Who knew January could be this hot?

Okay so I´ve been dealing with a lot since I last posted. I had 24 hours notice to change families and I did my best with packing up and saying goodbye to the family, then a rotary member came to piack me up and bring me to my new family. When I hopped in the car I immediately started asking basic questions like What´s the family name? How many children? What ages? Where do they live? What is their parents occupation? This was not a shocker coming from my club to be honest, organization is not the strongsuit of argentina, and even less so in Catamarca so I was nervous and trying to deal with it. I was told that I would be staying at an aunt´s house while my new host mom was traveling for her job, so I met the family and they seemed really nice. So I stayed with my cousins for a week which was nice I went to the pool a lot with my little sister, hung out with my older sister. We also went to the mountain town called el rodeo and stayed there for the weekend. We spent time with extended family, had a great asado (barbeque).
I also went with my host sister, her boyfriend, and my host brother
to eat at the american restaurant in town, so I had a good meal of an
argentine style hamburger and fries. Later we went driving around and
went to Bas and Miles´house (Miles´ uncles´family, the cousins of the
kid who is in Ohio right now because Bas´s family is in Buenos Aires)
Their house is so nice, its in the center with a pool and a great
areas for asado, and the family is really nice. We just sat with our
feet in the pool and talked. Bas spoke the most Spanish I ever heard
him speak, he´s finally learning. Then the next day I went to go with
Tessa, Nis, Guille, Carolina, Fernanda, my host sister and her
boyfriend for a late dinner. It was fun because I hadnt really seen
tessa in a while and we decided we needed to do things with our summer
because everyone is on vacation and we´re here in catamarca dying of
the heat. So we made a list of fun and cheap things we can do to make
the summer more interesting. The next day we achieved one of those
goals being go to the pool. That morning I also went shopping with my
host sister and that was fun. Then that night we just went to the
center and walked around and had an ice cream and went home. On
Wednesday was the proclaimed "lazy day" at Bas and Miles´house. they
stayed up until 5 am the previous night playing pokemon and making a
trail of froot loops around the house, which they showed me their
videos. I came over because I didnt have anything to do and Miles
always has something fun in store. So we decided to look at the list
Tessa and I made and we were going to do a midwestern style get
together= do crazy kiddy things and eat junk food. So I made brownies,
Miles got some ice cream from his family shop and we made brownies
with ice cream, coke floats, had hamburgers, fries, and we wrote and
drew all over eachother with sharpies. We were going to have
a hilarious fashion show but we were a little short on supplies, so
thats for next time. Miles is fun like that, he understands the
midwest way of fun, and that day reminded me of the things Kendra,
Casey, and I do when we want to have fun. Then the next day I met one
of my host sisters neighbor friends and we had a nice chat, she´s
really friendly. Then I went to have ice cream with a friend of mine
who was always hanging out with my first host brother. So that week I
told him we have to do something because I changed families and
EVERYONE is on vacation cuz its so hot, so we need an ice cream. Then
we just kind of drove around, talked, and listened to music (he´s a
DJ) and we ran into my first host brother and his girlfriend. We
talked to them for a while and It was nice to see them, even if they
were being all lovey dubby haha. Then my friend dropped me off at
Lou´s Birthday party. Lou just got back from her vacation that night
and we decided to celebrate. It was a lot of fun with lou, tessa, bas,
miles, miles´ classmate, and the classmates´brother. We had a
wonderful time just talking and hanging out. Then on Friday I woke up
and had Lunch, then got ready to greet the day with a nap after lunch,
then actually got ready to greet the day when my host sisters neighbor
came over and we decided to make pancakes with maple syrup. They
turned out pretty good but still not the same as yours! Then we packed
to come to El Rodeo for the weekend. I met up with Bas, Tessa, Miles,
and two more classmates of miles´ to go out dancing. We had a lot of
fun. And today we had an asado (bbq) and empanadas ( this combo is
sacred sunday food). I´m going back to the city tomorrow, think I´m
changing, then going to do something good this week because tessa is
leaving for cordoba so hopefully I can try to set up something like
that. I reallly really really want to go to cordoba or Rosario or
Buenos Aires or Mar del Plata because the North Trip doesnt go to any
of those places and everyone says they are really great cities.
Then I was a little sick again from food or water or something so I was bed stricken and eating rice and bottled water yet again, but very happy with my directtv and my generous host family since my host mom is a doctor she´s very busy but she checked up on me and took great care of me. When I was finally well enough to go out of the house I was told that We were going to Cordoba airport to pick up Lucy, my host sister from NEW ZEALAND! So We went to go pick her up on Sunday and it was nice because I got to catch up with another exchange student living in Cordoba that I Hadn´t seen since November. Lucy is learning Spanish rather quickly and we´ve really bonded in the past week. We´ve shown her around the city and she´s met some of the exchange students (still alot on vacation) and some friends. We´ve shown her around and done a few social outings but a January weekday in Catmarca there´s nothing really to do, since almost everyone is on vacation. Which was definately a point of frustration for this month since I wanted to see friends and everyone was gone. But now I have a partner in crime and it looks like I´m going to Cordoba Province for a week with rotary! One of the District Comittee people from the south trip who´s really cool organized this great group of events for us at a low price. I´m pretty excited now. It looks like things´ll pick up with that and then our host sister leaves soon after I get back and then I´ll have to start University soon!

Summer in December?

So there is now officially a month left of summer. This is my second summer for 2011, and Ill never forget this summer. When I last posted I was preparing for the senior dinner at my school. This ended up being a highlight for me. It was so great to bond with my classmates the way we did. We were in full formal wear and had a mass for the students. It was interesting to see a mass in spanish and its a little different from the one in english so I just kind of went along with it. After that we went in a bus to the center of town where the dinner was. Which was a nice hotel. We went into the room by pairs and had our own little red carpet, some fireworks went off too for us, then the dinner was a real dinner! This is huge because in argentina typically they only eat a sandwhich for dinner so I was quite content with my bacon wrapped filet. During the meal there was a nice slidewhow of the graduates and then there were also some games that they played like making the parents dance to los wachiturros, which is cumbia and popular now and then making the graduates dance some old dances. Then later they opened up the dance floor and we had such a great time dancing that at the end we all danced in a circle to a song about being a student. After that we had an after party the next day at noon at my friends house which had a really nice pool and a volleyball court. Its this point in time when I had the best time with my classmates because the next week we also did an asado and swim day.

Belgian Host Brother

So If you dont already know Im still in my first host family because my supposed to be second family decided not to host anyone anymore since the daughter dropped out of the rotary program. So Hypothetically I should be switching soon to my next family but I dont know anything about them yet. So with this said my family was still scheduled to recieve another exchange student named Guillaume who is from Belgium. So weve been living in the same house for about a month now and im glad hes my brother here too.

On with what I did last month

So I showed Guille the ropes of my family and that day we went out to see a movie with the exchange students called in time. It was pretty good. That week the culture classes stopped because tragically the tango teacher died. Then I graduated from my school which was such a diferent ceremony than mine in the US. I liked it though. I got my honorary diploma in my uniform and got a picture with my mom, there were fireworks, a slideshow, and then we even had an afterparty. Then that weekend we went hiking in the mountains with a rotarian, his friends, and almost all of the exchange stdents. This was actually one of those mountain trips where its really hard at the moment (im really bad at adjusting to altitudes) but in retrospect it was actually really fun and I enjoyed singing road trip songs with sarah while we were hiking. The second day we reached the summit of the mountain and you could see the whole city from there. It was also high enough to give me some pretty bad sunburn which is still a weird tan on my legs.
After dousing myself in aloe vera, and going on with my daily life. At this point I got sick. I think I got water poisoning so for a whole week I was on the BART diet and on medication, watching movies and playing with my little brother at home because I felt like I couldnt really leave for long. So when I did I went with exchange students because all of my classmates were in Brazil. So we went to see fireworks, had a mac n cheese day, and hun out. I went with all of my host siblings except for the youngest, who is six to the familys country house one day. we mad a barbeque by the river, and went exploring. It was amazing. Before I didnt really understand what my brother meant by "country house" what he really meant to say was we own mountains and lots of hectacres of land, so much that the river is born on our property. So naturally Joaquin said lets find that waterfall, and we hiked a bit and when we got there it was inredible, large rocks with a medium pool of water underneath. then after taking some pictures the boys decided to try to climb up it, which was impossible because it was completley flat so I got out, and climbed all the way around to get on top and look down at the boys to say are you still trying to climb up it? We ended up finding like 5 waterfalls. we kept going, the last was the coolest and largest. I had such a fantastic time and to me and Guille its incredible to own waterfalls and to literally say to your guest yeah see that mountain in the distance? we own everything until there. So then we went to the rotary christmas dinner which was kind of the oppositte of the point. The club had a special table for exchanges and when we tried to disperse ourselves they directed us to take a seat back at the other special table for us. That week we also did a charity thing at the childrens hospital, we visited some very sick kids and talked to them for a while. I gave mine a Granville baseball cap and he was a sweet boy recovering from a brain tumor who couldnt speak but his coping mechanism was coloring and he is actually quite talented at it. From there I helped my dutch friend prepare her birthday party. We had a great night and I liked spending time with her family, who are very sweet. Then the preparation for christmas began. we had a feast with our extended family outside on christmas eve. all day we were cooking. Then my little brother was constatnly watching the clock for it to strike midnight. Once it did everyone set off fireworks, and we were no exception it was great, and we all wished eachother and merry christmas and proposed a toast. Then came the presents. My little brother scored big with a new fooseball table which we broke in immediately. Ive played him so many times since christmas, Ive improved my fooseball skills so much. I got a cute purse, a shirt, and some shoes. Then as is tradition we went out after and We met up with our friends. It was so much fun. It was also really weird to have such great weather for christmas, having the feast outside, with it being summer and all. Christmas Day was actually just like any other sunday, except that I made banana bread for everyone (to fullfill a weird craving) and then I gave everyone their gifts. The next day I made the christmas cookies that my family makes every year. Granted I had to use some short cuts, but they still tasted delicious. The next day I went shopping and hung out in the center with my classmates. That was great because they had been in Brazil for a while and I hadnt seen them. Then the next day we had an asado at a rotexs house in a town called el rodeo which was so much fun. Then For new years we pretty much did the same thing as christmas but this time with family friends instead of the extended fmily, and then we had lynch with the extended family and hung out at their house until it was evening. Then this week we kept doing things for Edward and Thomas who are both on their way back to their home countries. Edward is from new zealand and finished his year, and thomas has to get knee surgery back in Denmark so this past week weve hung out with them and I just got home from seeing Edward off. It was a big group and we took pictures and people were crying, including me. I also just got a call today from the club chairman of the inbounds that I will be changing houses tomorrow. I know nothing about the family or where they live or anything really. Im hoping to do a lot more now because I had so much uncertainty about which family id be in january I was kind of depressed because now everyone is going on vacation and its so hot here its practically a necesity to go on vacation. so i guess we will see how that goes and ill just try to make the best out of my last month of my second summer.