Colombian Update

At the mall in Bucaramanga with Laura, enjoying the view of the city and the nice weather for Xmas.


Some of the super awesome public Christmas illumination that I talked about in my last post. This is still in Cucuta (from a while back)


Preparing the hayacas, the traiditional Colombian dish that I spoke about in my last post. This is turning into the Rothe Amundson Xmas Letter, calling people up to quiz them on previous posts so that they can understand what is going on!

To start things off today I think I will mention that I love Colombia, and there is a 0% change that this will be the only time I visit this country. Any family members should take note of the fact that Lauras parents have offered an open invitation to come back and arrange a trip for my family and their family to go to the coast, and let me tell you, the Colombian coast is most definitely worth going to Colombia for. I have so far only been in the interior of the country so I cant vouch for the coast from first hand experience but Colombia is amazing. For those of you who recieve the Rothe Amundson Xmas Letter, note the misspelling of Colombia (Columbia). Now to the updates on what I have been doing...

Since my last entry I spent a few more days in Cucuta, Lauras hometown. We celebrated her moms (Carolinas) birthday on the 19th and we spent a lot of time hanging out with her friends and immediate family. I quickly snagged a Colombian boyfriend, hes pretty cute but only really lives up to 3 week boyfriend standards, although he did gift me a pretty dandy beaded bracelet of the Colombian flag. Other than that, we continued praying La Novena every day and on the 23rd at about 5AM Lauras parents woke us up and we drove with a incredibly packed sedan to Bucaramanga. Both sides of Lauras family live in Bucaramanga, another Colombian city of about 700,000. In order to get here we had to traverse a 5 hour long mountain roadway that was recently cleared from the horrible mud slides that have been plaguing Colombia. There have been really heavy rains all over the country for pretty much all of December and they had led to a lot of flooding and mud slides. One whole town, Gramalote, in the northern part of the province (Norte de Santander) where Laura lives, completely disappeared. The rains caused the whole mountain that the town sat on to shift and it is now a disaster zone. There have also been floods show on the news that are very reminiscent of the scenes shown after Katrina hit New Orleans. And what most amazes me about all of these disasters and the images shown daily on the Colombian news is the fact that I read bbc.co.uk and I am seriously disappointed in the fact that they have 2 articles from December that mention Colombia and the rains/flooding but they have incorrect facts and dont even mention the worst disasters. However, airport closures across Europe and the USA are definitely front page news.


Above the clouds during the drive from Cucuta to Bucaramanga.

During the drive from Cucuta to Bucaramanga there were so many mud slides that had been cleared from the roadway that I lost count. Also, newly formed pot holes and parts of the road that had litterally fallen down the mountain side and left 1 lane where there a few weeks ago were 2 lanes. We did make it to Bucaramanga with minimal problems as far as the road blockage goes (the one road between the two cities had been closed for the few days prior to our trip) but when we were entering the city we got stopped for almost an hour as two houses had just collapsed down the mountain at the entrance to the city and they were bulldozing them off the road.

We spent the 24th with both sides of Lauras family and we started out the evening with her Moms family. Every family buys a present for every other family member, so there were a LOT of presents to unwrap. Lauras parents even bought me presents, which was divine of them. They gave me a very cute pajama pant and tshirt set, a beach towel with matching flip flops, two Colombian soccer jerseys, an adorable tank top and a plain jane blue tshirt that will be easy to wear any day. And then on the 25th they even prepared me a stocking full of the watermelon flavored blowpop knock offs that I love so much! Continuing with the 24th, after we left her grandmothers apartment we headed to her great aunt and uncles from her dads side of the family around midnight. The first thing we did there was head outside while her Dad hid a figuring of baby Jesus that was wrapped in 140,000 pesos (about $70). After baby Jesus was well hidden we all were allowed to enter and rampage around looking for him, in order to claim the cash. Laura found him within about two minutes, so it was kinda a let down, as I was 1. looking to win, and 2. enjoying the whole weird traiditon of it. And the 25th was quite relaxed, they mostly finish celebrating on the 24th since that is when everyone exchanges presents and eats together, but we did spend the whole 25th with family as well.

A little about Lauras family, her mom has 2 sisters and 1 brother. Her oldest sister lives near Bogota and has 2 sons, Nico aged 19 and Daniel aged 6. They are both great fun and I really enjoyed their company. Her other sister has 3 kids, 2 daughters Gabriela 10 and Mariana 8. She also has a son, Jorge Mauricio aged 13 and I also enjoyed all of these cousins and aunts and uncles. This sister with 3 kids live in a town called Ruetoque, which is one of the top 4 compounds to live in if you are in South America. It is a 10 minute drive minimum up to the house from the front gate where you have to show an ID and have the guard call up to the house you are visiting before they will even open the gate. Her moms brother is younger, hes only 32 and he is recently married. On the 24th they announced that they are 1 month pregnant so that was pretty exciting. On her dads side her dad has 2 older brothers (just like me!!!!!) Walter and Amparo have 2 kids, Daniel 14 and Maria Paola (Mapa, yes that means map in spanish) 19. Their family is very nice and welcoming. This family also has a kick ass apartment and today we went to their cabin that is about an hour away, where we rode the two 4wheelers and the gokart around all afternoon. The other brother is weird, had 3 sons, two of whom are obese, aged 23 and 14 and the third who is SUPER SKINNY and aged 19. Anyway, moving on, we went to Lauras cousin (Mapas) friends house the other day and got there around noon. We spent the whole day in the pool and drinking the local liquor, Aguardiente (buring water or fire water, however you want to interpret the name). It is an anise based liquor and it is absolutely horrible, but all of the Colombians insisted that I drink it and I did, which led to an inevitably raucous and fun time, see Facebook photos.


Hanging out in the pool
(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070331&id=1280460131) is my first album that corresponds with my last post and (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071629&id=1280460131) is an album full of newer photos and there is another soon to come.

Today we took a day trip to La Mesa, a town an hour away from Bucaramanga where there is a Gondola that takes you across an impressive gorge into a national park where you can hike around a little bit, take pictures, and zip line (which I did obviously). These are the pictures soon to come and as I am currently too exhausted I will add more details in the near future. Have a great New Years Eve EVERBODY!

Colombia

I am currently in Cucuta, Colombia. I dont really know how to work the punctuation on this computer so I will write a very grammatically incorrect blog entry. I left my apartment in Buenos Aires at 315AM on Sunday, the 12th (also know as Gail Amundsons birthday) and my cab driver was falling asleep during the 30 or 45 minute drive to the airport. I had to keep asking him weird questions or making awkward small talk to make sure he was still awake because I saw his eyes drooping in the rear view mirror. Once I got to the airport around 4AM I tried to check in but they ended up telling me that I needed a reservation number for my onward flight out of Colombia because you cant enter a foreign country without proof of onward travel. I then went to the internet cafe at the airport in order to access my email and my reservation number but the whole server was down so I had to call my host sister, Candelaria at 4AM and ask her to go into my email and text message me all of my flight information. Luckily she did it more than willingly and quickly, so there were no real problems. I was ready to board the plane and head through customs before they even opened the security zone at 5AM. I ended up waiting in the airport until 640AM when they boarded my flight to Bogota, Colombia. The whole time I was sitting across from a Nun in her full nun wear and trying to not fall asleep, as I did not sleep at all.

I made it to Bogota without any further complications and then had a ridiculously long layover before my flight left for Cucuta, my final destination. While I was waiting in the airport I was amused by the presence of a Dunkin Donuts and the fact that all of the Colombians bought big boxes of donuts to bring to their hometowns because I think the Dunkin Donuts in the airport may be the only one in Colombia. I also met a really nice family from Bogota ~ they were waiting for the flight for their two daughters to go visit family in Santa Marta, a beautiful coast town that I am going to have to come back to visit. Laura and her family were waiting for me in the airport when around 7 or 8PM I finalllllly made it to Cucuta. We went out to dinner and I was more than ready to go to sleep when we got home and I had gotten settled into my room.

Since then I have mostly just hung out with Laura and her family and friends. They are members of a much hugers version of the Saint Paul Tennis Club, it has 7 clay tennis courts, 2 connected pools and a golf course. Laura and I have played tennis three times and one day we even played doubles with some of her friends that we ran into while we were there. Swimming has also been nice too, but I am scared for my white person skin and getting any more sun as it is already bronzed to perfection and I am peeling in places that I didnt even get sunburnt. The food here is amazing and Lauras family has a housekeeper that cleans every day and makes our breakfast and lunch for us, so I have definitely been eating well. On Tuesday we made Hayacas, a Colombian tradition. They are like tamales wrapped in plantain leaves and filled with saffron rice, raisins, olives, capers, chicken, beef, and juicy sauces. They are something that everyone prepares together for Christmas adn then eats together.

Some interesting things that I have noticed... I am one of two natural blondes that I have seen in Colombia this week. Also, all of the motorcyclists wear reflective vests that have their license plate numbers on them in order to deter drive bys. Cucuta, where I am staying with Laura is really close to Venezuela, like I mentioned before. On Wednesday afternoon Laura, her mom Carolina and I all went to San Antonio, a town in Venezuela right across the border. We didnt need to show papers or anything to enter, we just had to drive on through. Not too much happened while we were there, we just went grocery shopping and bought some toiletries. Later that evening when I was with Laura and her friends driving around they just casually mentioned to me, oh hey, we are in Venezuela again, and it really surprised me how lax the border control is. I guess its really easy to cross unless Hugo Chavez goes on a whim and decides to close the border, and then all of the Colombians are stuck in Venezuela until he decides that they can leave again.

As far as the holidays go it is La Novena here right now, a celebration of the nine days before Christmas. It stated on Thursday and we sit downstairs by the lit up Nativity Scene, read from a little booklet (prayers) and then sing a song inviting Jesus into our souls. Its not taken too seriously in Lauras house but everyone does need to be present to pray. Ill leave it here for now and put up some pictures in the near future, although I havent taken too many. Un beso!

Heading out

So now I am starting my South American summer adventure. Up until now I've only made it to Uruguay and done a wee bit of traveling around Argentina. This Sunday at 7AM I am flying out of Ezeiza International Airport to Bogota, Colombia and from there I have a connection to Cúcuta, Colombia. Cúcuta is a border city with Venezuela and it is also where my friend Laura Jaramillo lives with her family. I doubt that I will actually enter Venezuela even though you could technically walk there from Laura's house because of the whole dangerous blonde American aspect of entering a country controlled by someone as INSANE as Hugo Chavez and the complications involved with procuring a Visa last minute and from outside of the good ol' USA.



This is a map of Colombia that has the cities that I am going to be in on it. You can see here that Cúcuta really is a border city and for Xmas and New Year's Eve I will be in Bucaramanga, in between Cúcuta and Bógota with Laura and her extended family. I am pretty excited for the whole Colombia adventure so I will try to keep you all updated more than I have recently, as it's something more noteworthy that is happening in my life.

I'm in a pretty weird place as far as self-identification goes right now. Most of you probably know my uncle Jonathan Rothe, my Dad's youngest brother, was in Buenos Aires last weekend with his work as he often has done business trips throughout South America in the past. He traded me some American dollars for pesos and it was a shock to see American money after 5 months without $1US to my name. His visiting also helped me realize that 1. I am not ready to move back the United States permanently so I am really happy that I elected to do my study abroad for a full year and 2. That it will most likely be a BIGGER culture shock for me moving back to the states than it was to come here. I think this because coming to Argentina I was 100% prepared and pre-talked about the dangers of culture shock and I knew that I didn't know the place at all, so I came in with basically zero serious expectations as well as an open mind. When I go back to the states I already have pre-conceived notions about how things should be in my life because I've only lived there for 20 years of my life. Updates to come in about 7 months when I actually am packing to head back to MN.

To continue with my travels.... after three gloriously HOT HOT HOT weeks in Colombia I have a flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador.



Here is a map that shows where Guayaquil, a coastal town and the largest in Ecuador currently, is located. You can also see the Galapagos Islands on this map which was a purposeful addition. I am going to spend 8 of my 9 or 10 days that I am in Ecuador doing a cruise of the Galapagos, and I keep talking about it non-stop because I am ridiculously excited and I can't wait to get there and see how amazing it is. The Ecuador trip will be a 100% solo trip, I won't know anyone that I am going with nor will I be visiting anyone I know while I am there, which I am excited for. My Spanish at this point I have been told is quite good, although I obviously still struggle with limited vocabulary and grammar at times. I find that when I compare how I can understand, joke around, and express myself at this point I am impressed with how far I have come from my interactions during my first taxi ride.

I'll take this opportunity to gloat just a little bit and throw in a picture of the boat that I will be on and the deck plan....





After 10 amazing days in Ecuador (where the official currency is the USD) I will fly to Lima, Peru and spend 9ish hours in the airport waiting for my DAD!!!!! I am sooo excited for this. I am a little sad now that I didn't choose to go home for Christmas but then I think of myself as having a more true exchange experience for it. Going home is nice but barring any epic tragedy home will be 99% the same whether I come home in December for Christmas or July for the fourth or even in August for Door County. (This way I get to fully skip one whole winter cycle, which is throwing off my internal clock). My Dad and I are meeting up in Lima and flying to Cuzco, Peru together. Note: I am having a, let me check this up to be accurate..... 8 hour and 45 minute layover in Lima just so that Peter didn't have to take a flight by himself in Latin America. But it's okay, he paid for the more expensive plane ticket, I will eat at the Pizza Hut at the Lima airport and I will be happy to see him a few hours earlier than if we were to met up in Cuzco. We are going to then spend two days in Cuzco checking out local Inca ruins and acclimating to the elevation before we do the Inca Trail to Machu Pichuu, which is a 4 day rather strenuous hike. Last night a Colombian friend told me how she was crying during one day of the hiking and her group was with 2 obese women and she has NO idea how they were physically capable of doing it if it were so bad for her, a thin rather in shape, young Colombian. I guess we will have to wait and see, but it is comforting to know that even if it takes me 9 hours to hike a section that takes really in shape, seasoned trekkers 2 hours I WILL MAKE IT!



One final picture of Peru. You can see in the north there is the city Iquitos, where I was in Peru 2 and a half years ago right after graduating from high school. I went into the rainforest then and now I am going into the mountains so I am pretty excited to have the opportunity to explore another aspect of Peru. (which was awesome last time I was there, so it better not let me down.)

Anywhoo, I have been writing this rather than packing which is probably not a good thing. A few last minute updates about what I have been doing in Buenos Aires. I am on summer break and Wednesday this week was a national holiday, so I decided to go out Tuesday night until 6AM, get picked up at 9:30AM to go to a friends pool and soccer club type place and spend the whole day there. My friend Dan Rubenstein from the United States is visiting and it just so happened that I am here. He is on vacation so he got in Wednesday morning and I immediately went to pick him up and bring him to the club with me. It was basically a really lower class version of a Country Club in the states. We then had a really delicious $1.25 each homemade dinner that consisted of dried mushrooms that were rehydrated with $1 white wine, sauteed chopped onions and garlic, rice and some vegetable stock and butter as well as some spices. It was delicious, filling, and SUPER CHEAP. He and I also spent most of yesterday together where I brought him to the Stakeholder's Gala for AIESEC and then we went to a bar for the after party and since it was Thursday, almost all of the AIESEC people went home around 12:30AM and we went out to a gay dance club which turned out to be prettty fun. Today I am just packing and attempting to get my room in order so that I can go out two final times tonight and tomorrow night.

Uruguay Recap

Howdy folks. So last night I got back from 7 nights and 8 full days of traveling throughout Uruguay, the very small country directly across the Rio de la Plata from Argentina (it's to the northeast, more or less). In order to get there, last Saturday my friend Taylor and I took a boat at 9:00AM across the river to a city called Colonia de Sacramento. The trip took three hours and it was a beautiful and sunny morning on the deck of the boat. After a really laid back questioning at Uruguayan customs (the man literally just asked us why we were coming there and we said vacation and that was that) we hopped on a bus and within 15 minutes we were on our way to Montevideo. I have always wanted to go to Montevideo, ever since junior high school Spanish class where you are forced to learn all of the countries in South America, be able to locate them on a map, and identify their capitals. I'm not too sure why but I think I always thought the name was cool because it sounds like the word 'video'. After about 2.5 hours on that bus we got into the bus terminal (3 cruces, or three crosses) in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. The whole bus terminal complex is also a shopping mall and after we bought our bus tickets to continue on to Punta del Diablo that evening we had a two hour layover so we went to the food court and almost jumped out of our skins when we saw the prices at McDonalds. A big mac meal was about 155 pesos Uruguayos, which translates into about (155/20 = $8 US), so still expensive but not as expensive as it appeared to us. We have gotten used to the Argentine peso exchange rate (approximately 4pesos = $1 US) so when we got to Uruguay with Argentine money it was confusing. The exchange rate is about 20 pesos to $1US but if you are paying in Argentine pesos its about 4.5 uruguayos to 1 argentine peso. Moving on to Punta del Diablo.



The view of Buenos Aires as we were pulling out of port.



This is a picture of the beach and how it looked just about all weekend in Punta del Diablo.



Here I am enjoying the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Although the water was surprisingly swim-able and enjoyable.

It was an almost 5 hour bus ride from Montevideo to Punta del Diablo but it was definitely worth it. The town is right along the coast, not far south of Brazil, and it is beautiful! We ended up meeting some really cool people there, seeing a baby seal hanging out on the rocks when we went for an evening stroll, enjoying 1 full day without electricity when the power went out and staying four nights instead of three. We didn't get in Saturday night until after 11PM so we were pretty tired from traveling all day when we did finally get there and spent the first night just heading to bed early rather than taking a nighttime stroll along the beach. We stayed in the hostel (El Diablo Tranquilo, Playa Suites) that I talked about in my last blog post. We ate some great seafood, we hung out on the beach in the sun, and we played with the sea anemones that we all over the beach. There were blue ones and really small scarlet red ones. We kept cracking open mussels and feeding them to the anemones, which was reallllly fun. After four days in Punta del Diablo we decided to head back to Montevideo so early Wednesday morning we hopped on another bus and spent the afternoon/evening and 1 night in Montevideo. Taylor and I booked rooms in a 6 bed room at a hostel but it was such a slow night that we ended up being the only two in our room.



The view of the Montevideo skyline in the background.

We woke up on Thursday and realized that it was Thanksgiving, packed up our stuff, and headed back to Colonia de Sacramento where we met up with our program for our official Thanksgiving celebration. We ate at our program directors bed and breakfast that was a palatial estate. He has a lemon orchard, a pool and is about a ten minute walk from the river beach. The water at the beach was amazing, you could walk out hundreds of yards and have it still be waist deep so the swimming was great, especially for just hanging out and tossing around a football.



Sitting on the deck at my program director's bed and breakfast with Taylor.

We then spent the next two nights in a nice hotel and exploring the city of Colonia which is the oldest city in Uruguay.



Here is a picture of one of the Portuguese cobbled streets. The city was fought over for many years by the Spanish and the Portuguese, due to the fact that it lies right in the disputed region of land distribution when the Americas were first settled.

We spent Thursday eating and having an evening tour of the historical part of the city, where we stayed, and then we headed back to the hotel for a good nights rest. At 8AM the next day Taylor and I got up and went around taking pictures of the city on our own before we met up with a group of friends and took a bus to the beach, where we spent the rest of the afternoon.



After an amazing dinner with our program and getting up early a second day, Taylor and I decided to rent a go-kart/bugy type deal and cruise around the city. We ended up actually leaving Colonia because we were going on the highway but we didnt quite realize until we re-entered the city and saw the welcome sign. It was a fun experience to say the least.



On Saturday evening around 7PM we headed back to the boat terminal and struck out for Buenos Aires once more, after a long week of the intense Uruguay sun and relaxation. Now I have 1 final this Wednesday and then I am on SUMMER VACATION for a little over 3 months!!! I will definitely be keeping you all updated as I travel through Colombia, hopefully Venezuela, Ecuador and the Galapagos, Peru this summer (South American summer) and potentially Brazil, Chile and Bolivia next semester.

If you want to see more of my photos from my trip I put up two Facebook albums and the links to them are:
(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067983&id=1280460131) for the first album and (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067981&id=1280460131) for the second album. I hope you enjoy them!

VACAY!

A big hello to all of my avid blog followers, I know I have caused you many frowns in the past few weeks, every time you came to my page and there was NOTHING NEW TO READ! You have had to give up stalking me and my wonderful life and living vicariously through me and start living your own lives, but alas, I have decided to resume my blogging. The period of final papers and final exams has wound down, leaving me with 1 paper, 6 pages in length and 2 weeks to write it. Hence I have no excuse not to update my blog.

Tomorrow morning at 9:30AM Argentina time (6:30AM Midwestern time) I will be embarking on a grand adventure. I am heading to Uruguay for a week. Tomorrow (Saturday) I will arrive by boat in Colonia, Uruguay around 1PM and from there I will head directly to Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay) on a bus. Once in Montevideo my friend Taylor (from upstate New York) and I will need to buy bus tickets to take us further into Uruguay. Our final destination for Saturday night is Punta del Diablo, a beach town along the northeastern coast of Uruguay where there is a hostel run by UW-Madison grads. The translation of the name of the hostel is "The Tranquil Devil: Beach Suites" so it should be a great couple days. We plan on staying there and sunning ourselves until about Tuesday morning, when we will transfer to Cabo Polonio, another beach town about 15km away. You have to enter Cabo Polonio in a horse drawn carriage or on a 4wheeler, you can't use a car to enter the area.



This is a picture of the eastern coast of Uruguay. You can see Punta del Diablo and Cabo Polonio on this map. Look up a world map if you don't know where this country is folks (sigh).



Alright, I included a full map of Uruguay, (note that Punta del Diablo and Cabo Polonio are not marked on this map) but here you can see where Colonia and Montevideo are in relation to the other places I will be staying.

I am pretty stoked for all of this beach time, even though the weather forecast is saying it'll be between 75 and 82 all week, I still think it will be great to relax on the beach, read some books, and sip some piña coladas. After spending Tuesday day and night in Cabo Polonio Taylor and I are planning on heading back to Montevideo for Wednesday day and night. We planned this itinerary because we then have a Thanksgiving celebration in Colonia, Uruguay with our program that commences around 1:30PM Thursday. We will be in Colonia from Thursday morning until Saturday night, when we will return to Buenos Aires by boat.

Too bad none of you will be here for Thanksgiving because we are allowed to bring guests from the United States to Colonia with us FOR FREE!!!!!!!!! (You would have only had to pay for your boat passage which is ~$50 round trip). Also, Taylor has an 8GB memory card for the Canon camera that she had until recently but that got stolen. I am going to buy the memory card from her tomorrow morning, so expect LOTS of photos!!


Love you all <3 Julia

So I kind of stopped writing in my blog, unintentionally. But I did just upload a lot of photos to facebook!

(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066746&id=1280460131) This first album is called 'Argentina lately' and should give you a glimpse of what I've been up to.

(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066747&id=1280460131) This second album is called 'The rest of argentina lately" and it should round it out a little more.

Enjoy :)

1 Week in Buenos Aires

Howdy Folks-

So, I last updated you all when I was just getting back from Oktoberfest in Villa General Belgrano, in the province of Córdoba. That was about a week and a half ago, so I'll try to fill in all of the details. Let's just throw it out there that I haven't had a solid 8 hours of sleep any single night since before Oktoberfest, so my life has been pretty chalk-full of great things to do and it's likely I'll accidentally leave a few out.

The 12th-15th of October I spent writing two papers and doing all of the work that I did NOT do while I was drinking beer in Córdoba (understandable, right?) It was mostly school work and staying up late to get things done at the very last minute but it all turned out just fine. A few weeks ago I started volunteering in a place called Hogar de abuelos, which translates to Grandparents Home, and its been pretty fun going there.

The weekend after getting back from Córdoba we did another dinner with our friends from Germany on the Friday night and then I went home rather than going out because I had an early morning obligation. Saturday morning I had an inauguration at 930AM for AIESEC, a student run organization that sets up and sends young adults on paid international internships that can last 6 weeks-18 months. I recently joined the Buenos Aires chapter and everyone in the group is amazing. I spent all Saturday morning with them and then from 2-4PM we had our local committee meeting, so everyone in AIESEC Buenos AIres was there. Afterwards I went to La Plata to hang out with my friends that I had made the weekend before when we were camping in Córdoba. We all met up at Manu, one of the Argentine girl's houses and then we cooked an asado (the BBQ thing) and I learned the basics. Afterwards we headed to a house party that was different from anything I had ever been to before and around 6AM we got back to Marcos's house and the roosters were crowing us to sleep. The first of the two pictures that I've included are of my with Seba, an Argentine friend, the one who taught me how to grill a proper Argentine asado. The second picture is also from Manu's house and its just the majority of the group sitting around the dinner table.




(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1280460131&aid=2064289) here is the album of photos from the night.

Sunday of that same weekend was Mother's Day in Argentina so we had brunch with Marcos's Mom and Dad and bought her some lovely lillies and then I had to head back to Buenos Aires becaues I had another AIESEC meeting at 6PM. I did get there just about on time, but it made for a long weekend. Monday morning I went kayaking in El Tigre, a city about 40 minutes north of Buenos Aires whereas La Plata is about 45 minutes south of Buenos Aires. Then commenced my finals weel. Tuesday I had an oral final and Wednesday I had some work to turn in and then Thursday I was scheduled to have a final. It ended up getting cancelled due to a demonstration that was happening outside the school and it being a night class so the other Americans and I went to an American bar and met some crazy English people.

Friday was my friend Rachael's birthday (22, on the 22nd = her GOLDEN birthday) so we went out to lunch in the afternoon, headed to a salon where we paid for her to get her nails done, I got my hair cut, and Julie dyed her hair. We then went back to my apartment, cooked a delicious frozen pizza for dinner, and then started our night. The last picture I posted is from about 6AM when we left the club this morning and the sun had already risen and it was broad daylight.


I clearly started writing this and left it for two days before I decided to finish it, so I'll polish it off now that it's Monday and not Saturday anymore. Saturday was a day for relaxing and then I had a meeting at 8PM followed by a dinner at 10PM with everyone in AIESEC, the organization I joined. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met, and they come from all over the world. For example I have already been offered housing in Ecuador and Colombia when I go there, even though I probably won't need it in either place. Sunday I went to the rose garden where they have a least a hundred varieties of roses. It is amazing and I will put up an album of photos from all of this in a few days. Have a great day folks!