Trip to Buenos Aires

Like most of you guys might know, it is not good for me to travel alone, because then usually something comes up...
Amanda and me got up very early then to leave to the airport, I think it was not even 6 yet, when we arrived there we had to splitt up, after she was going to Lima and I to Buenos Aires (was a very quick decision I just had made 3 days before). So when I came to the Check-In it was not even opened yet, also it was just an hour before the flight, people werealready lining up big time. Anyhow when they finally started to check luggage, it took at least 45 minutes till everybody had a ticket, then I went to pay airport tax and to the check-in point for the international waiting room... YEAH, what to say, people were lining up again and the woman up front said, I am sorry I can't let anybody in quiet yet, because the airline hasn't confirmed the flight... Hmm, okay I thought, It's still ok, I don't have to switch planes in La Paz and will have 3 hours in Santa Cruz to change.... About an hour later, we were finally allowed to go through the passport check and the self-check-in. The problem then was just, as soon as we were in the international waiting room, which looks like this, a big hall with chairs, about 3 TV's and 2 restrooms, nothing more and freezing cold, an airline representative told us, they don't have a plane yet, so we will have to wait another 2 hours...Bien, everybody just thought great, we are freezing here and they are not even offering to bring in some tea or something... Anyways when the plane was there everything worked out just fine for a few minutes, at least until I was told, because I am having 2 stopps in Bolivia, I have to go through immigration, really nice, getting of the plane, running once around the airport to enter the same plane again, interesting have never been through the paperwork faster. When we arrived in Santa Cruz then, from where I was supposed to fly over Asouncion to Buenos Aires, we were already more then late, but at least a nice Airport Representative greeted us and helped the late comers to still catch the plane... me of course not without complications... I had to get my luggage out and check it back in and get a new ticket, because the connection was with another airline, after this was done. I went to pay airport tax and then to the self-check-in again, which seemed to be fine, till the guy finished searching through my purse and started taking a look at my passport, he decided I travelled to much in the last weeks and had to many south american stamps and was coming from Peru to go over Boliva to Argentina, so he told me, sorry but you have to go into this room over there for a body check for drugs...I just thought thank you, being late was not enough I guess... But lucky me, I still somehow got the plane in the very last minute. Then actually everything went quiet well I stopped in Paraguay and switched flights there, I met a nice scotish girl going to Buenos Aires too and when we finally landed in Argentina, we decided to take a taxi together downtown, after the airport is a bit out of the city and there is not really any public trasportation there. I arrived pretty late at my hostel and went kind of straight to bed to have the next day to explore the City. And it was really great, I had like the best weather ever and saw a lot of the center of the City that day, the next day I was already about to leave again...

Peru - Macchu Picchu

Wow I just saw how far behind I am in writing... Still in Peru, yeah, I kind of wish I was still there...
Lake Titicaca was really great, also the City around, Puno, is not that nice. In the evening of the day we visited the lake, we took a bus towards Cuzco, where we arrived at around 5am in the morning. Like everywhere as soon as we entered the bus terminal tons of people came to us asking if we would like to stay in their hostel or hotel, about an hour later, we made then our finally decision and went with Juri a really nice guy to his hostel, we had 2 nice little rooms for 13 soles a night, what is about 2,50 euros. The first thing in the morning for us was then finding out about the different options we have to visit Macchu Picchu, the great Inka City up in the mountains. Juri explaint us everything, it was just great, to make sure so that we will get the best prize we went in the City to check different travel agencies, after it was sunday we also got a better inside in Peruvian traditions, they had like a little sundays parade festival at the market place, after we finished our research we sat down in one of the little coffeeplaces balconies and enjoyed watching what was going on at the market. Afterwards we booked our trips for the next days, that also meant saying by to some good friends, Lucie and Franzi were going to take another trail then Amanda and me. The rest of the day we enjoyed hanging around the City, which is really beautiful and in the evening we even got the chance to meet up with our friends from Spain and Sweden and Maria and Chris again. 4 o'clock in the morning we said a last goodbye to the girls who left for their trip and then our trip already started as well.
Amanda and me had decided to do a 3 days trip and fly out of Cuzco on the fourth.
The first day started, we got picked up by a bus and drove to a place to pick up others, meet our guia Marco Antonio and get some bikes. When this was done the trip could really start, we drove about 2 hours up into the mountains and arriving there we decided the best thing to do would be put on more clothes, it was soooo freezing. Then ready to rock, everybody got onto a bike and they way down started, after about an hour we made a lunch break with a beautiful view and then went on, it was really great, the sun , the mountains, just everything... In the evening then we drove by bus to another town to stay there over night, I got a bit sick of that ride so and went kind of straight to bed to be fit for the next morning. We got up kind of early and had a nice breakfast and then starting hiking, the first view hours were really nice along waterfalls and through the countryside after lunchbreak so, we had to walk a view hours straight over train tracks, but didnt matter, when it started raining we could finally try out our ponchos, looking totally ridiculous so :D On that hike I also got a chance to talk with our Guide Willian a bit more and hear more about life in Peru. In the evening we were very happy when we finanlly arrived at the hostel, we were a bit afraid, cause everybody who had been there had told us, they had the worst hostel ever there, but surprisingly we got one of the bests we had throughout our whole journey through Peru. This evening Amanda didnt feel so good from the hike, so we decided after we both werent really fit, we will take the bus in the morning up to Macchu Picchu instead of hiking. After a bit of trouble with getting up at 4 in the morning, we took a bus at 5 and met the others right in front of the gate up on top and were even fast enough to catch a ticket to hike up wayna picchu, because only 400 people a day are allowed to go up there, to keep it saver. The first 2 hours up there we had a guide showing us everything and explaining todos. It was really impressive. We also saw the sun rise over the mountains soooooooo nice. Around 10 am then, we just relaxed in the sun, which was another weird point after everybody hd told us the days before they were up there and it was pooring rain, anyways I convinced Amanda to do the hike up Wayna Picchu, we took our time and made stopps all few minutes, but at the end it was really worth it, we had a totally amazing view all around and towards Macchu Picchu. Around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, we took another bus back down to the village, had some lunch and catched our train back towards Cuzco, where we spent the night and got up early to leave for the airport, but thats a totally different story again, I will tell soon. Besos

Arica and Lake Titicaca

We arrived in Arica the northest big City in Chile and went on the search for our hostel. It was a nice place, we shared a room with 2 canadians and it was my first hostel where I got a welcome snack... We also had our own kitchen and bathroom, really nice.
The next thing we did was going to check out the bus times for the next day to Peru, the problem was just that the people told us there won´t be any busses going to Peru the next day because of a strike... We said ok we´ll see and went to an internet place to check our mails and there we found out that the guys were in Arica, too. Stefan, Jono and Thomas flew to Arica after their little "adventure" in Brazil, what a nice coincident. We called them up and just a bit later we found us in the city with them and Wally and a lot of Torres de cerveza. Was a great evening. The next day then Amanda and Franzi, Luis and the Spanish arrived in Arica as well and it became an even greater reunion when we found Maria and Chris walking by at the busstation :D
After a nice lunch in the City and some hang out time at the beach we took a bus to Tacna in Peru and it was actually pretty fast, maybe an hour and we were there. YEAH PERU!!!
Peru is really so different from Chile, you see it the moment you cross the border. It is very colorful and the women all wear those big skirts and carry a ton of stuff with them. The spanish gets slower and a lot easier to understand.
Our actual plan from there on was to take a bus right away to Puno to see Lake Titicaca, but after the strike from the day before all busses were booked out, so we spend a night in a very simple and also very very cheap hostel, had some food from a street stand and took the first bus in the morning around 8am. The thing with the busses in Peru is, you should never trust on their given schedule. We planned on arriving around 5, seeing the lake doing some stuff and taking a night bus to Cusco, but like always everything came a bit different :D
We arrived arround maybe 8.30 and then decided to stay over night. Amanda and me were pretty hungry and went out to get some food and we found this really nice little pizza place across the street, sooo good, Pizza baked over fire and coca mate tea.
The next morning we went to get our bus tickets for the night and walked down to the harbor to take a boat out on Lake Titicaca. We went on those swimming Islands made out of reed, it was pretty interesting to see that people live like this, its like a whole village out of islands like this.
soon more... :D

In the hostel...

we met a really nice American Lady who told us about all her travels, she like started out in Argentina a couple month ago and worked her way up through whole Chile, mostly through hitchhiking, crazy. She told us the next day she wanted to go on and visit the gigante de Atacama, a great big drawing made in the ancient times out at the desert. We spontanously decided to go with her and as soon as the new day started Lucie, Mara and me were off to the desert. The gigante is really pretty big and in the middle of the desert in the total silence.
After being out there we enjoyed a nice lunch in a very little town, think it was called Huara or something similar and then or ways splitt again Mara went to Arica and we hitched to Humblestone. It was actually pretty easy to get a car to stopp and take us :D Humblestone is an old Salpeter town,
where you can go around and visit all the old buildings and production places, which was really interesting, especially seeing how the people lived, we read before in our lonely planet that the people working there were kind of bounded to the area and the boss from the factory also owned the city and paid the people in special money which they could only use in the city and so he kind of got all the money back and non of his workers could leave him because they didn´t have real money.
The time came that we felt like no more walking and we left and stopped another car at the street which took us back to Iquique.
The next morning then we catched a bus to Arica. The funny part was we were waiting for it and it was late and then when it was there we didn´t know that it was our one, because it said Atacama Vip as company and we booked Pullman, but apparently they are working together but nobody told us, so we got it like last minute, when they called out our seat numbers :D But anyways it was a great ride, about 10 minutes into the ride the guy came up to us and asked if we would like to move downstairs to the more comftable cama seats, because he wanted to start cleaning the upstairs, so we said why not and really enjoyed the next 5 hours in the bus :D
Ok time for a second breakfast, I will continue later ;)

Vacation

Hallo mal wieder :D
Guess where I am... YEAH!!! Buenos Aires, but just for a day so...
Lets start from the beginning. I cant believe it, its already about 2 weeks ago since I started my journey.
It started out with a lot of goodbye evenings, like the one at Mels place we bought a lot of stuff and made sushi, sooo yummy. Then the last friday night we spent at the Australiens place, kind of the way we startet into the semester :D Was a very late night. The next day Stefan was off to his adventure and I had to pack, really not easy, how do you know what you will need in a 4 weeks vacation??? and I had to pack everything else as well and move out of my room.
Then the next morning it startet, I said bye to my hostfamily and left to meet up with Lucie with who I would spend the beginning of the vacation. Her hostdad drove us to the busstation and after buying a few empenadas for the ride we were off, 26 hours up north :D Was such a nice ride, I had to get back a ton of sleep and was out for about 20 of the hours.
Then we arrived in Iquique, it is such a nice city, the busstation is packed so, I really dont know how they do it but there are busses over busses and one blocks the other. Our hostel there was a bit weird, they cleaned up our stuff in the closet and there was always a person on the floor and you kind of felt watched, but all in all it was nice, with a great church on the other side of the street.
The city was just lovely and the beaches, with soo high waves. We went to eat everyday, you could get a whole meal with soup, segundo and drink for about 2,50 euros. In the hostel ... to be continued... have to free the computer...

How does it happen that time goes by soooo fast....

Hi everybody it's me again :D
what should I tell you, I had a few very busy but also very fun weeks again.... A couple of good Parties, a couple of good chats with you guys and a few not so good tests :) I am also still working on finding an internship and am still on the search for every single spanish word I can find on my way through life :)

First the most important thing: THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for all your nice Birthday Wishes I am really so happy to have you all as my friends !!! After this was like the biggest thing happening in the last few weeks I guess I gonna tell you about it in this post.
Like you all know, I usually don't like birthdays that much and try to keep quiet and not do anything, what never works so. Yeah, this year it didn't either, but it was more because one of my new friends over here, Amanda, has the same birthday as me and after she is american and turned 21 this year, we needed to have a big thing going on... ( I of course spontaneously decided to turn 21 as well :P ). We already started planning for the party a whole while ago and then we figured out that our friend Franzi has her bday right a day later, so why not celebrate together and then when Jono heard about our plannings he was in too and so Cumple^4 was born :D
A bit later we decided we need to have a nice party area and found a nice big room we could rent, the good thing was the room came with two security guys and a cleaning crew for the next day, so was a pretty sweet deal. Next thing we knew, we need a name for it and after a bit of thinking over a nice dinner at the Asian Buffet, we decided we should make something out of the beginnings of our names, outcome???: Joder!!! La Mejor Fiesta del Año!!! --- the best Party of the year. So, what now? Of course, we girls decided, we need to dress up and went dress shopping, YEAH!!! Amanda is just so lucky, there is like no dress which doesn't fit her and they all looked great. At the end the decision fell on a real nice one, I will add pics ;) Franzi and me needed a bit more time to think and at the end we came up with a pretty simple solution, we wear some we already got and save some money. Worked out very well, after I have a dress nobody knows about, at least until that day. It got more and more exiting day by day.

The night before my bday then we went into the Sheraton, the fanciest hotel in the City in the Bar to have cocktails and when they heard its our bday, Amanda and me got a plate with cake and it was made so nice, it was written Feliz Cumpleanos on the plate and everybody got a glass of champagne. Afterwards we went over to Jonos place and played poker through the night. The next day my plan was to sleep all day, after I never find much time for sleeping and after I knew my only Birthday wish wouldn't get fulfilled anyhow, why bother getting up. Lunch was really nice, my host mom had bought German Beer and we had nice talks and I even got a present, she had bought me really beautiful earrings. In the evening we girls were invited for a dinner at Maria's place who had decided to cook for us, and how she cooked, soooo good and soooo much nobody could ever eat in a week. It was a real nice evening, at the end Chris came over and brought us choclate, so sweet and then Amanda, Franzi and me decided it is time to go to the Casino.

The next day, which was Franzis Birthday we met in the evening after classes for Pizza at Jonos place and played picturnary (however you would write it), but not with drawing, with pantomime. Great fun especially after it was in spanish and nobody really understood all teh words. The rest of the week flew by pretty fast, we went shopping for decoration and drinks and suddenly it was Saturday the big Party day. The night before I already received my present, which turned out to be a Poker Night with drinks, I think the rules were something like this, whoever goes out has to drink a shot of beer, over 500 lost, baileys, who loses Jägermeister and who wins can chose, I guess you can imagine the end of the night. Jono also gave us presents, really great of him, we all got a candle, chocolate and a scarf, YEAH
But now La mejor Fiesta. We had invited all our friends and had told them to bring even more friends, we were so nicely dressed up and the room was decorated, we had totally great security guys and the best music. I think it worked out unbelievably fantastic. At 2 am we left and went into the city in a club and danced till it closed. It was really good, I mean there are always some downsides, but there were also a lot of highlights at the party, somewhere inbetween I lost my tiara so...hmm... Anyways it was definitly one of the best parties of the year, most people no recuerdan mucho, but that can talk for itself, too, I guess ... The best part is still, that we didn't have to clean the next day...
Until soon again, lots of hugs and kisses in the world

Where to beginn...

it's been a busy, great and crazy time. 

About 2 weeks ago, I decided it is time to plan the next vacation :D But where to go? I thought it would be a pretty good idea to go visit the girls in Uruguay. After a bit talking, everything was planned and Stefan decided to come too, so I booked the flights with vacation in sight, work didn't really go easier but kind of faster.

The weekend before the journey then we had a big intercambio party with the Motto, wear your Pijama. So the girls and I went to get some Party PJ's. Before the party we had a Pre Party at Amanda's place which was pretty cool, a lot of people already showed up there in their PJ's and we had a lot of fun. Around midnight we arrived at the club then, after it was an intercambio party, we had free entrance, but it was still not that easy to come in for some of us after the security wanted to see ID's. Inside then we had to see that even it was a Pijama Party almost none of the chileans were wearing one, kind of boring, but that didn't matter, we were in a good mood and dancing all night. Some of us even won in the contest. When we left we had an interesting collectivo ride home again, after we were more people then allowed in a car again because Amanda had lost her key once more and stayed over in our place for that night, but that's really no problem over here you just pay the driver a bit more.

The following day, I met up with Franzi and Lucie to watch Germany's next Topmodel, I didn't have any idea about it so, after it was the first show of that season I watched, but at the same time one of the final ones. Was fun so. Afterwards we went over to the apartment of the spanish guys for a semáforo party, for everybody who doesn't know what that is, semáforo is a traffic light and it means everybody coming to the party needs to wear a shirt or a sticker of the color they belong to, red for in a relationship, yellow for in between and green for being single. Great party with a lot of nice people. 

A few  more days of hard work for university and the trip to Montevideo started. Tuesday night we went to Santiago and visit Britta, because we stayed at her place over night, was a short night so, after we talked a lot and had to get up around 5 again. At the airport it all went pretty quick, although it was weird to see some people wearing masks, because just 2 days before Chile got the first case of the flu. In Montevideo they then even had 2 doctors with a camera observing all the people landing at the airport. We left the airport and were suprised that it was so quiet and not like in Santiago where you are welcomed by a flood of Taxi drivers who kind of fight for your attention. Annika had given me directions to her appartment, so we took the next bus we saw and drove into the City. The suburbs looked a lot like the Santiago area, but coming downtown, the City seemed not that big considering Buenos Aires or Santiago.

About 45 minutes later we arrived at Annis place and were welcomed by her landlord, because she was still in class. We had a nice talk with him, who had a lot to tell about the world. He is british and living in South America for about 2 years now, one day he just came saw the one house he liked and bought it, started fixing it up and has students living in it now. It is so nice, high walls, big doors, some rooms even seem like you are in a castle. After listening to the story of his whole life and all the places he had already lived at Anni and Maren came, yeah :) Everything kind of fell back into place and was like we never left Germany. 

First thing we went out to eat, I forgot the name, but it was some kind of very typical burger for Uruguay with likly everything you could think of, bacon, eggs, potato salad... We also got first impressions of the downtown area and took pictures of the bears of the world which were just visiting :) The next days really run through like nothing, we went shopping and to parties, I finally got to cook again and on Saturday Stephi and Bene came. It was just soo great to have this little IM Reunion. We went through the City had some coffee, talked about good old times and just enjoyed the time together. Sunday night then we went to have a steak and it was really so good. Bene  got a new mission now in finding a better one in Argentina :D Monday our already last day, was a bit full of work Anni and Maren had to do research for a group work and I had to write a paper, but nevertheless we had a great time.

Around midnight or 1 in the morning then, we decided now it's time to have some choclate to stay awake, but we didn't have any anymore, so Anni and I decided we need to go and get some :D Montevideo has those little night kiosks. We were actually suprised how many people we still met outside by that time, busses were going and the some security guards were taking night pictures with the bears :D At the little shop then we met a nice guy from Mexico and bought some Milka. It's so weird, because at nights those shops have their fences and stuff down and you have to talk through it with the people inside to tell them what you want, then they are showing it to you and you say yes or no and pay :D I jsut love 24 hours shops. After having that snack I worked through till 5 and slept 2 1/2 hours before we had to get up and leave. That's also why my story today is kind of short and with not that many details, I am kind of tired and still have a lot of work to do, but thought it would be nice to give you guys at least a little update on our time here ;)

The flight back was pretty relaxed then, so nice views on the Andes and then being back in Santiago, where it took us a while to enter again, after the people checking your papers leaving and coming back have different impressions of what you need to give in or not, so we were missing a paper, because they took it from us when we left... but all is fine again, we are back :D back in the crazy world of chilean life. 

I will add some off Annis pics to my story, after my camera still needs to be fixed (the people at the Nikon store said it will take 3 month if they send it in... so I will try another place in the City)

Have fun and enjoy life, I will be talking to you soon