New Pictures

So, if you remember, my camera broke right before I traveled to the Iguazu Falls. After that, a lot of people offered to take pictures for me and email me them. Obviously that is quite a commitment and sure enough I have heard back from only one person. But that's ok!!! I totally understand it's not an easy thing to do, especially when you are/have been traveling.

Here are some of the pictures a young geography student took for me in Malargue

Volcano in the distance

Crystallization in the Cave of the Witches

Me in my miner hat, ready to enter the cave

Me on our hike to a little tiny waterfall

Home

Hello! I am home, safe and sound!!! The flight back was uneventful, I just watched lots of movies and customs was nothing they didn't even look at the bags. When I have all my pictures sorted out I'll post some more but until then, lots of love!
Esther

Mendoza

(I changed the title of this post because I didnt want to freak out my grandparents :) I didnt really drink THAT much wine. I just thought the title was sort of funny. But I think my English word-play has suffered during these past six months of Spanish. Not that it was ever that successful. As I said to my friend Lily, I basically just say whatever pops into my head and about 50% is really hysterical and the other 50% is absolute crap)

Hello Hello!!!!

I seem to be writing these posts always one province behind. Right now I am in Neuquen in a gorgeous town called San Martin de los Andes, but I got here on Tuesday from Mendoza. In Mendoza I was in three places. Mendoza capital, San Rafael, and Malargue. I hearted the capital big time, it is filled with gorgeous plazas and parks and the hostel was my favorite so far because they made us eggs in the morning!!!! I met a lot of really cool people from all over the world there and enjoyed exploring the city and one day biking from vineyard to vineyard wine tasting! We also got complementary wine from the hostel every night. I totally agree now with the peope who say legal drinking promotes responsable drinking. And then everyone i met was going to Chile and the crossover to Chile is supposed to be the most beautiful thing ever so I took a bus part of the way to Chile, up through the mountains to Uspallata. It was amazing, I am totally in love with the Andes.

Then from Mendoza I went to San Rafael to a gorgeous hostel outside the central area. San Rafael is in a little dip in the land so it was SUPER hot and the hostel had a pool and it was the best thing ever. I went one day to Valle Grande and saw some crazy moutain landscapes and (although I usually dont go for the "excursions" they are so fond of here) went rafting down a river lined by incredible orange and purple and black mountains.

Then I went to Malargue, which wasnt my favorite place ever, but I had several amazing food experiences. I ate an insane trout meal at a trout hatchery where you could watch them kill the fish out the window. Then one night at the hostel we all made Pollo a la Disco which is chicken cooked in a big pot over a wood fire together with veggies and wine. Another time we made homemade chorripan with guacamole and ensalada criollo and chimichurri. I also went to La Caverna de las Brujas where we went deep into this laberynth of caverns and saw stalagmites and cystals. And wore headlamps... And there was also a cool planatarium there and a famous observitory where they do work on cosmic rays. All good spanish practice!!!

Now, as I said, I am in San Martin de los Andes which is cold and beautiful and really relaxing. Google image it. I have been hiking, walking around the downtown, and I found a fair on accident where people took their used clothes to the park and did like a huge garage sale. As I said to my friend, I am a thrift store magnet. There I found a patagonian handknit wool sweater for 5 dollars instead of 100-200 like they all cost in town. Also when I went hiking I saw sheep and goats and chickens and what I think were the famous guanacos but could have been llamas. (This is later-Esther writing with the exciting news that they were indeed guanacos!!!) It surpised me how excited about everything farm related I still was after three months of that being my life. Then again, sheep are never going to un-cute themselves, its just not possible.

Also, PS I am fed up with the difficulty of picture posting on these crappy hostel computers with bad internet connections so if you can be patient and wait TWO WEEKS I will put absolutely EVERYTHING worth seeing (mrawr) on the blog.

Buenos Aires

Here I am! In Buenos Aires! Writing from a fancy apartment in Recoleta where I am staying with a friend.
The city is huge, and there is way too much to do, but I am having a blast and trying to split my time between touristy and non touristy activities.
Here are some of the things I have done:
Touristy
Visited important/pretty places like Teatro Colon and La Casa Rosada.
Taken a doubledecker tour bus around the city, using the provided microphones to learn a little history.
Been to Bellas Artes museum, the Eva Peron museum, a boat museum, a holocaust museum, and one more whose name I can never remember where there was an exhibit on HARRY POTTER.
Went to a tango show outside at the obelisk and a drum concert.
Less touristy
Ate the best hot pastrami sandwich of my life.
(FINALLY) went thrift store shopping (more on that later)
Used-book shopping.
Eating choripan. (sausage and fried egg sandwiches sold on the street).
Went walking around searching for Synagogues.
Shabat services on Friday night.

I hope everyone is keeping warm back in the states, dont feel too jealous of me, someimes it is 97 with humidity on top which in Buenos Aires is really pretty disgusting. Although for the most part the weather has been lovely for me.
Love and snuggles and pictures because I have no control over the format of these posts right now...

Esther

Iguazu Falls

Hello Hello!

I have just spent the last week in Misiones, at the Iguazu Falls. They are incredible!!!! I went two days to the Argentina side of the falls and I cannot go to Brasil or Paraguay, which are both right here, because of the visa costs for United States citizens. We charge EVERYBODY and so they charge us, so it goes. But I rented a bike and biked to the triple border and saw Paraguay, Brasil, and Argentina all at the same time!!! The climate and wildlife here is super different from anything I have ever seen, and so I also tried to bike for a while in the forest but its so touristy here that everything was still pretty developed. Still, I have seen monkeys, lizards, parrots, weird bugs, coatis (like an opossum) and a million new plants.

The youth hostel where I am staying is really nice. I have a room that I share with three other girls and we have airconditioning at night! And the bathrooms and kitchen are nice too. I am enjoying cooking on the outdoor stove, swimming in the pool, reading Harry Potter 7 in Spanish in the hammoks, and eating the mangos that are harvested every morning from our personal mango tree!!!! It is such a relaxing summer vacation.

Unfortunately my camera broke, so all the pictures I put here of the falls are REALLY crappy phone camera pictures. Hopefully a nice German girl I met at the falls who had a really nice camera and took a picture of me will remember to send me her photos.

It looks like I have found another farm to volunteer on in this area for around two weeks, so that I do not have to do the 21 hour bus ride back down south twice in one week. When I am there I will tell you how it is. But for now I have two more days booked at the hostel and I am enjoying meeting people from all around the world and practicing my Spanish!

Pictures (I just figured out the phone camera was dirty too, you have no idea how upset I am...)

Lots of love!
Esther

Off again!

I´m off again! I am leaving tomorrow at noon for the Iguazu Falls! It is a 21 hour bus ride, how crazy is that??? I am booked at a hostel for seven days and then, we shall see!
I should have internet there, so I will put up more pictures and news as soon as I can.
Also, most exciting thing ever--Flor had her baby, his name is Octavio, and he is the cutest!!!!

Un Abrazo,
Esther!

DON´T SEND ME MAIL

I should have written this post a month ago but NO MORE MAIL. Its not because I dont love it, I do. And thank you so much toeveryone who sent me letters! I have left the farm and I now have NO permanent address. Send me an email. Look for me on skype. Facebook. Whatever. But NO MORE MAIL.

Lots of Love,
Esther

Changes

Hello All!
Sorry I havent written for so long, the internet situation has been a little crazy.
I am still enjoying Huerta Inambu, although I am starting to be ready for a change. I want to see more of the country and make some more friends, its pretty isolated here!!! So next week I am leaving the farm and I will spend New Years in Cordoba and then its looks like I will be heading up North to a farm or natural reserve.

Hannukah on the farm was nice. I little candles and sung in my room every night and the last day we had latkahs for lunch with our own eggs, flour, zuccini, potatos, and storebought onions. I will put up pictures when I can.

Renewing my visa was a complete and total fiasco but now I can legally be in the country for three more months!!!!

My birthday was also fun, Nuria had all my favorite foods including, peanut butter, her pear and ginger jam. meat for lunch, mint lassi, eggs, and a fabulous chocolate and dulce de leche cake made by Mayra!!! Oh and icecream!!! And the day after mangos!!! And then I went to Cordoba the next week to renew the visa and Flro and Carlos took me to La Falda and we had cake in this precious little place called El Bosque in the middle of an artist colony with homemade cake and earl gray!!!!

We now have a huge amount of veggies on the farm including zuccini, tomatos, beans, beets (which I now love) and much much more!!! On Sundays, if the weather is nice we take a picnic to one of the many gorgoeous rivers in the area. And I am almost finsihed with Harry Potter Five and have started another knitting project. And my Spanish is getting pretty good, especially because most of my initial shyness is gone.

Thats about it, I will try to update next week.
Love and happy holidays!!!!!
Esther

Animals!!!!

These are the animals we have at the farm!!!

Iguanas. I called them monstruos once by accident. They are four feet long and terrifying.


Negrita, the leader of the cows, and the most fun to milk.

 Luna, the baby, a total sweetie. Still doesnt have milk, but she has not one but TWO pefect hearts on herself!

 Canela. Canela is preggers right now, she always sleeps on her own poop which is not fun to clean in the morning.

 Durazno, Razy for short. He fell asleep sitting up. I love him.

 Cornelia, because I promised my sister I would name a kitten Cornelius but I couln´t because Durazno was too peach colored to resist.

 The mama. I actually dont know her name and the kitten names I made up, they aren´t official. But I call her snuggle in English because she is a snuggler.

 Nita!!! She loves to go swimming with you in the stream and chase dragon flies.

 :) Now you are starting to see that the purpose of this post is kitten photos.

 A rooster. I am not a big fan, but they are pretty from a distance.

Sorry I know these posts are not exactly full of juicy information!!!! If you want to know the deets send me an email or letter. So far I received two letters!!!! If you want to make me happy on my birthday, mail is the way to go!!!!!

Proyectos

Hello friends and family!
I have around 4 hours free everyday and an afternoon and Sunday off every week. What do I do with this time? Here is a list!

I read, a lot. So far I am up to the 4th Harry Potter in Spanish, I read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe in Spanish (and it had completely lost its charm because of my age), I listened to the audio book of The Help which is fantastic, and next up is La Isla Bajo el Mar by Isabel Allende.

I knit a sleeping bag for Lambie.

I made slippers out of a sweater that shrunk in the wash,

I built a milking bench.

We fixed tools one day.

And I play with the kittens and puppy!

It is too hard to move these pictures around, so think of it as a matching game!!!!
And remember, my address is on the blog now, so send me a letter!!!!

Pictures speak louder than words, I hope.

La Cumbrecita  (the outskirts)

Rainy day at the river. 

The little fair where we sell our veggies. (thats Nuria)

Milking!

Picnic at the river with crumble, salad, spanish omlette, and bread. 

(Those are Pablo and Maria Paz, my fellow workers.) 

Pablo crashed the car.

La Cumbrecita again.

Huerta Inambu

Hello friends and family!

I have been living on the farm for two weeks now and so far really love it. There are two other volunteers here, a couple that is half Chilean half Spanish, and they are so great! The family is very nice as well, and the two teen-aged kids are nice and really funny. Every morning I milk the cows with the other volunteers and some member of the family. Then we clean the stalls, put the dirty straw into the compost, and go to breakfast which is bread with toppings. Afterwards we work in the field until lunch which is the big hot meal and it is followed by a siesta. Then more field work until 6 when we go on a hike in the mountains to fetch the cows which have been grazing all day. Then we milk again and have dinner. The food is really good, mostly stuff we grow and make ourselves like cheese, yogurt, jams, and peanut butter, but we don´t eat much eggs or meat so I feel a little protein deprived. The area is absolutely gorgeous, so here are some pics.

Oh and they have a mailbox in town so you can send me a letter!
Esther Rose-Wilen
c/o Nuria Soler
c.c. 64
5194-Villa General Belgrano (CBA)
Argentina

Jewish High Holidays in Cordoba

Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year)
I attended evening services with a family that is friends with my Spanish teacher.
We went to the reform temple called Central Synagogue (the one I took pictures of). The services were in Spanish and Hebrew and I could sing along to about one third of the prayers and songs in Hebrew, the melodies that are based on trope or that are pretty universal were the same as in the US. The Rabbi is really cool, his sermon was very short and very sweet--about why we celebrate two days for the new year instead of just one. Then I went with the family to their friend´s house where we had DELICIOUS food. We ate fish croquettes, cooked veggies, roasted chicken, seasoned rice, cooked pears in wine (I forget the name of this...), cookies, cake, and then coffee!!!!! Everything was amazing, and everyone was very nice. I got to practice my Spanish comprehension and I brought a homemade apple cake which was repeatedly declared ¨Muy Rica.¨

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
I went alone to Kol Nidre in the evening, services were similar to the US and I made friends with the lady sitting next to me. Then I couldn´t go all the next day because I had class and I visited Carlos Paz where Carlos had a physics conference. At 530 I returned to the synagogue to find it absolutely packed. I stayed for an hour, but then I went to used the bathroom and literally could not get back into the sanctuary it was so stuffed full. That day the shops were closed for a national holiday and I couldn´t get the ingredients for the traditional Yom Kippur break fast dinner I wanted to make for Angie, Lucas, Carlos, and Flor. Instead we did it Thursday night.
We ate egg salad, homemade blintzes, a big salad, and banana cake with cream cheese frosting. For everyone else it was the first time they had tried all of it except, of course, the salad. While I was preparing this meal I discovered that cooking gives me the same endorphin high as thrift store shopping, which is good to know since I need a replacement for shopping therapy here! Hopefully I will get to do lots of cooking on the farm, where I will move Sunday.

Yom Kippur Break Fast

Rosh Hashanah Apple Cake

PS Lil I have no control over fonts so don´t judge.

Palacio Ferreyra

Palacio Ferreyra is a gorgeous old palace in the center of Cordoba that has been turned into a museum. The atmosphere is great and the paintings are amazing, I have already been twice and I am not even a museum person!!!!

 

 

 

Some of my favorite pieces

 

La Tormenta, Horacio Alvarez

 

Las Colchas, Fernando Fader

 

La Toilette, Eduardo Schiaffino



And from the temporary exhibit on the French Revolution,

Thoughts About the French Revolution While Eating a Shrimp Salad, Oldenburg