Veintiuno.

Oh boy... what a great two weeks I just had! On June 20th "I completed 21 years" woohoo =) What a great birthday it was! Even though I couldn't be at home with all of you family and friends, it was a very fun day! I was able to hang out with Alicia and Devon all day, and then had a little birthday party that night with some friends and yummy food. Iit was also definitely made known by all of you that I was missed and loved and thought of on this day =) Thank you ALL so much for your sweet notes, letters, and gifts! You don't know how much of a blessing it was to receive of all of that that day.

  And...with all of these little notes and gifts, came a quite handsome messenger: Matt Brown!

My mountain man...

Matt was just here for two weeks visiting me, and we just went "por todos lados" of Buenos Aires... aka everywhere! I only uploaded a few pictures... it was so hard to pick which ones, as we took over 500 with my camera alone. Such a fun time!

Tourist Matt.

The first week he was here I finished my classes! I received 4 of my grades (I still have one more final) and was very pleased with them. Had I realized the teachers were going to be so nice, I might've skipped class more often! (= After my classes finished, our days were completely free to do more. We typically ate breakfast here at home, took our time getting ready for the day, and then set out to whatever random place we had decided on.
We did some of the touristy things, and went to the famous/historical parts of town... we went to the Casa Rosada (where the president works), Catedral de Buenos Aires, 9 de Julio, Cementario de Recoleta, La Boca, San Telmo... and lots more places. But I think just about every day consisted of stopping at a cafe for a bit to have some coffee and/or pastries =) We just couldn't get enough!

He loves me.

I took him to Tigre one day- a pretty suburb of BsAs...and because it was SO cold, we decided against a boat tour on the river. Instead we were our crazy selves and ran around Tigre making video clips... maybe one day it will turn into a full video that we shall let you all view. But it was SO fun just being fun and silly with him! After several hours of walking around the town, we sought refuge on a couch in McCafe and laughed for a long time at the pictures and videos we had just taken... just one of the many lovely days we had.

 
The clean cut Matthew.



 Mama sent me some real ingredients to make some real chocolate-chip cookies... so we tackled that one evening. They were quite delicious, I must say (=

Thanks, Mom!

 One day, we decided to make use of Matt's wonderful musical talents... we borrowed Katie's guitar, looked up a few song lyrics, and then made for the streets! Actually... we went to the subte for a bit, then sat outside a shopping mall for a while. Some boys that lived on the street accompanied us there, and they were so cute the way they were interacting with Matt. I was acting as translator, but they didn't really need me... communicated SO much with their actions. The boys, 13 yr olds, looked at Matt like he was famous. They did a little percussion on his guitar as he played and then showed him their own rapping talents...they especially liked when Matt played "Baby" by Justin Beiber =) Afterwards, one of the boys asked me about how to say pick-up lines in English haha

Another day we went to a zoo a little ways out of town... I think every time I've been to a zoo it has been miserably hot and with small children, so it was a different experience being cold and with Matt-although, that's kinda like being with a small child :)

can you see our Antelope friend?

Matt ventured out by himself one evening... and came home with these!

We also went to Barrio Chino (Chinatown) several times, and Matt got to use his Chinese skills! It was hilarious seeing how everyone reacted when they saw this blonde-hair blue-eyed boy speaking perfect Chinese to them! I was so proud =) He also found some legitimite Chinese food, so he got to share with me some of his favorite dishes from his childhood. Most of them were pretty delicious, I must say.

As for now, I have been in Argentina for FIVE months and have only three weeks left here..very strange to think about! I don't have too much planned for the rest of my time here, but I'm hoping God will continue to bless me by giving me a fantastic 21 more days. I hope you all are enjoying your respective hot summers... it is nice and cool (even COLD sometimes) here in the southern hemisphere! Love you all!

Besos,
Jessi

Month #4 (and some)

wow... didn't realize it's been a month since I've written something. I'm sure you were all just biting your nails waiting to know what happened next in this crazy life of Jessica Hawley =)

Don't worry- nothing too crazy.  I took those midterms and got back pretty satisfactory grades.. woohoo! Now I am preparing for finals- they have been creeping up on me. I can't believe classes are almost done! I have two finals this week, and one the next Tuesday and then I am done with my courses with foreigners (my final for my course with Argentine students is at the end of July)
Here's some bits of what has been going on here other than school:
Before Alicia and Jose's son, Fransico, left we had a birthday party for him... at that point this was all of the people living in this house:

One crazy, dyfunctional bunch (=

A few weeks ago was Alicia's birthday, so we had a big fancy celebration for that. It was so much fun! The night consisted of lots of food, a magician, some balloon drawing (a 5 year old cousin or nephew was there). I baked Alicia some chocolate chip cookies- the best that I could without having real measuring utensils or the most common ingredients... but everyone loved them, so that made me proud (=

Devon (my roomate) had her parents visit here last weekend, so all of us girls got to go out to eat on them! Such a blessing to get to have a lovely evening on the town :) We went to this cool restuarant and I ate LLAMA! Surprisingly pretty tasty...also had a fabulous dessert with pumpkin and icecream and all sorts of goodness!

Devon and I with our yummy "postres"

Katie and I showing off our cuteness (=

Let's see... what else...I've been hanging out with my Argentine girlfriends from church quite a bit. They are SO much fun! Definitely a "praise Jesus" that He brought them into my life! I'm looking forward to being done with classes and getting to have more time to hang out with them. Katie moved out of the house this past weekend, so now our once very full house with 10 people is down to FOUR =( Devon and I and the parents... BUT we will have one addition for a short bit when my boyfriend, Matt, comes to visit me!!!!! FIVE days from now. I am SO excited (= Be praying that his trip here is safe!

I've still been running with my team that meets in the park, La Tribu we are called. And a few of us ran in a half-marathon today! I have down two before and prepared pretty well for them, but I guess I'm in a lot better shape now than I thought I was because I ran it in 1:40 (my best time before that was 2 hours) so I'm pretty pleased with that =) It was a surprisingly beautiful day as it has been getting colder and colder here... the race was in Puerto Madero- a very nice, business district- and La Boca- much poorer part of town. But it was just a lovely day with La Tribu running about new parts of the city.

And with that I leave you. I must prepare for these finals and the arrival of a certain someone :) Sorry for the lack of writing...but pictures are more fun anyways, right? God bless you this week!

Love,

gecca

A random shot of BsAs I took the other day

This week marked my third month of being here in Argentina. We are having midterms in my classes- I can't believe they are already halfway done! What I really can't believe is that back home the U of A is having finals week! It's weird to think that a whole semester has passed by for them...

Last weekend I went on our final trip with our program. We to Iguazu falls, in the very north corner of Argentina, right next to Brasil and Paraguay. Being made up of 275 individual waterfalls, Iguazu Falls are the largest in the world. we spent the whole day hiking on top of, over, and under waterfalls... it was INCREDIBLE. There really aren't enough words to describe the beauty in the force of this water that was gushing down the cliffs in the midst of the beautiful jungle. Therefore, pictures:

La Garganta del Diablo

How great is our God!

Psalm 66 (look it up)

Las tres fronteras
the tree is in Argentina, to the right is Brasil, and to the left is Paraguay!

The next day we visited a Guarani village, and hiked through the jungle, just getting a little taste of what their lives used to be like. Then a group of Guarani sang some songs that they had played for us... I, of course, fell in love with the children... so, so sweet! It was a very eye-opening experience... it is very, very easy to forget that there are people all over the world that live like they do: children running around barefoot, young parents just trying to feed their families, no house as we know the word to mean, little access to medicine- and this was literally a few minutes drive outside of a city!

Guarani

This week, back in the "real world" of busy streets and school work, I had three midterms, so the majority of my time was dedicated to studying for those. Not the most exciting, but it was kind of nice to take a test and see the result of my studying...

Happy weekend... chao.

Felices Pascuas!

Hola!
Hope all is well with all of you dedicated followers (= Life here is pretty swell!

A couple of weeks ago I took a trip with my program to Rosario, the third biggest city in Argentina, about 4 hours away. The city is known for the monument to the Argentine flag... very cool memorial! It reminded me of Washington, D.C. The next day we were there, we just chilled on the "beach" next to the river... but for a river it wasn't too shabby (=

This last week I didn't have school on Thursday and Friday because of the Easter holiday, so that was a nice break. I spent one day downtown taking pictures of different buildings for an art project, but it was just a good excuse to see more of the city. Saturday I went with Devon and Francisco (Alicia and Jose's son who has been visiting this month) and a bunch of other girls to a professional futbol game! As we were walking there, it reminded me a lot of the Razorback football games, but it was quite different once the game started... the fans definitely have more spirit there. It was really fun, though, and I think I may just have to go back!

Sunday, I went back to the church that I found a few weeks ago (I've got to their young adult group 3 times now and already feel like I'm part of the group!) They had a free breakfast, so I took Francisco with me, and we just visited with people. We had church afterwards, and Francisco ended up staying, which he wasn't planning on doing before. Then we came back home and had a huge lunch! Jose and Alicia had a bunch of family over, we were about 20. We had wonderful pasta and beef and way too much dessert. Alicia's mom's cousin was there; she's 99 years old! I talked with her just a bit, and she was so funny and sweet!

I have to run to class now, but next time I will try to write more! Have a great week! I love you all!

Rosario

Rosario- from the beach

Congreso Nacional- Buenos Aires

-Jess

Two months!

I have officially been here in Argentina for two months now...which, sadly, is ONE THIRD of my time here. On one hand it seems to be going by fast, but it also feels like I have just been here forever and life in the US is slowly becoming more of a thing of the past.

I do apologize for not writing for SO long, I have been one busy girl! I don't even know where to begin... I guess with the fun stuff:

A couple of weeks ago (March 24th-ish) was a holiday here in Argentina and we got a couple of days off of school. So Annika and I decided to take a trip to the famous wine-country at the base of the Andes Mountains called Mendoza. There ended up being 7 of us altogether, most of the other girls I hadn't met before, but it was AWESOME! I would put up pictures, but there's a story that goes with that, too... First day we got there, on our way to the wine tour, and I realized I left my camera (and phone and iPod) in the lobby of the hostel. When we came back, of course they had been taken.... so that was a huge bummer. But the vineyards were beautiful and the wine was really good! -I don't normally like wine, but can tolerate it, but most of the wine that we tried I actually liked =) The next morning God kindly reminded me of Psalm 34:1 (I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth) So, I decided to get over my little pity party at the loss of my things, and I had the BEST day! We went on a tour through the Andes and I saw some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. Don't worry, my friends took pictures and will share them with me soon, so they're on their way.(This picture I stole from the internet and I'm pretty sure it's exactly where we were) We hiked around a lookout spot and saw the tallest peak in South America- Aconcagua. It was just amazing! The next day we got to go rafting, repelling, and trekking all through the mountains. Despite it being the coldest day I've had here in Argentina, and me being the coldest I have been in my life (no exaggeration) the rafting was incredible!! I just looked up at the mountains that I was surrounded by and was like- I am rafting in the ANDES! I have only read about things like this!- it was just so cool... all that too say, Mendoza was amazing, and I hope I can go back someday. We got to spend Sunday afternoon just riding bikes/running through a huge park there in town and it was also very beautiful. A GREAT weekend! Probably ranks up there with being on of the best, ever.

Last week I came back from Mendoza and had a crazy, not so great, week of classes and homework and life. Kinda like what always happens when you come back from vacation... but, God is good, and I went to my first "servicio de jovenes" (youth group- youth in the sense of young adults.) And oh it was SO awesome! (It was my first weekend home in BsAs for a long time, so my first opportunity to go to church in several weeks) It was just a fun group of crazy kids that reminded me a lot of my own youth group when I was in high school. There was a band and we just had worship for a long time. Then broke up into groups and got to share how our weeks were and prayed for each other. It was SO good to not only be part of a group, but to have fellowship with believers and to feel the Spirit of God in this place! So, yay praise Jesus!

Sunday, I ran in my first Argentine race. It was just an 8km, but I enjoyed it. It was a race honoring one of the "desparacidos" (people that disappeared during the military dicatorship in 1970s), so it was cool to be part of the history that I've studied in classes back home. Later that day I went to a museum for my art class(the class I decided to take in place of Tango) and I really enjoyed it. I liked getting to see the works that we studied in class and knowing the history behind them. The part of town the museum is in is a really cool area, too, with a couple cute parks and historical buildings... going to have to do some more exploring over there!

This week has been wonderful. I gave my first presentation in one of my classes- a group presentation, so not too stressful. And turned in a project for my art class... In general classes are going alright. This week has been 10x better than last week. Somedays I can just understand my teachers better than others- last week I felt like I understood nothing, and this week I feel like I'm understanding everything. (praise Jesus!) I think as time goes on, though, I'm liking my classes more and more..

I guess that's about it. I will try to write my next entry before another month passes by =) I hope you all are doing well! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

Besos,
Jessi

Mar del Tuyu

Let me just tell you how good God is:
Just spent a week in Mar del Tuyu, a beach about 4 hours from here. I wanted to travel with some friends for our "spring break" but had no money. Not knowing this, Alicia invited me to accompany her and Jose to their house on the beach. So exciting... much cheaper than if I were to do anything else! Obviously, took them up on the offer. On our way their we stopped at a gas station and were filling up on coffee and treats. I pulled out my wallet  to pay for my stuff and Alicia then explained to me that because they invited me to go with them, that I didn't have to worry about paying for anything the whole week! So, not only did I get a cheap vacation, but I got a FREE one! So, so nice! With that said, the only beach I've spent any real time at is Destin, and this beach was completely different than anything I've experienced!
     -dark sand
     -murky water (the ocean water mixed with water from the river)
     -lots of butts
     -instead of paddleball, they play a game that's pretty much tennis just without a net- they just play on the hard sand
     -se habla espanol
     -men pushing carts trying to sell delicious fattening food
     -time by myself (definitely a different beach experience)
     -real waves
Despite all of these differences (some good, some bad)- I had a GREAT time and fell in love with a different kind of beach! Most of my days consisted of going for a run on the beach, swimming/ riding waves, reading, soaking up some sun, lots of thinking and praying, long walks, and lots of picture taking (I took 200 pics)... Alicia and Jose have a bunch of friends there (all of them Italian-Argentines), so many nights we would go to their houses and eat wonderful legit Italian food! ahhh! soo good! For all you wine lovers- one Italian man made his own wine... it was pretty yummy.
But it was just so nice to get out of the big city for a while and just breathe!

Mar del Tuyu

The old men liked to play this game "Tejos"... can you tell they are Italian??

My friend for the week

Alicia and I had lots of good times together!

I got to watch a sunrise- AMAZING!

Now I'm back to the somewhat real world. Started my new classes Monday... I think they should be pretty good. We shall see...most of my classes are with other International students, and they are all taught in Spanish...I'm in Argentine Literature, Latinamerican culture, Latinamerican History, International Relations (with Argentine students), and I want to take Tango- but it's currently full... so I may have to pick another class. But yep, for the next 15 weeks- those classes are my life- woohoo =)

off to bed now.
Buenos Noches!

besos

Month #1

Today marks my being in Buenos Aires for one month... on one hand it seems like SO much time has passed, and on the other it seems like I just got here yesterday. I'm sure it will just continue to go by fast, which isn't necessarily a good thing, but that's just how life is. I've heard that once I get completely settled in and feel like I know "what's up" I will have to go home... hopefully, I will get settled in faster than that! I feel like that process is already well on its way.

The view from the top floor at the University

I took my finished my 4-week Spanish course and took my final exams.. got an A overall- woohoo! I think I'm going to miss that class. It turned out to be a lot of fun! I met up with my advisor and got all signed up for my other classes. I'm pretty excited to start those, although that means more studying time. I'm going to have to dig really deep and find my time management skills!

I did officially join the running club: I filled out a sheet of paper and am gong to start paying 20 pesos/month (~U$5) woohoo! We run in a beautiful park, and I always wish I had my camera with me because there are some beautiful scenes in the park. One that I've seen a few times is the sky as the sun is setting against the city skyline, and through the the palm trees I can see an orange glow. ahhh soo pretty!

Last night I went out with my friend Annika again. We went to a Parrilla- kinda like a steakhouse in the States- you can order a parrilla and they bring you a skillet-like dish filled with all sorts of meat. It was very delicious... the meat that we did try, some of it was just too peculiar for me. I must say that I did try a couple of things that I had no idea what they were, but the thing that looked like intestines I decided to stay away from...

My backyard and Jose... I love to sit on the terrace and read or study or just relax... I don't know if you can tell, but in addition to the beautiful flowers, there is an avocado, lemon, and olive tree

Now... I have a week off of class and I'm headed to the beach!! If you care to look it up, we're going to Mar del Tuyu, where Alicia and Jose have a beach house. It's just going to be the parents, the cat, and I... and lots of books =) It will be quite strange being on the beach without my 20 brothers to play paddleball with, but  I think it will still be quite lovely!

Hope you all have a great week! I love you all!

-Jessi