Hello everyone!

Sorry it has been so long since I've updated you on my adventures!!!!!

Since I last wrote, Emiliano and I went camping on the beach south of Buenos Aires for a week. It was beautiful! In the morning, we would eat a breakfast of croissants and mate on the beach until around noon and head back to our campsite for a game of cards, reading, talking, etc. until the sun wasn't so hot. Then we'd head back to the beach for the afternoon and take a walk, sit in the sand or play frisbee!!!! One of the last nights we were there we went horseback riding on the beach around sunset... It was gorgeous! My horse was a bit of a pain in the ass and didn't want to move his culo (behind in Spanish) but eventually we got both our horses moving... It was just Emi and I for most of the time. They had a young man from the folks who we rented the horses from accompany us but he didn't stay right with us most of the time and was pretty chill about everything.

When we got back to Rosario, we went back to the Irish bar where we had our first date and toasted with champagne (Emi decided to surprise me) at midnight :)

On my birthday, we spent the day hanging out in the afternoon on the side of the river drinking mate and talking and for dinner we went to a great seafood restaurant and had DELICIOUS fresh seafood, delish white wine to accompany and two scrumptious deserts! Yum yum yum!!!!

In the past days since my birthday, we have gone to two Newell's Old Boys games at the cancha... unfortunately, one was 0-0 and the other 0-2 :( NOT the outcome I would have preferred. Mind you, these were just friendly games and not part of the normal season and they're switching out players and testing out new players, etc. BUT the best part was DEFINITELY going to the section called "popular" everyone is NUTS. There are people cursing out the players of BOTH teams, everyone sings, jumps, they throw water on you from the higher section, there are guys with these HUGE drums playing drums the whole time, everyone is jumping around and waving their arms and it's just WONDERFUL. What I was missing watching the games by streaming them online definitely! When I'm back in May, I'll get to see some games for the tournament which will be even better, even more singing, more jumping, more cursing, more QUILOMBO! yayyyyyy! In May, I can expect between 30,000 and 40,000 people there screaming and jumping and singing with me! :)

A couple of days after my birthday, we went to a spa and got rock massages too :) mmmm it was so relaxing and wonderful! It was one of my birthday gifts from Emi and they set up a special room so that we could do the massages together! We both agreed that they could have used a bit more pressure but it was incredibly relaxing and fun and nice to do it together :)

The past few days have been really hot, unlike the rest of the days here in Rosario, very humid -lots of rain is coming.

The last few days, we've been watching movies, cooking together, hanging out in the apartment, playing frisbee too! We went to a park to play frisbee and I started teaching Emi the rules of ultimate, he seemed to enjoy learning about it but it was HOT to be running and sprinting around like we do on the field!

We also went out to eat Mexican two nights ago ... let me rephrase: "Mexican" food. The fajitas came, as usual on the little skillet thing, etc. but there were CARROTS! yes, that's right CARROTS in there with the peppers... clue number one that things were not right... they brought us chips and rather than the usual salsa we got the kinda nacho cheese they give you at the movie theater ... also not right... they brought FOUR tortillas for TWO people for the fajitas, and I'm not talking big tortillas!!! THEN we asked for a margarita because Emi had never had one - it was not lined with salt, as I expected but with SUGAR?!?!?!?! and the drink was sweet, it didn't taste like any tequila I know of... so we switched to a peach daiquiri for our second drink since neither of us really liked the attempt at a margarita... HOWEVER, we had such a kind waiter, overall it was a nice atmostphere and we had a lot of fun talking about how the food would have been had we been at Las Lomas or Cebolla's in Fort Wayne or La Mex in Richmond... I miss good Mexican food here! However, the food here is amazing and I hope the food in Peru will be just as good!

Speaking of, I'll be leaving to Peru in two days - I'll already be there by now in two days actually! I am incredibly excited, nervous, and can't wait to start my next adventure. I'm glad I'll be coming back to Argentina to do some good work with the municipalidad (city of Rosario) and get to be back in this city that I love - even though it will be chilly when I get back :( boo winter! But I have 3 and a half months of nice weather in northern South America ahead of me! Here we gooooooo!