Shabbat Shalom

I feel much better today. I just got back from lunch with Carly. Love her. 7 days until Buenos Aires.

Now I'm going on a pre-shabbat walk with Dana and Rachel on La Rambla (the path that goes along the water). After, we'll go to hillel for a bit and I'll try to mail my postcards.

:(

Estoy enferma. Voy a la escuela manana? No se.

Tarde Libre

(The title roughly translates to "free afternoon")

And a free afternoon is exactly what I had. Now that I only intern two days a week, I have to afternoons free to do as I like. I decided today to go to the mall and buy the coat i've been coveting (in my defense, i actually needed it). I attempted to converse with the employees, but not so much.

My spanish is improving a bit, but I still have a ways to go. Plus, Uruguayans have put a crazy sh/zh accent on a bunch of words, so that isn't helping. Otherwise, I feel like i've finally settled in. I went to a little market with my friends after lunch today that was right near our hotel, and it had a lot of good food. Also, our hotel is in a good neighborhood and there are lots of stores and cafes nearby (and a mall). We're also located about 4 blocks in from the coast, and there is a really pretty walkway that I walked on this past weekend.

Speaking of weekend, I don't understand how youngin's in Uruguay survive. Friday night, after dinner (which ended at 1 am), we decided to go out to a bar. We stayed out until 4 am, which isn't awful, but we had already planned to go out the next night. Saturday night, I set a goal to stay out until sunrise, because that's how the locals do. We went out at about 11:30 pm, but the first bar we tried was too crowded. Instead, we went to the bar/club we were planning on doing to afterward. It wasn't as crowded, but nobody was dancing. Finally, when we heard a song we know, los americanas decided to dance. We got some weird looks at first, but then the Uruguayans joined in. I went outside for a minute with one of my friends, and when I came back inside the club, it was so crowded that I literally could not move. At this point, our group decided that we wanted to leave (3ish am). Some people went home, but the rest of us went out to a second club. I thought it was a salsa club, but we heard everything from Daddy Yankee to the Beatles. Random shit. Anyway, dancing was fun, and we met up with some of our Uruguayan friends, but there were also A TON of creepy latin men. Eventually, we gave up on the club, and took cars/taxis back to our hotel. At this point it was about 6 am, so we had 90 minutes to wait until the hotel started serving breakfast. We all went to macdonald's for about an hour (side note- McDonald's are really nice and fancy in uruguay) and some people fell asleep on the couches. At 7, those of us that were staying at the hotel returned. and the rest went to their homes. We put on our pajamas, ate breakfast, and then went to sleep at 8am.

Sunday night, there was a party to commemorate Hillel's 85th birthday. There was a Rolling Stone's cover band and cake (random, but fun). Again, los americanas were the only one's dancing to the music, but whatever.

That's all for now.

The picture is from my walk along La Rambla (the walkway along the coast). It was the first graffiti I saw that I understood

Feliz Viernes!

I finally found a minute to usar mi computadora (every other opportunity has been after midnight, and there's constantly people in my room talking until the wee hours). It has been a crazy busy week.

Uruguay is not what anyone was expecting. First of all, none of us actually believed that it was winter (i.e. cold), but it is. Thankfully, the girls have already started a jacket/scarf/boot swap so we don't wear the same stuff every day (I'm wearing my roommate's boots right now). Also, their food isn't spicy at all. Apparently, Uruguayans think putting pepper on their food is adventurous. That being said, the food is GOOD. Every night we get dinner at Hillel (free), and they have stuff like lentil soup and quiche. Very different than what I have at home. I tried empenadas today for the first time. I got two- one was vegetable chop suey (a less PC way to say asian stir-fry) and chicken chop suey. They tasted like mu-shu.

Speaking of different, last night most of our group went to see an opera. It had really pretty sets and stuff, but the singing was in Italian, and the Subtitles were in spanish. I could sort of piece together what was going on. Luckily someone wikipedia'd the plot first.

I'm learning a lot in my spanish class since the teachers don't let us speak english. I still can't hold an intelligible conversation with a native, but hopefully 20 hours of class per week will start to pay off.

This afternoon is my first free afternoon. Every day before that I've been going to the a clothing factory for my internship, (but from now on I'll only go Tuesdays and THursdays).

In case I don't update again, here is my near-future itinerary: THis afternoon, me and one other girl are probably going to the mall and possibly the sauna. TOnight is services, and then we are going to eat dinner with families (ps- dinner is at 9 or 10 pm here). Tomorrow is "girls day"--sauna and nail painting. There will be a guy there too, but it's okay because we all love him. At night, we're going dancing and drinking with Hillel kids. Should be exciting. We've been meaning to go out all week (in Uruguay, night life STARTS at 2), but we all crash before. Sunday, we're going to an outdoor market and then at night there's a concert at Hillel in honor of their 85th anniversary (A rolling stones cover band).

Sorry this entry is so all over the place, but I'm trying to get a lot of info out before I forget. Hopefully I'll be able to update soon, but who knows...


Adios

Tonight

My flight is at 2 am, so I have to be at the airport my midnight. I didn't think airports had outgoing flights after midnight.
Maybe there are no rules in El Salvador.

Ondele

Mostly packed, thanks to fancy folding and space bags.
Now I just have to get there.

I wish the sun was out today.

Houston, we have a problem

My attempt at 35 days of style...




My guess is that this isn't all going to fit. I have some editing to do

Revamped

Now that the class I created this blog for is over, I've decided to convert this bloggy into a travel blog. My laptop is coming on my trip with me, so I can update when I have free time.

Right now I'm still in the early packing phase, which means I am generally annoyed. I don't know how hot/cold it will be or what I'm going to want to wear in 5 weeks. PLUS, there's no way I'm going to get everything I want to bring into whichever poor innocent suitcase I elect to torture.

I think my horrible packing abilities stem from a past trauma. In 6th grade, when I went on my outdoor ed trip, I only brought the oldest, shittiest, flannel-est (not a word) clothes I owned because the weather in the mountains was (supposedly) cold, and my mom didn't want me to mess up nice clothes. It ended up being 80 degrees, and everyone else brought way nicer clothes. In 6th grade, things like that are a big deal. So now I must cope with my habitual over-packing/travel-slob-phobia.

I planned to brush up on my espanol after finals but before the trip, but I've been either at work or not in the mood. I'm crossing my fingers that my brain is spongy enough to learn (re-learn) fast. I would study now, but Conan is on with Tom Hanks, so that's non-negotiable.

Cuatro dias