1 Year Later – Reflecting on Buenos Aires
One year ago, my colleague Karen and I traveled down to Argentina to visit our program in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We decided to write a collaborative post for the API blog, recapping the excursion we took with our students to Iguazú Falls. Below, you will find scanned in images of our journal entries as well as a photo/video mashup of the weekend. It truly was an incredible trip. Karen’s post is first, followed by mine:
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Still Saving Our Planet?
I would consider myself to have a fairly mild personality; however, there are a few things I’m pretty passionate about and well…recycling is one of these things. This most likely stems from growing up in the ridiculously crunchy granola eco friendly recycling obsessed Pac NW. Many Pacific Northwesterners have similar mentalities regarding recycling: you do it, you love it, not recycling isn’t an option, and if you throw something out that could be recycled and/or composted, you’re most likely going to hell. Here in Austin, there’s a similar mentality. Even my host family in Mexico was extremely pro-recycling.
So, the other day I was Facebook chatting with a friend, Ofir. I met Ofir this past summer when I was in Israel – he was one of the Israeli soldiers that joined our birthright trip. (And by the way, I know I haven’t blogged about my Israel trip yet…I’m still trying to sort out my thoughts; however, I will give away one spoiler alert – hands down, my favorite part of the entire trip was having the Israeli soldiers and students join our group. They provided an entirely different dynamic for the group and truly made an already incredible trip even more amazing. More on this later.).
While in Israel, I ended up having many conversations with our Israeli soldier and student friends about differences between life in the US and Israel, cultural differences, stereotypes we had of one another, etc. One day, we were walking down the street in Tel Aviv and I noticed this giant metal structure filled with plastic bottles. I realized I didn’t know much about recycling in Israel, so I asked Ofir about it.
He said that although the concept of recycling was catching on, it still was fairly new and not completely accepted/prioritized. Ofir asked me about recycling where I’m from so I gave him a brief overview. He then asked me about the water bottle I had (it was one of those Nalgene-style bottles) – I explained the concept of one reusable water bottles vs. continually recycling plastic bottles. After my overview and this water bottle conversation, I pretty much assumed he viewed me as some crazy tree hugging crunchy granola composting hippie earth child. (:
Anyway, back to my original topic of conversation – my Facebook chat with Ofir. So, during our chat, the following conversation happened. I know this might make me appear to be a super crunchy granola and well…yeah, I guess it’s totally true. Perhaps it’s silly to get so excited about something like recycling plastic bottles, but well…I don’t think so! When I read when he wrote, I was pretty much bouncing out of my seat with excitement!!! Here’s our conversation:
What with you? Still saving our planet? :))
haha what do you mean by that??
Just for you to know I bought a green bottle for water 
YAY!!! That makes me so happy!!! I love recycling (:
That you doing great job! Haha yes!
I love it!
Even more, I told all my soldiers not to throw their plastic bottle
(: !!!!!!!!!
And now we have this big place we save all the bottles and recycle
(:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is so awesome!!! You’re saving the world now too!!!
Mt. Hood
Yes, I grew up in Oregon and yes, I know I was only a few hours away from a handful of amazing ski locations but no, up until this past December I had never been to a mountain and certainly had never been skiing/snowboarding.
In case you were wondering, no, I have also never been camping. Actually, I take that back. My first camping experience was this past summer…in Israel…in a Bedouin tent. Go figure.
Yes, now that I live in Texas I have a much greater appreciation for Oregon and all of its beauty but no, even with this newfound appreciation, I really don’t think I’ll ever be much more of an “outdoorsy” person.
All this to say, I went to Mt. Hood for the first time this past December.
Well, David went to snowboard. I guess you could say I went along for moral support. I did contemplate skiing/snowboarding for about 10 seconds, weighing the pros and cons:
Pro: It could be fun, I can say I’ve tried it, it’s good exercise
Con: I hate being cold, I have no athletic ability, my hand-eye coordination is alarmingly low in the world of athletics (minus salsa dancing), I have the upper and lower body strength of a 9 year old, I’m not the best at making split second decisions in life or death situations (scary), and my luck isn’t all that great….
Wondering which option I chose?
Well…let’s just say, I took the photo you see above from within the lodge. I was mad at myself for about 3.5 seconds for not trying, but then I reminded myself: A. Different strokes for different folks, B. You have an awesome book in your bag that you’ve been wanting to read for about 6 months now and C. If you go out there, there’s a high probability the only way you will return is via stretcher.
While at Mt. Hood, I did alot of two things: reading & people watching. I read one of Chuck Klosterman’s book. Found the content on this page to be particularly smart:
Uhhh. I think someone is tired:
On the way back, we passed a snow bank where there were people sledding and snowshoeing, so we pulled over to check it out. I don’t like dogs (I’m wildly allergic), but I thoroughly enjoyed watching dogs go down snow embankments via snow tubes. It was a challenge to decipher if the dogs really really liked or really really hated the experience. I actually think they weren’t sure themselves.
The hotel where we stayed had quite the happy hour menu. We ate well and I’m sure my galbladder hated me the entire time:
So, here’s a fun story. The quickest way to get back to our room from the restaurant was through a side entrance that went directly outside. Usually we took this exit, but on the 2nd and final night, we decided to go out the main entrance to poke around the lobby. Prior to this route change, I already had put on my 25 sweatshirts, hat, hoods and coats. As it would have taken forever (10 seconds) to disrobe, I said “forget it” and walked out the entrance toward the hotel lobby, complete with all my sweatshirts, scarves, hat, and 2 hoods. Basically, all you could see was my nose & eyes…my arms could absolutely not even come close to touching the sides of my body.
As we exited the restaurant, we passed a group of 50 something year old ladies. One took one glance at me and said to her friend, “Wow! It must really be cold in that restaurant!”. I just kept walking and after about 4 seconds of holding it in, burst out laughing. I knew I looked ridiculous, especially as a 24 year old. With this said, I’ve learned that innocent tomfoolery here and there never hurt anyone, right?
East Side Foodies
There’s a ton of foodie hype that sweeps through Austin – a food trailer featured in this magazine, a restaurant featured on that TV show. Once this happens, the place becomes a foodie mecca, turning to complete and total madness. Lines stretch for miles and miles, wait times span into years… As waiting in line for food is something I can’t bring myself to do – absolutely not worth it – I do my best to avoid these places during the insanity.
With this said, there’s a super popular hole in the wall Mexican restaurant in East Austin called “Juan In A Million“. It’s been featured on Man vs. Food, so as you can imagine, this place is generally a mad house. I had been wanting to try it at some point, but figured I’d wait for the madness to die down.
Welllll…a few weeks back, one thing led to another and I found myself there. Wait time was less than 5 minutes. A Christmas miracle!
Insanely large portions of delicious, cheap, greasy, authentic Mexican food is what you’ll find at Juan In A Million. I’m fairly confident my arteries began to cry when my plate was set before me, but let’s be real, I didn’t go there for a healthy meal!
Here’s my plate:
I think I was able to consume about 1/16th of what you see in the picture. I also think I might have offended the waiter when I asked for a box after my plate looked like it had barely been touched. “I do like it.” I told him. “I just can’t eat my weight in nachos this morning. The leftovers will make for a great lunch, snack, dinner, 2nd breakfast, 2nd snack, 2nd lunch and 2nd dinner!”
Here’s the famous Don Juan taco:
The horchata is not pictured, but is some of the best I’ve had.
The wait staff also reminded me why I’m not in the food service industry. If I had that many people packed into a small space that I had to serve every day…well, I’m fairly confident it’d be an epic fail for all involved. (: On the contratry, the JIAM staff were great – friendly, attentive, happy, chipper…you know…all the great characteristics of awesome waiters/waitresses.
Rockport
After the Turkey Trot, we headed down to Rockport, a small town on the coast of Texas. While many Texans claim that Texas beaches are unimpressive, I on the other hand, think Texas beaches are pretty great. (When you come from the Pacific NW and must bring a winter coat on every beach trip [including those in the summer], a beach where you can wear a t-shirt & possibly even get a sunburn in November seems pretty darn awesome.) Funny how pretty much everything in life is relative, yeah?
On a vaguely related topic, although I’ve been here a few years, our proximity to Mexico still blows my mind. The thing I find most interesting is that although we’re so close to Mexico, culture/society/life in Austin feels like we’re a world away. I guess you could also say the culture/society/life in Austin feels like we’re a world away from Texas!
With this all said…enjoy the following photos from my Rockport venture:
