Welcome

to my blog. I have very mixed feelings about blogs, but one with a purpose such as this one's--to simply log my experience traveling around [some of] South America, for the sake of my nervous parents, curious friends (Hi Ashby!) and fleeting memory--seems OK. Fair warning: most of what I write about will probably have to do with food, which has and always will be my top priority in life.

I leave for Brazil in three days. I have some kind of stomach bug and a sore throat and am hoping that these ailments are due to a hilarious, preemptive cosmic attack--i.e. if I am sick now I can't possibly get sick from bad water/tropical disease/food poisoning during my time abroad, right?

Here is the program with which I am going to Brazil. I will be living in the Atlantic Forest outside of São Paulo (in case you can't tell, I am really into hyperlinks) for five weeks, studying conservation biology. To be perfectly honest, I am not really sure what I will be doing, but I am hoping to see some monkeys, go on some hikes, and eat some delicious organic food (apparently there is a small farm on the premises of where we are staying).

After that, I have 3.5 weeks before I'm expected to arrive in Buenos Aires, Argentina (thought I should specify because I was earlier on the phone to a woman at HSBC who asked me if it was in Spain...). I am not quite sure what I'm going to do with this time. I'd like to see more of Brazil and I'd like to meet up with any and all of the people I know who are going to be there at the same time (Lucian, Tamar, Cora) but both my funds and knowledge of how easy it is to travel there are limited--plus, I really don't speak Portuguese, which is a problem, apparently.

Northeast Brazil (Salvador, Recife, Fortaleza) seems most appealing but, seeing that Argentina is decidedly southwest, it doesn't make much sense to go that far out of my way. I've heard good things about Curitiba and Porto Alegre, which are both south of Sao Paulo, and I'd love to spend some time in Uruguay, where I'd be able to practice my Spanish.

Then it's on to Buenos Aires, aka the Paris of the South or, as The New York Times recently dubbed it,"a throbbing hothouse of cool," which might be my favorite phrase of all time. I am trying not to develop specific expectations about any of my travel destinations/experiences but I cannot help but be extraordinarily excited about getting to know Bs. As. I've heard literally only good things and I just finished up a class called "Buenos Aires and New York," in which we watched a few really excellent movies filmed in and about the city. I highly recommend El abrazo partido, a comedy about a third generation Jewish immigrant coming of age in Once, a barrio (neighborhood) of B.A. and Bolivia, about an illegal Bolivian immigrant (oh wait, sorry, a person can't be illegal) who moves to B.A. to support his family back home. Unfortunately for him, he has arrived right in the middle of the Argentine economic crisis.

Speaking of economics, I just found this: a fantastic site with an itemized guide to the cost of living in a selection of major cities around the world. You have to register (for free) but it's worth it. I love/hate the internet.