Best Easter basket ever

(supplies from the states)

When Missy's AMAZING parents came to visit for Easter, they brought an extra suitcase with them from my parents full of goodies. You cant tell from the picture but there are 5 bags of marshmallows in there. That should last me a few weeks. Maybe.

Kitchen Table

This past week was Semana Santa (holy week) and therefore we had thursday off of school.  Esther, Alicia, Cedric and I ended up going with one of the tutors, Leo, to his house in San Juan. San Juan is in the northern part of Argentina, the wine country. Needless to say, it was gorgeous.

We left late wednesday night on the bus and got to San Juan early thursday morning. The best part of the bus ride was when we were getting on the bus, Leo told us that he had a pajero in his bag. At first i thought, pajero meant bird, but then i just figured that my spanish was wrong. (something that is all too common haha) But no, I was actually right this time. Apparently his uncle in Cordoba breeds them and a friend in San Juan wanted one. So he had a bird, in a box, in his book bag. Good times

We got to San Juan early thursday morning and met his brother and sister. I am probably going to say it about 100 times in the blog, but I loved his family. They were so inviting, outgoing, and just plain great people. But anyways, We hung around the house, took a nap then went to this really pretty outlook to take matte and get a good view of the city.

 

We stumbled upon this absolutely amazing museum in a cave under the outlook. There really aren't words to describe this museum. It was only 5 pesos (less than $1.50) to get in, but worth o so much more. This man had obviously created it himself with fossils, stuffed animals, paper machie, rocks, feathers, and lots more. I think picture are the best way to do this museum justice.

(lawn chairs if you got worn out looking at all 3 the exibits)

 

(Had to make sure Daffy looked his best for the patrons) (when he had either lost or never had a part to his exibit, he would just draw it in. No big deal.)

 
(we never figured out why it was called the museo einstein....... Or why there were armadillos......)

 (but hey, they had the rare 'grande pinecone'. worth it.)

That night we cooked and it was wonderful. We went to bed about 1 and woke up the next morning at 4 to go to La Valle de la Luna. (the people in this country never sleep!) La valle de la luna (valley of the moon) is this famous national park in Argentina that is pretty similar to the grand canyon, but on a much smaller scale. It was one of those parks that you drive through in your own car and see this sights. Every 10 or so minutes we all got out and the guide told us some cool facts about the rocks. (they pronounce rocks "sssshrucks" in san juan and we found that very funny this weekend) It was a very beautiful place, but in all honesty we just had fun driving, joking, listening to music, and not listening to the guide. Even Leo was ignoring the guide and when we asked him what was special about this particular rock we had all stopped to look at, he answered "no idea, they are all the same" jajaja  but it was still really fun!

 

On the way back we stopped at the Disfunta Correa. To give a very brief history of this place: there is a old cuenta (story) about this woman and her baby who were walking through the dessert and the woman realized that she was not going to make it and was going to die of dehydration. She prayed that God would give her breast milk so that even if she died, her baby would live. And, according to legend, she died, and the baby lived. We learned about this story in class, and we also learned about the memorial for her. It is tradition for people to visit, and leave bottles of water (because she died of thirst). What we learned was nothing like what we saw. What I had in mind was this big alter, with a bunch of water bottles, but this place was full of people. There were tents set up everywhere and there was a huge market with tons of people selling clothes, gift, food, everything. Not at all what I had expected. Leo told us that during the weekend of Semana Santa people walk, bike, drive, ride their horse, get there somehow, give their offerings, and then stay overnight.
The thing that had the biggest impaact on me was the houses of gratitude. There were about 5 or 6 little "houses" and each was dedicated to a different aspect of life: sports, autos, marriage, houses, I cant remember the rest. Each house was filled with offerings of gratitude to this woman. Gracias disfrunta correa for helping me win this soccer game. Gracias disfrunta correa for helping me buy this car. Gracias disfrunta correa for giving me this house. The house for marraige was filled with peoples actual wedding dresses. It was incredible to see the magnitude of how of everything. So many shrines. So many people. So many offerings. We didnt go to the biggest one, where most of the water bottles are, because the line was incredibly long, but what was saw was still eye opening. So very different than everything I am used to.

That night we just hung out with his amazing family and watched a movie. Wonderful. The next day we went to the nearby dike to hang out and study a little but. (we tried to make ourselves feel like responsible students) Leo's brother Gabriel came with us, and they were our translators whenever we didnt know what our notes said. I don't think they got much studying done though! Gabriel speaks english and had a good time looking through my "español avanzado" book. which means advanced spanish. But I am in the lowest class and therefore the title is really just there to make us feel better. (the other levels are avanzado I, II, y III. :)

That night we went out to a club and had a great time dancing until 5:30 when they turned the music off. Yes, I said 5:30. Esther made some fun friends, and Cederic enjoyed a choripan at 6 in the morning. (pronounced like superMAN we were told. Very funny at the time.)

Leo let Esther drive us from the street to the driveway- I dont think he believed her when she said she could drive a stick shift. But we survived.

(yup, thats AM)

The next day was Easter. We woke up around 1 and hung out in the kitchen for a while drinking coffee, talking, and watching his sister cook. About 2:30 Leo's whole family came over for lunch. I absolutely love this aspect of spanish culture. We sat around that kitchen table for over two hours just talking. I had a really interesting conversation with his grandfather for about 15 mins of which I think I understood about 15 words that he said. No worries though, because I have become an expert in what I like to call "parroting". Its a skill that I have developed down here when I am in a conversation when I have no idea what is going on, but I don't want to be rude. The secret is to pick out word that you know. Por ejemplo: I hear this "alskdjfhlaksjdhflkjsdhf mucha lluvia aksdjhfalkhjdf" and I respond, "Si, mucho lluvia!"[which means a lot of rain] and shake my head like i know exactly what they are talking about. Works 9 out of 10 times.

In saying that, my spanish has gotten exponentially better since I've been here and I don't use this method often, but when I talk to older people with strong accents who love to talk, it is necessary.

Anyways, we ate lunch and then eventually ended up back at the kitchen table and took mate.  Like I said, I love this culture and especially this family. We didn't do anything that day- but I enjoyed it so much. We played some Wii, talked, drank coffee, mate, Wii and then got on the bus to come home. One of the best things was the next day when telling someone what we did for Easter I told the story and about how we never even left the house that day but had a great time. Esther spoke up and said "thats not true, I left the house. I went outside to brush off the crumbs on my shirt from the cake we ate. Then I came back in and drank some more mate. :)

Got back to Cordoba at 8 am and then went to school. We had a test that day at 2. But hey, thats Argentina. 

To recap: loved San Juan.

  

(Leo's two dogs Tony and Sasha. Tony liked to dance and was quite good at the tango. Sasha, not so much.)

Change is good

 I went to church with my family today for the first time. I am really beginning to realize how truly blessed I am to have been placed in this family. My mom is amazing and her heart for the Lord is so apparent, I love to watch her interact with other. (as weird as that sounds) She is so genuine and loving in everything she does, I can see now why she does so well with exchange students! She is in-charge of the sunday school at the church and lights up when she talks about it. She was telling me yesterday how excited she was to start (it began today) and she made a ton of these little pencils for the kids. I can't imagine how long it took her to make them all!

Church was great. One thing I really loved was how everyone participated, not just a select few. At the beginning, the pastor asked for orations (prayers of thanks) and pretty much every other person spoke up and said something, and the same thing at the end when he asked for prayer requests. I love the boldness that this country has. The way they greet each other, the way they love one another, the way they have fun- everything! When you walk in a room and kiss everyone, regardless of whether or not you know them, it take out the potential awkwardness! Of whether or not you should say hi to that person over there that you kinda know, but not really, and then when it gets to be too long you definitely cant go say hi because its been too long and now it would definitely be awkward...... america can learn from south america!
All in all I really enjoyed it and a few of the kids my age invited me to come to the youth service on next saturday so I think I'm going to try that!

Also- i discovered that in my yard there is a pomegranate tree!! Either my mom doesn't know, or she just doesn't like pomegranates, because ive never seen them eat one. I sure did though....

(very tiny, but still good)

Epic fail

Last night we cooked dinner again at Missy's house. Fajitas this time! We were very Argentine and went to the verdudaria and got fruits and veggies, and then the pastelaria to get desert (delicious). We went to the grocery story to get the rest, but we still felt very authentic. Its funny because even though we are in a hispanic country, they dont really eat fajitas here: guess it's just a Mexican food. We cooked them for Anita (Missy's mom's friend who was taking care of Missy while Dora was out of town) and her granddaughter.

All I have to say, is that I love the people here. Love them. 

We hung out with her granddaughter, Augustina, who is 15 and had a great time. She asked to take a picture of us while we were cooking- which was a nice change because we are usually the ones taking the pictures!  She stayed and watched a movie with us until 2:45 in the morning, even though she had school the next morning. I've decided that the people in this country never sleep. Its a fact.

The BEST part of that night was after the movie when Missy was walking Taylor out to meet the cab. Unfortunately I didn't get the privilege of seeing this, but the story is still worth telling. 

To preface, Missy's mom breeds dogs, usually boxers and at time hounds, so she has 4 dogs at her house. [now that all the puppies have been sold:( ] Two of the dogs are very sweet and nothing to worry about, but the other two are a different story. Whenever Missy comes home, she has to stand outside the gate and push the intercom bell for her mom to call the dogs into the garage and put them in their crates, because her mom wont let her be in the yard with the dogs. Last night, since her mom was out of town, and Anita goes to bed early, we had a bit of a problem. 

It was about 3 in the morning and Missy was walking taylor out to meet the cab to take Taylor home. The walk from her front door to the gate probably takes about 1 minute, but about 30 seconds in Missy remembered that the two mean dogs were out. She heard them coming up behind her and just took off sprinting toward the gate, leaving Taylor with her bookbag to follow her lead. Missy ran to the gate and just jumped it (the gate is over waist high and a little hard to jump over without a big running start) and only when she was safe on the other side did she remember that Taylor was still behind her, she looked back to see Taylor run up to the gate, and try to jump it, but since she had a bookbag on she only made it half way, and she ended up a little like this I'm guessing:   

I would have loved to have been the taxi driver waiting on the other side of that gate :)

She called me and I had to call the dogs back to the house and try to distract them while Missy ran back and jumped onto the porch. Hilarious. 

Mis amores

Not much to say about today. Slept through my alarm (my earplugs are just too good I guess) but thats ok because I don't have class til 2 so I'm never in a hurry :) Went to school and when I got there I was pleasantly surprised to find TWO letters for me! Erin and Caroline made my day for sure when I got to sit by the window with my fruit and coke zero and read their letters. Gracias mis amores!

Not a tourist anymore

Today we had culture class with one of my favorite teachers Roberto. He came with us to Noroeste and he is the teacher who played the guitar for us on the bus.  What I love about his class is that he is more concerned that we go out and experience the culture than he is with us book learning about it. He always encourages us to go to the art fairs and the night activities in the city that display the culture. He says that we are not tourists, but we live here now and this is our culture too. And even though I don't think I will ever "fit in" doing the tango, or the dance of the gauchos, or drinking mate, I love that he doesn't consider us tourists. 

This is a clip from class: 

Classes are starting to pick up and I think I am going to actually have to start studying soon....

:)

In good company

Wednesday the president was in Cordaba giving a speech so Esther, Alicia and I decided to go see her. There was obviously a ton of people there, but a lot less than I expected. We were told there would be 4 or 5 thousand people there, but there definitely weren't. It was still cool to see her talk though!

From where we were standing, we could really only see the megascreen and Esther really wanted to actually see the president, so she asked if i wanted to move. This is how that conversation went:

"I think we should go to another spot cause I want to actually see her, not just the monitor"

....pause

I jump to see over the crowd.

"I saw her"

:)

Alicia jumping to "see the president"

Came home and found this on the kitchen table. I guess they do have Costcos here! (its a bag of frosted flakes by the way)

On thursday we had culture class where we rode horses and COOKED! We made these pastries that are really common here. You fold up some dough and then put some jelly in it, and then fry it. Delicious. 

We fried them and then dipped them in sugar water. Love this country.

Friday we went to Creambury and then decided to cook dinner at Missy's house. We grilled chicken, sauteed veggies, and had coke zero (with ice!!). It was probably the best meal I've had since Ive been here. About every 10 minutes Esther would remind us how good it was and we would all agree. (sorry Esther I had to add it) Afterwards we watched Tangled and slept over at Missy's. All I have to say, is that if you have good company, the simplest things can be incredibly fun :)

The next day we didn't really have anything planned and we may or may not have watched two more movies : ) But I did go out and do something at night so I wasn't completely lazy that day

God is good :)

"I can do nothing on my own.. because I seek not my own will, but the will of Him who sent me."

 John 5:36

Muchos viajes

Ok so I was a bit slack on my blogging. Whoops. Noroeste was two weeks ago, and so this blog is about  last week. 

We got back form Noroeste at 10 in the morning, and when I got home, I was greeted but this! It was my youngest sister Marti's birthday, and all the family came over for a party.  I hung out in the kitchen all day with my mom and grandmother and all the women making empanadas- I am a pro now. Get ready roommates :)

 

That night Taylor, Esther, Andreas and I tried a new church. We love the one we had been going to, but it was all the way down town and by the time we got home, it was past midnight and so we decided to try one a bit closer. The church was called Desarrollo Familiar (family development) and we loved it! We showed up early on accident and ended up watching the band warm up, and everyone do their pre-service routine. My favorite part was when everyone stopped what they were doing and got in a circle and just started praying out loud. It was amazing to witness these people so in love with the Lord, just talking to their heavenly father.  Needless to say, we found our church!

During one song these girls got up and did this routine they had with flags- it was awesome. The song was Fee's "I am Free" or here it is "Soy Libre". Loved it. 

(this was the best picture I could get without being obvious)

I had a paper to write so I skipped Tango, :( but I did really well on the paper so it was worth it. 

Thursday we took a field trip and visited el Museo de la Perla, an old concentration camp that was used in Argentina between 1976-1983. Most people don't know this, but during that time Argentina was ruled by military dictators who basically kidnapped anyone who opposed them, took them to these concentration camps located all over the country, and when they were done torturing them, killed them and hid their bodies in the rivers. Very few people left these camps alive. Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo began protesting in the streets, demanding to know where their children and grandchildren had disappeared to. There were around 30,000 desaparecidos in total. It was the darkest time in their history and, I can not do it justice, so here is a link if you want to know more. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War

That night we went to dinner and watched a movie- something that I miss so much! Before we left for dinner we went to Missy's and played with the puppies again or course. This is Archie and Esther holding the only three that are left Dora sold two already :(

The next day I went to Laurens and we made chocolate chip cookies!! We had an american recipies so everything was in ounces and grams so we had a very hard tme converting all of it (without internet to give us the conversions) so we guessed on a lot of it, but they turned out great! Her family loved them and it was great to have a little taste of home.

That night Esther and I went to Andreas at 11 to leave for Rosario. Rosario is the 3rd largest city in Cordoba and we just took a weekend trip. Andrea's little brother had a sailing tournament right outside of Rosario, so his dad offered to drop us off on the way there, and pick us up on the way home! A free fun weekend visiting this gorgeous city.

We got there really really early saturday morning and wandered around for a long time! The guide book was our best friend that weekend.

This is the Monumento de la Bandera (flag)- really gorgeous architecture.

Funny story- we asked a fellow tourist at the top of the monument to take a picture of all three of us. When we got done touring we went and checked into the hostel and looked over and the guy who took our picture was sleeping in the bed right next to me! Small world. And Luca was a character.....

(view from the top!)

We took a fairy ride around the city and they have a bridge that looks like a mix between the golden gate bridge an the cooper river bridge. It reminded me of home :)

That night we went to the observatorium that the guide book suggested and it was amazing.  We thought it was going to be a big room where were could just look around and see the stars, but we ended up going up this tower into this tiny room with one guy behind this huge telescope. We were a bit nervous that it would be super awkward, but the people were so nice that it was great! We got to see saturn and had an hour long conversation with the two men about astronomy, in spanish! 

Next day we went to the "beach" on the river. It was very relaxing, but it made me miss home because this beach was man made and super tiny. O and all the girls wear thong bathing suits, so thats a bit awkward sometimes.....

All in all it was a god weekend.