One Week Later

I looked down at my watch and read 12:00pm.

"Oh, it's noon back home."

Then I realized I actually was home. My heart sunk. I miss you Argentina. I still haven't changed the time on my watch. I feel that I'm not ready to let go of that memory.

I've been home now exactly a week. It doesn't feel real at all. I've been quite the hermit just staying in my room, on my computer talking to the people I miss.

My heart broke that early Monday morning when I had to say goodbye to everyone at the UAP. I was still making friends up until the last night of us being there. I cried saying goodbye because I honestly don't know the next time I'll see any of them. Sure, there's Facebook and Skype, but it's just not the same. Saying goodbye at the airport was even harder. These guys and girls were my rocks while I was down there. We all live in different states and go to different colleges. Who knows when I'll see them as well.

I haven't really seen any of my friends that are back from college. I don't know if this is culture shock or what. But I miss the life I had down in Argentina. It was so simple. I didn't have to worry about trying to get the drug screen test done for my job this summer, or the fact that my license expired and having to study for the test I'm taking tomorrow.

Everyone's life is on the fast lane and I just want to be cruising again. I used to be the one with a plan for everything. Part of that will never leave me, but I've chilled since being in Argentina and just letting things happen. It's hard trying to adjust back to this fast paced life.

But what I miss the most are my friends. They got me through a lot while I was down there. Thank God for texting, but it's still not the same. I'm used to living in a dorm with my closest girlfriends. Where I can just walk down the hall and ask if they're going to lunch. I was so used to spending so much time every day without them, that I'm somewhat depressed without them here with me. I'm stuck in Illinois where I don't have a lot of friends because of the distance of going to another college out of state and it's the year of internships. Spanish is constantly flowing through my veins. Any time I hear that latin beat in a song, it reminds me of all the fun times I had, learning the culture and watching my Argentinean friends sing the lyrics to all the songs and us Americans pretending to know the lyrics. The other day, I was going to ask someone a question and I almost asked them in Spanish, but then realized that they could speak English.

I feel out of place here. I don't know how to fit in, but I think it'll just take some time. But suddenly I miss everyone. I want us to be all in the same place and just having fun. It's funny how even after 9 months, I know some of these people I'll be friends with for the rest of my life.

I'm still getting used to the food. Since it's summer and I don't have a car I have to make all my food. I don't remember how to make a ton of what I could from last summer. It's a rough life because I can't just go to the comedor and pretend to enjoy my meal.

It's so good to be home in my own room and my own bed, but there's a part of me that will always miss Argentina. Argentina will always be apart of me for as long as I live. I guess you could say I could call it home, since I did live there for a year. Argentina opened my eyes to be the person that I really want to be. How I want to live my life. I love you Argentina!

The Time

As cliché as this song is, it literally is so true. This year, literally was the time of my life, but not just this year, but this time of my life right now.

I'm so thankful for all that I experienced this year. Argentina, I'll never forget you! :)

The Lasts

Last soccer games.
Last time eating in the caf.
Last time eating out.
Last time going to church.
Last time staying out late.
Last time going to the 3rd floor lobby and making a ton of noise.
Last time dancing the night away.
Last time having class.
Last time speaking in English and no one really understanding what you're saying.
Last time eating bland food.
Last time seeing my name appear red because I broke curfew...again.
Last time to spend with all these amazing people.

Tonight is the last time for...well everything.

ACA Amen

I started getting a cold Wednesday night. Usually I'd be okay with it, but I was asked to lead out in worship Friday night for the ACA Amen program we were putting on after the usual vespers program.

I got a list of songs together and asked people to play with me.
I picked us to sing:
My Redeemer Lives
Famous One
Mighty to Save
From the Inside Out
How Great is Our God
Nothing But the Blood
I was really excited because I had only done praise songs for camp or week of worship here. But this, this was a big deal. Every year, ACA puts this program on and tons of people from the UAP come. I was prepared, but not for what was going to happen.

Friday came. The choir, the drama, our praise band, we practiced ALL afternoon. I was exhausted and drained from this cold and not getting enough sleep, but I took a short nap after dinner. We had planned to meet again at 9pm to run quickly through some trouble spots before the service started. Imani and Sabrina were the only ones who showed up early, so while Chris and his band were going through their song, we went in the back and was working on some stuff, then we heard a lot of ruckus outside. We opened the door and people were there. No PEOPLE WERE THERE. It was only 9:30pm! The choir wasn't there, I had no idea where my piano player was, I immediately started to calmly freak out. Imani told me I looked stressed so I went to the back room and prayed.

I won't go into great detail, but I'll say this. The beginning was rough. I mean ROUGH. I had no idea if we were going to make it through the first song. But slowly as the night went on, I could just feel a calm in the room and I knew HE was there. I wasn't nervous, actually the whole time I felt calm. I knew the Holy Spirit was in my heart. It was an awesome experience. I lost my voice, hopefully that comes back for our choir tour tomorrow, but God just continues to prove Himself to me as I'm here in Argentina. There's never a doubt in my mind that HE is God.

I am so thankful to be able to come together and worship in another language. I have grown so close to God while being down here. There have been some rough spots while being down here, but those just led me closer to the God who created me.

the Final Countdown

I have 12 days left until I leave Argentina. I'm beginning to realize how much of an impact this country and these people have had on my life.

I'm really going to miss this place.

:(

breathe

Spontaneous vespers will always be awesome.

Elisa and I were talking at lunch today about what we were gonna do tonight. She threw out the idea of having our own vespers. So I went around telling people.

i went on with my day and decided I was going to say a little something. So I got some songs together, threw a powerpoint together and went to the gazebo.

I just played a couple songs waiting for everyone to show up then we started. I could just feel God's presence there. I spoke on Rob Bell's Nooma called Breathe. It talks about how his name, YHVH (Hebrew) or LORD (English), is essentially unpronounceable because the vowels are breaths. Y-H-V-H.

A baby's first cry is really that child screaming the name of God. And when you take your last dying breath, it's because you can no longer say the name of God. I wanted proof that God was alive and He gave it to me. Every breath I take is God giving me proof that He is alive.

We sang some more and then went on a singing spree of OLD school songs we grew up singing in Cradle Roll and Primary before hitting the Pathfinder songs.

I am going to miss having these people around to spend my Friday nights with, but I just thank Jesus for the blessing we all received.

Another sneak peek!

Another addition to this project I'm working on. Thanks to the girls who got glammed up on this freezing cold night. I had a lot of fun, but don't worry there's still more to come!

Food Poisoning and a Lesson from God

Early Tuesday morning, I woke up with the most intense pain in my stomach. It felt like someone was trying to rip open my stomach. I curled into the fetal position for a few minutes then decided that wasn't working, so I put all my energy into getting off the top of the bunk bed, stumbled in the dark to put my flip flops on, find my toilet paper and put my glasses on before I made it to the bathroom, just in time.

I won't go into detail for fear of grossing everyone who reads this blog. I would rather not have to revisit it either. After spending all of Tuesday crawled in a ball, in and out of sleep, I was able to stay awake for a couple hours late in the night to try and figure out what I had. Food poisoning from the cafeteria. I'm actually surprised that I haven't had it more often or earlier. Let's just say that things aren't necessarily run how they would back in the States. Now apparently, I am no stranger to this as on my way to Argentina had some lovely spinach and cheese Chicago style pizza in the O'Hare Airport, only to spend the better part of my time in the Miami Airport puking up everything I had eaten and what felt like my liver and gallbladder as well. Luckily, I was able to pass out on whole 8-10 hour plane ride here to Argentina. Tuesday, I wasn't so lucky.

Rose had come to see how I was doing. We decided that maybe some white rice, bland bread and some juice would do my stomach some good. Boy, was I wrong.

I spent the next day, Wednesday, just chillin in my room, doing homework and being productive. It was a strange feeling. I wasn't really up to spending hours in class, didn't really want to be around people because I was grumpy since I hadn't eaten anything since Monday night and I still wasn't feeling 100%. I find myself blessed, because this week is midterms. I ended up not having class on Tuesday because my teacher was sick, but I did miss two classes yesterday. But what can you do when you're sick?

I still feel a little sick every time I eat, but I can't go without eating anymore. I went WAY too long and felt like I was dying.

On to better news: I leave Argentina in one month and two days. It's quite surreal how everything is just moving so quickly. Just yesterday it was 2010. Since being here I have given up my desire to plan my life out and give it to God. Because I've done that things have actually worked out for me quite well. I'm excited to go back to Southern where I have an awesome semester planned out for me school wise and job wise. I can't wait to get back into the flow of things and see where God leads. He's opened so many doors for me to create a network for hopefully some job opportunities in the future. I took back my summer day camp job. Something I had ingrained in my head that I wasn't going to do, but really I'm not ready PR wise to have an internship. So I'm going to work during the day and take classes at night to ensure that I can graduate college in 3 semesters.

God has so many things planned for me, I just know it. I hate to admit it, but it seems that I doubt His capabilities too often. This is where I am so wrong in my thinking. I should just automatically know because I am a child of His that He has a plan for me and in the end it'll all work out to my advantage and His plan for my life. Every time, I question His abilities, He throws something awesome into my life.

Sorry, that I've been somewhat absent for the past month. But I just wanted to thank all of you who have been on this journey with me since the beginning. Your prayers, thoughts and support has carried all the way over here and I feel them. I really do. I am so blessed to have you all in my life and I can't wait until we can be reunited again.

With much love,
Lauren

Oh Lord, How Excellent

On the fly Imani, our choir director, was asked if we, the ACA choir, would sing for Sabbath School.

The notice didn't really get to everyone, so we had a quick run through on Friday, hoping that the guys would show up.

Early Sabbath morning came and it was just us girls again. We got up on stage to run through it and it was just crap to be honest. The key wasn't right, we were tuning with each other, everything was just off. Imani asked me right before if I would sing a solo. I didn't really want to, but I agreed to it anyways. As soon as we were finishing up, a couple more guys came.

Sabbath school started with a praise team. During that whole time, I was just praying that God would be with us as we sing and help me out. We all gathered backstage and Imani prayed that the angels would sing with us and remove the nervousness from within. A lot of us had a lot of doubts about how this would turn out.

I got up there and started singing with the mic, but I hadn't turned it on. Thankfully, I had a practice verse. But then I figured out you have to turn the ON button on. Haha. After that, I could just feel someone singing with me. It was an amazing experience because usually when I get up to sing, which is quite often, I am always nervous. No matter how many times I rehearsed the song, now matter if I know it by heart, basically no matter what my hands are always shaking and what not.

So here's the video below. It doesn't do our performance justice, but just know that the angels really WERE singing with us this morning.

Sneak Peek!

A little sneak peek of our photo shoot yesterday. More to come!

Week of Worship

Week of Worship happened two weeks before we left for Brasil. I ended up planning most of it. It was stressful, but one of the most rewarding things that have happened to me since being here in Argentina.

I was one of the speakers one of the nights. Chris, our SA vice president, had asked me awhile ago to speak and I was flattered, but I had no idea what I was going to talk about. I started praying about it. Two weeks before the actual week, when we started buckling down to plan it, God spoke to me through my favorite movie, Extreme Days.

I knew exactly what I was going to talk about. It was a humbling experience getting up in front of my peers and teachers, opening up about one of the darkest times in my life. I was nervous before I spoke, but Paul prayed for Lisa (the other speaker that night) and I and my nerves were calmed. The second I got up there, I was so comfortable. I knew God was speaking through me.

This week was so awesome, I can't even fully describe it to you guys. God was definitely there every night. We had this poster Sabrina had made that said HE IS 'cause that was our theme. Every night, we would have a time where people could put down a word or a phrase of who they thought God is. It was so powerful at the end of the week to go through and read what people had written down.

Since week of worship, I've seen a change in people. They're reading their Bibles and going to church, actively seeking God. I pray that this will continue to happen and the fire will continue to burn long after we leave Argentina. The stories the other speakers shared were inspirational to know that God is continually working in our lives. I'm going to try and upload all the different videos so if you guys are interested you can watch them.

I hope you are blessed by my message. It's about 17 minutes long. So let it load, make a hot drink, curl up and God bless!

Untitled from Lauren Brooks on Vimeo.

Brasil

In light of our finals for second quarter, we went on our last trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. We left Saturday night from the Villa around 11 pm and set for Buenos Aires. I sat with Ashley and we were about to fall asleep when James and some other people near the middle of the bus decided to have a rap war. Needless to say, there was no sleep on that 6 hour bus ride.

We finally made it to the airport around 4:30 am and waited...and waited. We sat around, talked, played solitaire and I tried paloma jerkey aka pigeon jerkey. I had no intention of trying pigeon meat since I hate those birds, but Jamel and Paul found it quite amusing to force it in my mouth. It was gross. But hey! When in Argentina right?

After about 2 hours of waiting, the check out lines opened. I've never seen so many people in one part of the airport before. We made it to the END of the line on the OTHER side of the airport. Literally, we waited in line for another 2 hours until we got our plane tickets.

We said goodbye to Jonathan Schreven who was going back to Walla Walla for third quarter, and made it through security. We thought we were gonna miss our flight, but we ended up waiting another 2 hours until our plane got in. Got a lot of reading done and learned a couple new vocab words, so I was somewhat productive!

The flight was nice. I sat next to Jamel and Ashley, we all passed out during the flight and almost safely arrived in Rio. I swear the runway was about 10 ft long 'cause as soon as we landed, the pilot put the brakes on HARDCORE. It was a beautiful day and I was excited to finally be in Brasil.

We made it to the hotel and checked in, which also took forever. Our hotel was literally right on the beach. It was beautiful. ACA took us to this buffet, which we pigged out and succumbed to a nap. Chelsea and I roomed together. We had to share a bed and our A/C didn't work for the first couple days.

The first day, ACA took us on a city tour of Rio de Janeiro and then had the rest of the day free. Us girls decided to hit up the beach, where we played in the water and soaked up the sun. We had the next day off so we stayed up all night. The girls went out to the beach with some other ACA people while I stayed in my room and ended up talking to Jamel until 5 am.

We all slept in until about noon then went to find lunch and head back to the beach. We spent the rest of the day at the beach with our guy friends, playing in the ocean and playing volleyball. Watching Paul and Adam frolick around in the sand and the water, was a fun way to end the night on the beach. Chelsea and I went with the guys to this chicken place and ate. It was good. They had the most delicious dessert I've had in a while.

We ended up staying up late that night again talking to people in our room withOUT A/C mind you.

The next morning we got up and made our way to Jesus. It sounds funny, but I don't know how else to put it. In Rio, there is a huge statue of Jesus up on a mountain and we went to see it. We took a train up the mountain. That ride was rather boring. We climbed 220 steps and took pictures for an hour. It was awesome to say that I've been there as well. The train ride down was so much more entertaining. A band got on our train and played music for us. My lovely classmates would yell out names of girls that would dance with the lead singer...I was one of those lucky girls. Why my name was yelled and everyone thought I should dance, I have no idea, but I boggied down for a bit and had some fun. Then Sandra, one of teachers went up..That was entertaining. :)

They took us to a restaurant. Another buffet. It was good, no the chicken was DELICIOUS. Half way through, the lights went out. So after being stuffed full of food, i took a small siesta because we still had half the day. After lunch, they took us to Sugar Loaf, which is a beautiful site. It came with more waiting and by this time we were all ready to just be back in the hotel and chill.

We finally got back to the hotel and were starving so we went to find food. Chelsea, Elisa, Paige and I found Domino's. We chowed that pizza down like non other. I don't think you all realize how much I miss American food. Anyways, once we got back we got a phone call that changed our lives. We were gonna go out on the town and check the night life out. So 10 of us girls, showered and quickly got ready and made our way to this samba club. That was a blast.

We slept in and then checked out around noon. We walked around town to buy stuff for ourselves, families and friends and then headed to the airport. We waited some more and then finally found ourselves on our way back to Argentina. A lot of people stayed in Buenos Aires for spring break so the bus back was quite empty. We finally got back to the la UAP around 6 in the morning.

Brasil is a beautiful country and since my visa doesn't expire for 10 years, I would love to go back and visit it, Lord willing!

Rain + Fun = Mudfights

Sometimes it takes the simple things in life to really appreciate what you miss.

I miss rain. Every day here, it's hot. And not just hot, but blazing hot with little to no clouds in the sky. Pretty much from the moment I wake up until I go to bed.

It's rained a couple times, usually I like to take a nap because it's perfect weather, but today was a different story.

Sabrina, Chelsea, Katie, Elisa and I ran out in the rain. Solely to enjoy the coolness of it. Then we decided to run over to the boys dorm to find William and just hang out in the rain. More people started showing up. We ended up playing freeze tag on one of the courts.

Then we decided to have a mud fight. More like the guys decided to throw mud at us girls and force us into a mud fight. Here are some AFTER pictures.

Needless to say...When in Argentina ;)

Night Job: Killing Deadly Spiders

I was just about to sleep when I heard a knock at my door. I figured if I didn't say anything, they would just go away. I was sleeping in my bra and underwear so I was inappropriately dressed anyway. My door opened anyways and Chelsea popped her head in my room.

"THERE'S A TARANTULA OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR!" She said in her quietest screaming voice.

Well I couldn't just ignore this, because here in Argentina all the bugs are mutant sizes, so I got out of bed, put some clothes on and went to see what she was talking about. Sure enough, there was a spider outside my door by this plant flower decoration thingy. IT WAS HUGE.

Sabrina, Chelsea and Ashley were in the bathroom, hiding from it so I decided to take action. I went into my room and got my camera. So I took a couple pictures so I could put up on FACEBOOK to show my friends and family the monstrosity of animals we have here.

It started crawling towards me so I ran back into my room to find something to kill it with. I found a pair of flip flops I hadn't worn yet and my can of RAID®. (I highly recommend buying this in the summer down here. I might just sleep with it tonight, just in case.) I ran in front of the spider with my can of RAID® and one flip flop, while Sabrina was on the other side of it with the other flip flop. We were going to kill this thing. I glanced over and saw Chelsea and Ashley up on the sink counter waiting for the consequence of our attempt at killing this beast and cheering us on.

"KILL IT!" they softly yelled.

I ran at it with my RAID® and just kept spraying it. Sabrina was ready to squish it. We slowly watched it curl up and die. Now, I sound like a murderous, troubled, young woman finding some pleasure killing this thing--BUT IT WAS HUGE. I mean this kind of spider is one that eats small babies and can bite your toe off. I wasn't about to let that happen!

So we watched it die. I found a pencil and tried to unfold it 'cause I wanted to take a picture of how big it really was. Three girls from CLE (the other learning Spanish program) came out of one of the rooms and wanted to see what was going on. So I proudly showed them what I just killed. Pictures were taken. I found my handy dandy container and put the spider into it. You can see I am quite proud.

We spent the next 10 minutes talking about what had just happened and tried to figure out what kind of spider it is. I still have no idea...I would love to, but paging through page after page of spiders at 2:30 am won't help me sleep any.

So now it's sitting on my desk, all crawly and stuff. I'm going to bring it to my class tomorrow and show everyone. Hopefully, it'll scare my teacher enough she'll have a heart attack and we won't have class. No, seriously that's mean and I would never wish that on anyone. But I really don't want to have class.

Below are pictures that documented the night.

So the fun was over.

Come, Lord Jesus, come soon!

The one thing I hoped never happen did.

One of my close friends here just found out tonight that his father passed away. I found out through Facebook. I was just staring at the computer screen, when Krista came in wondering if I had read his status. We walked down to the other girls' rooms and all sat down in shock. We prayed for him and went our separate ways. While I was praying, I couldn't help but to fight back tears. "This could happen to me." I thought.

It's inevitable. We're all going to die. Not to sound morbid, but it's true. We're not meant to last forever...at least not on this earth. At first, I had a ton of questions running through my head. Why him? Why now?

My heart aches for my friend. I can only imagine what him and his family are going through. While I have never lost anyone close to me, I've known people through the years, losing one parent or even both. I can only cry and pray to God that He will comfort them in this time of need. I am always a problem solver, so I want to do something.

I'm sharing this with you to say this: Don't take for granted the things you have. I don't care if it's family or a hot meal on the table. We aren't promised tomorrow. So live each day like it's your last. Love the ones that are in your life no matter how rude or annoying they are. They're there for a reason.

There are things in my life that I regret. The way that I've treated people mostly. I can never take back the things that I've said or done. I don't want to constantly be living with regret though. I want to live in the moment. Knowing that one day, I'm going to see my Jesus face to face.

I don't want to take things for granted, but I will because I'm human. The people here that might get on my nerves are my family. We've gone through surviving (well not yet completely) a foreign country for a year. That's a bond I'll never have with anyone else.

In the wake of this, I will not blame God for putting my friend through this hard situation. I know that God has a plan for each of our lives. The road isn't easy by any means, but it's to bring glory to His name. I'm still learning and understanding that part. But God is good. That I know. And one day we will all be standing side by side, worshiping our Lord and Maker in Heaven. So as you read this, please keep my friend and his family in your prayers.

Come, Lord Jesus, come soon. I can't wait to see your face.

An Argentinean Birthday

Today, was like any other day. At the strike of midnight, I was bombarded with Facebook messages, friends and family video chatting on Skype, friends coming to my room and wishing me happy birthday and getting invaded by bugs. Needless to say, it was a bit crazy. :P

I didn't go to sleep until about 4 am because I was talking to people back home, wanting to wish me a happy birthday. I finally fell asleep in the hot sticky night and slept until my alarm clock went off. I got up this morning and got ready for church. I knew it was my birthday, but I didn't really feel any different. I woke up with a headache and was debating on whether to even go to breakfast, but I dragged myself out of bed and went to breakfast. Afterwards, I thought about skipping Sabbath school, but I knew that I needed to go because I had studied my lesson. I went back to sleep for about 30 minutes to get rid of my headache, met Rose and found our way in Sabbath School. It was a small group, but we talked about anxiety. It was a good study.

Afterwards, I went back to sleep since I hadn't slept at all. Woke up and went to lunch. We had our usual ravioli and salad and I spent a lot of time talking with friends. It was nice. I hadn't had anything planned for my birthday, but I figured someone had planned something.

Some friends and I watched Lord of the Rings and I fell asleep for about 3 hours. It was a beautiful nap. Just beautiful.

We decided to go out to dinner 'cause I couldn't eat in the cafeteria for my birthday. We walked all around town and nothing was really open. We went to the bowling alley and put a bunch of tables together. There were about 25 of us in total. We got the football game on and sat down eating pizza. Honestly, I couldn't of asked for a better birthday. I got to spend it with a ton of my friends, watched football and just had a lot of fun. PLUS I didn't have to plan anything.

Even though the Seahawks won and the Colts lost, all in all it was a birthday I'll always remember.

Christmas Vacation: Buenos Aires, Argentina

After stopping at the UAP for a couple hours to repack and get ready, Krista and I left for Buenos Aires at 12:00 am. We were prepared to just sleep the whole way there and meet up with her family at the airport around 8 am. It was really hot that day, so both of us were sweating up a storm as we walked to the bus station. I decided to leave my blanket in my room and keep my sweats in my suitcase. Our bus from Rosario had no A/C so I was just prepping for the worst. We got on the bus and found it to be quite refreshing. It was cold and it felt good. I leaned over to Krista telling her that in about 10 minutes, I'd regret leaving my sweats and would be freezing. Soon, I realized how right I was. They kept the A/C blasting the whole time. It was hard to sleep when you feel like you have hypothermia. Needless to say, we didn't sleep at all on the way.

We made it to the bus station and then got a taxi to the airport, which was pretty much on the other side of town. The taxi driver ripped us off, but I just let it go. I was way too tired to argue with him. So we sat and waited for about an hour. Grabbed breakfast and waited some more. They finally came and we got two taxis to take us to their apartment. I was so tired, I fell asleep during that ride. When we arrived at the apartment, I was blown away at how beautiful it was. It wasn't in the nicest part of town, but it was still beautiful. It was Christmas Eve, but it definitely feel like it at all. We were all tired from traveling so we all slept. I slept until 2 something in the afternoon. It was a beautiful sleep.

We made dinner that night: Haystacks. We had a couple missing components, like Fritos (used Doritos instead), black beans (we used some strange white beans) and SALSA, of course, because here in Argentina you don't eat salsa. But it was nice to have a tasty home-cooked meal. We sat around and talked until about midnight and then the fireworks went off. And by that, I mean real fireworks...until 2 am.

Sabbath just so happened to be on Christmas Day. We slept in a little bit and went to church. The pews were seriously the most comfy pews I've ever sat in. It was nice to be at a church. It was small and I definitely feel out of place, but I got the gist of what the sermon was about. We walked back to the apartment and had lunch and slept some more. Christmas was nice to be with people, but honestly it was really hard being with someone else's family. That night we went out to this cafe since the internet didn't work at the apartment. We ordered pizza and it seriously was the best pizza I've had while being here. We stayed there for awhile then went back to watch White Christmas. We were all so tired we couldn't watch it all, so we went to bed.

In the morning, we got up and went back to the airport to meet up with my family. I was excited, but still super tired from traveling and not sleeping. We got to our apartment and chilled until the afternoon. I decided to take everyone to the places I had visited in Buenos Aires before when I was with ACA minus the gaucho place.

Every day we would meet up with Krista's family and go around Buenos Aires. It was fun having a big group of two families going around the town. I was dubbed as the translator of the group. It was a bit frustrating to be the only one that spoke Spanish (along with Krista). But I was able to use a lot of my Spanish so that's good.

New Years Eve was spent with our families and Maddie and Rose. We had dinner at Krista's place and caught up with Rose and Maddie on their trip down to the South of South America. It was fun and we talked until about 10:30 pm. Rose and Maddie left to meet up with their group. Our families talked some more until it was about time for the countdown. Stefan and I walked down to the Oblisco and meet up with Maddie and Rose. We counted down to the New Year and watched fireworks go off. It was cool to be in a different country and see how they celebrate.

New Years Day was Sabbath, so we found another church to go to in Palermo. The pews weren't as comfy, but I understood more of the sermon. One pastor from the UAP came and translated for my mom and dad since they didn't understand. We tried going to that Rose garden, but it was closed. We spent the rest of the day sleeping. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and had a wonderful meal. Stefan and I went back to apartment and watched Despicable Me. I FINALLY got to watch it and it was hilarious. It was a perfect way to ring in the New Year.

I woke up this morning ready to get back to school. So now I'm back and ready to get into the swing of things. So here's to 2011.