Las Termas, Salta, and Tucuman

A few weeks ago my host family (my host parents and one of my sisters) and I went to the province named Salta. On the way we also visited a city in my province called "las termas" and a province called "tucuman". Our first stop was las termas, which was only like an hour from my city. Las termas is a tourist town in my province, it's known for it's warm water. For that reason, it's a very poplular place for people who want to go swimming in winter (there aren't any indoor pools here). First we went to this national park that was a guided tour on this bridge thing that went in a circle. There were various birds and three dinosaurs. The T-rex, the one with the pointy tail, and the one with the long neck. Then after that we went to this race car museum. It had all of these old race cars and motorcycles, there was this one motorcycle that was soooo old it looked so weird, it was really fun though! Then after that we went to the airport because my host sister had never been to an airport before! Then we went downtown to a feria (which is a street market), it was great! I'd never seen anything like it before we just shopped and my family told me about everything that I didn't know about (which was a lot). Then after lunch we headed to our next stop, the province of Tucuman. After checking into our hotel (so cheap but so nice) we headed downtown and just shopped and looked at all the beautiful buildings. All of the buildings were like old victorian buildings.

The next day after breakfast, we went traveled to our final destination, the province of Salta. After checking into our hotel (which used to be a castle, so it was all old and fancy, and really really nice!) we went to go get dinner and just stayed in watching movies. Then the next morning we went downtown and went in this (I don't remember the name) thing was kind of like a ski lift, but your boxed in...we went up a mountain in that to this little park were you could see the entire city. It was absolutely gorgeous! I could've probably stayed up there all day! Once we were done with that we went to the feria of that city and did a little shopping. Then we went back to the hotel.

The next day we took the long car ride back to our city. And that concludes the amazing (I know, I know, it doesn't sound amazing...but trust me, it was.) trip to Salta.

:D Chauu

Stephanie <3

Homesickness (again), and Exchange Students

I have been starting to think of home a lot more than usual. I'm convinced that it's because most of my activities have been put on hold because of the winter break, and even though I've been pretty busy with friends I still have a lot of down time to think about home, which only makes me more homesick. Even though I'm starting to get homesick, it isn't even remotely close to the feeling I had before I changed families. I'm doing much better with this new family, they aren't perfect, but they are the perfect host family for me.

On another note, I feel like my exchange is about to get even better (What? how?) because in a couple of weeks 8 new exchange students will arrive and I can't wait to get to know them and make 8 more friends from all over the world! I've already met a girl (on facebook through an AFS page) from Germany. It was a little hard to talk because she didn't know much English, and almost 0 Spanish, but I know that it will be easy enough to communicate with her when she gets here!

:D chauu

Stephanie <3

Wow, August already!

I can't believe that it is August already! It literally feels like these last couple of months have just flown by! Next week I start school again, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. I'm kind of wishing that it was summer already, but then again I don't want it to be summer because then it will almost be time for me to go home. I'm excited to see my classmates, but I'm also a little nervous because right before the break my classmates did something REALLY nice for me that didn't really end up working out and they will be pestering me about it. Asking me all sorts of questions about if it worked out, if it didn't, why it did, how I'm feeling about it, etc... Right now I'm feeling like if I never went back to my school here, I would be perfectly fine. I also feel that there is no way in hell that I will change schools. It just won't happen. Firstly, I don't want to run away from something just because I'm nervous, if I did that then I wouldn't even be in Argentina right now. Secondly, I don't actually have any reason at all for changing schools other than me being nervous over almost NOTHING. I seriously think I'm getting worked up over nothing, but you know what? I can't help it, it's just happening.

On another note, next weekend I'm going to another province called Salta! It's supposed to be absolutely gorgeous and I can't wait to see something outside of Santiago del Estero!

Chauu,

Stephanie <3