Feliz Navidad and Año Nuevo!

Haven’t blogged in a bit because I was on a fabulous vacation with my best PC friends! We started our vacation with a bang, and by “bang” I mean that our bus to Buenos Aires was 6 (YES…6!) hours late. Just picture Jen and the Rubias sitting outside of the bus terminal waiting and waiting and waiting some more and then it just kept not coming. Every time a Sol del Paraguay bus would pull up our souls would be crushed a little more each time that it wasn’t for us. But, por fin, it finally arrived a little passed midnight. We took the 15 hour bus ride to BA, then hopped on a ferry to Uruguay. We finally made it to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, and got to our hostel. It was beautiful. We spent a few days there exploring the city, eating DELICIOUS paella, going to the artisan market, walking next to the ocean, etc. Next we headed to the beach town of Punta del Diablo (also in Uruguay) and it was beautiful! I loved every single second of it! There was nothing better than spending our days lounging by the beach! We spent Christmas there and it was a very different experience for all of us because none of us had ever spent Christmas away from family. But, it was really great to at least be able to spend the holiday among friends. We ate very well the entire vacation. Those of you who know me know that I did NOT participate in the cooking (unless anyone wanted to sandwich, then I was their girl! Haha) but I did a lot of dishes to make up for it hahaha! After a week at the beach town, we continued our journey and headed back to Buenos Aires for the New Year. Our hostel was awesome, and we met a lot of cool people, and even took a tango lesson (which I’m not super great at, I realized ha). We, again, explored the city and generally had a fantastic time and ate fantastic food. On NYE we brought in the New Year at the planetarium drinking champagne and watching fireworks and meeting other tourists from all over the world. It was awesome! I also spent my “fake birthday” which was the 2^nd of Jan in BA. We decided to give me a fake birthday because we left before my real birthday and who wouldn’t want to celebrate with friends in Argentina?! That morning we went on a walking tour of the city and later had a delicious lunch on a cute outdoor patio where there was a tango show and fabulous wine. I had roasted rabbit with a white wine sauce and it was to die for! Then I finallllllllly got my hair done (hadn’t cut it or anything in over a year….oops) and then we went on a pub crawl that we found out about at our hostel. It was such a great day! Then it was time to return home to Paraguay.

ALL PHOTO CREDIT GOES TO MY GIRL CANDACE!!!!!

 

Montedvideo, Uruguay



i'm on a teeter-totter!



the cutest little bookstore in a plaza in Montevideo

first time near the ocean in a lonnnnng time!

beautiful hostel in MVD

same beautiful hostel in MVD

beautiful hostel in  MVD

just being Paraguayan and enjoying a little terere break!

awesome indoor market in MVD

cuties!

paella....YUM!

yep. I ate that little guy!

 

Punta del Diablo, Uruguay

 

our cute little Christmas tree



our beach house

the adorable patio and grill

SO ready for the beach!!!!

strolling to the beach

the sun is so strong we had to completely cover up!!!

gorgeous!

the oceannnnnnn

lovely...look at that beach hat!



Feliz Navidad photo shoot



Jen and the Rubias was reunited! :)



Christmas Day breakfast!

I just celebrated my real birthday (24 woot woot) and it was a wonderful day. I made pancakes for breakfast because I finally have syrup in my possession (thanks mom and dad!) so that was super rico. Then Jen, Candace and I went to beach and drank some beers and just relaxed. I must say, I do enjoy having a summer birthday. I’m so used to living in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin that I’ve never experienced a HOT bday. Sweet. Then we made our way back to my casa and prepared some delicious potato salad, which actually turned into delicious mashed potatoes, to bring to my host family’s house for the asado that they prepared for me! It was soooo good! My family definitely knows how to make rico asado!!!!! Best in all of Paraguay, hands down. They bought me my first terere equipo and I LOVE it. Just in time for the scorching heat. We drank wine and just hung out and they sang Happy Birthday to me in FIVE languages (English, Spanish, Guarani, Portuguese, and Ukrainian!) I also learned how to cut a cake Paraguayan style. So that was fun.

And now it’s back to reality. I’ve been preparing for my World Traveler Camp with Bonna and Arianna and we just started today and it was awesome. (I’ll commit a whole blog post to this once we finish next week!!!)