Address and Holidays

So for everyone that has been waiting here's my address:

25 de Mayo 99, 3103 Libertator San Martín, Entre Ríos, Argentina

Mail is slow here, but I know that I'll eventually get it. Send things only in business envelopes are it'll just get really complicated. I'll make you guys a deal: If you send me a letter or postcard, I'll send you at least ONE back. Okay now on to my favorite topic so far: HOLIDAYS.

People here come up with the most random ways to get out of school. I've been here for 2 1/2 weeks and I've already experienced 2 holidays where we don't have school. Another one is coming up soon.

Wednesday we didn't have school, so we got up super early and caught the 7am bus to Sante Fe. It's 3 hours away from LSM (Libertador San Martín) and like Paraná, but bigger. We walked around the city and found the historical sites until about 1pm. Then we stopped at this burger place that had really good pizza. There was a group of school girls that were there that kept staring at us and they all giggled when we attempted to speak Spanish. They took pictures with us to before they left for siesta time. That's another thing we're not used to yet. Don't get me wrong, we're all up for siestas and take them all the time, but when it's siesta time NO ONE IS OPEN except restaurants. So everything closes from about 1:30-4:30 EVEN THE POLICE. Luckily there's little to no crime here so it doesn't really matter. So we were planning on going shopping for this masquerade ball that's happening in two weeks, but once we got done with eating, all the shops were closed. =( We continued to walk around and find interesting things.

I've had fun with the group that I had out with exploring that towns that we've visited so far. Classes are going well. This week wasn't that bad. I really enjoy my Spanish classes, but am not such a fan of Folklore, Geography, History and Religion. I know I need these classes to get my major and what not, but some of the content is super boring. Me and my friends have started passing notes in Spanish to each other so we're still somewhat involved, just not the way the teachers would like. Don't worry Mom and Dad, I'm still paying attention and understanding what's going on.

Well I need to shower and go to bed. I haven't gotten all the sleep that I've needed to fight the end of this cold. The weather has been super cold since there's a cold front over Entre Ríos it seems. I'm having to wear my jacket all day because it's THAT cold. I get to show off my awesome boots, which is a plus, but makes wanting to workout outside a little...complicated.

Off to the shower! I'll update as soon as I can about whatever next event happens. Thanks again for the prayers! Miss everyone!

Love,

Lauren

El Día del Estudiante

Tuesday was el día del estudiante. Here in Argentina, on the first day of spring no one is in school and they celebrate the whole day.

Here at the UAP (pronounced WAP), they had a fair like set up on the student field. Human foosball, slides, a mechanical bull and a soccer tournament were the most popular events taking place the whole day. Around 12:30, they stopped for lunch. THAT was interesting, but it filled me until about 3pm.

After lunch, a big group of students got in a circle and starting playing some clapping games. Of course, they were all in Spanish, but it was interesting to sit on the side and observe these people. They were playing simple games that I taught some of my campers this summer and they were having blast. Sabrina and I took pictures, while Chelsea and Ashley got in the circle.

We met some more of the students and have hung out with them since then.

Since the town is so small, there's not a whole lot to do. It's like being stuck at Southern or Andrews campus without a car, and none of your friends have cars either. So for fun at night, you go to the gym and play volleyball. The students here in Argentina are very healthy and very fit. I have yet to see anyone out of shape or overweight. So every night we gather in the gym and play volleyball, basketball or fútbol. On Tuesday, it was about 3:30 when an amazing volleyball player named Diego asked me if I wanted to play volleyball at the beach. It's a sand court right next to the gym. So I agreed and got my posse together. We ended up playing til dinner. I must've hit the ball wrong once 'cause I had a TON of pain in my shoulder. I haven't really played since then because it hurts to serve or spike, which are the things that I'm good at. So I'm on temporary leave.

Two nights ago, I went to the gym with a ton of people with every intention of playing volleyball. After warming up with Pinky, a student here named Ezequiel but he looks like Pinky from Pinky and the Brain so everyone calls him that, I sat down on the blechers to let other people warm up. I started talking to James, he looked really bummed about something so I thought I would see what's up. We ended up talking the whole entire time the gym was open. I felt bad 'cause I invited a ton of people to play and they were all waiting on me to play. I kinda wished they had just gone and gotten into a game instead of waiting for me. But what can you do.

So last night, all the girls were going to go to another gym and do this power jump class, it didn't really sound interesting so I went to the gym by myself. I had a thought that I should bring some homework while I wait to play, so I brought some of my Grammar and Conversation homework. There ended up being a girls volleyball tournament, so none of us could play. I sat down and started on my homework. Just being around volleyball makes me happy. LOL.

They had a game of beach volleyball so I went outside to join a team. It was FREEZING COLD. I was about to head back to my dorm to get a sweatshirt, when James and Paul yelled at me for leaving. Apparently, they were coming to play. So James gave me his sweatshirt and we stood around for awhile. We ended up going back into the gym 'cause it was too cold to just hang out while the game was going on. Paul and I ended up talking for a good portion of the time while James shot hoops.

I needed to do laundry so I decided to get up before the sun and do my laundry, so as I sit down here in something that reminds me of a factory, the smells of freshly cleaned clothes and breakfast linger in the air. I am so blessed to be here in Argentina learning this language I've been studying for about 1/4 of my life and meeting these awesome people I can call friends.

Today marks the day of completing my first official week of school. The content of the classes aren't hard, it's just that everything is in Spanish and my brain is overloaded. I know that it will get easier the longer that I'm here. I find myself forgetting words in English when I talk to my friends. Keep me in your prayers that I can continue to stay focused on school! Miss you all!

La Punete Negro Muerte

Yesterday was Sabbath. So I woke up late because of my alarm clock...but made it to breakfast. Ran back to get ready for church...then went to English Sabbath school. It was awesome to finally understand what the speaker was saying. The night before at Vespers, it was completely in Spanish and we all had a hard time understanding what was going on.

For lunch we went to the caf, and found out that you have to be dismissed by tables. We sat and talked. The food was like ravioli. It was delicious. After stuffing ourselves with food, we found a group that was going on a hike to Puente Negro (black bridge) so we invited ourselves along. Little did we know what we would get ourselves into.

We started out on our hike. We hiked to the puente blanco (white bridge), then started walking through the farmland to this bridge. We tredged our way through forest, and land...we even walked through a field of bamboo. Then we came to the puente negro. To get to the other side, you had to cross this bridge. If you look on some of my pictures in the next post you'll see the bridge. It was quite old and a little sketch. This bridge was way off the ground. Now, I'm afraid of heights as was half our group. So I went and decided to take it really slowly. Most of it was made out of steel, but there were wooden planks that weren't equally put across the bridge. It was terrifying. After about 30 minutes all of us made it across. For some it took a long time to coax them to come across.

Then we hiked our way back to school. In total it was about 6 miles. We hung out until dinner, then we decided to go to the gymnastics show at the nice gym outside of the school. It was interesting there. The younger children did lots of different things including roller skating, it was like ice skating, but on roller skates. We stayed there pretty much all night. It wasn't anything impressive, but I had to keep reminding myself that they weren't pros.

We all have been wanting to go to Parana for the past couple days, but it hasn't quite worked out. So we went today. Sabrina, Ashley, Rosemary, me and the guys decided we were gonna leave early 'cause we thought the bus left at 8:20. so we got up super early...only to figure out that the earliest bus left at 10:30. So we just hung out and waited until then. We bought our tickets. They were about $7 there and back. The town Parana is a little over and hour and a half away from Libertador San Martin where we are. So Sabrina and I sat together, we ended up falling asleep on the bus 'cause we were so tired. We got there and found out that we had purchased our return ticket, but we needed to reserve our seats. So with the help from our friend, Paul who knows more Spanish then the rest of us we figured it out. We had about 16 people in our group. Some wanted to go find the movie theater and the rest of us wanted to go scope the town out.

Our groups divided and we went our separate ways. The group that I was in, navigated our way around the town. We stopped at this buffet for lunch. it was really good. All they had was meat, so it was hard to find some food there, but what I found was good. We walked to this place to find an alarm clock, and it ended up being on the outskirts of town. There I found my pillow, because the one that ACA gave to me wasn't really a pillow and I've been having really bad back and neck pain when I wake up. It was only $5. (ps. I'm converting all the money, which is in pesos to dollars so you get it )

We walked back to the square or the center, which was in the middle of the town and took a bunch of pictures. I've been hanging out a lot with the people in the group picture and they're becoming good friends of mine. We walked back to the bus with a couple stops in between and made it back to the school.

I'm starting to get a cold just because the weather is so different here. I'm gonna try to stay away from sweets and just drink a ton of water to flush it out of my system. The next post I'll put all the pictures I have so far.

School starts tomorrow. I don't know what to expect. I'm taking a lot of classes so I hope they don't stress me out. Tuesday is Student Day. It's a holiday in Argentina, where all the schools close and the students have parties and stuff. Since we're Adventists we're going to have a dry party all day, but the activities they have planned sound like a lot of fun. I'll update as soon as that day's over because I'm sure I'll have a ton of stories to tell. :)

Classes

Well I got my results for my placement test and I tested into Advanced I. It's the biggest class so a lot of people are on the same level as I am, which is nice.

I decided to take a full load because I want to take as much as I can while I'm here. The town is super small and there's not a whole lot to do except for school and playing sports. So I want to do both.

I'm taking Grammer, Composition and Conversation I; History; Religion; Geography; Folklore; Current Events; and Spelling. These all add up to 18 credits. So hopefully when I'm done here, I'll have a ton of credits. I came here to learn Spanish, so I'm going to be immersing myself in all that I can do.

I changed all the settings on my computer to be Spanish. So that's all I read. It's funny because when I'm chatting with people on Facebook, I'll start responding to a question in Spanish because everything on my computer is Spanish. It's a common mistake, but I know that I'm getting closer and closer to fully understanding the language. I want to challenge myself to be able to have a decent conversation with the locals by December. I can already talk to my roommates and they understand the jist of what I'm trying to say, but I don't want to hurt their ears! LOL.

Thanks for the prayers, and I hope you all are doing well.

Another update

Well I thought I would update you guys just a little bit about what's going on.

So the bathroom situation. There are community showers. Granted they're separate, but everyone on the floor shares 6 showers and 6 bathrooms. Because the school is old, we have to throw the toilet paper away instead of flushing it down the toilet. The RA's give us a roll of TP a month and if we run out we have to get our own from the store.

I've been meeting a lot of people, which is awesome. I changed all of my settings on my computer so I have to read everything except what I'm typing in English. I'm starting to think more in Spanish too...or maybe it's just that I'm thinking more ABOUT Spanish. LOL. I've only been here for 3 days and I already feel like I'm picking up on it all. The natives here are very kind and listen to our horrible Spanish and help us out. Some of them like to speak English with us because they want to work on their English.

I went with a couple friends to hang out at the gym just to watch, and ended up playing volleyball for two hours. So I think that we're going to go back tomorrow night and play. I did some homework tonight: looking up words for our next volleyball game. So we can try and talk to the natives instead of screaming English out at them.

The food is different. So far for every meal I've had rice, beans, salad and something else...and apparently that's not so healthy for you. Once Krista gets here, I'm going to be running so I won't gain the abroad 15...or whatever it may be. I really miss breakfast food. Since it's always my favorite meal, it's hard to put together that rice, beans and an apple are going to be my breakfast for awhile. Mom said she would make me biscuits and gravy when she comes to visit at Christmas.

I took my placement test and I didn't think it was that hard, but we get the results tomorrow so we'll see what level I'll be in. Pray I get into Advanced I.

I think I'm starting to get a cold. My body isn't used to this weather. It's cold in the morning, hot in the afternoon and cold at night. I should drink a lot more water.

Well I'm gonna try and update this every week and upload pictures. My camera battery randomly died so I haven't been able to take any pictures since leaving Buenos Aires, but I'm charging it tonight so I'll start taking pictures of everything. Back to the updating...as much as I want to be on my computer keeping in touch with everyone, I really need to not be on it as much. Since we're just going through orientation we have a lot of free time and our roommates are taking their finals so we can't really hang out with them, but classes start on Monday so I'm assuming that everything will change.

Thanks for the prayers! Te amo! (I love you)

Travels and Firsts

I’m on a bus. I just woke up from a nap and looked out the window. I seriously thought I was still in Illinois. The land looks a lot like Illinois. Fields cover both sides of the road. We’ve been on the bus for 4 hours. We still have 2 more to go. So I decided to get a head start on my entry.

My butt hurts. I’ve been sitting in a seat for way too long. Back to Chicago. I got to the airport earlier than planned, which made checking in easier…well kind of. The travel agent asked me where I was going and I replied, “Argentina.” I don’t think that it had hit yet that I’m not going to be in the states for the next 9 months. She started the paperwork and then questioned me,” I thought you were going to Argentina.”

“I am,” I replied.

“Then why does it say that you’re going to Chile?” she asked.

“I’m stopping there, but my final destination is Argentina,” I replied.

Freaked out that something hadn’t gone through right, I looked at my dad. “Crap.” I thought. “I’m screwed.”

“Oh wait!” She said. “ I didn’t page through the whole thing. Here it is.”

After that I checked my bags and walked to find my mom who had parked the car. We stood there for a couple minutes talking, then the security lines started filling up. “Well I guess I should get in line,” I told my parents. We said our goodbyes. I didn’t cry. I have no idea why. I haven’t saying goodbye to anyone except Stefan, but he doesn’t know that.

Got through security by a breeze and went to go find my gate. I was distracted by the Patriots and Bengals game on TV so I stayed at some random gate watching that until the 2^nd half. Then I went to find lunch. I was deciding between a pizza place and a burrito place. I thought what not a better last meal than pizza. Since I’ll be having burritos while I’m down there. I got a tomato and spinach pizza and a sweet tea from McDonalds and went back to watch the game.

Soon it was about time for my plane to be boarding so I found my gate and the game was on there. Woot. Of course the Patriots were winning. J

We boarded and I found out I was in the middle seat on my side. I hate the middle seat. It puts in an awkward spot. Soon I fell asleep and enjoyed another little nap. We ran into some turbulence close to landing, which woke me up. I think that plus the fact that the pizza wasn’t that good just added to a disaster. I started getting really nauseous. I wanted to throw up, but we were almost about to touchdown. I had to calm myself down and just breathe. Finally, I got off the plane and immediately ran to the bathroom. Figuring out my connecting flight could wait a couple minutes. I couldn’t throw up. I tried. It didn’t work. So then I had to make my connecting flight. I was in Concourse D and my flight was in Concourse J. So I found myself walking outside in humid and quite miserable Miami wondering what I had gotten myself into.

After finding my gate, I decided I still wasn’t feeling well. So I made a trip to the bathroom and preceeded to throw up all of my lunch…well what I thought was my lunch. I had been talking to my mom, not really sure of what I should do. So I went and found a couple apples because apparently those help with motion sickness and a sprite, some water, a granola bar for dinner and some Dramamine. I wrestled the Dramamine pocket open and took one. They were kids chewables and tasted like crap. Then I ate my apple back at my gate. Sarah had called me telling me that her plane had landed and she was on her way to the gate. Pretty much as soon as the call ended, I started feeling really sick again. So I ran to the bathroom and threw up whatever else was in my stomach…which was a lot. I was feeling a little better now that it was all out of my body, but still not 100%.

We were called up to get new boarding passes with LAN instead of the ones we had with American Airlines. And then we got to get on the plane. The plane reminded me a lot of the Korean Air plane. In each seat, they had a pillow and blanket combo for us to use. I did my best to follow along with the Spanish instructions and then confirmed what they had said through the English ones. My Spanish is nowhere good, but I know that will change in a couple weeks.

The plane took off and I started to feel sick again. As soon as the pilot turned off the seatbelt sign, I asked the lady who was in the aisle seat, if I could go to the bathroom. I barely made it in time and threw whatever else was left in my stomach. My body wanted to keep throwing up, but there was nothing left. I just sat there on the floor of the small bathroom, just tired. And wanting to be home in my bed. I washed myself up and went back to my seat. They gave us sleeping masks so I put that on, covered myself with my blanket and went to sleep. I pretty much slept the whole flight (8 hours), but it wasn’t the best sleep. I can’t wait to get to my dorm room so I can sleep horizontally.

So we’re in the Chilean airport and it’s cold! We literally get off the plane, clean ourselves up so we don’t look a mess, go through security (which was nothing like ours in the US. We didn’t have to take our shoes off, or take our toiletries out), get to our gate, wait about 10 minutes and they started boarding. I grabbed a newspaper on the way, determined to read it on the plane. I got my Spanish/English dictionary and went to work.

We touched down in Buenos Aires about 11 am. Going through customs wasn’t hard. We went to baggage claim and our bags never showed. I wasn’t surprised, but was secretly hoping that my bags would be there. We go talk to the lady and she told us that our bags arrived before our plane and they were in another location. So we walk over and there are our bags. Just sitting there. I have no idea how long they had been sitting there, but they were there. We exchanged our money, went through the final part of customs and found the ACA guy. We were the last to arrive. We got on a big bus and started to get to know people. They took us to this Adventist restaurant, where I sat with a girl I went to class with, her husband, a girl from Andrews and a brother and sister from Walla Walla. As you can see, there are people from all over, which I think is super cool. Two other girls asked me if I was Stefan’s sister, which I replied yes and they told me they did the MITHS thing with him a couple summers ago. Obviously no matter where you are, as long as you’re an Adventist you’ll be connected with those people because of someone you know!

Well I’m started to feel a little queasy. The roads aren’t exactly kind, but I’ll finish this once I get to my dorm and meet my roommate(s).

So we’re here at the school. I’m in my room and I’ve met both of my roommates. They’re from Brasil and don’t speak English. So I’ll be learning Spanish even faster. It was definitely put to use today! One of my roommates was helping me unpack and she picked up my bag of tampons. She’s like I’m curious what are these for. In my broken Spanish I explained to her that they were for the time of the month. Then she got it a couple minutes later. It was cute and awkward, but we’re already bonding. Well my computer’s about to die so I need to figure out how to use these converters and adapters. Our first meeting is tomorrow at 10:30 am so I can sleep in. I stole a sleep mask from the LAN airplane and plan on using that while I’m here.

I miss and love all you. Continue with the prayers!

Lauren Claire

Where I'm going

Here is my flight plan of where I'm going to go.You can read in my first blogpost, the specific details of my trip.

I'm flying out at 3:15pm and wo

n't arrive in Argentina until 10:30am Monday.

I won't arrive to the school until about 6pm on

Monday, since the school is 6 hours from Buenos Aires.

This is where the school is located in perspective to the whole country.

And this is a more zoomed in of where I'm going to be for this school year.

Some things I'm gonna miss part 2

These are the three food items that I'm going to miss the most.

Also if I could even put all the pictures of the television shows I watch, you would wonder what I do with my life. So here's to all the criminal television shows that I watch. I'll catch up on you in the summer. Maybe even Christmas break.

People I'm going to miss in the U.S.

Jana, my soul mate and my best friend. I didn't find my bestest best friend for life until I was 20, but I guess it's been completely worth the wait. We've been through a lot and basically are the same person.

Darlene, my childhood best friend. We went and worked at camp together for the past 8 years. We've laughed, cried, and almost died together. She's a pretty special one in my book.

My family. I love them to death. Sometimes they drive me crazy, but I don't know what I would do without them.

Barry & Sam. To describe these two wouldn't be an accurate portrayal of their relationship, but they've been two of my best guy friends--almost like other brothers--since freshman year.

Katie Hayhoe. My personal nurse. But she's more than just that. She's an awesome friend. We bonded quite nicely after I missed my flight back to Southern over Thanksgiving break and spent 14 hours driving down there.

Hitlist. We'lll reunite when I get back. We have some unfinished business to attend to.

Caity, Emily and Caroline. High school senior year was the best year I had in high school thanks to these girls.