Christmas Vacation

 Currently, as I write this, I am sitting on the floor at the bus terminal in Rio Gallegos Argentina, surrounded by luggage and my 5 companions.

This is the first installment of my blogs about Christmas vacation. I figured writing every few days would be easier and I would remember more than if I wrote all at once at the end.

Day one of our trip was Monday, when we hopped on the 8:55am bus from the villa for Buenos Aires, myself, Rebekah, Mady, Kourtney, Spencer, and Daniel. It’s about a 6 hour bus ride, and once we got there we got taxis and found our hostel we had booked for the night. For the record, I thought I had conditioned myself to taxis in other countries, but the driver we had from the bus station took “crazy –driving” to a whole new level. We were honestly driving in the other lane in oncoming traffic, and at one point were parked there waiting for traffic to move in our lane for us to get back into it. I was on the side of the taxi facing the oncoming traffic as it honked and veered around us, and I sent up some desperate prayers for safety! After getting to the hostel we wondered around town for a few hours, found a bank, bought some groceries, and made ourselves a vegetable soup and bread for dinner at the hostel. The next morning we got up early and left the hostel about 6:15 in taxis for the national airport. Once we got there we found out that a gate had not yet been assigned to our flight. We had about an hour to wait before boarding started so we weren’t worried, but as the hour went by we began to wonder. Finally, 5 minutes before our plane was supposed to board our gate was assigned and we made it through security and boarded with no more worries. I sat next to two Israeli gentlemen who were part of a group that had just finished their time in the Israeli army and were spending 8 months traveling the world. They had been partying all week in Buenos Aires and were very hung-over,  and enjoyed pointing out to me all the people on the plane that were high, because they’d been at the same party the night before. It was interesting, but they were very friendly and we chatted for awhile till they fell asleep for most of the 3 hour flight. On our descent into Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, we had a spectacular view of snow-capped rugged mountains like the kinds on postcards. Despite being the middle of summer, Ushuaia is VERY cold right now. I’m not sure I would like to experience what winter feels like.  After our taxis took us to our hostel, we dropped off our bags and walked around to explore the city. It’s population in about 55,000 people. It’s built along the water, with mountains all around it. The town is built on the side of the foothills, our hostel was a bit of an uphill walk, but not bad, and it was a really nice little hostel. Our room that had a total of 8 girls in it, had heated floors, they served breakfast for us every morning, and we had a decent sized kitchen to cook our meals in. In fact, we’ve been doing our own cooking the entire trip. We found out that it is much cheaper, and a lot more fun to do it that way. Breakfast in the hostel, a snack of crackers or fruit for lunch, then pick a meal and buy the groceries for it, and make ourselves dinner at the hostel.

The next day, Wednesday we walked down the hill and signed up for the 6 hour boat tour to see the penguins!! It was super fun, and we definitely lucked out weather-wise. It stayed dry and even sunny for most of the day until after we had gotten back to the hostel and were making dinner, when it started raining. One thing I learned about Ushuaia is that weather reports don’t seem to mean a thing. The weather can change from one minute to the next, to the next, from wind and rain to sunshine to snow, and back again without any apparent rhyme or reason. After we ate it had cleared off again and we walked around town some more, got some more pictures. The sun doesn’t set until about 10 or so in the evening, and rises about 4:30 or 5 in the morning right now.

Yesterday we slept in a bit in the morning. After breakfast we walked around and looked at all the touristy shops in town, then caught the city bus to the edge of town where someone had told us about a road we could walk out to some beaches. The weather was clear and sunny (with an occasional snow flurry) and very windy and very cold! We walked out a dirt road along the edge of the shore, and took pictures of the ocean crashing on the gravel beaches. We even found a glass wine bottle with a cork, so we wrote a note in it and threw it back out to sea.

This morning our bus left Ushuaia at 5am, the start of our first long bus trip: 18 hours to Calafate. We’ve completed the first 13 hours now. It would have been a much shorter bus ride, but we had to pass through Chile on our way here so we had 4 border stops, entering and exiting Chile, and entering and exiting Argentina, which took up what felt like hours. But I’m not complaining, I got my passport stamped, proof I’ve been in Chile now! We also got to cross the Straights of Magellan on a ferry which was cool. Luckily the weather has been good today as well, because apparently buses get stuck sometimes when there’s a storm and they can’t cross the straights. THAT is the trip so far. We’ve got about an hour more to wait, and then we’ll finish the rest of our journey to Calafate. The plan is to spend about 3 days there, then bus to Bariloche, spend about a week there, and then bus the rest of the way back to spend New Years in Buenos Aires. We’ll see how it goes!

Peru!

A week ago today I was groggily rubbing my eyes as my alarm rousted me at 3 am, after a very short two hour nap, and I packed up my bags and headed to the bus terminal to meet the bus at 4 am. We were on our way to Peru! We bused the two hours to the Rosario airport, and flew from there to Lima, Peru. Once in Lima we were loaded up into two buses with our own tour guides and got to see a little bit of the city on our way to our hotel. After we checked in we went to a nearby shopping area, built right on the edges of the cliffs overlooking the beach and the ocean. Very gorgeous! First stop: food. We hit up Chilis for some delicious American food :)
The next day we had a tour of the city of Lima, got to see some cool buildings, checked out a cathedral and I got my first view of some catacombs. Kinda cool actually.We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the cathedral though, sadly.
The next morning we packed up and headed to the airport in Lima and had about an hour long flight to Cuzco. It's elevation is about 11,000 feet so they had us drink a lot of tea made from Coca leaves which is supposed to help lessen symptoms of elevation sickness. Thankfully no one got very sick, and I felt pretty much fine except for being really really tired, and we had to walk slow and take it easy for a bit until we adjusted. We had new tour guides in Cuzco and we were taken to another cathedral, and given a little tour of the city while we were bused around.
The next day we left early on the buses which took us to the train station, which would take us to Machu Picchu. I was very excited because this was my very first time on a train! It was a bit of a bumpy ride, but still fun and we got to see a lot of the Andes on our 4 hour journey. When we finally arrived it was overcast, but the sun came out later and we had only intermittent showers. We were bused from the base of the mountain up a very small, extremely windy road that the bus drivers careened around at full speed, barely missing hitting other buses coming back down the mountain. It sounds like I'm exaggerating but I'm not! We were dropped off at a restaurant and viewing area just below the top of the mountain where we ate lunch, and then our guides handed out our passes and we hiked the rest of the way to the top, to the ruins. I don't really know what to say other than that pictures really don't do it any justice. It's quite an impressive, awesome place to be. Totally worth all the work to get there! We got a full several hour long tour, and when we finally got down the mountain, on the train, then back to Cusco it was 11 that night.
The next day we had some time to wander around the markets before our flight left for Lima. We got back to Lima about 5, and we spent the next couple of hours at a mall before it was time to head to the airport to catch our 1:30 am flight back to Argentina. While at the mall, we made one last (our third) stop at Chilis, and of course! Starbucks :)
I don't remember much of our flight or the two hours bus ride back to school because I was sleeping!
Now it's Sunday, and I'm repacked and ready to head out tomorrow morning for Christmas vacation to Ushuaia, Calafate, Bariloche, and finally back to Buenos Aires. I'm going to be soo tired of traveling after these three weeks, but bring it on! I'll be trying to update this more frequently over break to keep you up to date with all the happenings.

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It's a bit hard to believe, considering that I'm looking out my window at blue sky and fluttering green leaves, in 80-some degree weather. Doesn't really feel much like Thanksgiving to me. Everyone I talk to is giddy over the amount of snow they have already. Am I jealous? Oh yes. Do I miss snow and winter? Oh yes. However, as I walk to class in my shorts and tee shirt I know I won't be feeling quite so despondent about my situation.

Speaking of hot weather, I'm discovering that the hotter it gets, the more the spiders come out. I discovered to my horror just a few minutes ago a very large very frightful spider on a ledge on the wall above my desk. Yesterday the same thing happened. While I was sitting at my desk I noticed long tentacle-y legs reaching up over the edge of the window track in front of my desk. Another huge (they just can't be small spiders here, oh no, that would never do. Spiders here feed on Miracle Grow and Wheaties every day) grotesque, FAT, nasty, all-most-disgusting-adjectives-I-can-think-of spider was trying to come into our room. I quickly notified my roommates of the situation and Rubi ran down the hall for her friend's insecticide while Karen examined the spider and announced she thought it was one of the bad spiders, which I'm assuming means poisonous. Rubi returned and gave the monstrous spider a mouthful of the insecticide several times and he finally writhed his last. But back to the spider of today: I had hoped to borrow the insecticide for this guy, so I moved everything off my desk so he wouldn't fall down among my books and die in there. Unfortunately the girl with the insecticide was gone, so I had just determined to retreat to my bed with my books and computer when my roommate Karen returned. I pointed out the spider and without hesitation she grabbed a bottle of bug spray and her shoe and climbed up on my desk, doused the spider in bug repellent and smashed him with her shoe as he tried to escape. For the record, Karen is now my hero forever! Be warned spiders! The same fate will be yours if you try to enter our room. However, I'm a bit worried about when Karen and Rubi go home for the summer...that means I'll be dealing with any more intruders on my own....

So much for hot weather. Back to Thanksgiving. They don't have Thanksgiving here in Argentina, obviously, but the cafeteria is apparently going to try to make a Thanksgiving dinner for us, the best that it can be considering half the things we eat for Thanksgiving don't exist here. Also, after classes tomorrow there's going to be a football game. So the true spirit of the day will survive, food and football ;)

Last Monday was a holiday, so we had a long weekend. Lauren and I wanted to go check out the Walmart in Parana, which is about an hour and a half bus ride away. We had heard that Walmart was in a very sketchy part of town so we felt like we should find a guy to go with us. William had wanted to go originally but when we found him, an hour before the bus left, he informed us he didn't want to go anymore. Jamel was nice enough to be convinced to come along as our escort and we headed off for Parana.We found a taxi there to get to Walmart, but we were a little unsure of how to get a taxi back. It was too far (and not safe) to walk back. We asked our taxi driver and she was nice enough to offer to come back and pick us up at a certain time.
I walked into Walmart, and the first thing I saw was Christmas decorations everywhere. I looked at Lauren and said, "I feel like I'm home!"  In reality though, Walmart here is not really the same as at home, which I knew it wouldn't be. We did find a straightener though, which was to replace Lauren's old one that my faulty converter blew up, and got to check out the merchandise.
Who knew that Walmart could be an adventure?

This week is all finals, next week we start our new classes for the second trimester, and on December 5th we head out on our trip to Peru. I am veeeery excited about that! That's pretty much a wrap on anything new happening here! Stay tuned for more updates to follow...

Buenos Aires

Well, I have been putting this off for weeks now, just because there was so much to say, and because the longer I put it off the less I felt like writing it. But the time has come!
This is about our trip to Buenos Aires, now several weeks ago. The ACA-ites had to meet up at the painful hour of  5:45 am to catch the bus to BsAs, and so, just as the sun began to lighten the sky, we groggily hauled our luggage to the bus and began the 6 hour bus ride. I can't say I remember much of that morning, I was very busy studying the back of my eyelids. We stopped about an hour out of BsAs at Estancia Santa Susana, which is a big gaucho ranch. We spent the morning there, they had caballo rides, and wagon rides, and a gift shop, and gaucho houses to look at. We took lots of pictures, ate lunch there, had a gaucho show with singing and dancing, and then were on our way. We went straight to the hotel so that we could drop off our things, then had a couple of hours to explore the city. Some friends and I were quick to find one the things we were Most Excited about finding in Buenos Aires: STARBUCKS! One of the guys that worked there asked my friend Ashley where she was from, and we found out that he had lived in Florida only a few hours from where she lives, before he moved to Argentina.
That evening, Haroldo and Sandra, our ACA group leaders, took us to La Pampa Opera. This is a really incredible outdoor show of the history of Argentina, with tons of actors and singers. It was night time so it was dark, and it was in an outdoor arena in front of a giant stage. They had people riding horses around in the arena, and acting out battles and stuff. It was SUPER cool.
After that was over, it was back to the hotel and bed time. We were staying in a really cute nice hotel. They had breakfast for us every morning, and we had about 3 or 4 people per room. I was staying with two other girls.
The next day we headed out after a quick breakfast to explore the city. We spent the morning walking around and seeing cool stuff like La Boca, and Plaza de San Martin, then had lunch at an Adventist restaurant in town (the very same one they took us to after picking us up from the airport) and we had the afternoon to ourselves. That night a big group of us had planned on meeting up to go out to eat, then to a movie. After a long series of complicated events that are just too much of a hassle to recount, we were all together, and headed off to a place that promised burritos, something we had not seen since we left the States. It was called "California Burrito" or something like that, and it did have burritos. They were okay, but I have a feeling my craving for burritos will not be satisfied till I am home, haha. By the time we left it was getting late and those of us that didn't feel like watching a movie anymore headed back to the hotel. I ended up in Lauren's room, and watched part of a football game with her before I headed to bed.
The next day we got to have a tour of a house of Jose de San Martin in Buenos Aires, it was very grand. Can't say I'd have minded living there :)
Next stop was Plaza de Mayo, full of monuments and cool stuff. After this we got to go to a pretty good buffet for lunch. After lunch we went to a cemetery which might sound lame, but it was actually really impressive. Only very important, famous, and/or rich people got buried there. It was all big tombs, like little buildings, and all divided into little sections by alleys. You could have walked for hours and hours in there.
 After the cemetery we got to check out a gorgeous park full of flowers and fountains and roses bushes galore. But beware! If you so much as THINK about stepping off the gravel paths onto the grass you will get whistled at very loudly by very grumpy park personnel!
Our day was almost over now, we headed back to the hotel to pack up and move out bags out to the bus. Then we got bused to a mall where we spent about 3 hours before our bus took us back to school. We got food, checked out every store in the mall (malls here are a bit different) and I hit up Starbucks one last time for a very delightful hazelnut mocha :)
Finally at about 11 we left Buenos Aires and started the long bus ride home. After watching a few episodes of Chuck with Lauren, James and Paul,  I fell asleep till our bus rolled into the villa about 4am. Thus concludes the BsAs trip. Anything else can wait for another day :)

Weekend in Rosario

What a weekend!
A few weeks ago some friends of mine had decided to go to Rosario (a city about a 3 hour bus ride away) for the weekend, to hang out and explore and to celebrate our friend Chelsea's birthday. Monday (today) is a holiday so we had a long weekend and had plenty of time to do whatever. We planned to leave on Friday.Well, we got all packed up, dragged our bags to the bus terminal around 5 in the afternoon, and tried to buy our tickets only to find out that there were only 5 seats left on the bus, and there were 10 people in our group. There was a bus that left at 5:30 the next morning, and there was room for everyone on that so we decided to leave then. We made it to the bus station at the very painful hour of 5:30 and slept most of the way to Rosario. Once we got to Rosario we found a map, found a place that had a lot of hostels, and got taxis to go there and try to find a hostel to stay in and leave our luggage at while we explored the city. Well that part went fine. However the driver of the taxi that Shain, Sabrina and I were in somehow didn't know where the area we were trying to go was. All we knew was the name of the plaza that the others in the group had told us to tell the driver. He told us it didn't exist. We drove for awhile anyway, the driver pulling over every so often to complain loudly that he couldn't drive if he didn't know where we wanted to go, and a lot of other things that I didn't understand because they were in Spanish (which was probably just as well). Fortunately Shain speaks Spanish and was able to talk to the driver. We didn't know what to do. Everyone else had already left, we knew only the name of the plaza which the driver didn't know, we didn't even have a map with us. Finally I suggested we go back to the terminal and get a map and at least try to find where everyone else had said to go. So we turned around, the driver grumbled, and we went back to the terminal and got a map. And guess what?! There on the map was the plaza just like we had told the driver. We found a NEW taxi driver and he took us to the area. We still had no idea where everyone else, other than that they were in that area somewhere. We walked around for a few minutes, I was praying that we would be able to find them soon, and sure enough, a few minutes later Sabrina saw them across the park waiting for us. I knew God had most definitely answered my prayer!
Now, to find a hostel. We walked from place to place, hauling our luggage along with us, asking for rooms but every single hostel we found was full. Apparently since it was a holiday weekend,  everyone and their great uncle was in Rosario for the weekend, and everything was full. After what felt like an eternity, we found a last resort, the only place that had room: a 5-star hotel. Well, it was that or go back, which Jamel decided to do. He opted to go back to the bus station and catch the bus back to school. We had hoped that we could just rent one or two rooms, and then sneak the rest of us in to sleep on the floors, but in a 5-star hotel it's a bit harder to sneak in, and there was no way we could do it. We got the 4 rooms, and since there were now 9 of us, I was in a room by myself. It was nice yeah, but also meant I had to pay the full 130 US dollars for a room that was much nicer than I really needed. It was one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in, though I'm not sure it would be considered a 5-star hotel in the states.
But at least we had a place to stay, and we could leave our luggage while we went out. We hung out in the hotel for a few hours while people showered, and tried to enjoy the hotel as much as possible to get every penny's worth! (I will say, the shower pressure was EXCELLENT! I missed that this morning, when my shower turned cold half way through, and became a small drizzle).
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town, and finding a place to eat dinner, then went back to the hotel and watched tv and hung out most of the night, till it was late enough for the clubs to open. Which was late! We didn't leave the hotel till almost 2. We were all in 3 taxis again, and mine, and one other taxi made it to the club just fine, but the 3rd one (that Shain was in, ironically) was nowhere to be seen. Lauren, Sabrina, Javier, James, Paul and I stood out in the cold for about half an hour, waiting for their taxi to arrive. Finally at 2:30 we got into line to get into the club because the hotel had given us free entrance tickets but they expired at 2:30. Just as we were about to go in Ashlee and Chelsea and Shain showed up. Apparently THIS taxi driver took them to an entirely different club. So we finally all made it in. I was super tired and wanted to leave about 3:30, and Paul had a headache so he said he'd come with me, and Lauren and James both decided to leave with us. Finding a taxi was a lot harder than I thought it would be, it took us almost half an hour just to find one that was "libre" and flag it down. I was so tired when we finally got back to the hotel. I slept sooo good that night.
Room service delivered breakfast to our rooms the next morning, which we found out later is NOT a free service like we thought, but the gentleman at the desk that checked us out was kind enough to not charge us for it, since we hadn't known that it cost extra. That and he probably just wanted to get us pesky students out of his hotel. We had to check out at noon, but we were able to leave our belongings with the hotel, since we had several hours before we needed to be to the bus station, and didn't want to carry everything around with us all afternoon. Rosario has this amazing monument called the National Flag Memorial that we walked to and took pictures of, it was really gorgeous! And we checked out some street vendors as well, before we walked back to the hotel, got cabs, and headed to the bus station. This time ALL the taxis made it, even the one Shain was in! And we were able to get right on our bus, and start the 3 hour trip back to Libertador San Martin. We got back around 7, and were able to grab some dinner. There was a masquerade fiesta last night, and I could hear it going on outside through my window last night. One of my roommates and a friend of hers spent a lot of time trying on shoes, dresses, and they even made their own masks to wear to the masquerade, which I thought was pretty neat. So THAT was our crazy weekend. Nothing went according to plan, but we survived, and had some good times anyway.
Today was a holiday. Again. There are so many holidays here, like every week, and nobody ever knows what holiday it is or even what it's called! I love it :)
I got to sleep in today, then Lauren and I went for a run. After lunch she and Sabrina and I lay out on blankets in the sun and did homework for a couple of hours. It was lovely. The weather is finally starting to warm up and feel more like summer here.
Well, that's about all. It's a bit of a lot to read, sorry about that.

Popcorn for Breakfast

First of all, I am very proud of myself and you all should be too. As of yesterday I have begun my spider-killing rampage. The spiders here are the biggest ones I've ever seen and I've killed two of them! There was one in the hallway all day yesterday, but it was in the corner too high for me to reach. Every time I left my room I could see it chilling there, a big ominous threat to my safety and mental well-being. Finally, last night on my way out I saw it again and it had moved within my reach! I knew without a doubt if I left it alone it would crawl straight to my room and into my bed. It had to die. Shrieking (because sound effects always help in any battle) I ran into my room and grabbed a flip flop, wrapped toilet paper around it in case of spider guts, and ran back out into the hall, followed by my roommates and two of their friends who were nice enough to cheer me on. I smacked the spider right where he stood (do spiders stand if they are on a wall?) and now, no more mister nasty spider. This morning I saw on on the floor, and quickly stepped on him as well. NOW, there's ANOTHER one on the ceiling, hidden under a vent. All I can see are his freakishly long legs sticking out. I'm afraid I may have started a never-ending war...

Next topic of interest: food. Before I came here, everyone I talked to told me the food was awful. So far, I disagree. Nothing I've eaten so far has killed me or been violently rejected by my body. In fact, I quite enjoy some of it. But I understand why no one likes the food by the time they leave. It is very, very repetitive. I'm quite sure in a month or two I will be as sick of it as everyone else was. On the bright side, rice and beans is at pretty much every meal, and I'm sure I could survive a year on just rice and beans if need be. There are always bananas, apples (red delicious unfortunately, not my favorite by any means) and oranges as well, which I eat at almost every meal. Is it possible to overdose on oranges and bananas? I sure hope not.
This morning I had caramel popcorn for breakfast. Interesting, yes? Delicious though! For breakfast they usually have hot chocolate, really hard toasted bread, and cereal. They also have pastries, though those are usually served at dinner. Apparently every meal is the same, depending on the day (Monday lunch = Monday Lunch, etc).
Well, there you go. Consider yourself updated :)
 

First days

This is my first attempt at blogging. I thought that this would just be a lot easier for everyone, especially for me. So if you're interested in what I'm up to I'll try to keep my blogs current. If you're not interested, you're not required to read them!

In case you don't know what's going on, I'm spending a year with ACA (Adventist Colleges Abroad) in Argentina at the Universidad Adventista del Plata. The plan is to learn Spanish! And do lots of cool things while I'm here :)

I left the U.S. a week and two days ago, on Sunday the 12th of September. After two long flights, and a lot of uncomfortable plane naps, I arrived in Buenos Aires on Monday morning to overcast skies and a cold drizzly rain. Not exactly what I expected from Argentina, but it IS still the end of winter here. There were 3 other girls on my flight with ACA and after we got our luggage we met up with the rest of the ACA students that were flying into the airport and with Horaldo and Sandra, our two ACA leaders that had come to pick us up. Once we had managed to squeeze all of us and all of our luggage (the bigger challenge) into a bus and a van, we were taken to an Adventist vegetarian restaurant in Buenos Aires where we had lunch.
Finally, we had a 6 hour bus ride to the school, which is in a little town called Libertador San Martin. Luckily it didn't quite take the full 6 hours, and we got the the school around 8:30pm. They fed us again, and sent us to our rooms where we got to meet our roommates. Most students have two roommates, at least that's how it is in the girls dorm. My roommates names are Rubi and Karen. They are sisters and live in Mexico. Both are super sweet and kind, and I'm enjoying getting to know them. They don't speak English however, so I'm having to work very hard on my Spanish in order to be able to communicate with them. Some day I hope to be able to hold an in depth conversation with them, rather than the one or two sentences I am able to construct painfully and slowly as of now. The dorm provides the bedding for the beds so we didn't have to pack that with us. There are 3 floors in the dorm I live in with two bathrooms on each floor. So far I haven't had any problems with running out of hot water in my shower for which I am very thankful. The toilets are pretty much the same (no squat pots like in Borneo!) but I still have to remember not to flush my toilet paper. Here they throw it all away in trash cans.

Last week was a pretty chill week. We had meetings usually every morning but most of the day was free, which was a big change for me after my busy schedule this summer. I explored the town and lot, and the campus. The campus is pretty much right in town, but surrounded by a big fence that closes at 8. To get in or out we have to swipe our cards, and we are required to be back on campus by 10:30 every night.

The town is pretty small, about 5,000 people, most of whom work at the university or at the hospital here.
There are dogs eeeeverywhere here. And way too many pigeons. They like to roost on the ledge outside my dorm room window and...well, do whatever pigeons do. Poop, make noise, fly around. Often they wake me up in the mornings because they are so loud. My roommates tell me that at some point everyone gets pooped on by a bird. That's just the way it is. I'm hoping to be the exception to that rule.
On Saturday afternoon a big group of us went on a hike to the puente negro or Black Bridge. It's an old train track bridge, about a 6 mile hike round trip. It was a beautiful hike and I was having a lovely time until we reached the bridge and I realized that not only was it extremely high, but I also was going to have to cross this sketchy old bridge knowing at any moment were I to slip and fall I could plummet to my death on the sharp rocks in the creek below! I exaggerate some, the bridge was still sturdy but it is true that had anyone fallen, well...bad things would have happened. But I faced my enormous fear of heights and crossed the bridge on my hands and knees, clinging to the ties and scooting along foot by foot. Yes, I looked dumb, yes people made fun of me, but I survived! And felt extremely brave afterwards :) A good day's work.

Sunday we did more exploring. We got up early to take the 8:20 bus to Parana, a bigger town about an hour and half away, then found out to our chagrin that the bus left at 10:30 on Sundays. We spent the day in Parana. Most of the shops were closed since it was a Sunday, but we were able to find a buffet to eat at that had rather delicious food. A lot of interesting foods too, for the braver eaters, like rice with squid in it. Mmm!
There is a Walmart in Parana but we didn't make it there. It's farther out of town and you have to take a taxi or bus to get there. We found a supermarket that sufficed. Walmart will just have to wait for next time.

Yesterday was our first day of classes. I somehow lucked out and have afternoon classes most of the week. I'm taking Grammer, Composition, Conversation, History of Argentina, Folklore, Current Events, spelling, and Geography. Most of the classes meet once a week, usually for two hours.
Today we didn't have classes because it was Dia del Estudiante which means day of the student. The school had a bunch of games set up on the soccer field for us, like ping pong, giant blow up slides, a mechanical bull, and a giant human foosball inflatable court. I'll definitely get pictures of those up :) And yes, I did in fact ride the mechanical bull!

That's it for now. There's probably things I've forgotten to say, but I'll just get it another time.