Argentina Part Uno

For Christmas this year, Ryan and I took a trip to Neuquen, Argentina to spend the holidays with my parents. My parents have been down there 6 months now and we really wanted to go and see them and experience Argentina. After a very long flight from New York to Buenos Aires, we were picked up at the international BA airport by a fabulous driver named Jorge. Jorge was a very cool guy and gave us a brief tour of Buenos Aires. The only problem I had was that he didn't speak any English and I can barely understand Spanish. I was left to wait for Ryan to translate or to listen really carefully for the basic Spanish words that I did know to enter the conversation. Needless to say, I just looked at the buildings. :)

We went to the Boca soccer stadium, ate some awesome food from a cart on the sidewalk, and saw the Casa Rosada... Argentina's version of the White House.

Casa Rosada

Boca Stadium

Then Jorge took us to the domestic BA airport and we had to wait several hours for our flight to Neuquen. We finally arrived in Neuquen late that night after being in airports or on airplanes for a day and a half. It was the best thing ever to see my parents!!

We spent the next day in the mission home and then we started our travels. We went to all sorts of cities that are in my parents mission. My dad needed to interview each of his missionaries to check on them and find out how they were doing. We went to so many different cities that I can't even begin to remember their names. It was really interesting because the first part of Patagonia we were in looked just like St. George, Utah but had a lot more wind.

Here are a couple of pictures from Puerto Madryn. I really liked this city, the beach was really pretty and we also had the best steak dinner there. I love how cheap the food is! We got very high quality Argentine beef for about one-third of the price than we would in America, I was a happy lady!

Look how cute my parents are!

Now, for pictures from one of my favorite parts of our trip...the penguins. We went to a penguin reserve and it was amazing. I loved walking amongst the penguins. They are very funny little creatures.

Here they are in their little holes

The little babies come out so cute and gray

This video is fabulous and we were laughing very hard at this penguin that seemed like he wanted to just come home with us!



After touring half of the mission, we went back to the mission home to spend Christmas, which will be discussed along with the rest of the trip in a second post. I don't want to go overboard and bore you all to death!