Subte

WE are sorry that we had a dry spell of not writing! I'm not sure why we did not for so long because there is plenty to tell! So I'll try and check everyone up:

We went to Colonia, Uruguay a couple of weekends ago (2 to be exact). I was a nice town with a lot of rich history (check out the pictures that we have posted on the last post). It was also kind of scary the lack of people present in the town. One of the girls that was with us said that it reminded her of the mid-west in the States because it was so empty. It has been a really long time since I have been in a place that was really flat and no one around!

The really interesting part (other then Tim's knife thing) was when we got back...I have told you before about the traffic here in Argentina. Well the buses are really crazy when they drive...I have almost got run over by one a couple of times. When we where in Uruguay waiting for the ferry to take us all home, we talked to one of the AIFS (who we are studying abroad with) leaders, Lisa, about the crazy bus drivers. She told us, "there are two kinds of people in Argentina: the crazy bus drivers and everyone else!" We laughed about it. Then the minute we get off the ferry in Argentina we find out that: A BUS DRIVER WAS SHOT AND KILLED EARLIER THAT DAY!! I could not believe the irony. One of his passengers got mad at him and killed him. This caused a strike for all the bus drivers and even the Subte (Subway). The buses stopped running at 10pm and the Subte at 9:30. We got off the ferry at about 9:20 and where in the middle of no where, where no Taxis drive by...This equaled us walking all the way home...about 4 miles. By the time we got home, I'm pretty sure that my feet were still on the ground 2 miles back.

Then we had our first day of classes on Monday (Aug. 4)...we have class at 1pm and at 6pm. We go to the school at wait until 2pm but still no professor...we look around for a posting of some kind that will tell us if the class was canceled or what. Of course we can not find it. We walk back home and then walk back to school for the 6pm class, which is one of Tim's. I wait outside his class room, start reading my book, and ten minutes later Tim comes out and says, "you want to hear something fun..." guess what, the class was canceled. We are told that it says on the posting what classes are canceled and had the schedule. We find it and curse it :) Not all is lost however, the exercise is always good for us. We get home and are about to watch a movie when the POWER GOES OUT (as Tim has already talked about in the last posting)...we have no candles so we go out looking for some....no power when we get home. We get woken up at 3am with it going back on. I have class at 8:30am so we go to school then after it is over we come back to the house and the minute we walk in the power goes back out!! What luck. I guess that it happens here but we were the only building in San Telmo without power so I'm not really sure what happened.


Ok now that brings everyone up-to-date for the most part. My last story is about what happened yesterday...We discovered how great it is to use the Subte. The C line is really close to out front door and will take us a lot of places in little time. I have to get books for my Short Stories class in English. We look at about 5 book stores without any luck on finding them (my professor forgot to re-order them for this semester). We are tired and frustrated because we had spent about two hours looking at book store after book store for two stupid books. We get on the Subte and it is packed...well we thought it was packed until we got to the next stop...first you should know that I do not believe they have a fire code in Argentina because of the lack of exits and other things. So the next stop comes and no one gets off but about 30 more people get on...no personal space at all...I can barely breath because a strangers neck is blocking my oxygen path. The next stop comes and I'm praying that people get off but with our luck only more get on...there is no room...and I yell NO MAS NO MAS (no more no more) some people laugh (oh everyone is not saying a word by the way)...now I'm pinned against one of the doors and people are trying to get out...but they can not get out so they shove...it was awful! EVERYONE should try it some time! We were joking that the only way to get out was to body surf...luckily we where able to shove through the mass and get out when our stop came but we did not think we would make it out. You might think that I'm exaggerating but I assure you people where on top of each other.