Christmas and New Year´s

Wow... I didn´t realize how behind I am on this whole travelblog business... that´s the problem with always writing everything with way-too many details; I never want to write.

For Christmas we drove up to Gualeguay, in the Province of Entre Ríos, where Mario's family lives. The family drove in their car except for Viki and I, we took the bus because there wasn´t enough room for everyone and the bags in the car. We left on the 23rd, got there the same day, and hung out. It was So.Hot. There was no air conditioning in a house with a bunch of people, so Viki and I were either sleeping, or sitting infront of the t.v. with the fan on. Finally Christmas Eve came, and we had a huge dinner with the whole family (on Mario's side). Of course we celebrated at 12:00, then we all went to a room where little gifts were waiting on the bed for the grandchildren. Gift-giving here isn´t as big as it is in North America, so obviously they weren´t over-extravagent gifts. I got a little Gaturro (Argentine comic) agenda for the new year, as well as Viki, Celeste and Ailén. At 1:30 Viki, her cousin Candelaria, and I went to meet a friend of Candeleria´s before we went to a club. We ended up staying there till about 4 or 4:30 or so, and we knew we were leaving early the next morning to go back to La Plata, so we decided to head home (me and Viki).

Viki and I took the bus back, met the family here and zipped straight off to their grandmother´s house (on Patricia´s side of the family). We had delicious asado, and all three of us got t-shirts from ¨Papa Noel¨ (Santa Claus). My name was written "Jaley" on the gift bag..haha.

A week later was New Years. We went to Patricia's aunt's house here in La Plata to eat Asado, and celebrate. There's a tradition only in the city of La Plata with teenagers. Different groups of them collect money, and build a big structure from wood and papier mache *however it's spelled...(, paint it, and put fire crackers in it. They're called Muñecos, meaning dolls. At around 3:00, everyone goes out to watch them get ..well, I guess, blown up. Hahah that sounds a lot funnier then it is..really, the firecrackers get lit, and the whole thing burns down...it´s not an explosion or anything. We went to see one with Viki Ailén, Patricia and Mario (Cele was with her friends), then after Viki and I went to meet up with the other exchange students. We went to a festival type thing on the street...a bunch of hippies and young people hanging out to celebrate, got a bit bored after a while, then walked over to The Kathedral to meet up with Niko and Elisa.After that we all walked over to a bar called Chamana, danced a bit, played pool, then Viki and I had to leave because we were told that we were leaving early that morning to go to the Campo (country) for a week.

We slept till about 9 am, and drove once again to Entre Ríos, had lunch at Mario´s sister´s house, then drove to the campo. We were in teh middle of farmland with cows and everything,about 2 streets two kioscos, and nothing else. So, of course, the Kiosco people got to know pretty well that I wasn´t from here... Mario came back from buying something there and said that they told him my accent sounded funny..haha.

Our house was cute, really clean with a little pool in the backyard to spend all those unbearable hot days in.

One night we went into the town for dinner, it was the prettiest area I´ve seen in Argentina so far. Well, maybe besides Patagonia, but that was really touristy. Everything was so clean, so nice.

The next night we went to a festival. This festival was called festival nacional de jineteada y folklore.... Jineteada is sort of like a rodeo. The Gauchos ride the crazy good-for-nithing (literally) horses, but they make them really mad, it´s so mean. I can´t lie, though, it´s really fun to watch...the atmosphere is crazy with all the gauchos and men dressed up as gauchos around you... Thers´s music playing at all times(live) and the guy that sings is comentating what´s going on as he sings...I forgot what the word is for when you do that...making it up on the spot..it´s on the tip of my tongue!ahhhhh! It starts with an I? Anyway, that was fun. Then, folklore is a kinda of music in argentina, and we were listening to the one type of folklore, called Chamamé or something...hahaha I realllllly don´t know what it´s called, it´s from Entre Rios, and the Accordian is used. We stayed till about 3am, so slept in the next day.

We ate a bunch of deep- fried- like- never- before empanadas, tortas fritas, and some other stuff. We went the next night to seem the same thing.


WELLLLLL That was my amazing Xmas/New Year´s/One week in the campo vacation!!! Gonna upload pics now!!!
xoxoxooxo

miss you all!!!!!
Haley

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