This last week was the start of our last trimester here. It was supposed to start on Monday, but the government just decided to add two new national holidays on Monday and Tuesday, so we had an extra long spring break! :) Our break was actually quite long because at the end of February after our finals we had an ACA trip to Rio de Janeiro for almost a week, and immediately after that started our spring break.
Brazil was awesome! We spent all night driving in the bus to Buenos Aires, where we arrived to torrential rains at about 4 in the morning. After lots of waiting and lines, we made it through security, and found out that because of the rain the flights were all delayed. We spent a few more hours waiting in the airport, but our plane eventually was able to leave.
We arrived to Rio in that afternoon, and were met by our two tour buses that would take us everywhere for the next few days. We were taken to a delicious buffet, then had the rest of the evening to ourselves. Our hotel was directly across the street from Copacabana Beach, and Ipanema Beach was also within walking distance. We had beautiful weather the whole time. We spent several days there, with one whole day as a free day to do whatever we wanted. We got to tour a botanical garden/park, visit the statue of Cristo Nuestro Redentor, take cable cars to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain overlooking the city, and the driving around the city looking at stuff bit. Then in the rest of our free time we could walk around town, shop, swim, eat, hang out at the beach - which is what we ended up doing quite a lot :) The food was amazing, there are lots of tropical fruits. We found a corner store with amazing fruit juices, and also a restaurant right behind our hotel with FANTASTIC pizza! You probably think I'm crazy for being that excited about something as ordinary as pizza, but until you've had to eat UAP pizza (which looks like brains slathered in rubber cheese, topped abundantly with egg and whatever else was for dinner the night before) you have no right to judge! :P
The whole trip was amazing. I know that Rio is definitely just a tiny part of Brazil, but I loved it and would go back in a heartbeat! My visa is good for 10 years now, so I've got time to plan my next trip!
After we got back from Brazil, we spent a few days back at the UAP, trying to plan our spring break trip to Uruguay. We had originally planned on taking a bus there and back, spending a few days in Punta del Este. But the bus schedule just wasn't working out for us and we weren't sure what to do. We decided to do what some other ACA students had done earlier in the year, and hire a taxi to take us there, hang out for a few days, then bring us back. We had trouble getting ahold of the driver we had a number for, but we got a list of taxi drivers from the bus station, and on Friday Rebekah started calling them all until we found one that would take us. So Sunday evening about 8 pm, we set out on our drive to Uruguay. It turned out to be the longest night EVER! It took us 13 hours to reach our hostel in Punta del Este. There were 4 of us girls, myself, Lauren, Krista, and Rebekah, plus our taxi driver, all squished into the little car. Lauren was sick with a bad cold already, so she knocked out after some Nyquil. Our driver turned out to be quite a talker, and poor Rebekah who was sitting in the front seat since she is a fluent Spanish speaker had to listen to him ramble for hours about every town we went through, who lived there, the type of town, the area, who he knew there, etc etc etc. And he would randomly wake her up to tell her any other random information he thought important for her to know. He also felt it necessary to stop at practically every single gas station along the way, whether we needed gas or not. That, coupled with a couple times he needed to stop and sleep, made a veerrry long night. Finally, feeling like every muscle in our bodies was either numb or on fire, we rolled to a stop at our hostel, a few miles outside of Punta del Este. We were too early to check in but the hostel was nice enough to let us keep our stuff in a storage room till we checked in, and we set out to find a bank to change money. Turns out the nearest bank was several miles away, so we walked (since our driver had since disappeared, and was nowhere to be found) several hours there and back in the hot sun and got very sunburned! Our reward however, was a little cupcake shop that was next door to the bank, so of course we took advantage of that!
After we walked back, we spent most of the afternoon on the beach then that night stopped at a little supermarket to pick up some food for dinner. We made ourselves some yummy soup and bread at the hostel, then pretty much went straight to bed!
The next day we decided we were all a bit too burned to want to lay out on the beach again, so we found our driver and got him to drive us into Punta del Este to walk around town. We spent all afternoon walking around town, taking pictures at the La Mano estatua (the hand statue), and looking in shops. That evening we again made ourselves a delicious dinner of pasta, then watched a movie before we went to bed. We were staying in a 6 person female room at the hostel, but it turned out to just be the 4 of us there the whole time, which was nice. There were actually 4 other ACA students that came to Punta del Este and ended up staying in the same hostel!
The next day was our last day, so we took advantage of it and spent all morning on the beach, soaking up our last few rays of Uruguayan sun. We left the hostel about 3 that afternoon to head back to the UAP. We made excellent time at first, and discovered why it had taken us so long to get to Uruguay the first night: because our taxi driver was practically blind at night! While the sun was up he drove like a madman (we made good time though!), but as soon as the sun set he slowed waaay down, and towards the end of the drive we were all frightened for our lives, because of how much he swerved around on the road. And once again we stopped at every single gas station along the way.
Our only major glitch though, was our stop at the border into Argentina where we discovered that the lovely official that had taken care of our documents on our way into Uruguay two nights before had forgotten to stamp my passport, which apparently is a big no-no. We were entering Argentina through a different town than we had left, and apparently there is no national data system on the custom's computers, and no way to use a telephone and call the other customs office, because they told me the only thing we could do was drive an hour out of our way to the other town where we had entered, or pay a $30 dollar fee despite the fact that it was not my fault that the worker had neglected to stamp my passport. It was already like 11 o'clock at night, so I payed the fee and after dealing with a few more not-very-nice customs workers, we were approved for re-entry on our merry way again. We made it back to the school about 1 am, thankful to still be alive and in one piece. And there you have the account of our adventures for spring break! Spring break didn't actually end for nearly a week though. We got back to school Thursday morning, and classes didn't start again until Wednesday. The rest of that next week was full of a lot of movie watching and sleeping :) Especially after Friday when I went to the dentist and got two of my wisdom teeth pulled. I wanted to get all of them pulled at once, but the dentist wanted to do two at a time so I got one side done first. Lauren was kind enough to be willing to go with me, to make sure I survived and made it back to school okay, and took care of me afterwards. I actually felt pretty good, the teeth came out without any problems, and I didn't have any swelling or any real pain. So that was two weeks ago now, and tomorrow I go back in for the other two.
We're in the final trimester of the year! It's so hard to believe that this year is almost over and I'll be headed back to the states in just two more months. This year truly has gone by fast as everyone said it would, and I am very excited to get to go home soon. Now I'm just trying to learn as much as I possibly can in the short amount of time I have left. Regular classes here at the UAP started yesterday, and my roommates have been back since last week. There are sooo many students here now, it's so strange compared to the 50 + we had before. Now it's back to long lines in the cafeteria and for the laundry, and people eeeeeverywhere!
That about concludes any of the random goings-on I can think of lately. There'll be more I'm sure, and I'll try to keep you updated better!
