A big sigh of relief

*sigh*

I just got two big weights off my shoulders, thank goodness! One, I handed in my final paper for my history class, hooray. It took me so long to do, mostly because I was being a horrible procrastinator. But I must say, when you hit the 5 page mark (of an 8 pager), in Spanish, with no more ideas...it's extremely hard to BS your way through it! At the end I ended up throwing in a "personal perspective" part, which I'm not sure if is legal or not. O'well...it's over!! Next week I find out my grade and say goodbye to latin american history forever.

The other weight was registering at Central for classes in the spring. Done! With the classes I need/want, so that's good. SO, now you can guarantee that I'm coming back, because I'm enrolled in classes. ;-) JK, I would come back anyways. It is weird though, to imagine being back on campus in January, living life like I never left. I'm not sure how the whole adjustment thing is going to go, but we'll see!

So this weekend was a pretty good one. Friday there was no Vida so I instead went to my friend Kevin's apt. and we made a rockin' dinner. ;-) Actually one of the things we made was a recipe that I saw on the subte (metro), which is kind of an odd place to find a recipe, but whatev. They turned out yummy!

haha, caught in the act of enjoying the food!

Saturday I went to a tango show with Abby and Krista, at Cafe Tortoni...a famous cafe in town. My tango professor does shows there twice a week, so I wanted to see what it was all about. It was a good show, with an interesting twist! Halfway through the show he and his partner went into the audience to grab a couple of victims to drag on stage with them. Well, seeing as Jose more or less knows me and knows that I should know how to dance, he grabbed me! It was slightly embarrasing, but fun. :-p I mean, I was probably up there for a total of 2 minutes, but sa-weet! haha.

Sunday I finished my paper early on and decided to treat myself to a day of rest. So I went to a park and enjoyed the sunshine for a bit. The weather is getting beautiful! :-) Some days it feels like summer in the states, even though it's just spring here. So I have a feeling the heat is going to overtake us all quite soon.

Anyways, time to get going. Sending my love!

Oh, how I wish I could explain...

Soo...update time??

Honestly in the past week or so my life hasn´t been all that exciting, therefore I haven´t written anything. I guess the biggest thing is that I have changed my plane ticket to stay a couple of weeks longer here in AR. I will be staying until Dec. 17th. I know!! In some ways it´s sad, because it´ll be that much longer until I can wrap everyone in big hugs...but for me it´s also a happy thing. Who knows the next time that I´ll be able to visit this place or these people?? I´m really living here...I´m not just here on vacation. I have my regular supermarket, my preferred park to go to and sit in, and I even have made friends with the guy at the ice cream shop that I walk by everyday! I´m becoming a part of this community and immersing myself in the culture of this country. But it´s not like before, for example, when I transferred colleges. I can´t just visit this place again when I have a spare weekend or a couple of days free. I´ve wiggled my way south, crossed the equator, and stepped into a new country!

The people in this country have made an impact on my life that I won´t be able to forget...that I don´t want to forget. And my decision to stay a bit longer has nothing to do with people at home. If it were up to me, I would fly each of you down here, one by one, and show you around my neighborhood, my city...my country. And if it were up to you, I´d be home tomorrow. But we can´t change what´s what and so here we are, with the reality of the situation...I´m staying 17 days more. I´m still looking forward to coming home and I really will be there before you know it!

I hope you undersand. *hugs and kisses!*

Adventures over the weekend

Our adventure began on our bus ride from Buenos Aires to Mendoza. I went on this trip with Krista and Andrea, but Krista wasn't with us at this point...she was to meet us down there. On the entire bus of probably 50 plus seats, there was only one other woman besides Andrea and I. We were to pick up the rest of the passengers a few hours into the trip. One of the bus drivers came and offered us mate, the communal tea drink native to Argentina. Seeming surprised when we accepted, he led us down to join him and his fellow driver in the driver's cabin to take part in the friendly ritual.

This was an experience! You always see the drivers disappear behind the mysterious curtain, but to be invited down was an honor! So we all began to chat and get to know one another a bit and form one of those temporary relationships that I've seemed to encounter a lot being down here. We got to know each other fairly well, sharing things that you don't just spout to strangers...yet at the same time we knew pretty much from the start that whne we got off the bus we wouldn't be seeing more of each other. They even allowed us to climb into the secret bed hidden behind the drivers' area and get some sleep after our bus was invaded by 30 plus chatty old people.

Arriving in Mendoza we met Krista and headed to our hostel to begin a pretty chill day. We wandered the city a bit and ended up spending most of the day in a nearby park, laying on a high-jacked blanket from my bed in the hostel. The weather was gorgeous and it felt soo good to just lie around, napping in the sun and chatting.

The next day we got up bright and early to head off and go whitewater rafting! It was my first time, so I was rather excited. We had about an hour journey to the rafting place, so we got to enjoy the scenery on th way. It was my first glimpse of the Andes Mountains!

After arriving at the rafting place, we got all wet-suited up, took some goofy photos, and got in the river. Krista said this one is flattering ;-)

After a short lesson on how to follow commands, we were heading down the coold river. We were accompanied by Oscar, our guide, and an older couple, Susan and Drew. they were there with a lawers convention and taking a little bit of time on their own to enjoy the country. They didn't speak Spanish, so they were grateful to have us as their translators! It felt good to help for once, instead of being the clueless foreigner. The rafting was absolutely beautiful because we were surrounded by the Andes with their lovely snow covered peaks. Yes, speaking of snow, the day was quite a bit chillier than the previous one and, by the time we were done with our 3 hour adventure, my fingers and toes were absolutely frozen. But here we are...still smiling!!

Sunday we got up even earlier, with even less sleep, thanks to our party hostel. We were heading to Chile!! A seven hour bus ride one way, just to spend the day there...But it ended up being a good day. We had a combination of sleep and taking in the gorgeous sights on the way there.

When we finally arrived in Santiago, we once again felt like out-of-place foriegners -- a feeling that we haven't felt in quite some time. We didn't even really know where to go because we couldn't find a map and we didn't really come armed with an itinerary. We took the metro to the "centro" and happended upon a huge park that was quite beautiful and was on a hill, so you could get great views of the city as you climbed up and up. We had some fun with photos and then were stuck.

We didn't really know what to do next, so we spotted some other "tourists" with a book of Chile and took action, asking them what else there was to see. As it so happened, one of the guys, William, was from Colombia but has been studying in Chile for a year, so he was helping the other guy out, Sandro from Brazil, showing him around the city and whatnot. So, they offered to show us around as well! I thought, sweet! Free guide. It was a good couple of hours getting to know them, eating ice cream, practicing spanish, and seeing some cool sights.

These are the two guys we met in Chile!

Me chillin' with two guards in front of the Chilean "white house"

After separating from the guys and eating dinner, we realized that we still had a lot of time to kill before catching the bus back to Mendoza, so we stopped at a cafe to kill time and spend our last Chilean money. This is where we entered into the silly stage of much fun, yet unnecessary, laughter. We must have been quite exhausted because everything seemed quite funny. First we hardly had any Chilean money left, thinking we could pay the rest with a credit card. Well, they didn't accept credit cards or Argentine pesos...the only other two types of currency we had. They did accept Euros or American money though...big surprise! Once we figured out exactly what we could buy to spend our money, the girls decided that they had to use the bathroom. Turns out there was a sign on the bathroom door saying that you had to pay to use it (not uncommon for public bathrooms)...but we didn't have enough money! There were a few other small things, but I'm not going to bore you with the little stuff.

The bus ride back was interesting with us trying to sleep, yet being interrupted by some flirty Chilean students on their way to visit Argentina for the week. At first we weren't sure if they were Argentines because of one guy's accent...but it turns out he was making fun of Argentines. The fact that he was making fun of Argentines, however, envoked some patriotism in me, which I took for a good sign.

Anyways, the rest of the trip was pretty much filled with boredom waiting in the bus station and sleeping on the ride home. But it was a great adventure!! Love to hear what you think. :-)

A first for everything!

Hola de nuevo!!

This weekend was an excellent one. Well, I guess mine really started on Thursday this week because it was Andrea's birthday so we went out to celebrate. We grabbed dinner in Puerto Madero, the richest neighborhood of BsAs where there are the most tourists. The dinner was yummy, but what came after was the best! We decided to try out a Milonga, which is a place that people go to dance Tango and Milonga, a type of tango.

When we first arrived I was quite nervous because I didn't really know what to expect. I've heard that sometimes the people aren't very open to having tourists there (depending on which place you go) and, being a beginner, I didn't want someone to ask me to dance and then get mad that I can't actually do it! haha. So anyways, we went in and got a seat. I am bummed that I didn't bring my camera, but Andrea had hers so I will hopefully be able to post pictures later. I was a dance floor with a bunch of tables and chairs surrounding it so you could watch and/or wait for someone to ask you to dance. Traditionally the way that the men ask women to dance is with their eyes. That way a woman can reject the man without making it obvious to everyone else. He looks her in the eyes and waits for her to look back at him and accept. Creepy eh? This place luckily is a little less traditional, so the men just came up and asked you.

So we were at first thinking that we would just watch because, let's face it...we aren't that good. Well, shortly after we sat down, people starting coming up and asking us to dance!! After making sure to warn them that we were beginners, we began to dance the night away! They were mostly older people, which was perfectly fine with me. I had a blast! There was one guy in particular that I danced with quite a bit and he was so patient and nice, I feel like I learned a lot! I now feel like an official tango dancer. But especially because I danced in my very first tango SHOW!!

Yes, that's right folks...I danced in a tango show in Argentina. It was a show apparently for some rich high school in BsAs, but our class did an exhibition in the middle. I arrived at the university to find my partner waiting with the biggest, most beautiful rose ever! (My partner being the handsome Jonas Melin from Sweden ;-)) Made for some great pictures!

Me with my georgous rose!

Me with my handsome partner!

Dancing in the show!

So, this weekend ended up being filled with Tango and I loved it. Thanks Jonas, for being a great partner, and hello to everyone at home!!

Hugs and kisses!