We stayed with Ronaldo, who stayed in Marthas house in the Netherlands in 2011. He lives in Gravatai, which is about half an hour from Porto Alegre. We slept in the house of his girlfriends family and were treated like princesses. Her mum made awesome food, we weren´t allowed to help with anything and the first evening  Ronaldo, Leticia (his girlfriend) and some of their friends took us to this "Christmas "- city, which is a very popular place to go to in the south of Brasil. It was already way after Christmas but for the first time this Christmas feeling you normally have ( in Germany) came up. The whole city was lightened up with christmas decoration, you could hear christmas music out of every store and there was even a choir singing, of course, christmas songs.
One new experience Martha and me had, was eating chicken heart!! If think about it know, I think its really gross...but in reality it tasted just like some kind of meat ;) I wouldn´t eat it again though. Jajaja

New Years Eve we were invited to celebrate with friends of Ronaldo and Leticia. In general we had fun and enjoyed celebrating the New Year in Brasil with these lovely people, but I´m totally ready to celebrate 2013 with my family and friends ;)

The brasilians do have some weird but interesting New Years traditions though. They say you should eat lots of lentil soup, seven grapes and jump over seven waves to be lucky and get rich that year. Of course I did all three things...lets see how it works out. Logically I will get home with no money left but you never know what happens! HAHA

The day after New Years, Ronaldo and Leticia showed us the center of Porto Alegre. As you can see on the picture its really green. In times it rains a lot but that didn´t bother us. No big news from two girls coming from the Netherlands and Germany...

After leaving Gravatai, we went north and stoped in Florianapolis for one day. It´s know for having some of the most beautiful beaches in Brasil, which really means something!!! Maybe you can´t tell from the picture but it really was one of the most beautiful beaches we had been to in Brasil.

Hasta el proximo "post"

Un abrazo

and I move on...

Very short post about our way from BsAs to Porto Alegre (Brasil):

We took a "Buquebus", thats the name of the ferry that crosses the river, to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. We got there in the afternoon and had the whole day to see the city and chill at the beach, cause our couchsurfer had to work until 8pm...
In the end we missed the last bus to his house because we forgot about the time difference...stupid, I know :D From that moment everything totally got out of control and we ended up taking the last bus to Montevideo and sleep there in the terminal! At least we were lucky that the terminal didn't close over night^^
A little tired and sore from sleeping or trying to sleep on the seats in the terminal, we headed to the beach of Montevideo. A really nice and quiet beach...at least in the morning ;)
In the afternoon we walked through the city and had a cafe with a german tourist we met. He identified us as germans when he saw my "Deuter"-backpack :D
In the evening we had bought a bus ticket over night to Porto Alegre, where one of Marthas friends lived, with which we wanted to stay for a few days.

Yap, thats how we got there!

Hasta luego

Pictures

Roof patio of our hostel

una ciudad muy linda^^

Wir sind die coolsten, sind die coolsten,
wenn wir durch die City cruisen ;)

barrio "La Boca" en BsAs - is famous for its very
colorful houses

"La Bomba" - awesome every-week-drum-show

Theater "Colon"

Colonia in Uruguay

Montevideo - really nice city with nice beaches ;)

 

Christmas in Buenos Aires with 35 degrees

The time in our hostel "Lime house" was really fun. It is located in the middle of the center on one of the main streets! We mostly spent our time in the hostel when it was too hot to go outside. We talked to people from all over the world, made friends with them, chilled in the lounge or on the roof patio or played pool! We also went out a couple of nights...at 12pm on Christmas Eve the whole hostel got together in the lounge/bar area and got a free drink. At 2am about twelve of us started to get ready to go to one of the most popular christmas parties in BsAs. The entrance was surprisingly very cheap, considering that everyone warned me before that going out in BsAs is really expensive^^
We could have even got in for free as we found out when we got there. We only had to tell them that we were friends with some guy (forgot his name) and the next minute we were in! Since we were still pretty early-for argentinien standards-the club was not very crowded. Still, the four different areas plus the terrasse right by the water got very busy after one hour. The party was awesome! It didn't feel like christmas at all though. We danced the whole night until seven o'clock in the morning, saw the sun rising while standing on the terrasse and met really nice people. Some of them I will probably see again in Australia or NZ ;)
After getting home we waited until the breakfast was done and decided after eating to just not sleep and instead cycle around the city with our rented bycicles. We got a special offer over the holiday weekend and got two days and a half for the price of one :)
Well, that was my very different Christmas 2011!!
More from BsAs later, hopefully this time told by pictures ;)
Un abrazo a todos que quieren :-P
Nina

Buenos Aires!!

Martha and me couchsurfed the first three days with Jorge, who lived with two friends in a house 20 minutes outside the city center, in a quiet and nice neighboorhood. After picking us up from the train station, he had to leave for his work. Thats how fast you get to a house of your own in BsAs ;) Pretty amazing how trustful the people on Couchsrufing are...
Since we didn't sleep in the night, we were really tired and slept the whole afternoon. The guys came home in evening and we talked a little with them. They seemed really nice, realxed and satisfied with their lives. They all played instruments and had this hippy-thing to be all relaxed about everything^^ Even after Jorge almost broke his butt while playing football (at work!!), he didn't complain and busied himself with playing on the guitar.
In the night a friend of him picked us up and took us to a Club/Bar/Restaurant, where we listened to live-music and drank something. Really nice night with good music.
The next day we went into the city and explored a little bit of the city center of BsAs. Its very green with lots of nice buildings. I really like the architecture of the buildings. Not like in Santiago, where most buildings got destroyed by earthquakes, some of the builings in BsAs are pretty old but really good taken care of.
The "teatro Colón" for example is one of the oldest theaters in Argentinia and looks amazing from the out-and inside. We even bought tickets for 10 Ar.$, which are like 2€, for a ballet on our last evening in BsAs. We only had standing places but it was amazing anyways...
Back to our couchsurfng experience again...Jorge and his housemates, which all work in the same place, took us to their office and Nico (the chef of the work) made us some nice food. By the way, their office is awesome!! Its a villa, located in a nice neighboorhood near their house, with a pool, a huge nice kitchen and a fire place in their huge garden. They all have a key for it and are allowed to go there whenever they want! Best work I have ever seen ;)
Teh next day it was raining so we spent our time helping Nico (Jorges housemate) cooking 120 Empanadas for his family christmas dinner and of course got some to eat in return. Sooo good!!
I the evening we packed and went to our hostel, which we had booked over christmas...

Stay with Justo in Rosario

Justo lives together with his sister in an apartment a few blocks away from the big river. It's really nice there...Rosario in general is nice to stay in for a few days. There is this huge river, a little beach a little bit outside the center and a good shopping area.
The first day Justo showed us around the city and left us in the afternoon to study, since he had a big test a few days later...
Martha and me discovered a bit more of the city the next days, went out with Justo and got to know some of his friends, had a nice afternoon in the pool of his cousins apartment and went with him to the beach the last day.
All in all a very realxing and nice stay in Rosario.

Thank you Justo :)

Getting from A to B takes a while in Argentinia

A very short post about the trip from Rio Gallegos to Rosario --> where Justo lives. For everyone who doesn't know him: In 2009 he was the exchange student from my best friends family for almost a year!

1. Bus from Rio Gallegos to Trelew, 12 hours
Arriving in Trelew we left our luggage in the terminal and took a bus to Gaimann, which is a small welsh town. People there still now a few words in welsh, there are typical welsh houses and you can visit some typical tea-houses. It was interesting for Martha to go there since she was born in Wales...it was pretty quiet but also kinda cute. All in all a nice way to kill time until your next overnight-bus leaves ;)

2. Bus from Trelew to Bahia Blanca, 14 hours
We stayed in Bahia Blanca for one night. After two days of sleeping-or at least trying to-in the bus it was really really nice sleeping in real bed again! The city is nice but one day is enough to see everything, so it worked out pretty well for us, since we bought our ticket to Buenos Aires (BsAs) that same night.

3. Train -yes, they do have trains in Argentinia- from Bahia Blanca to BsAs, 16 hours
The train was a lot better than we thought and were told! Everyone kept telling us we shouldn't take the train, because it would be too dangerous and uncomfortable but we really wanted to try it...so we bought the ticket, which was actually three times LESS expensive than the bus would have been. The only thing that is a little annoying is that the train takes a lot more time to get from A to B. Planned were 14 hours, but like always we got there two hours later. In BsAs we had to get from one Trainstation to the other one to buy our ticket to Rosario...the subway is pretty crowded and after being only in little cities the weeks before, we had to get used to the big city again.

4. Train from BsAs to Rosario, 7-8 hours
We were sooo bored, because this time it wasn't a night train and we didn't have anything to do...at the end we didn't die off it and made it to Rosario.
We had the address of Justos house and a map of Rosario so we walked there and were welcomed by Justo, who was actually looking for us at the station before ;)

That's how we got from A to B

See you later