more mendoza pics

My new parrot friend and I (there was a zoo, but it was expensive so we just peeked in from the outside)Lauren, Racheal, and I before whitewater rafting
The river...how pretty
The girls at the hostel party
Malbec grapes (the grapes Argentina is so famous for)

photos of mendoza

My friend Amanda and I modeling Clemson colors at the organic bodega. She's very photogenic

The organic bodega, where I bought three bottles!
A vineyard at the first bodega we visited
Gracen, Lauren, and Tori at our very first wine tasting!

These wall vaults are where the nicer wines are stored in order to age better

MENDOZA

prrrrrr soo sorry for my absence. Now I don't even remember what I've done since the last time I wrote!

So we went to Mendoza. There was a group of maybe 12 of us exchange students that went with two of the younger international office (CRI) workers. We left Thursday night around 10 and arrived in Mendoza early-ish Friday morning. The bus ride was "semi-cama", so the seats reclined pretty far back and I slept surprisingly well! So anyways, we got to Mendoza and checked into our hostel (which was super nice, by the way) and ate breakfast. Then we had some free time, so my friend Lauren and I kind of explored the city and shopped :) and ate lunch. Mid afternoon, we went on a brief romp around 3 different vineyards. The first one we went to was cool and modern and really new. Walking in was such an experience, just the smell was enough to make you want to move in. I'm not that much of a wine gal but I thought the process was so neat. The tour group consisted of us exchangers and 2 british guys who didn't speak spanish, so we really were able to understand what was going on since the guide had to talk in english. This is a picture of the vineyards of the first bodega we visited

The second bodega we visited was one of the most important organic vineyards in Mendoza. They said that they don't use pesticides or chemicals on the crops, but most of the wines did contain some sulfates to preserve their shelf-life. I bought 3 bottles there, one for my family here, and two to bring back home. They did have a no-sulfate added wine, and that is what I bought. Now I'm no expert, but I couldn't taste much of a difference between the wines with and the wines without sulfates. The third bodega we visited was an old traditional bodega with really expensive and specifically made wines that were of no interest to me, so I'm not going to detail that anymore.

That night, our hostel got together with 3 other hostels to hold an asado nearby. We all went together and waited with the other exchange students for what seemed like FOREVER to eat. I ate a ton of potato salad, which was bomb, but everyone said the meat was super good...I don't care. Anyways, afterwards, they moved all of the tables out of the bar area and the party started. There were free tequila shots, where they held your head back and poured...this was a disaster for some people (they drank way too much), but it was only troublesome for me when the bartender poured it IN MY EYE. Yow, didn't go back for more after that! The whole party was really fun, we got to meet people from Holland, Israel, France, and a ton of guys from England. I met one boy who I still talk to currently; he's really cool because he teaches me all of these popular british phrases and because him and his friends are travelling all around S. America before they start University in the fall.

Saturday we had to be up pretty early to eat breakfast and then head out to the mountains for some good old fashioned whitewater rafting! Our guide was by far the coolest and most fun. We arrived just as the season was ending and so the water was lower and FREEZING, but I'm so glad we went. We got to wear these really fashionable wetsuits and jackets like we were pros, it was awesome! Afterwards we hung around and tried to warm up before going back to our hostel. Once back, everyone showered and ate and then we tried to find a club to go to but had little success, so we cut our losses and just went to sleep. On Sunday, we had literally the whole day to kill because our bus didn't leave until late so Lauren, Gracen, and I walked to the big park and found this giant monument of and Argentine national hero (San Martin). On our walk back to the hostel, we grabbed and early dinner and while eating, we met this girl from Australia who told us she was taking a year to travel the entire world. Listening to her talk about the places she had been/was going to made my head spin; I was so inspired! Once I get back to the US (if I ever do...), I'm going to start hoarding my money so that I can experience the world like she is.

We finally got on the road, and I was able to sleep up until the point when a baby started crying. Oh but this wasn't just any baby....this baby was sitting right. behind. me. It was kicking also, that was fun. Oh what a disaster, and it just really stunk because we had class the next day basically only few hours after we got back.

I would say that Mendoza was my favorite trip to date. In my next entry when I have more time, I'll blog about Semana Santa when I went to Uruguay and my friend and I almost got robbed!

In the meantime, here's a funny story:

For our culture class, we had a group project and I was working with two guys that constantly tease me...I'm like the little sister. For one part, I had to email a document to one of the guys, his name is Jonathan. He ended up not needing it, so I assumed he just saw the body text that I put, "shut up and leave me alone", and simply deleted it. Obviously I forgot all about it until the next afternoon I cam home to check my email and I had this in my inbox:

Jessie –

Could you give me a quick call about your message sent yesterday to President Barker?

My cell # is 864-650-5502. I’d like to help.

Joy

Joy S. Smith, Ph.D.

Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students

202 Hendrix Student Center

Clemson, SC 29634-4001

w 864-656-0471; h 864-646-2899; fax 864-656-7241

AND this one:

Jessie –

This is the email message that went to President Barker about which I wrote you just now.

shut up leave me alone

--
Jessie Phillips

Sociology Major

Clemson University '13

Is everything OK with you? I am guessing it just went to the wrong person.

Please reply so I know all is OK in Argentina.

Joy

Obviously, I was super duper embarrassed so I responded right away how I was sooo sorry and I must've just started typin a "j" and "james barker" came up and I clicked without thinking. Luckily for me, the administration at Clemson has a good sense of humor and President Barker personally emailed me to ask if I could use the story as an anecdote about the "perils of email". So, basically I'm famous (or a laughingstock, not sure which)!

This past week, we got back 2 papers and 2 tests and I made 8s on all of them so that's good...they could've been better, but like I said before, with a record like that, I won't have to sit the exams!

There are lots of birthdays around this time...Tuesday was my tutor's boyfriends birthday so I went to their apartment to snack and play "mimica" (charades), which was surprisingly hard considering we were doing movie titles and they have different translations here. For example, "the hangover" (shout out to mom) technically means "la resaca", but in spanish, they call the movie ¿Qué Pasó Ayer"...so even if we knew the english equivalent, it was really dificult to guess the spanish translation. It was a really fun time though, great to practice my spanish. Last night, a bunch of us went to a chill bar to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and the birthday of our friend Taylor. Today, I went shopping with my tutor because HER birthday is tomorrow and wanted a new outfit to wear out! SHEESH and then TONIGHT there's a surprise party for Taylor and another boy called Jeff. How exciting!

Anyways, tomorrow the weather should be nice so hopefully I'll be outside and not indoors blogging, but I will try to get everyone updated by the end of the weekend.

How's America with all of this Osama stuff? I'm kind of glad I'm away because I feel like things are about to get really bad. Many people here don't believe he's dead, and I have to admit that I'm a little skeptical as well but I only watch the Argentine news, so maybe some details are getting lost in translation....

¡Hasta luego!

little update

Academic news first:

-Last week I was chosen to be the Junior major representative for my specific college (College of Business and Behavioral Sciences-CBBS)...Basically, 2 reps from each major in the College meet every other Friday to discuss (with the dean!), different activities, and improvements for the department. Yay for resume padding!

-Today I got back 2 papers I had written (IN SPANISH), and I got an 8 on one, and a 9 on the other! Supposedley here, it's very hard to get tens, but if I continue to get 8s or higher, I won't have to take an exam yippee!

-Today, also, I signed up for classes for next year, it's SO WEIRD to think that I'm going to be a junior! Time flies, right? Anyways, I'm pretty excited for my schedule, but I think it's going to be challenging...

I have class on Tu/Thu from 9:30 am-2:30pm with no breaks (oh joy unbounded), but then on M/W, I have two classes, one at 9:05 am (eep!) and the other at 2pm.

I'll be taking 2 anthropology courses (Biological anthro and "Women in the Developing world", 2 sociology courses (Methods, and Soc. of Policy change), one spanish course (cultural survey of latin america), and one history course (globalization effects)...All in all, I'll be taking 19 hours, sheesh, wish me luck!

Tonight I think I finally won over my family...I cooked for them! It was a mini disaster though because I kind of didn't make enough food, but everyone got some and there were leftovers from lunch also, so we were all full, haha. Also, they told me afterwards that I never could leave because I cleaned up all of the dishes (no easy feat considering they don't have a dishwasher)!

This weekend, I'm going to wine country Mendoza!!!! I can't wait, the school helped plan it for us, so the package includes a bus ticked, 3 wine tours, white water rafting, a nice hostel, and meals! I can't imagine trying to something like that on my own...my spanish is improving a lot but not that much!

okay, gotta sleep...chau besos

más fotos

My little guy at Chalala
The dance to honor mother earth
Random waterfall that we hiked to on Saturday

northwest photos

Missy and I at the salt fields

unreal

Noroeste

Bahh, sorry I'm SO BAD AT BLOGGING. I'll sit in class and make a to do list and I always include "blog", but I never do it!

Let's see...what has happened since my last post? Not much. Last weekend, we went to the Northwest part of the country. We left the school around 7pm on Wednesday and enjoyed a 14 hour long bus ride! As soon as we arrived, did we get to nap? No way! We climbed a torturous mini mountain in the thinnest air I have ever experienced, but it was worth it when we got a breathtaking (literally) view of the seven colored mountains (I'll put up pictures later). Most of the trip was a big ole blur because we were on the go the entire time. What I mainly remember is the gorgeous landscape, salt fields, long horrible van rides, thin air, and children(!!)

On Thursday, we went in vans to this place that is literally just salt. It stretches between two mountain ranges and it's unbearably bright in the sun. If there was ever a salt crisis, we need not look farther than Argentina because there's more than enough for todo el mundo. Friday was by far the worst day. We got in vans and drove to a church and stopped there for 30 minutes. Then we drove to another village and ate/shopped around in their artisan fair for 2 hours. THEN we had the most hellish ride on these terrible unpaved mountain roads. It's not even like the ride was short either, it was a three hour romp...each way. It was all worth it though, because we stayed at our destination for all of an hour (anyone sensing my sarcasm?). When we were driving back to our cabins, we had to stop for people to use the bathroom and I have never seen a sky so beautiful. I mean, I live in the middle of nowhere where stars are very visible, but this was unreal! There were just so many!

Saturday, before we left, we visited this small village called Chalala. Last year, UBP chose Chalala to have a partnership type deal with...In the partnership, UBP collects and donates computers, clothing, and other school supplies to the village. We presented the goods and then some students (from UBP) shared talents like dancing, origami, singing, etc. Some people of Chalala also presented a typical song and an important cultural dance. My favorite part was afterwards when we got to play with the kids for just a few minutes. I see kids here, but I don't hang out with them obviously...I miss little children!

The drive back was horrrrrrendous, cold, and super uncomfortable, but it was nice to finally get off that stupid bus!

Anyways, enough of my whining! The weeks here are decently uneventful, I basically just wake up, lay out, eat lunch, go to class, hang around, do homework...blah blah. but the weekends are soo fun! This past weekend I hung out with some different people which was a nice change! Thursday night, I went to dinner with a big group, but it was really tranquilo because I had to wake up at 5:45 on Friday to get stuff done for my visa.

Ah, I have to go...homework calls! (ew homework?)