Keep On Keepin´ On

Sorry for quoting such a cliche lyric, but it just came to me, like most cliches things, which most people reject using, pop into one´s mind. However, it´s rather fitting for the situation.

So, what have I been doing lately. Well, for one thing, I speak pretty good spanish right now. As I was telling Dad the other day, I was hanging out with a friend in a park, and we were just talking, back and forth, about this and that. After a while, it just kind of hit me, that I was having a good conversation with someone, completely in spanish. It was a cool feeling to remember back in April and May, when having a conversation was incredibly stressful, and you kind of wanted to run the other way. Much like Adrian back in the States, I feel that I´m in the sponge stage. Instead of hearing a super long word, I can now pick out each sound, and that super long word turns out to be a sentence. At this point, seeing as I can hear the words, I can start to figure out words via context clues. However, sometimes, like Lindsay said, it´s very easy to just block out the words that you don´t understand, because you understand the general idea of what the person is saying. I need to start really training my ear to pick out the words and make sure I really listen, rather than just pull out the main idea. All in all, it´s very cool. I´m learning. I remember just being amazed watching Holly and Lindsay speak this foreign language after they came back from their studies abroad, and now, I´m part of the cool kids group. When we all get back, it´ll be the United Nations of Spanish Speakers. I speak like a Porteño, Holly like a Mexican, Lindsay like a Colombiana, Adrian is Colombia, and Juan Felipe rounding out the group with Salvadorean.

So, I´ll clue you all in on my plans now. Here´s how it goes down. Classes end the first week of December. Now, it would be possible for me to come home in early December, and start school back in Minneapolis in January. However, when thinking about this, I get sick. December will be the start of 4 glorious months of summer vacation with my friends. There is no way I could leave warm sunny Argentina at the start of summer, to return to cold, miserable Minneapolis at the start of a grueling winter. The mixture of reverse culture shock and change in lifestyle/temperature would put me over the edge. So...I´ll be staying in Argentina until around March or April. After classes end, I plan on getting a a job at a hotel as either a bellboy or a catering worker. Lots of English-speakers come down here, and hotels look for extremely handsome, well-versed native english speakers, so it looks like I have that job all wrapped up! It´ll be nice to make some tips in greenbacks. Haven´t seen any of those in a while.

Besides that, all is pretty well. Being down here, I see business ideas left and right. So many possibilites for tourism and so much new money available. I think it´d be interesting to come back here after graduating and seeing if I could get something set up. Like Dad said, after 4 months at a nice hotel, I very well could meet some successful local business people who are looking for business students. That, OR, get a job with a US company down here, and get paid in dollars. If you can make around US$30,000 a year, you´re living REALLY well off. Steak and wine every night of the week if you wanted.

Probably time I should wrap this up, but one thing, can SOMEONE please send me SOMETHING! I don´t even care if it´s just a random postcard. I´ve been here for seven months, and the only letters I´ve received came from my University´s Office of Transcripts. So, I pose a challenge to those who read my blog. Maybe you know me and are a friend, maybe you´re a fellow study abroad student, or maybe some blogger from England. Either way, I´d love to get some mail. If you write me, I´ll write back!!!

IES Buenos Aires
c/o Patrick Jones
Carlos Pellegrini 1069, Piso 13
C1009ABU, Buenos Aires
Argentina

I´ll try to write a little more often. Feels good to let ya´ll know what I´m up to. Two friends and coworkers from the Loring are coming down to my part of the world. Brett is currently in Peru, and is slowly making his way to Buenos Aires. Brittney is somewhere in Europe, but is meeting Brett in La Paz and joining him on his way to Buenos Aires. If either of you read this, prepare for greatness! Buenos Aires is absolutely amazing. You´re going to be here during, in all likelihood, the most beautiful time of the year.


Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Life Is Great!!!

Hey ya'll,
Just to let you know, I'm unbelievably happy with my life in Buenos Aires right now. I'm living in a great apartment with two really fun young Mexican guys who are living in Buenos Aires and going to school. I barely speak English and it feels great. It's not like last semester where I was speaking more English than Spanish. Now it's 100% the opposite. My classes are all going great, and the professors are all very accomodating to the foreigners in class, which consists of me and four Germans, who I have become good friends with. I've met a lot of people through my school, the Universidad Museo Social Argentino, and we are hanging out a lot. It's part of a language exchange that the school does and I've become good friends with two of my language partners. All in all, life is going really well. I'm not writing as much as I was last semester because I'm having too much fun to sit down and write it all down. Just know that this semester is amazing and I'm enjoying every second. PLUS, Spring is on the way and every day is a bit warmer, with a bit more sun. Life is good!!

Your Argentine Connection,
Patrick


Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina

A Brief Hiatus

Hey everyone,
Well, Colombia was a great experience. I had a great time with the family for the first week in Bogota. Jimmy got there the second week and we really started tearing it up. Adrian's family is absolutely amazing and I had a great time. However, now I'm back in Buenos Aires and life is even better.

The first four months in BsAs were very fun, but it still like I was this new study-abroad student. However, after taking a month off and getting away from the city for awhile, it feels so much more like home to come back. I've moved out of rich, touristy, old-money Recoleta, and I'm currently living on the border of Palermo Viejo and Almagro. Both of these barrios have a really great vide, or as they say in BsAs, buena onda. I'm not surrounded my tons of clothes stores and expensive tourist restaurants anymore. I'm just living in a really Buenos Aires-ish barrio now, and I'm super happy. If you come here, you'll see what I mean.

I am also living with some new roommates. I had a good time with Sylvia and Carlos, but it was kinda like living with my grandma and her really old stay-at-home son. Either way, it was an experience and I have quite the stories to tell from those first four months. Now, however, I'm living with two young Mexicans who are living in the city. One of them is a chef and the other is in culinary school. We'are always cooking something good, hanging out with our friends, and just chilling. It's so nice to have my freedom back again. I can play music loud, I can cook my own meals, and I can invite my friends over for drinks....life is good.

My spanish has come along amazingly. It had to be the month of intense spanish in Colombia, but wow. I recently saw an Ecuadorian friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in a couple months because of school. When we were hanging out in May, my spanish was pretty miserable. However, two weeks ago, I went to her place to have drinks with her, and her Colombian friend. Well, Carolina was making drinks and her friend and I were just talking about my trip in Colombia. Midway through the conversation, Carolina comes out of the kitchen and basically yells, "Patrick, your spanish. It's amazing! I can't believe how much better is it." I never noticed it getting better, but it's those really slow changes that take someone you haven't seen in awhile to notice. Also, all the IES(my program) staff were thoroughly impressed by my increased level. Now, living with my roommates, taking all my classes at the spanish-speaking university, and living a mostly spanish-speaking lifestyle, I'm really confident I'll just keep getting better.

There you have it. A little update on what's going down in Buenos Aires. I'll post pictures soon. I'm pretty much the slowest picture poster ever.

With love from the 34th parallel south of the Equator,
Patrick

ps- I have a place for people to crash now if anyone is looking to come to BsAs? Everyone says that spring here, which is September through December, is AMAZING!


Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Colombia

Hey everyone,
Sorry for not writing anything appealing for a long time, but I´ve been busy doing Colombia. Here is what I have been doing with my time in Colombia. I will post many pictures and funny stories when I have more time, so this is just a teaser post.

A brief synopsis should suffice:

I spent a week in Bogota with Adrians, my brother in law, family. I mostly just hung out and helpèd at the family fruit stand and chilled with everyone. I also ate copious amounts of Colombian food, namely rice and beans. I didnt do many big tourist things because I wanted to keep all the big things for when my friend arrived.

A week later, my friend from Buenos Aires Jimmy arrived. He was fed equally large amounts of food and we did some really fun things. We went to the nationwide march against the FARC in Bogota, we went to a lookout point over the city, we went to some natural, but not so thermal, pools, and partied with Adrians family a lot.

After another week in Bogota with Jimmy, we headed off to Risaralda, where some of Adrians family has a coffee farm. INSANE!!! Mountains, cofee, and platanos for as far as the eye can see. Very relaxing and enjoyable. Learned how to pick coffee and cut down platano trees. We spent four days at the coffee farm being true outdoorsmen...except for the one day where Jimmy and I lived in the bathroom puking and pooping. Drank some bad water or ate some bad food. Not really sure. Either way, neither one of us can even look at rice and beans without gagging now. Guess out stomachs aren´t so strong. However, we did kill chickens...with machetes...and we have video and picture proof which will be posted later.

Flashforward to today, I´m currently in Pereira Colombia with my friend Jimmy and Adrians newphew Luis Gabriel. We are going to hang out in the city all day, and then Jimmy and I are flying off to Cartagena for a week of snorkeling, mopeding, white sand beaches, and more fun.

All in all, everything has been going really well. Adrians family was absolutely amazing and I´m really glad I came up here. Every day is something new and I´ve taken over 800 pictures to prove it.

Keep your eyes peel some the next posts, and while you´re at it, enjoy this great music video. The horse has the special gallop!

With love from just north of the Equator,
Patrick

The Real South America

The more time I spend in Bogota, the more I realize that Buenos Aires is not very South American. Buenos Aires is like living in Chicago or New York City or Las Angeles, expect they speak a different language. It´s a large metropolis with millions of people, intermixed between harsh poverty and absurb wealth. It seems like I´m living in the USA sometimes, except for the whole spanish thing. Not to say I don´t like it, because I do. BsAs is a great place.

However, it doesn´t have that South American feel like I thought it would, and that Bogota definitely has. Everything that I pictured in South America, exists in Bogota. There are men sitting in shabby corner stores/markets, drinking beer into the late night hours. There are kids playing marbles on the dirt streets. Love ballad Ranchera music can be heard at all hours of the day, usually coming from a car with all of its doors open and five guys hanging out around it, talking. Stray dogs dodge in and our of the streets. Small, rural areas have cows grazing in the yards of the houses. People buy whole chickens, freshly killed and plucked. A guy sells live roosters outside of Lida´s house.

I don´t know if it´s a stereotypical image of South America that I have, but that is what I thought before I came down here, and I´ve just found it...in Bogota.

My Day at the Market

So today I got to go with Lida to the HUGE fruit/veggy/meat/fish market called Carbasto. Lida and I got up at 3:30AM and Jorge was outside with his truck a couple minutes later. We headed to the market, and picked up another friend along the way. All four of us packed into the little cab of the truck, listening to ranchera/love ballad music the entire time.

Once we got the market, I could barely believe my eyes. It was still dark out, and there were thousands of people running from building to building, buying and selling their goods. The delivery men carry box upon box on their shoulders, running to the parking area to drop off the products in the buyers trucks.





Today is the Dia del Virgen, so some people we also shooting off some big fireworks in the parking lot/loading area/hangout area. I´ve come to realize that large scale, explosive fireworks can be used for everything in South America, be it the start of a fútbol game, a workers demostration in the streets, or a holiday.





Each building contained something different, carrots in one, pototoes in another, mangoes and tropical fruit in one, and so on. If you wanted to buy ANY type of fruit there, you could

I followed Lida around for about an hour, watching her mingle with sellers and figure out who has the best prices for everything. It´s interesting to note that no one uses there names in the market. Every buyer uses initials or a code for their name. This code is what the delivery people use when they drop off the goods that she purchased. Lida´s is AP, the initials of her late husband. So, as we´re walking, you could hear people yelling out "Ah-Peh!!" trying to get her attention. Lida doesn´t exist at the market, only AP does.

After we did some buying, we decided to do some whiskey shots, with a nice vendor that Lida knew, to warm up. We did three little whiskey shots each and had hot coffee, all at about 4:15AM. After the whiskey, we continued our journey buying all the things that she needed. She knew exactly who had the best deals and she was sure to chat up people and was always really nice. She introduced me to everyone, and it was definitely obvious I was a foreigner. I was snapping pictures left and right while people we working all around me.



Once we were done with all the purchases, we went to a little coffee/liquor stand, and had some coffee and empanadas. Lida´s friend Nelson showed up and we decided to do a shot of Aguardiente, a liquorice flavored liquor. Well, once you start doing shots, you don´t stop. Everyone was buying us shots and we probably did 4 in total. Good stuff.

At the coffee stand, Nelson and I had a really good conversation about Colombia´s world image, among other things, and how their president Uribe, is going a great job at promoting the country and all it has to offer. He was telling me about how when he is introduced in the US or Panama as a Colombian, people get really nervous and tense up, while when you introduce a foreigner(like me) to a group of Colombians, the Colombians are amazingly kind. When Lida introduces me as a student from the USA, they people are alway so intriuged about what I think of Colombia, the food, the women, and everything in between. They´re proud of their country, and they want to know what we think of it. They are also very impressed that a young US student is traveling in Colombia and came to see family and just hang out.

All in all, I had a great day. It was really fun to see what goes into running a fruit stand. I had a good time doing it for one day, but I don´t know if I could do it every day for four years. It´s definitely hard, respectable work. I´m becoming really comfortable with the family now and I´m really happy I came. I was really nervous before I arrived, but now it´s like I´m hanging out wiht my own family.

More To Come!

Patrick

Music Video Breakdown

Hey You! Yeah, You! Have you ever wanted to become a Colombian music video producer?!? Well, it´s your lucky day, because I´m offering my world renowned course, "Ranchera Production 101" FREE, that´s right FREE, for today only. Enjoy!!!

To make a good Colombian ranchera music video, you only need to follow this simple guide, and music video production greatness is in your hands!

1. Enter with the triumphant blast of two trumpets in harmony.

2. After trumpets, it´s best to show a clip of a man, presumably the video´s protagonist, riding a horse through an open pasture. Make sure the horse can do that special horse prance with the high hooves action.

3. Pan out to a group of 5+ gentlemen, all dressed in the traditional Colombian Ranchera outfit, swaying back and forth in unison.

4. The aforementioned group must include at least two trumpets, an accordian player, an older gentleman playing a vintage acoustic guitar, and his young protegé playing an acoustic guitar as well, a younger gentleman playing an electric bass, a keyboard player playing without the use of extention cords, and the lead singer, standing at least 10 feet in front of the rest of his group.

5. The song should be about loving a women, hating a women who has cheated you, which means it can also be about drinking, living in the countryside, having a girlfriend and a lover(Dos Amores-Jhonny Rivera) and lastly, if you´re the famous Sr. Rivera, it can be about being a taxi driver who loves women.

6. After the introductory verse, there should be a couple random shots of girls in bikinis or similar clothing, preferably entering a bathtub, entering/exiting a pool, or by chance, pampering the lead singer from all sides.

7. Enter the accordian solo. This must be quite intense for it is his time to shine. He has two options here: Play while cheerfully looking into the camera lense OR play while gazing at his accordian with a yearning expression.

8. Second verse of the song should be the lead singer discussing the problem with friends or maybe, if you´re lucky, a intimate moment between the camera and the leader singer.

9. Pan back to the musicians and they continue the sweet ballad.

10. Slowly fade to darkness, and maybe toss in that same prancing horse again, just for good measure.


There you have it folks!!! You´re now ready to attack the world of music video production. Enjoy!