Classes, adventures, and Argentina

So it's been awhile since i wrote my last blog but it's just been crazy here. I started classes a week ago. We have one spanish class, 5 hrs a day. We had to take a placement exam and were placed into either basic, intermediate 1 or 2, or advanced spanish. I was placed into intermediate 1 and at first I was ok with that. I knew I could have done better on the test to place higher, but that seems to be the story of my life. However I'm only a 1 1/2 weeks into the class and it's terrible. Well i don't want to say that because that's just too negative. But it's slow and repetitive. All we have studied is Present, and two past tense forms. And for those who don't know. We learned those my second year in spanish. So a nice quick review is all that is needed. My only concern is to get up to par by march so i can take my real classes in spanish. So i'm going to have to stick it out and practice on my own. But one great thing is that we have maybe 30 min of homework a night. I don't remember the last time I had this little of hw. It's Great!!!

But besides school I have made a bunch of new friends from all over the country. One girl grew up in France, moved to Washington DC when she was 13, and now goes to school in Canada. I've been out a few times to the bars and boliches (clubs) and they are a lot of fun. Friday night i went out with a bunch of friends to a bar and we talked until 2:30am. Then I was planning on going home because I had to leave at 8 for a group trip. But my roommate and I had talked earlier and even though we were going out seperatly we wanted to meet up by the end of the night and take a taxi home. So I got ahold of her and she said she was going to crobar, one of the biggest clubs in Buenos Aires. Coincidently my group was as well. So I decided what the heck, it'll be fun! We arrive and there's a 50 pesos cover fee. I was kind of hesitant because that was my taxi money home but I figured i'd meet up with molly and be able to split a taxi home. But as I walked in I realized it would be practicly impossible to find her. There were two full floors of dancers, with a VIP section and a crazy strobe light. I ended up sticking around until 4:30am, with no luck in finding molly. Luckily I ran into a friend from class and he loaned me money to get home. I had no idea how far away i was and how much money i needed. But that's what adventures are all about right? So I finally get home and alseep by 5:00am...

That sat morning I needed to be at the train station at 8:45. The ISA group was going to El Tigre. Which is a river town. Basically the only way to get to your place is by taking a ferry. Anyway Molly and I were planning on leaving at 8:20. But I was so tired I slept straight through my alarm. Lukily I woke up around 8 otherwise we wouldn't have made it. I woke molly up twice before going out to get coins for the bus. And both times she fell back asleep. So when I went out I bought her coffee and when i walked into her room, I'd never seen someone get out of bed so fast. She apparently came home at 6:00am and found out later she never was at the club in the first place. We made it to the train station in time, met up with our group and then took an hour train ride to el tigre. To get to our destination we had to take a taxi ferry, that took us up and down the river and then eventually to our almost deserted beach. Here are some pictures:

This was friday night

El Tigre is very famous for rowing. There must have been 50+ wooden boats along the water. The bigger boat behind was full of food, water and soda. The boat would bring groceries straight to the docks along the water. 

And this was the beach we got to lounge around on all day. 

We spent the entire day on the beach just hanging out, eating, drinking smoothies and laying in the sun. And even though it was a lot of fun, I really had a difficult time just sitting and doing nothing. I'm just not that type of girl who wants to sunbathe all day. I was ready to play some soccer or go expore the woods behind us. There were also a lot of boats on the water towing intertubs and water skies. But it was a successful day because I did not get burnt at all!

I was so tired from the night before that there was no way I could go out. I went to bed early and slept a whole 11 hrs. The next day Pilar, my host mom, took us to the pool with her kids. It was a lot of fun playing and goofying around with the kids. The rest of the week was just school nothing too exciting. But on wednesday a group of us went to the ecological reserve. It's about 850 acres of low land right by the city. And if you look one way you can totally forget that you are even near a city. But as soon as you turn around the 20 story buildings quickly remind you. It was a lot of fun though. We walked about 3 miles through the trees seeing all sorts of birds, lizzards, and wild dogs. My favorite were the parrots. (say sarcastically) However the great thing about this adventure is that the path was covered in gravel, but big gravel. (I don't know how else to explain it). But basically large enough for me to step on and roll me ankle. So I rolled my ankle once no big deal. But then at the end we decided to take a short cut through an already beaten down path. However to get down to the field we had to slide down a hill. Normally no big deal, but it was just steap enough that is was difficult to walk down unless you did it at a little run. So that's what I did. But when I got to the bottom, I stepped on rock and rolled my other ankle. But this time I face planted. So when i woke up the next morning, I had two slightly swollen ankles, and two bruised and scrapped up shins/knees. The sad thing was that it wasn't even a great story to tell when everyone was freaking out in class. Oh well.

I woke up to thunderstorms and pouring rain this morning. It was great. First time i'd seen rain, and I mean real rain in a long time.

This weekend should be fun too. We are going to Mar del Plata, basically a beach town. We are leaving tonight at 1:30am and taking a bus (with beds) there. There are 6 of us in our group. But then there are a bunch of other kids going was well that we know from class. We are staying in a hostel right on the beach and then coming home late sunday night. Will be a fun adventure