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.

Death by Raquel

Monday was another one of those days where we were going all day. Chapel, spanish, lunch, biochem, straight into INST, i was so tired by the time inst came i kept dozing off. Sadly we had a guest speaker so i felt bad for like sleeping while he was talking, but i was so tired i could not help it. After inst we had an hour to get all dressed up, which when all 11 girls want to straighten their hair and there is only one uruguayan straightener this creates a bit of a problem. So we got all cute and gussied up and set off to the Teatro Solis to see the Montevideo philharmonic orchestra. They were very good, and the theatre is gorgeous. They had a pianist who played with them on a piece composed by Beethoven and he was absolutely amazing, i have never seen anyone's fingers move so fast. On the way back home it is the Walkers tradition to stop at La Cigale and get helado. It was a very enjoyable night minus the blisters that got rubbed from my stupid shoes being it was quite a walk from the theatre back to casa.


So i am actually more behind than i realized, this week has been crazy tho. So tuesday i'm not even sure what all happened. I had normal classes, homework due in P-chem, lunch, spanish. For spanish lab we did walk around the neighborhood and were only allowed to speak in spanish. We also went to one of the local grovery stores during our lab time. I can't even remember what else happened on tuesday, i somehow wasted away the afternoon, and then all evening was spent studying for biochem. What a fun night..

Okay so yesterday, I spent the morning studying/goofing off. Spanish lab was alright. Lunch was made especially for Rosalina for her birthday. Whenever it is your birthday, you get to pick what we eat for lunch, and what kind of cake you want. We had portuguese chicken again, i liked it better this time. Then we had the most amazing chocolate cake you have ever eaten in your life. It was chocolate cake with a layer of dulce de leche, it had like fudge sauce, chocolate chunks sprinkled on the icing, you can just not imagine. We named this cake "death by raquel". After this amazing lunch it was time to face our doom: Biochemisty Test. I left the test feeling okay, and I ended up doing about how i felt that i would. We went to fight class last night, the first class we have been to this week. After fight class it was time for homework: p-chem, inst journal, and studying for spanish test.

Today was chapel, p-chem, spanish lab, lunch celebrating kate's birthday being that we will be in BA on her actual birthday. Kate wanted fajitas, and then we had another chocolate cake which was different but still a death by raquel. After lunch was a lovely spanish test, which wasn't horrible but was not that great either. For the most part i didn't do that bad, but there were definately a few things that i could not remember. Now we have a five day weekend because we are leaving for BA tomorrow morning. I have not decided yet but I will most likely not take my computer with me thereful I will be out of contact until tuesday night/ wednesday morning. This has not been the most exciting week but the excitement is about to come. This is our first trip and after this we are traveling every other week or two! I cannot believe we have been here for a month! The rest of today will be spent packing and recovering from this week. I think we are watching a movie tonight and then either english conversations or aerobicas. Yay for just having a chill night!

I'm not really in the mood to blog right now, my mind is full of things that i do not want to think about but that i cannot get out of my head. I would wait til tomorrow but tomorrow is going to be busy enough so i figured a quick update tonight would be good just so that i don't get in a blog swamp.

So saturday we slept in, trying to catch up on a bit of the sleep that was lost during the week. I believe around 12:30 we decided we better get out of bed. At 1:30 an Uruguayo named Hermann came and about half of us left with him to go ice skating at one of the local malls. It took quite a while for us to get there but we finally made it and we were a little unsure about the rink at first, it was rather small and the ice was rather bumpy. However, we went on with our plan and it ended up being a lot of fun. We made a lot of trains and just enjoyed each others company. And greatest of all i managed not to fall at all! After ice skating was time for some homework, which i got a decent bit done and then Kate, Dara, and I made a run to Castobo's for some pizza. Unfortunately after the pizza i never did get back to work, but that's okay cause i did partake in several hours of card games, which included learning how to play mow, not sure how to spell that one. We also played some idiot and ended with a neverending game of slaps. It was a good relaxing saturday.

Today Rachel, Taylor, and I decided to go to the church we saw on the way to the Prado, which there are pictures in the works on facebook. The outside of the church was absolutely gorgeous so we were curious to see what the inside looked like. It was really pretty on the inside too! I have now attended two Catholics masses. After church we went and played in a playground that happened to be on the way to the bus stop. Lol. Yes we are all 20 years old but that does not mean there is no longer an inner child inside of us. We grabbed some lunch at Lucas on the way back to casa and then sat in the kitchen and played some idiot, markers (really the game of spoons but we played with markers), and another game of slaps. Finally we pulled ourselves away and went and did some P-Chem..so much fun! By the time we finished p-chem we were really hungry so we made our second trip to castrobo's making it back just in time to sing with te youth of the church, who for the second week in a row failed to grace us with their presence. So we sung for about an hour and gave up. We had our church service at 9, we had some good conversations in it, but there was also a lot to think about. That pretty much get me caught up so that i can have my very busy day tomorrow, that is part of the reason that i dread mondays. I did get to talk to my dad and carla tonight so that was good, i have only talked to them once or i think twice before this. I am to the point to where i feel like this is actually becoming real to me. We are entering our 4th week of being here, can you believe i have already been gone for almost a month? i can't! On friday we start are traveling and from then on it is in and out of the country til time to go home in december. The thought of that is really exciting but also kind of sad. I really like it here but i am also really starting to miss my family and friends a lot! I know that i am the one in the new exciting place but i like to hear from y'all and hear what's go on there no matter how boring y'all might think life is there. Anyway love and miss y'all! Goodnight!

Yellow Fever.

Thursday morning started out with waking up extra early to put breakfast out. We all had to be on the bus by 8:15 to go get our yellow fever shots for brazil and to go apply for our brazilian visas. We drove to the port and went into a super sketchy building. Inside it looked pretty much abandoned, so we are standing in this little hallway thing and we have not seen a single person and then this door opens and there is a lady in a lab coat. That is the fastest i have ever gotten a shot, we checked our passport number with the guy at the desk stood in line for literally like a minute then it was our turn to get our quick stab and we were done. It did help that they knew that 15 people were coming to get yellow fever stots at a certain time. It was entertaining to me because Rosalinda, one of our directors was standing across from where we were sitting to get the shot and she kept telling us, now just look and me and it will be alright. She is like our mommy away from home. I enjoyed this though because she told that to me, i looked at her and she was like good, and then i turned to watch the shot cause that is much more fascinating to me. Granted not everyone likes to watch themselves get stuck, but i guess i am just strange like that. Anyway, we went and applied for visas which was pretty boring compared to getting shots, and then it was time for class. Spanish lab at 11. I am getting much better at spanish but i still freeze up when like a native speaker talks to me, it is rather fustrating. After lab was lunch which was stuffed chicken with a potato side which i was actually not that fond of which is strange because i love just about every type of potato there is. After lunch was regular spanish..oh boy. We had like two quizzes, es no bueno but yeah. After class we went and got our laundry, which if i haven't mentioned this, the laundry smells absolutely amazing when you pick it up, we are all in love with that smell, it is pretty much one of those smells that no one dislikes. After working on P-Chem for almost two hours, we went to english conversations, and yet again there were way too many people, it was 10 of us compared to 1 uruguayo, so several of us left. Matt, dara, taylor, and i went to go get food. Several of us ended up playing card games in the kitchen instead of doing homework, then we finally go check p-chem to find out that they are pretty much all wrong and must be reworked..fustration! We finally finish this and start playing the marriage game til it was past time to go to bed.

I did not want to wake up this morning due to lack of sleep but it was my last day to put out breakfast so i made it up, though it was kind of a struggle. We had p-chem this morning due to the shots and everything yesterday morning, but we were back to a regular schedule by spanish. Our spanish teacher sliced her foot open last night on a rusty nail and got sent to the emergency room but somehow talked the doctor out of having to get stitches. Lol, she is so adorable. also apparently a little crazy. Lunch today was chivitos again, they are so good! It rained all day today so after goofing off a bit after lunch me and dara decided that we definately needed to watch a movie in honor of the rainy day. We pushed our beds together and watched Sweet Home Alabama on my laptop. Lauren made dinner tonight, it was like taco casserole or something, it was really good. Apparenlty there is just something about this house that food cannot taste bad under this roof, it is like enchanted. After dinner was fight class, i wasn't sure if i was going to go cause i still had a bit of homework that was due at midnight; however, once i found out who all was going it was a must. All of the students but one went, we finally talked all 5 of the boys into going to our "lamo" gym with us tonight. They all say that our classes are super easy, but i think that most of them actually had fun they just don't want to admit it. But this was by far my favorite part of the day, fight class is just so much more fun when i can watch our boys behind me in the mirror. Anyway, everyone else just finished watching Hairspray, but what a shame i had to finish my homework. Well now it's done and everyone else is apparently having fun with out me so i think i need to go check out what they are doing, plus i am getting super tired.

Dario.

Every week we have our own kind of chores around the casa. This week I am the lucky one who gets to wake up early and put breakfast on the table on the days when we don't have a cooked breakfast. Yesterday was my first day to do so. Boy oh boy. I woke up an hour early ran out in my pajamas pulled everything out and ran back to my warm bed. Well it didn't go quite that smoothly but almost. I couldn't find the jam and a few other things, but it turns out we were actually out of jam so it wasn't my fault. P-chem was pretty normal, lunch again was amazing. We had gulash, which is pretty much a random mixing of ingredients in most cases, just whatever you happen to have on hand, well we had the most amazing gulash, we also had the choice between beef or chicken. Dessert was my favorite, i swear that they are trying to fatten us up. Though apparently i look like i weigh 20 pounds less than i do but that's a different story. Dessert was a very moist chocolate cake, which chocolate is something that they do not eat enough of, everything is dulce de leche, which don't get me wrong is very good, but it just cannot replace chocolate. The cake also has amazing chocolate icing, yes i know everything is amazing and that i should probably find a new word but i don't know i'm just feeling amazing right now. On the side to go with the cake was chocolate glaze, whip cream, and strawberries. We are in heaven here. After lunch was spanish, which instead of having our normal class we went to Expo Prado, which was basically like our fair and rodeo back in texas, except minus all the rides. There were places you could by stuff, and there were different exhibitions of the countries, including everything from china to the US, and then there were tons of cows, sheep, and horses. It was very intersting, i had fun, and it definately beat regular class. We were out most of the afternoon. Afterwards we went to aerobicas and matt went again, that is always really fun. After aerobics it was time to study for biochem quiz. I went upstairs to study with some of the others which after a little while turned into the cup game and sort of exercising, needless to say parts of me are sore today.

Today was cooked breakfast so i didn't have to get up early, yay! I studied for biochem most of the morning and then went to lab at 11. Wednesdays are my least favorite lab day, but today was not actually that bad. Lunch was portuguese chicken, which was good, but not my favorite, still cooked very well tho, other people really liked it. After lunch we started class 15 minutes early so that autumn and some of the girls could get done in time to get to the gym by 3. Autumn's favorite gym instructor, Dario, is only teaching in the afternoons now and she really wanted to see him. So we agreed to go to class in our gym clothes and leave right after. The class that we went to was not only only aerobics, but power aerobics..fun. Let's just say we did not stop moving the entire time. The class wore us out, but it was so much fun. Dario was hilarious. And i will definately have some sore muscles tomorrow, but hey i am building them. It was showertime and then time for a few errands. We grabbed dinner on the way back, chilled for a bit, and then watched the rescuers. Throw a little spanish homework in there and that was pretty much my night. Now i am exhausted with a very early day in the morning so goodnight to all!

And We're Back to Monday

It is crazy how much the time runs together here. It does not feel like a monday, i have to stop and think how long we have been here to realize that we are not entering our 3rd week of living in Uruguay! That is kind of exciting, in one way it feels like we just got here but on the other hand it feels like we have been here for months now. I feel that everyday we are learning more and more how to be Uruguayos. Although we will never completely fit in. Twice now when we have been walking on the street we have seen some of our friends from the church and we got to greet them using the culture here. They have a very different type of greeting than we do. We still stick out a lot by what we where tho, and and that is probably not going to change, but oh well. Even if we started dressing like them we would still stick out.

Anyway, yesterday started out with church at 10. It was another sermon that i pretty much did not catch a word of, except for the reference to the passage, both of the sermons i have heard were out of Ephesians. We did sing a song that we learned in chapel, which was very exciting for us to actually be familiar with something. After church Dara and I went to the feria, we were looking for soccer jerseys and we did not find a single uruguayan jersey. Last week they were everywhere, but now they are no where to be found. I guess we will just have to wait until the week of the next game. So we pretty much walked around the feria and wasted time, although i guess we did get exercise. Then we stopped by Castrobo's on the way home and got some pizza. The rest of the afternoon we worked on homework and i took a short nap. At 5 we had our usual singing with the youth next door, except they never showed up, so we sang with ourselves for almost an hour waiting. Dara and I decided to go get dinner after this but i needed change and the only cambio open on sundays is in tres cruces, so off we went. Ben and Josh happened to be leaving to get food at the same time as us so we decided to go together. Everything was really expensive at tres cruces so we ended up going to subway across the park. Talk about different. First of all, different everything. I got Italiano Parmeseano bread, the turkey they had looked very sad so i got ham instead. Ham is what is popular here, they eat it on everything. Idk what kind of cheese i had, and then they like microwaved it instead of toasting it. And sadly they do not have ranch here at all so i had to get mayonaise instead, their mayo is different here tho so it was intersting. Oh and btw their tuna is pretty much tuna paste, Josh got tuna and he said it did not even taste like tuna. Anyway so that was quite an experience. At 9 we had our normal service and afterwards, dara, kate, and i had some roommate bonding. It was a very good time, I love my roomies!

Today was a dreaded monday. Though classes were switched up a bit, but still. Breakfast was good, with banana pancaked again. We then had biochem instead of our regular beginner spanish. Lunch was gulash, which was actually the most amazing gulash i have ever had. I think it is literally impossible for Raquel to cook something that does not taste good. Dessert was really creamy cheesecake with either strawberry sauce or dulce de leche on top. Again amazing. After lunch was spanish, which again seemed to go on forever, then international studies. Bleh. Although we did watch part of an Eva Peron which was actually very interesting to me. This was getting us ready to go to Argentina, which we will be doing in about two weeks. After class we went and grabbed dinner. At 8 was fight class. Tonight Fabresio was teaching, but I do not like his classes as much, his are also way more crowded. I think i will stick to Esti and Valeria. Other than that is just kind of chilling around the house, and now it's time for homework and then bed.

Estancia.

Yesterday was another regular day. Woke up barely in time for breakfast and then went to spanish. Normally i kind of dread spanish, but it wasn't terribly bad, and the time passed pretty quickly. I just feel like we aren't learning much in class. Lunch was pork with about 10 million sides, and yes i actually ate pork. The dessert was a debate between oraange and pumpkin cake with either butterscotch or peanut butter icing. I don't know but it was really good. After lunch was our chill time, we are so busy during the week, we need time to just chill and goof off. I did read some of my inst book for monday, but i also spent a good amount of time on the computer. I also helped some with dinner. Alli made us indian food and it was amazing. My hand still smells vaguely of garlic (from grating garlic by the way). After dinner it was time for fight class! We did the clawing move and it is hilarious. I hope that i can still remember the moves when i get back to the states, fight class is so much fun, and good exercise! It was definately time for a shower when we got back. And to end our evening of relaxing, we watched a movie, eagle eye to be exact.

Today was the day we go to the estancia. We woke up got ready, kate went to the bakery and got breakfast and at 10 we boarded the bus. It took about an hour to get there. We went to the Estancia Renacimiento. We had a bit of free time while waiting for lunchtime, we walked around a bit and took a bunch of pictures. Finally it was time for lunch. I have never seen more meat in one meal in my life! First there was bread and this oil with like chives, onions and red peppers in it. They also brought out some salad stuff, but all seperated, not like in salad form. It was like a multiple course meal except they didn't wait for everyone to finish before taking it away and bringing something else. Also they just brought out like platters of food instead of like individual plates. The first course was like two different types of sausage. Then brought out baked potatoes, chicken, like steak, more sausage. Then they brought out slices of ham and cheese, which by the way they eat ham and cheese with everything. I think that was all but it was pretty outrageous. Oh and dessert was crepes filled with dulce de leche with ice cream. After lunch we went on kind of a tour of the estancia. First we went and fed the geese, ducks, and turkeys. Then we went by the horses and we got to see and feed two day old calves. They were adorable. We rode on a tractor pulled thing to show us around some of the land. After that we went and saw a replica of the orginal train station in Montevideo. I took several pictures of the layout for my dad. lol. We got to ride the horses after this. It would have been a boring ride because we did nothing but just walk around, but it was made entertaining because we named our horses based on their personalities. For example, i named mine drifter because he liked to vere off to the side. Matt named his omg i'm stupid or wow i'm dumb, he called it both, but his liked to try and sqeeze itself between the other horses, that or it would just stop and be be lazy. We had a snack, then we watched a cow get milked and that was the end of our visit. We loaded back onto the bus. Most of us turned on our ipods and rested. I was almost asleep and the bus starts making a stange noise. We blew a tire. Autumn got a picture of it, the rubber was like curled up on the tire. We sat in the bus for half an hour, we finally got going again and got back to the house in less than 5 minutes. We were so close we could have walked home. It was a fun day but we are all tired. And now we are relaxing and watching Aladin!

Olay Loco.

So here i am getting behind again, there is just so much to do during the day and not enough time to do it. Yesterday was uber busy and tuesday was full of homework to get ready for wednesday so you know...anyway i will give a quick overview of tuesday and then get on with yesterday and today. Tuesday was regular breakfast, class, lunch was chino food, very greasy tho. More class and afterwards i pretty much just goofed off with everyone else in the kitchen. We went to aerobics which started out with frabresio teaching and he was hardcore, we did nothing but jump around. It was very tiring but a good workout. Then after aerobics me and amber started researching for our religion paper however we could only find two sources, so we ended up having to go ask wimon for some help. Our third source ended up being the uruguayan constitution which we had to translate from spanish. After that i stayed up for quite a while making flash cards and studying for biochem quiz.

Wednesday was a much more fun day, but very busy and tiring. We woke up with cooked breakfast which always makes it a better morning. After breakfast we went down to the alianza to get a tour and talk about different opportunities to do community service. We need 10 service hours for our culture class. Some of the things we could do would be like lead one of the clubs and help them with their english. We could also visit classes and talk to the students in english. Also they have celebrations for our holidays like halloween and thanksgiving that we can help with. It actually sounded pretty fun, but also a little intimidating. Toward the end of the tour some of us had to leave to make it to our 11 o'clock class. There was 6 of us and we had quite an interesting experience trying to get our taxis, but you prolly had to be there. We went to lab and read children's books in spanish, we got to read Donde Viven Los Montruos. After lab we had an early lunch and started our afternoon classes half an hour early. We had a biochem quiz and i did good except i made a really stupid mistake. Ugh. Anyway we got out of class and had to literally run and change. We went to the legislative palace and got a tour of that. Me and rachel got a picture with the guard..he looked very unhappy. I know it's his job but idk he was kind of scary. We got to go in the senators chamber, the library and that was pretty much it except for the big open room in the center. The representatives were in session so we could not go see their chamber. The architecture was gorgeous, some of the art, a little strange. After the leg. palace we hopped some taxis, which i was in the back of a rather small taxi between abel and ben, not the best idea. Although if we wrecked i would have been well protected. As ben said, i was not going anywhere. We went straight to the futbol game. We got there about 5:15 and the game started at 6. The stadium holds 70,000 and it was at least 3/4 full. They did all sorts of chants which most of them we had no idea what they were saying and no one would translate for us. Wonder why. The two i did understand were Olay olay olay olay loco loco. and then Soy Celeste. Cause that is the color of our team. The game was a national qualifier for the world cup so that was very exciting. Oh and we won 3-1. Take that columbia. Oh and speaking of taking things, we found out from autumn that the oxford group was watching their qualifying match too, except they watched theirs on tv, and we were there in person. TAKE THAT OXFORD! After the game was time for homework and a little excitement from the game. It was a very busy day but packed with lots of fun.

Today we did not have chapel/house meeting due to our very busy day yesterday. P-chem was pretty normal, some interesting comparisons made between science and real life but other than that just another class. I am glad i have dr. sutherlin teaching it instead of dr. hardegree next semester. Not that gen chem was not fun, but he was hard to follow most of the time. Lunch toda was fish and chicken. The chicken was made for those of us who do not like fish. lol. Spanish droned on forever today, and about the only thing i got from it was that celeste means light blue. After spanish amber and i spent another two hours writing our paper over separation of church and state, but we did finish it. Dara, kate, and i pretty much ran to aerobicas and got their in just the nick of time. Some other chick was teaching at first and she was hard to follow, and i also felt that we were not getting much exercise. But then valeria finally came in and once she got their it was nothing but different types of jogging, but it gets you a good workout. Then we did abs and stretches. We went to castrobo's and got muzarella to go, and the cook could not understand my name, he thought i was saying denise. Finally at the end he said he would just call us maria. None of the uruguayans can say my name, it is kind of fun to hear them try tho. We had a nice quiet dinner at the casa, and then everyone else came back. We hung out in the kitchen again listening to blink 182 songs and then watching kates videos. Then almost everyone went upstairs to watch fern gully. Dara and i stayed down in the kitchen and made our first mate. We did the sweet mate with orange peel, it was really good but dara got the water a little too sweet. I hopefully will be bringing some yerba home with me so that everyone can try it, and by that time i will be an expert. Apparently uruguayans are known all over south america for their mate.

Mass.

We are not required to go to church here, but they do highly recommend it for several reasons. There is the main church that we are next to, or technically in the same building as, but we can go out and explore. There are not a vast number of churches but there are several catholic churches. A part of our international studies class is that we have to do an assignment about religion in Uruguay. Taylor and Lauren had to visit a catholic church for their paper, so me, dara, and kate decided to join them this morning. Well, it was actually more of afternoon. Mass started at 12:00 so we got up and went. My lovely shoes rubbed blisters on the way there and on the way back. The service only lasted an hour, it was interesting but that was about it cause i didn't understand most of it. Taylor, Kate, and I went to get pizza. Their pizza is different here but it is really good, from this place anyway. After pizza it was time for homework..exactly what i wanted to be doing on a sunday afternoon in Uruguay. Anyway, monday is our Latin America studies class so i spent most of my afternoon reading for that class. I read until 5 when we got together with the youth from Iglesia de Cristo and we sing with them in english and spanish. Afterwards a group of us went with them to Punta Carretas to get dinner. I have now successfully ordered for myself twice without getting confused and not understanding what the cashier is saying. Yay! We got back just in time for our 9 o'clock church service that we have in the casa. It is like our weekly english service. At the end of that I had a long conversation with Rosalinda who is one of our directors, i really enjoyed getting to talk to her and get to know her better and share part of my life with her. I had figured this out before, but we also discussed that I was in band with her daughter in law, so that was interesting. I got called away by my roommate to go talk to my parents, talked to them for a bit, finished some homework, showered and then went to bed...eventually.

Monday. Oh how i love mondays..not. This monday was extra busy cause not only did i have all of my classes, we had tango tonight, but i will get to that later. Breakfast this morning was amazing. Well first of all, my room got up late this morning so that was fun, but we were able to scarf a quick breakfast before chapel. Anyway, Raquel who is the main cook was back to work today. We had a fill-in last week cause Raquel was interestingly enough in the staates while we were coming here. Kind of a coincidence if you ask me, but you didn't. We had the normal eggs and bacon, but we had banana pancakes. They were so good. Spanish was okay it seemed to last forever tho, and i was right by the door so we were able to start smelling food, it smelled so good. One strange thing about Uruguay is they don't have very good mexican food, part of that is because we are all used to going to school and most of us living in texas and now we come here and their mexican food is nothing like our tex-mex, which i love so much. But today Raquel made us fajitas, and i'm not talking like buy tortillas and meat from the store and heat it up, i'm talking homemade tortillas, chicken, guacamole, the whole nine yards...we were in heaven. Today was the second day since we have been here that i had a food baby afterwards. It is a good thing that we walk so much and stuff or I would come back weighing twice as much as i do now. So anyway, yes lunch was very good. On to Biochem, so far the class is not that bad, i am enjoying having a nine person class, it makes it easier to concentrate and it's nice knowing the professor like on a personal level. Straight from biochem we go to LA studies, this class always drags on forever, it wasn't terrible today but it was also cut an hour short due to our evening activity. We took our quiz over what we read which wasn't great but could have been much worse. We discussed the book and then split up into groups and translated a song that discussed the same topic, but then we were done. Yay! We had two hours before tango which was going to be used to do homework, but then instead we tried to kill the mold growing in my mate. We will see how that goes. But that turned into taking crazy pictures in the kitchen on kate's computer. And then finally it was time for tango! First they came in and did the history, and then showed us a demonstration and then it was our turn. We had to learn how to walk, so we circled the room walking. We learned a basic stance and then split into guys and girls to learn our respective parts. Then it was time to practice. After that they taught us the actual stance, and then would throw in a few other things here and there. It was fun, a little awkward at times. Autumn took a ton of pictures so those should be interesting, and i can't wait to see them. I danced with all but one of our guys, they were all pretty good, but i had trouble remembering to let them lead. If enough of us are interested, we may start taking weekly tango lessons, but we will see. After that was just chilling, eating dinner, finishing homework and what not. The next several days are going to be very busy, especially wednesday, but i'll wait and let y'all hear about that when the time comes, as for now i am gonna get ready and go to bed.

Hecho!

Today was the first day that we got to sleep in and it was amazing. My room didn't wake up until 11:30. I got up showered and we went down the street to a corner bakery call delicity and got some sandwiches and came back and ate at the casa. We hung around the house for a little bit and then went to Hecho which was an arts and crafts exhibit that is held once a year in Uruguay. It was kind of like a once in a lifetime chance for us. There were a lot of cool things to look at, i only took like two pictures because we weren't really sure if we were allowed to take pictures or not. Only 9 of us went, then we split into smaller groups, my group included matt, karaline, and me. We walked all around though none of us bought anything. After that we went to the mall which was like right next door and we got some dinner. Matt got some kung pow chicken from the Chino place, but he said it was missing the pow. Me and Karaline went to McDonalds. We were both trying to order a small coke, and a McFiesta, and then i got fries. However something went awry when Karaline was ordering, we think that when she tried to say no onions that the lady heard chicken because the words have similiar pronunciations. Anyway, mine was 90 pesos and hers ended up being 140 pesos so we were like woah. When she got her food she had the McFiesta, her drink and then not one but two Pollo Americanos. You sort of had to be there, but it was hilarious.

After we ate we browsed the mall for a bit and decided to head back to casa. We made it to the bus stop and one of the other groups met up with us coincidentally. We are waiting for a bus and none of them are going where we need to go so we decide to go down the street a ways to another bus stop, well even less buses came by here so we walked down a bit more and finally decided just to take a cab. After we got back we went to La Cigale and got ice cream :), i have really been wanting to try sambayon, but we could not figure out what flavor this was, i looked in my dictionary and on-line and no where to be found. Upon trying it we finally agreed that it tasted similiar to eggnog. After the ice cream we sat outside in the courtyard and sang church hymns for several hours. Now we are just goofing around in our room about to go to bed. So on the note buenos noches!

Dinner gone awry.

Here is the rest of friday. While we were hanging out around casa, dara kate matt abel lauren me and later ben decide that we want to get out of the house for a bit. We went to the cambio and the banco to get and exchange money, then we went and got kate some yarn, she is now knitting a scarf. They sale yarn by the grams so she ended up with a large ball of yarn, you kind of had to be here to there to see it to think it was that funny. We were also looking for a mate cup for lauren, but we ended up splitting up into two groups. Dara matt and i went by tugays, got dara a laundry bag and then we home. We chilled a bit more and then decided we should eat dinner before class, so we get ready to make dinner and it takes us a while to get the stove lit and cut the chicken up, and the water is taking forever to boil cause we are making pasta. Well we pretty much run out of time so we decide that we will finish when we get back from our combat class. Combat class is yet another class that is offered at our gym, and is definately in spanish..this makes them all the more fun. We come back from class and in our hustle and bustle of trying to get to class on time because combat class fills up and it is a little gym, we take the unfinished noodles off of the hot burner and stick them on a different burner. When we got back they had finished cooking and then some, they were huge and were pretty much mush, so we ended up throwing them away and going to lucas, which is a cheap hotdog/hamburger stand less than a block away and you can get a hamburger for about $2 US or a hot dog for $1 US. After dinner we watched anastasia, which i have strangely never seen. After the movie we played taboo until after 1. There is just something about playing games with your professor until late in the night. My team lost by a lot but we had a lot of fun, you kind of had to hear some of the things said but anyway, that was my day. Tomorrow we may go to an art exhibit, or we might not..idk, but until then buenos noches!

Starting Classes.

Hopefully this post will get me caught up to today. Friday are our easy days, the only class i have is beginner spanish which is from 10:30 to 12:30 and lunch is at 12:30 so i woke up went to class went to lunch and now everyone is just kind of chilling aroung the casa because we have been so busy all week we all just want to relax. okay a little background for those of you who don't know. there is a group of 16 students and one professor from ACU (our biochem professor - autumn), and then there are the directors who are wimon and rosalinda. out of the students there are 8 biochem majors and various other majors, there are five boys and 11 girls. we have class, eat, sleep, and hang out all in casa, which is like a house but then again not so much. i hopefully will have pictures of casa to post soon..i just have to take them.

Okay so here is the rest of the week that i missed. Monday was our first day of classes, this is also my busiest day. breakfast at 8:30, chapel at 9:00, Spanish from 10:30 to 12:30, lunch, biochem at 1:30 straight to latin america studies until 6. at this point i cannot remember what we did monday night, but i don't think it was very exciting. tuesday was more exciting. tuesdays include breakfast, physical chem at 9:30, spanish lab, lunch, then two hours of spanish class after lunch. tuesday night was the first night we went to the gym. autumn found this gym last time she was here that is 200 pesos a month which is around $10 US, cheap for a gym. also autumn and the americans are pretty much famous at the gym, all of the instructors love us, mainly autumn but you know. so tuesday night we go to an aerobics class in spanish. um pretty sure i did not understand but like one or two words but it was a blast, we had to watch the instructor very close, and half of the time we had no idea what we were doing but it was so fun and a good workout. though sometimes we had a better idea what was going on than some of the uruguayan women. wednesday i have lab at 11:00, lunch, biochem and then this wednesday day we went on a bus tour around montevideo, i will be posting pictures from this hopefully today as well. our first stop was the cemetery, they are very different here but you will just have to see the pictures. we also went to cerro which is the hill located in montevideo and you can see like the rest of the city from up there. then we saw various other things like the presidents house, the american embassy, famous statues, la rambla (22 km of beach), some museums and such. after the tour a few of us went to a step class at the gym and we had a muy guapo instructor that we nicknamed sam. :)

so this pretty much catches y'all up, not as much detail and organization as i would have liked buy it gives you the main gist, so check out my pictures on facebook if i can get them uploaded and i might post again tonight to finish the day or maybe not, i think we are going to the combat class tonight at the gym and then we are going to watch a movie so we will see.

Continued.

Okay so back to dinner the first night of our arrival. This was our first time to get to ride in taxis. This was quite an experience because the taxi drivers drive quite fast and everyone here gets really close. Oh and pedestrians do NOT have the right of way. If you are walking in the street and a car is coming they will get right up next to you until you get out of the way, that is somthing to get used to. This was also the first time some of us got to use spanish, the person paying has to sit up in the front, even if they are the only person riding. We also cannot find a posted speed limit. So we get to dinner and downstairs is like an artisan market, there were lots of cool souveneirs and stuff to look at and get ideas of what to bring home. We spent some time down there cause most uruguayans do not eat dinner until like 9. When we went upstairs we were still a little early which was good cause we had a big group of around 20. I won't spend much time on dinner cause who hasn't eaten dinner but with it being our first group outing there are a few interesting things which happened. First of all there was the agua con gas..bleh, not a big fan. Also there was bread on the table which we dipped in this yellow creamy stuff that we believed to be butter with like chives based on taste..it was actually mayonaise. Though I am not a big fan of mayonaise it was still pretty good. Finally the food. It was fun to order cause we weren't real sure of what we were getting, everything was really good but it was all in huge proportions. I got what was like chicken fried chicken and it literally took up my whole plate, dara and lauren got the baked chicken which looked like they brought out half a chicken for each. We quickly learned that it was more reasonable for us girls to share meals at sit-down restaurants, and a good way to save money. For the poor boys it is a different story. After dinner we went back to the casa and watched the goofy movie, so much fun! This is the end of day one.



Oh and i forgot to put this in the first part, on the way to the casa the bus we were riding on stops suddenly and we are all like okay the bus just stopped really fast because everyone seems to do that...they all get right up next to each other and stuff. Well it turns out we hit a car, but barely and the bus driver was like it's okay, it's just a scratch, well the owner of the car was like no we must check it and as it turns out, the car broke one of the buses headlights and will now have to pay to get the headlight fixed..how crazy is that??

anyway..


Day 2 of Uruguay started out with a good breakfast, then we had orientation and worship and then it was time for lunch. Worship here is actually really good for only have 5 guys, they can really bring it to the table, and the girls all harmonize well together. After lunch we got a walking tour of downtown which was actually more of this is downtown walk around and answer these questions and then walk back to the casa, alright have fun see y'all later. And we had to turn in the questions for our latin american studies class. Downtown is called "old city" and is where a lot of my current pictures came from, the arch is leading into old city. We went in several catholic churches that were beautiful, we went down to the beach, and we went and ate at mcdonalds. ps their mcdonalds is way nicer than ours.

okay i know this is horrible but i am beginning to forget what we did the first few days, first of all everything is running together and it also feels like we have been here for a lot longer..today made it a week we have been here now. by the end of each day i have so much to say and that i want y'all to read and that i want to remember but there is so much to remember, and just not enough time in the day. also i want to keep this in order so i don't want to do today until get there so i will try and summarize and get caught up and then try to keep up with this.

so back to day two which by the way if i didn't say was friday. after we got back from downtown we went to cofas..kind of like a condenced wal-mart and we got stuff to make our first dinner at the casa. we had bow-tie noodles and a spinach cream sauce, very good actually for our first experience cooking as a group here. kate has a video of this and this is where the saying "take that oxford" originated, thanks to matt. after this we watched robin hood, the disney version, and afterwards was when we invented what we call flail ball..another "take that oxford"

On saturday we went to the bakery to get breakfast, this was interesting because we had to order in spanish which ended up being pointing and saying how many. then we bused to Punta Carretas, which is a local mall, we ate lunch there, another fun experience of ordering when you know very little spanish. then we walked to the feria, which is similiar to a flea market, this feria we were not much impressed with however there is another one that we liked better the next day. after this we had a tour of the church building which is right next door, and that we work with. the church used to be a coffee company. then we got to meet the youth of the church and eat pizza with them. this was the night we got to try mate! some of us liked it and some of us did not.

Sunday we got up and went to church in spanish! i did not catch a word of the sermon for several different reasons, but to help my case even the advanced students did not understand the sermon, it was that hard to understand. after church we went to the good feria, this first one was a lot of clothes and such, but this one had more souvenier type stuff...my group which consisted of me, dara, and josh bought our own mate cups, bombilla, and our own mate! yay! we also sang with the youth for awhile, they taught us spanish songs and we taught them english songs. that night we had our own english service and got ready for classes to start.

okay because i am having trouble remembering my own last few days i am going to break my own rule and talk about today and then hopefully tomorrow i will get caught up completely.

today was thursday for those of you who do not know when i am writing this..today we have been in montevideo for one week. we had breakfast at 8, house meeting/chapel at 8:30, p-chem at 9:30, spanish lab at 11:00, lunch at 12:30, today we had chivitos for lunch, and so far that was my favorite meal, it was amazing..for those of you who do not know a chivito is a sandwich which has a lot of stuff on it, normally they are steak but today was grilled chicken, for example, they have the main meat, ham and cheese, a fried egg, onions, peppers, today we have lettuce, tomato, and bacon, and then there is fries on the side or mixed in..hopefully we will show y'all how to make them when we get home. Estan muy delicioso! after lunch was spanish for 2 hours, then we went around to some stores to find body wash which apparently everyone uses bar soap here, after that we went to the park and played frisbee. at 7 we had english conversations with the church then several of us went to eat pizza. afterwards we played taylor's version of zoo, and matt's version, which i have a few pics of and hopefully will be able to explain some, but as for now dara and kate are trying to go to sleep and the light of my computer is very bright so buenos noches.

disclaimer: if you noticed my english is very bad, this is coming from us all talking part spanish and part english, it is also now a game to talk in a spanish accent..in fact some people cannot stop..