Bueno - Shopping, El Campo and Uruguay

Friday 4-8-05 to Sunday 4-10-05

I stayed with Guillermo this last week. He´s single and and his apartment reminded me of my apartment when I was single...no pictures on the wall and a pot with a dead plant in it. He was worried about what to feed me so he bought me corn flakes to eat for breakfast. He was really a great host took me to several nice restaurants, one evening with his daugther and the other with just him. I also had dinner at his girlfriends house with her two daughters which was very nice.

We all swapped homes this week and now I´m staying with Miriam. Her house is kind of the meeting place for us and its nice to have access to a computer and phone now. Miriam has been the General organizing everything and making sure we´re all taken care of. She does run a pretty tight ship and I think we´ve all been reprimended for something or another. We like to tease her but really realize all the hours she spends in our behalf. Many people have been so generous with their time!

Friday was nice to have a little free time in the afternoon. Jen, Beth and Alicia (Las Chicas) went shopping and came back with bags of stuff. Don and I (Los Machos) also shopped around as well but we just came back. Don and I are a little out of our realm when it comes to shopping since the most shopping we´ve ever done...as Don put it only shopping a few hours each year on Christmas Eve. We do hope to pick up a few things.

Saturday we visited an artifical insemination farm for cows. We were not exactly sure why we were going there until we got there. It was a beautiful country ranch between 10-15 thousand acres. We were able to see the gorgeous county side, eat great Argentine meat (asado)again and enjoy the tour of the site. We saw some of the toros typical to Argentina, a palace (yes it was a palace!) were the president of the company lives. Afterwards we stopped at a Gaucho musuem at a near by town. We are enjoying experiences a typical traveler would never see.

Today was our trip to Colonia, Uruguay. We took Ferry Boat (El BuqueBus) across what they say is the widest river in the world (rio de la Plata). We spent most of the day there, but wished we could have spent more time. The ferry took about an hour and when we arrived we were met by a group of 20 or more people from the rotary club in Colonia. They took us around the historic city that was developed by the Spanish and Portugal about 400 years ago. We were hoping for some time to roam a little, but had to return on the Ferry at 5:00. We met the team leader who will be heading to Idaho with the Argentine group.

Bueno, our new favorite word we use all the time. A filler word like the words okay or well and is also used if you´ve run out of things to say. I seem to use it alot. We´re all doing well and have a full day planned tomorrow.

Bryan