I've noticed that people in Venezuela.....

really never seem to have anything to actually do. We toured around the main plaza within the first week of being here and most people were just sitting around. I don't know if its because I always catch them when they are taking a breather and relaxing, or if they really have nothing to do. Yes, they do work. Many people sell things on the street: fruits, vegetables, arepas, juices, ice cream and even phone calls. They have these little umbrella stands with cell phones chained to the spokes of the umbrella. You can pay to make a call whenever you want! But for the most part I see people just sitting around. This became very evident this past weekend driving through the campo (countryside)...granted these people aren't in the middle of the city. We drove by numerous houses with a large number of people sitting outside watching cars pass by. However, this lack of always having to do something provides the opportunity to spend more time with family, which is a large part of their culture. I respect that they are able to form strong family bonds through spending large amounts of time together.

I've also noticed that it is dry season here and people light off fireworks everynight all the time for the paradura del nino. I hope the dry grass doesn't catch on fire! Although that's probably the least of my worries with burning tires in the streets..jajaja. Joke! There haven't been protests here since Monday. I just hope they don't start up again.

Hot Springs Trip

Yesterday we met at Garzon to buy food (hotdogs, arepas, crackers, nuts) for the hiking/camping trip to the hot springs. Well actually, hot spring. There was one natural hot spring situated in the side of a mountain. A little waterfall ran into the lagoon supplying it with hot water. Majestic! It had obviously been enhanced by humans, because there were steps made from the rocks leading into the hot spring. Otherwise, it was a great gift from mother nature. The rocks on the bottom of the lagoon were covered in algae. Here I was, sitting in a natural hot spring, nestled in the side of large mountain range; how beautiful! I took a mental image and promised myself I would never forget how serene and tranquil such a place could be.
We set up camp about 5 min away from the hot spring, so once it started to get dark we went back to camp for a fire. It really never got that dark though because we were closer to the moon, being at such a high altitude, that it provided enough light for us! (We were so high up that some clouds were below us.) While we were sitting around the fire we noticed that the shadow on the mountain next to us kept moving and realized that it was the moonlight casting a shadow from behind our mountain. So we actually took the time to sit and watch the moon peak out and rise from behind our mountain! When do you ever have the opportunity to do that? It looked like God was just shining a flashlight directly on us. My friends Brittany and Caitlin and I stepped away from the fire to look at the stars and found them to be actually twinkling in the sky. I don't think I have ever seen that before. We also sat and waited for the clouds below us to roll in and fill up the valley. Moments like these will stay with me forever. Whenever I get caught up in the stress of life with school or work or whatever...I know to just take a breath, relax and picture serenity. Life is too short for stress!
I didn't sleep to well last night; it was freezing! (Although we did have those really cool sleeping bags that completely fit to your body and mine was purple!) Without the sun warming me up, the temperature was comparable to Minnesota weather. This morning we woke up, packed up and left for the little tienda at the bottom of the hill. They had an actual toilet, instead of a tree; except that the man who owned the house had 40 chicks running amuck! He had sprinkled birdseed everywhere, including the bathroom. So I used the toilet with little baby chicks running around my feet. Funny!

Ayyyyyyy......Magallanes.....NO!

So Thursday night we went to MacWen, a sports bar close to our house, to watch the baseball game Magallanes vs. Caracas. We had so much fun with the fans around us! Everyone was really into the game. For no other reason than we don't like Caracas, we adopted Magallanes as our team. Unfortunately, they didn't win Thursday night, but that put the series at 3-3 with tonight hosting the final game! We had to show our Magallanes pride and so we went to mercado principal and found cute Magallanes baseball shirts. I love my shirt and can't wait to wear it back in the states. Johan Santana, who used to pitch for the Twins, played for Magallanes! So I guess that's where my true allegiance lies. hahahaha
Tonight we went to a different sports bar...lot more crowded;however it was the final tie-breaking game. Very intense! Magallanes was not playing very well at all. But we did have a double pickle play!! AKA: We got two people out who were both stuck in a pickle. Very exciting!

I'm watching Magic's Biggest Secrets Revealed right now. My brother and I used to watch that all the time when we were younger. The shows here are all old school. Shows I haven't seen in a while...Hey Arnold, I Dream of Jeanie!!The same goes for the music. Everything seems like it is on a 5-10 year time delay arriving from the U.S.

Oh and today Kelsey and I were both wearing red, so many people thought we were Chavistas! Not good: don't ever wear red in this country. We were walking by our residential area to go pick up our laundry and a water balloon landed two feet in front of us!! We giggled and screamed and ran away looking back to see some kids playing in their yard. I don't think they were purposely trying to hit us, but our reaction sure was funny.

TV in Venezuela

Hulu doesn't work here! Neither does Pandora...I tried tonight to listen to some music and it doesn't stream outside the U.S. Bummer!
TV shows that are always on: (It's always the same episode too)
Scrubs, Big Bang theory (they seem to be obsessed with this show),Seinfeld ,The Office,Glee, 30 Rock, Friends, Family Guy, Two and a half men, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (that show still exists!),According to Jim, Project Runway...

Every channel has Spanish subtitles.
We get Nick at Night complete with Bewitched and all the other shows that I used to watch when I was younger. yay!

I was also able to watch college basketball on ESPN. So cool! I don't know if I can watch the gophers play Wisconsin, but I sure hope they cover the game.
I feel at home when I watch these programs, even in spanish!

Under House Arrest

Hey! So because of last nights protests we did not have school today. I think they were just taking extra precautions to make sure we were safe. Which I appreciate! This morning was great though because I got to talk to my mom on the phone! Yay! Then I slept again until noon, had lunch with my family and then chilled upstairs with Kelsey and Brittany listening to Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson. We played scrabble in Spanish and learned some new words! After being inside all day, and the fact that the girls still don't have host parents and their aunt wasn't coming home to make dinner, we went to the pizza place right around the corner. Great place and the lady was really nice! We finished up the night with some Sex and the City. After a stressful night of protests and burning rubber, it was nice to relax. Now I am watching A Walk to Remember in english with spanish subtitles. This is my favorite movie!

Quema caucho

Today was our second day of classes. I had literatura infantil (Children's Literature), Tropical Ecology!! and then linguistics. Tropical ecology is the only class I have that is not in spanish. I really like that course. Enrique, our professor, is hysterical! He speaks english with a spanish accent, so it's really fun to listen to him. After class today, we walked back to our apartment because it was only around 5:30. The sun doesn't set until 6:30 so it was still safe to walk home. Or so we thought......after stopping at Garzon (a cool grocery store!) to buy after sun lotion with aloe vera, we found both streets to our house blocked from student protestors. Quema caucho signifies a burning tire, which is what they always do in the streets. Not great for the environment at all. We didn't know if we could pass by. There weren't big crowds, just students on both streets leading to our apartment that were burning tires in the street. So we called my host sister to come meet us at the bakery nearby and walk us home. We got home safely and stayed inside the rest of the night.

Why did they protest?: Chavez closed a tv channel called RCTV that was apparently very important on saturday night. It was funny because I tried to watch tv saturday night and all the channels were fuzzy. I thought I bumped the cable and with my luck broke the tv or something. Nope, it was the government shutting down the tv channel. So the students from ULA protest against that as well as the rolling blackouts we experience twice a day. Furthermore, along with all the protesting throughout the city, it is also the season of the paradura del nino. It's when they pass around baby jesus and celebrate him. So up until February they light fireworks in celebration. It doesn't have to be at night either, which freaked me out the first time I heard it during the day. I thought it was a gun shot. Now I have gotten use to the idea that this noise is just the fuegos artificiales (fireworks). So the streets were filled with smoke, fire, yelling, dogs barking and fireworks going off all night. It was a crazy! Nothing like I had ever seen before. Somehow I fell asleep though.

Pool Day!

Sundays are always a little hard for me when I am at school, because I just feel the pressures of the week ahead schoolwise. Being here without a roommate and missing my family left me feeling a little sad. Luckily though Kelsey and Brittany asked if I wanted to go the pool for the day so that took my mind off of things. It was really a nice pool, not very crowded and full of sunshine. I got really burnt and when I came home my host mom was joking around and called me a Chavista. (People who support Chavez wear red). She is so funny! So she implied that I got burnt on purpose to support him. Yeah right...this hurts so bad! Rosa and I played scrabble again tonight.

Out on the Town

Today I went with Rosa and her boyfriend, Angel, to do some shopping and run errands around town. We went to the center of Merida to look for books and shoes. I love bookstores so it was really fun! They are all so tiny...nothing like the Barnes and Noble back home. While we were shopping the power went out and within minutes all the businesses had their generators pumping gas, creating noise in the streets. We also stopped by a building of the ULA (Univerisdad de Los Andes) and high school band students were practicing! I think then it really hit me how beautiful it was to know that music is a universal language. I could have picked up a trombone and played along with them! How cool!

We went to the mall for lunch: had pizza in the food court. But on our way to the food court we passed by vivante ice cream! It looked so creamy and delicious! I was going to have some on our way out of the mall. Well.....life really is too short, you MUST eat dessert first, because sure enough the power went out and they had to pull the ice cream so that it wouldn't melt. I didn't get my ice cream. :( Rosa and I played scrabble tonight! She of course if very good, but I can at least use a dictionary. Great way to learn new words!

Meeting the locals

Tonight we had a BBQ at VENUSA with the Venezolanos that are taking english classes there. We set up a little speed dating game with the Americans on one side of a long table and the Venezuelans on the other side. We had two minutes to talk to the person across from us. We would speak spanish and they would speak english! Basically we talked about what we studied and how we were liking Merida. So I would say I was a bio major interested in Vet Medicine and I found a Venezuelan named Ricardo who was so excited to tell me that he was a chemistry major. So we talked about science and I asked to see his notes from organic chemistry. I know they would probably be very similar, but I want to know the Spanish words for everything in ochem. I know ... NERD! But that's me!

Day Two-Orientacion

Today was a long day, nothing short of Venezuelan culture though. We had an orientation this morning at 9am. So we left the house at 8:30 to arrive on time. Well who cares if you arrive on time .... we did not start the orienation until after 9:40 pm. Granted there was another power outage so that caused some complications with the orientation. After the orientation, we had a break for lunch. Seeing as none of us really knew our way around or where to get food, we went across the street to a little shop that sold snacks. So for lunch I had fried plantains and a Nestea. Not a big lunch at all. I was starving! Then they had a historic walking tour planned for us of the city. We took a bus to center of Merida and all 30 of us Piled out. All the locals were just staring at us, Which who wouldn 't? We had a very large group and did not look Venezuelan ... perfect reason to stare. Except that it felt like we were being parade around the city with a megaphone saying "Hello, we are Americans! Look at us!" Remember our faces and mug us later. "Hahaha We went all over town and I dont really remember what we saw. Although I do remember that there were so many stray dogs everywhere! One of them was limping around and I felt so helpless. Also, on the way to school we see the same dog walking around and I speak Spanish to him everyday.:)

Now I remember what we saw! How could I forget about ice cream?! We went to the ice cream place that is in the Guiness Book of World records for the most flavors. They have meat, carrot, rice, ham and cheese and beer flavored ice cream to name a few out of the hundreds. I wasn't feeling too adventurous so I stuck with a scoop of cookie and chocolate.

Oh and they had a UCF banner up in our school, VENUSA!!

Day One-Traveling

Sunday January 17th- Monday January 18th: Mom and I left Sunday night after work (and the incredible Vikings game) to drive over to Miami. We slept over at Emily's new apartment (which is really nice!) and left at 3:45am to head to the airport. There was no traffic! Everything went smooth through the airport and I met up with the other VENUSA students in Miami. The first flight was good. I watched friends and played Tetris on the in flight personal monitors. We landed in Caracas and the scenery was gorgeous! There were about 20 of us traveling together with Hector from VENUSA. Thank goodness Hector helped us through all the traveling. I can't imagine going through all that alone!
After we all got our luggage through customs, the Venezuelan nature of things began. We were in no rush at all to get to our next flight, which did leave 4 hours later, but still there was no sense of motivation at all. That's the way life is here and its hard to adjust to coming from a place where everyone is always rushing to go somewhere. Anyway, we exchanged money and boarded our plane to El Vigia. The airport in El Vigia was really small! We landed on the runway and then walked on the tarmac to the one room baggage claim area. This was around 5pm, so it had been a long day already and we still had an hour and a half bus ride to Merida. It gets dark here around 6:30 and when it gets dark it happens fast because the mountains are so high that the sun doesn't peak through. So most of us fell asleep on the bus ride through las montanas a Merida.
My host family was there to pick me up at VENUSA. My dad is a doctor that delivers babies and my mom is a nutritionist. I also have a sister Rosa, who is 19 and studies las lenguas modernas (modern languages) at the University of Los Andes, ULA. My dad, Rosa y su novio picked me up and took me to the apartment. It is very small! Smaller than my apartment at school. The size difference in the houses and the beds as well as the portions is significant. For dinner that night we had arepas, which is kind of like a flat biscuit, and scrambled eggs. They don't eat heavy meals for dinner. But they also typically don't eat until 8 or 9pm.
Oh! funniest part of the day: I went to take a shower before finally sleeping and there was a large garbage bin in the shower filled with water. I went to go ask the mom why that was in the shower and if I should move it and she told me that it was a reservoir. But I still didnt understand why it was in the tiny shower. She asked if it bothered me. Well, it didn't other than I thought maybe they wouldn't want me to shower with it in there. Nope...I just showered with the lid on the bin. Hahaha!