Buenos Aires: BRILLIANT and AMAZING!

So! I have quite a lot to dish on this week. We left for Buenos Aires on Friday morning. We stopped in a place a long the way that is where a world famous collector has several of his collections. They also make jam out of everything there! Then we went on to Colonia de Sacremento, Uruguay. It is a little cute town with lots of shopping and a lot slower pace than the city. We walked around and climbed around on the old walls and such for a while.

Then we went the rest of the way to BA on the ferry. The bridge between BA and Uruguay has been closed and is still closed so we took the BuqueBus which is a ferry and a bus all in one. Ben and Autumn and I had a lot of fun on the bus. We got to BA and went to our hotel. After a while, we went to a restaurant and got some Argentine pesos out of the ATM thing. The charge said that it was $11.55 to get money out but then we discovered that it was in pesos which means it was like US$3 which is pretty normal.

The next day we went on a tour of the city with our personal tour guide named Angeles. She was great. We took lots of pictures. We went to the Plaza de Mayo which has the famous "pink house" and quite a few monuments. Then we went to the cathedral where San Martín, the liberator of Peru, Chile, and Argentina, is buried. Then we went to La Boca. This was a place that was build to be basically slums, but then a man came a long and decided that just because they were poor didn't mean their houses had to be sad. So they got lots of different colors of really bright paints of all colors and made it look more cheerful. Then the tourists liked the colors, so it has turned into quite the tourist destination with lots of restaurants and shops and all that kind of stuff. I think my mom would really like it too. It was my favorite place in BA.

After that, we went across town to Recoletta, which is home to the giant cemetery with Evita's grave. Eva Perón is the famous wife of a president of Argentina and the title star of the musical Evita. There were so many beautiful graves and statues and all that. The graves are all like mini-building mausoleums with like layers and layers of caskets stories down. Then there was a market that we walked through and I bought a cute artsy painting thing. Then we went to the fine arts museum that had like Picasso, Monet, Rembrant, and Van Gogh. Upstairs was all South American art. Autumn and I had a lot of fun narrating each piece and it took us about two and a half hours to get through most of it.

Then my group of Taylor, Linley, and Abel walked around the market again and I got a ring (something I had been wanting since I got here) and its super cute. That night we got dressed up and went to a tango show. The food was great and the dancers were fun too. It was a great but long day.

I am going to cut myself off there and tell about Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in the next post mostly because I need to go to bed. I can't wait to get yall updated on the rest. Check back soon!

Teatro Solís

Hello Readers?... Come in?... I can (schhhhh) hear you... In a (schhhh) tunnel... come in?...

That is my subtle way of reminding you that I cannot indeed read your thoughts as you read my blog, so I would love to have some comments and/or votes on the poll to let me know that there are people out there still. :)

Anyway, yesterday was a great day for us here in Montevideo. We started off the day with another wonderful breakfast of eggs, bacon, fried banana bread things, and coffee, etc. and were ready for the day. Then we had chapel and our family meeting where we talked about our upcoming trip to Buenos Aires. We are going to be there from this Friday through Tuesday of next week. Although it is not very far away physically, it is a whole other country so things like customs and passports and such do come into play. We are going to see most of the big sights and have some good times with the whole group, and then have some free time on Monday (my birthday) and Tuesday morning until we load up to come home. I am sadly going to be out of touch during that time because I am not going to bring my MacBook along for the ride.

After chapel, I went on a little adventure to get some accessories and such for the our night at the theater. I got some tights to wear with my dress, a flower for my hair, and some earrings that were pretty exciting. All for about US$11. Better than Walmart, definitely a further walk though. When I got back, I had some down time/study time for our Biochemistry test tomorrow and then ate lunch. After Biochem, we had our culture class and had a guest speaker. This man is a sociologist here in Montevideo, but got his doctorate at the University of Texas in Austin and lived there for 3 years. He related some of the cross-cultural differences that he felt while he was there. That was a really cool reflection of some of the things that we are experiencing and some of the opposite. One thing that he talked about was how all of the girls in Texas smile at you and are helpful to you even if they are not interested in you romantically. We laughed at this because our reaction is, "Why not smile and help and laugh?" which was the question in the first place, just in reverse. He was really nice and interesting and provided great insights into our culture and his own.

After that we had about an hour to get dressed up to go see the philharmonic here in Montevideo at the famous Teatro Solís. It is downtown off the big Independence Square Plaza. After a few pictures, we got into groups. No one volunteered when Wimon said he needed a group of three, so I just got the tickets and Matt and Jaimie followed. When we got to the doors, they directed us upstairs and then to this lady who would seat us. We walked down this hall, not knowing where we were until we got to these sweet little double doors. We had our own little balcony with three seats! It was so beautiful inside that Jaimie was almost in tears. We sat down and then a few minutes later, we realized that another part of our group was directly across from us in the balcony opposite ours! Naturally, we goofed off with pseudo-sign language until it started.

The lights went all the way down and it was amazing. The orchestra was quite good and nothing sounded overly-Latin until the pieces after the intermission. They were talented artists though. The building and the music were beautiful and I was thinking how impressed I would be if a guy tried to pull this off as a date. In that moment, it was brought to my attention why that would not happen. Matt leaned over and said, "Let's play a game. It's called Find-All-of-the-old-guys-that-are-asleep. I already got five!" Oh boys! So ridiculous! Anyway, we played the game and I think I got up to 11 before a major crescendo woke most of them up.

During intermission, I walked around the theater to stretch my legs and talk to Taylor, but when I opened the doors to our little compartment to get out, the little old lady sitting in the next balcony over, exclaimed all in Spanish something about how beautiful and angelic I looked. I kind of nodded and walked on. But after the performance, I learned that she was not quite done. She leaned over to talk to Matt (picture to right: Matt in a body guard seat) about how pretty and precious and what my name was and if I was Uruguayan and all this stuff. She relived the moment that I walked out of the doors and kept going on and on and on. She even reached over to touch my cheek at one point. We just nodded and such and then she finally finished and walked off. Then the lady behind her quietly said, "I don't know her." It was really funny. Especially when the second lady was like, "I don't know her." Anyways!

We walked home and about halfway back, we got ice cream at La Cigale, my new obsession. It is amazing. Overall, though, the night was just amazing. I needed something really fun and upbeat and it was definitely that!

Thanks for reading and hope to hear from you soon.

¿Qué pasa?

As you can see from my crafty title, I have spent the last four days trying to learn keyboard tricks to make my learning experience more fun and to become an international MAC citizen by learning cool things. ¿No?

Anyways, this week has been uneventful and very eventful all at the same time. It has been up and down and up again which is good. Always good to end the weekend on a good note.

Friday was a pretty basic day with P.Chem having been moved to the morning. That afternoon we ventured to the Montevideo Shopping Mall to go to a store called "Tienda Igelsa" to see what the "American store" was really like. "¿What was it like? ¿You ask?" (Obnoxious yet?) Well, fine readers it was like a small disorganized and downsized Walmart. Full of the basic scurrying Walmart shoppers going around and disorganizing it further.

Lauren cooked a fine dinner for us of this Mexican casserole stuff that was delicious. We milled around and played games and watched a movie that night after a trip to the gym. We went to Este's fighting class. Oh wait, that was really funny. All the guys decided that they needed to come see what the fun stuff was about, so they all came to fight class. It really was a good time. They were so hilarious to watch. Ben (the tall one) was right behind me and decided it would be fun to try to punch around my head (really long arms). So he did and it worked for a little while. Eventually though, he did clip my head a bit and backed off. We joked about it for the rest of the night. It was fun to have them there and smirk as they grimaced because the work-out was hard! Yes!

Anyways, Saturday was awesome for the most part! We went ice-skating after sleeping in. Herman, a Uruguayan guy that wanted to practice his English, took us. There was a little rink on the almost top floor of a parking garage. The skates that I got really hurt my feet. They were like the old leather kind and everyone else had like rollerblade looking ones. I was the cutest for sure, but they didn't have like any ankle support so I was quite cautious, having weak ankles to begin with. It was still fun though.

Today was a day of church, homework, rest, relaxation, more homework, and more church. We went to a new place for lunch and I had some pasta that was pretty good, but better tonight when I ate the other half with some cheese on top. :) We have a Biochem test coming up so most energies are focused on that. We leave for BA on Friday morning and we are celebrating my birthday on Thursday with a lunch and a cake! Hurray for being 20!

I can't wait to have more to talk about! Thanks for the support and comments and voting on the poll!

Super Sketchy Shot Shack

This article is dedicated to my darling and dainty Deb Strickland and punctual but perfect Phyllis (should I have used functional and fabulous Phyllis?):

Why hello fine and fabulous readers! In order to entertain myself this cool and comfortable evening. I am going to try to use as many alluring alliterations as available in my refined and reputable vocabulary. First I should share with you our super sketchy shot shindig this morning at the dull, dark, and daunting docks of Montevideo. We hopped abroad a big, bulky, brassy bus and headed down to the Port of Montevideo where there was waiting a ominous and open door into a shady and shallow room on which the next door said something like "Department of Epidemiology." Upon our abrupt arrival at said painted port of entry, we whistled and wandered as we waited for the door to be open. A wise and willful woman of short stature appeared to warn us of the clear and clever contraindications and we were urgently ushered into the next room. After the miniscule and musical man sang aloud our private passport numbers in super-speedy Spanish, I walked to the wise and willful doctor woman to have my arm poked, pinched, and purified before the short and stinging shot. Thankfully the stinging was indeed short although I found it funny to feign illness as I stood up. Boy did I give my dear and darling director quite a furious but fleeting fright. We bumbled and boarded the running and roaring bus and headed to the Brazilian consulate where we were brave but bored to again reluctantly release our private passport numbers and simply super and suave signatures. When the legal letter regarding our extravagant exit from said country was daringly denied, we bumbled aboard the bus again and came clucking to our comfy and cosy casa. (Is it cheating if I use some sparing Spanish?)

Leading up to our lovely and luscious lunch of cheeky and chunky cheery chicken, I slaved and slumped over my hounding hemorrhage of homework. After said delicious and delightful delicacies, I woefully walked to my terrifying and tormenting teacher of Spanish. However, the mad and mastering maestra (teacher in spanish) was sadly sick and henceforth absent from said class. But we were willingly taken in by such a bearded and bounding teacher that you can't even imagine. Señor Mumbly-Mustache was vast and reminded me of a cheery and chipper chap known as St. Nicholas.

After three taunting and tantalizing hours of torture, we retreated to our healthy and hallowed haven. But it was not long after that that I was surprisingly summoned to the attractive and alluring Aliansza to lead a enchanting English conversation club for Uruguayos to learn English. We had tons of terrific laughs and long language conversations about what it is like to love and lose yourself whilst language learning. Oh the striking similarities and daunting disillusionments we came clambering to throughout the tough but tender conversation. Likewise on the boisterous bus to our humble haven once more, we met another mustached man who spoke our elegant and endearing English we miss so much. Finally at the end of the long and lumbering day, I am slyly sitting here, in my chair (rhyme, eh?) chatting and chalking out what will the be the chipper conclusion of this long-winded and lovely lecture. So I suppose the taunting terminus of this timid talk is teaming with curiosity of what the next post will hold. But surprises would be merely prizes without the sur of the sulky south making them much more. So thus I end, be gallant in your greenhouses and brave in your barns, be swift as the slumbering sea, and clever as the cow's calf. And remember thus: An essay drenched in daring yet alluring alliterations is worth every slipping single second it takes to compose and conclude.

Expo Prado

That's right boys and girls! Gather around to hear about the annual round up of cowboys and indians, minus the indians and change the name of the cowboys to Gauchos. Yesterday, we took a stroll in the park in a part of town called Prado to check out what all the fuss was about.

After a long bus ride through the city, we arrived at the bus stop right in front of the Presidential Palace. No one was home though, for two reasons. First of all, President Vasquez does not live there. He refused to move in there when he was elected. He remains in his private residence. Secondly, Vasquez was in Washington, D.C., this week to meet with Secretary Clinton. They had a brief press conference that you can find online easily (link below). I am glad that they decided to keep being friends (not that there was any doubt).

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/09/129227.htm

We walked a short way through a mainly residential area and entered the Expo for about US$5. Then we got to walk around and see different animals and gauchos all around. They had things to buy and snacks and all. They even had little exhibits from other countries such as China, Mexico, Argentina, and more. It was really interesting. In the middle there was a show ring where when we walked through they were showing wooly sheep and GIANT bulls. We saw them prepping the bulls and it was really funny. They hairspray them and fluff up their tails and wash and comb them up until the minute they walk into the room. I got some pictures of them just because they were so giant.

We also found a section with goats and some adorable baby goats, two barns of sheep, a barn of milk cows, and a barn of horses. Most of the horses were already gone, but I got to make friends with a couple of them. They were gorgeous!

We got there about 2PM and a bit after 5 we realized how late it was beginning to get and that we should get home to do some homework. We did and after a quick bite of left-overs I spent several hours studying. At one point there were like 7-8 of us up in the loft studying which is basically our whole class. The studying didn't stand a chance for that long so I retreated to my room.

I will admit that I got a bit caught up in talking to people in Abilene and such last night and didn't get very much sleep. Possibly because of that and new allergens that bloomed this week (after all, it is spring here) I am not feeling so well today. I got up and had some breakfast and then slept all morning. Then I went to lunch and class and then back to sleep. I woke up around 5 and had dinner and watched a movie, but I am tired again. Please pray that I am not really getting sick (a couple of bugs have been going around here in the house). I hope to be feeling better and rested tomorrow.

Tomorrow, speaking of, we are going to get our shots for yellow fever and visas for Brazil! One good thing is balanced by a bad thing. That's okay though. Just an update for all of you faithful readers, I did go and get my laundry today and it was safe. I love the smell of the laundry here and the fact that I don't have to do it! :)

Blessings on your weeks!

Are you or have you ever been associated with the Nazi gobernment of Germany?

Turns out that the back of the visa application for the country of Brazil is thoroughly entertaining! We filled the application out yesterday in international studies to be able to turn them in when we go on Thursday and it was quite exciting. As for the whole, am I a Nazi question, I am not, but significant doubt might be cast on that statement because of questions 13, 14 and 15 which were hair, eye, and skin color. The answers "blonde, blue, and fair" might earn me another glance when it gets to question 35 but who knows. We'll cross our fingers and hope that I am not the first Aryan person to apply for a travel visa. After all, I did say I would be there for only 7 days, so hopefully they would acknowledge the minimal possibility of forming the Fourth Reich in Brazil in that time period. Anyway!!

I am still here in Montevideo, for all of you who are curious. Yesterday was thoroughly uneventful. I didn't even follow through with plans to go take my laundry in. Thankfully, I corrected that error this morning and now have a pink slip of paper with a big 58 on it to remind me to pick up laundry tomorrow. Somehow, the lack of clothes in my closet leads me to believe I would forget. However, she did think that my name is Catalina, so I'm hoping no giant salad dressing bottles go in and steal my laundry based on the fact that my name is written on said bottle. However, the likelihood of me giving my pink number 58 to the aforementioned bottle leads me to believe that my t-shirts and other clothes are indeed safe. Anyway!!

Autumn and I went to the gym for Step Class last night and my favorite teacher, Bruno taught. Besides being tragically handsome and built, he has a tattoo on his right arm that looks Samoan. For this reason, we called him "Sam" until we found out that his name is Bruno. We do get an undue amount of attention from him because we are so bad, but we smile anyway. I can't decide if he likes us or hates us. I seem to get called out by his eyes all the time for being off step, but I don't mind. ;) Autumn and I got chased after on the street last night by this guy that had whistled as we walked by. We were scared until we realized that it was Wimon who had been in line for the ATM. We scolded him for scaring us. Anyway!!

That's about all I got for today. Watch my videos that I made about the Estancia this weekend and the one about the Legislative Palace if you haven't already! Thanks for the support and comments!

Adventures in Uruguay: Estancia