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.
