update!

Ummm so it's still hot here in Texas.  As far as new stuff going on, well, it's 103F today, that's a bit better than yesterday's high of 107.  That's about the extent of excitement in my life right now.  Things might really start to get crazy if it goes below the 100 mark.  But let's pray to God that never happens!

Home, Sweet Texas.

I'm home now and it's ridiculously hot here. 108 degrees hot. So far I've had Mexican food, Chinese food, normal milk, real orange juice - with pulp, Ben and Jerry's, and root beer.  And there's still more to come.  I am going to be so fat so soon.

I've also begun job hunting.  It is such a long and tedious process, but hopefully it will pay off!

On another note, I got to spend 2 hours with Erin Stewart today on her BIRTHDAY! yay! What a great day already :)  mmmmm S Korea is so lucky.

...and I hope Dan Dekay is jealous.

The last few weeks

Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile, I’ve just been really busy since school’s been over. NOT.  I actually didn’t do anything really until Lauren got here.  Eat, sleep, walk to the store to buy more food, watch some Copa America, etc.  Going shopping with Paz and Romi was a good break from being a vegetable, and it was nice to hang out with them without having to worry about getting up for school the next day.  I also got to witness a FIRST EVER Starbucks tasting because Romi had never tried it before. BLASPHEMY!

The new artist in residence, Alice, got here on Friday so we showed her around a bit.  She went to capital with Facu and me that night to meet some people.  As we waited for the bus at the stop some rando came up to us and asked politely if we could “give him all of our belongings.”  And of course he said it in Spanish so Alice and I didn’t know that he was trying to mug us.  Especially since he couldn’t make eye contact with us, had a grocery bag in his hand, and couldn’t decide if he wanted to keep his gun out or not.  He kind of half heartedly touched Alice’s purse strap and she was so confused that she thought he was trying to tell her there was something on her back.  And when Facu saw the gun, he told him in Spanish “Ok, wait. We will give you what you want,” but the guy just turned around and walked away.  Slowly.  What a weirdo.  Piss poor effort on his part if I may say so.   We were so confused when the bus came that we just walked on like nothing had happened.  Welcome to Argentina Alice!

Lauren Lynn got here on Tuesday; so her, Alice, and I did all of the touristy stuff in Buenos Aires this week. Woo!  Wednesday was “friend day” here in Argentina which is kind of like mother’s day or father’s day, but for your friends.  Everyone gets together with their friends and has dinner.  Isn’t that cute? So naturally, since the 3 of us were on our own, we decided to buy some friendship bracelets and do friend things together and then meet up with the boys afterwards.  Our own little wolf pack.

We spent the rest of the time going out…way too much - and sight-seeing too I guess.  And then, as a last hurrah, we went to La Bomba del Tiempo on Monday night.  If only we had known Lauren’s flight on Tuesday would be cancelled.  I just can’t seem to get rid of her! Haha no just kidding I’m really glad she came.  I had so much fun this past week, it’s going to make it hard to leave on Thursday.  I guess we’ll both just have to continue the fun in Dallas.

I’ll put pictures up later.

Stateside on Friday. 

Travel Photos

I just updated the travel photos slideshow.  Check it out!

El Gripe

So school finally finished on Friday and what better way to celebrate than getting the flu!  Woo!  Everyone is getting it too.  I know at least 4 people besides me who had it this week and 4 other people who "weren't feeling well." Everyone's just spreading the love I guess.

But since it was the last day I mustered up some afternoon strength and went to say goodbye to the kids.  They gave Jeff and me a mug each with the St. George's logo on it.  And then lots of hugs and cheek kisses!  Good thing that's allowed in this country otherwise I would have some very concerned parents to deal with.  They kids were really cute though: "Miss, do you like it here? Why are you leaving?" I felt like such a traitor telling them I was going back to the States.

I also remembered that rumor I had forgotten like 4 posts ago.  For some reason everyone at the school thinks I'm technologically gifted.  I would just be walking through the hallway and someone would come up with a random question: "My computer's frozen.  Can you fix it?" Umm I'll give it a look, I guess.  And me, being so technologically savvy just held the power button till the computer turned off and then turned it back on. GENIUS!  I guess I should be flattered, but I just don't quite get it.   It might just be because I'm a little younger than them and they think I'm obligated to know something, but still, who started this rumor? I'm awful with computers, so it's good that most of the stuff was pretty basic.  Here are some of my frequently asked questions:

"Do you know how to move the pictures from the camera to the computer?"
"Do you know how to put a power point onto a CD?"
"Can you make a folder appear on the main screen?"
"Why won't it let me save this?"
"How do you look at the power point from a different view?"
"How do you open this?"

It's like talking to my mom at home ;)  I love you mom.

Anyway, I have approximately 20 days till I'm stepping on free soil. Hot, humid, sticky soil. In the meantime, Lauren Lynn get's here in 10 days so that will be fun. I would like to travel a bit, but we'll see.  Jeff and Sam are going to Brazil which I can't go to because I don't have a visa.  They require one for Americans because we require one for them.  Fair enough.  Can't get angry about that.  It's just that on their government's website they seem very, very bitter about it.  Here's a few snippets from their tourist visa page:

U.S. citizens traveling to Brazil are required to obtain a visa prior to entering Brazil.   This requirement is in reciprocity to the U.S. government demand that all Brazilian citizens hold a visa in order to enter the United States. Citizens of countries that do not demand visas from Brazilian nationals usually do not need visas to enter Brazil.

5. U.S. citizens must pay a non-refundable $140.00 reciprocity fee (as of June 2010).
(This is because the U.S. government charges Brazilian citizens who apply for a U.S. visa a minimum of 2 mandatory fees).
Payment is done at the Consulate on the appointment day.
Cash, personal checks and credit cards are not accepted for the payment of the $140.00 reciprocity fee.

7. All consular fees must be paid in U. S. Postal Service money order made to the Consulate General of Brazil

Thanks for the shout-out Brazil.  Also, I'm not sure if we make it extremely difficult for other countries to pay for their visas, but only accepting a U.S. Postal Service money order seems very picky.  Very, very picky. Especially since the only way to obtain one is to go to a USPS office and hand them a wad of cash.  Who still uses money orders anymore?  Well, besides my dad. So pretty much, if you are currently not in the USA and you are not my dad, then you do not stand a chance of paying for your visa.  I guess I'll just have to postpone visiting my friends until later.   I will make it someday!  I still love you Brazil!

I'll let you know if I figure out any travel plans soon!

Iguazu Falls!

This past weekend I flew with Peggy to the North of Argentina to Iguazu Falls.  We almost didn’t make it because of the Ash cloud from the volcano in Chile.  But after an hour or so delay we were able to take off and fly north.  Take that volcano!

The waterfalls are located on the border of Brazil and Argentina.  Paraguay is also very close.  Unfortunately I couldn’t go to the Brazilian side of the falls because they require a visa for Americans.  But it worked out fine because the Argentine side is better since you can go below the falls, on top of the falls, and get a pretty good long shot of them as well.  Wow.  That’s all I can really say.  They were amazing.  Much different from Niagra where you only really need to spend an afternoon looking at the falls.  We spent two days walking around the area and we still didn’t do everything! 

It was cold and it rained a lot, but only after we had already left the park for the day.  And the hostel we stayed out was pretty nice because it wasn’t very crowded because of the weather.  So it worked out perfectly for us. 

La Garganta del Diablo

La Garganta del Diablo (The Devil’s Throat) was ridiculous.  It’s the main waterfall and I can’t even begin to describe the amount of water the flows over it.  It was one of those moments where you just look at it and are speechless.  Un montón de agua! So much water!  It really makes you sit back and realize how miniscule we really are in the grand scheme of things. Here's a video of it, but it still doesn't quite capture it.

The other falls were breathtaking as well.  There was so much green everywhere!  We saw monkeys, birds, etc.  There were also these other animals called coatís that would come to the area where all the tourists were and try and steal their food.  It was funny to watch.

Afterwards we almost didn’t make it back to Buenos Aires because the bus didn’t come when we thought it would.  And when we tried to order a taxi there weren’t any because it was a local election day.  Luckily, we managed to convince the only available taxi to bring us to the airport and were able to make it back.

Earlier in the week though I was surprised to hear that Katherine Lagow was in Baires.  So I met up with her at Jackie's art exhibition and we went to get some dinner afterwards.  It was good to finally see Jackie's photos!  She does pinhole photography and then printed them on metal sheets or drew them for display.  They were awesome!

The artist and her work!

Now there are only two weeks left of school.  And I’m spending this week at the North campus to help out a bit with the kindergarten.  It’s a bit of an inconvenience getting up early for the hour commute, but oh well, I can get over an inconvenience for one week.  I’ll let you know how it works out!  Here are some more pictures from Iguazu: 

La Selva

Giant mate!

a secluded fall

Rainbow

Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Hydra

The school’s Hercules play was this week.  It involved grades 1^st-3^rd as well as Jeff, Peggy, and me who were asked to help play some of evil roles.  Mwahaha.  I was the Hydra and the Ice Titan.  I died a lot.  But if was fun.  I’ve never been part of a play before so it was a good first…next stop Hollywood! 

Jeff was Nessus and the Cyclops and had some rather daunting lines to remember like “step aside two legs!”  Peggy got to play the Fire Titan and join me in having little kids stab her with light up swords.  We all enjoyed it though. 

Titans

The kids were pretty funny. They would forget they had microphones on and be like “your turn!” or say something completely inappropriate like “I just farted” in Spanish.  And then when they saw Jeff, Peggy, and me they would start talking to us backstage when they were supposed to be really quite.  Or they would leave the stage in the middle of the play to ask their teacher a question.  So cute at that age.  I have a good video of the 1^st graders dancing to Kool & the Gang.  This one kid at the end has some pretty good moves.***The server is rejecting the video I have, here is a shorter one that's not quite as good though.

So, besides some short attention spans and a few curtain mishaps, it went very well.  The costumes were awesome.  Facu’s mom did most of them and some of the face painting.  The art teacher made the Hydra costume which looked very scary!  

Us with Hades, a muse, and Hermes

Cylcops and Fire Titan

Yesterday a few of us went to see La Fuerza Bruta which is this really cool music and acrobatic show.  I don't really know how else to explain it, except that it's very surreal.  The things they do are like things you might dream about, it's very strange but very cool.  They're from Argentina but travel around the world apparently.  So that was quite fun to watch.  Now I'm just waiting to head to Iguazu and then for Lauren Lynn to come visit :)  And until then, I have just got to figure out what I am going to do this fall as far as jobs and traveling.  Job hunting can be stressful, especially when you're hunting on two different continents.  And I really want to get over to Europe but it depends on a lot of different things.  I'll keep you posted!