popnea, Author at a popnea blog

Chapelco

July 29, 2010 by popnea

I dug up my iPod from my ski bag last night so the 30 minutes up the mountain from San Martin to Chapelco was a big sing-along fest. Once we got there, it was a little gray, and the mountain didn’t seem that big, and a little boring – not much mountain to speak of, more like a big hill. But, what the heck, lets make the best of it!

We went straight to the top, and the first run down was in snow blizzard. The snow felt awesome under our feet, a few inches of fresh powder, but I get emotion sick when I don’t have a point of reference to concentrate my eyes on, and it feels like you are going super fast while you are standing still, so the first run was not that great. I did not have to whine for very long before we found the trees.

The tree runs were beautiful! All by ourselves, fresh tracks, reference points, rocks and small drops, a huge playground!

Another great day of skiing, and we didn’t have to hike!

Around 3:30pm, and 6 hours of skiing, I think we all had a couple of more runs in us but we decided to call it a day as we were heading further south, to Bariloche. We had a map over the roads in Argentina and they were all color coded, green means stay away, red means a well maintained road that is hopefully paved. It’s a little backwards, but we are in the southern hemisphere so green means stop and red means ok go!

We picked a road that was red on our map, we didn’t drive very far until we had to stop.

Then a couple of miles later it turned into a dirt road.

That soon turned into a mud road! Great, we only had 100km to go!

There were a short moment when I thought we might have made a wrong turn somewhere, but we kept on meeting other cars and trucks and we eventually, after a couple of hours made our way to San Carlos de Bariloche.

We checked in at a hostel that was located on the 10th floor with great views over the city. A Swedish girl was working in the reception and recommended we go check out an italian restaurant down the road. It was packed when we got there and a 45 minute wait to get a table, so we reserved a table for tomorrow instead and tumbled into a stake house instead. They also had a 45 minute wait to get a table, but happen to have a good wine cellar with a bar where we patiently waited.

It was closer to 11pm when we got our food, but it was well worth the wait!

Bariloche has a few casinos, one was on our way home. I’m not much of a gambler, but Magnus loves casinos and while the guys were debating whether we should go in or not, I took the initiative and walked through the door. The rest did not hesitate and walked straight to a black jack table. I watched them loose some monies for a while before one of them gave me 100 pesos and told me to sit down and play with them. One drink and a bunch of high fives later I had doubled the pesos and it was time to check out!

San Martin de los Andes

July 28, 2010 by popnea

The road didn’t get much better this morning, so we quickly decided to take it easy, not rush to the mountain, get there when we get there and chill in the town instead.

San Martin de Los Andes is a small town with a population of 24’000, at the foot of the Andes, only 45km from the Chilean border. We got there around lunch time and immediately went exploring.

I was in the hunt for a postcard for my grandfather and a new first layer to ski in (the first layer next to your skin that is keeping you warm and dry by soaking up all the sweat). I only brought one first layer, and all the hikes have made it stinky – I was in the need for a new one anyway so I might as well buy one here!

But first things first, lunch!

What is the deal with every country that has mountain has good chocolate? It is not necessary a good thing for someone like me with severe chocolate addiction.

And then ice cream off course!

Since it’s a relatively small town with only one main street, we managed to find my first layer shirt quickly, but unfortunately no postcard for my grandfather.

They have siesta in Argentina, which means – We’re eating dinner late! With this in mind we went to the supermarket to get something to snack on at the hostel while waiting for the dinner hour.

Loving the prices here, yes, a bottle of really nice wine for 16 pesos, which is about US$4!

And the 1 liter bottles of beers off course! Much more social to buy one large bottle and share than many small ones!

On the way home I was kind of in my own little world, as usual thinking about happy clouds when I suddenly caught the boys drooling while staring at this window. Sorry Nea, we’re eating this for dinner tonight! Quickly in to make a reservation for 9:30pm!

El touristo!

Back to the hostel for a game of dominos and backgammon.

Playing with the flash – to cool for school!

We were all super excited for dinner, this was gonna be our first proper dinner at a restaurant together, and the guys were gonna get to eat whatever they were gonna get to eat… When we were about 5 steps away from the restaurant where we had reserved a table, the whole town turned black. The city ran out of power! Everything was dark, except, wait, our restaurant still had power! We are pretty good at picking restaurants!

Whats cooking?

Argentina are proud of their red meat, and they apparently know how to cook it as well. I would not know since I dont like red meat. But I’m not so picky and there is always something on the menu that I can eat, like seafood or chicken, and if not there’s always fries and a bowl of ice cream. Since the Chileans really know how to cook seafood and we were only 45km away from the Chilean border, I ordered trout, which was awesome!

After dinner we went to an Irish bar that we had spotted earlier, but they had a horrible horrible cover band, I swear I could have done it better! And the beers were a little over priced so we called it a night early so we could get up early and dandy to ski in the morning.

Las Lenas Day 2

July 27, 2010 by popnea

The wind picked up during the night so the first couple of runs of the day were a little wind packed.

Magnus doing the classic “did I hit a rock?” check.

We soon found a face that looked good with soft snow, a quick 30 minutes hike up and off we go!

We like leaving our stamp in the snow, as you can see, there where still plenty of mountain to rip up!

After lunch we though that this was a good peak to hike.

We took the lift as high up as we could get, signed off our lives on a document and off we went to the words of “Loco gringos” echoing in our heads.

It is always comforting when you walk by one of these signs:

As always, we are well prepared with plenty of water and snacks for the hike… or not. But we made it to the top, the hike itself was not so hard, but the altitude and the thin air make me feel like I have a lung capacity of a 70 year old that’s been smoking all her life.

We made it to the top, the view was stunning, as usual with snow covered mountains!

The Andes

Magnus was the first one to click in the skis and throw himself out.

Johan was next.

And then Geico

He made a small tumble, but was soon back on his feet.

After this amazing run it was time to call it a day, we had planned to head down south to a different mountain to ski on tomorrow. We only had one last long run in the groomed tracks to get down to the car. My legs were so tired I had to make plenty of stops, when your legs are tired, there are two ways to get down: you either go super slow, making many 180 turns, or you just keep your head up and make a straight line down the mountain without doing any turns. The later is only recommended if you know the mountain well, or if it is fairly empty so you don’t have to be a responsible skier and be aware of co-skiers. I did a combination of both. During one of my many stops, Magnus came up me to asking “Man, can you feel the burn in your thighs?” -I was to tired to even come down in position to get the burns in my thighs! But I made it down safe and in one piece.

We were 4 people with luggage and equipment in one small SUV, it was a little tricky to fit everything in.

But since we are the Tetris generation, we managed to squeeze everything in and still have room for 4 people.

Or 3.5 at least. We only had an 8 or so hours trip ahead of us, so it didn’t matter if one of us only could get one cheek down, as long as the driver was comfortable!

Good Bye Las Lenas, you were awesome to us!

We had a fairly long trip ahead of us. We had planned according to the maps, that it would take us approximately 9 hours to get down to San Martin from Las Lenas on Ruta 40. If we were lucky enough, we would get there before midnight, and if anything came up along the way, we would only be a couple of hours away and we could to the last leg tomorrow morning and still have plenty of time to ski the next day.

But who knew that Ruta 40, a decent size highway in Argentina only had one lane? Once you got behind a truck, you had to stay there for a while before you got a chance to pass.

Or that a little later, the road would turn into a dirt road that was so bumpy you thought the car would shake apart if you went faster than 40km/h?

So, it took us a little longer than planned, I managed to fall asleep in the back seat and woke up in a town in the middle of nowhere where we decided to stay over the night. I have no idea where.

Las Lenas

July 26, 2010 by popnea

Traveling on long distance buses in South America is like travel business class on any airline, super comfy, and you get a little meal as well! It was a little chill on the bus this time, but there were plenty of room so we got some good sleep in before arriving in Las Lenas and hitting the mountain.

My two friends from Sweden picked us up from the bus, we jumped in the car as they had heard that you could park at the hotel a couple of minutes up the mountain for free, rather than paying the 60 pesos down at the regular parking lot.

We were all geared up and ready to go when a car pulled up and started to questioning our choice of parking spot… were we hotel guests? Did we have a room? We off course played dumb and did not understand any Spanish at the time, when the gentlemen in the car tried to explain in English, we played even more dumb and did not understand any English. After a while Magnus just said “Amigos” and pointed at the hotel which seemed to work as they gave up, said it was ok for us to park there and drove off. Yay, we were ready for some fresh snow after 50 hours of traveling!

But wait, we forgot about lift tickets… Magnus and Johan already had theirs as they got to Las Lenas a couple of days earlier, but me and Danny still had to buy ours, the problem though was that we were now at the hotel, and we had to buy ticket from the office two lifts away.

In proper el touristo manners we sneaked by the first ticket controller, and I sneaked by the second as well as she looked away, but for geico it was a no no, he could not even use his gieco charm to explain he was only one lift away from the ticket office.

Not a big deal, the rest of us just got the ticket for him and a few minutes later we were all ready to go.

Magnus and Johan thought it was a great idea to do a hike for the very first run, me and Danny was swearing and hating and regret that we even showed up in Argentina! Hello – first run… we’ve been traveling 50 hours straight, comes fresh of the bus and you guys want to do a hike! Didn’t we just buy lift tickets?

After 30 minutes of hiking straight up, Johan said this is good, we all agreed! But then he started to hike again, he is like a mountain goat!

The rest of us had enough though and stopped where we were letting him hike up the rest by himself.
Me at the in-run, waiting to do the first turn of the season!

Which ended like this…

I ate it in the very first turn 🙁 So much snow though that it didn’t hurt. A lot of people laugh when they see a ski or two up in the air, but it is a technique to master to fall correctly… you want to get the ski’s up as soon as possible to prevent to get all tangled up, break a leg or loose a ski in waist deep powder that if you are lucky will find two ours later. Got myself organized and managed to stay on my feet for the rest of the run. 30 minutes up and 30 seconds down, but it is so worth it!

Johan blazing down the mountain.

The Las Lenas ski resort surrounded by the Andes.

Happy geico after a good run!

We checked out the other side of the mountain after lunch, the lift took us up to the peak, but we traversed over to where the snow seemed better, we just had to cross some rocky patches.

Lots of snow!

After ski beer at the hotel, since I was the first one to fall, I had to buy the first beer.

We’d heard there were a supermarket somewhere closed by, so after the beer, we all jumped in the car, hunting for the market. We had a feeling it was located behind a gate so when the gate opened for a car, we sneaked in behind. This was a high alert signal for a security guard who came running towards us, waiving his arms and gave us time out gestures. Someone from the backseat shouted FLOOR IT! But Magnus, the designated driver would not listen and politely stopped. Here we go again… Spanish? No habla! English? What’s that? Supermarcado, supermarcado! – That didn’t work either, so it was just for us to turn around with the tail behind our legs.

We stayed at a newly opened hostel in the small village of Los Molles, some 20 minutes down from the mountain. Breakfast and dinner cooked by a japanese chef was included. It was only us 4 staying at the hostel, and it was nice to catch up with old friends I only see once every or every other year over a bottle of wine after a good day at the mountain.

Made it to Buenos Aires

July 24, 2010 by popnea

We made it to Buenos Aires 6 or so hours later than scheduled, it is always exciting to see if my bags made it or not. Since our flight were delayed, and we had a few hours in connection, I had a strong feeling they would make it this time.

The bags made it, we are in Argentina! Unfortunately super delayed so we missed the connection flight that were supposed to take us to Mendoza. Not much to do than to see if there was a later flight we could take. We were supposed to get into Mendoza around lunch time but would be fine as long as we would make it to 2:30am when our scheduled bus was supposed to leave.
The first thing we saw as we stepped out from customs was a McDonalds, awesome!

Since we already knew in Atlanta that we were gonna be 6 hours late coming in to Buenos Aires, we checked with Delta to see if they could book us on the next flight, they said there were only one flight a day going to Mendoza, so we had to wait for 24h or, check once we got to BA if there was another airline serving the route.

I thought Heathrow was the most unorganized airport in the world, but this was before I’d been to Buenos Aires international Airport. We went to the information desk, whom sent us to the domestic terminal to speak to Aerolineas Argentina, since they are partners with Delta it was no problem to get on the next flight out to Mendoza, leaving the same day, but 7 hours later and from a different airport. No problem, we would make it in time for our late night bus!

Aerolineas Argentina said we were on the plane, but since the ticket was issued by Delta, we had to go back to the international terminal to get our actual boarding pass.

Back to the international terminal we got sent to the Delta office, whom seemed closed, but a Delta employee pointed us to the Delta help desk which was on the other side of the terminal. Once we got to the help desk it was closed, we asked Air France help desk which was next door (and partners with Delta) and got informed the help desk opens 3 hours before the next flight leaves. Great, the Delta help desk would open up after our flight already left, but from a different airport, and the Air France staff could not help us. We walked back across the terminal with all our gear to the Delta office which now was open. They were very friendly, gave us a confirmation and arranged for a taxi to take us to the other airport.

Once at the other airport we had about 6 hours to kill, we took a stroll around Buenos Aires, had lunch and got back to the airport in time to check out what was on the menu. Any yes, the prices are in pesos and not in US$.

We finally made it to Mendoza, with plenty of margin for our bus to leave, so I bought a deck of cards. It turns out, an Argentinian deck of cards only have 48 cards, 4 x 1 to12. We asked if this was normal and, “yeah yeah, that’s normal” when we asked what games they play with the 48 cards, there was a long silence followed by “I don’t know”.
They know how to drink in style in South America, with 1 liter bottles of beers!

The bus arrived at 2:30pm and we are ready for a 6hour ride, heading south to Las Lenas.

On My Way to Argentina

July 24, 2010 by popnea

Got up early in the morning to catch a 10:15am plane to Argentina. Got to the airport at 7:15am only to find out our plane was a couple of hours delayed. Not much to do than to go get breakfast.

We made it to Atlanta a little delayed, we had plenty of time for our connection and started to wonder around the airport.

Only to find out our next plane was even more delayed, we were about 5 hours delayed by now, but why worry about tight connections in Argentina, when there’s airport bars in Atlanta?

Popnea Vs the DMV

July 16, 2010 by popnea

A while ago I decided to take a motorcycle license, and it turns out it is easier said than done…

About two months ago I had a scheduled appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles to do the written test required. But I got sent back with my tail between my legs and a note stating I had a pending ticket and a failure to appear in court from 2006. Thats all of the information I got, and a phone number to an automatic answer machine asking me if I wanted to pay the fine of $380 dollars. I thought it’d be ridiculous to pay $380 without knowing what I pay for so I got an appointment to appear in court a month later.

In court I was told I got a fix it ticket of $20 for having a broken stopping light on my car. I remember getting this ticket, and I also remember fixing it and got an “Ok, you are good to go” from the police station in Manhattan Beach, but since I had no record of it, I had to plead guilty of the violation and pay the $380. Ok, so that sucked, but it cleared my record.

After clearing my record, I got my motorcycle training done and all I had to do was the written test and I would have my license.

The DMV website says “To allow you sufficient time for testing DMV will not be administering written or audio exams after 4:30 p.m.” So I made sure I got there at 3:30pm. It turned out it was a huge line and by the time I got to the register it was already 4:50 and was told the test area was closed but I should go over there to have my photo taken and if I were lucky they would let me take the test.

I was lucky and they did let me take the test. I knew I had to take the regular drivers license test as well as the test for the motorcycle and was surprised when the gentleman pulled out a test, turned it over and scratched out the entire back, leaving half of the test out before handing it to me. I asked if that was it and he said yes. The test was super easy and when I returned to get it corrected, I questioned it;

Me – I’m not sure this is correct…

He – No, no one ever thing they got the questions right

Me – No, but I wanted to do the test for the motorcycle

He – Oh, OH, but there is no records of it on here (showing me the document I got from the other check in desk) she must have made a mistake. It’s to late for you to do that test today, but I will correct this one for you and you can come back tomorrow and do the other test, you wont have to stand in line, just come right over here before 4:30pm and you will be fine.

Great! He corrected the test and I got all questions right.

Came back to the DMV today to do the test and managed to get there right in time before they closed the gate at 4:30pm. I told them I was there to do the motorcycle test, gave them the document from yesterday that stated I had already passed the regular test.

I was handed a test with 45 questions and I was allowed to have 8 questions wrong and still pass, there was a couple of questions where I had no clue what the correct answer was and a few where I was unsure, but the lady corrected it and I only got two questions wrong.

Great I passed the test, now what, do I get my license?

Lady – But wait, you wanted to do the motorcycle test

Me – Right

Lady – But this was the regular test

Me – But I did the regular test yesterday, I was supposed to do the motorcycle test today

Lady – But this is the regular test, it says on here you passed it (showing the record from yesterday), I did not write this, who gave this test to you?

Me – The gentleman that was sitting over there, the same thing happen yesterday, they gave me the wrong test and I was told to come back today… how many questions is there on the motorcycle test?

Lady – 15, it’s really to late to do the test now (it was already 5:15 and they were supposed to give out the last test at 4:30 – and I was supposed to be somewhere at 5:45)

Me – But, they told me…

I’m looking at the watch and debating if I should come back tomorrow or just give up my dream of getting a motorcycle license all together… and she hands me the test.

15 questions, I am allowed to have 4 answers wrong. I am super stressed, having a hard time focusing and have to read every questions 3 times to understand them.

There’s 7 questions I am unsure of, some of which I had erased and changed my mind on.

I handed the test over to get corrected, exhausted, nervous and a little bitter. I got the first couple of questions right, then 4 in a row that was incorrect… OH NO! But then I got all the others right, and wohoo, I’ve got a motorcycle license!

The real deal will show up in mail in 2-4 weeks.

Just Chillin’

July 13, 2010 by popnea

I walked by a pet store today and saw this cat chilling in the window. I dont think it will take very long for this one to get adopted.

World Cup Finals

July 12, 2010 by popnea

I was invited to my adopted sisters future in-laws to watch the world cup finals. Those of us who knew a little about the world cup supported Holland, the rest did not know who was playing.

I usually dont drink alcohol between 12 midnight and 12 noon, except for bubbly wine, and Mimosas are acceptable.

English confectionery is rare around here. I have never been a big fan, its grown up sweets for me, my taste butts have not gotten used to some grown up things, like coffee and grown up sweets, but they look cool!