What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Long time since the last post. I need to be a better blogger. I have mainly been putting it off because I know that I am going to have to allot a significant amount of time to writing about the whole Semana Santa 2k6 adventure.

Oh where to begin, where to begin. I guess there is only one place to start. The beginning!

Thursday

• School all day, packing, showering. Around 5 Mia came over and we went and bought sandwiches and snacks to take on the bus. Obvi she helped me finish packing bc we all know I am a terrible packer. (As it turns out, we both are and we brought ALL the wrong stuff. Who knew that the weather would decide to change from a warm 80 degrees to a frigid 50 degrees, um not Weatherbug thats for sure)
• So our bus left at 9:10 so we decided to leave for the bus station around 8 to get there on time. Well first of all, the Subway workers were on strike so the ENTIRE city was in traffic to the max. Bus lines two blocks long and not a cab to be found. Well actually there were cabs but all of them refused to go to Retiro (the bus station) becasue of all the traffic. Appereantly the entire population of BA was going out of town for Semana Santa.
• So, we WALKED pulling our cute matching rolling luggage behind us down the streets of BA. About 4 block from my house we joined a group of about 150 that was traveling in the same direction. Once at the bus station we realized that ALL the buses were late. We found some IES kids who were headed to Mendoza too and hung out with them for a while before venturing to our platform. There we found another IES kid who was on our same bus line but on a bus 10 minutes later. We shared empanadas and huddled together with the rest of the city. Our bus was only like 1.5 hrs late. Not too bad.
• The bus, Andesmar, TOTALLY worth the wait. It was like flying first class...big leather seats. First thing we did, just guess. No we didnt get peanuts...we played BINGO! Honestly folks I am not making this up! I wonder if they play bingo in first class on airplanes? Hmm. Food for thought I guess. The person who won got a bottle of wine. I didnt win, obvi, I never win! We were served dinner and were real glad that we brought our own sandwiches. After that we watched Ocean's 12 on flat screen TVs and fell asleep almost thinking we were in a first world country...Almost

Friday

• Woke up on the bus way too early. Breakfast. Maná music videos. Greeeeat. Oh well we were in Mendoza and thats all that mattered. About 10:30 we got off the bus and Mia and I were off to our first Hostel adventure. We successfully retrieved our baggage and got a taxi. Got in the taxi and wait...Wincas hostel...oh wait you dont know it? Whats the address? We dont know. Shoot. Maybe we weren't as prepared as we had thought.

Semana Santa

Homework sucks, even in Argentina I have a hard time finding motivation to do it. I don't have that much and it isn't that hard. Maybe thats where my lack of motivation comes from.

This week is short. Only M,T,W then we have off for Semana Santa aka Easter. Mia and I are leaving Wednesday to go to Mendoza. It is like the Napa Valley of Argentina. Lots of vineyards, mountains, etc. I am pretty pumped up! We leave at like 9 something Wed night and get there at like 10 something Thursday morning. We are taking a bus...it should be interesting. We are staying at a hostel that we foudn online. Our first hostel experience! Hopefully it turns out to be a good one. The cool part of it is that we are doing the whole thing in a package. We have this itenerary of visiting Bodegas, mountain "adventures" and lots of cool stuff. Hopefully it will be as cool as it sounds.

Today Mia and I went to see Casanova. I LOVE that movie! So funny/witty/romantic. I think I just like going to movies here. It takes me back to America. Speaking of, they are filimgin something outside my house. I dont know what, a commercial maybe, but it is an american company. Something with a dry cleaners. Who knows!?

So its 9:45 and we havent eaten dinner yet. I know Argentines eat late and I am actually pretty used to it but 10:00...come on! I'm about to eat my fist. I keep on goign to get water from the kitchen but I don't think shes getting the hint...hmmm.

Okay well maybe I'll post more later...

Time seems to fly by during the week but the weekends pass by so slowly. Probably because I am not used to having three day weekends every weekend. School right now isn't very interesting. There are two classes that I enjoy, but even in those I feel like we are just reviewing. My spanish class is a joke. Hopefully we will move to something more challenging soon. Some people like easy classes but for me they are just too boring!

Yesterday (Saturday) Mia and I went walking up and down Santa Fe. Santa Fe is like a huge street with lots of shopping and restaurants and stuff. Mia got an awesome leather purse that was like stamped leather, which is like so hot right now here. I can totally see it becoming a trend in the US. It is so cute! Also, we walked into EVERY sunglass place on Santa Fe probably about 10. We would go in each one and try on all the designer sunglasses like Chanel, Versache, Prada, etc. It was really fun! They are all "on sale" because it is the end of summer here. On sale is pretty relative because they are so expensive in the first place! I think someday I want a pair of Chanel sunglasses. I am not one for designer clothes or shoes or anything because the styles change so much and clothes don't always fit. But sunglasses are so classic. I decided if I were going to own one designer thing it would be Chanel sunglasses. Maybe someday!

In the afternoon Mia and I met up with Sean for a cup of cafe. Sean was hungry so he wanted to eat so we ended up goign to McDonalds. Inside each McyDees they have something called a "McCafe" which is like the front part and it is really nice and kinda looks like a starbucks. They serve high end deserts and tarts like Tiramisu and then nice coffees. I got a Cappachino Mocha which I would never think would be good from McDonalds, but it was really amazing! Mia and I took pics of the McCafe, check out webshots to see them.

Also, I dont think I have posted about my new technological toy. Its called the Slingbox and it makes it so I can watch TV from home on my computer here! My parents bougth a box and hooked it up to our cable so now I can watch TV here! It really is amazing. I am so lucky to have great parents who want to make me more comfortable here. It is nice too because I like to fall asleep to noise and i have already exhausted all the friends dvds that i brought. Tonight I will get my first weekend of Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. I am sooo excited!

This week my goal is to get out postcards to all my friends and family. I just haven't been able to find any that I love yet. But like I said, its my goal to find some!

I put some pics too that I took this week at Plaza San Martin. The Queen of Holland and the princesses were in town and I went to go see them lay flowers on the monument. It was SO cool! There were probably 100 horses making a fence around the red carpeted area. There were snipers on top of the buildings keeping guard. It was crazy! The queen and the princess wore big hats. They gave her a key to the city and it was overall pretty neat. I decided if I were royal I would wear big hats too.

Hope all is well in the US! I am sad to be missing spring but it is nice here because it is starting to be fall. It is really pretty.