Brittni’s Blog

Penguin Colony from Brittni Daley on Vimeo.

My friends and I have been planning this trip for months and it was all worth it! My super tight group from the DC program had 12 of us and all of us made it (even if just for a dinner) which is really amazing! Those of us living in the bay area drove down together and made a week long road trip out of the event. Here are most of the activities from the week:

Day 1 - Me and four of my friends drove down to LA. When we got there we drove around a bit, did some touristy stuff in Hollywood, climbed up to the Hollywood sign, went out to Persian food, and then to a bar in Newport called Sharkyz.

Day 2 - We woke up early and headed up to bear mountain to go snowboarding. Unfortunately, the resort was sold out of tickets when we got there so we just drove back towards Newport and down the coast. We got some great tacos and clam chowder at Crabby’s in Huntington Beach and stopped at a little park just south of Laguna for an amazing sunset. Then went down to LA and out to a great Japonese Restaurant called Yakitori.

Day 3 - We went out to a great breakfast, then went to Balboa park, took a nap next to the fountain, saw a magic show, explored the science museum a bit, watched “Wild Ocean” a the Imax theater, and went to my friend Christine’s place to have a party and bring in the new year!

Day 4 - Christine, Ainslie, and I went down to old town San Diego, got some Mexican food, explored the shops and museums, and got some taffy. Later we met up with a bunch more old friends from the DC program and went out to dinner at Buca di Beppo, then back to an apartment where Jenny surprised the three December babies with a birthday cake, then we all went out dancing at a club called PB, then back to Christine’s apartment and partied til the break of dawn!

Day 5 - After the big party we had a loungy day, hanging out, went out to Pho, taking naps, watching movies, and that night we made a big dinner like we used to do all the time in DC.

Day 6 - We headed up to Irvine, went out to sushi, and hung out in a park for a while. Then went to the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel where my aunt works and got us a great discount. We had an amazingly pampered afternoon at the Ritz. First we watched the sunset over the ocean from the balcony of our ocean front room, then took a long walk on the beach, then went out to dinner at a local restaurant where we watched a great Charger game (and they won in overtime!). When we got back to the hotel waiting for us was delicious champagne and decadent chocolate covered strawberries that my aunt had sent to us. Then Ainslie and I put on bathrobes and went to the jacuzzis and explored around the hotel.

Day 7 - We woke up at the Ritz and drove back home to the bay area.

Just for fun!

I had a very safe and fun New Year’s with my friends in San Diego, California, but I wanted to share this story about my old roommate in Buenos Aires. Cydney Schwartz is a 20 year old girl from New York City, but she is wise beyond her years.

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Robbed on New Years Eve.
Posted on 12/31/08 at 11:20pm
I was robbed, ½ a block away from my house in daylight. I was moving out of my apartment, and planned to catch a cab to my friend Jenny’s house. I walked to the corner of Libertad and stood looking for a cab, but nothing. It was New Year’s eve, people here don’t like to work on the holidays. A man told me to walk a block toward Nueve de Julio, which is the main highway here in Buenos Aires, and is pretty much what I would have done anyway.

So I walked, in the safe neighborhood of Tribunales, ½ a block from my house, with all of my stuff, in broad daylight. I am almost at the end of a block when a couple approaches me. They come to me, swiftly and quietly, with out saying a word and grab my bags on both sides. The man is short and dark–the woman is skinny. I pull away, and yell “no no,” then the woman presses something cold on my throat and says, “callate!” I keep saying “no, no” and then I realize, there is a knife on my throat. So I relent. The man takes my giant backpack, and the woman takes my purse with my passport, credit cards, $100 in cash, tickets to Uruguay and Salta, and camera. I walk to the street corner, sit on the ground and begin to cry. I cry and cry and cry. I cry because I am not one of those stupid travelers that walks down dark alleys and waves money around. I cry because this is the first time I ever carried my passport, credit card, and camera together. I cry because I just bought a new black sequined top that that stupid toothless bitch won’ t even fit into. I cry because I am scared and angry and sad and I had a million plans for the next few months and it had all just turned to shit. Mostly I cried because we live in such a shit world where people are so hungry and desperate they have to turn to this kind of violence. People passed by, tried to comfort me. The police were called and promised to look for them—sure they would! I just cried and cried sitting on that street corner, feeling the places where she had pressed the knife.

It has been four hours since the robbery, and I’m still not ok. I shooken up, I’m scared, but mostly, I’m sad that the world is the way it is. I am sad about terrorist bombings in Israel. I am sad about the genocide in Darfur. I am sad that there is war, and homelessness, and corruption. I will be fine, but those people will be living on the street their whole life.

I have been living in a bubble. Sure I did tons of volunteer work in high school, taught English in Africa this summer, witnessed extreme poverty, but all of that was on my own time. I had a home to go back to, a life to look forward too, and while terrible things were happening, well, I had my bubble. This whole experience, it had made me realize that I am not immune to the decaying world around me. I am a spec of dirt beneath the inferno. I can never ever go back to my bubble.

I have always been a big dreamer, but dreams, dreams won’t feed that child sleeping in a cardboard box tonight. I need to start doing things, because if all we ever do is dream, everything will stay the way it is. Changing the world is not something I want to do when I grow up, its something I want to do today. Well, today just happens to be January 1st. So Happy New Year everyone! But more than that Happy New World!
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I don’t want to make my friends (and mainly my dad) more nervous about me going back to South America than they already are, but this could happen anywhere and isn’t that common in the places I will be going in South America.

After flying back to the states, I had two days back home before I headed up to the slopes at Squaw Valley with my dad and brother. Although the season got off to a late start, the conditions this weekend have been superb. Beautiful fresh powder, but warm and not too blizzardy. A ski trip was the perfect way to get my dad, brother, and myself away from our busy lives and catching up with each other. I also learned that beautiful, fluffy powder + high end tequila = BIG AIR and Lightning speed

What to do during my last days in Argentina? Eat steak! Truthfully, though, the steaks here were definitely one of the highlights of my trip. Richard and I came back from Iguazu on Saturday morning (my birthday) and then went back to Tigre, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires with canals for streets. That night we went to a tango show which was really great and then back to our favorite restaurant, Desnivel. Sunday we did some Christmas shopping at the Recoleta Market, a local crafts market, and then I met up with my old roommate, Cydney. Monday we did a bit more Christmas shopping on Florida Ave and that night went to La Bomba, which is a big outdoor drum concert and met up with people from our old Spanish schools. For anyone in or going to BA, I recommend going to La Bomba if you get a chance, its every Monday night and a lot of fun. That night was my last night in Argentina (on this trip, anyway) so we had dinner at La Cabrera, where we first met. I guess all in all we had a pretty lazy last few days, but whenever I started feeling guilty for not getting out to more museums and doing more sight seeing, I just convinced myself that I was on vacation and needed to relax before coming back. Plus, I think I did pretty much everything I wanted to do during my first month in BA from Sept-Oct.

At the Japanese Garden in Palermo	On the boat in Tigre
At the Tango Show	The Tango Show
One of many, many steaks. So delicious.	Sorry to all the Veges out there.
.	Action shot.
Birthday dinner at Desnivel.	.
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Real beers.	At La Bomba
Last dinner in Argentina. Unfortunately, I don\'t remember much.	.
.	Frozen margarita. A little bigger than I expected.

For my last trip in Argentina before I come home for the holidays Richard and I went up to the Iguazu Falls for 3 nights and 4 days. Although the bus ride was 16 hours from Buenos Aires, we did the super cama (super bed) option which is like the most pimped out bus ride you can imagine. Free whiskey, wine, champain, good food, good movies, and a great big chair that fully reclines (pics below). I know it sounds like I’m spending a lot, but the truth is that its only about a US $10-15 dollar difference from the lower option, so I believe its well worth the upgrade.

I had heard a lot about the Iguazu Falls before I went, but was still very impressed and glad I had an opportunity to visit them during this trip. The first day we arrived we went to the National Park and did a boat tour that took us right underneath the falls. What an experience! I couldn’t take a video or pictures myself, but decided to purchase the video they took and although I look ridiculous in it, I posted it below so you can see how much fun it was!

Alright, so Richard and I talked each other out of taking classes in Buenos Aires in December and going traveling instead. After we met up in Buenos Aires (he was in Antarctica) and a few days around BA, we took the ferry over to Uruguay. First we spent a day in Colonia, which was a cute little town with many little museums, parks, and a lot of Portuguese history. Then we spent a few days in Montevideo, the capital. We did a tour of Torre Antel, walked around Plaza Independencia, saw the city founder (Artigas’) remains which are always guarded, went to the Carnival museum, went to the flee market, did a tour of the Teatro Solis ( a bit of Spanish practice). And you know me, the highlight is always food We ate at Mercado del Puerto which was a huge indoor warehouse-type-building with a bunch of parrillas (barbeques) inside. It’s very similar to Mercado Central in Santiago, but with parrilla instead of fish. It was really busy because there were a ton of people off of a cruise liner that was docked for the day. We tried to go to a few other museums, but unfortunately we had a bit of bad luck because they were closed.

We also came across an interesting group of French musicians who were playing on the street. I’ve been wanting to learn the saxophone for a while and watching how much fun they were having makes me every more enthusiastic to learn. I also looked up there website, which I found quite interesting:
http://www.globenote.org/site/accueil.php
I’m uploading a video of them now. Will post soon.

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I took an overnight bus from Bariloche to Puerto Madryn. Arrived in Puerto Madryn around 7am, found my hostel, dropped off my stuff, and went on a whale watching tour. We had really great luck with a mom and baby Southern Right Whales (Ballena Franca Austral in Spanish). They came so close to the boat I could almost reach out and touch them and they were both doing so many tricks, such as jumping straight out of the water, sticking their tales up, and rolling over on their backs so we could see the whites of their stomachs. After the whale watching we went to a small Penguin Colony on Peninsula Valdez and then to the museum on for the national park on the peninsula.

The next day I did another tour. The first part of the tour was dolphin watching and the second, main part was at the Punta Tombo Penguin Colony. The dolohin watching was fun, but they are so fast that I didn’t get any pictures of them, but I did get some video. (The picture below is a picture I took of another picture). The Penguin Colony was really great. I loved watching the little guys walk around, and couldn’t believe how many of them there are there. The guide said there are around 500,000 magellan penguins that come each year.

That night my hostel prepared a great feast and we all ate, drank, and hung out for many hours. Though this hostel is run by locals, there happened to be a big group of Irish there at that time, so I got to learn a lot about Irland. They also taught me a bit of Gaelic and told me that I shouldn’t spell my last name with an “e” haha. Thought that was quite interesting.

The next morning was really beautiful so after I checked out of the hostel I walked along the beach with a couple of girls from my hostel to the ecological museum. Unfortunately, it was closed so we just hung out for a bit at the beach and walked around the town. That afternoon I took a bus back to Buenos Aires.

Peninsula Valdez	Geared and ready to go!
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The mama waving \"hello!\"	The mama and baby side by side
-	Big, fat, lazy sea lions
Me and the tour guide	Yes, I took this picture ....of another picture ;-)
It walked up closer to me after the pic was taken	Soooo cute!
...yet such mean little buggers	-
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Armadillo! I named him Willy :-)	-
-	The feast and the hostel

On Sunday 11/23 I took the bus to Puerto Montt and then to Bariloche. Then went to my hostel, Penthouse 1004, where I met a bunch of people, drank wine, made dinner, and hung out. On Monday I when on a hike with a group near the Frey Wilderness. Unfortunately, we took a wrong turn in the beginning and didn’t make it to the Frey, but we still had a great adventure, a fun hike, and took a lot of scenic photos. The group I was with has traveled extensively in Australia and South-east Asia, and a bit in India and after hearing their stories I’ve been getting really excited to explore that side of the world.

On Tuesday I rented a tent, packed the sleeping bag, food and warn clothes and we made our second attempt to the Frey. After a 12km hike with a bit of steep uphill we arrived at one of the most scenic places I have visited on my trip. We hung out, made dinner, drank wine, played cards (learned some new drinking games), and spent the night in the tents. A few of us woke up early Wednesday morning to watch the sunrise. Then we hiked back and rechecked into the hostel.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and a pretty lazy day for me. I was planning on making myself a nice Thanksgiving dinner, but was missing family and didn’t feel much like celebrating so I walked around town a lot, did a bit of shopping, a lot of reading, went to an ice skating rink, and went to my first Catholic church service (and doing so got in a bit of Spanish practice). That night the hostel had a big wine tasting party and went to a bar afterward which was a a lot of fun.

First diner at Hostel 1004	-
-	First attempt to the Frey
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Wait...which way is that arrow pointing?	Uggg...men! hahaha.
-	Heavy tent, but was worth the work.
Refugio Frey	-
-	Almost a bird eye view of the lake (in previous pic).
-	A little after sunset.
I need a better camera because this does not do that sunrise justice.	(from my friend\'s nicer camera).
On my way down from the peak.	-
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-	Dang, I always jump too early.
Wine party at the hostel on Thanksgiving.	-