Well hello there!
I’m sorry it’s been such a long time since I posted. I’ve been so overwhelmingly busy finishing up my Christianity in Culture class final and studying for this major exam over the Romantic writers since we got home from Buenos Aires. About that… it was awesome! As much as I love the beach, this trip was equally fun to our Rocha weekend- if not more. I don’t feel like I’ll ever be the type of person to actually want to live in the city, but to visit, Buenos Aires was amazing. On the way there, we drove to a beach town in Uruguay on the coast called Colonia. We spent the afternoon walking around this quiet, quaint little beach town looking at all the shops, enjoying iced coffee and ice cream. It was hot, but beautiful and we got some great pictures! Then we took the ferry, or the Buquebus, hahah.. I laugh every time, from Colonia to Buenos Aires. I got my Argentine passport stamp finally! I was so excited and was smiling so big as I passed through immigration that I looked back to find these two guys making fun of me. I quickly shot them a look, but you know what? Who cares! It was a great feeling. The ferry ride was so fun, sitting with the girls, watching a Ricky Martin concert, eating cookies.. I loved it. We finally got to Buenos Aires and we were all jazzed. We stayed at this wonderful hotel named Bauen Suites and guess what… they had air conditioning! The hotel really wasn’t anything luxurious, but our room was spacious, cool, had great showers and a nice view of the street! We had so much fun. We went out to eat some nights, but mostly went to this nearby grocery store and snaked on cookies, fresh fruit, crackers, and cheese. It was great. Plus! The hotel had a deeeeelicious breakfast. The thing about South American breakfast is it’s basically a bunch of desserts, breads, and fruit. I should have taken a picture of it because it’s every sweet eaters dream! The first day they took us around Buenos Aires on a tour with this wonderful guide. She was so sweet and really loved her city. It was really inspiring and all of their history is really interesting. She took us to the Cathedral of Buenos Aires, the Government Building where important figures like Evita have spoken, and to this beautiful little part of the city called La Boca. This was my favorite area we saw and I will definitely go back one day. It’s a beautiful, lively area where all the buildings are painted bright blues, yellow, pinks, and greens. It’s awesome! I would have taken more pictures, but I thought we were going back the next day. That’s definitely one of the biggest lessons I’m learning about traveling- to take every opportunity you get, WHEN you have it, because it may not pan out like you counted on. We also got to go to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. We got to spend a few hours roaming around this awesome museum which exhibited European and Latin American art. It was fantastic and really peaceful for me to wander around by myself in reflection for a while. I never knew I liked art museums so much before.
From this point on, we got free reign of the city and didn’t have any other set plans. It was great! I promise I walked from one side of Buenos Aires to the other. We saw everything! We were hailing taxis, right and left, jumping on the subway, taking the buses. I was so proud of us. We navigated ourselves all over eating empanadas, browsing through antique stores, doing some shopping, walking through the street markets and enjoying all the atmosphere of the lively city. I felt such an energy and really safe considering how many characters we passed on the streets! We alllllso got to go to Starbucks! It was delightful. Each one of us girls got a different dessert, ordered our drinks, found a spot outside in front of this big window overlooking the city, and had a field day. I wish someone could have filmed the scene as we excitedly tasted and shared each dessert and enjoyed a small taste of the United States. Oh and on Sunday we got to go to church there! The congregation we met was so sweet, inviting, and I really got a lot of the class I went to (it was in English). They also sang a lot of the songs we sing back home, only in Spanish, which was really entertaining and comforting even to hear the same tunes, in another language, so far from home. And after church we found Chinese food!! It was preeeeetty rough, but surprisingly delicious, especially after not having it for so long. What I would give for some Pad Thai right now.. I crave Asian food all the time here! Anyways, so after church we had another day of roaming and a great night of simple groceries and fun with the girls. I love our group so much, and I know that it’s them that is making this semester great. On our last day, we had our wonderful breakfast, went out to buy some souvenir tshirts and went to a famous, hundred year old café in the city named Café Tortini. Some people got food and coffee, but of course, I splurged and got this giant, wonderful slice of chocolate cake called La Africana. Now, I won’t bore you with the details of each layer of that delicious slice of heaven, even though I wouldn’t mind reliving it, but let’s just say it was incredible and totally worth the race around the city trying to find it and then having to power walk twelve blocks to make it to the hotel before the bus arrived. We drove out of Buenos Aires to the ferry station soo exhausted, but supremely satisfied. The ferry ride back was a blast too. This time it was a Madonna concert playing on board!
I seriously made so many wonderful memories from this trip. It was a long weekend, but the group and I absolutely loved visiting Buenos Aires. The girls and I continue to grow closer and closer, and we have suuuch a great time laughing together and finding out each others’ quirks. The best part of this trip, even though I loved the city and all the site I got see, is when I sat back a few times and just listened to my friends laughing, visiting, and loving on one another. I love how God brought each of us here to learn from each other and be a little family for each other while we’re away from our homes. It was just such a great five days!
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