Futbol, the playing kind, not the watching

Last week I signed up for the YMCA here, but its actually called the ACJ (Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes). It has everything! The building is like 6 stories tall, and it has a huge variety of things to do and classes to take, but let's be honest here...I signed up for one reason one reason only, and that is soccer. I came to the decision that it would just be stupid to come all the way down to Uruguay, the country that one the first ever World Cup and is bordered by Brazil and Argentina, the countries that produced the two greatest soccer players of the previous generation, and then not play soccer. So I coughed up the money and joined, but then I was so bogged down with homework and other things last week that I never actually made it to the ACJ (story of my life). Anyways, this last week I was able to make it. It was a little nerve-racking since the building is huge and everyone there speaks spanish and I didn't know anyone there. I had to ask someone where the gym was that they play soccer in, and once I finally found it my nerves didn't stop there. We lined up on a wall and there were 4 captains that picked teams. I got picked and still nobody really talked to each other. We started playing and I suddenly realized that I haven't played soccer on a wooden floor in forever, and that everyone I'm playing with is really good! My nerves persisted for most of the night due to the captain of my team who was really competitive and had a bit of a temper. After about 45 minutes, he got really upset and kicked a ball into the stands and they asked him to leave. After this, I was able to settle down and do better. I ended up scoring two goals and having a good time, but I'd still like to be a lot better...like A LOT better but we'll see what happens. Right now, I'm just content with getting to play the sport I love.

Cumpleaños Feliz Carlos!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I'm pretty proud of myself because this is the third blog I've posted today, which is about 3 more than I've posted in the last month.(I know, I've been slacking) Yesterday we celebrated Carlos' birthday (if you don't remember or haven't heard about him, I wrote a previous blog about him). Abbey bought him a cake, and we invited him over so we could celebrate with him. He is still such an amazing reminder of so many different things in my life. Every time I see him, I think about the shirt he gave me, and his amazing love for the word of the Lord, as well as his tremendous heart for others. I was really encouraged because I was able to carry on a conversation with him, and while I didn't understand every word, I was able to understand enough to have a conversation. He was extremely surprised by the cake, and Abbey bought "magic" candles which kept relighting themselves and made us all laugh. It was just so nice to see the smile on Carlos' face and know that we were able to make his day special.

Punta Del Este!!!

So I had a ton of homework do last week, which I failed to plan for the weeks before so last week was just not a very good week. Needless to say, I wanted to get away and what better time than a 3-day weekend? So I packed my bag on Thursday afternoon and set off with three friends to Punta Del Este. Punta Del Este, along with Montevideo and Colonia, is one of the most famous cities in Uruguay. Many people call it the playground of the rich and famous because all of the extremely rich people from Buenos Aires go to Punta Del Este for vacation. I can vouch for this because I saw a lamborghini and a porsche while I was there this weekend. It's also rumored that the Clintons have a house in Punta Del Este, but I can't prove that one. The town consists of beaches and hotels and just about nothing else. We got there about two weeks after summer ended down here so it was pretty much a ghost town. We actually had to walk for like an hour and a half just to find a tiny little place that only made pizza, but we bought a meter of it and went home full and happy. It was so nice because we didn't have any sort of schedule or time commitments this weekend so whatever happened, happened and we went with the flow. The phrase of the weekend was "esta bien"(it's ok or it's all good). But if you're Julianne then you say, "stabien". The next day we rented bikes and rode around the rambla, which is the sidewalk that goes around the coast. It was beautiful and there was a nice sea breeze that kept us cool while we were riding. There's something wonderful and awe-inspiring about looking in one direction and seeing a seemingly never ending mass of water. Anyways, the rest of the weekend, we hung out at the beach and just relaxed. It was amazing and I'm finally dark enough to where I can get away with forgetting to put sunscreen on one day and not get burned, which is really nice because I forget pretty often. The man who ran the hostel that we stayed at was named Abel and he was very nice and spoke pretty good english, but there was one little nuance that he must have never learned. He always called us "boys" which means "chicos" in spanish, but he didn't get that girls means "chicas" so whether it was a group of guys and girls or just girls he always referred to the group as boys. It was so funny and now we have a new inside joke to tell. All in all this was a really amazing, much-needed bit of R&R before I leave for Spring Break next week.