En Final

Well its been a month now-it is kind of hard to believe! In some ways it felt really short and but at the same time I feel like i've been here for much longer!
I passed my classes, packed my things and now its time to kill a little time before heading to the airport around 5! When I was packing up my things I found 300 pesos that I didnt know I had tucked away! And because the exchange rate isnt so good on the way back, I have no choice but to spend those pesos before I leave!
Also, my host mom is getting a new student today, and we overlap by a few hours. Im going to do my best to fill her in on all of the things I wish I would have known about the city when I first got here.
The plane ride shouldn't be so bad. I'm hoping that a Tylenol pm in combination with staying out late last night (karaoke Argentine style is incredibly fun!) will be enough to put me out for the majority of the 10+ hour trip! I'll be dreaming of the list of things that i've been missing:
joe ts (of course!)
chex mix
peanut butter
dark chocolate
free ICED water
ice in drinks. period
summer
cars that people actually fit in
fresh air!!
I've had a great time, and learned far more than I ever anticipated to learn and experience during this trip. I'm so thankful for not only the opportunity to learn another language, but to do it halfway across the world! Thanks everyone who helped make this happen!

Colonia ,Uruguay!

Yesterday we decided to venture over to Uruguay for the day! We got up early and took a boat over to Colonia, a historical little town across the river from Buenos Aires. It was absolutely gorgeous!

It had little cobblestone streets and the cutest little stores and cafes ever! We rented mopeds and rode them all day throughout the town! Luckily 2 of the people who came with us had been before and knew all kinds of great places to take us! We found an old bull fighting ring, a church built in the 1700's, secret beaches, and beautiful sunset watching spots!

We had an absolute blast, but we were exhausted by the time we got back on the boat to head back to Buenos Aires! Great Day!

La Boca!

Today, Morgan and I decided to give ourselves the day off from school (dont worry, I got the homework ahead of time!) and go back to La Boca. It was a beautiful day and because it was a weekday there weren't too many people there. We had the best time! We found so many great things to buy and had lunch at the cutest little cafe where the people were so nice! There was a little tango show at the cafe so while we ate we got to watch them dance! After we ate we got to walk around a little more and had a good time making friends along our way! Each cafe had guys standing out front trying to convince people to sit down and eat at their cafe. One group of boys talked to us for a while and one of them told his friends that I was his sister! haha they were fun. Then another guy somehow convinced us to follow him to his cafe. We were a little nervous because La Boca is known for being a pretty dangerous neighborhood if you stray from the 3 streets that are pretty touristy, and here we were following this stranger around the corner! He was good though, They had a little backyard cafe with live music and a painter had his art on display there. The paintings were absolutely beautiful! We got to practice our spanish and had a great VIP view of streets. The people that we talked to there were so nice, making sure that we were being careful with our bags and that we would find the right bus to catch on our way back! After a little more shopping we got suckered into another cafe with another live tango show to have cafe con leche. Not only was the coffee amazing, but the tango show was too! Morgan even got up to Tango with the cutest old man in Argentina! We had a great day!

Many new experiences!!

This week was relatively slow so we were able to travel the city a little more. We went to the famous Recoleta Cemetery, where many rich and famous familys have mausoleums. The cemetery is very old and very historical, containing the graves of many important historical figures in Argentine history, including Eva Peron. The mausoleums are all very intrecate and beautiful with very detailed artwork, or statues covering the outsides of each. The interesting part about the cemetery was definitely the fact that you could see into most of the mausoleums and look at the caskets inside. It caught me by surprise the first time I looked into one!

usually there were several caskets in the main chamber of the mauseleum, and then there was a staircase leading down underground to house the rest of the family.

When I came to Buenos Aires I knew NOTHING about Evita. Once I got here I realized that even though she is dead, she is still a very important part of the Argentine culture. After seeing her grave at La Recoleta Cemetery I heard someone say that her body was embalmed and preserved. How interesting! So I decided to investigate. She got cancer and was the very first Argentine to go through Chemotherapy. She died in the early 50's in her 30's and it was a huge sadness for the Argentine people. Juan, her husband, and presedent of Argentina at the time, decided to have her body fully embalmed. The process took over 2 years and they embalmed every part of her-including her brain which was hardly ever done. The embalmer used glycerine to fill her veins and preserve her organs to give her more of an appearance that looked more like "artestically rendered sleep". Her body, after being on display for some time, was moved to Italy because her husband's presidency was overthrown. She now rests in Recoleta Cemetery-still fully preserved! Very interesting!

The cemetery gave me mixed emotions. I tried not to get too weirded out by the fact that I could see the caskets (and at one point, could smell them...) and therefore got the feeling that I was being surrounded by dead bodies. But It was also a very beautiful place, the archetecture was incredible! A very neat, and different expereience!

After the Cemetery we visited the metal Fleur near the law school in Buenos Aires. It is solar powered and is open during the day, and every night at 8:30pm it closes until the next morning. Very cool-and so big!!
Also, I told Graham about all of the dogs here in B.A. and the dogwalkers that are everywhere-here is a pic!!

INCREDIBLE weekend!

So this weekend was one of the best weekends i've ever had. It started off on Thursday with a 14 hour bus ride. It actually wasnt that bad once we left the city (the bus got suck on a hill, then hit some street lights because we were double-decker, and then hit some traffic). They started a movie and then fed us dinner...which wasnt too yummy...Thank goodness I brought some snacks with me! Bus food is yucky no matter what country you're in! After a few tylenol pm I slept for a majority of the night and before I knew It they were waking us up for breakfast (2 crossaunts, a roll and some toast-good thing i like bread!) and blaring some Argentine pop music-always what I love to wake up to after an all night 14 hour bus ride! Once we arrived in the town of Posadas, we switched busses and headed to the Jesuit Ruins, Ruinas de San Ignacio. I'm not a huge ruin fan, but it was a pretty place!! After the ruins we got back on the bus for another hour or so (it will be a LOOONG time before i'm ready for another bus trip!) and headed to La Chacra-a mate (a type of tea that they drink ALL THE TIME here) and a black tea growing farm...probably one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been. So gorgeous! The pictures do no justice! It was a nice change from the busy city life of Buenos Aires. The air was so clean, we all just layed in the grass and relaxed for a while until it was time for lunch. We had an asado, or bar-b-q and it was AMAZING! The meat in Argentina is known for being incredible, but I didnt realize how incredible until then. ALL of the food was great. The salad was so good we didnt even need salad dressing! There was even fresh squeezed lemonade that was better than anything you could imagine! Then, back on the bus for another 4 hours to head to Puerto Iguazu to our hotel.The sunset along the way was gorgeous! Once back at our hotel we had the night to ourselves with an enormus buffet for dinner! muy rico! The next day we were up early to head to Iguazu National Park! We were all very excited to head into the amazon rainforrest to see some of the worlds most famous waterfalls-there are over 250 in the park alone! As we traveled the trails to the waterfalls we were all amazed at how gorgous the scenery was. We kept pausing to take pictures-but the futher into the park we went the better the view was! We were heading to la garganta del diablo, or devil's throat. The largest of all of the waterfalls in the park. Once again, the pictures cannot even begin to depic the awesomeness of the waterfall. It was ineffable! So beautiful-and SO SO much water!!Aah-so amazing! From there we went into the middle and lower circut of the falls-it kept getting better and better! Here are a few more pics from the rest of the park: After the National Park, we went to a place in Puerto Iguazu where you could see the 3 corners of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil-it was gorgous! And very cool to almost be in 3 countries at once!

In the middle is Argentina, To the left is Paraguay, and to the right is Brazil!

And another gorgeous sunset to end the day!

On Sunday we woke up and backed our bags and checked out of the hotel. We all got onto a farm truck with no windows or siding and rode to the Guarani village a few miles away. The roads werent paved to the ride was really bumpy! The Guarani are kind of like the States version of Indians on a reservation. They live on a small portion of what is left of the Amazon Jungle and do their best to farm and hunt, but the land is becoming less and less of a help to their daily lives. They now rely on tourists to come in and buy their crafts so that they can ask the government for food. It is one of the poorest villages in South America and one of the most humbling experiences i've ever had. They had absolutly nothing-esp in comparison of many of our lives in the States!
Here, our tour guide showed us an example of what many of the Guarani people live in...for a family of 5!

Here were a few houses in the Guarani Village....very simple

At the end of the tour the Children of the village sang us a few songs! They were so cute!

We were also given the opportunity to buy their handmade crafts. Many beautiful neclaces made from seeds and other handcrafts! The weekend was absolutly amazing. Filled with many beautiful things, and things that I know i'll never forget that gave me a whole new perspective on things. We are so blessed to live in the United States and that is something that I understand more and more with the things that I experience here in South America. We have so much that we take for granted that others would pay everything they own to have. It was a very humbling weekend!

Pic Post!

So during the week, and mostly because I have school, not many things are going on so heres a post just to update and then a few pictures (some are mine and some arent) from my past adventures in the city and of my host house!

School is going pretty well, although it can get pretty overwhelming pretty fast. You definitely have to keep up! We're learning a new tense pretty much every day and its sometimes hard to keep them all straight! My professor is great though. She makes sure that we're pronouncing things in Castellano (Argentine spanish) and not like the Americans we really are! We also play lots of games to give us little breaks too! She also makes sure that we have lots of time for conversation in spanish which is nice...never have my teachers in the states really made me, or gave me the opportunity to speak out in class. I can definitely understand how people would come here and learn spanish, only to return to the states to forget it. Over the weekend my friends and I mostly just walked around the city and talked in coffee shops. Not being in class, and speaking english (oops), even in that little time, made it difficult for me to eat dinner with my host mom Sunday night and speak at the same level that I had been earlier in the week. I should just stick to spanish on the weekends now! Here are a few pics of my apartment here and my room:My room here with my giant window/balcony!
(mom, i feel like you had placemats or something with the same design as those pillows!)

My Living Room Here!

When I wake up every morning theres a cute little breakfast setting for me here!

Here are a few other pics from the trip so far!

The Aggies on the trip at the coast! Max, Morgan, Celeste, Me, John
This one is for Graham-The dog was riding on the motorcycle with his owner! HarleyDog! What a life!

This a statue...but its a real person!! She was SO still!

On many of the streets on the weekends there are street performers-these guys were great!

This is a tower in Plaza de Mayo, a neat little square with many famous buildings around it.

La Boca-there were statues coming off of the balconies-kinda creepy but kinda cool!

Thats all for now!! Miss you all!

BOCA!!!!

Aggies at the Boca game

Well I just got back from the Boca Futbol game-so fun! the fans stand up and sing songs about Boca the entire time-very enthusiastic. Kind of like an Aggie game! On the way there we stopped to eat at literally a hole-in-the wall place. We had either hamburgers or a sausage on a bun thing that has a real name but i forgot it..oops! It was all pretty good! Hunt looks a litte goofy though...haha
The game was lots of fun! They really do say GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL for forever when someone scores. La Boca won 3-0. After the game we had to wait to leave the stadium until all of the San Martin fans left or else there would be fights or riots. These people are serious about their soccer! At one point they even started lighting fireworks to distract the other team!!
There was lots of confetti everywhere too! So much to look at!
Tomorrow starts another week of classes....blah but after school tomorrow a friend and I are going to go shopping so atleast thats something to look forward to!