Day 23

Yesterday was a super fun day. No school, so I got to hang around the house by myself and the maid. I finally got to go out with Sarah, and her friend took us out to make pies and cheesecake for some small business. She took us out shopping and I got myself a cute little bag for only $6! Ahh Bolivia. We also went out for ice cream, and dinner, where I had one of the best salads of my life... it was Thai. My mom mentioned that apparently Bolivia has made it on the news, so here´s a little update on the political situation, from what I´ve observed on our news. It´s not only the department of Santa Cruz that has been having issues with autonomy and the government. It´s four other departments as well, the whole eastern half of the country fighting for autonomy. I found this Facebook group, which has some photos (if you have an account): http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=27162370059. Apparently we´ve just gotten a few tanks in Santa Cruz as well. The death toll is at 8, as far as I know (all of which are in Pando, the northernmost department in Bolivia) but nada in Santa Cruz. Yet still, nothing seems to be too big of a deal for anyone. It´s like this is a regular occurance, even though it´s not haha. So right now, I´m safe and sound and there´s nothing to be worrying about. If more chat about civil war starts coming up, then I might get a little worried. But not too much so far. The rest of the day has been quite nice, a distraction from all of the... interesting things on the news. I had some friends over, and we TRIED to make veggie burgers out of this book my mom gave me before I left. It really makes me want to have a house of my own, where I can go buy groceries and make stuff. I really want to live on my own, I can´t wait to get home and MOVE OUT!! The veggie burgers ended up.. interesting to say the least. But we made cookies as well, so they were pretty dang decent. We also had a schoolmate´s birthday party to go to (whom I had only met once previous to). It was a lot of fun, a lot of dancing. I met some new friends that want to take me out, so hopefully I will soon be allowed out of the house past midnight. The freedom will come SOON, after a lot of hard positive thinking. I swear it will... (Made it onto CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/12/bolivia.stateofseige/index.html)