Warm weather and Bus Rides

Oh where oh where do I begin! Oh I suppose I could start with the weather! As much as I love the leaves changing for fall its hard to miss the cold when things are warming up here. Last week was filled with some beautiful 80 degree weather! All of you freezing in Ohio will probably roll your eyes when I say this but, at some points it was even too hot! Yes I did it, I did complain a little bit about the warm November weather! Although normally the weather is just perfect, last week when it reached the high points of about 86 degrees I was wishing just for a little cooler weather. Now I'll keep my warm weather over your cold but I quickly learned this week that I'm in for a much hotter time than I thought. No one here has air conditioning or heat for that matter as it is too expensive to have. They do however have old houses with extremely high ceilings something that is not so common back home. My Spanish teacher told me that having these high ceilings made living without air conditioning a little more bearable because all the hot air would move up. The only disadvantage is that I sleep upstairs and on top of that I have to keep my room closed almost all the time because I do not want to cat to come pee in my room. He has already peed on the couch, my host sisters bed and bean bag chair. My parents since have been keeping the cat in the garage but every now and then my sisters let him loose in the house. So you can understand why I have visions of the cat just walking into my room jumping on my desk and taking a leek on my computer! You also can understand why I keep my door shut, but this just makes my room a good 7 degrees hotter than the rest of the house some days. However although I complain a little with the Argentinean breeze over all the weather is not bad, but it's only getting warmer!
Which brings me to my next topic, Summer! Summer is just around the bend, in fact I only have two weeks of school left! My classmates just finished their big 30 or 40 page paper called their monografìa that they have been working on for the past month. They all were so relieved to have it done with but I think I was more relieved because I had not seen much of my friends after school while they were busying working on it. In addition to their big project my friends have also been taking their exams. Some of these exams are only for this term the others for the entire year. However if you are failing a class or didn't pass the earlier exams you have to take an exam over the entire year in December. With the end of school comes graduation for my classmates. Graduation here is done very different. The last year has a big party sort of similar to our prom. The kids pay for it themselves by bringing in a certain amount of money each week to get their goal. I'm not exactly sure how much money they have collected but I know its somewhere in the ballpark of over 100,000 pesos. This party also is kind of like their graduation, although they have a more formal "graduation" celebration at school when they receive their document. This fiesta is a very big deal for everyone, particularly the girls. They have been leaving for cities like Buenos Aires, La Plata and Mar de la Plata for the past few months looking for the perfect dress. They also have a big entrance where they walk out with a classmate in front of all their friends and family. They have to dance the waltz I believe in front of everyone too. Then afterwards they have dinner together. Following dinner begins the actual dance where people from other schools and grades are able to go if they pay and such. For this part of the dance I believe they walk out again, some with the same classmate some with a different. For this entrance they walk out to their favorite songs they picked out. Forgive me if I may of mixed up some of the details as they explained this to me in Spanish.
  The big fiesta is suppose to take place on December 3. Which was mildly problematic being that I leave for my trip to the South of the country with Rotary on December 4. I had no clue at what time the bus would leave let alone that fact that I have to travel to another city to go. However it looks like I most likely will be able to go to my classmates fiesta, however I will not participate in the grand entrance part as that has been planned a long time ago.
  Which brings me to trips. Last weekend I went on a trip to Urugay with Rotary. Unfortunately, this was not a trip of pleasure but business. As many of you know I am here on a Visitors Visa, along with all of the other exchange students in my district. Due to the nature of this visa it is required to renew the visa after every 3 months. The first renewal can be done in some big cities but the easiest way to renew it is to leave the country. Due to this, Rotary decided to organize a trip to Urugay giving us exchange students less than a week notice. We left in the middle of the night on Saturday or Sunday morning being picked up in various cities on a bus. We then drove all night and around 1 or so were in a city called Gualeguaychu, which is on the border of Argentina and Urugay. This also is a city where one of their big carnivals is held. We then waited an hour and a half or so where the director went in and renewed our visas while we waited outside. Once finished we went to a beach off the river for an hour or so only to turn around wait another half hour at the border and go home on the bus. I arrived back to my city at 3:30 or 4 in the morning on a Monday.
Although this trip was not the maybe the most exciting being on a bus the entire time, it was really fun! I know your asking yourself how sitting on a bus for 24 hours is fun but for many of us this was one of the first times we got to be with exchange students outside of our city, if that is you are lucky enough to have another exchange student in your city. Also for many people that meant the chance for being able to talk in their native tongue. I've found that it doesn't matter whether your trapped in a bus on the way to another country or locked in a YMCA all night in Ohio, that exchange students always managed to have a fun time together. In fact this mini trip only made me that much MORE excited for my trip to the South in two weeks!
I will try to post again before my trip! But here are some pictures!

This is my friend Sofi, she is in my grade
but the other class. This picture was taken
 one day in gym class when it was raining
 so we were just sitting inside
and I had just braided Sofi's hair.

 These are my friends Juli, Marì, me, Manu, and Ivi one night
when we went out for icecream after a dinner
with some of my classmates.

Manu

Ivi, Juli, me and Marì at the dinner

Marì, me and my friend Flor before going out to the Boliche

These girls will be my classmates next year.
They are friends of Meecha. 

Flor, Ivi and I at La Barra

Carla, Marì and I

A flower from my host mother's friends garden.

and again

beautiful weather!

these flowers are on trees and
everywhere here I think they look so cool!

This dog is the father of my family's dog,
but he is so calm although this
 picture doesn't look that way!

My host mom and Ara
on my host mother's birthday.

This was the cake my host mother made for
my host sisters first communion.
I did not go because I was in Uruguay.

my bus seat <3

one of my best exchange friends, Claire.
She is from Colorado.

Uruguay!

Claire and I again

this is all of the exchangers minus two
 that went on the trip to Uruguay!

on the bridge to 

Uruguay

some of us exchangers at a random plaza

mexico, denmark, usa and finland