The City, Finals, Week of Lasts

The time between Patagonia and now was super busy!
I had presentations and papers in every class and of course there was still so much to see in Buenos Aires! And this chaos was followed by finals and Goodbyes.

The two weeks after Patagonia were the last two weeks of classes. In these 2 weeks I had to give a presentation and write a paper in Economic Integration, work on a project with paper and presentation in International Business, gave a presentation in Spanish in Política Económica, wrote a paper and held a presentation in Social Economy and wrote another essay in Estudios Culturales.
For me this seemed a lot more like going to school instead of university because in Germany in the majority of the university classes we simply have an exam in the end of the semester and that is our grade then. Here we had midterms, presentations, papers, finals and even participation grades. Busy semester! But this gives you the chance to make up for lower grades by having a higher one in the next assignment.
This last week we had finals, but they were only split up between Monday and Tuesday. Of course I ended up having 4 exams on Monday but the two Tuesday classes worked differently so the finals were presentations and one of those I already had the week before. So by Monday night I was done! I only had to go to every class with a sheet on which the professors wrote down the final grade.

MALBA

Japanese Garden

In between all these assignments Karen and I took some time to see more of Buenos Aires. We ended up going to the MALBA (which I had seen before but it is absolutely worth seeing a second time), visited the Japanese Garden, went to the Planetario Galileo Galilei to see a play of "The little Prince" (which was super cute but definitely for kids), went to the Floralis Genérica and the Law Faculty of the Buenos Aires University, went to Tigre once again with Corinna, another time to La Boca, saw a breathtaking Tango show, and finally went to the Teatro Colón to see the opera "The fiery Angel" by Prokofjew, which was amazing! I also got to participate in an activity of the Leo Club together with Ben, which was really nice because we go to know some of the Leos a lot more than usually during the meetings. They are really great people :)

Japanese Garden

MALBA

LEO Activity :)

MALBA

MALBA

Japanese Garden

Waffle House in Tigre

Floralis Genérica

Stadium of the football team "River"

El Caminito in La Boca

Faculdad de Derecho

El Caminito in La Boca

El Obelisco 

Outside Teatro Colón

Outside Teatro Colón

Outside Teatro Colón

Inside Teatro Colón

Everyone received this medal as a good bye present from our university here

Also I got to see Randy another time, who cooked one of my favorite Thai dishes for me!


Tonight was the last night with all of my roommates. Tomorrow Larissa will leave for Perú, Yahaira, Karen and I are heading to Tierra del Fuego (all the way in the South of Argentina) for a week, and Edgard will be leaving for Chile. Larissa won't return to Buenos Aires until December, but all the others I will (hopefully) see again before I leave for good. So to most of my class mates I had to say my Goodbyes but luckily also a bunch of "See you"s.
There will be some people that I will definitly stay in touch with!

Patagonia I

After Uruguay I spent 1½ weeks in Buenos Aires, before 3 of my roommates, Nick (French), Larissa (Swiss) and Edgard (Mexican), and I went to Patagonia! On Friday October 9^th we started early in the morning and took a flight to Trelew. From there we went to our first destination: Puerto Madryn, a little town at the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. I was pretty excited for this part of the trip, but unfortunately parts of it were very messed up. But let me tell you the whole story.

Puerto Madryn

For Saturday we booked a tour to Punta Tombo, a place with a huge penguin colony! They said that up to 500.000 penguins live there. The area was pretty big, and the penguins were very spread so I couldn’t tell you if it is true, but it seemed like there were A LOT. That day we also had beautiful weather but it was freezing. It was a little strange to fly towards the south and it got colder and colder! I guess I still haven’t gotten fully used to living in the southern hemisphere yet. Well, the penguins were super fun to watch walking around and hanging out. After Punta Tombo we were supposed to go to a place where people can get up close to elephant seals. Even though the penguins were really cool, I was more excited for that place.

Punta Tombo

Punta Tombo

Punta Tombo

Unfortunately our bus broke on the way to Punta Tombo. While the group was walking around watching penguins, our tour guide talked to other tour guides and managed to split up the group so we could all leave Punta Tombo. It was very far from the next town and there was no cell phone reception so this was our only way to get away from there. Unfortunately Nick, Larissa, Edgard, and I ended up in a bus to Trelew to go visit a museum. That was not our plan for the day and so we were not really happy. 

We had to wait forever for that group to leave Punta Tombo and then sat around in Trelew waiting for them to get done with that museum. Seeing the penguins was great but the rest of the day unfortunately felt a little wasted. At least we didn’t have to pay the full price for the tour.

The next day was supposed to be the highlight of our stay in Puerto Madryn and it was – but on the negative side.

For that Sunday we rented a car to go to the Península Valdés, which we picked up at 9 a.m. at the car rental “RENT A CAR” (I’m just putting the name in here so you know which one to avoid, if you ever get to Puerto Madryn). I will not go into detail what all happened, only so much: they give broken cars to customers. We heard about people having accidents with their cars because they broke down in the middle of the road, we saw two guys having trouble with the battery, and also our car was NOT good to go (engine light started flashing right when we left town). They refused to give us a different car, yelled at us and insulted us for saying their car is broken, and we ended up not having a car and not getting the money back, even though the police got involved (we called it). It was an awful day. The tourist information and some of the hostels in Puerto Madryn already knew that there were problems with that car rental and they are now taking care of it.

What a waste of a day.

Península Valdés

Luckily, one of the tour companies in Puerto Madryn was still open on Sunday afternoon, so we could at least book a tour to the Península Valdés for Monday, which was our last day in Puerto Madryn.

After the disaster on Sunday, Monday ended up to be a perfect day!

Península Valdés

Península Valdés

Early in the morning we got picked up at our hostel and finally went to the Península. The Península Valdés is famous for whales, elephant seals, penguins and many other animals. We entered the National Park on the peninsula and started our trip with a whale watching tour in Puerto Pirámides. It was incredible! We saw a mama whale and her baby, which was about as big as our boat! They came really close and sometimes they even swam underneath the boat, which was a little scary because it felt like they could have easily pushed us over. After the whale watching we continued our trip over the peninsula and saw elephant seals, penguins, sea lions, a bunch of guanakos, birds, and other small animals.

Península Valdés

The weather was perfect, yet very windy but we enjoyed every minute of the day!

It was just perfect. J

Península Valdés

Península Valdés

Península Valdés

Península Valdés

Península Valdés

Península Valdés

That Monday night we left Puerto Madryn and took a night bus to El Bolsón, which is across the country next to the Andes. It was very interesting to see how the landscape changes from the coast to the Andes. Around Puerto Madryn it was rather dry and didn’t have very many big plants but towards the Andes it got greener and greener.

El Bolsón

So Tuesday morning we arrived in El Bolsón. Nick had decided to go to Bariloche (our next stop) right away, so I spent the day with Larissa and Edgard, just walking around that little hippie town and visiting a lake in a national park close to El Bolsón. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t very pretty, but we still enjoyed the day and continued to San Carlos de Bariloche later that afternoon.

El Bolsón

Bariloche is located in a beautiful landscape of the Argentine Andes in a region that is also called “Argentine Switzerland” – the pictures show why! (Larissa actually got her mom confused when she sent home some pictures)

Bariloche

Bariloche

Around Bariloche are endless tracks to go hiking or biking, and it is a very famous place to go skiing. The ski slopes had actually just closed a couple of days before we got there since winter had just ended. For those of you who know me, it should be clear that this information didn’t affect me at all, but Larissa and Edgard were a little sad. Especially Edgard was excited to go in the snow since they don’t get very much in Mexico…

Bariloche

Bariloche

Bariloche - View from Hotel Llao Llao

Bariloche - View from Hotel Llao Llao

Seven Lake Tour - on the way to San Martín de los Andes

Wednesday and Thursday were days to explore for all of us and despite our fiasco with the rental car in Puerto Madryn, we rented another car in Bariloche and this time luckily everything worked out perfectly. Early Friday morning we got the car and took a day trip to San Martin de los Andes, a perfect small place in the middle of the Andes. In summer it is full with hikers and in winter with skiers. Since we came in spring, the whole town was super quiet and empty. On the way there and especially on the way back, we stopped many many times to take pictures of the incredible landscape that we drove through. The weather was just perfect and so we all had a really good day!

Seven Lake Tour - on the way to San Martín de los Andes

San Martín de los Andes

Seven Lake Tour - on the way to San Martin de los Andes

San Martín de los Andes - "Here are no strangers, only friends we haven't met yet"

Seven Lake Tour - on the way to San Martín de los Andes

Seven Lake Tour - on the way to San Martín de los Andes

Seven Lake Tour - on the way to San Martín de los Andes

Saturday the other three spent biking but I caught a bad cold and decided to take it slow and only went to the Cerro Campanario and enjoyed an incredible view. That night we had to take a flight back to Buenos Aires.

View from Cerro Campanario

View from Cerro Campanario

After our -mostly- beautiful days in Patagonia I was not too happy about returning to the big city, but university was about to get super busy again and we only had a couple more weeks to go until the end of the semester!