Argentina!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (finally...sheesh!)

(I've tried to write this post so many times and always end up with a hundred pictures and a novel about each one so this is my last attempt. I'm cutting it way down so just imagine how long it was the first few times I wrote it. Maybe sometime I'll put more pictures up somewhere. Maybe facebook if I ever get a computer...) So without further ado...

ARGENTINA

It seems my spontaneous trips are getting more exciting all the time! But this one is going to be hard to beat. My old friend from high school, Duc Pham, decided about a year ago to become an airline attendant in order to benefit from all the free flying and travel he could do with it. Turns out he's not the only one getting the benefits. He gets some discount vouchers every year and he offered to let me use some for a weekend trip before they expired. My friend Heathyr and I were thinking a cold weekend trip to Chicago for some pizza and art sounded good, but then Duc decided he wanted to go to South America instead and invited me to come along. I thought about it... considered it for 2 days... cleared it with my parents... canceled the bookclub party that was going to be at my house... packed my bags full of skirts and sandals and before I knew it I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

We hooked up with a couple of German backpackers in the airport and shared a taxi to a hotel. They actually found us while we were sitting in the airport looking through guide books for a hostel. They benefited from Duc's Spanish in bargaining a taxi price and then we followed them to a hotel they were going to stay at for one night and we ended up staying there the whole time. It was a in San Telmo on Bolivar. My room was on the third floor at the top of a winding staircase. It had a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling and a balcony with floor to ceiling shutters looking over the street next to my bed. There were old creaky wood floors, antique tiles and vintage glass windows, a terrace on the roof overlooking the city (and someones laundry), and the shared bathroom across the hall had a dozen layers of peeling paint and plaster in every shade of blue and yellow along with a bidet and a shower head sticking out of the wall. Most the places are converted old homes and have courtyards and terraces and rooms winding every which way so it was a lot bigger than it looks in the picture. I loved that hotel. It was practically a luxury hotel for $12 a night.

(my room is the top left in this picture. Duc took a cool picture of me reading a map on my bed in front of the shutters. I think it's on facebook. )

(This is the view of the city off the back roof of our hotel)Some of the old vintage glass windows in the hotel and below is the staircase up to my room and the wall in the bathroom.

Every morning I'd take a walk while Duc took his time getting ready. I'd wander around and then try and find my way back. Luckily I did everytime, but I found some cool parks and antique markets that way. Then we'd start our day with empanadas and dulce de leche pastries from one of the two bakeries on our street and plan out what we wanted to see that day. Sometimes we wandered around taking pictures of all the murals and graffiti. Some of it is done by real artists and is really cool and some is just gang graffiti but it was all neat. It's funny what they name their gangs there, especially when they pick something American... like Los Waffles. Cracked me up every time I saw it. We shopped at the ferias (street markets) buying shoes (see the very first pictures for my sandals I got), antiques, jewelry, and other souvenirs. We visited some churches, saw some statues, and famous buildings and bridges...

(Don't cry for me Argentina....)

We visited every part of the city including colorful Boca. We made due with some crappy internet cafes till we found that if you buy something at McDonald's you get 20 minutes of internet free on the only good computers in the whole city. McFiestas and McNificas it was! The only difference from what I could tell was they toasted their buns over there. We went geocaching and almost got run over by an old out of control car but got the cache... We watched some amazing authentic Argentine Tango complete with the Buenos Aires Symphonic Orchestra... as well as some authentic goucho dancing with the smaller group of musicians. This video is long. I had a shorter one of them doing a faster tango but this one was so much better. It picks up a little at the end and I apologize for Duc's camera shutter sounds during the whole thing.

We walked a LOT till we found out we could catch the bus that stopped a block from our hotel and it only cost us about a quarter. One day I got to choose everything we did so we took the coastal train north and spent a day in Tigre where we hired a little boat and had Sergio drive us all over the delta and through the jungle. He made an attempt to teach us how to waterski. I didn't do so well with antique waterskis and pantomimed directions in Spanish but I still tried. See my New Years Resolution post for a video of me not waterskiing...

(Everything in Tigre is on water since it's on the delta so these are their taxis.)

(and these are people's front porches onto the water)

He did manage to show us how to successfully walk on water. It was awesome.

We went to the last Boca Juniors Football game of the season and had a fantastic and very authentic South American soccer experience all while fearing for our lives the entire time.

(This was the day before the game. There's no way I'd have a camera at that place on game day. Plus there'd have been riot police and mobs everywhere if it was game day)

And then we ate! I think we took pictures of almost all our food. Duc has most the pictures of food and there was a lot of it! Pastries, cookies, pastas, liquado, pizza, fresh squeezed orange juice, churros with hot cocoa, ice cream, empanadas, sandwiches, meranges, and MEAT!

(This thing stopped me in my tracks when I saw it in the window. It was almost as big as my head and I still dream about it and wake up chewing on my pillows...)

(I even ate... raw meat. Yes it's true I ate raw meat in South America but look at it, doesn't it look good?? I figured I'd already drank a few gallons of river water that day in my water skiing attempts so how much worse could it get. I myself am shocked I didn't come home with a parasite or something but I didn't. Though I admit I liked the cooked meat better)

We did lots of other stuff but this is the gist of it.

Oh yeah and I saw the temple from the taxi window on the way to the airport before flying home first class. Till you've been in first class you have no idea what you're missing.... Five course meal, slippers, movies, massage chair that lays down completely flat, real blankets, fresh orange juice when you board and a fruit plate just before you land...I could go on. Flying will never be the same for me now. It was just the kind of relaxation I needed right before finding out upon landing that my house had been robbed.

I believe...

Recently I was listening to some random things on NPR and just letting it play whatever it wanted for me and it played me this segment.

It's about a little kid who listened to the "I believe" things on NPR and then wrote his own list of things he believes. I thought it was really cool and after thinking about it for a few days I decided to write my own list of things I believe. I did the same number as the kid did. I'm sure I could have done more but it was good to have a limit so as to really think about what I wanted in my list. I'm sure people will disagree with me on many of them. But they aren't just my thoughts and ideas, they are beliefs, they are things that I live by, that form the foundation of my life and why I live it how I do so don't bag on them, just write your own if you want them to be different.

1. I believe that Science and Religion go hand in hand if you really believe in both
2. I believe in the need for wilderness even if you never go out into it
3. I believe in imagination
4. I believe that taking risks and chances is important and that it is possible to be too careful
5. I believe in the ability to change and that it's never too late
6. I believe in memories, both for enjoying and learning from
7. I believe there are worse things in life than death
8. I believe that video games are ruining childhood
9. I believe the past should stay in the past but not be forgotten
10. I believe the devil is real
11. I believe in Evolution
12. I believe there is one true church but that everyone has the right to worship as they choose
13. I believe that the root of the problems is the middle east is boredom
14. I believe that the office of the President deserves more respect from this country
15. I believe every person has some feature that is beautiful
16. I believe every experience can be interesting if told well
17. I believe food tastes better when made from scratch, in a cast iron pan, or with real butter
18. I believe extinction due to the irresponsibility of man is a tragedy beyond our understanding
19. I believe truth exists
20. I believe that humor can be found in any situation
21. I believe there's no such thing as a bad or wrong emotion, only inappropriately placed or out of control ones
22. I believe men should be handy
23. I believe in prayer
24. I believe people should respect their elders
25. I believe in leading by example
26. I believe in Karma and The Golden Rule
27. I believe in having choices and sometimes making the wrong one
28. I believe in sacrifice for the greater good
29. I believe in families
30. I believe that experiences are worth more than money in the bank

High Tea

My friend Tisha is having a baby. She's one of what's referred to as my "work wives" with the other one being Heathyr. (a work wife is someone who, while you're at work, you're with so much and they know everything that's going on with you that it's like a marriage. I have two work wives...and a pet nerd but that's another story)

Since neither Heathyr nor I could attend any of Tisha's baby showers we decided to have our own mini one and go have High Tea at the Grand America. It was so classy! They even have someone playing the harp (but not TOO classy on the harp since we noticed once she was playing Stairway to Heaven. Sounded great though) I was surprised at how much all those tiny little finger sandwiches filled me up. They were only two bites each at the most but so tasty! I got a plum tea but if I ever go again I'm getting a hot chocolate. They had all kinds of flavors and Tisha got one that was so amazing. Don't even get me started on the lemon curd they brought out for the scones... Sadly we ate everything before I could take a picture of any of it. Oh well. Maybe I'll join the ladies hat club and then I can go all the time. I've never seen so many ladies in big hats as I did there.

Out of control

I have no sense of portion control. Yes I can control it when it's on my plate and I'm actually eating it, it's the making it that is my problem. I can never seem to estimate how much food to make and as a habit, I usually make ten times too much or make something way too big. No matter if it's the simplest recipe ever or incredibly complex and time consuming, a recipe I made up myself, or one I found on the internet... it will be too much. Here are two recent examples.

First example is this new cake recipe I tried out. It's ridiculously easy. You stack these chocolate wafers up with fresh homemade whipped cream and let it sit for a day and ta-da! Cake! It looks a little different than this by the time you eat it. (Seriously though you should all try it, I'm in love with this cake. I got the recipe from the Smitten Kitchen.) I tried it out and made it for book club ...and then a smaller one to taste before in case it was bad and didn't want to serve it ...and then some mini ones which I brought to work... see what I'm saying? There was just so much stuff, I had tons left over after I assembled the cake so I had to keep going. I ate the cake for 3 days then finally had to pass it off onto a family in my neighborhood that has 6 kids before it went bad. There was still over half the cake left.

Second example, I wanted to make some manicotti to put in the freezer for later. I pulled out my tasty manicotti recipe that I concocted a few years back and spent all evening chopping, grating, boiling, sauteing till I had the most enormous bowl of manicotti stuffing I'd ever seen. (look at the ingredients list in the background. This is one involved recipe! If only I'd paid attention to the amounts I'd written down I might not have had this problem) "What have I done?!?!" I thought as I began boiling a second box of manicotti shells to stuff. It didn't end there. What I wanted to be one tray of manicotti turned into two trays, another square pan, a loaf pan, and then a large casserole dish of ziti mixed in with all the left over filling I still had. How many people did I think I was feeding? This picture is about half of how much food I made. Maybe I should be running a food bank or get a job as a cafeteria lunch lady or something... It's a good thing I like my own cooking because I sure end up with leftovers a lot. (and I didn't even mention the enchiladas I made the next day. They're filling up the other half of the freezer that isn't full of manicotti)

Outdoor Woman

Many of you may or may not know that I'm in a book club and as small as it is, I love it. In college my roommate Candi and I decided to read a book together. It was a huge success and we ended up reading and discussing together 3 books in the few short months after school ended and before I left on my mission (sometimes reading the books out load together much to the amusement of my mother who secretly listened from her bedroom window). Finally after 8 years, 2 marriages, a couple kids, and a divorce, we found the time to pick it back up and officially started a book club. This is not the topic of my post though and as my history teacher Mr. Cripe used to always say, "I digress..." It is only to mention that through our fantastic book club I met Gina. I'm discovering that everything I want to do...Gina wants to do too. Thankfully though she's a little bit more of a go getter than I am and where I sit back and wish, she takes action... and invites me along. So in addition to joining the book club, she's started up an Outdoor Women group organizing activities in the great outdoors and finding other women to join in the adventure. I have high hopes that it will really take off. This Saturday morning we went on a hike up Red Butte Canyon. It was a great little hike for the second day of spring and we got some amazing panoramic views of the entire Salt Lake valley from North to South. We were up there as the first winds started arriving with the storm that showed up the next day. It was great to get out with new people, to a new spot, and enjoy more of this great state we live in. So thanks to Gina and Maria for the hike and hopefully some others will come along next time... next time.... that's tomorrow! We're going climbing at the climbing gym! YES!

Looking for a concert partner...

I really really really really want to go the Brandi Carlile concert on April 18th, it's a Saturday. All my usual concert partners are either out of town that weekend or don't care to see her. So anyone one else want to go with me? Anyone at all? Don't say you'll come if you'll want to leave early or complain about standing up. It's at a new small concert venue that's opening up this April on State Street so I have no idea what it's going to be like there. I've heard Brandi Carlile is great in person so please someone say you'll come with me! I don't mind going alone if I have to, but I'd rather not at a venue like this. I've thought about doing what I normally do, that is buy two tickets and find someone to use the second one after I get it, but I'm not sure I could find someone to come with me to this concert so I'm going to wait.

I'll drive....

Gina... I'll pay for you...

Come on someone come with me....

If you don't know who she is you might recognize this song of hers.

4. Find a new outdoor sport to get into CHECK!

One of my New Year's resolutions was to find a new outdoor sport to get into... I think I've found it. For years I've been wanting to get into rock climbing. Long ago I recognized the fact that I have little cardio endurance but seem to be able to do well in anything requiring strength... so rock climbing always sounded like it would suit me perfectly. The one or two times I rappelled with Bryce and Nate I really liked it. I've just been waiting for someone to come along to help me get into it. Finally I hooked up with Jake and he's proving to be an excellent teacher. We go to the climbing gym at least 3 times when he's home from work and last Saturday the weather was so nice he took me out on my first real rock climb in Rock Canyon. It was awesome and I loved it more than I ever expected to. Sadly no pictures of us climbing, just this one of us packing up the stuff afterwards. I'm even starting to slowly acquire my own climbing gear although Jake has so much I hardly need to. As a Christmas bonus from work they gave all the 5 year employees $100 to REI. I finally found something to spend it on. Yeah for my own climbing shoes! Now I don't have to waste 4 bucks at the gym every time just to worry about getting athletes foot. The only problem with new climbing shoes is you have to wear them in...the fit and the color. Mine are red which means now my feet are tye-dyed red as well. This picture really doesn't do them justice. This is my exclusive custom made chalk bag which Jake made for me. Very impressive domestic skills if you ask me. Here is Bentley demonstrating the improper and proper way to chalk up.

I thought of posting a picture of the 32 shades of black blue and purple that I've acquired on my knees, but it's too gross. So are the nice thick belay callouses I've built up on my puffy swollen hands. So far it's been worth it though. I wish I could find some people to go to the climbing gym with on the weeks Jake's at work. Anyone?

Eye Exams in Coalville

So my brother is an optometrist and on Thursdays he goes out to his mini practice in Coalville Utah. I was finally able to get a Thursday off work so I took Jake with me and we drove out to get our eyes checked and pick me out a new pair of glasses. (...good thing too since I dropped mine in a canal 3 days later and busted out the lenses. Thank goodness for backup glasses, but I can't wait to get those new ones!) It's always more fun when you know the doctor because he lets you mess around with the equipment. He let us look through his machines at each other's eyes and see our corneas and shine lights in our eyes so we could watch the iris open and close. He was even able to let me see Jake's optic nerve. I thought all of this was especially exciting since I have a special place in my heart for the eyeball. I was never much interested in science until that day in Mr. Miller's 7th grade science class when we dissected cow eyes. It was my first dissection ever (the first of hundreds) and it was like light bulbs and fireworks all went off in my head at once. My mom even remembers how excited I was about it when I came home that day. I'd been nervous about it before school so when I got home she asked how it went and I said, "It was scary...because I liked it so much."I've loved science ever since and it's been one of the foundations of almost every life decision I've made in my adult life. I've always partially credited that cow's eye for setting it off, so yeah, getting to play on Andy's eye equipment for a few minutes was really fun for me. While Dr. Rockwood took care of the patient after us, Jake and I killed time and climbed up a super muddy and very windy overlook to Echo Reservoir that Andy told us about and enjoyed a nice view of sleepy little Coalville. In fact, I think it's so small that our heads blocked the whole town!(Having just been to see Andy, I was even responsible and wore my sunglasses!) Then we went back and met Andy for a nice lunch at Denise's.

Thanks for the exam Andy, it was fun!

(Hey, did you know there's another Dr. Andrew P. Rockwood but he's a urologist in Texas!?!)

I love this stuff and I don't care who knows it.

I love poems, however lame and girly that is, I don't care. I think it's a sign of intelligence when people can appreciate poetry and I have always loved it when someone can spontaneously recite a poem. (Kind of like this...I love this picture)When I was living in Monterey all the students would go have big bonfires on the beach once in awhile and this one guy Blake had so many poems memorized he was always telling a different one around the fire or in class and I was so impressed. Especially when one night around the fire he told the entire Cremation of Sam McGee. So one of my New Years resolutions this year it to memorize one of my favorite poems. I have 4 favorites in no particular order:

The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service- This was my grandpa Hales' favorite and I did a book report on in in the second or third grade. I think I must have been a strange child at times. I think my brother Bryce can do most of it from memory. I can only do the first few lines. I think it's partly what inspired me to want to see the Northern Lights so bad. Johnny Cash does a great reading of it here.

The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe- This one I have loved ever since it was on one of the first Treehouse of Horrors where Homer is the guy and Bart is the Raven. It's still my favorite Treehouse of Horrors story and whenever I read it I use the same intonations and expression as on The Simpsons. "Siiiiiirrrr...or Maaaadame?" "Quaff oh QUAFF!!!" "Take thy BEAK from OUT my heart, and take thy FORM from OFF- MY- DOOR!" Ha ha ha it still makes me laugh just thinking about it.

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud by William Wordsworth- I don't know the first time I heard this or where but I have always loved it and always will. I feel like I've had many moments like this poem and look back at them the same way. Ashley Stinson called them "Bottle Moments" where you take the time to bottle up a memory so well that you can take it out and have it later to enjoy. It's better than a picture.

The Day is Done by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow- I first discovered this poem while finding a virtual geocache. You had to visit a little park in downtown Salt Lake called Gilgal and answer a question about it. (If you haven't been there you should go...it's weird.) It's a little tiny park with all kinds of odd statures and sculptures that don't make sense. My favorite is the guy with brick pants. Everything there, I mean everything, every stepping stone, bench, rock...whatever has some kind of poem, scriptures, hymn etc. etched into it. So, back to the poem...there was a stepping stone, or maybe it was on the base of a sculpture, that had a few stanzas from this poem on it and I LOVED them. I immediately went home and googled the lines and then went to the bookstore and bought a book of Longfellow poems. He's always been one of my favorite poets anyway, he even wrote my favorite Christmas song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. I feel like this poem sort of embodies the idea of enjoying poetry and I love it.

So now that I've gone on and on... my question is...which one do I memorize? As cool as it would be to be like Blake and memorize Sam McGee, I think it's a little advanced for me. Same with The Raven, which I actually tried to do once but failed. That leaves me with Longfellow and Wordsworth....hmmmm. Maybe if I'm good I can do them both.

And maybe I'll memorize a little cow poetry too just for fun...

The Cabin in the snow

The cabin is so much fun...even in the snow...and even if you can't get inside because you're keys were stolen when your house was robbed. Last weekend Jake and I went snowshoeing up at Brighton and performed some impressive acrobatics off the cabin roof. After we were tired we made a snow bench on top and had hot chocolate, bread, and candy bars while cheering on the cross country skiers that came down the road in front of the cabin. That place really does provide endless amounts of fun year round...and some great photo opps!

In the individual competition we had-

Katie on Front Flip

And Jake on Back Flip

These next 3 are my favorite pictures. They turned out awesome. You can set my camera to take a series of 3 consecutive pictures and have a timer of 30 seconds. It was tricky to set it and then run up onto the roof and be ready to jump in just 30 seconds all while counting down. It took us 3 tries but we ended up with this perfect set. Jake's doing his amazing back flip and I'm doing my perfectly tucked front flip. Too bad we were both wearing white and black instead of a bright color that would have stood out more against the snow.

THE COUNTDOWN...

THE FLIPS.....

THE LANDING...

Here's a very short video clip of Jake's back flip.

Here's a few more less exciting pictures of me climbing up the roof-

Here's some failed but still cool pictures-

This picture was snapped too late. I did a cool kick thing when I jumped. The one of Jake was snapped too early. He was going for distance, I didn't catch it.

These are from our first two tries with the timer. The first try we had the timing way off and Jake jumped too early and the second one didn't focus for some reason.

My Poor Car

While I was in Argentina my house was burglarized and my car stolen from the garage. About a week later I got a call around 2am saying that my car had been in a high speed chase in West Valley and it was now in a tree and I could come claim it. I drove down there and saw this. It was being driven by 3 crack heads. One had just been released from prison for car theft, one was a platinum blond girl with track marks up both arms, and there was some other Mexican guy. It had gone over a snow bank, over a cement piling, and into a tree. A month later when it was lifted up at the mechanics we found a rather large branch about 4 inches in diameter and 6 feet long still wedged underneath. The car reeked of cigarettes and both bumpers were dangling off the ends. You can see in the photo the patch of ground without snow...that's where the car drug the cement piling underneath is across the dirt. Bryan came by and yelled some obscenities at the people in the cop cars and totally embarrassed me in front of all the cops. Then the tow truck came, a big burly woman who reminded me of Large Marge and took the car away. I went through the stuff found inside and even read a couple of the letters in one of their overnight bags. They were addressed to and from a prison address and gave me a good laugh and made me appreciate the life I have. One guy is getting charged with possession of a stolen vehicle. His name is Cleat. I repeat his name is CLEAT! All I can think of is Cleatus the Slack Jawed Yokel from The Simpsons. My car is getting fixed. About $8000 worth of work, almost all cosmetic and I'll have it in a week from now. I love insurance. I can't wait to get my car back and drive safely around in the snow again. I've really missed it with all these snow storms. While looking at the car with the mechanic and the claims adjuster I think they caught me actually petting the car...kind of embarrassing. Till then thanks to Nate and Carrie...and her late grandmother I'm driving a sweet Sundance. Yeah, it's awesome. It's beige with Oregon plates and a baby seat. You really can't get any cooler than that to be honest. Now if only I could find some of the other stuff they stole from the house... (Which reminds me, don't bother asking me questions like "are they the ones who robbed your house? Did they compare fingerprints? What did the police say?" The answer to all of that is- I don't know. )