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...
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
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 :)
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 :)
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