Wanna Fanta

Last night we celebrated Halloween, since we are leaving today for Free Travel. Everyone dressed up in costumes (very creative ones at that)! We had a zebra, a puppy, a cowgirl, a hippie, a gypsy, Amber and Josh, a Uruguayo, a helado vender, a clown, a Pink Lady, Wimon, a soccer player, Chewy and Princess Leia, a ghost, and the Fanta girls!! My roommates and I were the Fantanas...Summer (Kate: orange), Melody (Linley: grape), and Shakira (me: Pinapple). We used our colorful bedsheets, my headbands and printed logos. Of course we had the appropriate hair and makeup :) For the party, we had crepes and halloween candy sent by the Great Pumpkin.
Now the day is full of packing and getting everything set to travel to Argentina and Chile. I will tell all (or most of) my adventures when I get back! Please pray for our group of 8, as we have no "adults" on our trip. 6 of us are only in beginner Spanish so it will be a challenge but great practice.

Who am I?

When I say this next statement, it may sound vain, but that's not what I'm going for. Ready?
I am really good at the tango and art!
So here's the reason I say that. On Wednesday, we went to Museo Torres-Garcia. He is a Uruguayan artist and his art is very noticable. At first it was Grecian, then it was New York bustle, the simple and symbolic Uruguay. We had the chance to go through the workshop and attempt some art ourselves. Mine wasn't the most amazing, but it was still good and my creative juices were flowing. So when I came home, I started on my World Lit art project that I wasn't looking forward to before. Now I have two of four done (I think)...just wish i had paint or charcoal :D
Later that evening, we had our second tango lesson. It was a lot more fun than the first one and we progressed much more than any other group before us. Now we know the basic step, the turn and the kick. The turn and the kick have other, more professional sounding names, but I don't remember them. lol. My goal was to get better at following the male. I can say that I succeeded in that and I was good at it. Remember, if anyone wants to learn...I can teach :)

Today we went to the American Embassy just to see what its like to be a diplomat here. It was short but informative. It has become a tradtion for us to cook on Friday nights. Tonight was enchiladas, salad with ranch, brownies and sweet tea! Most of these things we don't have on a normal basis so it was a real treat. Life is wonderful!

On the Slide Down

I officially have 7 1/2 weeks til' I'm back in the States! It seems like a long time and not very long at all. School starts back up today after being in Brazil for a week...I'm not thrilled, but I'll get over it. Saturday was a beautiful day, so a group of us decided to go to the Rambla for a couple hours. We played soccer, frisbee and buried people in the sand! It felt good to get out of the house and enojy the sunshine. If y'all couldn't tell, as it gets colder where you are, it's getting warmer here. That's going to do crazy things to my system when I get back. haha

This week is full with activity as well: a museum tour and tango lesson on Wednesday, the Alianza on Thursday, American Emabssy on Friday and hopefully Punta del Este on Saturday. It's a hopefully because we want nice weather. My pictures are up on Facebook from the Brazil trip....so go look at them and enjoy God's beauty!

Another cool side note: During my Study Abraod time, I will have visited 5 countries. 4 of those 5 are qualified for the World Cup and the 5th is in the playoff game! I think that's really cool :D
Much love to everyone!

Welcome to the Jungle

I am going to sum up our week long Brazil trip in one blog post (hopefully it will all make sense). It was a blast! After celebrating Raquel's birthday by making her lunch, we began our 20+ hour bus ride to Foz de Iguacu, Brazil. It was long and uncomfortable but I slept and read most of the way. In Argentina, we stopped to see the Jesuit mission and the house of Horacio Quiroga. If you've ever seen The Mission, that's where we were (part of it was used for filming). Quiroga is a Latin American writer that had a very sad life.
Once we were in Brazil, we stopped at a grocery store to buy snacks and exchange our money for Real. The rest of the evening was used to relax at our hotel. The next day, we started at the bird park. It is a bird sancutary so there are many types of birds. Lots of parrots, macaws and tucans! It was a nice day to walk around. Next was the Brazilian side of Iguacu falls; the line was long to get in because it was a holiday weekend in Brazil. Once inside, we hopped on a bus and went to the safari site. There were three parts: first, a jeep tour of the jungle; second, a walking tour by a small waterfall; third, the boat ride! We had all been anxiously awaiting this part. For U$S 50 you could take this boat ride along the river and under the falls. It was gorgeous and the water was at 2x its normal level that day. We were completely soaked!! After changing into dry clothes, we walked the trail across from the falls. We took many pictures and enjoyed the mist.
Since it was Sunday, we all had a worship together that night. During our time, it began to storm like crazy and it knocked some of the power out.
Day 2 was supposed to be on the Argentina side of the falls but plans were switched because of the rain. So we went to the Itaipu Dam and Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. The dam was cool but I wasn't feeling very good that day, so I wasn't interested. Ciudad del Este is described as Walmart blown out onto the streets. Everything is super cheap and its chaos. We all bought soccer jerseys there. For dinner, instead of eating in the hotel, we got dressed up and went to a samba show called Rafain. It was cool to see all the dances from the surrounding Latin American countries.
Day 3 we were able to go to the Argentina side of the falls. There was a lot more walking involved this time. Coati's roamed everywhere and were not afraid of people. Our tour guide told us about many of the plants in the park. This time we walked above the falls and saw how much water there really was. That day it was 3.5x as much as normal! Bottega was where we ate for dinner. Day 4 was a trip to the Guarani village in Argentina. They were really inventive people and very talented. Some of the children sang for us and we all bought their hand crafts. It was Amanda's birthday so we all went to Pizza Hut. I had been wanting real pepperoni pizza so it hit the spot! We had the afternoon free to shop downtown and get back to the hotel. My group got off a couple miles to early and had to walk. And it started to rain....but we had fun running in the rain! What a great memory for Amanda's birthday. Our whole group gather in Autumn's room to watch the Uruguay v. Argentina World Cup Qualifier....it was intense....sadly Uruguay lost 0-1.
Day 5 was a free morning before we started the trek home. The ride home was much more bearable and it felt soooo good to come back.
I enjoyed every minute of our Brazil trip but I am worn out!! Thanks for reading :)

My Brain Hurts

The past few days have been relatively uneventful but Monday was interesting. As previously mentioned, we went to a hear a political speech from the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates for the Blanco Party. The first half of the "20 minutes" (more like 2 1/2 hours!) was just citizens talking about what they wanted to see change. There were 6 different people that each talked for 5-10 minutes. That's a lot of Spanish! So my brain was hurting from trying to translate and I had no food in my stomach. We had a good time watching the candidates as they listened intently...this included sticking pens in their ears, making faces, laughing and slouching in their chairs. Absolutely hilarious! After it was over, we were greeted by both and took pictures with them.

Yesterday I went with Kate to the Alianza. We signed up to be in an English conversation club this month. The idea is to speak English with Uruguayans so they can work on their language skills. It was cool. One thing that I learned...that America is running out of water, and will be out by the year 2020. They were surprised that I had not heard that statement before. I'm not sure if I completely believe it or not, but at least I'm aware.
Well, we're off to Brazil! Yay for 20 hour bus rides. I am taking my computer, so I will be able to update frequently :)

That's why they call it the blues!

Another Monday here in Montevideo and it rained once again. It was an odd weekend...we came back from Buenos Aires on Tuesday night and had school the next morning, so the weekend was for recovery. Despite the resting we wanted to do, there is so much homework to keep up with! I did learn how to play Idiot (a card game) and taught 3 new people how to play Rook (another card game). On Sunday, we changed times. It is spring, so we jumped ahead an hour. Until the U.S. goes back an hour, we will be three hours ahead. Last night after church, we continued our tradition of going out for ice cream at La Cigale. We were greeted by the sound of Elton John songs! Autumn and I had fun singing along while eating our amazing ice cream. I'm pretty sure we got a few looks from the ladies who work there :) O well, we were just being ourselves.

As for this morning, our (Kate, Linley and I) alarm clocks did not go off and so the boys decided to jump on the ceiling above our room because we were late for chapel. We all thought someone was falling down the stairs or the building was collapsing but it sure did wake us up! Tonight we were supposed to have another Tango lesson but we're cancelling so we can go see one of the Presidential candidates of Uruguay. Maybe we'll get to shake his hand! That's all I've got for today. I miss everyone back in Texas. Two months to go....

Buenos Aires: Day 3, 4 and 5

27 September 2009: We left the hotel at 9 am and walked in the rain to the subway. It was Sunday, so we were on our way to church. We rode to the Carlos Gardel stop and walked from there to Iglesia de Cristo en Caballito. We hung out with the youth group there until 4:30pm, eating pizza, playing ping pong and metigol (fusball). Then we went to a mall, the bus ride of which we were packed into. Their bus system is not as efficient as Montevideo's. For dinner, a smaller group of us went to Clasica y Moderna, a restaurant and bookstore. There was live music that night. Our waiter was hilarious!

28 September 2009: Kate's 20th birthday!!! The day started out on Florida street (a pedestrian street) where we shopped a little until taking taxis to La Boca once again. This is where Kate wanted to have her birthday lunch. We picked a restaurant with live dancers and music! They gave us a group deal: 40 AR pesos each. This included a drink, empanada and entree. Basically $10 US per person. It was a beautiful day. After shopping around a bit, we left for Recoleta. We squeezed 5 people in a 4 person taxi....this is illegal, so we had to pay double. After more walking, we did more walking, all the way to the horsetrack in Palermo...20 city blocks!! I had never seen a horse race before and it was pretty cool. I was with Abel and Karaline. We walked about 40 blocks back to the hotel (mostly because we didn't want to pay for a taxi, but also because we forgot how cheap the subway is). Haha! Finally, to cap off Kate's birthday, we went to a concert at a place called La Cigale. And so ends a long but amazing day!

29 September 2009: We spent time at the Botanical Gardens and the Buenos Aires Zoo. Both places were relaxing and interesting. At the gardens, we recreated one of the statues...it was so funny! Hopefully one person will post the picture soon. Then at 5pm it was time to come back to Montevideo!