The ACU Games

I know I already wrote a long entry today, but I just briefly wanted to share a bit of the fun silliness we had tonight. I'll tell you more about our official activities which were also fun later.

Most of the students, Rachel B., and I had watched the Disney version of Robin Hood. For some reason after the movie, we ended up in the exercise room.

First there were things like a chin up contest between Josh and Ben. Rachel W. decided that bowling needed to happen with the little plastic bins.

Matt and Kate had a weight lifting contest.

Rachel W. and Kate practiced a little ballet.

Then the real silliness began. It started innocently enough with just kicking around a little ball, maybe trying to keep it in the air. Then someone decided to make it a mixed cultural experience so we started kicking around a futbol and throwing around a football. And then at some point a big yoga ball was added. Anyway, it was so fun to see everyone just laughing and carrying on playing elementary type games and just having a great time together. They were really impressed that Rachel B. and I played with them.

For all the great cross-cultural experiences, I think these are the sorts of things that really make study abroad fun.

Getting to Know You

Days 2 and 3 have been about getting to know each other and the city of Montevideo. Friday morning we had a hot breakfast, then had a house meeting. We discussed fun stuff like rules and policy of CasaACU. The students did great. Afterwords, Wimon lead us in a time of discussing what we are excited about, scared about, and how we can deal with our fears best.

Some of the students at the base of the statue of Artigas, the national hero.

After lunch, we headed down to Ciudad Vieja, the Old City. After pointing out some of the key sites, Wimon broke the students into groups and let them go. The had a list of things they were supposed to see for one of the classes. The students got a chance to look around and explore the our area of the city. Ciudad Vieja is a straight shot down the main road, 18 de Julio, to CasaACU... but it is two miles.

I hung out with Rachel. We visited part of the old city, including the cathedral. Then we walked down to El Rio de la Plata and sat at the on the wall overlooking the river. Then we started back down 18 de Julio. We stopped at La Ciagale's so that Rachel could have the great experience of ice cream in Uruguay. We got to sit out on the deck in beautiful sunshiny weather and people watched. It then hit us that we were being paid to be there. Its a tough job, but somebody has to do it. After awhile, we headed back the rest of the way back to the house.

Later in the evening, I decided to head to the grocery store to pick up a few supplies. As Rachel and I were walking out, several of the students were coming in. When they heard where we going they asked to tag along, so we had an adventure at the grocery store. While there the students decided they should fix dinner together, so they figured out supplies to have pasta and a sauce. I think they had a really good time figuring out how to cook and eat together.

For dinner, Rachel, the Walkers, and I went out to discuss business. Believe it or not, while we discussed many topics, we did actually discuss business. We went to a really good parilla and ate meat, meat, and more meat.

Saturday:
This morning we went to Punta Carretas Shopping and the ferria near by. Punta Carretas shopping is a high end shopping mall. The ferria is an open market where one can buy all sorts of things, clothes, crafts, mates (mat -ay a drink, not a person to marry), fuits and veggies. After walking around a bit, the Walkers and I came home and had some soup Rosalinda made. It was really nice. The students came back and we all sat around and talked.

Eventually this afternoon, I had to sit down and work on getting stuff ready for class. Que triste. My computer, the projector, and my writing tablet are all communicating, so I'm ready for class on Monday. Maybe I should look over my notes a bit more...

It has been another gorgeous day. The students are doing so well. They seem to have a great attitude thus far, which really makes things fun.

Tonight we are touring the church building then having pizza with the youth from church. It should be great fun.

Safely Here

Well, we made it. The trip in several ways was more exciting than we expected, but also better, so we can't really complain.

Everything went without a hitch getting to DFW. When we went to check in however we had some trouble with the fact that our plane tickets made it look like we were going to be in Uruguay for more days in a row than allowed without a visa. This isn't really a problem because we are going to other countries, but it led to a couple of tense hours while the study abroad office worked things out. It was all good in the end and we just did our waiting outside of security instead of inside. We did miss out on lunch... ah well. I was really blessed to have Rachel Brown, the student coordinator for Study Abroad, with me. It was really nice to have someone to take much of the burden off when it came to the whole drama. But for as tense and worried as we were for a couple of hours, we made it to the gate with 10 minutes to spare!

The flight to Miami and our time in the terminal finally getting some food was uneventful.

Our next two flights were both flight 943. So we were supposed to fly to Montevideo with a stop in Buenos Aires, which was going to give us a three hour layover in B.A. Well just as everyone was getting seated, the pilot comes on and says that there is some issue in B.A., so they were going to fly us to Montevideo first. That meant that we were going to arrive 4 hours earlier! Luckily they told us in time that I could contact the Walkers and Kevin to be sure the Walkers knew to come get us. Ah... the beauty of an iPhone.

The flight to Montevideo was fine. We all made it out and through passport control just fine. A few of us had some of our bags looked through because they thought we might have non-prepackaged food. None of us did, so it was fine. One of Dara's bags didn't make it. It should be here tomorrow. The Walkers were there to pick us up. I was really excited to see them!

On the way to CasaACU, we stopped at a park that overlooks the city to take pictures. Oh have I mentioned that it is gorgeous here. It is unseasonably warm and is in the 70's. After visiting the park, we headed on to CasaACU where we had room assignments and lunch. Mariella and Beatriz (who is filling if for Raquel) had empadas ready for us. That always makes life better.

After lunch we were broken into teams to do a scavengar hunt in the local area. I tried to not to help my team too much... but we did win. I'm not sure whether I was an unfair advantage or not. :) I did do the whole challenge with out a map.

Its a little surreal to be walking around the neighborhood. In someways if feels like I never left. I'm really blessed to be back.

Tonight we are going out to dinner and then we get to SLEEP!

Here We Go Again!

This is just a quick post to say that you've found the right spot. :) I'm in the office trying to finish up lots of last little things. Its funny how I thought I had a lot of time to do everything, so I kept goofing off... well now its time to finish up.

I have 16 students going with me. It seems like a really fun group. They seem pretty laid back, so that will make things nice.

Our schedule for Wednesday is:
Meet at school: 10 AM
Departure ceremony: 10:30
Actually leave campus: ~11 AM
Flight #1 DFW-Miami: 5 PM
Flight #2 Miami - Buenos Aires: 11:10 PM
Flight #3 BsAs - Montevideo: 12:15 AM (Thursday)
Arrive in Montevideo (if flights aren't horribly delayed): 1 PM on Thursday!

It should actually be almost exactly 24 hours from when we leave ACU to when we arrive in Montevideo, that is if we don't have any delays.

The End! (Unless I decide to post again)

Well... its a little weird to be at home, but good. I'm back to sitting on my big squishy bed. After ignoring me when I first got home to show their disdain, my cats are now talking to me again. (They still fight with each other... so nothing really has changed.)

I have realized the flaw to my plan in writing this blog this semester. I've already told you all my best stories... so you are just going to have to listen to me tell them again in person.

So let's see... In the last entry I gave you the highlights of my last two days. The only thing I wanted to expand on was dinner with Eric, because after three months in Montevideo, Caitlin finally went to Mercado del Puerto. So we met Eric at about 8:30 to go to dinner. We wandered forever because none of us were particularly hungry and no one wanted to pick a restaurant to eat at. Well after we had wander two miles all the way to the Old City I suggested that we go to Mercado del Puerto, since Caitlin had never been and we were within 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile. We went to a nice restaurant that was really good. One of the fun things about eating in Uruguay is that after you eat they don't try to hurry you off so that they can have your table, so after we finished eating, we sat and talked for an hour or two. We eventually roused ourselves from the table to head home. The one problem with eating there, was that we needed to walk back through the Old City at night, which isn't the safest place in the world. Mainly the danger is mugging. But Eric is a good sized guy and Caitlin and I aren't tiny women, so we were fine. We ended up deciding to walk all the way back home, I was pretty sleepy once I got back. But it was a gorgeous night and a good way to end the trip.

Wednesday after aerobics, most of the time was spent with last minute packing up. I kept removing things from my bags to try to get them underweight (which I did succeed in!) At 2, Sandra took our keys from us... that meant we couldn't wander off. At this point we didn't really want to leave, but we were didn't want to sit around any more either. Emiliano and Eric both came over to help entertain us. So Eric, Caitlin, and I got to mock each other a bit more. Eric got to wear Caitlin's beret one last time. At 4, we drug our luggage out into the entry way to wait for the van. I know I had roughly 150 lbs worth of luggage by the time you add up my two suitcases, my carry-on, and my personal item. Now everyone else had roughly the same amount. So we are talking roughly 1650 lbs of luggage! YIKES! Once we were loaded up we headed to the airport.

On the way we stopped at the lookout over the city that we stopped at when we arrived. We had a prayer and took another picture. :) (So we have a before and after shot.) After a few minutes there we loaded back up and headed to the airport. Everyone got checked in ok. The only problem we had was when going through security we found out you couldn't take pre-wrapped cookies or ground coffee with you which we thought was strange.

The flights were pretty uneventful, which is always good. I pretty much slept through everything. I hadn't been sleeping much and had apparently been stressed out and not sleeping well when I had slept, so once I got on the plane I relaxed and passed out. I think I slept through all three take-offs.

The lay-over in Buenos Aires was about 4 hours and wasn't bad. It was weird because all the gates around ours had flights going to the States, so most people were speaking American English. Also all of a sudden, people were tall again! Strange!

In Dallas, everyone's luggage arrived, which was super exciting. We made it through passport control and customs just fine. After that we all went our separate ways. Nikita was also flying to Abilene, but on a later flight, but we at least got to keep each other company for a couple of more hours. We actually found each other in the terminal an hour or so after customs. During that hour, I realized the value of traveling with someone else. When I had to go to the bathroom I could leave my stuff with Nikita and didn't have to carry my 40 lb. bag of books with me. :)

When I arrived in Abilene, Hilary, Judy, Terri, and Sandy were there to meet me. Terri and Sandy were wearing crazy hats and cheered when I walked out. It was fun. My luggage all made it home, although I'm starting to hear reports that that's not true for all the students. Hilary took me to lunch at Abuelo's. Eating Mexican food was the first thing on my list to do when I got home. After 3 and a half months of good, but relatively bland food... It was REALLY spicy. (Although, I knew it was stuff I normally didn't find spicy at all.)

After cleaning up, I spent the afternoon at school. People keep being surprised that I went to "work." Obviously I didn't WORK!!! I went to socialize. I did manage to walk into a departmental meeting... they told me I didn't have to stay. I assured them that I would fall asleep if I sat down in a meeting, and escaped while I still could. I went by and saw the Cukrowski's and told them how jealous I am of them of the fact that they get to go next semester. Then Shelly took me out for American burgers. (Also a request of mine.) It was a great first day back.

While I'm sad to leave Uruguay... it is awesome to be back with my friends and family. I can't believe how blest I have been to get to have this experience. I know I was really blest to have such a great group of students that could also be good friends. I will miss Uruguay and my friends there... but I'm happy to be back with my friends and family here.

Unless I'm inspired again... which I may be when I realize what the reverse culture shock is... I might decide to share some of those experiences... this is my last post. Thanks for reading and experiencing this crazy semester with me.

Aaaaahhhh!!!

I'll write more about yesterday and today, probably, when I get home... but there were just a few things so awesome I wanted to get them down...

First, yesterday when Dario showed up to teach his class (right after we went to Body Combat) he brought us CD's with music from the gym as a going away present. He and Fabricio both signed them. He said we weren't saying good-bye... only "Hasta Pronto." We've already exchanged a couple of emails. What a fantastic guy.

Last night Caitlin and I went to dinner with Eric down in the Old City. The three of us really have fun together and it was a great way to spend our last night in the city.

Today, Caitlin, Kelsey, and I had our last aerobics class. Fabricio had t-shirts for us with our names on the sleeve. I really love the guys at the gym. We were sure and exchanged email addresses. (Luckily my reading and writing in Spanish is better than my speaking and hearing.)

I went by to see Oscar this afternoon. I really love papa uruguayo!

Well we leave in a couple hours... so I'm getting off the computer!

Good Times

Since we didn't have class yesterday morning, Kelsey and I took the opportunity to go to another aerobics class. Of course! Have I mentioned that I love the gym? Afterwards, I came back to the house and worked on packing and cleaning up my room. I also had to put it back in the arrangement that it started in. (As one of my students put it... its just like being in the dorm.) In the afternoon I continued to work on packing... ah the joys of weight limits for bags... looks like I'm going to be lugging my chemistry books in my carry-on... Booooo... I also printed and gave my biochem final... so that was exciting.

I love having four students in my class. Because it only took me about 20 minutes to grade their final.

Anne, Kelsey and I headed to our last step class. Dario announced that is was our last step class and blew us a kiss. He's so great. I hadn't taken pictures in his class yet... so after messing up the routine the whole time because I was distracted by the idea of taking pictures... or something... I finally took some pictures of Dario's final step class.

Dario's signature move... Reverso!

Anne and Kelsey

Dario always has big finishes to the last time through the routine. I think I'm the only one in the room who thought Heisman!

When we returned to CasaACU it was time for our Christmas party. The students and Rhonda baked and iced Christmas cookies. Raquel had made a Hello Kitty cake for Caitlin... The woman is amazing... she can make anything. After the cookie baking we had a white elephant gift exchange (or as Rhonda called it... Dirty Santa... which creeped me out a bit.) Some of the highlights of the gift exchange include Luke receiving Caitlin's Travel portfolio, Jonathan getting tampons and chocolate, and Chelsea getting Matt's World Lit book... that didn't really belong to Matt. The two most fought over gifts were an ACU t-shirt and present that had a bottle of lotion and a vacuum pack bag. The highlight though was afterwards. The girls were trying to get Matt to put on the small hot pink ACU shirt. He said he would put it on if Luke put on the robe that Anne received. He agreed... pictures follow... warning it is a disturbing picture. :)

Making Cookies

Caitlin and the Cake

Jonathan was so happy to to get Tampax! (These are actually a highly valuable commodity... He was one of three people in the house who doesn't properly appreciate it.)

Nikita got lots of fun stuff!

Being outnumbered three to one by women can have disturbing effects!

After the party, Eric and Emiliano came over. We all sat around and talked for awhile... a long while... it was great fun. It was nice that Eric could talk to Emiliano in his native language quickly, rather than us (mainly the students who can speak Spanish) trying to spend a long time trying to figure out how to explain something.

It was a great last Monday.