Music Videos

So we have been back a couple weeks. Argentina is starting to feel like it happened a long time ago. Funny how time works. Anyhoo, after eating a lot of the brothers like to get out their guitar and sing some traditional music. I recorded a couple of them singing. In the first one is Sebastian Pozzo

This second one is Emmanuel Montenegro and Timoteo

Emmanuel played three songs that night, here's the second one

I didn't get the third one, by then my hand was tired of holding the camera. But you get the idea :) I really like the music, its pretty. I hope you enjoy.

Aeropuerto de Ezeiza

So we are here, can't believe its already been two weeks since we left North Carolina. Time has literally flown by. We are preparing ourselves for a looooong flight. From here to Mexico its about 10 hours, then a 5 hour layover in D.F. and then another long flight I think 7 hours? Not sure. Anyhoo to catch ya'll up to speed on what we have been doing. On Thursday we rented a car and drove to Alta Gracia. Its a cute small town about 30 km from Cordoba. We stayed at a super nice B&B called 279. Here's a pic of the courtyard

Its a small inn only two rooms and we were the only guests. She said we were the first couple from the U.S. We felt special :) We met up with Mike's friends Lucas and Paula and their two kids. Paula was super sweet we hit it off. She's my argentine chica. Here's all of us in service Saturday in the campo (where the rich ppl live, felt like I was preaching in English)

On Friday we went to Villa General Belgrano. Its a small german town about 55 km from Alta Gracia. You have to take a windy mountain road to get there. Some lovely views along the way. We got there and had some beer from the area. It was very yummy. We had it with sandwich de miga (or as i call it sandwich hormiga heehee)

When we got back from Villa General Belgrano we went to the Estancia Jesuitica in Alta Gracia, it was one block from our B&B. Its the largest in the area. It was quite impressive and they had lots of neat setups in the rooms.

Saturday like I mentioned was service and then we went to the meeting. I commented, go me! Afterwards we went to Lucas' parents house for pizza and sobremesa (talking after you eat at the table). Here's a shot of everyone who was there

Sunday we went back to Cordoba, turned in our rental car and had an asado mixta at Mike's tia's house. Here's tio lorenzo cooking and having a good time heehee (sorry i caught him with his eyes closed)

That evening we went to the feria artesenal in downtown Cordoba, which was basically a huge fleamarket. It was awesome, wish we had more money to buy all that stuff. So that's pretty much it. Our flight is boarding now so Ciao!

Last day here

Sorry I have no pictures to post usb connection is not working on this computer. We are back in Buenos Aires. Not sure what time we are leaving tonight, Mexicana says there has been a change in our reservation but we are having trouble contacting them. If all is well we should be on the plane tonight at 10:30 and arriving in NY at 4:30 tomorrow. If the airport in Mexico has a cyber cafe I´ll try to do an update. See ya´ll soon!

Happy 40th Anniversary!!!

So this isn´t a argentina related post but I had to say Happy 40th Anniversary to my parents. Sorry we can´t be with you today but we´ll celebrate when we come back :) Still thinking about you even though we are thousands of miles away.

luv, Vanessa & Mike

Caminito, Cordoba, Condoritos

Alright to bring everyone up to date since the last time we checked in. I´m finally feeling better only took a week. Hooray! Unfortunately I didn´t lose any weight being sick, all this Argentine meat making me heavy heehee! oh well, when the food is good you have to eat right? Took some pictures while we were in Caminito en La Boca. Mainly alot of street vendors and some restaurants had little tango shows or traditional folklore dancing.
Here the folklore dancers
We got up early morning Monday in the rain to catch our flight to Cordoba. As soon as we arrived I liked it better than Buenos Aires. Cleaner, smaller and more hip somehow. A brother, Paolo, picked us up from the airport and we had breakfast with him.
Here´s Mike and Paolo at breakfast

He dropped us off afterwards at Tia Rosa´s house and of course we had to eat again (this could explain the weight gain, haha). Her husband, Lorenzo, made pollo asado. Let me just say it was the best pollo we´ve had on the trip. He´s going to be doing an all out asado on sunday for us before we leave. May have to wear my loose pants that day. His cousin and her family we´re there. They are very nice and she´s funny.
Here´s a pic of the family

That evening we ate again some sandwiches called Lomito Completo. I would like to say for the record I only ate half of mine. Tuesday we went to Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito. Now let me tell you, in the guidebook it says take the bus to La Pampilla and walk down the driveway to the park. So the busdriver yells La Pampilla, we look around and all we see is grass and mountains and a dirt road. Umm, driver, were are we supposed to go? We walk 1.5 km to the main entrance, wondering if were even going to see anything and lo and behold they did have an office! Hooray! The guy said, well you came kinda late its 2 hours just to get to the look out point (by then it was 1:30 and the last bus before dark came at 6:35 and it took us an hour just to get to the office) So we are thinking great we aren´t going to be able to see this, but we decided if we hustled we could do it. But 5km over a rugged mountain range ain´t no walk in the park, no pun intended. It was gorgeous though, just wish we had more time.
Here´s Mike on the hiking trail

We saw some condors but from really far off but it was cool. We made it back to the bus stop in time and got home safely. Forgot to mention Mike´s neck got crispy red on the hike. We forgot to put sunscreen on him. So in total we walked about 13 kms yesterday. Today we were shuffling along the streets of Cordoba too sore to walk fast ha! We did some shopping and saw Mike´s other tia Lucia. She was really nice and has a sweet dog that reminded us of Leela. Mike and his Tia
Tomorrow we head off to Alta Gracia to visit with the brothers from Mike´s old hall. We also are going to do some sightseeing in Villa General Belgrano.

Finally, I would like a moment of silence for some good friends of mine that after 10 years have walked their course. They have been with me all over the US, New Zealand and Australia. They have finally been laid to rest in Argentina. Apparently the hike was too much for them and they said enough! Goodbye AE shoes, its been real.

Updates

Hey everyone sorry we took so long to bring ya´ll up to date. Its really hard to get to the internet over here. Plus we keep running out of time. Wednesday we got in around 11 am. The couple we are staying with, Sebastian and Ruth are very nice. They made us a nice lunch of chicken. Me and Mike walked around their barrio, Barracas, and had some ice cream. You can see how tired I was

Thursday morning we got up early and went to Bethel. It was an hour bus ride to get there. Their Bethel is huge. Took all morning to see everything, starting on the first tour at 830. We still didn´t see all the printery since we ran out of time. We took the tour with some nice brothers visiting from the Colombia branch. They are going to the int´l assembly in Chile. Here´s a pic of the printing machine in argentina

After that we ate lunch at a buffet. That evening we went to meeting. They have a very friendly congregation. Friday me and Mike went to Calle Florida aka Times Square of Buenos Aires. We walked around and saw the Obelisco and Puerto Madero. I wasn´t feeling too good after that, think I caught a stomach virus so we headed back home. That evening at 900 we had dinner at a brothers house, an asado.

Saturday we took the bus tour of Buenos Aires. It takes you to all the major attractions in the city and you can get off and on as you want. It rained all day long!!! We went to the cementary Recoleta to see Evita´s grave. When we were going in we ran into some brothers and sisters who are here for the int´l assembly in Peru. They had their badges on so we knew they were brothers :) Didn´t think to take a picture with them till after they left. Today we had another asado aka bbq at the couple´s house we are staying with. I think its the best asado we´ve had so far. Right now we are in Caminito in La Boca. Their is a street fair going on and ppl eating and having a good time. I would upload more pictures but we only have 30 minutes on this computer so we´ll have to go for now. I´ll try to update again soon, hopefully in the next couple days. Hope everyone is doing well up there. Till next time.