a bag of chips out of a man's lap...I guess I can check that one off the bucket list. One of the most memorable moments was running out to the ledge and getting soaked by a particularly huge section of the falls. It was so loud and liberating...we could yell whatever we wanted into the falls and just felt it be absorbed by the powerful force of the waterfall. You MUST add las cataratas de iguazu onto your list of places to travel if you have the opportunity.

Probably my favorite stretch of time on the trip. It was an absolute blast...I can't stop smiling even typing about it. Now it's back to the reality of over 30 pages of writing in Spanish over the next few weeks!

dale dale dale LOBO

First of all...it's starting to hit me how little time I have left here. With my WM friends headed home for summer and friends in other study abroad programs heading back stateside the reality of the time slipping by is starting to sink in. The other night I had a dream that I suddenly had to fly home because Kevin and Lauryn decided to get married and I was really upset to leave prematurely and kept thinking of all of the things that I hadn't done and seen here. SO this weekend I accomplished one of the things I was upset about not doing in my carpe diem dreams- seeing 'our' team CLUB GIMNASIA ESGRIMA de LA PLATA play a live soccer game!

Michelle and I went to the Gimnasia headquarters yesterday evening to buy tickets for the game today. They have special rates for "dama" girl tickets...35 pesos compared to 50. My feminist side was unsettled whereas my cheapskate side was pleased...asi es la vida. Afterwards we went to see a really interesting documentary playing at the art school called "La Guerra Por Otros Medios" (The War through other modes). It was a great perspective on the indigenous perspective of La Ley de Medios. La Ley de medios is a media law that's being introduced that would basically give the government some of the same censorship rights it had during the dictatorship.

Today after a delicious lunch of Pizza Bacci we headed out to the field to meet up with Alex, his host mom's son Simon and his friends. This was apparently a "calm" game as it wasn't important for the league standings and there was a HUGE crowd of people dressed in navy blue with drums, trumpets, UMBRELLAS, flags and whatever else you could possibly make noise with filling the streets. There were a striking amount of cops with RIOT gear which made me a little anxious about the crazyness that was about to ensue. Soccer is more than diversion here...it's almost a political/social statement. There are two main clubs here in La Plata- Gimnasia and Estudiantes (Pincha RATA...andate de la plata!) and Gimnasia branched off from Estudiantes a while back. Neither of them are as good, or well funded...as the Buenos Aires teams and historically Gimnasia has been more of the underdogs which makes me love them even more. Anyhow, Gimnasia (el LOBO) is associated with the working class and there was even a huge flag in the stadium with Eva Peron's face painted in gimnasia colors to strengthen that association.

In size, the stadium itsself wasn't that impressive. Then again, that is coming from a member of a DIEHARD hokie family who grew up in the sea of orange and marroon (largery?) also known as lane stadium. The energy of the stadium was CERTAINLY on par however. Banners were tied from the bottom of the stadium to the top and loud Argentines were standing on railings holding onto the banner to keep from falling. They swayed back and forth and chanted the whole time and there were times I was afraid that young children were going to get accidentally clotheslined. The boys next to us had firecracker things that gave off blue and white smoke which was alot of fun but probably not so great for our lungs. There was constant jumping, a repotoire (sp?) of at least 15 songs accompanied by this hand motion we refer to as the limp wrist.

Both teams fought hard the whole time though mi querido LOBO fell a little flat near the end, so Tucuman was able to come back and tie 3-3. Overall we had an absolute blast being such a part of something that they are all so passionate about. We hope to go back next Sunday which will apparently be a way more important and CRAZY game!

Love and miss you all!

que lo cumplas muy feliz- FELIZ FELIZ

This was without a doubt one of the most exhausting, social, fascinating, caloric, intense and EXCELLENT weekends of my trip. I already knew that I won the host family lottery, but this weekend confirmed it more than ever. Hugo and Lidia had three children- Yamila, Eliana (my host mom) and Mariano. They were militantly active Peronists that fleed the country during the dictadura to Panama then Miami. I think this period of time when really all they had was eachother to lean on that made their family's bond so unique and special. Hugo is a vibrant man of around 78 I believe with a handle bar mustache, constant smile and truly is the life of the party. Lidia is a little bit quieter and a strikingly beautiful woman of 75 with flat ironed blond hair, artificially pink lips who pampers everyone around her. Anyway, it was Lidia's 75th birthday this thursday and the Bacci clan rallied the troops to throw her one of the most amazing and touching parties I have ever been a part of.

I have no idea how Lidia didn't see it coming with the amount of planning that went into it and the talkative tendencies of the bacci sisters in particular, but I have a feeling it has to do with how selfless of a person she is. Anyhow, they rented out a venue that is sometimes used for Peronist meetings, told her that there was a reunion and invited 100 of her friends and relatives to join the festivities. Michelle and I were on babysitting duty as the bacci's prepared and actually had alot of fun teaching the kids songs in english, learning them in spanish, and playing hand clap games. They were particularly fans of- WHO stole the cookie from the cookie jar? and we learned that the Argentine equivalent translates to SOMEONE was in the bathroom and left a stink...WHO was it?

I could not believe the amount of food that was present. there was a HUGE table filled with cheeses, salamis and these crackers with pizza sauce baked onto them in addition to about 12 HEAPING trays of empanadas, bread baskets with multiple dips, pizza, plates of sandwiches, about 20 bottles of wine, soft drinks and fernets galore...it was insane...we will be dealing with the leftovers for days, except for the wine (every last drop was consumed).

Lidia was absolutely shocked and it took a minute for her to realize the entire party was actually for her. After lots and lots of hugging, chatting and more eating they played a slide show with a bunch of Bacci family pictures which was adorable. They brought out a table of cakes, lit the candles on a particularly gorgeous one and sung two versions of happy birthday...one of which was set to the tune of the Peronist anthem...go figure. Perhaps the most touching moment of the night was when Hugo and Lidia began to waltz in the middle of the dance floor right after the singing and Eliana and Mariano cut in. After the warm fuzzy moments, the REAL argentine dancing began which was of course spearheaded by the dynamic duo of Yamila and Eliana. Thats how I will forever remember Eli and Yami- dancing as if they were 18 years old in tight dark jeans, white shirts and boots laughing uproariously in the middle of their mothers 75th birthday party.

It was a BEAUTIFUL celebration of life.

Triangle pose and Chai Latte

The past 24 hours have been one of the unplanned adventures in life that end up being more fun than anything you could plan for. We went over to Claudia's house to hang out with the crew, but the boys left to drink and go celebrate a birthday. Earlier in the day Katherine had gotten stuff to make brownies (none of us have done much cooking or baking while here), and they probably would have turned out great except for that we didn't use the right kind of chocolate. It doesnt surprise me that bakers chocolate was hard to find here as everything seems to be super-sugary by our standards. We ended up with a chocolate mousse/cake/blob that looked less then apetizing but it tasted good and we enjoyed it nonetheless. We had a great time goofing around drinking water from wine glasses fancily (clear wine...0% alcohol, 100 proof you dont need to be drunk to have fun!)

sidenote: I just looked up what I heard my host sister (age 6) chanting about her grandfather- el esta cagandoooo (shitting). Bienvenidos a la casa Bacci

So anyways, I felt great last night and decided that today would be a great day to adventure by myself to the Bikram studio in Palermo. I woke up at about 945, packed my shoulder bag with a change of clothes, water, bananas, deoderant and travel shampoo and was off by 10:30. I stopped at an atm, hid enough money in my shoe that I'd be able to make it home if I got robbed in BA and trudged off hapily listening to Billy Joel (it's amazing how much better your parents music taste gets as you grow up). The bus terminal was an absolutely overwhelming place the first time I stepped foot in it. This time I almost auto-piloted it to the PLAZA busses and asked for an ida y vuelta ticket to Buenos Aires. Luckily for me, I was there at the time the double decker bus was about to depart which means a quicker (if a bit more stuffy) journey with no stops. There aren't really bus "stops" per se...they basically let you off whenever you wait at the door, so I got off near the 9 de Julio where there's a big washington monument-esque statue. There's 5 main subway lines in BA that are all color coordinated so I found my way to Linea D (green) and paid for 2 tickets again (saves alot of time). I got off at the Bulnes stop which is in a very nice (if a bit touristy/americanized) part of Palermo. I was so early that I took my time walking through the city passed apartments that all had beautiful plants on the balcony, men walking about 5 dogs at once, signs for cirque de soliel coming on May 25th, and a very diverse crowd of people.

I made it to the park across from the bikram studio at about 12:30 and the class didn't start till 1:30 (13:30...) I had built in plenty of extra time because I was almost sure I'd get lost but amazingly I didn't, so I found a nice tree, popped out a banana, bottle of water and my travel journal and wrote down some random thoughts. Around 1 I headed across the street to the brightly purple painted studio (it's funny how subtle changes can make something so american seem more argentine), buzzed in (most stores here have locked doors so they can just let in people who look to be legitimate customers), and spoke with the lady at the counter. After seeing how easy it was to come on my own, I bought a 4 class pass for 200 pesos (thank you bikram "McYoga" Choudrouy for taking more than your share of my money in whatever currency it happens to be in at the moment) and was good to go. The classes expire in 30 days, and when I looked down and the expiration date said may 27th it really sunk in how long I've been here. I'm rapidly approaching the half way mark...crazy!

It was one of those beautifully gorgeous bikram classes that was not too crowded but just crowded enough and so hot that you begin the purification process (read:sweating), before your even done with the first breathing exercise. Maybe it was something about my day of chiseling away at my fear of solitude and cities but I was able to really sink into the back bending postures even further than I could during my 30 day challenge. Our class was taught (in a combination of english and spanish, though it was technically supposed to be all in english, by the amazingly inspirational studio owner originally from Texas. I chatted with him alot last time I came and he let me put a pin in their world map- Bikram yoga Char-ville...consider yourself repped in Ar-gen-tina. He really pushed me "Come on ms. study abroad...sit in the chair, not the barstool like you've done for the last month" and with his help I almost completely locked my leg out in standing bow pulling pose. OK...sorry for the yoga details for those of you who don't care, but this blog is turning into more of a diary of sorts for me to look back on and it's the details that count. After showering, water chugging and some brief spanish chatting I was ready to head back.

I OF COURSE had to stop into starbucks since it was on my way back. My 'alto latte chai con leche descremada' tall chai latte with skim milk cost me $10.50 pesos...so also fairly similar to what it would have been in the states. The menu overall looked pretty similar to the ones were used to with the added but not at all surprising "mate" and "dulce de leche" frapuccino's. There even seemed to be the same variety of people as American starbucks'- thin chattering schoolgirls with big sunglasses and nonfat specific orders, businessmen with strong coffees and slices of cheesecake, and mothers taking their daughters out on afterschool dates. I got back on the Subway..."Subte", and had to switch to the blue line to make it back to Retiro where I wanted to catch the bus. The system is really logical and laid out well...they even have the walls of all the different lines with color coded beautiful tile murals so people who were either illiterate or foreign could find their way by color. Something unique to these subways...I'm not sure if it's Argentine, South American, or maybe just city life in general that I haven't experienced, is that there are ALWAYS people (usually kids) trying to sell you things on the subway. From tissues, to flashlights to greeting cards, calenders or any trinket you can imagine they will just walk by and put them on your lap then come back in a minute and either take the item back up or take your money if you show an interest in the item. Getting on the bus was no problem as I had already bought my ticket, but I always prefer getting on at the first stop (Retiro), rather than one of the later ones even though it might be a bit of a quicker ride, to make sure I get a seat. They DONT stop selling tickets as far as I can tell, and I couldn't stand the thought of standing up for an hour on a bus after pushing myself in Bikram.

So I got back to the house eventually after a slow walk back from the bus station at about 6. That's a 7 hour round trip for yoga and starbucks...but I imagine I could probably make it in 6 if I wanted to. I loved every second of the adventure. I'll pay for it all a bit tonight because I've got to prepare a summary of an article to present for my gender studies class and watch a film/ do reading for a class on indigenous rights. But I am full of soup and caracol (Eli and the kids were impressed that I actually liked it...it's an argentine delicacy that's part of the cow bone that not many of the yanqui kids will touch)and planning on making some instant coffee in a few minutes so I should be set for the night.

Love and miss you all! Feel free to email me any time (kpdoyle@wm.edu) or pass my email along to friends with a particular interest in Argentina, spanish, or bikram yoga :-)
Kathleen

Corazon de vagabundo, voy buscando mi libertad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Y6uFjEYBM

Rafaella Carra...latin lady gaga of the 70's?...some of her music was banned for a long time because of vulgarity. You would NOT believe how much the inseperable trio of me, michelle and david (argendoug...haha) laughed at this song Friday night.

Argentina for me has been a great mood polarizer. When I'm in a great mood it's exhillarating, exciting and fills me with an energy and confidence previously unparalleled in any of my experience. When I am in a bad mood it makes me feel insignificant and isolated; when you're in a foreign country nothing is easy, that is the reality. As I am already an intensely volatile person this change is especially drastic.

It's a SHAME I can't find my camera chord...it's another casualty of our messy loft. it will turn up eventually but don't worry, I have plenty of pictures. Overall, this was a great weekend. I woke up Friday morning absolutely missing home and unexplicably nostalgic. David pried me out of the house and we tromped around the city, got ice cream, went shopping (new summertime dress :-), and went back to his apartment where he cooked some AMAZING pasta and we sipped mate, talked about ex's and the complexity of Argentine politics. He made a very good point that we live in a microcosm of Argentina that is the well educated, hyper peronist left wing. Later that night my host mom claimed that the flu doesn't exist and is a product of capitalism...point taken

I think this experience is just what I need to live in the moment. Take each moment for what it is and just that. We are all doing some changing, thinking and growing here (waistline included), but I lately I believe that you get what and who you need when you need it. If you take the time every second to focus on self betterment progress is inevitable. In 5 years from now, who knows if I will be a counselor, yoga teacher, professional tie dyer, or converse saleswoman...but I do know I will look back on these little moments with gusto knowing that I did everything I can to become who I am.

I just realized I never posted this...

THINGS I have accidentally learned while studying abroad--

.how to light a gas stove (you would not believe how much Michelle and I struggled with this at first...to the extent that the kids danced around laughing at us)
. Argentine traffic 'patterns'- most streets are one way which means that we can go against the childhood propaganda that we must look both ways before crossing the road
. How to ask for directions when I'm lost in spanish (a skill tough enough for the stubborn to master in any language)
. That working with ceramics will naturally take off nail polish if it's the right texture. The "right" texture for taking off nailpolish is also the wrong texture for replicating a yoga series.
.Si no vas a tomar la mate...no te calentes la baza (If you're not going to drink the mate...don't heat up the tea pot). This is their saying for 'don't be a tease' hahaha.
.How to pretend that you understand what's going on when you have no idea, (ah! en serio? no lo sabia! Oh...really?? I didn't know that!) We joke with our host mom now about how we fooled her into thinking we understood alot more than we did the first few weeks here
.Sometimes it's just easier to say you're from Canada. The united states is controversial and ethnocentric at times, if there's a moment I feel I might poorly represent us, I'll just play the Canada card.
. Be weary of reporters who ask questions that try to illicit negative responses. We were interviewed about our trip to the Argentine equivalent of concentration camps and the reporter was trying to create a story based on our negative perceptions of the US or Argentina. Let me know if you can read spanish and would like to see the article.
. In a house with no dryers...you will not be aware of how much weight you are gaining!!!!!! I am not looking forward to facing the reality of bikram mirrors
. How to subract 12 from an assortment of numbers rapidly. thank you military time.
* NEVER fall for puppies as tourist traps...I will never be over making fun of Michelle for making us stop and take pictures with these st. bernards in bariloche...they charged us 30 pesos each for copies of the pictures...

bariloCHEbbb

It has been FOREVER since I blogged and it's one of those things (like cleaning our disaster of a loft...) that piles up and seems overwhelming if it's neglected for long enough. Maybe a blog entry and uploading pictures will somehow jumpstart my productivity today so that I can do other productive things.

Literally 24 hours before we left for Bariloche (a town on the northern part of the Rio negro province in Patagonia) we had no idea what our travel plans were. We started tossing around ideas at least a month ago, but between varying budgets, awkward and immature group tension, a general lack of organizational skills and a skewed perception of ARGENTIME nothing got past the planning stage till two days before we went. We had Thursday and Friday off as part of Semana Santa- their version of an easter break which to me seems more like thanksgiving because its fall and they have their spring break, like us, during second semester. Purchasing so late meant that a travel agency was our best option and it was a little more expensive than we would have liked. In total the package which included the 44 hour bus trip, 3 nights in a hotel, an excursion and dinner every night cost us 940 pesos each which is around $300. We left sunny La plata at around 330 Wednesday and got to the bus terminal in Buenos Aires with plenty of time to spare before our departure at 720.
The terminal was PACKED and it was a bit of a stressful nightmare finding and boarding our bus...I really would think the terminal would be better laid out considering that B.A is a tourist packed area but I can't imagine travelling from there without at least a rudimentary knowledge of spanish.

We ended up with first class tickets on the bus ride there which made ALL the difference when compared to the return trip. We had blankets, pillows, good dinners with wine, an option for champagne and coffee later, movies (Adam Sandler's Bed time stories is terrible), and plentyyyy of food (mostly bread, South Beach isn't big in Argentina...). We arrived to Bariloche well rested and ready to explore. After checking into the hotel we headed out to a boat tour of the lake that drove us around and stopped several places so we can take pictures. Bariloche itsself is BREATHTAKINGLY beautiful- it's old fashioned wooden architecture is complimented by a backdrop of snow capped mountains atop a crystal lake. They are also famous, deservedly, for their decadent CHOCOLATE and we toured a factory and of course bought some while they were there.

Unfortunately for me, my stomache issues (who knows, and no...NOT code for hangover, I think I had a legitimate parasite or something)came back so I ate about 1/4 of the chocolate the rest of the group did there. I was pretty miserable for the greater part of the trip because of my stomache but managed to get out and see enough things that definitely made it worthwhile. The coolest thing we did was take a ski lift up to the top of an extremely steep mountain- the view was incredible. We left sunday at 11 and got back to la plata around 2 the next day. I will spare you the ugly details of that trip but it involved very little sleep and our bus driver getting lost.
I ended up missing my first class at the university Monday because of the delay but it all worked out because I just went to the later session at 5. It's an introductory art course where we have shorter sessions of specific types of art. There was definitely a moment yesterday as I was sitting in the fine arts school where I wondered what possible decisions I made along the course of my life that led to me sitting in a ceramics studio in a basement in La Plata Argentina. It's very random how things work out sometimes.

Random Funny Quote:

In our indigenous rights class while talking about stereotypes of americans after our teacher posed the question of why people from the US have weight problems.
"Creo que tiene que ver con comer demasiado preservativos" (I think it has to do with eating too many PRESERVATIVES (was my intention, but preservativos actually means condoms...well done)
"ah y eso es porque te duele el estomago" (oh...that's why your stomache hurts)

Un momento

Lady Gaga's bad romance blasts through my old busted headphones as I inspect the city from behind my 16 peso pink rimmed sunglasses. I have always been told that I'm a slow walker, but in this moment I'm outpacing the locals. There's a pair of chattering girls with matching lip rings chattering at a rate I will never understand, but I feel their eyes tracing me. It's hard to discern whether they approve of my bold fashion choice of an oversized t shirt that reads "despues de todo, no somos tan differentes" paired with tights and faux leather boots. Maybe they are thinking I should have skipped the free galletita that came with my cafe americano. Maybe they are hoping I get a phone call so they can determine my nationality via my butchered spanish. Maybe they think my life consists of eating hotdogs, watching the simpsons and spending frivolously. Maybe they're lesbians. With every person I pass, a new reel of possible insecurities could present itsself if I allowed myself to focus on the trivial. Speculation about peoples perception of me lasts a millisecond for every minute that it used to.

Someone told me that during this trip, I would change into a completely different person without realizing it. I catch myself thinking about this quote in spanish and am weirded out momentarily by the linguistic fluidity of my thoughts. I pass by the same set of brightly painted stores, kiosks, heladerias and buildings that held my attention so tightly at first without a second thought. My pace slows a bit as Alejandro comes on after Bad Romance but I continue the walk home on autopilot. In a city that has over a half of a million people, I know exactly where I am. I have shed the nickname la perdida (the lost one)

I am striking a strange balance between trying not to stand out as a foreigner and not changing integral parts of my personality. If I want to wear bright pink earrings and drink my fernets with coca lite instead of regular, I will. I don't want to erase my individuality but I don't want to represent my culture in a negative way. I don't want to be a muted version of my outrageous self, but rather a universal version of myself. I was worried that my personality wouldn't translate here. I now think that with time, anything can translate well enough. It's all about trying to understand the context.

For every moment I've been frustrated to the point of tears there has been one filled with joy beyond anything I've known before. I have always considered myself to be a person of extremes. Changing countries has only intensified the volitility of my mood in the short run...perhaps this is something I can correct about myself.

I am fighting insecurities I never knew I had. I am seeing strength in places where I thought only weakness existed. I am surprising myself.

In a city that contains a half a million people, I know exactly where I am. Learning.

El Rio Tigre, Movistar y yoga

It's hard to believe I've been here for a month already...and even as I write this some words naturally want to come out in spanish. We need to try harder to avoid english within our group from WM, but other than that the language barrier has been lessening (or at least we are talking ALOT more despite our grammatical inadequacies...) We joke with our Spanish teacher that we're in linguistic purgatory: our spanish is nowhere near fluent, but we're kind of forgetting how to speak propper english. Tomorrow we have our final in spanish grammar. I think we're all looking forward to getting that one out of the way. It's not that professor JALID (we actually thought her last name was JARDIN for the first few weeks of class...) isn't a great woman, but her teaching style of aimless blabbering isn't as concise of a review as we would have liked.

Last weekend the 3 girls and I were itching to get out of La Plata for the day and do something adventurous, so we went on a day trip to El Rio Tigre. It was a GREAT decision as we were initially planning to go to Mar Del Plata which would have been more expensive, more touristy, and had worse weather as it is south rather than north. A chronicle of the trip/pricing is listed below...we thought it was cool that we went on so many modes of transportation within such a short time
30 minute walk from C/3 e 61/62 to Bus station- 0 pesos (40 bugbites...)
60 minute bus ride from La Plata to Buenos Aires- 8 pesos (about $2.50 total there and back)
4 minute subway ride to Retiro because we got off at the wrong stop... 1 peso
40 minute train ride from Retiro Buenos Aires to El Tigre- 4 pesos- $1.25
15 minute boat ride from El Tigre to the islands of 3 Bocas- 17 pesos- $4.50 and well worth it because the ride was phenomenal and it was incredible to see so much of the coast

total- under 2 hours, 40 pesos = $10
We had a nice lunch on the patio in our swimsuits which was a little bit overpriced for it's quality (of course I'm spoiled by the great exchange rate...) then laid out in the sun with a lovely Quilmes each and loved every minute of it. I also bought a pair of pink rimmed stunna shades for the equivalent of about $5, so all in all the day was quite a win in terms of value and adventure. We still made it back in time to go out for dessert, take showers and meet up with the crew for the usual saturday night activities culminating in going out to dance. We laughed at michelle because the other 3 of us got delicious extravagant looking desserts and because she is allergic to nuts we asked the waitress to reccommend something and she ended up bringing out the equivalent of what looked like a klondike bar drizzled in chocolate syrup. For the first time in La Plata I did notice a cop ACTUALLY doing something in making sure the club wasnt letting people in beyond it's capacity.

We all enjoyed today because we didn't have class. We went to Alex's on the other end of the city for matte (obviously...) and spanish studying but ended up speaking in english and enjoying pastries provided by his host mom. Oh well. Michelle and I went to watch the guys play soccer. By whatever luck, almost all of our Argentine friends thus far have turned out to be guys which is certainly a change from my WM experience but has been a blast so far. They each paid 10 pesos and rented out a little indoor field and played some intense soccer for an hour. Michelle was itching to play, but I have played in one too many IM soccer games to think that I could stand a chance playing against Argentines that have played soccer religiously for their entire life. There are two immensely popular soccer clubs in La Plata- Estudiantes and Gimnasia. Estudiantes are evidently better and get more funding (ojala que mi madre argentina no leera eso porque tendria q. encontrar una cama nueva...jaja) but have a reputation for being more stuck up. My family here are huge LOBO fans because they more represent working class (PERONISTA) ideals. The mascots are la Pincha y Lobo. The way they ask what team you prefer is- SOS DEL LOBO?! which is the same grammatical construction that they would use to ask where you're from or what you do for a living. Soccer is not a passtime. It's a way of life here.

I also FINALLY after a month here, have a functioning cell phone. Movistar cell phone company absolutely goes on my shit list because it took 4 trips to the store to get things working properly. I finally had to bring back a woman from the commission to yell at the man (Pablo...QUE BALUDO) to stop jipping me and give me a functioning phone. It was one of the most frustrating feelings to be here without a phone and know that people felt like they could exploit my lack of confidence and knowledge of the language to make money off of me. It certainly will make me more sensitive to anyone I might encounter in the US who doesn't speak english. The majority of the people I've met here have been excellent and patient, but it does leave you feeling quite isolated when you cross paths with someone that targets you because of your differences.

My only other complaint is that I MISS YOGA. I checked out a studio yesterday which was very nice...but much more like a relaxing meditation class than the Bikram sweatfest of a workout that I'm used to. Clearly there's no right or wrong way to practice yoga and their studio was probably even more traditional in terms of yogi ideals, but sometimes you just like what you're accustomed to. There's a studio in Buenos Aires that I'm going to adventure to this weekend.
Signing off to enjoy my peppermint tea and give indirect sentence construction another glance before tomorrow...

<3Kathleen

El movimiento hippy

That pic is an indigenous strike for workers rights that we witnessed one of the first weeks here. There is ALWAYS some kind of strike going on here...we didn't eat beef for a week because the government encouraged a strike to lower meat prices, (Meat here is EVERYTHING...asados, or barbecues are very common), and Eli's son Isidro started school this week on monday only to miss class tuesday and wednesday because the janitors are on strike. Right now, the president is a woman named Christina Kirchner who is very peronista which correlates to having a strong emphasis on workers rights.

Michelle and I had the opportunity last week to go to a Peronist political rally where Kirchner's husband was speaking. Eliana is VERY involved in the local political scene so she had VIP passes and tried desperately to get me michelle, her sister and friends in to the front section. I can not even DESCRIBE how insane the atmosphere was. There were over 8,000 people of ALL ages and ethnicities, though a high concentration of youth and more indigenous looking people parading around the town with drums, chants, signs and various noise makers. It's lucky that she told us in advance to leave all money and items of value at home because there was barely room to breathe. Since Argentines tend to be more physical people in general there was alot of pushing (out of excitement...not bad intentions)and pulling. A frotteurists dream...kidding, I'm a psychology TWAMP (typical william and mary person, ie NERD and one of the most commonly used insults at WM.)

I haven't blogged in a while but I'm exhausted and it's late and my mind's a little jumpy so I'm going to list some of the things I've done in the past week and a half.

- Learned spanish pig latin...you put pa,po,pu,pe or pe after all syllables depending on the vowels it follows. I live in La plata Argentina (vivo en la plata argentina) would be- yopo vipivopo enpe lapa plapatapa arpagenpetipinapa

-Went back to Buenos Aires to get another document for our student visa, walked around ALOT and made our way to Eva Peron's tomb which is right next to the most beautiful catholic church that I've ever seen. We also went into a restaraunt, sat down, pretended to look at the menu just so we could all use the bathroom....then we stealthily left one by one. CHEAP.

-Spent the day in the park with a huge group of Eliana's family and friends sipping on matte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate and enjoying the beautiful weather. We were joking with them all that there is a chant/song for EVERYTHING in argentina and then they made us perform WM's song and the star spangled banner. Argentina...your gale has officially been harked upon.

-Sat around outside various places while boys play guitar and try to sing songs in English. Music is so beautifully universal. I helped translate some Floyd and RHCP lyrics for them, it was alot of fun.

-Witnessed la marcha de los madres del plaza de mayo...they're a very famous group that have kids or relatives that were taken during the period of dictatorship.

-Eaten some of the best ice cream of my life...michelle and I have to walk by it EVERYTIME we come home from class, it's torture. I laughed to myself today because eating ice cream before it melts was the most stressful part of my day. I love living in the moment here, plans are always so fluid.

---
I desperately need to upload photos, i have SO many but they take forever to upload. The girls and I are planning a weekend get away en la tigre which is a group of beachy islands 2 hours away. Now that we've got our bearrings down here we're excited to explore more parts of the country!!!

Love and miss you all...I also miss peanut butter which cannot be found here!

Political Activism, Cheap Wine and Buenos Aires

It's hard to think that I've been here for a week and a half. It's at the point now where it's starting to feel less like an unreal vacation and more like real life. I'm starting to form real close relationships with the people from our WM group (there are 6 of us) and some of the people here.

The Comission: We started our classes last week at La Comission Por la memoria. The comission is a government sanctioned organization based in Buenos Aires with an office in La Plata. I can't say enough great things about everyone we've met there so far. It's a VERY liberal organization that deals with current human rights violations through activism and also does research and education about the tragedies in Argentina in the recent past. For those of you who aren't aware (it's not even spoken about that much here...which is why the comission's work is so important) Argentina went through a period of barbaric dictatorship from 1976-1983 I believe. Basically the people in charge of the government would steal anyone they assumed to be affiliated with the communist party and thus a threat to their government. They stole these people (who later became referred to as los desaparecidos, the dissapeared) in all hours of the day and night, tortured them and killed them on what became known as death flights where they would bind parts of their bodies and throw them into the river from an airplane. About 30,000 people, including a high percentage of youth and scholars were thus victimized in this period. La Plata, the region of Argentina that I'm staying in, had a particularly high concentration of desaparecidos making the past particularly relevant and intertwined within the local culture here.

We're taking 12 credit hours of classes at the Comission and are offered a Pasantia (internship) in one of 4 areas. So far we've had one week of intensive spanish grammar classes. It's just the six of us in their little library for 2 hours with our teacher Marcella. It's very different taking a spanish class from someone who doesn't speak english and she has just as much trouble understanding our questions as we do with her lectures sometimes. Some of the others really dislike the classes and think they could have found a more beneficial teacher but I like that she can offer me something different than any other spanish teacher. Granted, I screw up all the time with my spoken grammar but I have a strong enough background in spanish grammar that I generally know all the basics of verb conjugations and grammatical structure and need more practice with smaller details such as articles, conjunctions and word choice. Most spanish teachers wouldn't be able to tell me, for example, that I should use the verb ocultar when talking about hiding an abstract concept and esconder in reference to hiding a noun. The 4 departments we can choose from to have internships for are the DIPBA archive which does research on particular cases of desaparecidos and publicizes and maintains certain important documents, la ensenanza which is a program through which we would help local students in the process of creating projects about the dictadura period to present at a conference, the art center...I'm not entirely sure what they do because we havent toured them yet, but presumably something related to artistic expressions of the time period, and the committee against torture which is the legal department that gathers statistics and interviews prisoners about human rights violations. Right now I'm leaning towards the committee against torture, but the ensenanza interests me alot as well.

BUENOS AIRES:
We went on a tour of Buenos Aires all of Sunday which was an absolute BLAST except for that some of us were exhausted after staying out really late the night before. It's normal in la plata to stay out past 5am...we were some of the first ones to leave the discoteca at 5am...crazy. The bus trip was alot of fun as we were all talking about some of the hilariously awkward international moments from the night before. Probably the highlight of my night was blasting lady gaga in our argentine friends' apartment or learning a really fun Argentine drinking game that's kind of a combination of BS and F.you pyramid. They want to learn beer pong this weekend...ping pong balls are surprisingly hard to find here, we're going to have to look around. We got to Buenos Aires around noon and met up with our tour guide, Nacho (nickname for ignacio?) that also works for the comission. We saw several parts of the city including Boca which was RIDICULOUSLY tourist-y, Palermo (less catering to tourists, some good shopping), Santermo, the plaza de mayo, plaza del congreso and a few other places that I'm not really sure of their names...I thought the coolest part of the day was getting to walk around the casa rosada (argentine version of the white house) and stand on the balcony outside where eva peron gave a famous speech that's a popular depiction of her leadership. We all capped off the night by going out to a pizzeria. They cooked the pizza with alot of cream and grease so we didn't eat so much there, but we had a great time joking around at dinner and I can absolutely see vast improvements in terms of the linguistic skills of everyone in our group.

Random thoughts:
I never realized how much you can learn about a person without really understanding the majority of what they are saying. I've always considered myself a verbal person with a fairly good ability to read people, but I feel like I'm getting alot more touch with my impressions of people based on vibes and intuition. At first I thought my personality wasn't really translating into spanish which was frustrating and that only the kids would like me because they were less used to relying on a complex vocabulary to interact with people, but it's actually been alot easier than I thought to get to know people and make friends.

Within our group we always compete to see who can be mistaken most commonly for an Argentine and we take it as a personal victory whenever someone comes up to us speaking fluent spanish or asking for directions. So far I've been mistaken for an argentine, brazilian, chilena and irlandesa (a bit of truth to that one obviously...) We asked our tour guide to rank us in terms of how argentine we looked, and he said that I was second which surprised me. I think it has more to do with the curly hair and chill style (or lack of style) than anything. I wouldn't consider Argentina a really diverse country in the same way that the US is, but they certainly have a variety of European looking people as well as a large indigenous population. Having blue eyes is a rarity here so I've gotten some comments and curiosity. Several people have called us princesses as we've been walking around, but I think that may be only because we are white like the disney princesses or because we're huge tourists that like to shop...

Words to be careful with: PERO= but, PERRO= dog, PERON= popular past president, also referred to as San Peron...don't insult him in public PEDO= fart PERRA= bitch...mixing these up could be dangerous ;-)

I also spent about 5 minutes being confused when my argentine aunt and cousin were trying to explain to me that POLLENA is a common argentine dish made from chicken and flour (harina) because I was confusing the word for flour (harina) with the word for sand (arena). My lack of spanish skills has certainly provided some group entertainment...oh well!

Love and miss you all, besos para todos

Bienvenidos a la casa loca

This has been my first two days of true TOTAL immersion in the Argentine culture. It's beautiful and exhausting at the same time. I got here at about 12:30 yesterday and have already met SO much of Eliana's (my host mom)family. I'll try to describe it the best that I can but I'm not even entirely sure I understand it all well. When I got here it was just her and her 6 year old daughter Fran. It was really good that I brought gifts to kind of break the ice and it gave me something to do with Fran for the first chunk of time. Isidro (age 9, Eli's other son), came back later and was equally excited about the goodies I brought although he might have prefered his favorite toy, Pokemon. Their family is of Italian descent and basically acts like I would assume a traditional Italian family would have in terms of coming and going and loud talking and eating etc. etc. She's really close to her sister Yamilla (In argentine castellano 'll' is pronounced like a j instead of a y...the kids corrected me a few times :-) who has a really friendly husband Marcello and three kids- Gregorio is 6 and is one of the happiest kids I've ever seen, he and I are great friends already! I haven't seen as much of the older girls but one, Mercedes is 18 and one is 16, Ardi (short for something...not entirely positive) hopefully as I get to know them they can help me out some because they seem really cool. Mercedes already offered to take me today and help me figure out how to put minutes on the phone Adam/Joe left here for me.

Yamilla's family as well as her parents came over for dinner last night, it lasted a few hours. There was beef, salad, bread and wine...all delicious! They all put alot of salt on everything I have noticed. Eli has commented several times on how little I eat...which seems really strange to me. I still don't understand how they can eat as much as they want and stay really skinny. No one seems to run down here, and a few gyms exist but they certainly aren't popular. My best guess is that the food is healthier because it's really fresh- there are alot of meats, veggies, grains, fruits and juices but not alot of things with preservatives in them. Also, meals never have the rushed vibe so there's no pressure to scarf down more than you can enjoy. Interestingly in la plata they're not supposed to buy any beef this week so the prices go down. The government is encouraging the strike.

I've gotten along really well with all of the kids. For me it's sometimes easier to take a break from chatting with all of the adults and play with the kids for a while because I feel like it's harder for my personality to be lost in translation with them. I didn't realize how truly exhausting it would be to speak in spanish all day- I have to focus alot to understand what's going on. Right now I'm at the point where if I'm having a one on one conversation with someone I can hold my own and understand about 80% of what's going on...but in group settings it's a little easier to get lost in the back and forth banter. Everyone has been really patient with me which I really appreciate.

Some common questions people have asked me-
Do they watch the Olympics there? No...not really...maybe they would if it were the summer olympics? They watch SOCCER! There's 2 big popular teams in la plata but alot of other teams with smaller following. I've noticed that about 50% of the graffitti seems to be about soccer and the other half is political

What are the guys like there? Well, it's summer so alot of them walk around without shirts...It's a very attractive and fit country overall. I would say there's alot of artsy musician types but maybe I'm just jumping to that conclusion because of the long hair and unique fashion. The men wear capris alot. The women/girls wear alot of jean skirts and gladiator sandals. Also it's trendy to wear really loose fitting pants with a long crotch, which seems out of place to me because everything else they wear seems to highlight their lean frames.

When do you start classes/what are they like? It's summer break here for the rest of february, so I only have classes at the commission for the next month. I have my first class at 2 today...but I'm going to leave in 15 minutes because I know it's going to take me forever to find...I was hoping michelle (the other WM student living in this house) would be here for me to go with...

What do they call you? Kathleen seems to be a hard name to pronounce...so alot of them are calling me Kati (like coffee with a t) or alot of the people here just say KOTlin. Also...they call us yankees here and I'm sure the people that I'm not staying with have called us some other names that I just don't understand

I don´t like ´gaseosa´´

I am having a fabulous time here! Last night after recuperating from the trip me emily and alex left the hostel around 10 to look for a place to eat dinner at a fashionably late Argentine time. It turns out we were still too early...but after wandering for a while we found a little restaraunt that looked good called ristorante milas. The menu was a little bit overwhelming but I decided to try the carne (red meat). I´m not exactly what cut of meat it would be equivalent to but it was excellent and paired with a few potatoes and veggies. We also got a bottle of the house red wine "trancal" for 13 pesos which is less than $4...and much better than three buck chuck. What I loved most about dinner was the relaxed atmosphere. We spent several hours there without feeling rushed and enjoyed the beautiful weather here and people watching.
We didn´t get back to our hostel till about 1240 our time but there were a bunch of people in the lounge playing guitar, hanging out and smoking so we joined them for a while. I really enjoyed practicing my spanish and getting to know them a bit. People here have been absolutely accepting of my efforts to speak spanish even though my grammar is far from perfect. Everyone else was from south america and had a variety of different accents so it was fun to compare. I find that people can understand me well if I am having a one on one conversation with them because they can contextualize alot of what I´m saying, but I get confused looks sometimes when I try to contribute to group conversations. I had a very interesting conversation with a chileno boy who just started teaching english there (his english was probably on par with my spanish). He wanted to know if I had voted for Barak Obama and we got into a very interesting conversation about US (estadounidense) stereotypes. He was glad that my perspective on politics is not ethnocentric and liked that I was curious about south american slants on the 2 party system. I ended up staying up till around 430 (apparently some of the group lasted several more hours). Oh yeah, I accidentally kicked the woman changing sheets in the face this morning, that was awkward.
Today me phillip alex and emily ventured to La Comision Por la memoria in order to meet with people there and find out more about our plan of studies there. We walked through la plaza morena which is a beautiful part of the city with rich archetecture and saw the huuuuge cathedral. I´ll put up a few pictures when I´m not on a comp in the hostel. We met with the 2 program coordinators there. Greeting people with a kiss on the cheek is very awkward to me...I´don´t know what to do with my hands or body. Tomorrow they´re sending cars to the hostel to pick us up around 1130 and take us to our host families! We start the intensive language program on Monday at 2.
We went to a place nearby for lunch and I got vegetarian ravioli and a pepsi ´lite´(they´re not called diet) which was served to me in a wine glass...The pasta was delicious, you can definitely tell how fresh and non processed the food is. It´s great to have a tomatoe sauce that actually tastes like tomatoes without the sugar. Emily and I split up with the boys and did some shopping after lunch. I bought a white dress, zebra sandals, and a wooden necklace all for 30 bucks! La plata really makes sense as a city because all of the streets have numbers with diagonal streets cutting through them that also have numbers. I think once I get my bearings down a little more it wont be hard to find my way around. We´re resting a while in the hostel and are planning on going out for pizza and walking around later, but it probably wont be quite as late of a night since we have to leave the hostel at 1130 tomorrow.
Because I like lists--
Things I´ve seen ALOT OF en La Plata- stray dogs, grafitti, ice cream stores, gladiator sandals, men wearing capri pants, thin tall people, dreadlocks and piercings, agua gaseosa! (carbonated water here is the default, if you just want regular water you have to ask for agua sin gas..found that out the hard way), fruit and produce stands, beer (Quilemes, stella artois, and heineken mostly), beef (asado), Old music from the united states (they apparently love old rock music like rolling stones as well as pop), soccer jerseys, men without shirts

Things I haven´t seen alot of- STOP SIGNS AND LANES (Argentine drivers are crazy crazy, getting anywhere is playing a live version of frogger with your life), unpainted surfaces (alot is brightly painted, alot of designs and grafitti), political apathy (people seem to have passionate opinions), other Americans (la plata isn´t very tourist-y, we definitely stick out), gyms or yoga studios, out of shape people (interesting contradiction?), people who are obviously in homosexual relationships (I think it´s a hidden part in la plata at least)

The sun set over Richmond and rose over the Andes

I´m now safely sitting in my hostel en LA PLATA! there´s no wireless internet access here but there are comps that you can use for 30 minutes so I´ll write more about the rest of the trip later... but for now here is the email I wrote to my family in the Santiago airport. The travel complications ended up being a blessing because I had the most BEAUTIFUL window seat flying over the Andes mountains this afternoon. I couldn´t have asked for a more pleasant plane ride with clear skies and a great view. I´ll update more later
Hope that everything is going well with you guys! It has been a marathon of a day so far, but everything is going really well. As i write this I'm sitting in the airport in Santiago, Chile. Everything is so cheap here...I'm already tempted to buy earrings for $5 (we're in an airport...so they take US bucks for everything which is convenient). And I'm looking at a sign for fully dressed hamburgers for $3 a piece! Well it's 9am here...but I'm so discombobulated, I think it's 7am american time but the sun is shining brightly over the Andes so it's hard to tell. The flight from Richmond to Atlanta was a little delayed because there were alot of last minute add ons so they said we were running about 20 minutes late which made me a little nervous since our connection from atlanta to Santiago was pretty rushed. ALSO you know how I was wondering if there had ever been a dead body on one of my flights? Well there was, on this one. There was a military leader escorting the corpse home :-( SAD JOB.
But we ended up making it to Atlanta with literally JUST enough time to find our exit, go to the bathroom then board the plane. The plane was HUGE but I actually had an aisle seat which was crucial because I spent sooooo much time in that seat. I sat next to a cute 26 year old (megan and doug...legitimately a more exotic Zack Jackson...) who started speaking to me in fluent spanish. I was taken aback a litle bit and told him that I was "estadounidense" and apologized for my bad spanish. He then apologized and said he thought that I was Chilena because of my style (pumas, jeans, bracelets and crazy nail polish?) But anyway, he was really cool to talk to and we ended up speaking in some spanish and some english. It was really cool because I feel like our levels of speaking were pretty comparable. Airplane food- chicken and potatoes with a mini salad, a piece of cheese and crackers, and a piece of bread. I was so hungry (this was around 9pm our time that dinner was served) that I ate most of it but regret it heavily when I started having stomache cramps throughout the flight. OH WELL, you live and learn... They also had complimentary beer and wine which I didn't feel like but it would have probably helped me fall asleep. And when I say I didn't feel like it, I mean that I thought they would card me but the girls in front of me were like 16 and they got huge cups of wine without being carded so I'm sure it would have been fine. But it's probably good I declined because I drank so much water and still feel dehydrated. I managed to get a couple hours of sleep and watched a couple of movies on and off. Anyways, it was REALLY cool to see the sun set over Virginia and see it rise again over the backdrop of the andes mountains. Our flight leaves here at 11:25, then we'll be in B.A. at around 1:20 and eventually La Plata!
It's already been an adventure. I'm about to go buy a bottled water and browse the cheap jewelry.
<3 Love and miss you all already

Stressful day, sleepless night

Despite years of tentative planning and about a year of serious planning, I don't think the reality of studying abroad hit me untill today. The experience seemed intangible, untill it came time to fill out my luggage tags. The first line was easy- Kathleen Doyle. Then, I realized that I would have to put the address and phone number of my host family and not the familiar and comforting home address that I've had memorized since I could speak. I am the only constant in the equation. Every thing else- my contact information, culture and language is about to switch from everything I have ever known...and I couldn't be more excited.

I woke up this morning (afternoon, really but who's counting) to a text from Alex saying that I should check my flight from Dulles to confirm if it was still departing on schedule. I flicked into panic mode. My original flight plan was to fly from Richmond to Dulles then connect to Dulles to Buenos Aires directly with three other students from my program. However, apparently rolling blackouts from the uncharacteristically intense virginia winter made flights from Dulles backed up and they ended up cancelling alot of flights. Like mine. It's a good thing my dad handles crisis situations alot better than I do, because he managed to react quickly and book me in one of the last remaining seats on a flight tomorrow. The new route is a bit more complicated. I'm leaving from Richmond airport at 5:15 tomorrow. I'll fly into Atlanta, GA then Santiago, Chile and lastly Buenos Aires Argentina. For those who aren't familiar, B.A. is about the size of New York City, but where I'll be spending the majority of my time in Argentina is about an hour South of that in La Plata which isn't quite as big of a city but should still be MUCH more interesting than colonial williamsburg.

I actually feel alot more prepared right now than I would, which is why I'm spending my last insomniac Charlottesville night blogging, watching Millionaire Matchmaker and dying my hair (my roomate did it last time and she is...not a detail oriented person...love you megan). There were DEFINITELY moments that I thought the trip was all going to fall apart. I certainly couldn't have done it without the help of my best friend and facebook spouse Doug, who helped me when I was, to quote an almodovar flick "mujer al borde de un ataque nervios" (woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown). He helped me rush around to collect my reccommendation letters, scan copies of my passport, and get an official copy of my transcript literally hours before the application was due. Anyone who knows me, has seen my schoolwork or been in my car knows that organization is not a strong point (or any point) of mine so my Mom's (sometimes neurotic, but always beneficial)organization made it all possible. In one of the more memorable moments in the later stages of trip planning we found out that some of my travelling might lead me to a place that would require the Yellow Fever and Typhoid vaccines. My mother found out that the health center giving out vaccines only had one Yellow Fever shot left, and the clinic started at 830 on a Thursday morning, but the doors opened at 8am. True to form, Mama D managed to get me out of bed and we were in the parking lot at 7:45am. "Kathleen, why don't you go stand at the door so the second they open it you can be first on the list" I rolled my eyes at the time, but her tactics worked and I left an hour later with several more live viruses in my body. By the way, if you ever have to get a yellow fever vaccine for any reason, get it way more than a week in advanced. There are some rather quirky side effects that affect alot of people and range from flu like symptoms to rashes and can last up to 10 days. My arm was rather sore and just developed a really itchy painful lump about the size of a Pringles top.

My dad was also a godsend in helping us figure out alot of the technological stuff for the trip. Not only did he help me rewire my school email address to gmail, but he helped install skype (kpdoyle89, add me if you want!), figured out how to use zap tell phone cards, AND figured out how to trick hulu into thinking I'm still in America so that I can watch the last season of LOST :-). Both of my big brothers and their wives and girlfriends respectively came home this weekend which was really special to me. My in-laws the Tuckers, my grandfather and cousin Peter all helped me out with finances and words of wisdom. I want everyone who's helped me along the way to know how much I appreciate your support and that I intend to make the absolute most of this experience.

Love to All,
I'll get the word out when I land safely.

30 Day Bikram Challenge

The whole concept of blogging seems strange to me and immediately brings to mind the KitKat commercial that stigmatizes people who blog..."I took you as a believer, someone who wanted to blog about their emotions!" BUT I figure it's a convenient way to keep in touch with massive amounts of people as I gallivant throughout the Southern hemisphere, so I'll do my best to overcome my predispositions of bloggers and attempt to do it as regularly as I can.

THIS IS A PRACTICE BLOG, it's not actually about Argentina, it's about yoga. Bikram yoga. If you've had any type of contact with me throughout winter break you've probably heard me mention it, badger you to come to a class with me, or caught a distinct whiff of eu de bikram perfume eminating from my backseat that's constantly filled with yogi paraphenalia. Anyways, Bikram yoga is a type of Hatha yoga with 26 postures performed in a 110 degree room that lasts 90 minutes. There's alot of debate about whether Bikram follows the traditional yoga principles because it is essentially a franchise that fosters intensity and competition as a pathway to self betterment rather than individuality and relaxtion. I've taken alot of other hot yoga classes, a couple of Ashtanga classes (BOGA taught by the fabulous Beau Blumberg), and a couple Iyengar and Vinyasa classes. Personally Bikram clicks with me far better than any of them because it is such a mental marathon in addition to being a physical challenge.

I began practicing about 4 times a week this summer and I can't describe the impact it had on me. Prior to entering a bikram studio I had never sweat so much in my entire life including summer 2 a days in the stuffy AHS gym for volleyball, gauntlets, sprints and long runs for lacrosse and sprints to get to WaWa before 12 when they stop selling alcohol...(Ok, yeah I've been out of shape since college...which is why I need this yoga to get back into shape before travelling). So this winter break I decided it was the ideal time to try the 30 day challenge offered by Bikram Yoga Charlottesville. The goal is to attend 30 classes within 30 days- you can miss 2 days if you make up for it by attending multiple classes one of the other 28 days. If you succeed you get the material prizes of a week of free yoga, 5 free guest passes, and 10% off your next purchase from the studio.

I hesitantly began my challenge December 23rd immediately after they fixed the heater in the studio. They have a HUGE and obvious chart right by the door to the hot room that lists peoples names as they sign up for the challenge and has grids where you write down the dates you attend to track your progress. Out of about 25 names written optimistically on the chart, most trickled off after about the 5 day mark and a mere two made it to the critical day 30. I STRUGGLED through that first class. I had to sit down during several postures to avoid passing out during the standing series and felt on the brink of vomitting during the majority of the floor series. I didn't even dare to try my personal nemesis of a posture- camel pose which is the deepest backbend of the series and activates the lower spine releasing all types of emotional and physiologically STRANGE sensations. One of the teachers, while we were laying in savasana after camel pose commented, "Don't be afraid of these feelings, people pay alot of money in night clubs to feel what you're feeling now" Anyways, I stared at myself in the unforgiving mirror that exposed every pizza bagel calorie popping out of my spandex and wondered how I was going to survive the rest of the class let alone 29 more in the next month.

Tomorrow is day 28! Today I had the best class of my practice so far and went two full sets of camel pose with my hands completely weightless on my heals and I could see further back on the wall than I ever imagined. Most days, I don't feel like going to class (especially when Will & Grace reruns are on during primetime yoga hour)but once I get there I am extremely happy that I gave myself the gift of focusing on my health and blocking out everything else for those 90 minutes. It's one of the BEST things I could have done with my break, and I feel way more in control of my body and mind than I have in a very long time.

Little life lessons I've learned from Bikram yoga:

Just Breathe. Oxygen is always all you really need. Your body can handle way more than you think it can.

Skinny and healthy are not synonymous. My vindictive side loves when stick thin girls in soffee cheerleading shorts come in and can't handle the class. Don't be distracted by how much you hate or love your reflection.

Everyone sweats, smells, has strange body hair and most people don't look flawless in spandex and sports bras. Also, more middle aged business professionls have interesting tattoos in random places you might only see in a bikram class.

Being present and engaged mentally is just as important as important as doing so physically.

You don't have to buy someone a drink to see them sweaty and half naked, just go to a bikram class...

WELL, I could clearly talk about Bikram all day because I love it, but I'll stop so as not to bore those of you who dislike the concept of yoga as much as I dislike the concept of blogging. If you have any questions or thoughts, post or email me I guess?
Namaste biddies,
KD