This first part was written in May 2010:
So another semester has passed and I am just now getting around to finishing my blog from South America. Surprised? Yeah, I'm not either. I wish that I had finished it while I still remembered what all happened, but I'll just have to do the best I can, I ended a few days before we left for our free travel week. I did actually start a post starting to tell about free travel, so here is what I had and i'll add on at the end:
In the few days that I didn't blog before leaving for free travel not a whole lot happened. Just normal classes, and packing. We had lots of homework and tests that week. Went to aerobics and fight class and what not.
Thursday after class we finished packing, said our goodbyes and headed to Tres Cruces. Bused to Colonia, and got on the Buquebus which took us to BA. We stayed the night in Hostel Colonia, all eight of us in one room. It had the smallest showers I have ever seen, and the room was extrmely hot but it was fairly cheap and it was only one night.
Friday October 30:
We woke up, ate breakfast, and went to the ATM to get money, and came back to check out. We had to be out by 11 and our bus didn't leave until 3 so they held our stuff in the hostel and we went to waste time so we could get on our way to Mendoza. We walked down Florida street and stopped to look at and buy some jewelry at the street market. It's almost lunch time so we stop at a huge Burger King that has three stories. We order food and end up sitting on the 3rd floor, in an area where it is just the 8 of us. We eat and play some cards until a security guard comes in and tells us we cannot play cards. So we begin to play Never Have I Ever. We play a full two rounds and still have some time. Ben goes to put his cards back in his backpack and his backpack is gone. He looks at us like what did y'all do with my backpack, thinking we were playing a joke on him. He is rather fun to mess with but for once we had nothing to do with this. There were only a few other people who entered the room while we were in there and none of them got that close to us. It still mystifies us how someone got a backpack out of the site of eight people. Ridiculous, but it happened. His backpack had his ACU i-phone, camera, passport, wallet, and his tennis shoes in it. We went back to the hostel to figure out what to do.
We ended up sending Dara, Taylor, Abel, and Rachel on to the bus station with their luggage and told them to get on our original bus, and to see if they could switch the rest of our tickets. Kate, Ben, Joyce, and I stayed in BA to get Ben a new passport. We went to Citibank, they were not helpful at all, we went back to BK, again no help. We luckily found a Kodak store to get new passport pictures taken, which was funny cause they guy made us push ben's hair back. We hopped in a cab to get to the embassy, when we went inside the embassy, they didn't even ask to see the rest of our passports, we go through the metal detector and that was it. Very different from the Montevideo Embassy. We go inside another building and the guy sitting at the desk doesn't even speak english inside the American Embassy in BA. We go in, sit and finally get an new emergency passport for Ben, but then we find out that we need to make a police report so that he can get the stamp to get out of Argentina. We get word from the other group that our new bus leaves at 8. We end up going to 3 police stations, and there is a waiting list to make police reports. We get on the list and go back to the hostel to cancel his cards and get our luggage. We need to be to the bus station by 7 to get our new tickets. We don't get called to give the report until 6:30, finally finish at 6:45 about. None of the taxi's want to pick us up with our luggage so we walk to the Buquebus station. From there was finally get a taxi at 7:05 but we had to overpay. We finally arrive at the bus station at 7:20. The first window we go to the lady tells us we cannot change our tickets. She goes ahead and calls another window and tells us there are 3 tickets for us at window 33, "but there are 4 of us." We go to the window and the guy has our new tickets printed with our names on them. The rest of our group is amazing, they went ahead and changed them for us, we just had to pay a bit to change them. We had 20 spare minutes to grab some food and get on the bus. It felt so good to be on that bus. There was nothing but the grace of God that got us through that day and on the bus. If we had done one thing in a different order we would not have made it. God is so amazing!
Saturday October 31:
Our bus arrived in Mendoza only 2 1/2 hours after the orginal bus. So we ended up getting the better end of that deal. The other group was surprised to see us so early. They had planned on meeting us. We all showered and went to lunch at a restaurant called coffee's. Dara and I split the lasagna and a pizza, both had ham. :/ After lunch Taylor, Dara, Rachel, and I went back to the hostel to nap. The other four went to buy Ben some new shoes since all he had left were flip-flops. Around 8 we went out to find dinner but nothing was open yet so we ended up sitting down and waiting. I got bored and got up to walk around and Taylor accompanied me. When we got back the rest of the group was sitting at the Mexican Restaurant, which did not hurt my feelings at all. I got a bean burrito, not the same as in the US because it had black beans but it was still really good. We went back to the hostel and hung out until we went to bed.
Sunday November 1:
We woke up and ate breakfast at the hostel and took a van to Argentina Rafting. It took about an hour to get there and then we had to wait a while but we finally got our wetsuits, put them on and loaded up in a bus with our rafts and headed to our starting point. There were only 6 to a raft so we ended up being split between the three rafts. Dara, Taylor, Joyce, and I were together with an Austrian couple. Our guides name was Diego, and we had a guide in training named Hermann. The river was only rated from 1's to 3's but it was still pretty fun. The water was freezing and it was so brown that i looked like chocolate milk running down the mountain. When we got back to the site we ate lunch then everyone but Joyce, Rachel, and I went canopying. Most of us got sunburned. We went back to our hostel, cleaned up and went to find somewhere to eat dinner. We ate at a place called La Casa Usher then went to bed.
Monday November 2:
We woke up, at breakfast, checked out, and walked back to the bus station. Our bus left at 10 but did not arrive in Vina until 2 hours after our tickets said, probably because customs took forever, and at one point I wasn't quite sure ben was gonna make it into Chile. Once we arrived at the bus station we ended up taking a van to our hostel because it was too far to walk. We stuffed all 8 of us plus our luggage into about 10 seats. Dara, Taylor, and I were in the very back and didn't even have room to put our feet down. We checked into our hostel which was pretty nice, the five of us girls were suppose to have a room to ourselves, but apparently there was a mix up and we were in a room with 3 stangers. Woo hoo! We went to dinner at a little Italian place called Pepe's and I had what was very similar to linguinie with alfredo sauce which was really good except that it had ham in it. Have I mentioned that I was starting to get a little tired of ham by this point in the semester? After dinner we went down to the beach, this one was on the Pacific Ocean, and the water was freaking cold!
Tuesday November 3:
After breakfast we headed out to find a cambio, which took freaking forever, then we went back to the beach to soak up some sun before another bus ride. The water was still freezing, but the beach was gorgeous, deep blue water, tan sand, and a city line to the left. We went and grabbed some lunch, we found a place to get hotdogs that came with guacamole, mayonaisse, lettuce, and tomato on top. pretty funky. We hopped on a bus for about an hour and a half and were in Santiago by 4. We were supposed to meet our ride out to Lo Valdez at 4:30 across town. So to the subway it was. About 10 stops later and we made it off the subway to meet the guy 4:30 on the dot. What a relief. We were in a van again but this time our luggage was on the roof so we were actually able to ride comfortably. We sang half of the way there and finally arrived up in the Andes around 7:30. We ordered dinner, I had some amazing spaghetti, we chilled for a while, played some idiot and went to bed early.
Wednesday November 4:
Woke up and had another very tasty meal and we headed out to hike up to the hot springs. After about an hour Dara, Kate, and I stopped and sat on a rock for about an 1 1/2 drinking mate and talking. We headed back to the hostel, ate lunch, and hiked around the refugio for awhile just enjoying God's amazing creations, breathing in the mountain air. After awhile the others went to nap and I was trying to finish journaling. Around 4 ben showed up which is crazy that he was able to make it back so fast. The others came back about half an hour later. We did some chilling, then ate dinner and drank leche con chocolate. After dinner we went out and sat on a rock and watched the sun go down over the mountains while singing. It was an absolutely amazing night sitting in the beauty that God made. Once the sun was gone so was the warmth, so we went back inside and played some games before heading to bed.
Thursday November 5:
After breakfast we packed up our stuff and hung around the refugio waiting for our ride back to Santiago. Rachel and I met an old man while sitting outside. He was chilean but spoke perfect english and even a little german. He was really nice and asked us lots of questions. Back in Santiago we checked into our hostel and went to find a cambio/atm and do a little shopping, then we spent the rest of the afternoon playing pool and hanging out. We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant across the street that had a skeleton outside wearing a bright blue dress. After dinner we watched Motorcycle diaries in Spanish and then went to bed.
Friday November 6:
I never finished my journaling for the rest of the trip at this point so this is what I can remember.
We woke up and ate breakfast which was really picked over and not real great but other than that the hostel was pretty nice. We got really lucky with all of our hostels, yes some were nicer than others but they all had really nice people and were fairly clean. Anyway we left the hostel and headed downtown to ride the funicular. The funicular is like a trolley that goes up a big hill in the middle of Santiago, halfway up is the Santiago Zoo, and at the top there are some shops and an awesome view of the city. After taking a ton of pictures we came down and started more shopping. Almost all of us bought panchos, and we even bought a hat that said Chile but had the texas shape on it for Wimon but ended up leaving it at the hostel. :/ We ate lunch at a KFC, and yes I do mean Kountry Fried Chicken. Did some more shopping for the rest of the afternoon. We went back to the hostel and Dara, Taylor, and I went to find somewhere fun to eat dinner. We found a restaurant called Happy Mosaic and our whole meal was half price because we ordered before 9. We had good food and enjoyed our last night in Chile. We went back to the hostel and packed and went to bed to get ready to get up early to catch our bus.
Saturday November 7:
We got up early and got on the bus and spent the next 27 hours on that bus..oh fun. It actually wasn't that bad, it passed by pretty quickly. We played some games, listened to music, and watched some movies including a bootleg copy of x-men origins: wolverine where all of the action scenes were grey, and also there was a movie I believe it was called Rudy that was a German movie with Spanish subtitles about two kids and their pig that runs away and saves them. We also kept getting these really funky alfajores that none of us liked except for ben so he got like 10 of them. Dinner was interesting as well. Yum, bus food! And sleeping with random people on a bus is always my favorite. We arrived back in Montevideo late Sunday morning. And i'm not real sure what I did, prolly some homework and just relaxing, glad to be back at home after our very eventful free travel week. We had our normal 9 o'clock service in the man loft and went to get our regular la cigale afterwards followed by bed being that we once again had to get up early for class the next morning. We had a truly amazing week, I can't even describe all we went through that week. We had lots of laughs and fun times, but then we had the times where we could have easily given into the chaos. We pulled together as a team and brothers and sisters in christ and with his help we made it through a week we will never forget. He is truly an awesome God!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Brazil
Friday & Saturday October 9 & 10:
We left at 4:00 pm on Friday for our 20 hour bus ride. We played lots of games, almost all of us had our own seats on the way there, so sleeping was better than on a normal bus. The time passed fairly quickly. On Saturday before leaving Argentina we went and visited the Jesuit Ruins and Horacio Quiroga's House. We finally arrived at our hotel in Brazil our rooms were rather small but we were never in them for that long. It felt really good to shower. We ate dinner then just hung out, watched a little soccer on tv, and people hung out in our room. Kate and Matt had a INTS book duel, it was rather funny. I fell asleep while everyone was still in our room. I was so tired.
Sunday October 11:
First we went to the bird park that is pretty much across the street from the National Park. There are over 150 species of birds there. They are all either endangered or were injured and could not survive on their own in the wild. We were able to walk through some of the cages and get right up next to the birds, the toucans in particular were very friendly. Next we walked over to the falls. The line to get in was epicly long, you could not see the entrance from the end of the line but we did make it eventually. Because there was a chance of rain later in the afternoon we went ahead and went on the boat ride as soon as we got there. It included a short safari ride, a little hike to see a hidden waterfall, and then into the boat where we got to go through the mist of one of the falls, we got soaked, it was so fun. There was so much mist that we could only see that one little set of falls..we all thought it was amazing, yet we had seen nothing yet. There was so much more to see. We went and changed out of our wet clothes and walked the trail to see the rest of the falls. The most amazing thing I have ever seen. You can truely see the power of God when you look at how much water is pouring out in any given second. There are not even words to describe! Pictures too are nothing! They are pretty but are nothing compared to the real thing. After we got back almost our whole group got in the pool and we played volleyball. Afterwards we went to dinner, then had our own worship service, during which it started pouring rain! When we finished Taylor and I went and stood in the rain, it felt so good to stand and smell the rain. Then several of us went and played mow and Uruguayan BS until time for bed.
Monday October 12:
This was the day that we were suppose to go to the Argentina side of the falls but due to the rain we switched our days. So we went to the Itaipu Dam instead and we went on the Dam Tour. The Itaipu Dam is one of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World. lol. On our way back we stopped in Cuidad del Este, Paraguay. Before we went this town was explained to us as Wal-Mart on crack that exploded into the street, and that is basically what it looked like. We ate in the Mona Lisa building, which is like a 7 story department store. They have the nicest public bathroom in the town. Afterwards we went shopping and most of us bought cheap jerseys. Once we got back to the hotel all of the Biochem majors videod an experiment for Chemistry Circus. It's on youtube and if you have not seen it you should go watch it. It is hilarious. It can be found under ACU Chemistry Circus :). We played some more volleyball in the pool. This became pretty much a nightly thing. Then we all showered and got ready to go to a dinner show. It showed the different types of dances throughout South America. They even invited Amber up on stage for a little bit. It was rather entertaining. We all went to bed after this.
Tuesday October 13:
This was when we got to go back to the falls on the Argentine side. Unfortunately we found out upon arriving that it had rained so much everywhere else in Brazil that the rivers had filled up and there was about 3.5 times more water than usual. This meant that the devil's throat was closed. We were all kind of bummed at first, but it ended up being okay. The point of seeing the devil's throat is the power of the water rushing over it. This day we were seeing that in all of the falls. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. We went on both lower trail and as far as we could go safely on the upper trail. It got to one point where it was blocked off cause you could see the water gushing over the walkway. We got to go stand and take pictures in some of the mist. I was glad we had gotten to see the Devil's Throat from the Brazil side. We stopped at an Artisan Market on our way back to the hotel. Once at the hotel we played more volleyball in the pool. Went to dinner at a place called Bottega, but this time we did not stay for their show. We played mow in Alli and Karaline's room and then went to bed.
Wednesday October 14:
This was our last day in Brazil. We started out the day by visiting a Guarani Village just over the border in Argentina. We saw different traps they set for animals, some of the children sang for us, and we bought handmade souvenirs they had made. We ate lunch at Pizza Hut for Amanda's birthday, it was so good to eat American style pizza. The pizza here is really good, but it is not the same. After lunch, Amanda, Jaimie, Dara, Josh, Lauren, and I went shopping on one of the main streets. Once we were done we took a bus back to the hotel but we ended up getting off way early so we start walking down the highway towards our hotel. We got a good walk and all was good until it started raining on us! It made a good memory though. When we got back to the hotel 15 of us went to Autumn's room to watch the futbol game on tv. Uruguay vs. Argentina for the 4th and 5th spots. There was 16 people in a tiny room in Brazil cheering for Uruguay. Who unfortuantely lost and now much play Costa Rica for a chance to go to the world cup in the spring. We ate dinner after the game and we had a cake for Amanda. Talked to people on the computer and went to bed.
Thursday morning we loaded up and spent the next 20 hours on the bus back to Montevideo. Again I spent the entire time in the back of the bus playing games, we played the marriage game and came up with a family tree. I didn't sleep quite as well on the bus this time cause I didn't get my own seat, but it was terrible, we had a foot rest. :P
We left at 4:00 pm on Friday for our 20 hour bus ride. We played lots of games, almost all of us had our own seats on the way there, so sleeping was better than on a normal bus. The time passed fairly quickly. On Saturday before leaving Argentina we went and visited the Jesuit Ruins and Horacio Quiroga's House. We finally arrived at our hotel in Brazil our rooms were rather small but we were never in them for that long. It felt really good to shower. We ate dinner then just hung out, watched a little soccer on tv, and people hung out in our room. Kate and Matt had a INTS book duel, it was rather funny. I fell asleep while everyone was still in our room. I was so tired.
Sunday October 11:
First we went to the bird park that is pretty much across the street from the National Park. There are over 150 species of birds there. They are all either endangered or were injured and could not survive on their own in the wild. We were able to walk through some of the cages and get right up next to the birds, the toucans in particular were very friendly. Next we walked over to the falls. The line to get in was epicly long, you could not see the entrance from the end of the line but we did make it eventually. Because there was a chance of rain later in the afternoon we went ahead and went on the boat ride as soon as we got there. It included a short safari ride, a little hike to see a hidden waterfall, and then into the boat where we got to go through the mist of one of the falls, we got soaked, it was so fun. There was so much mist that we could only see that one little set of falls..we all thought it was amazing, yet we had seen nothing yet. There was so much more to see. We went and changed out of our wet clothes and walked the trail to see the rest of the falls. The most amazing thing I have ever seen. You can truely see the power of God when you look at how much water is pouring out in any given second. There are not even words to describe! Pictures too are nothing! They are pretty but are nothing compared to the real thing. After we got back almost our whole group got in the pool and we played volleyball. Afterwards we went to dinner, then had our own worship service, during which it started pouring rain! When we finished Taylor and I went and stood in the rain, it felt so good to stand and smell the rain. Then several of us went and played mow and Uruguayan BS until time for bed.
Monday October 12:
This was the day that we were suppose to go to the Argentina side of the falls but due to the rain we switched our days. So we went to the Itaipu Dam instead and we went on the Dam Tour. The Itaipu Dam is one of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World. lol. On our way back we stopped in Cuidad del Este, Paraguay. Before we went this town was explained to us as Wal-Mart on crack that exploded into the street, and that is basically what it looked like. We ate in the Mona Lisa building, which is like a 7 story department store. They have the nicest public bathroom in the town. Afterwards we went shopping and most of us bought cheap jerseys. Once we got back to the hotel all of the Biochem majors videod an experiment for Chemistry Circus. It's on youtube and if you have not seen it you should go watch it. It is hilarious. It can be found under ACU Chemistry Circus :). We played some more volleyball in the pool. This became pretty much a nightly thing. Then we all showered and got ready to go to a dinner show. It showed the different types of dances throughout South America. They even invited Amber up on stage for a little bit. It was rather entertaining. We all went to bed after this.
Tuesday October 13:
This was when we got to go back to the falls on the Argentine side. Unfortunately we found out upon arriving that it had rained so much everywhere else in Brazil that the rivers had filled up and there was about 3.5 times more water than usual. This meant that the devil's throat was closed. We were all kind of bummed at first, but it ended up being okay. The point of seeing the devil's throat is the power of the water rushing over it. This day we were seeing that in all of the falls. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. We went on both lower trail and as far as we could go safely on the upper trail. It got to one point where it was blocked off cause you could see the water gushing over the walkway. We got to go stand and take pictures in some of the mist. I was glad we had gotten to see the Devil's Throat from the Brazil side. We stopped at an Artisan Market on our way back to the hotel. Once at the hotel we played more volleyball in the pool. Went to dinner at a place called Bottega, but this time we did not stay for their show. We played mow in Alli and Karaline's room and then went to bed.
Wednesday October 14:
This was our last day in Brazil. We started out the day by visiting a Guarani Village just over the border in Argentina. We saw different traps they set for animals, some of the children sang for us, and we bought handmade souvenirs they had made. We ate lunch at Pizza Hut for Amanda's birthday, it was so good to eat American style pizza. The pizza here is really good, but it is not the same. After lunch, Amanda, Jaimie, Dara, Josh, Lauren, and I went shopping on one of the main streets. Once we were done we took a bus back to the hotel but we ended up getting off way early so we start walking down the highway towards our hotel. We got a good walk and all was good until it started raining on us! It made a good memory though. When we got back to the hotel 15 of us went to Autumn's room to watch the futbol game on tv. Uruguay vs. Argentina for the 4th and 5th spots. There was 16 people in a tiny room in Brazil cheering for Uruguay. Who unfortuantely lost and now much play Costa Rica for a chance to go to the world cup in the spring. We ate dinner after the game and we had a cake for Amanda. Talked to people on the computer and went to bed.
Thursday morning we loaded up and spent the next 20 hours on the bus back to Montevideo. Again I spent the entire time in the back of the bus playing games, we played the marriage game and came up with a family tree. I didn't sleep quite as well on the bus this time cause I didn't get my own seat, but it was terrible, we had a foot rest. :P
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
It's Been A While
So it has been quite a while since i have visited my little blog..sorry. I'm not sure what happened but after Brazil things just kind of took off and i feel like i am constantly behind. I just kind of got out of the habit of blogging and then i never really got back to it. I myself hate that later in my life if i come back and read my posts that i will have about a two week gap where i did not blog at all. I can list some of what we did but not in the detail i could have. Anyway i'm gonna try and give a quick overview of what has happened since brazil and then sometime i will come back and add brazil in.
We came back from brazil on a friday morning, that day was spent recooperating after a long trip including 2 20 hour bus rides. Saturday between "studying" several of us went down to the beach to get some fresh air, we had a great time, we kicked a soccer ball around some as well as played frisbee. We took a break for awhile where they ended up burying me in the sand and sculpted me into a mermaid with a very long tail. Then we buried Abel. Afterwards we started heading the soccer ball, at one point we were all standing in kind of a circle and dara would toss the ball up and we would head it back, well i was next to ben and he decided that he was faster than me and went for the ball well of course he is not faster than me and so we hit heads so we then both had headaches..thank you ben, he has a rather hard head by the way. Around the same time this was happening matt was still playing with the frisbee, he chunked it but none of us were paying attention so it smacked me in the ankle and it swelled up and gave me a nice bruise which is still purple and still has a bump over a week later. I just love our boys. Overall though it was a very fun trip to the beach.
Sunday was normal, we went to the Feria and later we went to Raquel's house church. That was really interesting. Monday was classes all day like usual, except after class we had a freakout about our chile trip which caused quite a commotion and stress. Tuesday was normal as well plus aerobics. Wednesday biochem quiz, after class we went to the Torres-Garcia Museum which i know doesn't mean much to y'all now but i will show y'all some of his works when i get home. He is very big in uruguay. After the musuem we had tango lesson numero dos! We did a lot of review and practice and then we learned how to cut. :P which was fun but a little awkward at the same time, especially when you are cutting one of your professors. After tango we ordered chinese food. Uruguay has very good chinese food, but it is a little strange to think about chinese food in uruguay. The best part about this night was that Abel brought out the dr. peppers that he had brought with him, so to go along with out chinese food we all got a 12 oz. bottle of dublin dp. It was amazing, and Rosalinda made her brownies. :)
Thursday was pretty normal with class and later aerobics. Friday we had an extra biochem class then after spanish we went to visit the american embassy which was interesting but a rather short visit. It didn't really seem worth it by the time we got through security. We were inside for about 30 minutes before they shooed us out, it took us just that long to get in. Afterwards we got our final ticket for our Chile trip so we did eventually get everything worked out, so no worries. Once we were back at Casa we began cooking for dinner. Alli made enchiladas, mmm, she is such a good cook and i miss mexican food so much. Then i made brownies and everyone loved them even though i was a little disappointed because they did not taste like they do in america. sad. saturday dara, kate, rachel, abel, and i went with rosalinda to the blanes musuem to make up when we missed because we did the heart week thing. it was actually rather intersting cause a lot of museums don't interest me that much. after the museum we made cookies and dara and i made cake balls. it was a lazy saturday just hanging around and it ended by almost the entire group going down to ciudad vieja for amber's birthday. we ended up eating a korean restaraunt which was actually pretty good. lol. y'all would be surprised at some of the things i have eaten since being here.
Sunday was spent with me trying to study all day but a lot of it never actually stuck. pretty unfortunate but i just hate studying on the weekends. we had our regular chapel and then our traditional la cigale trip and more studying. i lost a good bit of sleep, but who is to not expect that the night before a biochem test. The test ended up being not so good but it was actually not quite as bad as i had thought. The INTS quiz was not particularly great either but being that i read right before class in a rather rushed manner it wasn't terrible. We had a guest speaker again and that always makes class go by faster. We went to Fight Class last night and all was good, it was Amber's birthday and we had all agreed that we needed to go to the gym cause we had eaten so much, again Raquel made a deathly chocolate cake. I actually enjoyed fabricios fight more than normal until right at the end as we were about to cool down amber fell. She sprained her ankle and it was really sad cause it was her 20th birthday. Luckily one of the gym employees offered to drive her home cause we normally walk to the gym. I rode with them though i realized after getting into the car that my keys were in my pants which rachel had so we got home and had to ring the doorbell. The boys had to carry her into the house, poor thing. The doctor was called and x-rays were done just to be sure, but she can't walk on it for a week and we all leave for free travel on thursday. Thus is life. The night ended with P-chem, which is a lot more entertaining when working on it with taylor and rachel and the various other people who popped in. Chilling a little and then finally going off to bed.
We came back from brazil on a friday morning, that day was spent recooperating after a long trip including 2 20 hour bus rides. Saturday between "studying" several of us went down to the beach to get some fresh air, we had a great time, we kicked a soccer ball around some as well as played frisbee. We took a break for awhile where they ended up burying me in the sand and sculpted me into a mermaid with a very long tail. Then we buried Abel. Afterwards we started heading the soccer ball, at one point we were all standing in kind of a circle and dara would toss the ball up and we would head it back, well i was next to ben and he decided that he was faster than me and went for the ball well of course he is not faster than me and so we hit heads so we then both had headaches..thank you ben, he has a rather hard head by the way. Around the same time this was happening matt was still playing with the frisbee, he chunked it but none of us were paying attention so it smacked me in the ankle and it swelled up and gave me a nice bruise which is still purple and still has a bump over a week later. I just love our boys. Overall though it was a very fun trip to the beach.
Sunday was normal, we went to the Feria and later we went to Raquel's house church. That was really interesting. Monday was classes all day like usual, except after class we had a freakout about our chile trip which caused quite a commotion and stress. Tuesday was normal as well plus aerobics. Wednesday biochem quiz, after class we went to the Torres-Garcia Museum which i know doesn't mean much to y'all now but i will show y'all some of his works when i get home. He is very big in uruguay. After the musuem we had tango lesson numero dos! We did a lot of review and practice and then we learned how to cut. :P which was fun but a little awkward at the same time, especially when you are cutting one of your professors. After tango we ordered chinese food. Uruguay has very good chinese food, but it is a little strange to think about chinese food in uruguay. The best part about this night was that Abel brought out the dr. peppers that he had brought with him, so to go along with out chinese food we all got a 12 oz. bottle of dublin dp. It was amazing, and Rosalinda made her brownies. :)
Thursday was pretty normal with class and later aerobics. Friday we had an extra biochem class then after spanish we went to visit the american embassy which was interesting but a rather short visit. It didn't really seem worth it by the time we got through security. We were inside for about 30 minutes before they shooed us out, it took us just that long to get in. Afterwards we got our final ticket for our Chile trip so we did eventually get everything worked out, so no worries. Once we were back at Casa we began cooking for dinner. Alli made enchiladas, mmm, she is such a good cook and i miss mexican food so much. Then i made brownies and everyone loved them even though i was a little disappointed because they did not taste like they do in america. sad. saturday dara, kate, rachel, abel, and i went with rosalinda to the blanes musuem to make up when we missed because we did the heart week thing. it was actually rather intersting cause a lot of museums don't interest me that much. after the museum we made cookies and dara and i made cake balls. it was a lazy saturday just hanging around and it ended by almost the entire group going down to ciudad vieja for amber's birthday. we ended up eating a korean restaraunt which was actually pretty good. lol. y'all would be surprised at some of the things i have eaten since being here.
Sunday was spent with me trying to study all day but a lot of it never actually stuck. pretty unfortunate but i just hate studying on the weekends. we had our regular chapel and then our traditional la cigale trip and more studying. i lost a good bit of sleep, but who is to not expect that the night before a biochem test. The test ended up being not so good but it was actually not quite as bad as i had thought. The INTS quiz was not particularly great either but being that i read right before class in a rather rushed manner it wasn't terrible. We had a guest speaker again and that always makes class go by faster. We went to Fight Class last night and all was good, it was Amber's birthday and we had all agreed that we needed to go to the gym cause we had eaten so much, again Raquel made a deathly chocolate cake. I actually enjoyed fabricios fight more than normal until right at the end as we were about to cool down amber fell. She sprained her ankle and it was really sad cause it was her 20th birthday. Luckily one of the gym employees offered to drive her home cause we normally walk to the gym. I rode with them though i realized after getting into the car that my keys were in my pants which rachel had so we got home and had to ring the doorbell. The boys had to carry her into the house, poor thing. The doctor was called and x-rays were done just to be sure, but she can't walk on it for a week and we all leave for free travel on thursday. Thus is life. The night ended with P-chem, which is a lot more entertaining when working on it with taylor and rachel and the various other people who popped in. Chilling a little and then finally going off to bed.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Rain Dance and Doctors Orders
So yes i am really behind on my blog but well i was a bit sick this week. So monday was exciting because guess what we did not hear the alarm or it didn't go off or something. So 9 o'clock rolls around and we are still all passes out in our room. So everyone meets for chapel and realizes that there are three people missing, wait..they are all in the same room. Boys: hey lets go jump on their ceiling. So the boys come and jump on our ceiling and give us a "rain dance" because it had been pouring all night. So my first thoughts waking up are "can uruguay get earthquakes and if so why are we not moving??" It does not help that any little move made in the classroom above can be heard perfectly in our room, so they jumping sounded thunderous. The house has pretty much no insulation. So we did make it to chapel so no worries but it was quite an interesting start to the day. So regular classes pretty much then that evening we were gonna go watch the exchange of a document with one of the presidential candidates, suppose to take like 20 minutes..so we get there sit down wait an hour for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates to actually show up. Then there was another hour of people presenting papers to the candidates as they sat there looking bored out of their minds..which was actually rather entertaining. They played with pens, stuck them in their ears, doodled, whispered to each other, laughed for a while at something we couldn't see, played with the name tags and all sorts of stuff. Finally after sitting their for two hours the VP can (larranaga) and then finally the P can (lacalle) spoke. After this they had another rally or something that they had to attend. But on the way out we did manage to take a group pic with both of them, Larranaga actually greeted me and a few of the other girls in a uruguayan manner (aka kissed us on the cheek). The photos are posted on facebook if you would like to view them, pretty exiciting. ALso Lacalle has actually been president of Uruguay before so yeah. pretty legit. so that was pretty much my monday.
Tuesday i'm not even sure what happened, this whole week has kind of been a blur cause i've been feeling off and on good and bad. I did have a P-chem test on tuesday tho. Wednesday i woke up feeling feverish so i stayed in bed until an hour before lunch. Ate lunch went to biochem, left biochem to see the doctor, went back to biochem and then pretty much spent the rest of the day in bed. Apparenlty i had a touch of the flu, but it wasn't terrible and normally i would not have even called the doctor but i did not want to have the chance of being sick while in brazil. So i slept it off and i feel a whole lot better today which is good because i get to spend the next 20 hours of my life on a bus! woo hoo! thursday was rather average too execpt that i almost slept through lunch and my lovely roommates decided not to wake me up. lol. thanks guys! but other than that just getting ready for brazil! so sorry this week was not as detailed but it will just have to do. i'm sure y'all will get a much more detailed description of brazil, so stay tuned for those updates, coming to a computer near you!
oh and i forgot so we did not have class today, and because it was raquel's birthday, raquel is our cook, we cooked breakfast for her this morning and made her a cake, and she got the morning off. it was quite fun. it was still really good and i think she really appreciated it. we had poppyseedless chicken and we had salad with RANCH dressing! this made my day! and for her birthday cake we had hawaiian wedding cake! it was really good, but no one got married, lol. okay anyway, we leave in half an hour! wish us luck!
Tuesday i'm not even sure what happened, this whole week has kind of been a blur cause i've been feeling off and on good and bad. I did have a P-chem test on tuesday tho. Wednesday i woke up feeling feverish so i stayed in bed until an hour before lunch. Ate lunch went to biochem, left biochem to see the doctor, went back to biochem and then pretty much spent the rest of the day in bed. Apparenlty i had a touch of the flu, but it wasn't terrible and normally i would not have even called the doctor but i did not want to have the chance of being sick while in brazil. So i slept it off and i feel a whole lot better today which is good because i get to spend the next 20 hours of my life on a bus! woo hoo! thursday was rather average too execpt that i almost slept through lunch and my lovely roommates decided not to wake me up. lol. thanks guys! but other than that just getting ready for brazil! so sorry this week was not as detailed but it will just have to do. i'm sure y'all will get a much more detailed description of brazil, so stay tuned for those updates, coming to a computer near you!
oh and i forgot so we did not have class today, and because it was raquel's birthday, raquel is our cook, we cooked breakfast for her this morning and made her a cake, and she got the morning off. it was quite fun. it was still really good and i think she really appreciated it. we had poppyseedless chicken and we had salad with RANCH dressing! this made my day! and for her birthday cake we had hawaiian wedding cake! it was really good, but no one got married, lol. okay anyway, we leave in half an hour! wish us luck!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Under the Weather
This weekend has kind of been a lazy one. We have all pretty much just been sitting around trying to recooperate from BA and get ready to leave again on friday for Brazil. This friday was spent in spanish class and then just hanging around. We went to Disco Natural to get some supplies for that nights dinner and i found some macaroni and cheese! Very Exciting! For those of you who know me know how much i love mac and cheese, a month without it was pretty rough. We ate fried rice and orange chicken made by Alli for dinner, it was yet again very good. The cooking in this house just cannot go wrong. Unfortunately dinner took to long and we were not able to make it to fight class, so instead we did an old buns of stell video we found up in the loft. It was lots of fun but i am very sore now. I do not believe that next time i will participate in this one. A little bit later we watched 101 dalmations and that was the extent of friday.
Saturday was suppose be a day of only homework but who wants to do nothing but work all day. We did sleep in a little bit, and I did get a little bit of homework done but overall it was not a truly productive day. Dara, Kate, and I went to Tres Cruces for lunch to eat at McDonald's. Then was the studying followed by some goofing-off on the computer. Most of us went to Castobo's for dinner, we ate there this time which we have not been doing often. I even got a piece of pizza dropped on my lap. After pizza it was time for another movie, this time is was the Prestige.
We sprung forward here during the night, so now we are 3 hours ahead of the US. Due to this fact, and also that yesterday I started to feel a bit under the weather i slept in this morning. I tried to do more homework today but i ended up taking a nap for awhile cause i just did not feel like doing anything. I got up in time to go get some dinner and then we had our 9 o'clock service. Now a bit of computer time and then off to bed. Hopefully i will feel better in the morning and it was just a touch of a 24 hour bug, i mean i'm not really sick just have no energy and whatnot. No worries, as long as i feel better by friday all will be well. Just about 4 more days and we are off to Brazil!
Saturday was suppose be a day of only homework but who wants to do nothing but work all day. We did sleep in a little bit, and I did get a little bit of homework done but overall it was not a truly productive day. Dara, Kate, and I went to Tres Cruces for lunch to eat at McDonald's. Then was the studying followed by some goofing-off on the computer. Most of us went to Castobo's for dinner, we ate there this time which we have not been doing often. I even got a piece of pizza dropped on my lap. After pizza it was time for another movie, this time is was the Prestige.
We sprung forward here during the night, so now we are 3 hours ahead of the US. Due to this fact, and also that yesterday I started to feel a bit under the weather i slept in this morning. I tried to do more homework today but i ended up taking a nap for awhile cause i just did not feel like doing anything. I got up in time to go get some dinner and then we had our 9 o'clock service. Now a bit of computer time and then off to bed. Hopefully i will feel better in the morning and it was just a touch of a 24 hour bug, i mean i'm not really sick just have no energy and whatnot. No worries, as long as i feel better by friday all will be well. Just about 4 more days and we are off to Brazil!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Semana de Corazon
Wednesday Septemeber 30:
It was nice to be back at “home.” However it was not so nice having to go back to class. We did have cooked breakfast which was nice. Had some Spanish lab, lunch was chicken and for dessert was pecan pie like brownies = amazing! Biochemistry wasn’t bad because we got a free quiz. After biochem Kate, Dara, Able, Rachel and I got to help with heart week. We went down the street to a clinic type thing and helped write down information like name, age, height, and weight. Anyone could come get their blood pressure, blood sugar and other tests taken to check their heart health. It wasn't the most exciting thing in the world but it was kind of fun and it was good experience for the future. Plus it counts for our community service for INST. We had some interesting experiences with that including kate telling one of the guys that he was going to the United States. We had some more Castrobo's for dinner and chilled around the house.
Thurday October 1st:
Time is flying by, i cannot believe it is already october. Where has time gone? Today was breakfast, house meeting, p-chem, lunch was Uruguayan enchiladas! Muy Bueno! Dessert was homemade chocolate donuts. Before lunch was our last lab for awhile so that is a relief. After lunch was more spanish class..as if we don't get enough of that. It rained here today. We took our laundry after spanish. I've been spending a lot of time on the computer trying to get caught up on my pictures from Buenos Aires. Around 6 Kate and I left for the Alianza where we had 6 people for conversation clubs tonight. It was very fun, they are so fascinated in everything about us and the United States. They asked a lot of questions and they speak very good english, much better than our spanish. They are very fluent, but they were all closed to being middle-aged. I am looking forward to going back to the Alianza, probably in November. We started learning how to do past tense in spanish today for real. We had heard a bit before but now we are actually learning it from the book. There is always so much to do, yet most of the time it seems like we are sitting around hanging out with everyone. So a little more spanish homework and then off to bed. And finally tomorrow is friday.
It was nice to be back at “home.” However it was not so nice having to go back to class. We did have cooked breakfast which was nice. Had some Spanish lab, lunch was chicken and for dessert was pecan pie like brownies = amazing! Biochemistry wasn’t bad because we got a free quiz. After biochem Kate, Dara, Able, Rachel and I got to help with heart week. We went down the street to a clinic type thing and helped write down information like name, age, height, and weight. Anyone could come get their blood pressure, blood sugar and other tests taken to check their heart health. It wasn't the most exciting thing in the world but it was kind of fun and it was good experience for the future. Plus it counts for our community service for INST. We had some interesting experiences with that including kate telling one of the guys that he was going to the United States. We had some more Castrobo's for dinner and chilled around the house.
Thurday October 1st:
Time is flying by, i cannot believe it is already october. Where has time gone? Today was breakfast, house meeting, p-chem, lunch was Uruguayan enchiladas! Muy Bueno! Dessert was homemade chocolate donuts. Before lunch was our last lab for awhile so that is a relief. After lunch was more spanish class..as if we don't get enough of that. It rained here today. We took our laundry after spanish. I've been spending a lot of time on the computer trying to get caught up on my pictures from Buenos Aires. Around 6 Kate and I left for the Alianza where we had 6 people for conversation clubs tonight. It was very fun, they are so fascinated in everything about us and the United States. They asked a lot of questions and they speak very good english, much better than our spanish. They are very fluent, but they were all closed to being middle-aged. I am looking forward to going back to the Alianza, probably in November. We started learning how to do past tense in spanish today for real. We had heard a bit before but now we are actually learning it from the book. There is always so much to do, yet most of the time it seems like we are sitting around hanging out with everyone. So a little more spanish homework and then off to bed. And finally tomorrow is friday.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Buenos Aires!
Friday September 25th:
We woke up, ate breakfast, made our lunches, threw a few last things in my bag, and loaded onto the bus and headed out at 8:00 am. The time on the bus was predominately used for sleeping. Around 10:30 we arrided at a farm which also had many collections. The guy who owns it is in the Guiness Book of World Records for several of his collections. He had keychains, pencils, cans, ash trays, match boxes and so on. Also at the farm you could taste and buy jams including onion, tomato, eggplant, pumpkin, and red pepper. There were also a few animals, inluding ponies and emu type birds in the same pen. And there was a small playground with a merry-go-round swing thing that we had fun on. After playing it was time to load back onto the bus and go into Colonia. First we went to their old bull fighting arena. And we definately went inside even though there was a sign that said NO PASAR. We are such little angels. We had almost 4 hours to eat lunch and walk around Colonia before we had to go get on the ferry. We ate lunch in a pretty little park. We saw the light house and then walked around and did a little souvenier shopping. The ferry left at 5 and we arrived in BA around 6. It was a very smooth ride. We checked in at the hotel, went and got some Argentinian Pesos and went to get dinner. We ate dinner at a little Italian Restaurant two doors down from the hotel, it was amazing. It was called Brocollino or something along the lines of this. The pasta that everyone got was really good, and they had the most amazing lasagna. After eating we went swimming at the hotel in the heated pool :) until 11:30 when one of the employees came and told us that the pool closed at 10:00. Oops, but there was no sign and no one told us so oh well.
Saturday September 26th:
This was the day we got a tour of the city. We started out at Plaza del Mayo, we saw the Pink House and the Catholic Church where they have a memorial to San Martin. We also went to La Boca, Recoletta, and several other places around the city. In Recoletta is the cemetery where Eva Peron is buried so we got to see her family masoleum as well as many others. After the tour we ate lunch and went shopping at one of the ferias, they had a ton of awesome jewelry. Too soon it was time to go to the musuem. The first floor was European art including some Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Rembrant as well as many others. On the second floor was Latin American art which was very different. Afterwards we had a bit more time to shop but then we had to head back to the hotel to get ready for the Tango Show. We got all snazzed up and went to El Querandi, ate some dinner and then watched some very good tango dancers. I was at the end of our table so i had a front row seat for the show.
Sunday September 27th:
We began the day by meeting for church at 9. Unlike here in Uruguay where we don't even have to go outside to get to church, the church we attended was across town so we had to take the subway. It was cold and rainy outside. I really enjoyed the church service even though it was in spanish, but it was very cold during the whole thing. We did get to attend the English class afterwards. For lunch we ate pizza with the youth of the church. The original plan had been to go to a feria with them but due to the lovely rain we just chilled around the church playing ping pong, fusball, and getting to know the Argentinians. A little bit after 4 we left to go to the mall with them. We had to take a bus which was very crowded in we were definately all in each others personal space the entire bus ride..fun. The mall we went to was very big and it was also rather ritzy. Not the best place for shopping, plus everyone was in a rather cranky mood so we left and went back to the hotel, farkled a bit and then went out on another adventure. In the taxi on the way home from the museum we saw Hard Rock Cafe and decided we need to visit it. So we decide that we do not want to eat at Hard Rock because of the cost but we wanted to by souveniers and say that we got dessert there. So we go to the mall to get some more money out and to eat dinner, you wouldn't think that this would take that long and yet it did. We finally ate and get ready to go, well we could not remember exactly where Hard Rock was so we asked a doorman, we end up asking a second doorman and they tell us two different places. After asking a cab driver we decide it would be best to go back the hotel and find exactly where it is. We go back and ben looks it up on his iphone. So we get in two cabs and go to the streets where google maps said Hard Rock was, well guess what, it's not there. We end up walking and then we ask someone and at least 10 blocks later we finally find it after we are about to give up. It has the tiniest gift shop i have ever seen in a Hard Rock, but we did get our dessert and it was pretty good, inside it was pretty cool. We took a few pics and headed back to the hotel to find everyone else back from their jazz show. We all met in Amanda and Jaimie's room and discussed what was going to happen for free day and to celebrate Kate's birthday the next day.
Monday September 28th:
This was Kate's birthday, which also means it was my half birthday! Yay! We woke up got ready for our one free day in Buenos Aires, grabbed a little breakfast, and went to Florida Street to do a bit of shopping before going to La Boca for Kate's birthday lunch. We ate at a little outside restaurant that had tango dancers to watch while you are eating. They were not quite as good as the tango dancers at the show but they were still pretty good. Several of us got to pose for pictures with them. Kate got a little special attention as well. After lunch and a little shopping around La Boca we wanted to head over to Recolleta. We went back into the cemetery to explore some more being that the first time we only had a few minutes to see what was in there. After looking around for a bit a couple of us went back to the hotel. I took a much needed nap and it was amazing. Kate and I were both passed out until 7:20 when there was a knock upon our door, which was a good thing because we were suppose to meet for dinner in 10 minutes. We ate some dinner went back to the hotel and got ready to celebrate Kate's birthday. We went to hear a live band play. We weren't real sure what kind of music they were but they ended up being kind of an Indie band. They were pretty fun to listen to. We also had some starbucks while we were out. It was a pretty fun night and we enjoyed celebrating Kate's life!
Tuesday September 29th:
We woke up just like any other day, but we had to check out of our rooms before we left for the day. After we ate breakfast we were going to head to the zoo. We had a bit of mix-up and some fustration with part of the group leaving without letting others know, but we got past that and finally after a bit more confusion of direction got to the Botanical Gardens and had a relaxing morning exploring the gardens. After the gardens we went to McDonald's, i may have said this before but their McDonald's are so much nicer than ours. Some of you know that I do not like McD's in the states, but here it is actually pretty good. After lunch was the zoo. It was all in all just another zoo, however, different country so there were some different animals. They had your ordinary lions, tigers, and bears oh my. However they also had things like tapirs, kangaroos, anteaters, a red panda bear, hippos, rhinos and then they had bunny/deer like creatures and swimming, webbed feet rats, both of which were just wondering around the zoo. It was pretty exciting. We got done at the zoo and were exhausted so we went to a park to sit for a few minutes. Then it was time to grab some food and head back to the hotel to get our stuff and head back to montevideo. We went through customs and got back on the Buquebus (ferry) and headed back to uruguay. However the ferry this time was rather bumpy and almost made several of our group sick. Straight off the ferry we got on charter buses with a bunch of random people we did not know and bused it back to mont. We arrived at tres cruces, walked back to casa with our luggage, dropped it off and several of us made a trip to Castrobo's for some dinner. It was very good to be home.
We woke up, ate breakfast, made our lunches, threw a few last things in my bag, and loaded onto the bus and headed out at 8:00 am. The time on the bus was predominately used for sleeping. Around 10:30 we arrided at a farm which also had many collections. The guy who owns it is in the Guiness Book of World Records for several of his collections. He had keychains, pencils, cans, ash trays, match boxes and so on. Also at the farm you could taste and buy jams including onion, tomato, eggplant, pumpkin, and red pepper. There were also a few animals, inluding ponies and emu type birds in the same pen. And there was a small playground with a merry-go-round swing thing that we had fun on. After playing it was time to load back onto the bus and go into Colonia. First we went to their old bull fighting arena. And we definately went inside even though there was a sign that said NO PASAR. We are such little angels. We had almost 4 hours to eat lunch and walk around Colonia before we had to go get on the ferry. We ate lunch in a pretty little park. We saw the light house and then walked around and did a little souvenier shopping. The ferry left at 5 and we arrived in BA around 6. It was a very smooth ride. We checked in at the hotel, went and got some Argentinian Pesos and went to get dinner. We ate dinner at a little Italian Restaurant two doors down from the hotel, it was amazing. It was called Brocollino or something along the lines of this. The pasta that everyone got was really good, and they had the most amazing lasagna. After eating we went swimming at the hotel in the heated pool :) until 11:30 when one of the employees came and told us that the pool closed at 10:00. Oops, but there was no sign and no one told us so oh well.
Saturday September 26th:
This was the day we got a tour of the city. We started out at Plaza del Mayo, we saw the Pink House and the Catholic Church where they have a memorial to San Martin. We also went to La Boca, Recoletta, and several other places around the city. In Recoletta is the cemetery where Eva Peron is buried so we got to see her family masoleum as well as many others. After the tour we ate lunch and went shopping at one of the ferias, they had a ton of awesome jewelry. Too soon it was time to go to the musuem. The first floor was European art including some Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Rembrant as well as many others. On the second floor was Latin American art which was very different. Afterwards we had a bit more time to shop but then we had to head back to the hotel to get ready for the Tango Show. We got all snazzed up and went to El Querandi, ate some dinner and then watched some very good tango dancers. I was at the end of our table so i had a front row seat for the show.
Sunday September 27th:
We began the day by meeting for church at 9. Unlike here in Uruguay where we don't even have to go outside to get to church, the church we attended was across town so we had to take the subway. It was cold and rainy outside. I really enjoyed the church service even though it was in spanish, but it was very cold during the whole thing. We did get to attend the English class afterwards. For lunch we ate pizza with the youth of the church. The original plan had been to go to a feria with them but due to the lovely rain we just chilled around the church playing ping pong, fusball, and getting to know the Argentinians. A little bit after 4 we left to go to the mall with them. We had to take a bus which was very crowded in we were definately all in each others personal space the entire bus ride..fun. The mall we went to was very big and it was also rather ritzy. Not the best place for shopping, plus everyone was in a rather cranky mood so we left and went back to the hotel, farkled a bit and then went out on another adventure. In the taxi on the way home from the museum we saw Hard Rock Cafe and decided we need to visit it. So we decide that we do not want to eat at Hard Rock because of the cost but we wanted to by souveniers and say that we got dessert there. So we go to the mall to get some more money out and to eat dinner, you wouldn't think that this would take that long and yet it did. We finally ate and get ready to go, well we could not remember exactly where Hard Rock was so we asked a doorman, we end up asking a second doorman and they tell us two different places. After asking a cab driver we decide it would be best to go back the hotel and find exactly where it is. We go back and ben looks it up on his iphone. So we get in two cabs and go to the streets where google maps said Hard Rock was, well guess what, it's not there. We end up walking and then we ask someone and at least 10 blocks later we finally find it after we are about to give up. It has the tiniest gift shop i have ever seen in a Hard Rock, but we did get our dessert and it was pretty good, inside it was pretty cool. We took a few pics and headed back to the hotel to find everyone else back from their jazz show. We all met in Amanda and Jaimie's room and discussed what was going to happen for free day and to celebrate Kate's birthday the next day.
Monday September 28th:
This was Kate's birthday, which also means it was my half birthday! Yay! We woke up got ready for our one free day in Buenos Aires, grabbed a little breakfast, and went to Florida Street to do a bit of shopping before going to La Boca for Kate's birthday lunch. We ate at a little outside restaurant that had tango dancers to watch while you are eating. They were not quite as good as the tango dancers at the show but they were still pretty good. Several of us got to pose for pictures with them. Kate got a little special attention as well. After lunch and a little shopping around La Boca we wanted to head over to Recolleta. We went back into the cemetery to explore some more being that the first time we only had a few minutes to see what was in there. After looking around for a bit a couple of us went back to the hotel. I took a much needed nap and it was amazing. Kate and I were both passed out until 7:20 when there was a knock upon our door, which was a good thing because we were suppose to meet for dinner in 10 minutes. We ate some dinner went back to the hotel and got ready to celebrate Kate's birthday. We went to hear a live band play. We weren't real sure what kind of music they were but they ended up being kind of an Indie band. They were pretty fun to listen to. We also had some starbucks while we were out. It was a pretty fun night and we enjoyed celebrating Kate's life!
Tuesday September 29th:
We woke up just like any other day, but we had to check out of our rooms before we left for the day. After we ate breakfast we were going to head to the zoo. We had a bit of mix-up and some fustration with part of the group leaving without letting others know, but we got past that and finally after a bit more confusion of direction got to the Botanical Gardens and had a relaxing morning exploring the gardens. After the gardens we went to McDonald's, i may have said this before but their McDonald's are so much nicer than ours. Some of you know that I do not like McD's in the states, but here it is actually pretty good. After lunch was the zoo. It was all in all just another zoo, however, different country so there were some different animals. They had your ordinary lions, tigers, and bears oh my. However they also had things like tapirs, kangaroos, anteaters, a red panda bear, hippos, rhinos and then they had bunny/deer like creatures and swimming, webbed feet rats, both of which were just wondering around the zoo. It was pretty exciting. We got done at the zoo and were exhausted so we went to a park to sit for a few minutes. Then it was time to grab some food and head back to the hotel to get our stuff and head back to montevideo. We went through customs and got back on the Buquebus (ferry) and headed back to uruguay. However the ferry this time was rather bumpy and almost made several of our group sick. Straight off the ferry we got on charter buses with a bunch of random people we did not know and bused it back to mont. We arrived at tres cruces, walked back to casa with our luggage, dropped it off and several of us made a trip to Castrobo's for some dinner. It was very good to be home.
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