1. UNC Men's Basketball. Pre-season ranking: #1.
2. This super historic election. Blue all-around. Props to NC - senate, governor (first woman!).
Even though I missed out on the excitement in the U.S. (rushing Franklin Street? awesome!) this was a unique experience. I attempted to go to a bar, The Alamo, which was going to show American CNN, but it was overcrowded with Americans and wasn't playing sound. So my friend Erica and I went back to my apartment and watched CNN in espanol in the kitchen. The downside to this was having to hear the speeches muted and translated live into Spanish, but I think the coverage was just as good.
Obama was on all the front pages of the newspapers today, with headlines saying "Historic: U.S. votes for a black president" and "Obama changes history." The media has been following the election pretty well in my opinion, and the sentiment is undoubtadly pro-Obama (which goes for anywhere in the world).
As for my feelings, I am very proud to have been part of such a historic election and I am just looking forward to the new direction we will go. I think like many of my friends we are suddenly feeling a huge surge pride for our country, which we have never really known in our lifetime. It's still kind of a shock that this has happened but it makes me excited to go home in time for the inauguration.
Recap of the last few weeks:
Bariloche trip
I could go into a lot more detail than I'm going to but I think the pictures will say it best.
Our only big COPA-sponsored trip is to Bariloche - Patagonia!. They took half the group (60 students) by plane. There are two big airlines in Argentina. When we got to the airport, which was fairly early in the morning, one of them was on strike because a passenger had slapped an employee. Luckily we were taking the other airline.
Everything on the trip was planned out for us, which at first I didn't like the idea of but then realized it was the best thing they could have done, because Bariloche is very spread out. The first day we got driven everywhere - downtown San Carlos de Bariloche, which is very Swiss influenced, and then we were in a bus a lot of the time to visit lookout points.
Day 3 was the most intense hike I've ever done. More intense than Malawi. Everyone had to sign a waiver before the trip and it mentioned something about a hike, but I wasn't expecting anything like what we had to do. Six hours in total. And through snowy mountain caps too, extermely steep and slippery. On the way down I lost track of the number of times I fell on my butt. But now I can say I've climbed the Andes!
Throughout the entirety of this trip I was trying to decide which was more beautiful - Bariloche or Iguazu. I can't answer the question. They are both comparable in beauty but also so different. Patagonia was breathtaking. I should say this is the only place I've ever been where I would drink straight from the water.
And I can't leave out that I wore my Patagonia fleece in Patagonia. Exciting.
Last Saturday I went to my first concert, or rather music fest, here - Personal Fest. The headliners were R.E.M., Kaiser Chiefs, and Bloc Party - American and English bands. All in all it was fun and I was especially curious to see if the bands would try to speak in Spanish. Bloc Party had many failed attempts in saying "muchas gracias". The Kaiser Chiefs lead singer had a crumbled up piece of paper with Spanish on it so he could say "en espanol, somos los Kaiser Chiefs!" No duh. And R.E.M. didn't really do anything except for muchas gracias, and then went on a whole schpiel about Obama and how they hate our government etc. I don't think many people understood.
I haven't done a good job of keeping up with Buenos Aires social commentary on this blog. A few weeks ago I needed a haircut. And I was petrified to do it. For a few reasons. Men's hairstyles here are a flashback to the early 90s. Mullets. Rattails. One example, or possible influence, is the Michael Jordan of Argentina, retired soccer player Maradona. This picture was taken the other day.
Women on the other hand, have long beautiful flowing hair. Still, the whole communication barrier at the hair salon was scary. But I got through it. And I don't have a mullet.
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