First, I want to mention something about Brazil that I forgot to put in my last post. In Brazil the main language spoken is Portuguese, so it was strange to suddenly be in yet another country where we didn't know the language again! Someone would say something to me, and once I understood what they wanted in English, I would try to translate it into Spanish, only to realize that they wouldn't understand that either! Talk about getting your languages confused!
It was a fun week of trying to communicate with people from all over the world, since Iguazu Falls is a hot spot for tourists from all over the world. At one point during our train ride to the falls, Brandon was speaking to a couple from Argentina in Spanish, Joanna was talking in English to a man from Germany with a heavy German accent, and Aaron was talking to our Uruguayan guide in Spanish as he was replying in English, both of them working on their speaking skills. I bounced from conversation to conversation because I was sitting in the middle of all this, but it was fun to just sit and listen.
Anyways, last weekend Jordan, my roommate Alex, and I went to Piriápolis! It was so nice to just go out and be on our own for a weekend. We stayed at a small hotel that was half a block from the beach and spent most of our time exploring and relaxing on the beach. My favorite story from the weekend came from Sunday as we were about to leave. Sunday morning we woke up and it was raining, so we were afraid that we would have to get earlier bus tickets to come home since we had been planning on spending the day at the beach. After we had eaten breakfast though, it had stopped raining and the skies had begun to clear up, so we decided to wait a little while and see if it got warmer outside. While we were waiting, we explored the area around the coastline and found a dock with several rock pools and had a great time climbing them and trying to maneuver our way through the slippery areas into the water. I felt like Pocahontas!
Once we had been playing in the rock pools for a while, it finally got warm enough for us to head back to the beach. Once we got situated there, two dogs came running right up to us. Alex and I got really excited; they were so friendly! It was strange though, because anytime someone walked anywhere close to where we were laying out they would both run to that person and bark at them until they were far enough away from us. Then they would both come running back and just lay down near or against us. It was precious! This went on for about an hour until we decided it was time for us to head back to the hotel and get our things so we could catch our bus back to Montevideo. The dogs both left with us and walked us to our hotel, where we then told them "adios!" and went our separate ways.
After we picked up our bag [yes, the three of us successfully packed in one bag], we started walking to the bus station. It was a pretty short walk, and when we got there, guess who we found waiting for us?! Our two friends!! They had gone all the way to the bus station to see us off! ;D It was adorable, and they continued to stay by our side until our bus arrived. It was the same story there - anytime someone walked close to us they would get chased and barked at until they were a ways away from us. Then the dogs would just trot back and plop down next to us again. God had a couple angels watching out for us that day :)
So that was our weekend! Needless to say, we were glad that we didn't buy tickets to come home early Sunday.
Monday brought about the start to an incredibly busy week. We had a picture party/Halloween party, since there wouldn't be time to celebrate Halloween any other time during this week. We all dressed up and submitted our 25 favorite pictures so far from the semester and had a great time laughing at some of the ridiculous things that we had caught on camera so far. The costume part was a lot of fun too - a lot of them came from jokes and things that had happened within our group here at Casa. I was a Uruguayan futbol player!
Tuesday night we got all dressed up to go to the Teatro Solis and see a ballet titled "Beyond Borders." It was really modern and actually had a lot of influence from the United States - I even recognized some of the music that was used. We all really enjoyed it!
Oh, another thing that has been going on the past two weeks is that we've all been going to a place called "the Alianza." Literally translated, it means "the alliance." It is a place where people living here can go to speak and learn English, as well as learn about the United States. We have all been going there in assigned pairs to volunteer by sitting in on classes or leading conversation clubs. We basically just go and talk to Uruguayans for an hour or so. It has been a pretty great experience for the most part, and we've gotten to meet a lot of Uruguayans that way!
Today Jordan and I are going to visit a classroom of intermediate speakers who will probably be around our age, give or take several years. We are also going to go to a classroom of eight year olds and teach them about Native Americans in the US. I'm excited! That's going to look pretty cool on a resume someday.. ;)
The rest of this week has been filled with everyone here at Casa frantically trying to get last minute things done before our ten day free travel break. Six people are leaving on a bus tonight for Brazil, three are leaving Saturday for Peru, and myself along with five others will be leaving early tomorrow morning for Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, located at the southern tip of Argentina. We're all SO excited!
One small fact about where we're headed for the next ten days: there's going to be 18 hours of sunlight during the day... that's how far south we'll be! How awesome is that?? :D
That's about all I've got for this post! I'm headed out to the Alianza now, and we're leaving for Patagonia in.... about 17 hours!!
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