the ywammer conference

day 1:

they already got me in the kitchen helping to cook for the masses and cleaning the bathrooms in preparation for the masses arriving. i got here monday morning and hung out with the few people i still knew. most people have either moved on from ywam or have gone to other bases. the turnover rate here is really high as well, so it's impossible to expect things not to change. but things have remained the same a little. the people that have remained are just like i remembered them. there is one girl left that was in my school, and a couple of leaders as well. it's been fun hanging out with them and catching up on the past few years. there's one guy named ruben, that i BARELY remember. he not only remembered my name, but what school i did, and other random details, i was shocked. i honestly would not have remembered his name had he not tattooed it on his arm. 

as far as food goes - that night i made some coleslaw salad with the dullest knife i had ever seen. also, there was no grater, so with that terrible knife i had to thinly slice up a carrot, and dice garlic. i am pretty sure it took an hour to make, and 7 minutes to eat. 

day 2:

everyone's running around like mad cleaning all the rooms, laying pavement, picking up trash.  my job is to help where needed. mostly that consists of the kitchen. i found out the guy in charge of the kitchen has just finished studying to be a chef. so we talked food and restaurant stuff while slicing and dicing food for a dinner for 70 people. people were so stuffed from dinner that they didn't even come back for seconds. i spent the evening chatting and meeting more people. a couple of people have asked where i am from and are surprised to find that i am from the united states, most thing i am from europe, maybe it's cause my hair is always in braids?

a romanian pastor is trying to recruit me to work on the base in administration. he is a strong minded fellow, and isn't afraid to speak it. it just so happened that the one man heading administration for the entire base was listening in on our conversation, and has hinted quite obviously that he wants me to stay on after the conference to help him in all things admin. thankfully i had the presence of mind to ask if he was a good delegator, and if he was able to communicate jobs that needed to be done. he shook his head yes... so i need to talk to him more. oh joy, for another decision to contemplate, pray about, and talk with my parents and the man in my life about. i swear i don't LOOK for them. 

day 3:

mendoza base arrives

puerto madryn base arrives

and the base is filling up. 

 

it's so great seeing tons of friends of all over the place. even watching it is pretty fantastic. you know the end of "love, actually" it's like that ALL the time these days on the base. 

tonight is dinner for over 150 people, so i better get to the kitchen!

Celebrating the End of Valentine's Day

february 14th nothing happened. ok that's not entirely true, but by the time we truly started it, it was over... 

i woke and made matias a breakfast of german pancakes/dutch babies. every day we eat lunch at 1pm, and since i woke up at 10:30, i wanted to make something light but still special. matias' mom couldn't understand why i wanted to put a cast iron PAN in the OVEN, but decided to let me try it anyways. the batter is super easy, and even though i used 7 tablespoons of butter not TEAspoons. they turned out great. with some fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar our breakfast was complete. 

lunch was even better with chicken milanesa and coleslaw salad. i never get tired of eating milanesa which is the latin equivalent of germany's shnitzel. i thought about asking for it, but never got around to it. mirian must have read my mind. the rest of the day was low key. matias is in the midst of studying, and i try to stay out of his way so as to not distract him. 

at 9pm i started to get ready for our night out. i curled my hair and put on makeup for the first time in a month. when it gets too hot i cant be bothered to do my hair or put on makeup because the heat melts it away. luckily the day had been cool, and the night was perfect. i wore my black tuxedo-ish LBD, and when matias saw me he actually said, "wow." then he asked me if i thought he should change. he looked good, of course, but was considerably more casual than i. after i picked out some clothes for him, we were on our way.

we went to a sweet little restaurant that i love called "rafeala's resto bar." a younger guy owns it, and it's operated by his friends, so the environment is more youthful, more relaxed. the place actually has ambiance and tasteful decorating not to mention a great salad that has me coming back over and over. 

matias had made the reservation for 11:30pm a few days before through the owner that he had befriended on facebook, and so we got a great table right in the front. they had live music which consisted of a man, his two guitars (one electric, one acoustic) and his laptop. we had a menu of songs to choose from with themes of love or breakup. more than half were in english, and those consisted of mostly the beatles and beegees and a random selection of other one hit wonders. it was quite interesting to take in, because one moment the guy would be preparing the crowd for the next song or interacting with his friends that had come to see him and celebrate the night, and the next moment he would be singing in perfect english. the thing is, the guy only had an idea of what he was singing about. it's equivalent to me singing a pink martini song in french. i know the song is about not working, but that's all i really know, but i love how it sounds so i sing it anyways. 

i always complain about how all the restaurants serve the same food, and there is no variety. at this restaurant they do things a bit different, and for a great price - that's why matias likes it. we ate filet minion served on top of baked potato of sorts and embellished with jam lightly toasted in the oven. it was quite tasty and i tried to make it last as long as possible. we worked our way through a second bottle of bubbly white wine with the help of a brownie topped with ice cream. they served a cold glass of bailey's with it, but i wasn't in the mood for that. 

2 entrees of filet mignon (less than US $7.00 each)

2 bottles of wine ( just over US $ 8.oo each))

2 desserts ( US $3.50 each)

                    = 132 pesos = $US 38.00

NOT BAD

from there we met up with two friends/classmates of matias'. we joined them at a bar and shared a bottle of beer, then headed to a club. there was a line that made no sense. the "velvet rope" definitely served to keep people out, as they stood in a nonsensical manner trying to get in. i inched my way to the front with matias behind me to try to pull the "i am a foreigner, give me special treatment" card. but it didn't work, and soon we lost patience. we headed to another locale, but that turned out to not work either. we got in fine seeing as there were only 9 other people in the entire place. we shared another overpriced beer, and once the music went out, we took our cue and left. next up was ice cream. i was so tired by this point thanks to the late hour and alcohol. at 5am the ice cream place was packed, for them the night is still young and has only started an hour or so before... i don't understand how they do it. matias saw i was about to fall asleep right then and there, so we headed up, and i crashed into bed.

i barely woke in time for lunch, but it didn't matter cause i wasn't very hungry. during siesta, matias decided he wanted ice cream. so while he went and got it, i made brownies. we feasted that day on steak and ice cream... just like polly anna. 

it did end bittersweet though. that evening i left for buenos aires. all i could think about was the perfect valentine's weekend i had just had. i like to the think that the 15th we celebrated valentine's day being over more than anything else.

barefoot and, uh, in the kitchen

i have been keeping myself busy with trying to cook new things in the kitchen. every night i cook dinner for matias and i. ever since i got back from portland it's been expected in a sense. matias always asks me what's for dinner. his mom asks him or me what's our dinner plans. she cooks for her man, and i cook for man. it's sweet. so far my cooking skills have been met with approval. i brought some curry supplies back with me from portland courtesy of dok koon, so i have made that a couple of times, i also made "artesenal" raviolis which involved a 2+ hour effort. matias wanted an "american" burger" so i got ground meat instead of the pre-made patties, and made a monstrous burger topped with some sort of bacon/ham thing and sauteed mushrooms and even pickles. i found refried beans imported from mexico in the grocery store as well as some tortillas that were barely passable by my standards. they did their job, and we had quite the mexican feast. me being the daughter of a bakery owner i have also cooked up some sweet things too. namely a heaping baccone dolce with peaches and kiwi, fluffy cupcakes, and of course the ever so popular brownies. 

matias has a little paunch that hasn't gone away since going to portland, so far i don't mind because it's filled with my good eats.)

tennis balls and thunderstorms

i finally returned to playing tennis. my first day back i found the schedule had changed, and i wasn't allowed to be in the guys' class anymore. since i got ehre an hour early, i did an hour of physical training with a few other girls. it was nothing compared to what i had to go through back when i was playing in the elite's class, but seeing as i am terribly out of shape, i felt the effects in no time. an hour and a half after i showed up for class,

i was finally hitting some balls. it was really humid outside, and you could see clouds not too far off. all of the sudden the wind started to pick up, which i welcomed with open arms because the humidity was melting me. that wind brought a surprisingly cool gust through the courts. matias was waving for me to come over, and everyone else was starting to scramble to get their things together. the trees were waving in the wind creating quite the ruckus and the wind had really picked up. i joined matias off the courts, and just as i got off the courts i turned to see the clay dust swirling in the wind. it was quite the sight. everything happened in about thirty seconds, matias made me run to the car, because  he didn't want to be under the trees in the wind. he sped home, and we got all the cars pulled in, and closed the gate.

 

as soon as i stepped into the house, the rain began to fall. i went upstairs to shower and the noise was overwhelming. the rain poured down in sheets. it was so hard and so fast, it's what i would relate to a monsoon. it last longer than i expected, and an hour later when matias and i went to find some food to eat, some of the streets were flooded. it came so fast and suddenly. after i went to bed, it continued. i opened the blinds in my room, so that the i could see the lightning from my bed. the street lamps kept flickering on and off. 

i loved it. the rain brings such a relief from the heat, and i feel like the air is scrubbed clean. i had a little smile on face during the entire experience

seasoned traveler

i am getting used to the airplane back and forth to argentina, but it doesn't seem to get easier. i still pack too much which doesn't make going it alone any easier. i had one big bag, and two carry on sized bags as well - and i only have two hands. it was quite the workout and balancing act getting my bags from the airport and checking them at the bus terminal, and everything in between. at the airport, i met a couple from portland who were coming to live in argentina for a year. they didn't know what to do upon leaving customs, so i teamed up with them, and we took an airport shuttle to downtown buenos. i shared with them all the advice i could think of off hand about argentina and buenos aires. we parted ways upon arriving in the capital - them going to their apartment in palermo, and i heading to retiro, the bus terminal.

 i had the entire day to kill in the big city. it was morning and i was already exhausted. i found a bench in the plaza of general san martin, and like a could argentine would do (and do do daily), i stretched out on a bench, and took a catnap right there in the middle of the park. upon waking up i walked the famous "florida street." it's solely a pedestrian street filled with people hawking leather coats and painting of tango dancers in buenos aires. now it's more or less a tourist trap, i walked the length of that, and ended up at the casa rosada, argentina's equivalent to the white house. once again i parked myself on a bench, and watched the tourists go picture crazy over the "mother's of plaza 25 de mayo." they are women (and a handful of men) that don't let the faces of their sons or daughters be forgotton. in the 80's, the diry war happened, and the military basically kidnapped anyone who they deemed a threat and they were taken to secret prisons and subsequently killed. thousands of argentines are still missing, their bodies have never been recovered. now the women mostly old, march around the center of the plaza carrying pictures of their still missing children. it was quite the sight... mostly because all tourists flocked to the ladies to take pictures much like the pigeons to the bread crumbs that the children would throw just feet away. 

gathering my energy, i walked down to the port area, called puerto madero. the marina is there, and the entire area has been remade up and made into a nice walking area. i tried to find my way to the beach front, but it turns out you can't get to the water because of the ecological reserve stands between the city and the coastal area. all that walking for nothing. i had been walking so much that knee hurt so much i had to change the way i walked. i am not known for using the correct shoes for walking...ever. a half hour later i hobbled my way back to the bus terminal, and watched a movie and charged my laptop until the head cleaning lady got really mad. i tried to pretend i didn't understand. unfortunately it was extremely obvious what she was saying. i couldn't figure out why she got so upset, was i sucking the power of the entire bus terminal through my laptop? hmmm

finally i boarded the bus, and slept through the night, and awoke to find myself back in resistencia, chaco, argentina. 

home for the holidays

my trip home to portland went perfectly, and i was so happy to be able to see all of my friends and family. good solid quality time with my family was incredible. even better was having matias there and showing him my life. i consider myself lucky, blessed and all of the above that everyone got to meet him. he was a man of few words, but at least people know that he is real and not a figment of my imagination. the snowstorm was great and not so great at the same time. i holed up with natalie and her family, and had a snow day with the fitz fam, i even shot 12 feet into the air on the epic 1080p sled... that made me shrink a couple of inches, and actually confined me to bed for an entire day... stephen never did give me that back massage he promised. 

matias arrived on christmas day, and all the worry that i had gone through thinking about the flights  not leaving from or arriving to pdx was forgotten in an instant. as soon as he got in i felt like a smile was plastered to my face. the fam holed up at the snow lodge in eagle crest, oregon. tennis night, dinner feasts, little kids running all over the house, and  snow walks filled the next few days. i have never experienced a christmas like this one. watching the kids tear into their presents and seeing pure glee on their faces was priceless. i couldn't have asked for a more perfect christmas holiday. 

upon arriving  back to portland, i set out to show matias my town. we hit up every store owned by nike with the the first day or two. i also showed him the good eats. he ate sushi complete with spicy wasabi, we stuffed ourselves on lebanese food, feasted at "wild abandon," burned our mouths on thai food, and of course went all-american with a burgerville meal. i showed him all over portland, and we even took the tram up to OHSU, so that he could see the hospital. we kept busy, and were only slowed by the ever reoccurring sinus infection. two weeks of portland, and matias returned to north caroilna to hang out more with his brothers. i stayed another week or so at home, and then made the trip over down south to argentina land

i am so type casted

saturday i made tiramisu

'nuff said.