¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

This past weekend was perhaps the most enjoyable of all my weekends here. This was due in large part to the birthday parties we attended this weekend. On Friday night it was the 50th birthday of Isabell´s host father and the family had planned a big surprise party for him. It was a great time. Great food, great wine (oh yes I really enjoyed the wine! :P), great music and great people. It was quite a big party but not crowded, reminded me of wedding dances that we have in Canada except with very different music (much more latino :P). Again this party was like all the others and we did not get home till after 5am.
The following night it was the 24th birthday party of Mauro (the son of Bruna and Ernesto). A lot of fun again but instead of wine there was blessed tequila hehe. I perhaps had a bit more than was necessary and Karl Oskar and Alex like to call me Borrachellita now. Rochellita is normally what they call me but in Spanish the word for drunk is Borracho/a so now I am Borrachellita. hehe. Very funny.
Anyway, I also went to Barriletes on Saturday in between parties. It was really great. They have all these drums so the kids are learning how to play the drums. Very noisy but lots of fun. Sunday was also mother´s day here so with the younger children we made cards for their mother´s. Saturday evening I also went out with Isabell to a heladeria (ice cream shop). There are many heladerias here and the ice cream is very yummy. Isabell always goes to Barriletes and it is a nice time for her and I to relax together after Barriletes.
I don´t think I have a lot else to write. We leave for Buenos Aires in 4 days. I am very excited. Can´t wait to see Olivia and Maja. We have now booked our bus tickets and youth hostel (due to my insistence that we do it early). Apparently I am taking after my mother and like to plan way ahead for trips, hehe, I still am not sure if it this is a good thing or not...
Adios for now.

Other Blogs

I have added a link to Karl Oskar´s blog. He has put many pictures on of the city we are staying in so it is a nice supplement to my blog.

I will try to post a link to Isabell´s blog once I find out the exact address.

Goodnight.

Holiday Here!

Hello All,

Right now it is almost 1:30 in the morning and I am writing from an internet cafe only 2 blocks away from Bruna´s house. It is very nice to live with Karl Oskar because we can just go together at night and take a key. Tomorrow I have to work at Barriletes in the morning but I thought I would write one more post on my blog before going to bed.

Yesterday was quite a nice day. It was a holiday in Argentina, I don´t even know why, but that meant that Barriletes was closed and my Spanish class was cancelled. Instead, I slept in quite late and Isabell, Karl Oskar and I met a local named Santiago down by the river. We wanted to go kayaking but apparently you need to take a month long course and be certified to use the kayaks. Isabell of course is completely certified since she taught kayaking all summer in Norway but she didn´t have any of the papers here. Karl Oskar also knows how to kayak quite well since he taught it to the kids in Leirskule (in RCN) but still he doesn´t have the proper documents. Of course it was out of the question for me as well since I have only been kayaking twice in my life. We decided to instead go canoeing. They call it the "Canadian Canoe" here, haha, I don´t really understand why? Anybody know? We had a lovely afternoon, canoeing and spending time on an island. We played football, and Karl Oskar even got to go Kite surfing since someone on the island had a kite. It looks quite fun and one day I would like to try it. We came back before dark and went to eat Panchos (hot dogs). The evening finished with a really good movie, "Good Will Hunting".

Today we had Spanish class which was, as always, fine. I have a lot of homework that is beginning to pile up so I think I will spend some of my day tomorrow doing that. Today we also went and watched the movie "An Inconvient Truth". The one with Al Gore. It was very interesting and there was a discussion afterwards. It was all in Spanish, haha, the movie was dubbed so it took a lot more concentration to understand, but I think I pretty much understand all of it. I had Alex sitting next to me so he helped me as well.

Anyway, there is not much else to report, we leave for Buenos Aires very soon and I am getting quite excited. As well, we are planning to leave to Montevideo on November 30th. I will be there for my 20th birthday and that will be great since I can celebrate with Olivia, Maja, and Juanma too! Bruna showed us where our apartment is located in Montevideo. Very central! Near all the shopping and the ocean! Seems just perfect, about 15 minute walk to a nice sized beach! Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself, I have 6 more weeks here in Paraná and I am enjoying myself a lot but still waiting to find a host family...

I apologize for not putting pictures on my blog but I haven´t figured out how to do it at this internet cafe, I always get errores when I try. Therefore, I hope most of you that are reading have facebook, since I have put many on there instead.

Lots of love from Argentina and hope to hear from some of you soon!

Canadians?

Well I had a rather interesting weekend so I thought I would write about it. Friday night we decided to go out, by we I mean Alex, Karl Oskar and I. Isabell was sick so it was just the three of us. We went to another peñna which happened to be a lot of fun but we didn´t end up gonig home to bed until 7am. And this is normal here! Some clubs give free entrance before 1am because it is so early! Anyway, I slept in till around 2pm the next day and I had to get up and go to Barriletes. It was a really fun day at Barriletes, I have become quite popular with the children since they love to use my digital camera to take pictures. :P Who says you can´t be popular by the things you own? haha. But seriously though, I had a very nice talk with some of the teenagers, even with my limited Spanish. We also had our dance class which is put on by one of the volunteers. I have been participating since the second week and I actually think my dancing is improving, although I feel like an idiot, hehe. Anyway, Saturday night was the birthday of one of my teachers so we went to the party. It began at midnight and we arrived around 12:30. Alex said we were very early and he was right, in the beginning there were very few people. However, imagine to my surprise when I am introduced to 10 Canadians! Very strange. All from Quebec, all speak French as a first language, and some of them speak English as well. I think Alex and Karl Oskar thought it was a bit strange that the language I had in common with people from my own country was Spanish! I got along quite well with one of the girls (Stephanie), we spoke Spanglish together, which was quite fun, as Stephanie would speak in English with ocassional words in Spanish that she didn´t know in English and I would speak in Spanish with ocassional words in English that I didn´t know in Spanish. Stephanie and I decided we both wanted to take Tango lessons, so I have her phone number and we can hopefully get together and take a few classes. One of the Canadian guys was quite good at dancing cumbia and he tried to teach me a bit. It was a lot of fun! The other thing that Karl Oskar and I were amazed by was the price of drinks. We paid 10 pesos ($3 CAN) and could drink as much as we wanted. Haha, don´t worry, I know my limits now :P
Anyway last night was an early night, we came back at 5:30am because Karl Oskar had to wake up for Eco Urbano activites today. Right now we are watching a Rugby match, Agentina against South Africa. I have no idea what is going on so I decided to write a short entry here. It seems so strange that I find Canadians here, in Paraná of all places. Although some of them are separatists and would prefer just to be from Quebec, hehe, but that´s a different story...

My Silence

I haven´t had a chance to write for quite a while now. I can´t believe how fast time has gone by. It is already the 12th of October. I have been quite busy but also there have been some problems. Everything is sorted now but to give a cliff-notes version there were problems with my family which I won´t get into on a public blog, so it was necessary for me to switch families. Problem was, there wasn´t a family that wanted to take me. Haha, that sounds very sad. But anyway, luckily, Bruna (the coordinator of my volunteer year, the host of Karl Oskar, and the aunt of Juanma) is very generous and offered to take me in until we could find an alternative family. It is lovely living with Bruna´s family (There is Bruna, her husband Ernesto, her son Maoru, two dogs and Karl Oskar). The schedule is much different, we don´t eat supper until around 11pm or maybe 11:30 which seems very late to me and the last three nights I have been there we have stayed up till at least 1am talking at the dinner table. It is very nice, I feel like I am getting a lot more practise in Spanish living with Bruna. The only downside is that there is obviously not enough room for me to live there. I am keeping my stuff in Karl Oskar´s room and I am sleeping in Maoru´s room (he is sleeping in an apartment that Bruna owns). It is all okay but it would be nice if I could find my own host family to stay with.

Anyway, onto other things. Spanish classes are good. They are each very differnet since every day of the week we have different teachers. I feel my understanding is improving day by day, and I can remember a month ago how lost I was and it feels good to know that I have improved.

Barriletes is great. I go there every day of the week now except Friday (which is today). But today, there are workshops on at this school and Barriletes is going so I am leaving in the afternoon to do that. I have taken many pictures at Barriletes and as soon as I possibly can I will post them on this blog. I don´t have my cable with me in this internet cafe so I can´t hook up my camera.

This weekend is quite busy. There is a big "fiesta" type thing happening with EcoUrbano all weekend so the others are busy with that. I have Barriletes today and tomorrow as usual and tomorrow night there is a big birthday party for one of my Spanish teachers. I only needed to pay 10 pesos and then you can drink as much as you like. For those of you that haven´t read the currency conversion way back in my blog, 10 pesos is a little more than $3 CAN. Hehehe, excellent...

In exactly two weeks we are leaving to go to Buenos Aires. I am not sure how long I am staying. I am still waiting for Isabell to tell me if she is coming. Alex, Karl Oskar, and I are leaving the 26th of October and meeting Olivia and Maja there. Everyone is staying the weekend together but after Maja is leaving to Peru and others are all going their separate ways as well. That leaves me by myself, unless of course Isabell comes. I am hoping I can stay for longer but if not it will be nice to have a week off anyway to explore Paraná or perhaps take a trip to Cordoba or another city nearby.

I don´t have a lot else to say right now. I have been quite bad a keeping in touch but I will try to go to a interent cafe as often as I can to write to people. I hope you are all well and I´d love to hear from you!