VIVA LA REPUBLICA DE BOLIVIA!

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So, yesterday was the day of Independence for Bolivia (kinda like Canada Day) although celebrated quite differently...
For instance, celebrations started on like Tuesday and lasted until yesterday! On Thursday there were fireworks... although quite unbeknownst to Marie and I, because when the first one went off, we screamed really loudly and these two Bolivian guys in front of us on the street burst out laughing...*sigh* embarrassing. Also, apparently their day of ´celebration´is more like a day of rest and during the day, very few people were outside, well, other than the massively wasted teenagers at 2pm. We saw two different guys who could barely walk straight and one guy who was surrounded by his friends and definitely looked like he was about to collapse at any moment. It was pretty hilarious.

At night is when things really got busy! We went to this pretty amazing concert of folk music (which started out with one band singing 70´s pop songs LOL) and it was only 20Bs (less than $3!) and of course we brought along our 2 litre bottle of "water" (sprite and some vodkaesque beverage we bought for the equivalent of $6!). Everything is so freaken cheap here, it´s beyond amazing! Yet even in stores you can barter stuff down (although, in the boutiques, they call it giving you a discount haha possibly to save face). There was this absolutely gorgeous wood chess set with Incan figurine pieces that I wanted to get and it was $150 Bs ($20 about) and when I looked like I wasn´t sure if I wanted it, the woman lowered the price to $100.

This week´s been full of kind of different emotions, after Giselle left for Cochebamba, I think we felt a bit lost because she was our strong link to Spanish, but we´re actually doing ok now. And Christof (A German volunteer who´s been here for almost a year) has been amazingly helpful at showing us where some good restaurants are. Seriously, with the ridiculous amount of money that we have to spend on just food and water each week, we can basically eat all the time in restaurants! And there are definitely some that are just for gringos for whenever you get a bit homesick i think haha (Joyride has to be the most famous here! And awesome movie nights every night).

2 more days until our project starts (only a week later than it was supposed to... oh well haha.. more time for touristy stuff and SHOPPING!). Although, I´m really wondering if my version of culture shock is different from other people´s? Today I felt myself getting so annoyed at everything here, the constant thrall of children coming to you either selling stuff or just asking for money (It´s not that bad, except when they don´t believe you when you say you don´t want something... one boy, must have been about 8, told us to F*** off when we said no for the fifth time!), and the constant whistling/cat calls... honestly, once fine... 15 times a day, not cool especially when some are the Police!

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