¿y vos? ¿de donde sos?

So, I'm not exactly a city person. Put me in Boston for a few months and I'm okay. Put me in New York for more than a few days and, well, yeah. There are about 13 million people in the greater Buenos Aires.

Now, the fact that I spend a good deal of my time during the week in lab (and say what you will, I really like the lab, so since I had to work for the summer one way or the other...) helps a bit. But I needed a little bit of time away from the busy, never ever ever resting craziness that is la Capital Federal. Solution: about three weeks ago (I'm a little behind), I flew out to the Iguazú Falls in the northern part of the country.

Iguazú Falls (las Cataratas) are on the river between Argentina and Brazil, a couple miles from where the borders also meet the border with Paraguay. If anyone has seen the new Indiana Jones movie (I haven't), they're supposedly featured. I've heard that the view of one of the biggest falls, Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat) is better from the Brazilian side, but I didn't really feel like spending the time and money to get a Brazilian visa. Apparently at some point in the last few years, the US started requiring Brazilians to have a visa to even set foot in the US, and Brazil responded in kind. Iguazú means "big water" (i- water, guazú- big) in Guaraní, the language of the indigenous people in the border region.

Big water is an accurate description. Amazing, gorgeous, unbelievable also work. Here:




The falls are one of the larger tourist attractions in Argentina. While most of the people there were Argentine or Brazilian, almost everyone was a tourist. And while most of the people there were Argentine or Brazilian, here "most" does not mean nearly all. At dinner on Friday night I spent about an hour talking to two Australian women, one of whom lives in Hong Kong. I spent Saturday morning wandering around the falls with two college students from Scotland and Australia, respectively. I went hiking that afternoon with an Aussie and two Canadians and then had dinner with two Argentines and three British women. Later in the evening I went exploring the town with a group from Holland. Sunday afternoon, along with two of the Dutch guys, I hung out with three Spaniards and two Israelis. My seat on the plane back to Buenos Aires was in the middle of a French family. How did I meet these people? Some of them were at the same hostel. Otherwise, I took to turning around and asking where people were from (hence the title of this post) every time I heard English. Because everyone was a tourist, it was not nearly as creepy and awkward as it would normally be. Or at least so I thought.

Last week I went to Uruguay for a little bit. Really cool colonial city named Colonia (who would have imagined, I know?)

Oh! Also, something really cool happened here the other day. I was wandering around about three blocks from where I live here when...wait...squint...yup...that sweatshirt looks familiar! In the middle of Buenos Aires, I managed to find someone wearing a 2006 Eastern Nordic Championships sweatshirt. A girl from western Mass. Someone here who has raced at Weston!

And on the topic of skiing, I'm going to get in some very ski specific summer training. I'm not going to the famous Bariloche, which while beautiful, is almost entirely alpine. Instead, I'm heading to Ushuaia for a few days, which is apparently the best place on this continent to go nordic skiing. The city is in Tierra del Fuego and is supposed to be the southernmost city in the world. Yes, I'm going skiing in August. On Wednesday. Hah!

More to come (don't worry, I'll rub in the I'M GOING SKIING part plenty more).
-KEC