mondays, mondays, mondays

this morning came super early especially since i couldnt fall asleep till like 4:30 last night (NO BUENO). for some reason, i just havent been able to sleep through the night this past week. once i finally fell asleep i had a crazy scary dream..wont repeat it on here. so i really didnt feel like walking to rue's house in the dark, so instead i sat on my couch waiting on them to come get me...then when i opened the door to go outside, my dog attacked me and i screamed really loud..like REALLY loud haha and my heart felt like it was gonna come out of my chest for about 5 minutes straight.

we had 2 tests today at school....i made a 100 on both of course. the day flewwww by because with the first teacher, we reviewed the first hour then took the test...then the second teacher we did the same, so school went by muy rapido!! after school, my brother and one of his friends took me and the boys home. after a yummy lunch and siesta, we took a remese to tango. we assumed that my dad told the driver where tango was...but nope haha..but brett is a human mapquest so he knew the general area of where to start heading and meanwhile i was calling everyone in my phone book trying to find out the address. finally my dad called back so i just handed the phone to the taxi driver and he told him where to go...THANK GOD. i guess we really should figure out where everything is...
the taxi driver hated us cause we were so loud the whole way haha...so i gave him a pretty fat tip. it was nice to finally be back to myself and not feel nasty anymore...minus i'm still coughing and blowing a storm out my nose. i seriously dont know how there is anything left in there to blow. i seriously think i could feel up 5 or 6 waters bottles with all my snot from this trip (too far?) but at least i feel good, thats all that matters.

tango was fun, minus the WRITTEN (ridiculous) test that i bombed. but i wrote notes to the tango teacher all over it and my pictures were pretty so hopefully i'll do fine. here's a video of rue dancing with another girl in the class: ENJOY


brett's mom picked us up from tango and we went to the city and met one of her friends there. we went jewelry shopping with them...her friend had a really big wedgie the whole time and it drove me crazy. then we went and got ice cream at my favorite ice cream place and sat around and talked...then came home!!

brett kept bugging his mom while she was on the phone...it was hilarious...this is her yelling at him once she got off haha...this lady is so FUNNY


brett and his madre walking around the city...they love eachother



during dinner, we hear someone at the door and in runs rue out of breath with 4 tylenol pms in his hand for me haha...my mom thinks he deals drugs. so i took 2 and i'm about to hopefully sleep my first full night of the week!!!!! (cross your fingers)

till tomorrow...CHAU

so sorry that it's taken me so long to write on this!! everythings been pretty busy plus i got sick this week and just wasn't feeling up to blogging!
lets see if i can recap..
wednesdayyy:
school as usual! then hannah and i went to mcdonalds which was soo yummmyyyyy! believe it or not, i've been craving it like crazy since we got here haha and it was SO GOOD! they have mcdonalds jeans!! its so weird...all of the employees wear them. it was pretty busy cause everyone just got off from work i guess and were starving...some jerk cut me off in line. like literally i'm holding my order with my money on the counter..he comes up behind me, nudges me out of the way and gives his money to the lady. i couldnt think of how to say 'rude' or 'mean' in spanish so i said 'mal' to him hahaha which means bad... i was standing right next to him while the lady was getting him his change and i stared him down for about 3 minutes straight...about a foot from his face. i made him feel really uncomfortable after that. i ended up getting my food before him though and made sure he saw it haha

then hannah and i went to our favorite ice cream place and got ice creeeaaaaam...then met brett and rue at the restaurant they were at and we all went to havanahs and did homework/skyped/talked till small group at 4:30.

brett and rue on their date (brett's mom actually thinks they're gay..we talk about it all the time)


then at small group we walked around the city...went to some government museum building (really exciting) ...then to the post office (even more exciting)...then went to this cafe on the 10th floor of another building which was so cool!!




we were supposed to find some poster on the street and explain what we thought it meant. most people did like political campaigns or something that had spanish on it to decode. rue's was about some weird argentine lady that was coming to sing on saturday haha


on the sketchy Twilight Zone elevator



thursssdayyy:
school then came home and tried to take a siesta but my stupid headache wouldnt let me! instead i just laid there for 2 hours wanting to bang my head against the wall till it stopped hurting haha buuut everything was made better when i got up and got to skype with my 3 year old nephew charlie!!!!! we talked for a long time and then my sister set the computer up in his room and turned on some music and he danced for me while i got ready for dinner haha it was so freaking cute. i miss him.

then we all went to the casino again (thursday tradition) and went to dinner! my headache got reaaaaally bad at dinner along with sinuses and coughing bla bla bla...not fun! so we came home after dinner and i went straight to bed!

friday:
felt miserable alll dayyy long! i didnt do very much at tango but sit on the floor covered in jackets and watch everyone dance haha....i still had my 3 day headache and felt dizzy and congested and nasty. so my sweet parents picked me up after tango and brought me home! the rest of the group went to have lunch at this lady's house and then to a winery and a museum. i came home and went straight to bed and my parents were coming in and out bringing me medicine/lunch/tea remedies/water.....it was so sweet haha

i didnt get out of bed till the next day around noon....sounds like it would be nice to just lay in bed, but it was so frustrating cause i was sooo tired but my headache was stronger than the meds and kept me awake the whole night! i did get some sleep though which i needed. i was so bummed though cause brett and rue and i were supposed to cook tacos for rue's family tonight! buut i really just did not feel like being around people....so brett and rue did it all by themselves! his dad took some pictures so maybe i can get some of those and put them on here.

THIS WEEKEND!!!!!:
so. much. fun. we went to a spa in the mountains! i got a 30 minute massage on saturday and an hour aromatherapy massage on sunday. there were natural hot springs outside in the middle of the mountains...cant explain to you how AMAZING it was! i never brought my camera down there cause i knew with my luck, it would either get stolen or i would drop it in the water...so i'm gonna steal someone elses pictures once they put them up! it was the most BEAUTIFUL placeee!!!! it was freezing cold outside and we were in hot springs in the middle of the mountains....couldnt ask for much more. there was also mud wraps and a sauna that we just kept circuiting through the whole time....needless to say, it was exactly what i needed after being sick! the sauna and all the steam from the water.. plus the aromatherapy and face rubs in my massage....cleared everything up! haha

now i'm going to bed to start a new week in the morning!
CHAU

San Rafael!

weeeeelll this weekend was a blast! we left saturday morning around 8 and drove to san rafael which was about 2 hours or so away. we stopped at a champagnery and 2 winerys to have a tour...it was the exact same thing at all 3 haha so it got a little monotanous...then finally at around 3 we had lunch at the 3rd winery. it was sooo yummmyyyyyy!!! it was a 3 course meal and we ended up sitting there for a couple hours telling stories...it was hilarious.



trying the champagne


pretending like we know what he's saying


on the patio of the 3rd winery which was also on a golf course



then we headed to our hotel which was really just a bunch of 2 story condos. everyones front doors faced eachothers..it was beaaautiful! pretty much everyone took siestas once we got back to the hotel...then we walked down to the city and went to dinner. it was hysterical walking into a restaurant and asked for a table for 20...apparently only americans do that. i couldnt decide what i wanted so of course i asked the waiter what his favorite was...he told me but i didnt understand what he said sooooo i just said ok bring me that! haha....not realizing that of course it was the most expensive thing on the menu. i'm a dumb american. ha but it was some chicken thing that was really good!

the beatiful view!



carlos!!! our precious taxi driver that loved us


then on sunday, we checked out of the hotel at 10 and drove to our next hotel. It was only like an hour away but we drove through this canyon so it took us about 3 hours...everyone else hated it, but secretly i enjoyed the ride haha.. the canyon was gorgeous!!! i seriously felt like i was in greece. then we finally arrived at the hotel which i swear was straight out of a horror movie. it was in the middle of nowhere in the mountains and we were literally the only people staying in the hotel. not a single other guest....sketchy? the rooms had 3 sets of bunkbeds (really wish i had gotten a picture) and the entire hotel was verrryy dimly lit. we had dinner there which was served by a tiny little boy that didnt speak english and never made eye contact or even responded when we talked to him. he just walked back and forth from the table to the kitchen with his eyes on the ground. eeeeeeeeeeeeerrrryyyyy!!! then we watched 'the sweetest thing' dubbed in spanish in the lobby and we pretty much hung out in the lobby the whole night. we became pretty good friends with the guy at the front desk.
then the next morning, we checked out of that hotel at 10 and headed back to mendoza!

monday was my mom's birthday and so all of the extended family came over that night...including little juanito!! i love that little boy. then i called it an early night! today after school we came home for lunch and i ate 2 burgers and they were sooo goood!! we had to go back up to the school at 5:30 to talk to some exchange students about baylor...so brett's mom said she would take us if we didnt mind running by a winery cause she had to give something to one of her friend's there. aaaaand we ended up getting a personal tour for the 3 of us. none of us know spanish so it was really interesting haha...she thought that brett understood spanish and me and rue didnt so we threw brett to the front and he talked with her the whole time while rue and i followed behind hahaha it was a pretty funny tour though. rue and i had the crazies all day. i think we've had our share of winerys...except the whole program is going to another one on friday haha. all 4 of them have been in spanish though soooo still not exactly sure how wine is made. then brett's mom took us to the bus stop and we rode the bus up to school. joey, i found a picture of you in the office of the school!
theeen after the meeting, we rode the bus home. i tried to ride the entire hour bus ride home without ever holding on....which is literally impossible. i surfed for a good 10 minutes before i almost bit it pretty bad haha the buses are craaaazyyy here. brett was really embarassed by me hahaha and eventually made me grab on. he said i could do it when there werent that many people on the bus...rue and i were cracking up though.

i just ate dinner which included 3 sandwiches which were sooo yummmy and a banana milkshake. 2 burgers for lunch and 3 sandwiches for dinner.....i have got to chill on the eating.
rue and brett are about to come over so we can finish our homework for tomorrow and then hopefully i'll be going to bed early tonight!!
till next time...
CHAU CHAU!

well i had my first casino experience last night! we went to go have sushi at the hyatt...theres a casino in there and so we went to go walk around. i sat down at the blackjack table and decided to put down 20 pesos (which is 2 hands...and only about 6 dollars, so i didnt have much to lose!) i sat there for a long time and ended up coming out with 85 pesos! there was a family from new york that was sitting at the table with us that we became pretty good friends with! the whole table was getting so mad at me because no matter how high my number was, I would always hit...even if i had 18. and 95% of the time, i came out getting blackjack! the dealer was making so much fun of me everytime i did it. i guess it pays to be a risk taker! a couple times, some people would come up behind me and put money on me since i was having such good luck! i remembered the number one rule of gambling though is walk away when you're up...so thats what i did! it's really kind of depressing when you walk around the casino and see people there that are just wasting their lives away. it can become such a sick addiction and it was sad to see people that were in there letting it overtake their lives. it was definitely fun while it lasted though.. and i made some new friends haha



then we were gonna go get some sushi but it was kind of expensive and none of us felt like paying for it so we went to dinner at this italian restaurant that was sooo good! even better because i was eating for free off my winnings haha

today we had class from 9-11 then went to tango! here's some pictures from tango:




this is rue dancing with the girl tango teacher! she is so cute...every guy in the class is obsessed with her




this weekend is a long weekend (no school monday!) so we are going to san rafael in the morning and coming back monday afternoon... i'm so excited! so i'll have a new blog when we get back on monday. until then...
CHAU!

hey chance!!!!

weeeellll yesterday was fun! hannah and i got in trouble at school...we went down to get an empanada during the break and some guys came and asked us to take a survey. it was all in spanish so the whole time we were trying to decode what it said. we were thinking it would only take like 5 minutes...ended up taking 30...it was like 5 or 6 pages long. so we missed some of class. we asked one of the guys to come up with us and tell our teacher that's what we were working on. soooo he did and she like yelled at him. she ended up not being mad at us at all, but she definitely let that boy hear a piece of her mind in spanish haha it was so awkward...hopefully we wont see him again

then after school, we ate lunch downstairs then walked to the zoo! the zoo was so beautiful! everyone was too slow for us, so annie, hannah and i walked off by ourselves the whole time


they made us do a sic em in front of the bear cage haha....this is everyone that went to the zoo (not everyone went)


the cutest bear everrrr!!!!! i wanted to go curl up in its lap


after the zoo, we went into the city (me, hannah, annie, katie, brett, rue and alex) and got some ice cream. we sat outside for probably an hour and a half and talked. then we took the bus home. some blind man came and screamed on the bus for like 10 minutes. really uncomfortable.



walking home from the bus stop...they had to pee really bad


my mom made 'pastelas de papas' for dinner. i think thats what its called....its basically meat and mashed potatoes and egg and miscellaneous things baked together in the oven. SO GOOD



rue modeling for us. my mom and i are going to a pottery class next wednesday, so rue is gonna come be our nude model.


this is a video of the PSYCHO MONKEYS at the zoo. they were babboons, but their butts had like 10 inch warts on them. i think they all had a disease...and pretty sure they were possessed. i didnt get any of the good fights on camera, but they were SCREAMING (honestly sounding like sarah turnipseede) and slapping eachother and wrestling. it was the grossest thing i have ever seen haha...we stood there for like 30 minutes watching them fight.



today was probably the most boring day at school thus far. thursday's teacher is MISERABLY boring. thankfully we only have her 2 more times. i seriously think i would rather sit somewhere and let someone punch me in the face for 4 hours then sit and listen to her speak spanish. haha we were struggling big time. today i wrote a page full of 15 different fonts i made up. and i wrote the whole alphabet in every single font. i'm pretty proud of it.

about to take a LONG siesta!! then we are all going into the city tonight for sushi!!!
CHAU

well these past 2 days have been pretty much same ole, same ole!
yesterday we had class then came home for lunch/siesta, then to tango class! we learnt a new step where we do some cool kick things...maybe ill get a video in one of the next classes so you can see!

tea time!


brett loves mate...



today was one of the days where its the same teacher for the whole 4 hours at school. i was actually losing my mind. i drew a complete cartoon. and i made up my own webdings language...i made a key and wrote notes to people for them to decipher. it was a big hit. then i made a big crossword puzzle with everyone's names connecting. it was actually kind of amazing haha then after class we came home and ate the best lunch ever!!! it was really good milanesa (chicken fried steak) with melted cheese on top with rice and salad. then i took a 2 hour nap. brett and rue came over to go running...and just to prevent me from ignoring them, they came into my room and personally made sure i was awake. so went running around the neighborhood for just like 15 minutes.

brett and rue drawing football plays during class




i like taking pictures in class



then tonight we went to some the Sheltons house who are missionaries in Argentina. they are from the states and their daughter goes to baylor. they ordered pizza for us and we all just sat around and talked about all of the culture differences that we've experienced. it was alot of fun...and afterwards i talked to them about how my grandparents were missionaries here and my mom grew up here. we figured out that Mr. Shelton's parents know my grandparents really well..i think they worked together. and Mrs. Shelton went to Baylor with my uncle. small world!



tomorrow we're going to the zoo after class soooo i should have pictures up hopefully tomorrow night if i have time!
till then...CHAU!

thriller

just got home! this weekend was incredible. we went up to Uspallta which is an area in the mountains. cannot explain to you how beautiful it was...the pictures dont do it any justice.

so we thought we would be riding those little vans out to the mountains like we have been riding, but we pull up to the plaza and theres a big double decker charter bus. the downstairs is full of black leather recliner chairs with a plasma screen tv. and the upstairs was recliner chairs (bus carpet material) with fold out foot rests. and the front row looks out the huge front window. needless to say, it was very easy to sleep the whole way there. it was about a 2 hour ride. so, dr. supplee told us to layer up cause last year they were hiking through 4 feet of snow. so we all had on about 3 or 4 layers of clothes top and bottom....it was about 75 degrees haha... so we all stripped down and hiked for 3 and a half hours. hence my cool outfit. Half way into it, we all popped in our ipods and enjoyed the hike. It was the most relaxing/exuberating feeling hiking through the most beautiful mountains and listening to music. after the hike, we all came back to the hotel and took naps/showers then ate dinner!







view from the bus:











we all stayed up pretty late at the hotel then got up this morning and went to breakfast around 9...then got on the bus at 10 to go on a 30 minute hike and then we went rockclimbing and repelling and ziplining...SO MUCH FUN! then came back to the hotel, ate lunch, took a nap and headed home! none of us wanted to leave!







once we got home, we realized how much homework we had for tomorrow blaaahhhh and so brett and rue and i just finished working on it. actually rue's 13 year old brother did it and we copied haha

sorry this wasn't all that detailed! i'm so tired and worn out and don't feel like typing stories haha but you will hear them eventually i'm sure!

but noooww i am going to bed..buenos noches!!
CHAU

GDEV (tgif in spanish)

weeeell today was fun as usual! fridays are the BEST because we only have class for an hour then go straight to tango...i dont have time to upload the videos from tango right now but i will later! then we came home and ate lunch then took a 2 and a half hour siesta!! amazing. then i woke up and brett and rue are waiting for me in my living room haha...i feel like every time i wake up from siesta, they're in my house. then the 3 of us walked to Las Palmares which is the outdoor shopping center. it's about 3 miles from my house...mas o menos. we went to Freddo's and got some ice cream and coffee and just sat outside and talked for a good hour or so. the weather was PERFECT today. as always, brett got his black coffee, rue got his cafe con leche and i got my litre of ice cream. and as always, brett and rue drank about 1/3 of their coffee till realizing they were drinking eachothers. then we just walked around for i guess another hour or so. i told the boys that speed walking is the best toner for your legs...so we power walked home haha

then i went to rue's house for dinner. his mom made pizza! it was so good...she made cheese pizza and egg pizza haha. egg pizza is basically just the cheese pizza but with hard boiled egg chopped up on top. sounds gross, but it was sooooo good! i officially have a crush on rue's 13 year old brother.

this section of the blog is dedicated to rue's mom...i didnt take any pictures today so i went ahead and took some of rue's room/argentine parents! haha thought you would like to see them

rue's room....he sleeps in the double bed and brett takes naps in the twin bed


rue's shower y bidet


there's a ladder in his room that goes up to an upper level...it's like a little hang out area, and his brother keeps his drumset up there


rue and his padres! they are so sweet


this weekend we're going up to the mountatins and going on a hike, rock climbing and ziplining...we're spending the night there tomorrow night and then coming back sunday night...so more to come!

time for bed... 7 am is gonna come early

CHAU CHAU!

well suprise suprise, julia broke her 2nd camera of the year! haha but dont worry, there will still be pictures...i'm using rues for the rest of the trip since he's never going to use it...and most of my pictures are of him anyways haha aaaand i have insurance, so it should be fine once i get back. i think i'm the reason they invented insurance.

the past 2 days have been pretty busy but sooo fun...we had a city tour at 4:30 so after school yesteray, so we just stayed in the city and wandered around. rue, brett, hannah and i went and got lunch. rue and i thought we were being safe by getting a burger...it was the weirdest thing i have ever seen. i wish i had gotten a picture. it was basically a steak with ham and a fried egg in between 2 really thick tortillas and was about the size of a frisbee. i tried to eat it like a burger...bad idea haha it actually wasnt bad once i took it apart and didnt think of it as a burger. instead, i had a fried egg, a well done steak and a couple tortillas....with lemon juice sprinkled on top. (lemon juice fixes everything here). the ketchup looked like it had already been digested and then repackaged...so i passed on that.

trying to not look like tourists....


then we went to the cutest coffee shop called Havanna and did homework/talked/drank coffee/ate ice cream for a couple hours. theeeeeeen came the 3 1/2 hour city tour that we were all dreading...but it ended up being a blast! they separated us into 4 different groups...2 went yesterday and 2 went today (at the same time).

mom, this is first baptist mendoza. isn't that where yall went?


haha we went to this creepy aquarium....i'll hold my horrific bathroom story, but just know that i had one. this aquarium seriously looked like someones house with a bunch of fish tanks all over it haha so weird. aaaaand i had a really funny video of this tank-sucking fish, but it got erased when i dropped my camera...whoops.

this is jorge, the gigantic sea turtle haha...he's in the tank by himself because he ate everything else that was in it....including the sharks.


at the end of the tour, we stopped at this market and sat at a table with dr. supplee for about an hour and told stories...aaaand it was a blast haha we were all being pretty open...i love that lady. brett and rue were in the other group so they were waiting for me at a restaurant...we were supposed to be done at the same time buuuuut we didnt realize what time it was and i got there about an hour and a half after. so we just ending up calling up everyone and we ate dinner there.

today i was running late for school, so i just grabbed some toast and an apple and stuck a kitchen knife in my bag to cut the apple with cause i dont like biting into apples. and strangely, hannah's mom gave her a bag of fruit to take to class to share with her friends hahahha. sooo i whipped out my kitchen knife and cut fruit for the whole class.

one of the ladies from argentina who is in charge of the program really creeps me out. she kinda talks like Gollum...but in spanish. and she always just appears out of no where... today in class, i looked over and she was in the window hahahaha and then the door on the other side of the room creepily opened by itself. there were like 5 of us in the class that seriously couldnt stop laughing for about 10 minutes...you know when you are somewhere that you really shouldnt be laughing but you actually cant stop? that was me. and then you know when you start laughing and your hand goes weak and you cant write? that was me for about 20 minutes after. it was so weird. so i did some hand therapy for a while and just drew circles to gain my strength back. theeeeeennnn i did some incredible doodlings in class....this was the best of my creations:

i think i'm gonna send it in to pixar...to replace the little lamp


after class, they had lunch for us at the school and then we went to a museum. usually during our breaks at school, we go down to the cafeteria and get empanadas...but none of us did today because we thought the lunch was going to be the incredible 3 course meal they did for us last time. but nope, it was weird little sandwhiches and corn empanadas. woof. we hung out down there for about an hour and a half waiting for the smart kids (level 4 spanish) to get out of class. then we went on the museum tour which was ironicly really fun.



rue explaining the statue to rylie. something about his wife became a lesbian and he's mad so he's going to fight the lady that took her from him


candid pictures are my favorite





hannah and katie


our tour group!! with franco our tour guide hahaha


aaaaand tonight....we're eating TEX MEX!!!!!!! we just found this place called the Taco Bar that has mexican food!!! we've all majorly been craving chips and salsa...and since our lunch was less than satisfying...tonight is the perfect night for it!

till next time...CHAU!