Bimbo Bread

      Well....last night i may have brutally and somewhat hysterically murdered baby Bug... It was kind of an accident really. I was sitting on my desk talking to a friend and all of a sudden this little cucaracha comes scuttling out from under the bed and without thinking i gabbed a water bottle, leaped off the desk and smashed it to smithereens.....So...yeah i think Bug is dead. I feel a little contrite...
Don't laugh but i kinda miss my little antenna waggling, baby cockroach....i mean i don't want another one but Bug was kinda cute....Oh good God! Just listen to me. Becca liking bugs?! The apocalypse is coming, prepare yourselves.

      But in other news today is my last day of finals (do i hear an amen?!) and only one more to go!!! So after our grammar final, Callie and I went with Haroldo (ACA director here at the UAP) to go shopping for all the ingredients for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow....let me just say, Wow. Good times were had by all. But seriously...so darn funny. I think we bought like 10kilos of carrots and over 7kilos of potatoes...and these grocery stores are small. People were looking at us like were had lost our marbles. As we took our three shopping carts full (i'm not exaggerating) of food to the register Haroldo picks up a loaf of bread, looks at it, and tells me to go grab another one. Why? Because the mark is "Bimbo" bahahahahaha.....that isn't a word in Spanish but he still wanted a different loaf....ahhh man. You had to have been there...I have never had so much fun shopping. Ever. Come to Argentina and shop with Haroldo...its hysterical!!!

     Entonces...yeah no that was all i had. :D

I Should Be Blogging

       I'm sitting here listening to one of my favorite songs Cold As Ice by Foreigner thinking what on earth should i be doing at 12:01am and suddenly i know! I should be blogging....kinda like the BeeGees song about.... You should be dancing yeaaaaa.... my family will understand, the rest of you sorry. Anyways....So its finals week part two, last week was the first half and i thank my St.Mary's education everyday because (no offence WWU) thats really the only part of my education that i feel like has really helped me do....like anything useful. Maybe i quit paying attention after i left SMS (in highschool) but i feel like thereafter i had everything i needed to succeed and everything else just made me use that information...is this making any sense? I'm a little scatterbrain. OMG DID I MENTION MY SISTER IS GETTING MARRIED!!!!!! Yes finally, i am so gosh darn excited ^_^ AND DID I MENTION ITS GOING TO BE IN GERMANY??? Ahem....so Caity is going to marry Flo....i alway wanted to have a legitimate reason to say i have German family, so thanks Cait.  Oooo and i get to be in it!!! YAY!! I mean it sucks because she gets to plan it (when i say "gets to" i kinda mean has to) without me! :( I always dreamed about helping my big sister plan her wedding....you know go dress shopping and help pick out flowers and that kinda thing....darn you life, robbing me of helping my Only sister plan her wedding....Well i guess this means that after I spend a year running around Argentina i get to come home in the middle of May, be home with enough time to do laundry and pack again before flying to Germany to set up for Cait's wedding and the end of May. Talk about jet lag. But it will be so worth it....But i swear I will throw a legitimate tantrum if i don't see Nate before I fly off to another foreign country. I digress....so Finals week! In case you are wondering this is actually how my brain works, i bounce from one subject to the next and they are all in there and i am perfectly capable of completing the thought...it just takes a minute. Anywho, the first week was terrible, i honestly just ran and studied. That's it. No lie. I am dead beat tired....But its ok because its just an oral test tomorrow, two written on Wednesday and i'm done with trimester uno!
      So....basically i have decided to stop hunting for the baby cockroach who may or may not still be lurking around my room because...i mean Nate says they are friendly so maybe it just needs a friend, right? It wagged its antenna at me the other day when i was chasing it around my desk...i took that as a friendly gesture. So as long as Bug stays out of my way and off my bed and desk, Bug can chill for a little while...yes i name the baby cockroach Bug. Lets see what else...oh this morning i was awoken at 9am by what i thought was a bomb going off outside my window....it was not a bomb.... the thunder is so loud here you can feel it in your chest...kinda like when you are in a car with an insane stereo system and the bass drops and it pounds through your chest...like that but scary as hell. It might have been cool if i knew thunder could do that and maybe if it hadn't woken me up. But as is, i leapt off the top bunk and slammed my windows shut before hiding under my covers wondering what on earth was going on...incidentally i went back to sleep with no problem but man...that was one heck of a way to wake up.
       Oh hey...its November...in fact this Thursday is Thanksgiving...you know when not in North America Thanksgiving seems kinda silly...to celebrate here i mean. For instance, its hot, there are palm trees, mosquitoes, i'm taking finals....speaking Spanish, you know? It just sounds weird to eat turkey and stuffing in this environment. I wonder if i will feel this way about Christmas too...

Ramblings Of A Workout Addict

        Well its the middle of November and today was the first day of finals....what the heck?! I don't remember having finals this early before. Is it just me or is that crazy early?! But hey i'll take what i can get...I mean it's this week and next week then its December. The first week of December is the first week on my second trimester here, but get this, we leave for Peru the second week of December...now if you have half a brain you are thinking what the fun?! Well exactly....one week of classes then a month long break...if you ask me that's called bad planning but like i said, i'm not going to complain. So I have to muddle through two weeks of minimal classes and finals, then pick a new set of classes, go to them once, then get on the bus at 3am and go to Buenos Aires to catch a plane to Peru....We will be there for a week then we fly back to BsAs, and from there Callie, Alex and I hop on a plane to Calafate in Patagonia, to see the giant glaciers,  two days later we fly to Ushuaia "el fin del mundo". We will be there about 6 days i think....then we hop on the plane to BsAs to see my parental units, Callie flies back to the USA and we fly up to Misiones to see the giant waterfalls. I just thought i'd cover all my bases, you know? Go as far south as possible and then all the way to the top of the country....gotta get that variety though. :)
   
     What else can I tell you about my life here....well i have become an excersize addict. Callie and i run 4-6 days a week, we do strengthening and toning exercises of all manner, and now we have started going to the Gym UAP (ok she went sometimes before without me, but anyways) to go gymnastics and stunting before our runs. Please, slap anyone that tells you doing a handstand is easy. They have either been practicing or there is something wrong with them if its easy...but anyways Callie and I went to do that today. I finally am starting to get the muscle memory so my form is vastly improving, which means i don't completely suck! It takes a lot of muscle work i'm not used to, but i like feeling sore....makes me feel like i accomplished something. I just wrote my mom practically an essay on this but seriously guys there is nothing better than waking up in the morning and jumping in front of the mirror and seeing all that hard work, sweat, and time put into working out paying off. Callie found a little meme thingy that i like "Work like an ox, sweat like a pig to look like a fox." Its kinda our inspiration for the hours of pain and cramps and blah blah...ok i'm rambling but its awesome. I never want to stop running ever again. I am literally getting anxiety about not being able to run on my month long travels... but i will figure it out.

Life is Beautiful

      Today was one of those days that starts out seemingly normal and ends so well. Callie kicked me out at 8:10am per request, went to breakfast, went back to bed where i dreamed about mice, which normally would be great but there were tons of them and they were crawling on me and that was not fun. Anyways went to class yada yada yada....now the good part. I went  to the gymnastic gym with Callie, Alex, Heather, and Ezequiel. I have never done more than a crappy cartwheels and today i was taught how to a billion awesome things that i don't actually know the name for. My favorite stunt was the wrap around, you jump into the guys arms and they swing you around the back then you let go and swing around the front and back to where  we started. Its awesome i basically just fly around, so much fun. To all my friends and family that told me "Becca you should be a gymnast you have the body for it" well guess what? You all were darn right. I've started and there is no way i am ever going back. I have always wanted to be able to do gymnastics, its like Argentina is giving me everything i want: i will become fluent in Spanish, i've made some unforgettable friends, I've never been more fit in my life, i'm learning gymnastics, i get to travel all over Argentina and to Brazil and Peru, and i get to see Penguins!!!!

 

This is called a camel...its very fun :)

Pictures from BsAs

 

Callie, Alex and Danny....my gymnast buddies :)

  

Welcome to La Boca, all my favorite colors in one place ^_^

A mural en La Boca 

 

 

Soaking up the sun with Callie and Victoria

 

Argentina's 'white house' which is pink... ^_^

 

Across from the Pink House

 

This place was so ornate and beautiful.

 

Beautiful old theature

 

Most beautiful park...that is the true color of those trees

 

A gift from Britain (the tower) and the memorial from the war against Britain

 

Para-para-paradise 

 

These ducks did not care that i was in front of these faces

 

I just love to hang out with beautiful people :)

 

My ACA boys photobombing

 

Yup....these are my friends

Now tell me you don't want to be in Argentina. 

 

This place looked like it was made for a big white wedding...so pretty

 

Toni being adroable

 

Can i please get married here?

 

This is my sexy face hahaha

 

Lost in translation..... please don't climbing the tree. Hahaha

Buenos Aires Prt 1

     Ok as promised i will tell you all about my trip to BsAs with ACA. We left the UAP around 7:15am and drove for probably about 6 hours more or less....probably the more considering we were in a giant double-decker bus. Thankfully Callie and i got a spot near the from of the bus so i didn't get car sick, that would have been miserable. We got into BsAs around....oh i can't remember sometime in the middle of the afternoon.Since we had a bunch of free time Sapphira and Callie and I went out to explore Calle Florida which is a pedestrian street lined with shops. A ton of leather. I went bananas. Have i ever mentioned that i LOVE all things leather? Anyways. Exploring, shopping, getting hollered at by a million men, and constantly confusing the living daylights out of anyone who managed to get us to stop and talk to them. Because we responded in Spanish everyone thought we were brasilian, when we said no they couldn't figure out where on earth we were from. Brasileñas? No. (look of shock) Donde son?! Estados unidos (more shock) oooooh. Every single time. Its like they couldn't believe Americans could speak anything other than English....which they have good reason for. It was funny though.
      I cant remember what happened which day exactly but we went on several bus tours around BsAs to the south end and the north, to the poor district and the rich. Both were beautiful in my opinion. La Boca is so beautifully colored, everything is painted in bright hues...I wish north americans didnt insistant on their stupid 'tope' and 'rust' and 'pine green' colors of houses....there is nothing more fun than walking past buildings painted violent and gold, turquoise and lime green, pink and orange. Its like Becca heaven.
    We went to a gorgeous, and i mean stunning rose garden, we went to an old theater with some of the best acoustics in the world (fact) we went to several malls and restaurants, we went to an Art museum where i got to see several original Degas...don't even ask me how some of the ACAs acted around the paintings of the naked women i wanted to murder several of them. *sigh* Anyways...i managed to get one of the most spectacular sunburns on my face (yes Daddy, i'm sorry i should have been wearing sunscreen-I'm an idiot), but even greater is that it only burned around my sunglasses, now i have an epic goggle looking tan on my face. Wahoo! I bought what i consider to be the most gorgeous blue leather jacket on the face of the planet. I love it, its awesome :)
    annnnnd that was pretty much it. On the last day (thursday) we rolled out of bed, packed up and hopped back into that confounded bus. We drove about 2 hours before stopping at an estancia for lunch and some cultural time. We had traditional foods, the gauchos were dress traditionally, there was dancing and music and horseback riding, and a horse show type thing. It was very very fun, i would recommend doing something like that for anyone coming to visit. Then we all smooshed ourselves back into the bus in our respective seats....minus me and Callie because no one wants to actually fit two to two seats, we prefer to have all our buddies in our seats with us. It was a long but fun trip back to school, arriving back around 10pm.

A Rant Too Short Is No Rant At All

        Do you ever wake up from a ridiculous dream feeling absolutely murderous? It's ok that definitely doesn't ever happen to me either. Over the past few years i have come to the conclusion (through gentle scolding from my impeccably well mannered better half, Nathan) that i am unreasonable, unbending, and unprepared when it comes to my sleeping habits. Sleep is more important to me than food (i can see my mom shaking her head at me) so I naturally have a great deal of respect for others regarding their sleeping habits. I do my darnedest to be ninja if my roommate is sleeping when i leave/enter the room. I do not talk to people in my room when they are sleeping, i do not take phone calls, i dim my computer or leave the room if i'm using it, i stifle laughs and sneezes, i even go to class with my clothes on backwards because i got dressed in the dark so as not to wake my slumbering companion. Since i do these things out of reverence for the greatest thing on earth--Sleep-- I assume everyone else will show me the same courtesy ....that is simply not the case. But why not??? I swear I have asked this question at least a thousand times. Why doesn't anyone else care? Why is is so hard to expect someone to go the extra mile so i can sleep my whole 9 hours?! Well you've got me. So my problem is that when you have the great and terrible misfortune of waking me up when i do not need to be awake, i wake up in a mood to shred you limb from limb. I don't consider myself a violent person but i admit on several occasions that i have considered how hard it would be to hide the body of the unfortunate offender. Now i know you are all thinking its unreasonable....well i agree but sometimes I am unreasonable. like for example, when someone i either do not respect or do not consider to hold authority over me tells me what to do...its like my skin starts to crawl....argh not that! It makes me itchy, i like this term because its one of those terrible feelings you can't sate but it is there driving you crazy. Its when you see me get all mulish and stubborn and threaten to do something outlandish we all know i am not actually capable of. But mmmm if you make me grumpy....you might as well just throw my running shoes at me and kick me out of the house before you try to have any decent conversation with me. For example, the other day someone just so happened to say something so completely ridiculous that i was both righteously pissed off and vaguely astounded at the sheer lack of filter. I spent a good two days imagining all the ways in which i could reap my revenge for a comment which frankly hurt my feelings....but see i like to pretend i'm all tough and rough and you won't ever see me cry (which you probably won't cause i have a problem) but in reality half the things that make me feel murderous are over things which hurt my feelings.
      Actually there were are  numerous things that make me feel a little murderous....number one being biten. I am going to muder the next thing that bites me, so help me god...mosquitoes look out, I'm exacting revenge for my poor itchy, bitten feet. But seriously enough with the biting.  Another thing is being stared at, i don't care if its because i have impeccable fashion taste, because i'm making a ridiculous facial expression, or because there is salad stuck in my teeth. Its like half the world has decided that manners are inconsequential...Ok this is a bit hypocritical of me because as i day dream i tend to stare at something, and sometimes that something happens to be a person, but at least i'm not thinking about them right? Or is that worse? Well whatever. I guess its human to want to be treated differently than we often act. Which, by the way is highly irritating. I want to be rational, i want to be reasonable, i want to be all these things and sometimes i can just not get my $%!& together. Its just one of those days though, ya know? You just feel itchy about everything in life and all you really need is a hard run and a nap. Wow i sound like a dog...I'm pretty sure i was a golden retriever in a past life, it just explains so much about my personality. Clearly also a cat in a past life too...yes that explains my inexplicable need to be independent, to be able to be strong on my own....yup must have been.
        Man i could go on forever, i'm just in that mood....but my last note i shall rant while contradicting myself. Prepare yourselves. Ok i am so darn tired of things being pink just because i am a girl. Who decided that pink was a girly color and blue was boyish? I wanna meet them and give them a piece of my mind, because really its absurd. Every time i pick up a weekend pink slip from the dorm i think to myself how outrageous that is that because i was born female i must be subjected to everything pink....now here is my contradiction. I like pink, in fact quite a bit. Its infuriating! Oh by the way i recently learned i have been saying that word wrong for my entire life....i always say infuriorating....which subsequently is not only not a word, but if it were a word it probably is not what i meant to say in the first place. So that's cool.

It Was Bound To Happen Sometime

      I am Homesick...there i said it. Don't get me wrong I love, love, love LOVE Argentina...but it was Halloween and they didn't care, it was pouring and thundering (Rain makes me feel nostalgic) and the leaves ought to be red right now not yellow green.... I discovered that their idea of gum is simply not the same and i have been craving gum for a month now. Who craves gum?! Also, I've come to realize that even though my strong suit may be languages that wont stop me from taking more than two months to be fluent.....patients is apparently what i will be learning in the mean time. All good things come to those who wait, i guess. Although, Callie and i spoke in Spanish to each other all day on Halloween and i discovered that i can actually say more than i thought i could. So maybe i'm not giving myself enough credit.

      I never thought the day would arrive when i missed cars but i actually have been longing to just get in my little green car and go for a drive. I think partially that is because i'm not really getting any alone time. I have this insane fear of missing out (Thank you Brown family for those genes) and so instead of staying home and being alone and thinking i'm always out on the go. By the time i get to the weekend i feel like the walking dead. I have some of the most absurd and hilarious stories to tell but i am always exhausted.

       But today i miss fall, fall is one of my favorite seasons and it finally caught up with me that i plumb missed it this year. My internal clock thinks i should be pulling out my hoodies and fuzzy blankets, planning hot chocolate and movie nights with Nate, when in reality i am preparing to die of heat stroke in a month or two. Its an interesting thing. There is so many wonderful things about Spring here but right now i'm in a missing mood so i will tell you all the things i love about it later. I guess i'm just a little heartsick....Maybe i should go find Danny (ACA guy) so we can commiserate about missing our significant others in the USA.

     But on the bright side we are taking an ACA trip to Buenos Aires for the week starting on Monday so that will give me something new to see and do! I'm pretty excited for this trip, i probably wont take my computer so i may not have any more posts until i get back...but we shall see. Depends on how heavy my backpack is without my little blue laptop.

A little blurry but its the best i have. From Vespers last night.....we did not all plan to wear blue i swear.

If Its Rainin' We're Still Trainin'

      Well this week has been....eventful. Honestly I cant really remember what happened what ......but we had our last parcial in composition so hopefully that comes back with a good grade. We got the rest of our parciales back, I did pretty well across the board, definitely room for improvement but not bad. I guess it was more of a test run, the teachers here do tests differently than at home so that was new... the skies have been raining like its life depends on it since Halloween morning. On Halloween Callie and i went to invade Alan/Plinio's kitchen to make awesome Halloween pasta (thank you Daina) and salad, it was amazingly delicious. Consequentially that day i also was subject to one of  most absurd lines, which could have only come out of a terrible teen comedy. But i digress....This morning Callie and I finalized our plans for this summer break. Before the parental units arrive on the 22nd Callie and Alex and I making a 9 day long trip down south to Calafate, and Ushuaia. I couldn't be more excited because that means i get to see Penguins!!!!! Which, is like half the point in coming to Argentina. Spain aint got nothing on Argentina! HA. Anyways.... Oh today was ACA student body...whats it called....you know political stuff.....Anyways out of a whim i signed my name down to be considered  for president on the sign up sheet the other day, guess who is now ACA president. Yup, Me. Well....hope i don't regret this! jajajaj. :P
      Since Callie and i have been out of running commission for the last week due to our fevers/coughing/general sickness...then knee issues.....ANYWAYS since we haven't been out for a bit we decided today was the day to hit the ground running...heh pun not intended. Its been pouring all day, and it was in fact still pouring so we suited up, grabbed our raincoats and went to pound it out in the mud. Due to my slightly agitated mood we pushed harder than normal. It felt so great. Nothing like running in the rain to cool the nerves :) Oh i miss my track days... We returned to the dorm completely soaked and covered in mud. Not going to lie but i felt pretty darn boss walking through campus looking like we went to battle with the elements. Everything is better after a good hard run. I could die happy now :)