Saturday, May 26, 2012

Te Quiero Todas

The past few weeks have been great, but with an undertone of sadness as we are all thinking about going home.When the girls get together, we say a lot of things like "mi amor, mi vida, te quiero" (my love, my life, I love you). I have become very close with all the girls in Rotary in this city, we know each other so well, and we know we will miss each other, but we also know that this is NOT the last time we will be seeing each other.

I know sometimes I may tell people "you wont understand the exchange student connection until you are an exchange student", and that is because the connection we have is so strong because of the situation we are in, we lean on each other to help us through. We may joke around and make fun of each other and do silly things, but our relationships are really very deep. The other day my friend Emily from Cobleskill, New York made an interesting statement, she said

"We are more than friends, more than sisters, there is no word to describe how close we are......we are exchange students, and that bond you can never break".

It was such a true statement that after she said it we all sat in awe for a few minutes just thinking of how true it is.

Emily is leaving next Friday, June 1st, she is the first of our close group to leave, and I think it will be then it will all finally sink in that this year is almost over. Even though some girls aren't leaving until late july or august, I don't think it will be the same without ALL of us.

I guess we will just have to see how it goes.
Sometimes you just have to cry. No reason, just cry.

Frustrated, overwhelmed, never angry or sad.

There is just a lot of things going on and its hard to stay cool about it.

On a normal day there could be up to 100 different emotions, seriously.

Everyday there are many good things to be happy about, but also some that are difficult to handle.

But we handle them, that's what we do, exchange student handle situations with ease.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Monkeys and Cunape


  1. On Wednesday 11 giddy and energy filled girls got on a Semaipata bound bus. Semaipata is a tow a few hours southwest of Santa Cruz. We are exchange students, we were very exited to all be together and on a fun trip. We stopped at an Hipermaxi yelling "Hipermaxi!! Hipermaxi!!". It is a large grocery store where you can find everything, even the rare american things we often miss. We loaded up with Cunape, a cheesy bread that is famous among the us girls and a Santa Cruz specialty, and soda and junk food. We laughed and sang and danced for hours, when we finally arrived we jumped off the bus and ran around the small town that consisted of a few touristy type shops, a beautiful plaza, and lots of stray dogs and dirt houses. We "bopped" around, one of our favorite words to say, for a little while just seeing the town and then dropped off our things at the hostal and went to dinner. We were all pretty tired so after dinner we all went back to the hostal and hung out and chatted for hours. The rooms were 3 beds to a room, mine had 5, it was a very fun night!! The next day we woke up early and went to an ADORABLE little Belgian cafe, complete with an herb garden, a horse, and gourmet food that was so great I had tomato soup for breakfast. We spent some time just sitting in awe at how absolutely beautiful the place was and the amazing hills around us.                                                                 After breakfast we went to a Zoo where monkeys climbed on us!! They were all so cute and so friendly, we had a blast laughing at each other being scared of the big black monkey with long arms and a tiny head named Simon that was really friendly. One of them climbed on my Canadian friend Kirsten and it was very cute until it started making a really scary noise and then began poking her face, her face was priceless and even though she looked scared we were on the ground laughing. It was all so fun and put us in a good mood.                                                                                                  The next place we went was some Incan ruins, we took a tour of the incredible ruins on top of a mountain. We learned why they made their home in that certain spot and some of their habits and history. It was fun thinking that people were right where we were standing over 3,000 years ago. We laughed and made up stories about how the Incans may have been aliens or taken by aliens because they just disappeared and no one knows what happened.                                                                            We stopped briefly in Semaipata again for water and snacks and it was off again to our wonderful city of Santa Cruz, and we all went home and slept because were all pretty tired and sore from hiking up to the ruins.                                                                                                                                                               It was an amazing trip I am so happy I went and I had a wonderful time with the girls, it was a girls trip and we all had tons of fun together. 










         

Thursday, May 10, 2012

coming home...oh man

A little more than 30 days until I am back on U.S. soil. I have many doubts. Doubts about leaving, doubts about returning. I guess my overall feeling is comfort in knowing that the people back home are going to be happy to see me. But it's very hard to think that the times we have here will never happen again. I will never be in Bolivia with the 14 other exchange students, living with this family, doing these things that are so normal for me right now. If I do come back,which I plan on, it wont be the same at all. 
I do think about home a lot. Waupaca, my house, my friends, especially my school. I think of how great it is, sometimes of how much I don't like it, but what I'm struggling with currently is all these thoughts I am having about Waupaca, most of them are just made up because I have been away for so long I almost forgot about what it REALLY is like. So everything I think Wisconsin is going to be like, it will probably not be that way. I am setting myself up for disappointment, I know, but there is nothing i can do about it. My eyes tear up when I think about leaving my dear Canadian friend Kirsten and all the other girls I love, I am going to really try hard to keep in touch, because who knows, having friends around the world is never a bad idea. 

In my "Happy Place" we are all together backpacking Europe, speaking Spanish, having the time of our lives (again). I will leave this post on a happy note, because I am happy. :)







Saturday, May 5, 2012

Wedding

I went to a wedding on Friday night. My Canadian friends older host brother was getting married. I didn't go to the actual wedding at the church, we got to the place when they were signing papers and taking pictures. The banquet hall was amazing, lit by red lights. The bride and groom looked beautiful together. The cake was an incredible 5 tier mountain. The waiters were nice and wore bowties. 

The Bolivian women were all dressed up in gowns and tons of makeup. No doubt most of them bought new dresses for this occasion and went to salons to get their hair and makeup done. My host mother bought me a whole new outfit complete with fancy heels. Everyone looked incredible. 

It was a beautiful wedding and I was very happy to go.