Just a little touch of star quality

Once again a post coming in way late so it's posted on a fake date, here is a picture report of my recent trip to Buenos Aires and Uruguay!

I figure rather than going through a detailed narrative of what I did, I'll write a brief intro and include pictures to commemorate the highlights of the trip onto this blog of mine. So after getting back from the salar on Sunday afternoon, I continued hanging out with Ignacio and his family. We watched Game of Thrones from 9-10 pm so I didn't get back home until later in the night, which kind of sucked because I had a flight at 5:45 am and still had to pack. (Or rather, unpack and repack.) I slept around 2.5 hours that night and somehow managed to make it to the airport in a taxi, get on my flight, arrive in Santa Cruz in Eastern Bolivia, wait in the airport for an hour to be picked up, and then got picked up by a family that I know in the city. They took me out to get a salteña and strawberry shake before I showered and collapsed in exhaustion on the bed they prepared for me. I slept throughout most of that day, only getting up to eat. I was feeling kind of sick, though, which continued throughout the next morning even when I went to Starbucks and had a delicious iced coconut mocha latte with my good friend Ernesto. In the airport waiting for my flight to Buenos Aires, my stomach went into an inexplicable rage that I hadn't known before, and I was afraid of how much I was struggling to walk forward. Somehow I made it onto my flight, though as the plane continued to ascend, I ended up throwing up into the air sickness bag conveniently placed in front of my seat.

After that I immediately felt better and ready to take on my week of travel, but was still somewhat concerned at the fact I had thrown up in a plane for the first time in my life and the first time in circa 15 years. Because it was such a strange event I had to note it down, sorry.

Yeeeah so Argentina! I only stayed in Buenos Aires with my friend Federico, whom I met in the Rotex Convention last summer in Hannover. He's a student in political science at the University of Buenos Aires and lives in a small apartment with his brother and sister. I also met up with my friend from Harvard, Jessica, who was studying abroad in Buenos Aires this past semester and stayed on to do thesis research. Here's some pictures from around Buenos Aires.

View from the plane as it landed. Oh how I love huge cities! 

This really cool bookstore that I have a feeling is pretty well-known

I just thought this looked like a nice picture, with the cat in the cemetery and the grave and everything

Recoleta cemetery–got to see where Eva Peron is buried!

Jessica and me, reunited after not seeing each other in over a year. Last we saw each other, we made a plan to meet up in Buenos Aires while I was in Bolivia (hypothetically), and that we did. 

View from the ferry station. Man I miss skyscrapers. 

FEDEEEEEEE

While I was in Argentina, Jessica and I also took a side trip to Uruguay. We took a ferry from Buenos Aires across the Rio de la Plata (we couldn't believe that that huge body of water was just a river and not the actual sea) to a cute historic town called Colonia. The day we arrived, there happened to be a transportation strike, so buses to Montevideo were limited. Fortunately, we were able to get on one that departed a few hours after we arrived in Colonia so we could spend some time there, and then arrived in Montevideo.

Those apartments are my aesthetic

A nice photo spot 

Walking around the old town

This bookstore that sold new and used books

More of walking around the old town

Uruguay was pretty interesting. It's not really one of those countries that many people think to go to, but the main reason I wanted to go was to see a really good friend of mine again. Ana Laura is a girl (well she's almost 26 now) that I hosted in my room in Cabot during sophomore fall for a Latin American relations conference and we got along so well, so I was super super happy to be able to see her again! We most certainly had a lot to talk about, and I like to consider her another older sister figure in my life.

Her boyfriend Facundo (whom I also met when they went to Boston for the conference) took this picture. This was when I went down from the apartment I was staying at and they were waiting outside. She ended up giving that flag that she waved around to me!

The three of us having a really yummy dinner and catching up after almost two years

All in all, the trip went by really fast. I didn't get to see much of the cities and their usual attractions themselves, but what mattered most to me is the fact I got to see some dear friends again. It made me think of how I want to travel immediately after graduating; I want to be able to work and save up adequately so I can visit friends where they live, rather than constantly having to have a set purpose of travel like I have been the past few years. The latter is great and all, and I'll definitely travel that way again once I'm settled in a pretty cool international career, but I need a break. I think the whole vomiting episode was trying to tell me that, haha. (It was totally worth seeing Ernesto, Federico, and Jessica within the same day, though.)

Either way, I only have a short time left in Cochabamba, and I'm definitely going to make the most of it.