1. I’m only going to be here for 10 months, so I want to use all of the time I have here and experience as many new things as possible.
2. December was my third month to be in Argentina and supposedly you deal with a lot of culture shock in the third month. So if you go home during that time it would be very hard to come back. (Thankfully I didn’t go through more CS in December ☺)
3. Not speaking any Spanish for 2 or 3 weeks would not only have stopped my learning, but might have also caused me to forget a lot.
4. It costs A LOT of money.
So because of these reasons, I decided to stay in Argentina for the holiday season. I think this was an excellent decision. Many of my friends offered for me to stay with them for the holidays. Friends asked me to go to Peru, the north of Argentina, Neuquen, and several invited me to stay in Buenos Aires and spend the holidays with their families here.
It was a tough decision but I decided to go to Neuquen, Argentina with my friend Belen and her brother Emi. They go to J and K’s house church. Belen has been very busy with school and work and we haven’t been able to spend very much time together. I thought this would be a really great opportunity to get to know her better. I also wanted to go with her because I wanted to leave the big city for a little while!
Neuquen, Argentina is a 12-14 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires. In many ways, the city reminded me of Lubbock. It was a quiet, dry, friendly little town. Belen’s family is really wonderful. They made me feel very welcomed and at home, and treated me as family. Even their dog acted like my dog Rosa and wanted to sleep in my bed with me. God really blessed me. Their backyard had a pool and a very nice garden. It was really fun spending time with this family, swimming, playing cards, and drinking mate. We also had 4 barbeques while I was there!
On Christmas Eve the family cooked food all day. I really did not know what to expect or what was going to go on that evening but I was just going with the flow. I thought the food was for the next day since the next day was Christmas. But then at around 10:30 PM, everybody started getting dressed up. So I just followed their example and put on the nicest clothes I brought. And Belene did my hair and makeup. We ate dinner at around 11:30 PM and at 12:00 AM we went outside. And so did all of their neighbors. And we kissed everyone and wished each other Feliz Navidad. And people were in the middle of the streets were lighting fireworks, right next to cars. Luckily, no fires started. After all of this all of the young people left to spend time with their friends. It was a very interesting and fun night! New Years Eve was almost the same as Christmas. It was also a really good night!
For the last few days of my trip, Belen and I visited the 7 Lakes of Argentina. We started in San Martin de los Andes, then went to Villa la Angostura, and ended in Bariloche. I don’t think I’ve ever been to more beautiful places. God is a really great artist. The lakes were beautiful and my time with Belen was priceless. I am very thankful for her friendship and look forward to spending more time with Belen in Buenos Aires.
Tomorrow I am leaving for church camp with one of the local churches. I can’t wait!
I took lots of pictures but my USB cord is not working and I can’t upload any from my camera. But here are some from someone else’s Facebook:
