Another 90 days

Hi everyone! Just a quick update about life here in BA. I'm supposed to be at class in an hour and have to start the journey their shortly.

Life seems to finally be falling in to place, which is making deciding whether to stay or come home early a little difficult. I finally got the books for ALL of my classes I'm teaching which is such a big help. I no longer have to stress out everyday about what I am going to teach. It's been such a relief this past week. Friday I was supposed to go to the Brazilian embassy to get my visa and go buy a sube card. A sube card is just a charged card that you use for the buses. Monedas (coins) are almost nonexistent here and you can only use coins on the bus. It's such a pain in the ass to be completely honest. I have to buy things constantly that I don't want/need in order to get coins. However, I woke up at 9am on Friday. I opened the window before I was going to shower and it was raining. So naturally, I climbed back in bed and did absolutely NOTHING all day. Luckily I don't need my visa right this second. And the sube card is going to have to wait. Mercedes luckily has one, so she is nice enough to trade cash for coins. I went to Spanglish Friday night like always and met some pretty cool people. Hopefully they will be there this Friday night.

It's hard to believe that I've been here almost 90 days. The only reason I know this is because my visa is close to expiring. When my visa is about to expire I have 2 choices: leave the country or go to immigration. Apparently going to immigration is pretty painful and it's actually cheaper to leave the country for the day. You can also only extend your visa at immigration once, so I've been told to save that for the one time I absolutely have zero time to go. I guess there is a 3rd option, just don't renew your visa the entire time you're in Argentina and then pay a fee when you leave the country. However, I have been told that if you overstay your visa for quite a bit of time, they don't let you back in the country for a year. I probably would have done that except for the fact that before I leave I want to travel around South America and then fly back out of Buenos Aires. I don't want to risk not being able to enter back into the country.

 So Saturday morning, Analia and I hopped on to Colonia Express and went to Uruguay for the day. It was such a sweet little town. It made me think of Rock Hill. Not exactly, but after being in Buenos Aires, that's what it reminded me of. Unfortunately it was cold and overcast, but I didn't care. It was so so nice to get out of the hustle and bustle of the big city for the day. We met a girl from Colorado who was also leaving to renew her visa. The 3 of us went to lunch at a cute little cafe. They had a Gwinnett County, Georgia license plate hanging on the wall, so I knew we were in the right place. They also had apple sauce and my word it was heaven. It was such a great day all around. I'm so glad that my visa was about to expire so that I had a reason to leave. After I got back from Colonia, I went to Spanglish - of course! Afterwards, I went to dinner with a few old friends and then some new ones. Two of the new guys were from Argentina and the other one was from Chicago, studying abroad. He's only here until August, but hey that's better than nothing. He's the first person that I've met who is just beginning their trip. Normally everyone I meet is close to leaving.

Last night I went to Lauren's with Analia for some tea and just to talk. Okay, they drank tea, I ate ice cream, and we talked. I still can't get used to the whole tea thing. I'm so thankful that I did TEFL with them and was able to make 2 great friends here. Yeah I have friends here, but it's hard to really know someone when you see them every 2 or so weeks. Luckily the 3 of us live within 10 blocks of each other and don't have to plan anything. We just randomly decide to meet up, which is great!

We have a "long" weekend this weekend. I don't know what "holiday" it is now, but the holiday is on Friday. Naturally, I'm not happy about this because I don't work on Fridays anyways. So it isn't really a long weekend... it's just a normal weekend. But ya know it works out perfectly. I normally get homesick on long weekends because I get bored. Unfortunately this weekend I wanted to go to Mendoza (wine country) with an International students group, but they aren't getting back until Monday morning.. so I can't do that.

This actually ended up not being so short... I think because I have no reason to walk in the rain to my next class. I could take the bus, but that would meany using coins, so it's not worth it!

Love you all! I'll post pictures later... it's taking too long now.