7/11-13/15: [Probably] Last Day at Proyecto

After having obligations/traveling the last two weekends, I decided to take the weekend off. On Saturday, I took my laptop to a cafe for the majority of the day, and on Sunday, I just chilled at the house. I was able to read a lot (I finished Outliers, Freakonomics, and got through most of Super Freakonomics) and get some work done! Not having wifi is actually a pretty good thing because it prevents me from being distracted, even if I have to spend some extra money to pay for internet access through my phone's wifi hotspot.

I went to Proyecto on Monday, and didn't do much out of the ordinary! The organization asked me for a $150 donation that I completely did not know about or expect. When I explained this to them, the current volunteer coordinator told me that I was notified about it in an email and helped dig it up for me. When I looked over the text, it was there. However, it's only mentioned once in over 30 emails that I exchanged with the organization. It's in the very first email that is really lengthy and includes an additional volunteer FAQ document - about 3/4 of the way down the email in two sentences or so. I received this email last November - a lot has happened since. It doesn't even say it is necessary - the email says "There is no fee to volunteer with us" followed by saying that short-term volunteers are "asked" to raise a minimum of $150. The most curious thing is that this "donation" is not mentioned on the volunteering page on the website, was not brought up when I confirmed my arrival, was not talked about when I arrived, and I was never asked for it until now - over a month into my stay.

I had been considering leaving this week. My original plan was to leave around Wednesday of next week, but it didn't make sense to me to travel this weekend and pay for a bus ticket back to Cochabamba for the couple of extra days  of volunteering when it would be more economical for me to just stay in Sucre and move on to Potosi from there. I also haven't been to Toro Toro National Park near Cochabamba, so I think Monday was my last day. I didn't intend for it to be this way - I genuinely like working with the kids and $150 is not a huge sum - but it is significant when that is rent for a month here. The organization should have been much more transparent with the fee. If I had known about it, I probably would have tried to find another organization. If I had stayed with Proyecto, I would at least know to expect it.

If it is my last day (I may go one more day) - I'm not sure because I'm staying in the city for a couple more days to take advantage of the Couchsurf I have set up and to get my last Spanish lessons in - then I have to say that it was a great situation overall for me to volunteer with Proyecto. Even though the commute was usually about one hour there and about 30 minutes in public transportation/30-45 minutes walking back, it helped me learn to use Couchsurfing, get used to a city in Bolivia, and slow down my travels a bit. I was fed breakfast each day if I arrived early enough, a snack, and a sizable lunch without fail - healthy options, and clean since I never got sick from it or had diarrhea as a result. I have saved a lot of money and have had time to read, keep my blog, take Spanish lessons, etc. There are some things that I could have taken more advantage of, but overall, it's been good! I'm excited to move on and get back on the road though.

When I left, I went with Daniel to the market again. I think my phone charger was pickpocketed on Friday since I know I left volunteering with it, but could find it nowhere when I got back. I had a sort of backup charger that I bought with the power bank last weekend, but for some reason it was really terrible at charging - my phone kept saying it wasn't a verified Apple product and "may not work reliably" - I was worried, especially since people don't have many Apple products here. I got a new one for about $6.50, though, and it seems to work fine! Thank goodness. On the other hand, Daniel had his phone pickpocketed - we tried to retrace our steps and everything, but found nothing. It's quite unfortunate and reminds me to make sure I don't make the same mistake of not paying attention during the rest of my time traveling. On the bright side, I bought one of those samosa-looking things for a snack again! Delicious.

I also had forgotten until Saturday that my visa was about to expire. I arrived in Bolivia on 6/7, and was given 30 days. However, I completely forgot to go to Immigration to renew it until Monday. I went to the office after volunteering, but when I got there I was told that I could either apply for a year-long visa for a TON of money (about $200) which I would not need at all, or pay a fine of 20 Bs each day I stay over. There really was no other option. Well, okay, I guess I'm paying just about $3 per day to stay in the country.

7/8-10/15: I guess I'm not invincible

BEING SICK IS SO TERRIBLE

I went to sleep last night feeling fine, and woke up at an ungodly hour today with an excruciating pain in my stomach and the urge to throw up. It was weird because I felt very full, even though the last thing I had eaten was lunch. I was able to fall back asleep but not for long, as I woke up shortly after and had my first bout of diarrhea. By the time I needed to leave for Proyecto to get there at a respectable time, I thought I felt better so I headed there. The whole way, I was uncomfortable but I managed to arrive without a hitch.

During the day there, the way back, and my Spanish lesson, I felt bad but manageable. As long as I stopped by the bathroom regularly it wasn’t a problem. When I made it back to my Couchsurfing host’s place, though, it felt like my body had been holding back during the day and now let everything out. It was only about 6:30 but I was exhausted, and promptly threw up everything and got rid of everything in my stomach/digestive tract over the course of an hour. Every time I thought I was starting to feel better, I started to feel terrible again, and trying to sleep was an effort I put forth to no avail. Eventually, after my body got rid of literally everything in it, I fell asleep. My host offered to buy me some medicine and woke me up when she did. That was fine, but the other Couchsurfers (3 that apparently came in after I fell asleep the first night) have a guitar and were singing late into the night. Argh.

Waking up on Thursday morning was thankfully uneventful. I felt a lot better – not 100% but definitely getting there. The day went smoothly overall, which was very good. When I got back to the house, I found out that the wifi hotspot that my phone can make actually works really well – better than a lot of wifi that I’ve tried, actually. Unfortunately, it uses up my phone credit pretty quickly. I guess I’ll have to stick with only the essentials.

The other three Couchsurfers from last night were there already, even though it was early afternoon. They were making lunch and invited me to join, so I had to go with them. I have no idea how they found/know each other, but one is German, the other is Spanish, and the last is Argentinian. The German’s Spanish is a lot better than mine and the Spaniard and Argentinian speak very little English, so I basically understood none of the conversation. I have forgotten how difficult it is to not understand and be physically tired (I think from the illness from yesterday), and just kind of felt bad. It’s okay, though. I have just realized that travelers tend to be a very different kind of person than I am – at least people who backpack around the way that I’m doing. They like to drink and smoke and don't care much about recording their experiences. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I haven’t quite found the kind of vibe that really fits me. It might be the fact that I don’t speak Spanish and feel that progress learning is slow, and not understanding the language is extraordinarily tough, but I’m not sure. I just know that I’m really tired and wouldn’t mind being able to sleep and read and just rest for a while.

At night, my host Katherine started to teach them some sort of traditional dance. I forgot the name, but it included a good amount of hopping around and spinning in circles. I wanted to be as good a sport as possible, but it was hard for me to keep up with everything because (1) I usually don't do that well trying to remember things that I don't write down and study and (2) the motions were making me feel sick again. I had started to feel better, but the motions and being on my feet for so long were not good. It was like 6 pm and I was already starting to feel tired. I didn't want to seem like a party pooper, but I just could not sustain being up for so long. I just hope they don't think I'm some extreme weirdo for it!

Friday was a good day! I went to work as normal, and even though my stomach pains and tiredness weren't completely solved, I was feeling a lot better. I had Spanish lessons in the afternoon (I seriously feel overwhelmed with the information now - there is so, so much to learn) in a cafe. It was nice because I was able to bring my laptop and finally have some wifi afterwards, which I have not had the privilege of for the last week. I have to say, it's extremely nice. Not having wifi isn't terrible, but I'm glad I at least have something now.

7/7/15: New Couchsurfing Host!

I arrived at the bus station with all my stuff, and I decided just to carry it all with me to Proyecto. Luckily, the trufi there was relatively empty and my large backpack wasn’t a problem, but when I walked into the room the two teachers looked at me like they had never seen a traveler before. I set my stuff down and one of them took my neck pillow to play with it a little – I guess those are uncommon enough here for that to be warranted, and the day proceeded like normal. There was only about ½-2/3 of the normal number of kids, which I think is due to the “winter vacation” that the school is having right now.

All the kids went to sleep at lunch, and the one teacher who has always been a little aggressive and willing to say whatever she wants told me that my boyfriend in the United States probably has found a new girl. What? Where did that even come from, and why would you tell someone that? Along similar lines, relationships are built on mutual trust. Anyways.

She then started asking me about Chinese words. I’m always happy to share, but I was a little disappointed that she sounded like she was making fun of the language a little – emphasizing the slight nasal sound, drawing things like a triangle with a line through it and asking me if that was a Chinese word, etc. I can only control how I react to things and not what things I have to deal with, but that just made me sad. I wish it was easier to learn multiple languages at the same time, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be that bad to try Chinese and Spanish at the same time since I’m mostly familiar with Chinese and the two are very different, right? I might try that when I get back to the States, and focus all my efforts on just Spanish when I can use it.

When I met my new Couchsurfing host, I was a little nervous, but she’s really nice! Her name is Katherine, and she lives a little further from Proyecto and the city center but her house is very nice. There is no wifi, which is a major struggle, and I don’t have a key, but other than that it’s a nice situation. She gave me some tea and bread with jam and told me all about Carnival in Bolivia. She’s from La Paz, but apparently the whole country stops for three months in January to March to party. It’s crazy, apparently – the party moves from city to city during the three months and they all have a distinct way of celebrating and honoring Mother Earth. If I ever come back, it’ll have to be to see that. The Carnival in Oruro is the most famous because it’s so large and the city is so bland otherwise (that I understood). Our conversation was a good start to the new host relationship!

7/6/15: Immigration Troubles

I’m writing this a day later, but it’s been a 24 hours that is simultaneously eventful and uneventful all at the same time. I had originally planned to go to Samaipata for Monday – it’s apparently another place filled with nature, including a national park and some ruins – but the Israeli girl and Daniel promptly went back to sleep after breakfast (the arepas that Alejandro made are below!) and then when Daniel woke up, he said that he was going to chill in the city today instead. Since both of my travel companions had bailed and it was around 10 am, I decided that take 2.5 hours there and another 2.5 hours back from the site probably wasn’t going to be worth it, so I relented and started reading The Kill Order, the prequel to James Daschner’s Maze Runner trilogy instead. The wifi wasn’t working, so I basically spent the day reading and studying Spanish. It really was not a bad way to spend a day, and it was nice to have some rest and a day of absolutely nothing.

When it came close to the end of the day, Daniel and I headed to the bus station once again. We found a pretty good price for a bus to Cochabamba (we haggled it down to 60 Bs per person from 70 originally – other options were closer to 120) and went to sit outside. This bus station in particular had a lot of vendors selling all kinds of foods for dinner and snacks, and some of it was incredibly tempting.

What made the night turn from boring into interesting was the approach of two police officers. They worked for immigration, and as predicted, they asked us for our documents. I had mine and showed my passport with no problems, but Daniel did not. It was clear that trying to pretend that we spoke no Spanish was going to get us nowhere, so eventually we tried to explain that we were living in Cochabamba and he had just forgotten his passport there, but it got our argument nowhere. The men asked us to step into their office where they explained that Daniel should stay the night and they could take him to immigration tomorrow morning, but that would be a terrible idea. We had already bought our tickets and we had legal documents, just not on hand at the moment. One guy actually asked if we were dating (LOL NO) and the other asked us to break a 100 Bolivianos bill (what?!).

Eventually it got to the point where I was getting nervous about making the bus myself, and Daniel told me to go catch it. On my way some vendor guy was looking and saying things at me but it sounded like he was hitting on me, so I was creeped out. Luckily, I got to the bus and everything was fine and dandy except for the Daniel situation. I was Facebook messaging Baneen and Jacob the whole time, which was good in that it gave me something to do and focus on.

The bus ride back was actually relatively nice. The extra seat next to me was a place that I could lie down instead of having to lean my seat back a little and pray that I fall asleep soon. In the middle of the night (around 1:30am) the bus stopped presumably to allow people to use the restroom or something. This rude guy came to my seat and put his blanket on my face so that I would wake up, and when I moved my pillow off the seat, he immediately sat down and pushed my backpack under my seat more. I was pissed and tired as heck, but I didn’t know what this guy was doing. I finally got the nerve to show him that both the seats were mine, but he kept sitting there. It wasn’t until I asked what the problem was that he said he would leave when the bus started to back out of the parking lot. I had no idea about the details of what he said, but I’m just glad he finally left. The bus ride, though colder than the one from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz, wasn’t bad though. 

7/5/15: Biocentro Guembe

Today was a great day! Not only was the trip great but the people I met and spoke to were as well.

I had read online that the bus to this park/resort, Biocentro Guembe, left at 10 am if I did not want to take a taxi. The taxi would cost about 60-80 Bs one way, and even splitting that with someone else meant that it would cost about 70 Bs. Instead, we found information on the Guembe park Facebook page that gave us an address from which the bus would leave, and it actually turned out really well! Daniel and I ended up being the only two on the bus, but it left exactly at 10:00 am, so I wonder if some people missed it.

Biocentro Guembe is incredible! The ground there was still a little wet from the rains yesterday (which was unfortunate), but I had a great time. In essence, it’s a hotel resort combined with a nature preserve and small museum that is just fantastic.

Daniel and I got off the bus after about a 20-minute ride. The entrance fee to Guembe was a lot more expensive than most other things in Bolivia (150 Bs or about $22), which can be highlighted by the fact that the bus ride was 10 Bs round trip (less than $1.50). Since the area is privately-owned, I think that explains why the entrance was so much. Either way, I think it was worth it. The park is large, and front-loaded with the preserve/museum attractions. They have a butterfly lab where they take eggs and caterpillars from their butterfly sanctuary for a safe place to grow, a green area with alpacas, and a swamps with capybaras. We went to see those before venturing into the “Evolumuseo”, or museum on evolution.

I loved that they had one of these! It was small – one large room and one small one, but had some extraordinary information. The museum detailed the evidence behind evolution and explained in a way that a layperson could start to understand, and was kid-friendly. It had a beautiful evolution tree that brought to life the concept of a phylogeny tree and comparisons of skeletons that show what Darwin meant by natural selection/adaptation to the environment. In the center it showed what DNA looks like, in a structure that was made up of old phone books and lighted in a way that could show complementary base pairing. Seriously, this was incredible! In the US, you would be hard-pressed to see something so thorough in favor of evolution as scientific fact (which it is) – and not being afraid to call creationism something with literally no scientific evidence to support it.

Our next stop was a terrarium – basically an exhibit of turtles, ants, iguanas, and termites – to show their importance and impact on soil and the earth.

Along the path after that was a diversity totem pole! We then moved on to the turtle sanctuary.

The aviary was the most awesome because we were able to walk in sanctuary itself. We could actually get right up next to so many of the birds – it was the closest I’ve ever been to birds! We even saw two peacocks, but I couldn’t get them to open their plumes.

At the center of the aviary was a long set of stairs that led to a lookout point, which I was excited to go see since I love the modernity of Santa Cruz. It would have been incredible to see from up top, but we were too far away to really it. Instead, we saw the tops of a forest. Could have been worse, though.

By this time we wanted to go back towards the entrance to go on a tour of the park, so we started heading that way. The guide was a French guy named Ben (are all tour guides in Bolivia from France?) who was really nice. He showed us to the butterfly and bird sanctuaries before taking us to the orchid sanctuary. I had thought it wouldn’t be that impressive since orchids are just flowers, but the area was actually really, really gorgeous, even though orchids weren’t really in bloom!

We ended the tour at the pools – they look magnificent except for the fact that it was chilly outside and the water was even colder. I even remembered to bring my swimsuit but just dipped my feet in because I didn’t want to catch a cold, or weaken my immune system any more.

We rested a while and used the free wifi before heading to Isla de Monos, or Monkey Island. The park has three natural ponds/lagoons, and the first two separate the day trip/exploration area from the hotel out back. It looked really nice, but the prices hurt my soul – rooms between $50 and $150 per night. Pretty sure I could live a month on $150 now, especially since I’m Couchsurfing. The monkeys on the island were a little far away to photograph, but we could see them swinging on the playground of tires and ropes on the island! They weren’t too active because it was a lot colder outside than normal in Santa Cruz, but I’m glad we got to see some of them.

Before we left, we went to the garden! They had a cool square divided into several kinds of herbs including oregano, thyme, mint, spearmint, basil, etc.

We were exhausted by the time it was time to leave, but we walked around a little to find this street food that tasted pretty incredible! We split the plate for 5 Bs each – completely worth it!

It was a great night after that because Alejandro, our Couchsurfing host in Santa Cruz, had another Israeli girl over that night. We ended up talking about languages, as the conversation between travelers often goes. Daniel was more distant because he was trying to do Spanish homework, but I am so glad that I got to share the language with the other girl and Alejandro a little because Chinese is so unique and different! We talked about how it’s possible to know a word without knowing how to write it, how to find Chinese words in the dictionary, the 4 (and sometimes 5) different accents, the makeup of a name, etc. I think it fascinates people who know several languages like the two of them because they learn languages that have alphabets, and Chinese is the furthest from that. I think it takes experience to know how valuable a language can be, because it’s really only now that I truly am starting to appreciate how much Chinese I know, even if I could have known so much more had I worked harder in Chinese school. At the very least, I’m glad that I have the basis of the language – the speaking, the grammar – to have no problems picking it up when I get the chance!

7/4/15: Santa Cruz!

Before I get into my day in Santa Cruz, I have to review my night in Cochabamba before leaving. Daniel and I arrived at the bus station and bought tickets to Santa Cruz for 50 Bs (bus semi-cama, meaning the seats lean back a little bit). The lady told us to wait at gate 20, so we headed there and started to wait. After about 45 minutes, some policemen came up to us and asked for our "documents". Thankfully I had my passport, with my stamp date, visa, and immigration card because Daniel didn't. The police harassed us for a little bit and thankfully left us alone. Shortly after, the bus in front of gate 20 started boarding and we got on. Unfortunately, there were other people who had tickets to the same seats, and after closer examination of our tickets we realized that we were on the wrong bus. This was almost 45 minutes after our original bus had been scheduled to leave, so we were extremely confused. We found the bus with a name that matched that of the company name written on our tickets - right next to the bus we had originally tried to get on. It turns out that, since gate 20 was at the corner of the parking lot, gate 20 apparently means all the buses that are at that corner. Confusing as hell.

So basically, we have missed our bus. I don't know why I handled it the way that I did, but there's something about traveling with someone else that makes me a little more bold and a little more confident than normal. It helps that I feel more experienced and capable of working. When we realized our mistake, I marched immediately to the bus ticketing office and actually had my first real conversation in Spanish with someone who isn't my Spanish teacher. I told them that our ticket said gate 20 at 7:15pm, and we were in front waiting for the bus at that time in that place - but the bus wasn't there and we didn't see it. I had no idea how I even had the coherency to think in Spanish and voice myself - it was quite incredible, really. I was using pretty bad grammar the whole time, but not once did they ask me to repeat myself or look like they didn't know what I was saying. Instead, even when I said something as ridiculous as, "I want to come back the money," they understood and continued the conversation. Eventually, since I wouldn't take their offer of 60 Bs for the 100 that we originally paid, they were willing to give us the last seats on the next bus to Santa Cruz for 80 each - 30 additional to what we had already paid, which made sense because we paid for a less comfortable bus - and I got it down to 50 for the both of us. Looking back, it's kind of an incredible experience. Empowering, at least, to know that I can stand up for myself in Spanish and resolve problems. I was a little riled up after that, bus quickly calmed down. Out of all the mishaps I've had, this is the "best" one. I learned that my Spanish is making real progress - one of my biggest goals in my time here. Yay!

Upon arrival in Santa Cruz, it was actually cold and rainy - ugh. Santa Cruz is known for weather that can be a little bipolar, but this rain made it a sad day to visit the city. More on this later.

We took a taxi to our Couchsurfing host's place, and he was really nice! He has a small one-bedroom place with a living room and made us breakfast, inviting us to use whatever he had in his fridge as his own if we wanted more stuff. He is from Venezuela and offered us a typical Venezuelan food, arepas, for breakfast. It's basically a thick little cornmeal pancake, and tastes a little bland but surprisingly delicious with some cream cheese and fruit juice.

Our itinerary for the day consisted of walking - a lot. We first walked to the main plaza, called Plaza 24 de Septiembre. On the way were tons of puddles and billboards advertising the arrival of Pope Francis next week to the city and statues and the feel of a more modern city that I got in Peru but I had forgotten was lacking in Bolivia. It made me like Santa Cruz instantly - and after today it's my favorite city in Bolivia. I would choose to live here if I had to live in Bolivia.

The plaza itself, about a 30-minute walk away, was beautiful. It was empty (a shame because it must be incredible when bustling with life), but beautiful nonetheless. It was next to a church which was quite nice and was being prepared for tomorrow's sermon.

Nearby, there was a mall that we checked out. It spanned about one block on all four sides and 3 stories up - and featured this genius minion phone case that made me double-take! I've seen a lot of minion-related merchandise here (the movie characters seem to be popular as designs for beanies, sweaters, socks, etc.) but this was a first. I was almost tempted to buy it just for show. Seriously, it's incredible. 

There were then four parks that I had read about that I tried to go to. It turns out that TripAdvisor wasn't completely accurate with their location maps or something because I couldn't find all of them, but the ones that we did see were quite nice! I think that's what sets Santa Cruz apart from the other cities I've seen - the sheer amount of green space in the city. 

On the way, we found this little place that had a small sign with a link to a Facebook page, and since it was close to a point that had been listed on my TripAdvisor app, we thought it would be worth it to check it out. The building looked like a house, but all the doors were open so we walked in. It turned out that there was no one in the house, but there were two giant freezers in the kitchen area - but they were filled with regular food instead of ice cream or something that could be sold. It was very confusing, and when we turned around we saw a man who acted like it was totally normal to have random tourists in his house. We eventually spoke with him, and he explained that they sold sweets but were out of them at that time. He had the weirdest reaction to seeing random people in his house, though!

Lunch: fried chicken, fries, and rice. Dinner: pique macho with our host, Alejandro! He is from Venezuela and makes me interested in visiting sometime, though the country sounds more dangerous than Peru or Bolivia or Chile. Perhaps in a few more years with more experience in Spanish. He also works as a geophysics engineer (or something of the like) for a Chinese company that is extremely strict with its employees - all the Chinese employees must live in their facilities, can go out only with a company driver, must justify any and all trips that are not in the company requirements, provide bank accounts of their wives for payment rather than getting paid and having freedom to access the money, cannot get involved with locals, etc. or they will be sent back to China. It was the most bizarre thing I had ever heard about a company culture. He wasn't subjected to the same rules because he wasn't a Chinese employee, but I wonder about the effectiveness and cultural implications of such strict rules. Hmm.

Tomorrow I plan to go to a nature/animal sanctuary-type place which has some incredible scenery as a day trip. Hopefully it goes without a hitch!

6/29-7/3/15: Couchsurfing and Daniel's Arrival!

Surprisingly, I was not noticeably sort today, even though it has probably been one of the longest days of travel that I’ve had so far. I woke up at 5:30 to catch the bus from Sajama to Patacamaya, which took three hours. I took another minibus from there back to Oruro for 2 hours. After lunch in Oruro, I took a regular bus back to Cochabamba.

I was set to go meet my Couchsurfing host then, but he had some emergencies and I stuck around instead. It was the first time I experienced an attempted robbery – some guy tried to grab my phone out of my hand and run off, but he didn’t anticipate that I would be able to hold onto it, apparently. That, oddly enough, wasn’t what I thought was weirdest/most unnerving about that situation – it was actually that I wasn’t unnerved by that. I just calmly shot the guy a look and kept on walking. I wonder how I would have reacted if I was any less experienced as a traveler. 

On Tuesday, I went back to work! I was with the babies once again, and it was nice to come back to them after having some much-needed time off. That is 100% accurate. Instead of the two usual teachers today, there was only one and a new lady. It was nice that she tried to talk to me, and I thought it was hilarious that she asked how to tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese people (though vaguely reminiscent of the 1940s pamphlets that tried to do the same thing in the United States) and if people ate elephant in China. I wasn't really sure where that second question even came from, but it was interesting nonetheless!

Wednesday was much of the same, except a little girl came to help us out in class! She was very sweet and nice, and tried to interact with me a lot despite my inability to speak to her and the difficulty I had in understanding what she tried to say to me. In the evening, I met up with Daniel, my friend from UT who is here in Bolivia for a week! I went to meet him in the cafe after his Spanish lesson with my same teacher, and we just walked around the city center a bit. We ate a good amount of street food (he was curious about almost everything) and then went back to my place, where we talked a little bit about how we want to travel around the rest of Bolivia. Overall, good day!

On Thursday, I had a lot to do! Volunteering was great, and since it was Daniel's first day working, we went back together and walked through La Cancha market. We tried freshly-squeezed orange juice (the lady actually squeezes the juice right in front of you) and this weird rice-like grain drink that I would never had tried on my own. When I got back to where I'm living, my host, Carlos, told me the unfortunate news that they had a family thing come up and I would have to find somewhere else to live starting next week. I was actually really glad that I had contact so many people in the beginning because I found one who responded to me a little later and still willing to host me! Thank goodness.

I also had my Spanish lesson today - I don't think I've written too much about them, but I had been a little "ehh" because I had been learning a lot of words like "wood" and "wool" that I'm pretty sure I'm not going to use on a regular basis. Today, I met my teacher Carla at a cafe and we actually went through prepositions and almost a million verbs, so I'm a little overwhelmed but also glad that we're finally getting to practical stuff. I actually also feel a lot more confident in my speaking ability - even though it's still a struggle, I can understand more and speak more of what I want. Progress! I also tried something called a cornetto at the cafe - it's like a stuffed croissant, basically. It was quite good.

Daniel and I also have plans to travel to Santa Cruz over the weekend. I basically spent most of the night trying to plan our trip and I actually found a Couchsurf for one day! We'll probably have to go with a hostel for the other night if we decide to stay on Monday (probably will since Santa Cruz is such a large city). That's okay though! Couchsurfing is seriously a wonder. I can't believe I only really discovered it recently.

On Friday, I had a normal day at the nursery and then walked through the market once again! I tried this huge donut that cost about $0.25 and a samosa-tasting pastry for about 80 cents. Bless the low cost of these great foods.

Off to Santa Cruz! I've heard it's quite nice and it looks like there is a variety of fun things to do, so stay tuned!