Long update

Hola a todos!

So, despite having only two days of classes, last week I managed to keep rather busy. Thursday I volunteered in a place called “Ciudad Oculta” which means “Hidden city.” It was quite a poor area but all around you could see little kids running around playing, happy as can be. They were also really lacking in volunteers, as many of them have moved on to other countries or returned home, being close to the beginning of the school year. Where I was there were only me and another girl from France, who is quiet, but nice. I helped kids with math and colored for a couple of hours, and then headed home. That night Abby, Katie (another girl from the university), and I decided that we wanted to go out to dinner. That was fun. I don’t eat out for dinner much here because Vicky cooks every night, but I always like to try it. It was interesting…we didn’t get a table until after 10pm and didn’t start eating until probably 11 at least. And there were people still waiting for tables after we got ours. That just shows you one major culture difference!

Friday during the day I didn’t do a whole lot. But it was very pretty outside so I grabbed a few empanadas and walked to the park that is nearby to enjoy the sun. When I’m alone with nothing really to do is the prime time for the enemy to do his work, so I made sure to keep my thoughts on God and busted out a book to read called “The Ragamuffin Gospel.” I’m about halfway through it and that day it really got my thoughts going. It was a good afternoon. Then I returned home to get ready to go to Vida, the Crusade group here. I had a little bit of time before I had to go and just happened to look at my little shelf where a picture of my sister and me sits. I suddenly really missed her and wanted to talk to her, so I called her. Not gonna lie, it was probably a mistake because I could only talk for a couple of minutes and I got crying afterwards, but o’well. I hadn’t talked to either my mom or my sister in such a long time and I really miss them!

So anyways, I met Andrea and one of her friends at the subte and we headed to Vida. Apparently they do different things each week and this week was mainly focused on watching the Argentine vs. Nigeria soccer game in the Olympics. So we played a few games and had a short message until the game started at 1am. Yes, that’s right 1am!! And I managed to stay awake for the whole thing and enjoyed it! So that was another late night, until about 4am.

Saturday I ate lunch in Chinatown again…mmmm….with Abby and Katie, and killed time until the evening. In the evening Krista and I went to a concert thing that featured a couple guys who played Tango music. It was cool because they had done a project in a mental institute to create some new songs. A couple of the guys from the institute were there and got a ton of applause after the songs were performed. I was glad I went, but getting home was a bit more difficult than I thought. We were having a hard time finding what bus Krista should take, so she said she would walk home because she really wasn’t that far. I got on my bus and halfway home she texted me that four teenagers had attempted to mug her! I felt so bad for having left her, but she assured me that she was fine and they didn’t get anything…she just had to push them off and yell a bit. Eek, I wouldn’t have liked to be in that situation!
Sunday all four of us, Katie, Abby, Krista, and I went to a real Argentine “futbol” game… or soccer as we call it. We were a little nervous because we know that games can sometimes be dangerous and we were four girls without male escorts, but it all worked out just fine. No one got hurt or robbed, so all is well. :-) haha..
AND Sat. night I got to talk to Nat and Sara via skype, so that was a good night as well.

Yesterday I had classes like normal and then went to Bible study with the STINTers and a couple of Argentine girls. We did it all in Spanish this time, so that was interesting for sure. In a good way though…but I realized that there is a lot of “spiritual vocabulary” that I don’t quite know in Spanish. I’ll get there! It was nice though, I felt like it was a piece of Cru from home. They were talking about using the solarium and stuff, which is sweet because I brought mine with me! Knowing that school is starting up back home is a weird sensation, knowing I’m not there to be a part of it! Such is life.

Love you all!