It´s hard to believe I´ve only been in Buenos Aires for 3 weeks - it feels so much longer than that. Today I had my first "I don´t want to leave" feeling. My housemom Ivonne and I get along great. Our conversations have gotten so much more interesting now that my Spanish is improving. She was rushing to finish an art piece today so she was home all day, and since it´s a Sunday so was I!
My Spanish is now at the point where I can actually make and understand jokes (and humor is something that´s very hard to learn when speaking another language, at least I think so). So today, it was really rewarding when we started joking about things that were happening around the apartment or in our lives and we both actually laughed (instead of that fake nervous laugh that you do when you think you understand a joke in another language, but you´re not sure if you translated it correctly in your head, so you half laugh just in case you need to retract the laugh because it actually wasn´t a joke at all - obviously, this has happened a lot to me). Also, at dinner tonight, Ivonne told me it made her really sad that I was leaving in 4 weeks because she felt like we got along really well and we had a great connection. :)
Yesterday, I went on an excursion to Colonia, Uruguay with ISA! We took a 3 hour ferry there and back, and it was the coolest ferry I´ve ever seen in my life. My friend Correy and I walked on and actually debated whether it was the ferry or we had to find the entrance by walking through this mall-like structure. The ferry had tons of seating, 3 floors, clothing shops, cafes, an arcade, and an upper deck. On the way home there was a dance lesson in the lobby...I´m not kidding. A dance lesson. It was absurd.
Colonia is an adorable, "colonial," portugese town with winding cobblestone streets, beaches, cute outdoor cafes and art shops. It was picturesque to say the least, and so relaxing in comparison to Buenos Aires. We ate a long 3 hour lunch - the food was incredible, I had teriyaki chicken and vegetables! Then, my friend Melissa and I went on a jewelry hunt and I bought a really unique necklace and earrings (Liv, you are going to want to steal all the jewelry I´m buying...don´t worry I will bring you back some!)
As for my future travel plans.....South America is teaching me to be patient and spontaneous. This weekend Liz and I were planning to go to Rio de Janiero, but the visas are expensive, take 2 weeks to get, and the Brazilian embassy is only open 3 hours a day. Then, we planned to go to Iguazu, but Aerolineas Argentinas charges US citizens almost double the amount they charge Argentines for each flight. Our flight would have been $400, so we decided to wait for a longer weekend to suffer the 20 hour bus ride there and back. After 2 depressing hours of complaining about our failing travel plans, we came across $200 flights to Santiago, Chile!!!!! We glanced at each other, screamed, and pulled out our credit cards. Friday morning (5 days from now) we will be on a flight to Santiago. Saturday we´ll head to the beach town of Valparaiso, and then Sunday back to Santiago. Good things come to those who wait... ;)
Here are some photos from Colonia and other photos that I got from my friends´cameras.....click here.
those people are dumb, they are eating in the middle of the street. They are going to ruin the relaxation if they get drilled by a car, how inconsiderate
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