After 251 days, 4 countries, and over 36 hours of travel time, I'm finally home. It's going to be adjustment stepping back into this culture and life. But I had a really great time. I believe I received all A's and A-'s this quarter. I'm still waiting to see my official grades show up online. Over the next couple of days I will be sifting through the thousands of pictures I took this year and posting some up on here, so stay tuned for that. Also, I'm currently working on setting up a project that would benefit the elementary school in Libertador San Martin. Once I finalize a few things I will be posting more information on what that project is. Thanks so much for you support and prayers while I was on this trip. It means a lot.

Este, bueno, chicos, Chau.

Catching Up...Again

Again, please accept my apologies. Since my birthday/pre-Brazil post I've been running non-stop.

Brazil was AMAZING! Our hotel was right off Copacabana beach, literally across the street. From the top level we could see the statue of Jesus and all along the beach of Copacabana. The first day full day we were there we were supposed to go see Jesus but since so me individuals were not ready to leave when we were scheduled to, we weren't able to get tickets that day. So instead we went to Pan de Azucar, or Sugarloaf Mountain. It was really pretty and we could see so much of Rio. We ate at a really good restaurant (like every day there) and in the afternoon we "toured" the beaches; there are no private beaches allowed in Rio but many of the beaches attract similar groups of people: surfers, families, young people, old people. There is a beach for everyone. Tuesday we went to see Jesus but it was so cloudy we couldn't really see anything. It was kind of disappointing since the day before had been so clear. That afternoon we were dropped off at a mall for lunch. I got pizza, which was surprisingly good, and then my friends and I walked around for a bit. We found a Starbucks and I got two Brazil mugs,one for myself and one for Megan. Wednesday was a free day. I met up with a few ACA kids to try to go surfing/learn how to surf. Our tour guide had told us that Ipanema beach was the place to go, so we caught taxis and went to that beach. Unfortunately, it was still kind of cloudy and apparently the surfboard rental people dont set up shop on cloudy days. So we just played around on the beach, swam some, and relaxed. Thursday morning we left our hotel at 2:30am to catch our flight. We had a connection at Iguazu Airport and then to the local airport in Buenos Aires instead of the big international airport. It was all around a good trip and very relaxing, which we all needed.

As much as those 3 days in Brazil were relaxing, the last few weeks have been anything but! I have had an exam every week since our return, first we had a week for parciales (midterm exams). But since many of our classes hadn't had enough class periods yet, we had one the following week, one last week, and one this week. Next week is finals for three of my classes but I have to wait to take my Grammar final and Composicion final until the last Wednesday and thursday respectively.

Two more weeks and then I'll be finishing  up all my packing and coming home. Unfortunately, we all have to leave the UAP together. Why is that unfortunate you may ask? Because I will end up being in the airport for almost 12 hours before  my flight leaves. There is one student whose flight leaves at 11 am, mine leaves at 8:30 pm. It will be a long two days of travel home but I'm looking forward to it. It is time to come home.

Soon after I get back I plan on posting pictures. The internet is too slow here to be able to post them right now.

Have a great weekend!

Oopps, Silence is not a virtue here

Hello!

Very sorry for the overly long delay in posting something new. I haven't died..not yet anyway. I decided to take this opportunity to write a bit, catch up on some news, since we're leaving for Brazil tomorrow. That's right, Brasil!

Ok, a few weeks ago Megan came to visit for a week. We hung out in Buenos Aires for a 2 days and then we headed up to Iguazu Falls in Misiones for 3 days. We had a really great time. A totally different experience than when I was there in January. The river was flooded so it wasn't very pretty. We thought we were going to drown in the river when we were on the boat. It was kind of terrifying, ask Megan, she will tell you. Then it POURED while we ran to see the rest of the park before it closed. We had a really great time and I was SO sad to see her go.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty boring. Class every day, terrible internet since all the regular UAP students are back, same 'ole bad food. Until last Thursday, when we had Thursday-the following Tuesday off for Pascua (Easter), Tuesday was some random Argentine holiday so we also had Monday off. I'm still struggling in Grammar but I think I'm slowing getting those verbs. We shall see.

Tomorrow is my birthday, yay!!!, and we're leaving for Brazil in the evening. We'll be there till 2am on Thursday morning when we leave the hotel to catch our plane. Tomorrow, my roommate and her friends have apparently planned some kind of birthday party. I remember the "party" we had for a boy in highschool when we went to Brazil, it involved throwing handfuls of flour at him. Hopefully that won't happen tomorrow.

The week after we get from Brazil we have mid-terms, so I won't have as much time to live it up in Brazil as I'd hoped. Gotta get my study on while I'm there :p. There are 6 weeks of class left (after Brazil), 1 week for  mid-terms, and many of my finals are the week before the "final week" so then I really only have 5 weeks until my finals start and I need to pack for home!!! Yay!!! :)

My Spanish is getting better. My one roommate and I (the one that has the party) have conversations, real ones; I have to refer to my dictionary A LOT, but we get along pretty well. She corrects me when I'm wrong but it's a lot nicer than when my other roommates would correct me.

Anyway, that is all to report for now. See you all in about a month!

90 Days and Counting

Today marks a rather important day in my stay here. I have 90 days left in this country. How did I choose to celebrate? I went  to a local restaurant with a friend, ordered coffee, and hung out for a little bit. It's not much, but it was the best I could do here. Next week is finals, which is going to be stressful, so I took some time out today to relax. Tomorrow I need to buy the bus tickets for me and Megan that will get us TO Buenos Aires. I also need to find us hostels and book them. And I need to study. Tomorrow I will also be reading a children's easier reader version of  "The Lorax" to my mom's kids. I translated the book into Spanish. Don't start thinking I've gotten fluent suddenly. It's a very easy book so it was mostly words that I already knew before I got here. Tomorrow is "Read Across America" day and so we will literally be reading across America. It should be fun.

Anyway, I'm going to continue the "tranquila" today and watch a little bit of a movie or something before my class.

Tata for now.

Peru and a Bit More

Hello everyone,

Very sorry for the delay in the postings. I've been meaning to write something on here the last couple of days but I've been preoccupied.

3 weeks ago was midterms. I think I did well on pretty much everything. There's still one class I haven't seen the results for yet. Grammar I did bad on. Right now my overall grade in that class is hovering around a 76%. Not good. I'm pretty upset about that but unfortunately I keep messing up on my quizzes so the grade isn't coming back up.

2 weeks ago we went to Peru. Of course it was the 6 hrs by bus to the airport in Buenos Aires, then wait for our plane, 4 hrs to Lima, 1 hr to Cusco, and then we were there. Cusco is at a very high altitude so we had to becareful to not do too much or we could get altitude sickness. Our leaders kept telling us "tranquilos! no comen mucho. no corren. tranquilos!" Basically, chill out. Don't eat a lot. Don't run around. Just chill or you'll get sick. A bunch of people did end up getting sick. The first day we were there we just rested and tried to adjust to the altitude. THe next day we went on a tour of Cusco. We saw a huge indoor market that literally sold everything: clothes, souvenirs, flowers, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, bread, meat. And by meat I mean a whole pig carcass and you get to pick what you want to take home. The meat sections were pretty gross. Lots of dead things, not my idea of fun. We went to the biggest catholic cathedral in South America and we also saw where there was an Incan temple that had been turned into some sort of convent thing for Catholics. It was a museum of the Incan temple and connected to it was the Catholic stuff.
The next day we got up epically early to go to Machu Picchu. We drove 2 hours and then got on a 1.5 hour train ride up to Machu Picchu. From the base town we took a little bus up to the actual site. We didnt have very long there so it was rushed and I wanted to take pictures so I didn't learn much. It was either listen to our guide and translate what he said in my head or take pictures. I took lots of pictures.
The next day we left for Lima. We had a 8 hour layover or soemthing silly so they took us to a mall. That mall was MUCH better thna the malls I went to in Buenos Aires. Lima had a lot more American stuff: Dominos, Pizza Hut, and Papa Johns, KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks, Chili's, TGI Fridays. Mostly I just noticed the food places. But I did recognize a few of the store names, mostly high end clothing stuff that I've heard of an don't actually own. I got a massage there.
On the plane back to BA I got sick. It wasn't fun. I was sick all that weekend. We landed in BA around 10 am on Friday. Our bus was late so we had to wait. Then when we got to the mall to get lunch on our way back to the UAP the AC in the bus died so we had to wait 3 hours for a new bus. We didnt leave BA until almost 4 pm which meant we weren't gonna get back to the UAP until 9:30 almost 10 pm. It was a long day.

Last week was pleasant. We had a holiday on Wednesday which I used rather productively. Next week is Finals for this quarter and on March 8th I'll be meeting Megan in BA for Spring Break. This Thursday marks 90 days until I come home.
Between being a little stressed about finals, annoyed about my grammar grade, and trying to prepare everything for Spring Break I'm definitely ready to go home. There are 5 students leaving at the end of this quarter. I kind of wish I was going with them but I'm not so I shall have to press on.
Hopefully lunch is worth eeating today, I didn't eat dinner last night because it was not good and the cereal was stale.

Halfway Down a Waterfall

Well my loverly readers, lot's has happened since the last time I posted. Last week (Jan 19) was exactly halfway through this school year. It's been 19 weeks of 36 and there's still a lot to do between now and the end of May.

The most exciting thing in the last two weeks has been our trip to Iguazu Falls (pictures coming soon). We left at 11 pm on January 19 and arrived in Misiones (northern province literally squished between Brazil and Paraguay) around 3pm the following day. It was a little more than 15 hours there. I slept a little but it was pretty uncomfortable so I took a nap before dinner once we arrived at our hotel. Monday we spent the entire day walking around the falls.

Iguazu Falls is off the Uruguay River and is split between Brazil and Argentina, similar to how Niagra Falls is between Canada and America. It was really pretty. The first thing we did was walk/ride a mini train up to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat). It's a gorgeous view of the biggest section of the waterfalls, you can see the Brazilian viewing area from there as well.
We ate lunch at the park's restaurant, La Selva, which was an AMAZING buffet. It was so good, I ate SO much food.
After lunch we walked A LOT. There are paths that allow you to view the falls from various view points. We walked through all the paths for quite a while, taking pictures. Finally we got to the bottom and then realized we had to climb down a billion stairs to where we were going to get on a boat.
Have you head of Maid of the Mist? It's a tour boat company that takes you into Niagra Falls. These boats are not like the ones at Niagra. They are smaller and the drivers take you MUCH closer to the water. We were drenched.
After boating around for a little bit, chancing some pictures when the spray wasn't too much, the driver drove us down stream to where we got out. We dried off, I changed my shoes, some of the group changed clothes, and then we climbed up a bunch of stairs to where we went on a "safari."
Personally, I thought the safari was pretty lame. We were in the rain forest of Argentina so it would make sense to have a safari and see some animals right? Wrong. We saw giant spiders and that's it. Actually, that's not entirely true, the guide pointed out a giant tree that's now protected by law and we saw a toucan when we were unloading. All in all it was a really gorgeous experience. The weather wasn't too hot or humid, it didnt rain at all while we were there. There was LOTS of walking but it was worth it.
Megan is coming in March to visit me during my spring break. She's wanting to go to the falls and I'm looking forward to going back and being able to take better pictures with my nicer camera. I took a really cheap point and shoot camera with me because i wasn't sure if I'd be able to protect my nice camera when we went on the boat ride. Now that I know how everything works and that we get waterproof bags I'm more comfortable taking it with me.

In 2 weeks we have midterms, in three weeks we're going to Peru. This quarter is already pretty much half over. And we have a feriado (holiday) next Thursday. :-)

Grades and Quarter Numero 2

Well, I finally have all my grades from last quarter. I got A's in Grammar, Composition, Geography, Folklore, Current Events, and History. I got A-'s in Conversation, Bible, and Orthography. *Go Me*

This quarter I'm taking Advanced Grammar, Conversation, and Composition. I'm also taking Phonetics, Translation (ooohhh fun!) Folklore, Bible, and Geography.

Tomorrow is my first day of class this quarter. I don't have class till 10:30 am so that will be a nice way to ease into the quarter. I actually really like my schedule this quarter. Monday I have class from 8:30 am till 10:30 am (Grammar) and then Folklore at 2:30 pm until 4:30. Tuesday I have Conversation at 10:30 am till 12:30, Phonetics at 1:30pm ad then Translation from 5:30-7:30 pm. Wednesday is Grammar at 10:30 until 12:30 and then Bible at 3:30-5:30. Thursday is Composition at 10:30 and then geography at 2:30-4:30. Friday I don't have any classes (yay!!) but there are ACA meetings at 10:30 am (as announced) so some days I will have to be a normal human in the morning and other days I won't.

That's about the run down for this quarter. In a few weeks (we'll probably find out when this Friday in the meeting) we will be going to Iguazu Falls. The falls are in the north in a province called Misiones. It's squished between Paraguay and Brazil. From what I've seen in pictures, it's really pretty. It better be, since Megan wants to go up there when she comes to visit in March. At the end of February, the ACA program takes us up to Peru and to Machu Picchu (this is basically THE trip that convinced me to come down here and the one I've been looking forward to this whole time). March is Spring Break (or fall break depending on which season you choose to call it by) and then in April is our trip to Rio de Janiero. I have two more quarters, 4.5 months, and lots to learn between now and the end of May. It seems like a long time but I know it will fly by and instead of wanting time to go faster--so I can go home--I will be wanting everything to slow down before I head back to the States. It's all about perspective I suppose.

Happy New Year everyone!

__----Travels to date: # of countries- 2  (Uruguay, Argentina)
                                       
                                     

A Series of Unfortunate Events

It has taken me a few days to come to grips with what I'm about to share. I had moments where I felt pretty stupid and incompetent..and a little embarrassed. In retrospect, there's really not much we could have done differently to change the out come. Below is an account of my journey back to the UAP from Bariloche.

Thursday morning, 6:30 am.

Anna and Dylan were the first up. They showered and packed up there things. At 7 am I also took a quick shower and got the rest of my things pulled together. By 7:55 I was heading downstairs with my bags and was ready for breakfast.

At 8, the three of us grabbed a quick breakfast. Anna finished a few things on her computer. By 8:30 we loaded our things into the car and we headed out. We stopped at a gas station to fill up the rental and then Anna drove straight to the bus terminal. We arrived by 8:45; Anna pulled up to the taxi loading area and we unloaded our stuff. She parked. We walked our things in, Anna bought her public bus ticket, and then left with the rental car to return it.

Dylan and I checked our bus tickets to double check which bus company we were looking for. The ticket was purchased through FlechaBus. It was then that we realized our bus was at 10 instead of 10:30. We weren't concerned since Anna had just over an hour before we were supposed to be leaving. Dylan and I took turns walking the length of the bus terminal looking for our bus.

Anna returned at 10:10 and we immediately went outside to look for our bus since Dylan and I hadn't seen it. Anna ran in and asked the lady at the Flecha counter where our bus was and she said it had already left. Dylan and I both said we hadn't seen a Flecha bus come in at all. We went inside and the woman explained that we were actually riding with Chevallier, another bus company. It said htis at the very bottom of our tickets (frustrating!!).

We purchased new tickets to Buenos Aires (our original tickets were taking us to Parana, a town 1 hour from the UAP but there weren't any more buses running there until Sat., so we choose to go to B.A which is 6 hours from the UAP). Our bus we scheduled for 2pm.

We got on the bus, it was actually a very nice bus, and were on it all night until about 12 pm the next day (Friday). From there, Anna caught a ferry into Uruguay since she was going to miss her bus that was scheduled to leave from Parana that night. Dylan and I bought tickets to Parana, but realized that it was going to be too late for us to catch a bus to the UAP.

Dylan called his family to see if they could pick us up. Before they decided he ran out of minutes and we had to wait for them to call him back.

We got on our bus at 4:20 (not to be confused with the 4:15 bus to Parana from the same company that left from adjacent slots). It was not as nice of a bus but it was alright. Dylan's family finally called him back and they agreed to pick us up. They did and I was back in the dorm by 1 am (Saturday morning).

I've gone over the scenario dozens of times and it doesn't seem to matter what we had done, we just weren't supposed to make that bus in Bariloche. We left with plenty  of time, had everything ready and worked out. I spent an extra $200 on bus tickets that I really didnt want to and couldn't really afford. But it doesn't matter at this point. Thankfully we arrived back safely and everything will work out financially..eventually.

Tonight is New Year's Eve. I didn't get invited anywhere, which is fine, so I'll be spending the night chillin in my room, eating watermelon, and maybe drinking some terere. 2 hours till the new year in Argentina. 4 months and 27 days till I'm home.

This year is going to be great!

The Near End of a Journey

I have been here in Bariloche for 3.5 days. It has been different than I thought it was going to be. It does not smell like chocolate even though this is the chocolate capital of Argentina, there is no snow where I can touch it (although that isn't all bad because I am sick again and it's been a challenge to keep warm-even inside-with the clothes I brought). It has been a very beautiful and mostly relaxing experience, however.

On Monday, we reserved a car for using today (Wednesday). We wanted the car for Monday but there were none available and the only one available was the most expensive car but we needed it to be able to do one of the activities which I will touch on shortly. After we worked all that out, we went to find the kiosko that sold the bus tickets we needed for our trip on Christmas, and then we went ice skating. We paid 50 pesos for an 1hr of ice skating in the smallest ice skating rink I have ever seen. We did not stay for an hour. We went to try to grab a quick lunch at McDonalds but it had closed at 4. We got there right after 4. I was disappointed. I wanted a mocha...I wanted Christmas in a cup. We went back towards the hostel and had a late lunch/early dinner at La Alpina; a little Germanish restaurant. It was pretty good, slightly over priced but oh well.

Tuesday (Christmas) we took the bus to a lake, I dont remember the name right now but it started with a G. Near the lake was a waterfall that ended up in the river. We all thought the walk would be longer but it took us maybe an hour to get up to the waterfall, most of that time was to walk down the road to the trailhead. It was a little overcast and very windy so it was pretty cold. We waited for the bus to pick us back up, got on the correct number bus but it apparently took a different route back (explain how that works. I have no clue. Same numbered buses run the same route. I have no clue how that happened). We got kicked off the bus in the middle of no where. We made the bus driver give us the "conductor" part of our tickets since we didnt have other tickets and then we had to wait for 20 min in the cold for the same numbered bus with a different route back to take us where we needed to go. It was the weirdest thing.

 <This is a picture of what is talked about below>

Today we picked up the car and drove out to see the 7 lakes. It was by far the most beautiful drive I have been on in a very long time. We stopped at a lot of really great spots; the best was Punto Panaram. I took some really cool pictures and a few panaramics with my tablet. It was really windy and chilly everywhere we went. We also found this Germanish-looking artesian spot. It was pretty much a tourist trap, cute but over priced. I didnt buy anything.

Tomorrow we're heading back to campus. No more cold, just lots of heat. Hopefully I will survive. I'm planning on buy some chocolate here tonight and I completely forgot about it being super hot up there so I left some chocolate in my room. I will be putting it in the freezer with my name written all over it as soon as I get back to campus.

Anyway, until next time.

Christmas, Penguins, and Chocolate

It has been an interesting two and a half weeks of traveling for me. I began in Entre Rios Argentina, the province the university is and and now I'm sitting on the wrong side of the bus to see anything exciting until the valley opens up driving through Rio Negro, another province much further to the south. Since I'm on the bus, and have been on a for almost 50 hours in the last three days, I'm slowly running out of things to do. I will try to keep my Christmas travels, thus far, in chronological order.

Part 1: The Beach

During the first week of break, I went with three friends (Megan, Tanique, and Erin) to Punta del Este in Uruguay. We had a contact with a local taxi driver that helped out ACA students in the past. He charged us $200 USD to take us to Punta del Este and back. Since I had other plans the following week and needed to be back at a certain day/time, the taxi worked well for us. There are buses to Punta, through the Uruguayan captial Montevideo but since that bus runs once a week, we decided to take a taxi.
We left Wednesday, December 12th, at 7 am and drove the 10 hours to Punta del Este. It was a nice drive, not very eventful. Once we arrived in Punta it took us quite awhile to locate our hostel. We stayed at a place called F&F Hostel. It was a cute little hostel with a pool and nice staff. It was kind of loud at night but since we weren't planning on getting up very early anyway, it worked out. We were five minutes walking distance from the beach, and let me tell you- Ocean City, MD has nothing on Punta. The sand was soft and not very shelly. The water was still chilly since it hasn't had much time to warm up from the Arctic currents. It was still really nice and the sun was warm.
On Saturday, Megan and I set of on what was supposed to be a moderately long walk to find the lighthouse on the point. It took us over an hour on what ended up beingthe hottest day we were in Uruguay to find the Lighthouse and then we had to walk back. Yes, I made the journey solely for my parents. I'm not a crazed lighthouse fan like them.

I woke up with a fever on Sunday morning so I didn't do anything on our last day at the beach. It was fine since it was raining all day pretty much. Our taxi driver came to pick us up Monday morning and before midnight that night we were back in the Villa.

My next trip (the one I'm currently on) was on Wednesday,so I had just enough time to do laundry, do a little grocery shopping, and repack.

Part 2: Penguins and Chocolate

Wednesday night Anna, Dylan, Miguel, and I headed to Parana on the 7:30pm bus. Parana is about 1 hr from the Villa. Miguel was coming to hang out for the night and return to the Villa the next morning. Our hostel was nice but small. We arranged with the attendant to have breakfast prepared for us at 6:30 am and for us to pay and still make our 7 am bus. Unfortunately, the lady that was working in the morning was late. We had to take our breakfast to go and practically run to the bus terminal (which was only 2 blocks away) to get to our bus on time. We made it was about 5 min to spare, loaded our luggage and climbed on board. The bus was nice, large seats that were pretty comfortable. We were on that bus for 30 hours.
I slept for a while. We had to take several detours, some because of flooding and a few in Rosario (about 6 hours from the villa) because people were protesting something and burning tires in the streets. They weren't being violent so don't be worried about my safety. It seems they do it all the time here.
The detours set us back several hours. They fed us lunch (ham and cheese sandwhiches, luckily the ham was easy to get rid of) and dinner (which was at 2 am). Finally, around 1 pm on Friday, we arrived in Trelew. Trelew is the "home base" for going to Punta Tombo (penguins) and Peninsula Valdez (whales, penguins, seals, sea lions, etc). We only had time to go to Punta Tombo.
Saturday morning at 9 am, we loaded on some kind of a tour bus and headed for the penguins in Punta Tombo. We arrive at 11:30 and spent an hour and a half walking among the penguins, literally. If I had wanted to touch one, take one home, take more than one home, I could have. There were babies and adults. It was fantastic! I took a lot of pictures and had a great time. The tour van/bus took us to a Welsh town, Gaiman. There was an optional Welsh tea thing you could do, I did not participate. We then left to go back to Trelew. There was another optional  museum stop. Dylan, Anna, and I decided, like the Welsh tea, that we didn't want to pay anything extra so we had them drop us back off at our hostel, El Agora. Our bus for Bariloches was leaving Saturday night (last night) at 9:30 pm. We worked it out with the hostel for us to be able to stay there until our bus left.
It has now been 13 hours since we left Trelew. We're driving through vallies lined with snow caped mountains, streams, lillac, and green shrubs.
While this region is still pat of Patagonia, like Trelew, the landscape and vegetation are very different. In eastern Patagonia, it is dry, brown, and dusty. It rarely rains and the only green section is along the Chubut River (which is what the province Trelew is in is named after). Here, in western Patagonia, it's green and fresh. Today is cloudy but I'm sure the mountains look spectacular in the sun light.
Right now the bus is playing what I believe is Madagascar 3 or 4, in Spanish. I understand most of what they're saying.
Today is December 23. I thought being away from family and familiarity would be harder during Christmas. While it hasn't been the easiest thing I've done, and while it doesn't quite feel like Christmas here (lack of decorations and the overplaying of Christmas songs on my non-existant radio) it's been better than I thought. Christmas isn't quite the same without family and friends, but it's not going to kill me and it's about time I get used to things being different and doing them on my own. :-)
Hopefully we'll arrive in Bariloche soon. I'm not sure where we are, whether we're on time or not. But Merry Christmas everyone!

Terminando las Clases, los Examenes, y Tengo un Mes Libre!

Yes my dear readers, I have completed my first quarter in Argentina. Two months ago I wouldn't have thought I'd have made it to mid December and been happy about the prospect of 4.5 more months here. Despite the bad food, increasingly sweltering heat, salty bottled water, and missing home I have survived almost three months in a foreign country. Once I got adjusted it hasn't been nearly as hard as it was in the beginning.
This week was finals week. On Monday I had my Folklore exam and got a 91%, which means I should have an A in the class. Tuesday was my Composition and Orthography finals. I don't know what my Comp exam grade was but my final grade is an A which was all that matter and my final grade in Orthography was an A-. Conversation, Grammar, and History were Wednesday. I must have an A or A- in Conversation because my professor told me I would be able to move up to Advanced 1 next quarter. Grammar I got an A and I'm still waiting for my History final grade. Yesterday was my free day like the rest of the semester. I spent 3 to 3.5 hours in the ice cream parlour, Gridos, and used their internet to call my parents and some friends from school. Today was my open book Geography final in which we had to create a brochure for two regions of Argentina and advertise the finer tourist spots in those regions. I think I did fairly well on it. Hopefully I've walked away with all A's this quarter so I can boost my GPA a little bit.
I've added a trip to my Christmas Vacation plans. Next Wednesday I'm off with three friends, Megan, Tanique, and Erin, to the beaches of Uruguay. We're going to spend 4 wonderful days on the beaches relaxing and recovering from a rather stressful three months. We return on the 17th and on the 19th I leave for Trelew, Bariloche, Penguins and Chocolate. :-)
Four ACA students are returning home for good at the end of this week. They only planned to be here for the quarter and now get to go home. Two leave today (Molly and Tyler), one tomorrow (Tina), and the last on Sunday (Daryl). It's sad to see them go and makes staying here during Christmas a little harder but next quarter we will be traveling to Iguaze Falls in the province of Misiones and in February, Machu Picchu! April is the trip to Rio de Janeiero in Brazil and May (if plans work out the way we'd like) Megan will be coming down during the last week and after my last final we'll be having our own little excursion through Argentina before I come home. The next 4ish months are going to go by really fast, which is good and bad at the same time. I've been able to recognize that my Spanish is actually improving even though I don't feel like I'm really learning. I use it more readily and I understand more or can pick up the general idea a lot quicker than I used to.
Next quarter I will be taking Advanced 1 language courses (yay!!) and several other classes that will be good as well.
Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! And may God bless.

Week 10

Yes my friends, it is the end of my 10th week here in Argentina. I've befriended three really great girls: Megan, Tanique, and Erin. We've been hanging out, watching movies, drinking terere, studying, and practicing our  Spanish together for the last couple of weeks. Last Sabbath we went over to a friend's apartment (his name is Isreal but we we call him Izzy) and had a home cooked meal there. It was really nice in comparison to the comedor. This week was the end of school for the rest of the UAP. It's the end of their school year, not just Christmas Break for them, so everyone is going on their summer break. Some students have finals over the next few weeks (why they're so spread out I don't know) but  one of my roommates has already left for home. I got to move down to the bottom bunk which means I can use my computer and charge all from my bed now. It's really nice :-). ACA will basically have the run of the campus until the end of February.
Next week is finals for me. My hardest final is in Folklore and that's on Monday. As long as I get 85%'s on my Grammar, Composition, and Conversation exams I will be moving up to the Advanced 1 classes. I already and getting signed up for classes for the next trimestre. I'll be taking the three language classes along with Bible, Folklore (which is focusing on cooking and food this trimestre), Phonetics, Translation, and one other class, I dont remember what it is.
I'm ready for my Christmas Break to begin. It's been a long couple of weeks. In another two weeks we will have been here for four months. It's hard to believe I've really been here for that long and yet it feels so much longer. I made a comment the other day to the girls that it feels like this has always been our normal life and that everything else wasn't real. I suppose that's how life gets sometimes.
Anyway, it has been a very long week and I'm planning on sleeping soon. Good night and happy Sabbath.

Thanksgiving

Today is, of course, Thanksgiving. I think this year is the closest I will ever feel to how the Pilgrims felt all those years ago at the first Thanksgiving. They were far from home, in a land different from their own, having to communicate with people from a different culture with a different language, they had strange foods, they missed their family and friends.
Today is a day where we traditionally give thanks in preparation for one of the greediest holiday traditions in the world: Black Friday. Instead of ranting about the irony of the situation, I've decided to take some time to really think about the past year and what I'm most thankful for. Below I'll be listing those things:

1. It is the end of week 10 here, which means I'm just over 1/4 of the way through this experience.
2. Tonight we get "real" food (aka not food from the comedor)
3. My parents were able to help me with this trip financially.
4. My church family has helped me financially.
5.  I have a fan to help keep me cool in my dorm room.
6. My roommates are going home in two weeks.
7. I get to go see some really cool things over my Christmas break.
8. My sister is awesome
9. My friends back home have been supportive and encouraging about this experience.
10. I'm learning something while I'm here :)
11. I don't have to deal with snow for another year.
12. The internet is faster than I thought it was going to be.
13. I don't have to write any papers.
14. Besides Folklore, my classes are not that hard (except for them being in another language)
15. I know that I have mail coming my way soon.
16. The update from Skype has made it easier for me to talk with people while being in my dorm.
17. I'll hopefully be getting my actually computer over the Christmas break.
18. I have 2 weeks until break left.
19. Most of my finals shouldnt be over much new information (except Folklore of course)
20. I haven't broken anything (a kid here broke his foot)
21. The stray dog leave me alone
22. The really tough semesters I had over the past year prepared me for this.
23. My sister is taking care of my fish for me :-)
24. Tabasco sauce.
25. Although I'm writing this last, it is the most important: God knew this year was the year I needed to be gone, not last year. I'm thankful the pieces didnt fall together just right two years ago for me to have been gone last year. It all worked out. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Midterms, Elections, and Funny Realizations

It has been another busy week here in Entre Rios Argentina. After a week with only one class and walking around Buenos Aires, it was really hard to get back into things. I found out Sunday afternoon that a midterm exam I thought was next Monday was actually this past Monday. I didn't get to study nearly as much as I wanted to and it was not a very good test. It was pretty confusing and I don't think I did well in it. Thankfully that test, in Folklore, was the hardest exam I had all week. Tuesday I had my Ortografia exam. Orthography is like Hooked on Phonics, we are learning the rules of Spanish spelling kind of like "i before e except after c." Right now we've been focusing on syllables and tilde placement. I memorized the rules and I think I did fairly well on that exam.

Tuesday night I stayed up with Sheryll and Megan to watch the election proceedings in the basement of our dorm. We fought off spiders and cockroaches until 4 am our time; but it was worth it to know who was leading our nation and hear Obama speak. It was also not the smartest decision I made all week. I had two exams Wednesday morning (beginning at 8:30 am): Grammar and Conversation. Both of the tests weren't took bad and I think I did pretty well on them. We reviewed for our History exam during class in preparation for our exam next week and I'll have a unit exam in Bible over Hinduism. Yes, I came to Argentina and I'm taking world religions...again .

Today I had my geography exam. I could have studied a little bit more, but after only sleeping for 3 hours Tuesday night, I was exhausted and chose to sleep instead of study more. After my exam I got right back in bed today and slept until around 12. Actually, I've pretty much been in bed all day. It's been raining here and since I didn't have any classes and I didn't want to get drenched (down pours all afternoon) I stayed in bed.

The power's been flipping on and off all day. It was quite a pain because my fan would obviously stop working and so did the WiFi. The weather's calmed down a bit but I think we're in for more storms tonight. I hope not though. I'd rather my fan work all night long.

It's been in the 80s all week and relatively humid. Today, because of the rain, has been very humid which is irritating my knee.

It feels like I've been here for a long time already but at the same time I'm not sure how it's already November. We're still working on Christmas plans, which will hopefully be finalized soon. But we really only have 4 more weeks of classes and a week of finals before our Christmas break. My roommates will be going home for the summer and the campus will be less full for a few months. Hopefully I won't get any new roommates and the internet will speed up. I've been told it does. I still don't have many friends, really no real friends to speak of, but I'm much more acclimated to being here. Every day there's a new reason as to why this was the best time for me to come.

Thanks for all of your prayers and cards of encouragement. I'm working on writing back to everyone, I promise I will write back as soon as I can.

Until next.

Pictures of Buenos Aires

^This is me with a random soccer sculpture guy at La Boca. 

^These pictures are slightly out of order, but this was a sculpture outside of the president's house.

^All over La Boca they had this really cool murals. I loved them!

^This guy was just chillin and playing music for the shoppers in La Boca. I gave him 2 pesos. 

^La Boca is known for tango as well as the soccer field thats nearby. 

^This was a relief sculpture at La Boca.

^This was a fountain outside of the President's house, which is in the back ground. 

^This is the President's house which is called Casa Rosada. 

^This is a church/shrine to San Martin, the guy that liberated Argentina. 

^This is me in front of Casa Rosada. 

^This is the actual shrine to San Martin inside that church from above. 

^They had guards outside the shrine to San Martin. 

^The obelisk. 

^Me outside a church near the cemetery we went to. 

^This was a giant tree. I didn't hear what it was exactly but we made a stop here so I took some pictures. 

^This is a special cemetery. I also didn't hear anything about this place either but it was super cool. There were 55,000 shrines/crypts. 

^This was one of the crypts in the cemetery. It looks like a real church doesn't it?

^This is another shrine. I thought It was cool because you could see inside. 

^After the cemetery we went to a rose garden. It was SO pretty!

^Baby geese in the rose garden. I was confused for a minute, and then I remember it is spring here and not fall. 

^The rose garden. 

^A bridge at the rose garden. 

Well that was my trip in pictures to Buenos Aires. There will be a few more things happening tomorrow but I will have to post those pictures at the UAP, and we all know how well that works. 

Fiesta de los Naciones

^Some of the ACA girls finishing up the booth for the USA at the "Fiesta de la Naciones" From left to right: Shelby, Megan, Dylon, Vernee, Tiffani, and Rikita.

^Me pointing out the White House and WAU on the East Coast. :)

^The Peruvian students were beast. Apparently there was a competition on the booths and the presentations. Peru won. Clearly.

^The Canadian booth. I thought it was cool. 

^Part of our presentation. We had students pretend to be from various countries and have Uncle Sam accept them as US citizens. The two kids on the right are actually Korean and, of course, respresnted their country. From Left to Right: Marianne, Spencer (as Uncle Sam), Jane, and Christian.

^Me and Uncle Sam (Spencer).

Pictures (Catching up with the first few weeks here)

 ^ The ACA girls I was on the team with in the tournament.

 ^ Me warming up :)

^Those of us that made it to the awards ceremony. From Left to Right: Tina, Molly, Cheryl (on the floor), me, Leah, and Jane.

^Our trophy. Cheryl, me, and Leah.

^This was about a week after the award ceremony. Jane, Tina, and Cheryl with our trophy at Panchos. Panchos is a restaurant that sells hot dogs (aka panchos in Argentina) and hamburgers. And since this is mostly an Adventist town, they have meat and vegetarian options.

^This is Jason with his clown nose at the escuela we sang at for the La Sonrisa trip.

^The ACA students in our group created a skit about brushing teeth. Megan, Andrea (hidden behind megan) and I were BonBons (chocolate candy with different fillings) and our fried Daiana (for the UAP not an ACA student) was our fabulous tooth brush. Kyly (not shown here) was the dentist. 

^This was our whole group that sang and painted at the escuela. I dont know everyone's names so I won't try to identify them. I am, however, in the back row, second from the right in a grey t-shirt.

^The statue here was some form of the Virgin Mary. As you may know, Argentina is predominately Catholic and pretty much every city has some statue of a saint or Mary hidden there. She was kind of creepy looking up from. But I thought from afar and at sunset it was a nice picture.

^This is the entire group of La Sonrisa participants. I chose to take a picture instead of being in this one. There were approximately 250 students that attended.

^This is me in front of the place where we were staying for the La Sonrisa event. 

^On the way home, the sunset was really pretty and I snapped a couple photos out the bus window. This one might be my favorite picture of Argentina so far. 

^Last week (Oct 19-26th) was a week of prayer at the UAP. The chaplain office asked for the ACA student choir to do a special music. We made a smaller group for the special music. I will see if I can post the video tonight since the internet is cooperating here. Sorry that this picture is off center. There group was a little larger but I couldnt see this picture very well when I was choosing which to upload. Anyway, from left to right: Camilla (half cut off), Marianne, Melanie, Hawa,Daryll, Dainia, Cameron, Jason, Me, Symone, Rhondi, and Camile. 

^My pictures are a little out of order. This was at La Sonrisa. We had a bunch of free time in the afternoon so we went down to the flooded river and skipped rocks. 

^These were all the ACA students (plus Daiana there all the way on the left by me) and students from the escuela. From left to right: Daiana, Me, Andrea, Vernee, Marvin, Megan, and Christian. And at the bottom, Kyly and Jason. 

Buenos Aires

Yesterday (Monday Oct 29), today, and most of tomorrow has been/will be spent here in Buenos Aires. We left from the UAP aroudn 6:30 am yesterday morning and arrived at Hotel Victory around 1 pm. We settled into our rooms and then headed to the local mall as a group for lunch. The people I was with ended up not wanting to eat in the mall, so we took off in the rain and down the walking street to see if we could find anything to eat. I ate breakfast really late because I fell asleep on the bus so I didn't eat lunch. We found a Starbucks and I bought Megan and I Argentina Starbucks mugs. I don't really collect things. But we both collect Starbucks mugs and I also collect Coke bottles from places I've been.

Last night for dinner, some friends and I ventured out into the rain again and went to a Thai restaurant a few miles from our hotel. It didn't open until 9 pm so we had to wait out in the pouring rain (under and awning) for 20 min or so. Needless to say, after a full day walking in the rain and then standing on a sidewalk that was flooding in parts, I was soaking wet . Dinner was good. I got some form of curry and then Jasmine tea to try and warm me up a bit.

Today we left the hotel around 9 am and set out to tour the city. The bus took us to La Boca, which is where they have the soccer stadium and I think Haroldo said it was where there was a lot of Tango places. We stopped at this touristy place. It was really cute, I took a bunch of pictures and then purchased a mate cup, bombilla, and yerba. Mate is a kind of tea they drink here. There are two forms: mate and terrer. Mate is hot, terrer is cold tea mixed with juice. I like both forms. The cup is painted with a couple tangoing and the Buenos Aires obelisk in the background. It's really nice and I got all three in a pack for about $9 USD which is really good.

After we went to La Boca, we headed back across town to Casa Rosada (the president's house. It's called the Pink House like our's is called the White House. And yes it is a shade of pinkish). Across the street was this church/shrine for Libertador San Martin. San Martin is the one that fought for Argentine independence...I think lol. It was really awesome inside; very typical Catholic church.

We went to Grantis for lunch. I think that's how you spell the company's name. They are the Adventist company that makes the cookies and crackers packs we can buy at the UAP. It was, obviously, an all vegetarian buffet restaurant and the place mats had an Ellen White quote on them. :)

After lunch we drove buy the Obelisk and then headed to this really cool cemetary. I didn't hear the history of the cemetery, but all the people buried there are in these very elaborate crypts. Some of them look like houses or churches. Most of them have engravings or sculptures on them. We walked around in there for a while taking pictures of them.

After the cemetery we went to a giant rose garden. It was really pretty in there. I decided if by some stroke of luck I got an all expense paid wedding (and the flights of everyone I invited paid for too) I would want to get married there. It was so gorgeous.

Right now, my hotel mates and I are resting in the hotel room until we decide to go to dinner. I'm not sure what the plan is exactly for tomorrow, but I know we have to be out of our rooms/checked out by 10 am and then we are doing something. Then we have free time and we are leaving for the UAP around 6 pm so we won't get back to campus until 12 am or 1 am Thursday.

Classes for Thursday morning have been cancelled. I have some homework due in the afternoon but I never have class on Thursday so it doesn't really affect me at all.

Anyway, until next time.

Pictures

Once again, I've only been able to put up four pictures. I will get what I want up here eventually. It may take some time and lots of patience on my part, but you all will be able to see pictures soon...hopefully. Anyway, enjoy the few pictures I was able to post this time. 

^Me with some of the Mariachi band members the first weekend I was here. It was part of a weekend-long event for "el dia del estudiante" and the first day of spring.

^Me shooting some type of gun at a target that had balloons on it. If you popped a balloon you won a prize. I did not win a prize :(

^The green sign caught my eye as I was speedily walking through the streets of Parana trying to keep up with my roommates. We went on the Wednesday holiday the second week I was in Argentina. The sign says "every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day". 

^This seemed to be about the only thing worth seeing in Conception de Uruguay. We went there the second week we were in Argentina to get our student visas. The office was right across the street from the Shell station. They had wifi, I may have borrowed it while we were waiting.