Baxter State Park - BHS Outing Club - Hike - The Owl Mountain

A week ago, we went to Baxter State Park (5 or 6 hours away from Brunswick) with the Outing Club of the school.

It was one of the best experiences I've ever had with the nature, and the mountains, it was awesome. We lifted our tents, and made a bonfire every night! I had such a great time! It's one of those things that will remain in my mind forever :)

The first day, we met at the school parking lot, and left the facilities at 8 am, aproximately. We traveled for a little while, and then stopped at Subway for lunch, until we got to the park. 

Once we were in the main entrance, you just had to travel a little more, up the hill. After that, we got to the place reserved for us. It had very big green spaces, ideal for the tent, and a place for the fire, and a little cabaing with picnic tables, where we had supper.We ate spaghettis with meatballs that we cooked. It was a good experience to survive in the camp, with a stove and some utensils. 

We made the spaghetti and ate a lot of it. It was so good! and we had cookies for dessert! Yum!

After the gathering, and the meet by the fire, we decided to hike the owl, instead of Kahtadin, the highest mountain in the park. After that, we went to sleep.

In the morning, we had some oat meal, for breakfast, for energy, and cooked our bagels for lunch. After preparing everything, we headed to the entrance of the owl trail.

When we started, it felt tireing to go up, and It felt infinite, but pretty soon it got good, and even tough it was very high, when we got used to it, we had not so much troubles. I had to slow down anyway, because I was leaving some of them behind. 

After struggling with all those slipery rocks and logs, and tricky obstacles, we got to the summit!(1:20 PM)

The weather wasn't as clean as I expected, but It was grateful to finally get there, sit in a rock, and eat the bagel, and apples, and trail mix :P

 Then, the fog went away a little, and we could enjoy the view of the rounding mountains, a view that will always be in my head.

Finally, we went down the mountains, in 2 separated groups, me and Connor leading. When we got to a sign, we were supossed to go to some strange falls to find with the other group,but  me and a friend just got back to the entrance. I was so tired! 

Crazy Thing: We ended the hike downhill, we left the trail, and minutes later, another friend comes saying that some of the teachers were pissed with us (I was shaking). 

After that, WE GOT BACK TO THE F+CKING TRAIL, to look for the others. It was a lame idea, but we had to do it.

Conclussion: In the end, everything went great, and we were very satisfied of having done that (twice). I'm very happy I joined that club, and I'm looking forward to Blueberry Mountain

Random Things

Tomorrow, I'm travelling to Baxter State Park with the outing club and I feel very excited. I already have my backpack prepared and all my stuff...
But there's some stuff going trough my mind, that I cannot put away. Its just very sad how different are we, just by little things. North-americans, have a lot of opportunities to be someone, to get a job that they enjoy doing, and there's lots of jobs a person can take. This is a country with job's opportunities! I just hate that in my home country, most of the jobs you take, they just rip you off and go over you. And also, I found out that EVERY SINGLE PERSON that works HAS to pay School Taxes.
North-americans keep complaining because schools cut programs off, even tough the people pay their taxes! I just put my mind to work and tried to imagine how good would education be from one day to another, if we just paid school taxes (in Argentina). The School facilities would improve, and the school personal will surely be better paid, and more motivated and willing to transform their students into self-thinking minds, that will have the necessary tools to life.
And if there's better education, then there is better students, that graduate, study and become workers, and the work of the people is what, nowadays, we want it or not, take our countries ahead.

New York! - Long Island, NYC.

UHUU!"#$%%&& (? - This was kind of what I was feeling when we got here haha. "The Empire State". I felt very satisfied once we put a feet on that state. Is not something you get to see every day, and even tough I am in an awesome state, and an awesome country, New York is probably the world capital. So, very satisfiying!

We had just got off the ferry, and I see this crazy sign! I told Roy to stop so I could take a picture haha!

After that we kept goin until we got to Ronkonkoma, Long Island. When we first got there, we were kind of lost, but when we got to Theresa´s home (Roy´s mother) I couldn´t be happier. The family was so funny and so warm and good with me! I felt very comfortable in that place and Theresa was just like a grandma for me, during that week.

When we arrived, We also saw Vicky, Roy's sister, a new-yorquian lady, who talks very fast haha and it´s so funny like Roy! She is a great woman! 

On Wednesday, a day after we got to Roy´s mother, we dressed up and went to NYC!

We got up early enough, and took the train to Penn Station, in Ronkonkoma Train Station. It was a very fun trip and a great experience, and it was cheap :P

That was a cool trip. I remember talking about piracy and how that is considered stealing haha.

We finally got to Penn Station, and it was quite a dirty place, like all of the subway places, actually. 

We had to take several subways until we finally could go to the city :)
When we first went upstairs, I couldn´t hold myself, NY was just like movies, weird places to eat all over, stores, Skyscratchers everywhere, but it was quite dirty, like every other big city.
I couldn´t believe how many languages I was listening to! Spanish all over, a guy from some place in Asia that was in a store, just talking, german,etc.

At firs, we went to a weird store called Obscure something, a creepy place that ´tonio had watched on the TV. It had skeletons, post-mortem photos, two headed cows, and a lot of creepy stuff. But it was fun!.
We had hot dogs in the street, some snickers, and we continued by the subway, to my uncle´s work place, the Helmsley building (230 Park ave.)
When Roy left me there, we went up to his office and I was like crazy with the building. It was so cool, and seemed so expensive! He told me it belonged to an architect or something like that.
Well, we had a nice and long spanish talk (FINALLY!) and we talked about the oportunies each of us had there, in the US, and in Argentina. He realized how things were there. "Everything works" - like he said. He lives in White Plains and it´s planning to go back and retire in Argentina in a couple of years. And it´s a nice plan, he made quite an amount of money working there! We talked about that, and how should I proceed about my exchange thoughts in the future. How should I open my mind about everything and stuff like that.
I hadn´t seen him in quite a few years before the meeting, and it was good to see him again. Very good.
But he had some more work to do, so, I left, and I walked down to the 5th avenue by myself! in NEW YORK! I felt independent until 20 minutes later,that my host dad came back :P
After everything, we finally went straight to the point. TIMES SQUARE! THE BIG APPLE!

Being there was a blessing for me, and I´ll always be grateful with every person who helped me on this!

After everything, we came back to Ronkonkoma, and I was kind of upset, since I got no time to get in stores, but then I realized how fortunate I was on being there, and I just went to sleep with a bug smile on my face! :)

PD: NEW YORK IS A CITY TO GO AND WALK AND SEE STORES BY YOURSELF.NOT WITH YOUR HOST DAD, NIETHER YOUR HOST BROTHER :P

Cross Sound Ferry

Finally, we made it to the ferry. It was an awesome experience! I didn´t even know you could transport your car to another state! There was about 20 or 30 of them, and we went across the river to Long Island NY.
It was an hour trip, and it was the best thing I´ve ever ride! It was so peaceful and quiet in the ocean...
I also saw some amaizing sceneries there, I must say I enjoyed that a lot.

Pawcatuc,Mystic Town - Connecticut (2nd part)

Hi! As I was telling you, me and my host family went on a little vacation for a week, and we visited awesome places! I loved Rhode Island, but after the brief conferences that Roy had to go to, we had to pack everything up, and hit the roads again! this time to Pawcatuc, CT.We stayed in a gorgeous hotel called La Quinta (la cuinta, as the people say in northamerica). It was a very nice hotel, but with weird people in it.

The next day (and last day for us) we went to Mystic Aquarium, in Mystic town. It was quite a nice experience and seeing all those animals there made my day! We saw, whales, penguins, diferent exhibitons, Sharks, etc.

I had an awesome time there altough I had a huge headache. Headaches are becoming a real problem these days...

After the aquarium, we decided to go for lunch, so we got in the car and ride to Mystic Town. We were in the coast, Roy taking pictures of the boats and the sceneries, and Rita, Tonio and me walking Max. It was good to breath some freash beach air :)

After lunch in Mystic Pizza, were I ate an anchovy pizza, we got back to the aquarium. Not without having to wait for the bridge to lift and let the boats get trough :P

When we got there, I decided to stay in the car, because my headache was getting worse! 

We arrived to the hotel again, and went swimming! It was so much fun! 

Well, next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, and after packing up again, we check out and go in the roads again. This time to take the Cross Sound Ferry to Long Island, NY!!