2nd to last weekend

Really gettin busy here...

Friday: Wen to go see The Hunger Games with Liz, she didnt tell she she had already seen it til we had bought the tickets, so she was just humoring me. It was a pretty darn good movie; fun to watch right after finishing the books. Afterwards we went to Hard Rock Cafe and had one of the best burgers of our lives. It was so big we had to split it and we were still tremendously full.

Saturday: Chill, work out, hw, hw, watched a movie for humanities, napped

Sunday: Went on a bike ride through Palermo Lakes and the Rosedal. Went to Tigre and bought tickets for the game later that night (ashton almost got us killed by wearing his Boca jersey there). Got back to the casa and did hw/rest for 4ish hours then headed out with our whole group (8(me, daniel, peter, ashton, kevin b, austin, jake, shan) plus tess who didnt have a ticket). Somehow we snuck tess past the 3 security checkpoints and got her in free. We found a spot at the far right end of the populares section behind the goal. It was a blast being in the cheap seats because thats were all the crazy fans were. We spent a good period of the game over in the center of the populares with the crazy guys. Each time they scored, you'd think they were cheering for the second coming of Jesus or something. It was nuts! Definitely got elbowed in the face a few times. Tigre scored 2 goals off of free kicks and Boca got one off of a messy corner kick. It was so much fun being in the Tigre section when that final whistle blew.

Monday: La Bomba de Tiempo. They had a super sick guest drummer there. 

Iguazu Falls

So this trip was perhaps on of the more memorable trips- not necessarily best, but memorable of this year. After 7 months of being abroad and traveling, we knew that renting cars was the way to go. So, we got a solid crew of 5 people to go in our usual car- the Volkswagen Voyage from Localiza. Come Saturday morning (oh yeah I forgot to write about our Midnight Yoga thing that we did on Friday night. Five girls (Liz, Shannon, Megs, Julie, and Tess) and I went to this combination of a yoga session with a puerto cerrado dinner- pretty dang good) we got the car, got loaded up, and found the other crew of kids that were going to Iguazu via coche were moping around all sad. One of their partners was screwing them over by saying he was "sick" THE MORNING OF, and said that he couldn't go. This made it un-doable for some of the others because it would be too expensive. A couple of them still wanted to go though, so we accommodated them and put 7 people in our 5 person car- 2 up front, 4 in the back and 1 in the truck. I spent a lot of time in the trunk because I was the smallest. Personally, I thought it was the most comfortable seat in the car- i could lie down on sleeping bags, pillows, and sweaters and nap. It was great.

While in the trunk, I guess we missed one of our roads (which proved to be a blessing later) and ended up in Rosario. We tinked around there a bit, got some choripan in the park, saw a pretty sick monument, and then headed off again. We didn't encounter any problems or questions from police until we were literally 50 yards from our hostel at 7am. It was a usual checkpoint, they randomly choose our car to check, and as usual asked us to pop the trunk. Aisha popped out to their surprise, they laughed a bit, questioned us, and then sent us off with a "Suerte!" We couldn't believe it. Anyways we rolled into our hostel for breakfast, showered, rested a bit, and then went to the falls. The falls themselves were absolutely amazing, but the park kinda sucked, it felt like an amusement park with way too many people. It's sad to see something so amazing so commercialized. But like i said, the falls were absolutely astounding. Never before have I seen such a force of nature so close and personal. Words could never do it justice. We saw the Devil's throat and did the Lower Circuit trail. Some of the guys did the boat ride that went into the falls while the rest of us went to go take a nap in the grass. En route to our napping point, we passed the Sheraton and decided to crash their pool and take naps on their pool deck. It was glorious.

That night we went into town to get a snack, dropped Arthur off at the bus station, went back to rest, read, and write, and then we had a great pasta dinner. To finish the night, we took a dip in our hostel's huge pool. That hostel is probably the nicest I've ever been in- huge main building, bomb endless breakfast, huuuge pool, TV lounge, kitchen, foosball, ping pong, all sorts of chairs and loungers out by the pool, our own room, and more.

The next day we rolled out semi-early, and decided to go to the Amethyst mines. The "tour" at the amethyst mines was pretty hilarious. It was essentially a walk through someone's back yard with a very uninformed kid as a guide. It was very neat to see nonetheless. The way back home was not nearly as easy as our trip up. Our lil detour to Rosario forced us to take a more inland route, farther away from the borders with Paraguay and Brazil. That road hardly had any checkpoints. This was not the case with our more direct route. We got stopped multiple times and each time they asked us to pop the trunk. Once they let us go after much hassel. The next time we told them we were spending the night in a city only about an hour south so they had us put 2 people on a bus there and we met them at that stop, only to continue on with 7 people in the car. The next time the same thing happened, but we were close enough to put them on a bus directly to BA. Funny thing was after that, we never got pulled over again, so they could have made it with us. Anyways, we made friends with some of the cops (one even added us all on FB). We got an official, documented "warning" and have the paper to prove it, but we all think of it as more of an award.

Eventually we all got home safe and sound and all was good. In addition to seeing one of the Natural Seven Wonders of the World, we got some great stories and memories out of it.

waiting at the police checkpoint

Rosario monument

Random Happenings

So I realize that as this year goes on, I'm getting so much worse at keeping this up. I still have many Christmas break travels I have yet to talk about, long weekends to catch up on, and random happenings throughout the weeks that I haven't mentioned. I'll just mention a come of the more significant happenings that have occurred in the past couple weeks.

So we arrived back from our Norte trip (which I have not talked about yet) on Monday around noon still all grodey, stinky, and cramped from our 15-hour sprint back home. I missed my classes that day but Rafa said they were excused (because our trip was just that legit and he was jealous/proud of us). That night he invited some of us guys to a special event at some super nice museum off of Libertador. It was an event for the Nature Conservatory Project (something like that) and Rafa is trying to get us (Pepperdine) partnered up with them in some way, shape, or form. Not quite sure what he's trying to swing...Anyways we were the greeters who handed out name tags and directed people to where they needed to go. Wasn't a bad gig at all- we were constantly being fed appetizers and drinks by the waiters that were walking around and mingling among the crowd. We felt like high rollers. After a while they all went inside for some kind of presentation and we kicked it and chilled at the entrance enjoying our free exquisite food and drinks. After the presentation Rafa brought us in to mingle with everybody. Little did we know that we'd be talking with former presidential candidates, billionaires, and all other upper-echelon people. Very cool night.

The crew that went to the Norte had the idea of buying Karu (Sassot's jungle friend) a present. Sassot had said he loved books so we figured we'd get him some kind of jungle/animal/amazon book. Liz and I went to the Ateneo (formerly Grand Splendid Yenny) but struck out there. We figured we'd just order the book we figured would be perfect instead (The Jungle Book) of settling for something sub-par. Afterwards we went to Jajau and found our favorite ice cream of the year- essentially peanut butter with reeses.

Last night us dudes set out to go find a bomb burrito place. I didn't suggest it, so I didn't look into it because i figured they would. They didn't. We remembered someone telling us where it might have been, trusted that, and found out that we couldn't have been any further away. So we went to La Pena del Colorado and had some bomb empanadas. Afterwards 6 of us dudes went out to Grido.

This morning I had breakfast with my homestay brother at Oui Oui and had an amazing waffle with fruit, nutella, and honey.

Another Weekend Recap

I woke up early on Saturday morning to bring medialunas, OJ, and chocolate milk (with Shannon) to the Guatemala group, hung out with God, did CrossFit, went on a bike ride with Josh, Wil, and Liz to the car rental place and got things sorted out, and then cranked on my Religion midterm.

On Sunday Josh, Megs, Ryan and I went to Tigre by train. We walked around the town, the fair, and the docks. Its a quaint lil town with tons of deltas, river boats, and cool architecture. We even scrounged up upon some aji picante plants for 5 pesos! After coming back I went on a long bike ride around Palermo Lakes, worked out a bit, bought some honey and cherries, and hung out with God. Later that night Josh, Ryan and I went to Grido.

On Monday I woke up early for CrossFit, studied for my Spanish essay, had my Spanish essay, ran some errands, got some dulces for Liz, watched a movie for English, worked on Religion midterm, had convo, had Mole, had Persico, and hung out at the casa til closing.

Weekend Recap

This past weekend was a blast: Friday we had a dudes night (plus gabby) and went to the driving range in Puerto Madero. We rent 5 clubs, broke 2 of them, 3 went flying out of our hands onto the range, and several balls were blasted over the nets onto the neighboring highways and city streets. Despite all this, we got out of there on our own terms and didn't have to pay an extra dime. Don't ask me how.

Saturday a big group of us went to the biggest horse racing event of the year at the Hippodromo in Palermo. It was really neat seeing all the fancy people, studly horses, gorgeous track, and al our people dressed up as well. One of our girls won 160 pesos! Later that day Liz and I went down to Puerto Madero and the Ecological Preserve on our sketchy bikes from the casa. After many close run-ins with pedestrians, cars, dogs, poles, buses, and pretty much everything else you'd find in a city, we eventually made it safe and sound. The panorama from inside the park, looking back at the city as the sun began to set below the afternoon clouds, creating an explosion of golden colors, was the most gorgeous view of any city i have ever seen. The juxtaposition of the lagoons, cat-tails, wild birds darting back and forth, and huge trees with the glimmering windows of the gorgeous buildings of Puerto Madero was simply spectacular. While heading back home, we stopped at a parilla cart and shared a bomb bife de chorizo sandwich.

Sunday was a chill day of podcasts, blogs, hw, and naps.

Monday night I went to La Bomba de Tiempo for the first time, Wil accompanied me. It was one of the most fun things I have done since I've been down here. Fun crowd, sick beats, crazy drummers, mosh pits, and much more.

view of the city from the Ecological Preserve

Live Forever

There are some songs that resonate so strongly with your soul, your heart, your all that you can't explain its meaning, its relevance, or its depth no matter how hard you try. Words will fail. Emotions won't amount.  They are the songs you find yourself unconsciously singing week in and week out, for months, if not years at a time. The lyrics, the tones, the melodies become a part of you. 


Maybe, I'm just crazy and no one else feels like this towards any song, but for me the song that I am describing is "Live Forever" by Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to it, its probably up in the higher hundreds. It's one of those songs that I can listen to at any point in life, in any mood, with anybody. Whether i just lost my job, failed an exam, got my dog run over, and totaled my car (all hypothetical) or just had the greatest God moment, found the girl of my life, won the lottery, or saw the most beautiful sunset, this is the one song I'd want to listen to most.


For a long time now, I've been meaning to write some kind of commentary/reflection on this song but have been intimidated by the fear of failure or inadequacy to do this song justice. No matter what words I type, you'll just have to listen to it for yourself, over and over again, and take out of it what you will for yourself. Its also one of those songs that endless people can listen to and get an endless list of different emotions/meanings/effects out of. 


This song (and especially the music video) makes me realize whats really important in life. A life without laughter is a life of misery. A life without hope for a new, beautiful morning isn't a life worth living. There are gunna be haters in life but screw em. Live your life, let them be jealous. Let them see the something special that you have and maybe in time they will come around and desire the very thing they were hating on before. 


A life without community, family, friends, and love is empty and lacks the ability for enjoyment. God wants us to have a life to the full, he isn't some kind of cosmic fun-hater. He wants us to see us living in joy, in love, in laughter, in fun, in full. He wants us to dance. 


There will come days when the traffic lights aren't all green, when it seems to only rain on you, when the girl you thought you were gunna marry dumps you, when the path for your life you had laid out in your mind gets thrashed by the storms of this life, when you don't get the job you were certain of getting, when the bottom line comes out red instead of green, when bad things happen to good people, but don't waiver, don't worry, don't doubt. Stay strong and carry on. 


Diamonds are formed by pressure. Gold is refined by fire. Sometimes the overgrown, unclear, difficult path leads to the majestic lands of heaven on Earth. Sometimes, the path your were heading down is a dirty, muddy, broken road compared to God's golden-bricked road that leads to a future beyond your wildest dreams. "Get over your hill and see what you find there, with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair."-Mumford.


Many stay distant from God, thinking that a life lived with him will be a sacrifice of fun, of experience, of life. I would argue a life without him is the life that is lacking. He made us, so I'd bet he knows how best to attain that feeling of fulfillment, meaning, and purpose that we inherently seek after; hence his guidelines to life. 


Get out there, dance in the rain, dance in his love, dance with others.






Here's the link to the music video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUf4FEiimwg


and lyrics:
http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858839304/


buy their music, they're some of the best albums you'll ever come across (especially "A Million Miles Away")

Patagonian Roadtrip

Patagonia + road tripping = epic adventure

To start off the long long weekend (an entire 10nights/9days) us dudes (me, josh, joey, jeff, and ryan) met up at the casa at 9am to start calling car rental companies. Due to some flakes, we had to keep getting smaller and smaller cars. We called around for a couple hours but couldn't find a single company that would legally rent to people below 21 years old. Eventually we decided to try showing up at a car rental place in person with the money in hand to see if they'd allow us to rent a car. We went to Localiza, prayed before walking in, and everything went perfectly smooth. They didn't ask us about our age once. So come 2pm, we were rolling back to the casa in our Volkswagen Voyager (made to fit 4 regular sized people and enough luggage space for 2 people. We had 5 college dudes and 5 huge backpacking backpacks and all our food. To say it was a tight fit would be an understatement.

Nonetheless, we got everything squeezed in there and rolled out around 3:30pm. Gettin out of the city was a relief, and shortly we were cruising through what felt like the Midwest of the States. Cornfields, cow pastures, windmills, farms, and 2-lane highways stretched as far as the eye could see. This complimented with some good ole' country music made me feel as American as I have in 6 months. Loved it. The drive was super smooth until it came Ryan's turn to drive and at that point the shifts became kind rough, the car was killed a couple times, and we almost got bowled over by a semi as Ryan was stuck on a hill, unable to get the car into first gear. It all worked out though and we got to our first campsite safe and sound. We stopped at some random, free camp site at Casa de Pierdas (House of Rocks) around 3:30am.

The next day we continued down south to Bariloche and stopped there for the night. We walked around town, saw a mini-concert going on, got some bomb ice cream at La Turista, and found a camping spot on the side of a road heading out of town. The next morning we woke up and took the road we had taken on the bus for our EFT to the amazing panorama overlooking the Llao Llao. It was super cool being there again when before I had thought I would never return to that location ever again. It was also fun to see Josh's first reactions to it. We also stopped by the really cool bay that we had hung at for quite a while during the EFT. We then booked it down to Esquel.

On the way down Jeff got stung by a dead bee haha. A bee had hit our car and we guessed that its butt-end with the stinger had landed on the stick and Jeff went to knock it off (not knowing what it was) only to be greeted with the intense pain of a bee sting. As we pulled into town, the military/police checkpoint dude motioned for us to pull over as he allowed several others cars to pass through without question. I guess it was obvious that we were tourists. As he was rummaging, he found Jeff's pipe (solely used for tobacco) and the military guy got a huge smile on his face as if he had just found buried treasure. He thought he had busted us for weed. After a close inspection and showing him the tobacco packet, he finally let off, but continued to look for other goodies. Of course, he found nothing and we were finally permitted to continue on into Esquel. We checked out the tourist center, loaded up on groceries, and went up a gravel mountain road to a high plateau where a lake rested, surrounded by forests and the plains of a nearby estancia. We found the perfect camping spot under a couple trees, right next to the shore, and quickly set up camp. Despite a light drizzle we got a fire started and got our pasta cooked. After ac ouple hours of good camp-fire talked we all retired for the night and got into our tents. It rained cats and dogs that night and well into the morning. We spent a few hours reading in our tents (Ryan in his hammock) until the rain let up. It never completely stopped so we had to pack up in the rain, which was a huge pain in the butt, but it all worked out.

We rolled out and drove up to El Bolson that morning. When we got there we checked out the super neat artesian fair, went to the tourism office, and kicked it at a super sick artesian cerveceria named Otto Tipp. It felt like some kind of pub out of the Lord of the Rings. By that time i had gotten everybody hooked on LOTR and everyone was reading it on their kindles and we were making references to it what seemed like every 5 minutes. The whole trip felt like some kind of adventure through Middle Earth (nerdy, i know). We were so tired and wet and infatuated with our books that we ended up kicking it there for 6 hours. That night we had a rough time finding a camping spot but finally settled on a patch of grace at a fork in a mountain road.

The next morning we took our time sleeping in and reading and eventually packed up to head to a nearby waterfall. We hiked up above the waterfall and found a super clutch camping spot for later that night. After coming back down, we got our shower gear, and stripped down to shower under the thundering power of the waterfall. If you're gunna try to be manly about bathing in Patagonia, doing it under a waterfall is the way to go. Feeling refreshed and renewed, we set out in our car to drive the mountain roads that encompassed the town. That drive is what sold me into putting El Bolson above any other town in Argentina as my favorite. As we were driving down this seemingly abandoned mountain road we passed quaint little farms growing hops, fruits, and all sorts of goodies, we passed super cool lil mountain cottages, black berry bushes on the side of the roads (which we stopped and picked to put on our ice cream later), quaint dulcerias + panaderias, all while driving alongside a winding, super blue river. I saw the symbol for a panoramic view on the map and so we took a little random road up the side of a mountain/hill and came out to what was one of the most beautiful panoramas I have ever seen in my life.

The overlook spanned across the width of an entire valley with the super windy, perfectly blue river running through the center and emptying into a river off in the distance at the base of snow covered mountains, pastures and mountain cottages were dotted across the valleys, trees of all kinds spread across the entire valley, mountains rose up to heights above the tree line and snow capped of the top of their peaks, brids were darting left and right chirping their melodic tunes, the sun was shining down upon the valley creating the most perfect picturesque waning shadows. I could go on talking about it for pages and  pages. I literally started walking to the car 5 times only to be turned back each time by the draw of the majestic beauty that i never wanted to leave. Hopefully pictures will paint a better picture, but even then they wont do it justice.

Afterwards we rolled back into town, Ryan freaked out when a bee got in the car, opened the door in the middle of the road while we were driving 30mph and almost got the door taken off by a passing car. One of the scarier moments of my life....We then went to THE original Jauja (a new one had just opened up close to the casa and I was determined to go to the original one in El Bolson). We got some super bomb ice cream there and ate it with our freshly picked mountain blackberries. Epic. We then loaded up on some groceries for the night and headed up to our previously scouted camping location on top of the waterfall. It was quite the hike with our big ole backpacks on, especially for Ryan who only brought FLIP FLOPS to PATAGONIA. haha. We made it up just fine and set up camp, collected firewood, and then enjoyed some time apart from each other, hanging out with God, looking over the most beautiful valley I have ever been in. For space and times sake, i won't even try describing it. I'll let the pictures do the talking. It's hands-down the most epic campsite I have ever slept at and probably ever will sleep at. That night we made a fire, grilled chorizo on fire-heated rocks, made choripans loaded with the chorizo and pasta, and then enjoyed melted Jauja chocolate on bananas (made by wrapping the two in aluminum foil and putting it on the fire). After a hour or so of good campfire talk, we went to bed. Easily one of the top 5 days of my life.

I'm getting kinda burnt out by now so I'll keep the rest short and simple. The next day we got up early, drove to San Martin (we took a premature turn and ended up taking a route to San Martin that was in the process of being built, so the dirt road mixed with the rain made things very slow going. I wasn't one to complain though. The drive through that part of Patagonia was absolutely gorgeous.  It kinda felt like driving along the Oregon coast, only instead of coast, there were tons of mountain lakes. We eventually got to San Martin (during siesta time) walked around town, hiked to epic lake overlook where we planned to camp, went back into town, bought sweet gaucho hats at the gaucho/veterinarian store that we had been to during our EFT, kicked it in a coffee place, and then went to the "Calzone Restaurant" that we had ended our EFT with 4 months before. After dinner we decided it wasn't worth it to hike and set up camp in the rain, so we cleaned out the car, organized our stuff more efficiently, and set our for the  21 hour ride back to BA. Talk about finishing strong.