iguazu la segunda vez y otros lugares nuevos

So we are heading out in about 10 minutes to go to Iguazu, should be a good time. We are headed to Iguazu then from there we are headed to Salta and Jujuy, the most beautiful places in Argentina I am told. Then if there is time, we are going to cross the border into Chile and go see the highest, oldest volcano in South America. We will see...time is always a factor with buses since they take soooooo long. But anyway, I want her to have fun but I do think also that she is a little naive to time and things that are regularly available in the US. Kinda funny to watch a North American who has never really left the country in a new country, wonder what I was like when I first got here. I definitely have grown as a person, I feel much more independent and confident. Anyway, so when we get back I start my Portuguese class and then the semester 4 weeks later. Wow the time is flying! Anyway, what else? o I just took her on a tour in the city yesterday, I feel bad because she wants to do all these touristy things that I either have already done or dont want to do.... haha like take photos with the guards at the presidental office. O we took a tour at the presidental office, the Casa Rosada yesterday, that was pretty interesting. And then she bought some things at the market and some traditonal tango memorialabilia, however you spell that. So, its been nice having her here but also exhausting since i have to translate, plan, and basically cook and clean. As Americans we are REALLY SPOILED and expect everyone to do things for us. It was nice traveling with the Italians because we all split the bill on doing things like cooking, cleaning, planning. But anyway, I cant blame her because she is a foreigner and I have lived here for so long. Almost 8 months! wow! Anyway, we best be going. I love you all! Talk to you soon!
Love Rachel
ps Dad this is my letter to you, sorry Im a little pressed for time.

Chau chau, love you tons and love the gum and yoga DVDS

mis adventuras uruguayas

well jannie has arrived and we went off to colonia, punta del este, and montevideo de uruguay. its really really really pretty with lots of lovely beaches but im a bit over the laying around, i really enjoyed the crazy adventures in the south of argentina with the 10 hour day hikes and such. laying around on the beach is a bit too relaxing for me sometimes. i really love it though believe me. uruguay is nice and the people are sweet but its really similar to argentina. im glad we got to come here because jannie wanted beaches and that´s what they got here. tonight we arrived in montevideo and its carnaval here, so we´re off to celebrate it. we met some germans, us citizens, belgium guy, and some girls from argentina i think, o and some brasilians so we´re all heading out right now. should be a good time but yeah im exhausted and will be ready to go to bed. lots of traveling and lots of buses. the boat to uruguay was really really cool and kinda like a really nice ferry. i really enjoyed it and the 3 hours was nothing, really was more like 1 hour. we have been having a nice relaxing time, no parties yet, but maybe tonight who knows. im not really doing any parting lately because im thinking about adopting buddhism into my life and i dont think i want to drink anymore or put anything bad into my body....no red meat, no chicken, little fish, and lots of fruits and veggies, no cigs, no booze. so we will see. anyway, so im off, ppl are waiting. love you allllllllllllll....cant wait to see you all in july
love rachel

Que buen dia!

So today was such a great day! I went to the park with my friend Melissa from Sacramento and we drank mate. She is studying here just like me for the year so equally we are a bit bored...well not bored just without anything to do. In the morning I sent emails to local yoga studios to see if I could work for them in exchange for classes and I got a response from one! Yay! So I´m going to help her do some clean up and greet customers in the night and she will let me take her classes for free. I´m her lil assistant. Hoorah! Then after I went and met with my new female athletes group and I did a yoga class in a girls house named Cynthia, she is from Canada but is Argentine. Unfortunately she likes speaking English but the class was great! A new kind of yoga plus new girlfriends. Two bonuses. Then I went to my friend Moni´s spinning class at her new gym. She also needs a little assistant to help her out with her English clients. So that will be fun! I´m really excited for the girls workout group, we are going to do yoga, walk in the park, drink mate, make food together. All of the above! Super exciting, plus the yoga studio, how great! So a lot of foreigners are arriving here right now, either studying or on vacations. It is going to change, the city that is. Anyway, Jannie my friend arrives on Monday. I´m so excited! Today was a really good day, now its time to go home, shower, and eat a good dinner.

Chau todos
Nos amo!
Raquelita la argentina

Solita otra vez

Well Steven has headed back to the US, he left last night at 930 and has landed safely in Atlanta and is on his way to Sacramento as we speak. It was hard but I know that I only have 5 more months more or less and its really not that long. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by. Jannie comes in a week and she will be here for 2 weeks, which will go by like a flash, we are going to Uruguay. Then I have my Portuguese class everyday from 9 to 12 in the morning until the start of school, I will be busy busy busy! I'm happy though. I want to be busy! When Steven and I returned back to the city, we do so many touristy things that I hadn't yet done and I'm glad because they were great. We went to the Planetarium, then the Cementary where all the rich and the famous are buried of Argentina like Evita Peron and Jose Hernandez (the famous author), we went to lots of little fairs to look at the great Argentine artisan work. What else?I gave my mate cup to Steven and sent him home with some mate, he loves it! I'm so happy, now I'll have someone to drink mate with when I get home. I have to go and search for a new mate cup now though....that's ok. I'm just happy he loves the tradition as much as I do. We went to Bond St., a little strip mall full of tattoo parlors and funky clothes. O and we went rollerblading in the park, that was the most fun! Since I grew up in a place that had mainly mountains and hills I never really went rollerblading as a kid. So I kinda remembered how to do it, I fell only two times on my ass, so no worries. I'm definitely going to go there and do it more often. It was great! Good leg workout. Today, I'm going to meet with my Argentine group of athletic females and we are going to do yoga in one of their houses. I signed up with this group before my trip to the south but I haven't gone to one of the meetings, so I'm excited to go today!

What else? O I thought after speaking English for 20 days with only a few instances of Spanish speaking would totally ruin my Spanish skills but actually I think it has improved. I now can listen to someone speaking Spanish while I speak English to someone else and understand both languages at the same time. Its sooooo cool! I'm really happy. O and my New Years Resolutions are: to get a six pack haha (got a little four pack right now so that's good since I gave up eating redmeat! o my gosh), no smoking no matter what! (I gave up smoking when I met Steven but I always sneaked some when I would drink or whatever but now I don't want to have any disgusting cigarette enter my body at all, it was difficult when I came here because EVERYONE smokes and that's not an exaggeration. This is why I loved Chile so much and Santiago especially, because NO ONE smokes, I swear!) Anyway I was really proud of myself because we went out the other night and had a couple of drinks and like I said, EVERYONE was smoking in the club, in my face, and I didn't smoke or didn't want to smoke at all. So so sosososo proud of myself! I'm really sticking to this one. I never really liked smoking, so I don't know why I ever did it in the first place. Anyway, and the last one is to get into Grad school. I have decided I want to Master in International Affairs with a concentration in Environmental Issues. That was my goal for coming to Latin America, to find what I wanted to concentrate in, now I know. Yay!

So Steven really loved the country, the food, and my roomies. He said we are all family forever now and wants them to come to California. He is soooo sweet, he said he would fly them out when we becomes rich and famous. He is such a good guy! And one of my friends told me I was really lucky because his girlfriend (they are Argentine), would never let him do what I am doing, she would never stay by his side while he studied in a foreign country. And yes, I am lucky, we both are for finding each other. But never again will I leave his side, next time I travel or live in a foreign country, he HAS to come. This time was really hard to say goodbye! Anyway, I'm off to go back to my daily life until Jannie comes then more traveling. Wow I'm going to be sooo tired afterwards haha

Love Rachel!
CHAU CHAU!!!

Valparaiso y Vina del Mar

Wow this place is amazing! Its such a lovely beach town, we are in Valparaiso and we went today to the other beach town Vina del Mar. Valparaiso is very rustic, old and really bohemian, kinda like Santa Cruz or San Francisco and Vina del Mar is like Miami beach, very commercial or somewhere in SoCal. Wow, it is so amazing, we walked everywhere, ate really great seafood, and layed on the beach drinking mate mate mate. Or atleast I did! Haha. And the fruit is soooo fresh, no wonder we get our fruit from here. Tomorrow we are headed home...i´m really sad! I have to live in Chile one day! I really love it. I was walking on the street and some local asked me if my family was from here, he really could tell that I had some Chilean heritage! I have never gotten that before, it´s always...where are you from you look so exotic? So cool! Anyway, they have a really cool traditional drink here called Mote Huesillo, its dehydrated peach, with peach juice and then corn and you eat and drink it, really rich. Then there is Steven´s favorite: pineapple juice with pineapple ice cream haha! Really good when you have been on the beach all day frying up! Then we also drank this concauction that our new Chilean friend made: a green melon, scoop out the inside put in white wine, sugar, the pulp, and pineapple sorbet, throw it in the freezer and one hour later you got a great summer drink to share with everyone soooooooo good! i´m going to bring it back to Cali. Anyway, we leave tomorrow at 8 am for a 24 hour busride. Tomorrow is Steven´s bday, I feel awful that we will be travelling for it so we are going to get a traditional Chilean drink right now to celebrate: Pisco Sour. Anyway, I will write when I arrive after my day´s travels.

Love you all!
Love la Chilena,
Raquelita

SANTIAGO SANTIAGO SANTIAGO!!!! ahora Valpaiso

O my gosh Amazing! I love love love love love Santiago. Its soooo clean, so friendly of people, so much safer than Buenos Aires. I love Buenos Aires because it is soooo cool and sheek, but its nice to get away to a city that reminds me of home. I was talking with Steven and we were thinking we could live in this city one day, I was thinking that maybe for my graduate studies I could do my thesis work here on environmental studies or agricultural studies for a semester or so. I really love the city and the vibe the city has. Fresh fruit all the time, lots of recycling, very hippie, very my style. I love it! Mommy we have to come here together one day please! Anyway, so yesterday we went to the house of Pablo Neruda, very cool! Very good tour, got a discount for being a student. Then we went to the top of the Cerro San Cristobal to see the entire city and to see the Virgen. Soooo beautiful, this city is very religious. Then later we went to the Palacio de la Moneda where the coup happened in 1973. Very cool! I took pictures and looked at a place that I have heard and read so much about. Very surreal. Then we made dinner for the cool friends we met at the hostel and all went to this German performance in the city center. It was very interesting, lots of acrobats, old german cars, and German soldiers, and I can't really explain it. Very German, kinda like a German circus. Now we are getting ready to head to Valparaiso to head to the coast and the beach and the ocean!! So excited! Then from there we are heading back....a little sad because I really love Chile!!! I HAVE to come back! Maybe I can come spend summers here working or something...I'll figure it out but one day i will live in Santiago, I really really love it!

Well I love you all! Talk to you soon!
Love Rachel

Aguas Termas, Rafting y Santigago, Chile

Sooooo sorry I haven't been on lately, Mendoza was just completely filled with people and we were so jammed packed with activities to do all day that it was hard to get to the computer for five minutes. Actually, it was impossible. So what did we do? Well, we went to do a wine tour on bikes, which was amazing, it was 10 KM both ways, so about a 20 KM ride, not too bad besides the fact that we got completely sunburnt. We rented bikes from a company named Mr. Hugo which was great! He gave us lots of information and helped us changed our plans. We were going to go to the Anconegea mountains and do some trekking or hiking up there but the bus ride is 3.5 hours and the trekking is only about 1.5 or 3 hours and honestly I don't think Steven would've been too into it. He doesn't really have the right clothes and I think it was too hot in Mendoza to go trekking without the proper clothing. Anyway, so we ended up going to the Termas or the thermal waters, its a waterpark in the middle of the mountains in Mendoza. Sooooo CoooooL! We spent all day changing from burning hot water, medium water, and freezing cold water! Really amazing! Then we did some walking along the river and took some really great pictures. So when we got home we had to change our hostels because thank god there wasn't enough room in the one we were staying in, which was an awful mess with disgusting plumbing and disgusting guests! Ugh it was awful. So we changed to a private room and this made me and Steven feel so much better, much more relaxing and private! One night of privacy was great! Then the next day we woke up, went on a bus to go rafting down the Mendoza River. FREEZING WATER! But well worth it. The water was a bit more crazy than the water in the American River! Much more quick but no one fell off. The only problem was that I drank some tap water from the city and I think it got me sick because all day yesterday, all of the bus ride, and most this morning I had an upset stomach and I have been burping up lots of gas bubbles. I'm feeling a lot better now but it was awful on the bus! I slept the whole way so it was barely noticeable. Oh yeah that was great, immigrations, we got new stamps on our passports, even though the whole thing took forever! We had to stand out in the freezing cold at 5am to have them check our passports and check our luggage and check us into a new country, but anyway we are here so no worries. And we are staying in the this great hostel so far! Very cool atmosphere. All I want to do is shower and lay down for a bit and go explore this wonderful city. This city is soooo cool! Hopefully I won't wish that I had studied here instead! Anyway, I'm back in my "homeland", let's go explore the roots. In about two days we are heading to Valapariso on the coast and then from there we are heading back to the city. We will literally be going from coast to coast, from one side of the continent to the next! Amazing!!!

Love you all!
Rachellllll

Mendoza, Chile y mucho mucho más!

So we just arrived in Mendoza today around noon after missing the bus from the night before. ooops! My bad! Haha. Anyway but we made it here and it is great! It´s hot hot hot and dry like Sacramento so I can handle it much better than Buenos Aires. Steven is dying in Buenos Aires from the humidity, its nothing like he´s ever experienced, his hands and feet are swelling like an 8 month pregnant woman haha! But anyway, it was great there. We went out for New Years Eve, ate lots of food and drank way too much wine and beer, so ended the night a bit early. Stupid free alcohol. So here, we are going tomorrow to the bodegas so that we can rent bikes and do the wine tour from 9 to 5. We are going to rent them ourselves instead of going with a travel agency, much more economically smart. Then on Thursday, we are going to the Park of the Provincia to do some hiking, we´re doing the short hike of about 2 hours. Can´t go all the way to the top of the Aconcagua Mountain because you need a guide and I think that it takes about 2 days hiking. Anyway, that´s fine, would´ve been really fun but probably really hard because it is soooo hot here. Then on Friday we´re going to go rafting from 8 to 5 and then come back relax, eat some dinner and head on a bus from 1030 to 730 towards Santiago, Chile! How exciting. There I´m going to see if we can do some camping...we will see. Anyway, having a really great time. I will take some pictures! Love you all!

Love Rachelllllllllll

PS I´m going to drink lots of wine for you! JAJAJAAAAAAAAA