Uruguay and Sunday

We went to Uruguay this weekend. Wow, I can't believe it was so easy to travel to a different country. So....Kelsey, Lauren, Diana, Jessie, Michael, Alex, Jessica, Alyssa, Miriah, Becca, and I all took a boat to Colonia, Uruguay on Friday. We bought the tickets on Thursday and tried to book a hostel. The tickets were almost all gone, so we all had to buy first class tickets $100 for both ways, instead of $70 in regular class. The boat ride was really fun, we played cards and signs and they even brought us champagne. After getting off the 1 hour boat at 10:30pm, our group split up. Kelsey, Lauren, Diana decided to stay in Colonia and the rest went to Montevideo and some other beach on a bus at 6am the next morning.

Colonia was a very pleasant town to visit. We thought we were going to the beach in Uruguay, but aparently Colonia doesn't have a beach to lay out on and the water was a gross color brown. We found our hostel around 11 pm, but they didn't have any idea that we were coming. They only spoke spanish and told us that we didn't have reservations. She wasn't very helpful and told us she could split the 4 of us into 3 rooms, all with other people. Finally, she showed us a room with only four bed and no bathroom. We took that room at an instant even though we would have to use the community bathroom (i.e. the one that everyone in the hostel can use). It only cost $11 each per night and it seemed really clean and nice for a hostel, and they had breakfast.

Saturday, we woke up and walked around Colonia. It was really empty until the afternoon. We went to an artisan fair and wandered around the historic town. I don't really know why it's historic, but it was all really old and the streets were cobblestone. We had lunch sitting at a restaurant in the street and for $7, I had pizza, wine, ice cream, and coffee. I really didn't like the wine, but everything else was great. I think I'm going to live off of pizza because I seem to eat it a lot. We went back to the hostel and napped after lunch and then walked to dinner. Kelsey and I had steak and french fries....it was the biggest meal ever and we made friends with our waiter, Diego. After we got dessert at another restaurant and listened to their live music. At 12ish, we decided to go back to our hostel, and a band was playing on the street next to ours. They all were dressed up in nice purple shirts and ties and tons of people were in the street sitting watching them. Sunday, we woke up and it was raining, so we took a taxi to the port to get back on the boat...again in first class with champagne. Then, we were back again in Argentina. I can't believe that we actually in Uruguay, it kinda seems unreal. I mean who says, I went to Uruguay for the weekend. Who actually even goes to Uruguay in general? Haha...on that note, we ran into a couple from Pacific Palisades at lunch on Saturday who just bought land in Uruguay and visit it frequently. Anyways, I'm back in BA and am excited to see more of the city.

Today, a group of the students got together to have a small group, to talk about how we are doing and support eachother and worship. I'm really excited for this and it seems like a fun group of people. I haven't been to a church yet in BA, but the majority of people are Catholic, so I'm interested to see what their traditional churches are like.

So ya, that's what is going on so far. I just got back from ice cream....I LOVE this place called persicco and they have the best ice cream ever. Oh, and I'm also in desperate need to do laundry.