My iLife

Today has been a very productive day! I had Spanish at 11 and I totally rocked my Mini-Test. I am so happy that we are discussing more advanced topics now. It is like I will mess up on the easy stuff because it isn't challenging enough. I am doing so much better now that we have moved to advanced topics! Yay!

Also joined a tanning bed and a gym! I realized when we went up to Iguazu I am totally not prepared for swimsuit weather and I better get into shape before I get back in four weeks! I do have to say however, that I like being weighed in kilos...i am like half of what I am in lbs! (well actually the official conversion is 2.2) Anyways even for being half, its totally no bueno.

I chose a small gym by my house that no one else goes to. I went with Tara on Monday to the big gym everyone goes too and it was just to big and indimidating. TONS of people. My gym is small and there were never more than 3 people there at a time. Very nice.

Another observation...I could have not lived life in Argentina without my Ipod. At home I tend to spend a lot of time in the car, I think we all do. Here in BA I spend a ton of time walking around the city. I have to walk everywhere I go! (Unless I want to venture to the bus or the subte and well lets just say I haven't yet been successful at navigating public transportation) So I wear my Ipod pretty much everywhere I go. Lots of people in this city do. It is funny to be waiting to cross the street and see like 5 people with earphones in tapping their feet. It is kinda fun!

Having music playing while you are walking down the street almost seems like there is a soundtrack to your life. Sometimes I feel like I am in a movie! Anyways you should try it sometime. Okay enough jabbering...I started this post yesterday and am posting it today. Who knows if today will be productive. Maybe we'll find the secret bar...

Bad Day

Why do I care so much what everyone else thinks...aka parents, friends, boyfriend? When you tell someone you have had a bad day shouldn't they try to make it better...not rub it in your face?

Song of the day: Bad Day by Daniel Powter. And the music video...incredible. I wish someone had an umbrella waiting for me at the end of the song. It is so cute. Check it out at www.danielpowter.com

Its like I know what I am doing with my life. I dont need other people to make my decisions. Yes sometimes I really do value the opinions and advice of others. But it is much more welcome when I am happy about life. Not when other are trying to make me feel worse about the situation. Really...I dont do that to them. I try and make them happy when they are feeling sad. What would make me happy is talking about something to take my mind off things. But when you are down no one wants to talk about those things.

Just say a prayer that the day turns around. The happiest I was today was in my Argentine Politics class...the class I despise. Uggh.

What type of candy are you?

Gummy Bears

You may be smooshie and taste unnatural, but you're so darn cute.

What Kind of Candy Are You?

Pictures online

So I ran out of space on my other account so you can go here to see the new waterfall pics: http://community.webshots.com/user/kanne2007

Hope you like them!

Somewhere over the Rainbow

So I just got home from a 19 hour bus ride home from Iguazu. I would start with last night, but lets go from the begining.

Wednesday: Get on the bus at 7:00 pm, 16 hour bus ride to Puerto Iguazu. Complete with dinner, Ice Age 2 (in spanish), and chamagne.

Thursday: Arrive in Puerto Iguazu at 1. Off the bus and walk 3 blocks dragging our luggage down the sidewalk to our hostel. Nice looking place, check in. Our room was as wide as bunk beds. Literally the smallest room I've ever stayed in. Pretty clean though. Next adventure was to venture to find the Triple Frontera. We hiked around the city until we found the point where all three countries met. Each has a big tower painted in the colors of their flag. It was kinda neat. Lots of people brag about being able to be in three states as the same time...never three countries!

After the big hike we were pretty exhausted so we sat down and had a fruit salad and the best strawberry licuado of my life! So refreshing. We went back to the hostel to read and lie in the hammacks out back. This is when we discovered how old school the hot water heater was. (See pics to understand) After that we showered and went out for dinner at 6...way early for Argentine standards. We fould a great little place with a "Menu Touristica" which was too good of a deal to pass up. It was a nice quite little dinner. Afterwards we thought we would be tired and had booked an adventure tour of the waterfalls the next day so we went back to try and go to sleep. We were too awake so we decided to go and play cards. We played every game you can imagine, Gin, Speed, Memory, War, and of course, Go Fish. It was fun because at the other table there was another group of people talking and we talked to them for a bit. They were from everywhere from Canada to Scotland. Eventually we got sick of cards and fell asleep.

Friday: We woke up early and treked back to the bus station to find our bus. Seven pesos and thirty minutes later we were at the park. We found our guides pretty easily and waited around freezing our butts off till the tour started. Everyone else was wearing rain jackets and fleeces and jeans. We were in shorts and tanktops. Something we regreted in the morning but were VERY glad of in the afternoon when it was steaming hot.

The first part of the tour was a 4x4 safari ride through the jungle. They pointed out different birds and plants and said we probably wouldn't see any animals...just as they said it a huge family of monkey's appeared in front of us! We stopped the truck and took pics. It was so cool! They literally do jump from tree to tree....a long way! After that we got to the port and hopped on a speedboat that would take us to the falls. Talk about a ride....we were zooming down the river and it was like going through level 4 rapids in a speed boat! It was ridiculous! Everyone was screaming and having a blast! Finally we started to hear the roar of the falls and turned the corner to see the magificent falls! We snapped tons of pictures like it might some how dissappear. It was just so beautiful! After photo opts we went to the main river and got way too darn close to the "garganta del diablo"....one of the biggest falls in the world. It kicks Niagra's butt. We turned around and went back to the first falls and then the boat driver drove us INTO the falls! Well not all the way in but we were all screaming because it felt like we were gonna get pulled under! That has to be one of the highlights of my life! It was like virtual reality but it was real!

After that we were obviously soaking wet. We put our shoes back on and treked around the park all day taking pictures and following all the paths. We stopped at noon to eat lunch and some sort of ant eater creature stole Mia's sandwich. Not funny but absolutely hilarious! After lunch we treked over to Garganta del diablo where we saw the most amazing thing. We had to walk on a cat walk over the river to get there and once we did it was totally worth it. Now I have to tell you I am scared of heights and I was about to pee my pants! It took some courage to look over the edge. It was so loud and water was spraying everywhere so we got wet again. You have to see the pics. Words can't describe the sight. It was incredible.

We spent about 7 hours at the park and then came home because we were pooped. We showered, went to the store, came back, made sandwiches and then went out for a quick drink. We had our first Caipiriñas which were pretty tasty. After that we went back to the hostel and konked out.

Saturday: The nighte before we had been debating what to do and finally settled on taking a tour of a Guarani indian village. At 9 am we ventured out in another safari vehicle to go check it out. When we got there our tour guide was named Roberto...that was his name in Spanish but he has a different one in Guarani. He was born to be a hunter but does tours on the side. Half of his salary goes to the village. He showed us all sorts of medicinal plants, told us about their religion, shamans, leaders, showed us traps and told us about their education. It was all VERY interesting. It was neat to be actually living part of the history that we had been learning. After the tour of the village we got to watch a children's choir sing us songs in Guarani and then we got to see some of their crafts. Overall, a VERY neat experience. Too much to write about right now.

Afterwards we wanted to go to Brasil but since we are Americans we have to buy a visa. Darn US govt for charging Brazilians to get visas! Oh well. We went back to the bus station and changed our tickets for that evening. We spent the day reading by the pool and catching some rays. At 6 we left and that was just the begining of the 18 hour bus ride home. Anyways...that is a whole story in itself and my fingers are soar from typing so it will be left for another day.

Off to Iguazu!

So its been a good week...short which has been nice! Monday was awesome. In Latam Politics we got talking about the Da Vinci code movie/book and ended up not talking about Latam at all! It was way fun.

Michael is at AT camp...i don't know what that stands for, something in army lingo. I have missed him a lot this week. But I kinda feel like I have gotten to talk to him more because he doesn't have much to do at night. That has been really nice.

Right now I am waiting for Mia to come over so we can head to retiro station and off on our 16 hour bus ride to Iguazu falls! This is on the "triple frontera" the triple border of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. These waterfalls are supposedly some of the biggest and most amazing in the world! I am so pumped.

I have terrible travel anxiety and so even though I am all packed I feel like I should be doing something. So I am gonna go and clean or something...maybe call dad or michael.

A new look!

So it is like 3:30 and I have been working on this new layout for about 5 hours now. Those of you who are reading this already know I am a major geek and if you didn't I guess this will clear up any lingering questions. So I decided on a temporary new look for the page. It's girly I know, but I just wanted to at least try and get something new up. It is inspired by one of my new favorite books...Bergdorf Blondes. Bergdorf Blondes was tres silly but laugh out loud funny. So let me know what you think of the new layout...are any of the links not working? Are the colors to bright to read? Should I just start over?! Okay team...its your job to let me know!

So I have yet to write about my first (and probably only) Argentine haircut experience. So Wednesday I was just feeling blah about everything. I decided I needed a new outlook...and a new haircut to accompany the change in attitude! I was very nervous because a few of the other girls have gotten their hair cuts and been suckered into getting the "Argentine girl mullet" as I like to call it. I will have to find a pic and post it because it is just horid.

So my friend Tara and I ventured out to find a hair salon. On the reccomendation of one of the ladies who works at our school (who has very cute hair) we found this place called...I forget, but thats not important. It looked like a pretty trendy place so we were pretty excited. When I was called the hair washer guy introduced me to my hair cutter guy. We exchanged the normal Argentine kiss on the cheek which still weirds me out...I mean do we really have to get that close to someone who is cutting our hair?! The guy who was cutting my hair looked like Luke from the Gilmore Girls. Jeans, plaid flannel shirt...the whole thing. If he didn't have the Argentine boy mullet I would have mistaken him for Luke...really.

So hair wash etc etc and I am kinda nervous because this guy looks like he knows as much about cutting hair as I do about changing the oil in my car. But through my broken spanish (why have we never leared hair cut vocabulary in class?) and hand motions we pretty much figured out a system. And there he went flying away with the scissors. 20 minutes later...tada! It looks about the same as it did before. Only shorter. At least it feels 10 times healthier and I had nice hair for the evening :)

Well I guess its off to watch more Gilmore Girls and fall asleep. Lovenight!

Word of the Day: Pensive

Woke up...it was still dark. And not because it was the middle of the night or early morning...do you really think I've ever woken up before sunrise? Rainy morning, hence the darkness, but it was so fabulous. I fell back to sleep just because I could..and because I sleep so wonderfully in the rain.

About 11 I decided to get up and be productive. Well not really productive...but to start the day and not just lie around in bed. I am still pondering this whole blog re-design. Hence the Pensive nature of this day. When I get fixed on a new project it is very hard for me to think about anything else. For the life of me I cannot come up with a witty title for my blog. Song title...quote...original creation...oh the choices! Of course, I want it to sound like something I just came up with off the top of my head and was just naturally fabulous, witty, and perfect. However, being the perfectionist I am, I have to make an Excel file of adjectives, suggestions, and ideas before I can decide. While I truly like all the names I have come up with on the Excel document I still for some reason think there is a title out there that is 10 times better than any of those and that will go perfectly. If anyone has any great ideas please email me or post them on comments. I could really use the help.

And remember, a title to the blog is just the start. Then I have to find an appropriate color scheme and corresponding fonts. Oh the agony of being a perfectionist/computer geek.

So sitting in IES and just joined a convo about DaVinci code movie. Comes out today...well in BA it does. You know on the movie previews on TV it says "Opening May 18 in select cities"...well finally for once in my life I am living in one of those "select cities." I guess Georgetown, Texas (well if you want to be totally correct about it you would say Pflugerville) just doesn't make the list.

I have been a very bad Soap watcher this week. I am so behind on the happening of Landview. (Town in which One Life to Live is set) So there I reveal another weakness...ABC soaps. Really, I only really keep up with OLTL but All My Children comes in a close second). I blame Kayln, my freshman year roommate, for this vice. I originally only started watching AMC because it has a character named Kendall...can you think of a better reason to watch a show? But it eventually spread to OLTL and General Hospital. Now OLTL has captured my attention and is the only one I really follow. I think I partly like it because it is geared at the "latino" demographic. There is a whole family from Puerto Rico and sometimes they speak in spanish. I know spanish so that makes it fun.

Another thought on my mind today has been about doors. Doors...I know, really weird but hang in there. Have you ever noticed when you walk into a store you always seem to push when it says pull and pull when it says push? Well I do...constantly. Since I have come to BA I have noticed that I rarely have this problem. I conciensly read the sign and push or pull accordingly. I have deduced that because the word is in another language that I take more notice and subconciensly translate it...making me perform the correct action. Well I guess that is one theory. The other could be that I dont want to look like a complete idiot in this city where I already stand out as an American and so I take special care to do the write thing so I don't look stupid. I guess it could be either...take your pick.

Okay so that is enough thinking and writing for today. Hopefully now that I have my thoughts down "on paper" I hope I can actually get something done. Remember...let me know about a good blog title.

Oh Wednesdays

So today has been good...I like Wednesday (well I dont like the classes) but I get up early so I don't waste the day and I finish two of my classes for the week.

Right now I'm sitting at IES waiting for Tara to finish class. I just overheard one of the computers nears me singing "when i think about you I touch myself." Really?! oh just found out it was a guy watching Daisy Does America. I guess that kinda explains it.

I am going to get my hair cut today. Just trimmed...and I am a little nervous because I don't want to come out with the Argentine girl mullet. Hopefully my spanish is good enough to navegate this one...

So apperantly I "had" to take a test to test my destiny. Some of the questions were interesting...If you were going along with Dorthy would you be the Tin Man, the Scarcrow, or the Cowardly Lion? I would say that I would have been the Good Witch Glenda (shes so cute!) or Dorthy. None the less, here are the results:

Kendall you are a provider...Whether you know it or not, this is the role that is most in tune with who you are at your core. As a Provider, you have a genuine nurturing concern for the welfare of others and you're eager to serve them. You can recognize exactly what people need and your friendly, helpful, social nature makes them feel comforted. With your kind and generous heart, you are personable, talkative, and outward with your emotions, and your openness and sensitivity makes you concerned about the way others view you. Along these lines, be careful not to blame yourself when things go wrong. You cannot prevent bad things from happening, even though your tendency to be orderly with a strong sense of right and wrong may lead you to believe you can. Accept that you do what you can to take care of things and that this will get you far in the world.

I dont know if I agree with this destiny but oh well. I think i'll go out and make my own destiny.

Also I have figured out how to change the look of the blog so a new look might be coming so beware.

Also everyone say a prayer for Lacey...shes in Sao Paulo among the gang riots and all that mess. Good thing I am in tranquilo Argentina...although I have to reroute on the way to class this morining because of blocked streets for a protest...oh Latin America!

Grey's on the Mind

So I can't get a darn thing done just anticipating the next week full of dramatic TV cliffhangers. Last night Mia and I had movie marathon 2k6 and hung out at my house crocheting and watching Desperate Housewives episodes, Ella Enchated, and Wimbledon. It was pretty intense, but all in preparation for tonight's finale.

I am still just absolutely floored that the Grey's finale is 3 hours long! One hour tonight and two tomorrow. Really...I am dying of the pressure. Will Christina and Burke break up (she fell asleep!?), will Denny get a new heart, will Derek go crazy from jealousy of Mer and Dr. McHunky (aka Chris O'Donnell aka the Vet)...its just too much to handle. I actually had a dream last night I was at Seattle Grace...I woke up wishing I was a pre-med major...but oh yeah...I hate blood and hospitals in general.

I am also morally torn between desperately wanting Mer and Derek to get back together and wanting Der and Addison to work it out. Like Meredith said, he wouldnt be him if he wasn't trying to make it work. And I actually really do like Addison...but I mean really she did sleep with her husband's best friend?! And Mer and Vet are so cute...but hes not her Mc Dreamy.

Also...for those of you who watch and love...read the writers blog on abc.com. Its pretty interesting. But I just read the recap of last week and ummm it said "did you notice the HEAT between Addison and Alex" umm that is way intense. I could not handle that. Maybe unless it led to Mer and McDreamy getting back together...hmmm.

Okay so that was a total waste of time analyzing the lives of these fake characters. But everyone has a vice and I guess Grey's Anatomy is mine right now. Hopefully now with all that off my chest I can get some studying done. Sorry to bore you.

Barrioloche!!!

So day two in Barioloche!!! Here is a quick recap of day one:

• 8:45am - Picked up at the Hotel and driven to local Airport. A lot nicer and bigger than I thought.
• 10:45 - On a plane to Barioloche. Slept the first hour. Sandwich the second. Awesome view out of the window
• 1:00 ish - Off the plane, claim the luggage...Walk out and see a guy holding a sign that says SHIFFLER. Met our tour guide Lucia who speaks beautiful english and our driver Juan Carlos. Outside was AMAZING. I dont know what I was expecting but this was MUUUUCH better. A huge beautiful lake, mountains, some snowcapped. Pretty much the most beautiful day ever. Pics to come. Then we drove in the car the long way to the hotel. Checked out a lot of cool overlooks and got out to take pics. Also we went to a chair lift thing that was like 7 minutes to the top of this peak. At the top we had an amazing view of the whole city and lake Nahua Huapi and all. Again, you have to see pictures. And really pictures can't even do it justice. It was breathtaking...literally.
• 4:00 - Arrived at the Llao Llao hotel. (Pronounced Shauw Shauw) Umm so it is entirely the most beautiful, nicest, places ive ever been to EVER! So fancy but also really laid back. Made of wood and almost feels like Switzerland with the architecture. Big fireplaces like an awesome cabin. Again well leave it to pics to describe it. We went and checked out the hotel, the pool, and of course the spa.
• Back up to the room, swimsuits, hot tub, outdoor heated infinity pool. So pretty much amazing. Shower. Happy hour by the fireplace.
• Dinner...Getting dad to appreciate Malbec wine...All of you out there in the US should try it...soooo good! Dad and I tried Fondu. It was so fun! I can cross that off my list of things to do someday. They had cut up hot dogs, bread, apples, and potato things that we could dip in the cheese. It was fun and reallly really delicious. Then off to bed.

As for the rest...I am going to wait till tonight to write about today. Lets just say...horseback riding in the Andes...increible!!!! But I am def going to have a soar bum tomorrow!

So Dad is here in BA! I am so excited to see him! I wish Mom and Bailsey were here with us. Dad brought a whole suitcase of stuff from Mom. Soooo fun! It was like christmas! I got all kinds of good ole American food, books, clothes, and my personal fav...magazines in english!!!!! I needed to get caught up on my celeb gossip haha. There is a pretty funny site Mia showed me. www.thesuperficial.com. Kinda trashy sometimes but funny spins on the stories.

DH and GA last night...rocked my world. What am I going to do after the season finale? A whole summer without Gaby, Izzie, Meredith, Bree, and McDreamy? Its going to be tough.

So off to Barrioloche tomorow. I am SOOO excited. Check out our hotel: www.llaollao.com. Pretty amazing huh? Oh yeah.

K off to bed. Up early tomorrow. Will finish writing about Mendoza later...