Of Excursions and Birthdays [Catch Up Post]

Sorry it has been so long since I wrote in this last! A lot has been going on. Which also means that if I don't update this now, I'm never going to be able to catch you all up with everything. I'll try to cover all the major things that have happened since last time I posted..

The fútbol game was really fun. Neither Equador nor Uruguay scored any goals, so they ended the game as a tie. Even though that was kind of a bummer, it was definitely a huge cultural experience. The entire stadium was filled with light blue clothing and Uruguayan flags and the crowd would frequently burst out in chants/songs.

The next weekend we went to Buenos Aires, which was one of the most amazing weekends I've had so far. We took a bus similar to a charter bus to Colonia, Uruguay and then got on a ferry that took us across the Rio de la Plata to Buenos Aires. I fell asleep on the bus before we even got out of Montevideo, so when I woke up to miles and miles of the greenest grass I'd ever seen, it was a pretty big shock. When all you've seen for two weeks straight is buildings and sidewalks, so much green was definitely a nice surprise. After I woke up I just stared out the window and watched the scenery as the sun set in front of us.

The next day, Friday, was filled with a three-hour tour of the city and two art museums. The tour was pretty interesting and we were able to make stops and see some popular sites, including the La Boca neighborhood, famous for their brightly colored buildings and street performers luring in tourists from all over the place:


Buenos Aires was incredible in itself. It is called the Paris of South America and with good reason - it is HUGE. I thought Montevideo was big, but it doesn't even compare to Buenos Aires. That night we all got dressed up and went to a Tango show/dinner. The food was amazing, and the show afterwards was just as good. It was a lot of fun to have an opportunity for everyone to get dressed up and have a night on the town afterwards.

Saturday evening we were able to go to a local church and meet with a big group of kids that were about our age from around the area. As amazing as the whole weekend was, I think this might have been my favorite night in Buenos Aires. We hung out at the church for a while and had a time of worship with them. Afterwards we decided to go to a place with several small fútbol fields and play soccer with people whose passion lies in those fields. We started walking to the fields and at least a good hour and a half later, we finally arrived. Needless to say, we got a good warm-up just walking to the fields. We broke up into teams of five, intermixing with the locals so that the teams wouldn't be TOO unevenly matched. Cindy and I played on a team with three of the local guys. It was pretty interesting because we found that guys generally do not pass to girls, so Cindy and I did not have a lot to do for a while and kept up the defense. Towards the end of the night, however, we started getting the ball more once our teammates figured out that we were pretty decent players :)
Here is our team:

Sunday morning we went to church to discover that there is a group of 60 students from Pepperdine University studying abroad in Buenos Aires! A portion of them were at the same church we went to, so we were able to spend time with them and hang out a bit later during the afternoon before we left to come back to Montevideo. It was exciting to see others studying abroad from the States and we got each others' names so we might be able to meet up again sometime later in the semester.


So that covers the main things that happened in Buenos Aires. The next week was pretty chill in Casa ACU because everyone was pretty tired from such a busy three-day weekend. The end of the week brought our first birthday here in Uruguay. Birthdays are becoming one of my favorite parts of living in Casa ACU. Raquel makes the most amazing cakes, and even though every meal she makes is basically guaranteed to be amazing, birthday meals are even more so, if that is even possible.
Earl's birthday was on Thursday, so we ended up making enough confetti to cover his entire bedroom floor and throwing it on him at midnight. Then we threw what I'm pretty sure has to be the first toga party Casa ACU has ever had.

Finally, this past Saturday we went to an Estancia about an hour and a half west of Montevideo. We were able to ride horses, go canoeing, and swim in an indoor heated swimming pool. It was a day filled with activities and we all were pretty beat by the end of the day. It was nice to get out of the city for a day and be surrounded by that abundance of green I was writing about earlier. Not to mention the horse I got to ride was an amazing pick. It was a very good day. I'll be sure to put up a picture or two once my friend Aaron puts his up onto facebook or shutterfly. [After my camera fell out of my pocket when my horse started trotting, I became a bit wary about keeping it out much - Don't worry, it is still good as new though.]
Here is a picture from our horseback ride and as we were pushing off in our canoe.


This weekend we are going to Colonia, the place mentioned earlier that we drove to in order to board the ferry for Buenos Aires. Apparently it is a city full of Uruguayan history and culture, so it should hopefully provide for more adventures and fun experiences.

Backwards Seasons and Upcoming Events

Something you may or may not have known about South America - the seasons here are opposite of ours. So currently, the weather here is making the transition from winter to spring. Some days have been gorgeous here, sunny and in the upper 60's, but this past weekend it got cold again, with the addition of rain. Since most of the activity here takes place outside and by walking to and from places, our weekend weather made life pretty uneventful for the past few days. I am so lucky to be in a group of such fun and entertaining people - we spent most of the weekend watching movies or just hanging out with each other, talking, playing cards, and whatever else we could think to do in the house.
By the way, here is a picture of everyone who is in our Study Abroad group:

[this is on the roof of Casa ACU. The building's actual name is El Chana, and right above us is the bell tower]

Thankfully, the weather has begun to warm up again and we have sunny skies once more. :] Hopefully it will stay that way, since we have an eventful week and weekend ahead of us! Tomorrow evening we are going to a World Cup Qualifier fútbol game! We'll be able to cheer on Uruguay as they play against Equador and experience the craziness of South American passion for soccer.

The next day, Thursday, we will be packing up after our morning classes and heading to Buenos Aires, Argentina! We will be spending several days there before heading back to Casa ACU late Sunday night. We do not have a permanent schedule for the trip yet, so I'm not quite sure about what all we will be doing. I do know we will be going to a dinner/tango show Friday night, taking a tour of the city on Saturday, and spending some time with some Argentinians from one of the local churches, possibly playing indoor soccer with them at some point. It should be a great trip!

Speaking of tango, we had a lesson Friday night by a couple right here in Casa ACU! It was SO much fun. If enough people sign up, we might try to continue the lessons if we can get a good group rate. I hope so. :]

I think that covers all the major upcoming events. I have a couple papers to write before we leave for Buenos Aires, so I should probably stop procrastinating and get onto writing those. ha!

I'll leave you with a couple pictures from an outing to the Rose Gardens a few days ago. Most of the roses were only just beginning to bloom, but we are planning to go back once it warms up more. Even so, it was beautiful and a lot of fun to explore around!

A Few Updates

Since we have arrived in Montevideo, we have done a TON of exploring around the city. The first couple days we were here we all went out together or with at least half of the fifteen students that are here. Now we are finally getting to the point where we are slowly gaining the courage to go out in pairs for extended amounts of time and explore without getting TOO turned around. It's so strange living in such a big city and walking everywhere. I really need to take pictures of more of the city soon. Speaking of pictures, I'm going to steal the link from Jordan's shutterfly account so you can see his pictures until I take some with my camera. [If you're reading this Jordan, I'm completely justified in doing that since I took a bunch of those for you.] So here it is - http://jordanrlowe.shutterfly.com

Classes started on Monday. So far I have just been trying to soak in as much Spanish as humanly possible. This is really the only thing I have legitimately been struggling with, because I have realized that this one is not completely in my control. I can't just sit and read my Spanish textbook or go out and talk to people all day and all of a sudden know the language. This is something that comes with time, patience, and perseverance, so I'm doing what I can to keep my attitude about that in the right place. Here's my schedule:

Not too shabby! All the classes on Friday will only be held on certain weeks, so we will often get three day weekends. This Friday we will have class, at least in the afternoon, since we did not have our Latin American Studies class yesterday. Not sure about the Elementary Spanish class yet.

This past Sunday we went to church for the first time down here in Iglesia de Cristo, a building that is actually attached to Casa ACU. It was definitely a new experience for all of us. We arrived pretty early so that we could take the time to greet everyone before the service started. Which, by the way, definitely takes up quite a bit of time, because everyone has to greet every single person before they sit down. Have I mentioned how people greet each other down here yet? Well, here they kiss each other's cheek. Usually you just touch your cheek to the other person's cheek and make a kiss noise, so it's really not as big of a deal as I thought it would be. However, the first time I was walking down the street and saw two thirteen year old boys kiss each other's cheeks as they said bye, I couldn't help but laugh!
Anyways, all the people at church were SO friendly and excited to see us. I recognized several of the tunes to the songs during worship, but was completely lost when it came to the actual message. I sat by an older man named Rubén who was ADORABLE. The congregation ate lunch afterwards and he sat by me again, telling me about how he turns seventy next month and that he gives art lessons. Neither one of us could understand basically anything the other said, which made for interesting conversations. He ended up stealing some of the napkins and drew my picture though, which was really sweet. After that he wanted to show off his drawing skills and ended up drawing me two other pictures, one of which had a poem that went along with it that he recited to us. It amazed me how God's love can be so evident even when no one has any idea what the other person is saying.

After church on Sunday some of the kids from the youth group took us down to La Rambla, which is kind of like a boardwalk that goes along the beach. We walked around for the entire afternoon/evening in the park across the street from La Rambla and by the ocean and eventually to a mall on the other side of town for dinner. We definitely got our exercise in for the day, and I was able to get some really great pictures of that end of the city. I'll put the rest of them up on facebook soon, I promise.

It was a gorgeous day. Though I learned a valuable lesson - not to slide down those hills on a piece of cardboard, no matter how many other people are doing it. Ask me to tell you about that story sometime.

Speaking of exercise, I joined a gym last night! There is a huge list of classes that you can go to, and with one monthly price you can go to as many of them as you want! Six of us went to the Aerobics class and worked out for an hour - it was pretty dang intense. But I'm really excited to go back - it was so fun! Take THAT, Raquel's cooking! There's no way I'll be gaining weight this semester if I keep working out like that.