All bittersweet aspects aside, I need to update you about the past few days.
Sunday and Monday we took a group trip to Rocha. We were supposed to go there last weekend, but that fell through due to the weather. I'm so glad it did, because the weather the past few days was perfect. There were barely any clouds in the sky and the temperature was at least in the 80's.. I don't know exactly. Anyways, we spent some time at the beach that was right by our hotel and just enjoyed hanging out at the beach before lunch. Later that afternoon, we went to the Ombu Forest, which has these HUGE plants that look like trees but are actually more closely related to grass than trees, strangely enough. Many of them were hollowed out or had holes in them - I thought they were pretty cool!check out that mad frisbee form ;D
Lindsey and I inside an Ombu bush/tree/thing
Sunday was pretty fun, but Monday was when our mini-vacation got really good. We traveled to Cabo Polonia for the afternoon. [You should google some pics of that, it's so beautiful.] Anyways, this place is incredibly secluded and does not have any actual roads that lead there. If you want to get there you must take a huge 4x4 truck or ride a horse. With the large number of people we have in or group, we took one huge 4x4. The weather was perfect. Early that morning several people wanted to go out and watch the sunrise over the ocean, but the sky was completely overcast. However, by about 10am on there was hardly a cloud in the sky. We saw a lighthouse and a bunch of sea lions, and then the next few hours were our own to spend however we chose. The beach was amazing there. The water was light blue and the waves were awesome. All fifteen of us put on sunscreen and ran into the cold ocean water. It was SO fun. We were able to spend a couple hours playing in the waves and swimming in the ocean, and once I became tired, I went back with a few others and laid out under the sun to dry off.
My only wish was that our time at that beach could have been longer, but those few hours made the entire trip well worth it.
We came home Monday night and I began packing. Tuesday morning I woke up and continued my packing before lunch, and once lunchtime rolled around I was able to celebrate my birthday! Raquel had cooked my birthday lunch and cake since my birthday will be coming next week and I won't get to celebrate it here in Uruguay. It was fun to be able to say that I celebrated my birthday in the Summer. :)
I have two other side notes that I have neglected to write about on here...
1. Please disregard all the grammar and spelling mistakes that I have made in this blog. Learning Spanish has completely murdered my English-speaking abilities. I'm hoping once I get back to the States my English will restore itself to the condition it was in before I came to this Spanish speaking country. Be patient with me as I work on that when I get back.. haha :)
2. I have learned that the United States is very selective in its history lessons. We all had to take an International Studies course while we were here and read Born In Blood and Fire, a history book about Latin America. Between reading that book and learning about Uruguay's history, I discovered that they aren't afraid to let people know about their history's mistakes. Latin Americans teach others about their struggles as well as their triumphs. Upon learning about this new history, I learned about instances where the United States made its mark on Latin America. Most of these stories I had never been taught before, and most of them revealed things about my home country that I would not be very proud of. It was insightful to be able to look at the United States from another country's perspective, even though it was more of a negative perspective.
Alright, well I just thought I'd write about those two things, because I had wanted to in an earlier post and had just forgotten.
We leave in one hour for the airport. WOW.
See you guys soon!
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