What a Mess!

This morning when I woke up I heard running water in the living room so I went to investigate and found that half of the basement floor was covered in standing water and more was pouring in through the window. Once again I was reminded that I am completely useless in emergency situations. After running around and making some phone calls I accomplished nothing more than getting my pijamas soaking wet. Here I am in outfit #2 for the day showing the level of water in the window sill. I woke up Julia and she had the presence of mind to call some people that could actually come help with the problem. The sprinklers didn't shut off this morning so after hours of watering the lawn it filled up the window and leaked inside. If only I had kept with my self-imposed summer wake-up time this problem would have been taken care of much sooner. I don't want to say what time I actually got up and noticed the flooding--I'll just say we were no longer in the single digits.

Ushuaia

Ushuaia is a city in southern Argentina. It's the southernmost city in the world in fact. It's situated between a bay and the Andes Mountains.
Here I am on a boat cruise around the Beagle Channel.

I got to see sea lions.

And a lighthouse!

Here is the port at night.

This is a charming little tea house that overlooks the valley.

I went on an off-roading trip through the mountains.

We drove along the shore of a lake hidden in the mountains.

Ushuaia started as a penal colony. Here I am at the old prison, now a museum.

Iguazu Falls

I spent a day visiting the Argentine side of Iguazu National Park. (The waterfalls straddle the Argentina-Brazil border). They were spectacular.
I went on a boat ride right up to the bottom of the falls.

Who's ready to get wet? Unfortunately there were no dry boat ride options--I asked.

They had walkways over the river so you can walk right up to the edge of the falls.

Here's a view from the top.

Haha--he wants my lunch. So cute and funny! Don't worry though, this little guy had the last laugh.

At least some of the wild life was peaceful.

Misiones Jesuitico Guaranies

I went on a day trip to visit some ruins of a Jesuit Mission.
I had always thought that missions consisted of just a church, but not so. This one was a whole community of houses and stuff centered around the church.

This is a window in the church. The Jesuits used the same architecture technique that medieval fortresses used with windows wider on the inside than on the outside. But instead of using this feature to shoot arrows while being protected from enemy fire, the Jesuits watched the natives at work without being seen.

Minera de Wanda

On the day trip we also got to go on a tour of some mines. They let us go inside (it was more exciting than it looks from this picture).
There was amethyst stuck in the rock all over the place--I loved it!

Feria de Mataderos

I found another street market in Buenos Aires. This one focuses on traditional country life in Argentina. There were gauchos on horses doing horse tricks.
You could spot people throughout the crowd doing traditional dances.

There was live music. They were playing folk songs.

Even some of the vendors dressed up. This market had the same typical jewelry and leather items as other markets, but also had gaucho goods such as knives and saddles.

El Fin (Casi)

Friday was the last day of my externship. Now I've almost two weeks of travel/play time before heading home. I've loved working in this office and I've learned a lot. They threw me a going-away lunch party--it was very nice of them. Here's a group shot.
One of the attorneys drew a picture of me saying what I learned in Argentina: "In Argentina lawyers spend their time eating." This was a running joke in the office as we had had four parties that week. My party was the best of course.

El Zanjón de Granados

I enjoyed my tour of this old family mansion that was built on top of old tunnels and was later used as tenement housing after the family abandoned it when yellow fever hit the area. The building was beautiful and the tour provided a great history lesson on the city of Buenos Aires. On the English tour we had an American girl (me), two Australian girls, an older French couple, and a younger Brazilian couple. The Brazilian husband had to translate for his wife but got bored of that after five minutes and the two mostly wandered around by themselves. I don't think the French couple understood much and they too were soon giving a tour to themselves. The two Australian girls were very attentive and asked a lot of questions. A LOT of questions. At first I thought they must be students and doing the tour for a school assignment, but neither of them were taking notes. Then I thought perhaps they were testing the knowledge of our tour guide, but they seemed genuinely interested and the questions weren't malicious (although I think that forcing someone to answer that amount of questions has got to be at least a little malicious). I decided that they must have just been trying to figure out what exactly they spent twenty-five pesos to go on a tour of. The Lonely Planet city guide book lists it as one of the top five museums to visit in Buenos Aires--just go with it.

They offer tours during the day and then in the evenings they rent the place out for private events. Can't you just picture a long banquet table running through here?

The tunnels twist around under the city for blocks with more still being excavated.