Day 35

Here we are, and it´s Wednesday. SANTA CRUZ´S BIRTHDAY! It´s a holiday, so I´m not at school. Everything is closed, so we sit here at home. Time to catch up on the week since my last post. Monday was back to school again. We were supposed to be having a fun day at school, since it was Day of the Student on Sunday (as well as the first day of spring, the day of love {aka Valentine´s day I guess} and my parent´s anniversary).. but it was apparently pushed to Tuesday for us. I sat through my classes, and then went to my spanish class, which I also sat through. Sarah and I waited for Maija´s class to finish afterwards, and then we met up with Brodie to go out for Mexican food. It was absolutely amazing! Really good food. Bolivian food isn´t horrible or anything, but I feel like nothing seems too special. It´s all pretty.. bland and to have a neutral taste about it. If I am to be gaining weight on this exchange, it´ll be from eating out at restaurants all the time. Talking to Brodie about this, and I found out that she goes out all the time.. almost once a day. This scares me hahaha. Afterwards, my brother picked me up and we went to the casino to play BINGO. Ohh that was amazing. I am so not used to being in a country where smoking in buildings is permitted. By the end of the night, my eyes were burning so bad. Bingo was fun, although set up differently than the game I´m used to. No B-I-N-G-O, there are 9 columns, 1-9, 10-19 etc all the way to 90. I was so close to winning on our last game.. I had one box left, when someone called theirs. It was tragic. We then went out to the actualy casino, where Christian played some slots (none of which are acually slots, just computerized touch screens). I tried taking some pictures of us there, but got in trouble from the security guard, who made me delete all of my picures, while hovering over my shoulder. I was slightly bummed out by that, but Chris got a pic while we were playing bingo in the other room, so I have SOME proof. Tuesday was an AMAZING day. It was our Day of the Student, as well as some celebrations for the Santa Cruz birthday the following day, all mixed into one. We got to have some food (which was chicked salad sandwiches, how depressing) and then the whole school got together in the courtyard, for some presentations of tradional dancing, put on by a few classes in the school. Afterwards, they had a huge dance party in the gym (grades 9-12 I think), with sparkles, foam, and music pumping. They even had a band come in for a bit, playing Carnival music which was so much fun. I really can´t wait till February! After school, we had a party and bbq at a schoolmates house, for all the kids in my grade. We got there, and some kids ran out from the backyard, and took all of our cellphones (or whatever belongings we had). They then dragged us back to a big dance party, where they were spraying everyone with a hose! It was a ton of fun, just hanging out, dancing (and dripping) and eating food on a hot afternoon. Getting back to Maija´s, and being fully exhausted, we ended up laying around for the rest of the afternoon. I caught a ride home with Brodie´s parents, taking a few stops on the way to pick up a rifle among other things. I got home, and then we figured out that everyone was going to la feria again. Since it was the night before Spet 24th (Scz Day), everyone would be out there, celebrating, and there would be fireworks at midnight. Going to the fair a second time wasn´t exactly that exciting, but I ended up running into a bunch of friends from school that I knew and spending the rest of the night with them. I barely made it home by my curfew (1:30am!!), but by the... grace of God, I made it. Today has been a day of relaxing.. Since everything was closed, my host mom had to actually make vegetarian food, and it was a lot better than the stuff they buy for me every day. She makes some pretty good (although not completely healthy) veg meals. We even had icecream, which has been the best thing I´ve ever eaten. I can´t even explain it. The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting around, trying to catch up on my stupid blogs, and then we took a family trip to a pool. It was at some club owned by my host dad´s company.. It was slightly boring, since I wasn´t too into the public pool full of frolicking children, or the steamy hot sauna (it was definitely in the 30s today). I ended up going for a walk with Lily, Christians girlfriend. I met her pretty quickly after arriving here, but had never really talked to her before. She´s actually pretty nice. She told me I had pretty good spanish, so anyone that says that to me is immediately on my favorite list ;) The rest of the night hasn´t been too exciting, so I think I´ll head to bed soon. School tomorrow! Buenas noches!