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.

Omnibuses and Schedules

For Christmas vacation, my friends and I traveled pretty much all over Argentina. I’ve been to Patagonia region, the mountains of Chile and back to the Pampa of Argentina. One thing I have found is that no matter the plans that you make, they’re probably not gonna go according to planned.

This Christmas vacation, we had planned all the buses out that we were going to take. I think only 2 actually worked out. The others we had to improvise, which worked, but threw our schedule off just a couple hours each day.

I learned to be flexible with the people I travel with. I’m a natural born leader. It kinda comes with being a first-born. But this trip, I just had to take the reigns. It was frustrating at times because I didn’t want to lead. I just wanted to chill and have someone else make the decision as to what we were doing. I think I upset some people. Sometimes I wasn’t the nicest, but that kinda comes with the job.

Overall, it was a good vacation. I’m finding that I really enjoy Argentina. Even though the food is really different and I’m still getting used to it, it was so much better than Chile. I even still really like the Villa. Even though it’s in the middle of nowhere and there’s not a whole lot to do, I find that I enjoy the simplicity of it all. I feel my mind is most creative because I have to entertain myself.

I’m here in Buenos Aires at the airport waiting for Krista’s family to arrive. Mine comes in two days. I have to say that I’m super excited to see them. I’m super blessed to be able to spend some time with them in “my” country. I want them to see what I’ve accomplished so far and what the culture is that I’m living in for these next 4-5 months. It’ll be hard to say goodbye, but I’m excited for what’s to come.

So as the end of this month wraps up and a new year begins, I just want to thank everyone for their support and friendship. It literally has meant the world to me even though we’re on different continents. Being down here has taught me to be grateful for everything that I have. Yesterday, we were sitting in a McDonalds in Rosario waiting for our bus for a couple hours and there were little boys handing out cards. These little boys were so dirty and looked so helpless, but I knew that I couldn’t do anything. It’s sad to say that there are so many people in this world who have little to nothing and yet they are some of the happiest people in the world. I have encountered some of those people, I live with some of those people. Argentina is a different world. Yes, I miss the United States, but I know that I’m down here to learn so much more about myself and the potential that I have. It’s rough at times and I just wish that I could be home, but I’m so thankful to be here and to be around the people I am.

You hear it many times about not taking things for granted, but seriously: Don’t take anything you have for granted because one day when you don’t have it, you’ll realize all that you’re missing.