Week 1! ...Already done?!?!

ThI can't believe I'm already finished with my first week here! Sorry for the incredibly late post friends! 

Anywho, here's what's happened so far:

1. I arrived: normally I would say in one piece, but my bags didn't arrive until after me. Also, the movies weren't working on the plane.

2. I moved in: I'm living in the hip town if Recoleta. What I've come to learn is that when one refers to 'Buenos Aires' they could be talking about two different things. When people outside of Argentina refer to Buenos Aires, they mean the capital city. What is news to me (and I think many of my readers (aka Estie, my parents, and a few very good friends)) is that the city Buenos Aires is divided up into smaller sections, one of which is also called Buenos Aires and is the capital of the capital city. Within that capital is Recoleta (where I am) and Palermo (which is the other cool neighborhood in the area)

3. I met people: first off, I'm living in Mechi's apartment! She's great and teaches Brazilian dance which is really neat, but she's from Argentina. Her mom Fanny is also around a lot, and I usually speak the most Spanglish with her. There are two other girls living here: Clarice and Ilse. They're really great to be around, and they've both lived in Argentina/Buenos Aires/Buenos Aires/Recoleta/Palermo for much longer than I have, so they're great at answering my lost and confused questions. Other than those two, I've met Emma, Alec, Scott, and German at the Roads2Argentina mini-orientation (by the way, GoEco, the program I thought I would be on, just put me into the Roads program, so yeah). Yesterday I did some bumming around with Emma, Alec, and another friend from roads Sylvia. But I'll tell you all about that in a bit.

4. I volunteered: saying it like that implies I only did it once, when in fact I did it twice, so yeah. And I plan to do it many more times. But let me give you some details! The organization I'm volunteering for is called L.I.F.E which stands for Luchemos para una Infancia Feliz y con Esperanza. This translates to "We strive for a childhood with happiness and hope." We work with children in the most impoverished area in Argentina, la ciudad oculta, the hidden city. It's called this because in 1978 when the World Cup was held in Buenos Aires, the military dictatorship in Argentina wanted to hide the extreme poverty from the world press, to have the image of  Buenos Aires and Argentina,

remain, in the eyes of the public, pristine and sophisticated. Their solution hiding this area of BA was to build a wall around it. Since then, it has had a terrible effect on the people who live there. It has become the part of town nobody stays in after dark if they don't have to, not even the police. Drug use, robbery, rape, and swatting are everyday occurrences. What LIFE does, is provide a small window of time for the children to come and play and color and be children. Many of them don't have parents who can or will care for them and they suffer from serious lice and tooth decay. Two of the girls I've met had lice so bad, they had to just cut their hair. Despite this, these children have adapted to this life. They know they will be hungry and cold most nights, and they do not complain. They know no other way of life. It's very sad, so you try your best to bring smiles to their faces. On Thursday of last week I brought my camera, and captured some of the moments I experienced. It was also birthday party day, when LIFE brings cake and celebrates the all the birthdays of the children that month, it's very touching. 

My friend Natalie who's really great with the kids, and I've also been hanging out with outside of LIFE!

Myself and Luna, taken by one of the slightly older girls

5. I hung out: there is SO much to do in this city. Just yesterday I went out to the Recoleta cemetery, and it was a beautiful day to walk around. We saw the tomb of Eva Peron, and just had a nice time! Afterwards, we walked around the market that's set up right in the park outside of the cemetery and listened to some music as well. Then we got crazy and went and saw X-Men: Days of Futures Past which confused me a lot, but overall, it was a really fun day!

Friends!!

There was a singular moment when we all wondered if this cat was sleeping or dead..it was sleeping. 

As far as this photo goes, I had taken a much nicer one...except for the couple making out in the corner, so skipped it and chose this one instead.

I really am having a great time here, stay tuned for more exciting fun times. 

As always,

Julia Rose

Surprise! I'm back!

Welcome to all my friends and semi-dedicated readers! I understand some of you are less than excited that I'm posting in our mutual Facebook group [Rory, I'm talking to you ;)] or that I've come up in your newsfeed or again, but I'll soon be heading off on to another adventure, so I've got to let ya'll know, its practically tradition at this point.
So, I'm sure you'd like to know where I'll be going this summer. I didn't want to make any announcements and here it is: Buenos Aires, Argentina!
Though I doubt many of the people reading this are unfamiliar with this wonderful place,  I don't feel like writing a ton about it, so read this fact monster page here! Or if you are too lazy to do that, you could just watch this video of Madonna. I will tell you a single fun fact: Argentinians pull on the earlobes of the birthday boy or girl for each year of their birthday. Which sucks for me since I'll be there for my 20th birthday.
This trip will be significantly different than the ones I've been on in the past. For starters, this trip will not be with Travel for Teens. Obviously, I would still love to be a counselor for them in the future, TFT is how I fell in love with travel. If I had never found TFT, I would not have had the courage to take a year off before college and travel if it weren't for the amazing counselors that taught me so much about the world we live in. I would still love to change someone's life the way they changed mine. But for this summer, I'm headed down a different path.
The program I'll be with this summer is Go Eco! They actually have a lot of cool different programs on their website, and it was definitely a tough decision picking one. I was really interested in their Great White Shark conservation in South Africa, where I could've gone cage diving multiple times a week. But there was a 60% chance I would get there, get on the boat to the sharks, put on the scuba gear, and completely back out. But maybe one day!
The program is a type of community immersion. I'm hoping to work with children teaching English and generally having fun. Plus kids are 45% less likely to use words in Spanish I don't know. While there I really really really am hoping to improve my Spanish. I changed my Facebook language to Spanish, but all that's really done is make me read the disclaimers from different iPhone apps about posting on my wall more closely.
I'll also be taking Spanish classes and living with other young people like me interested in volunteering.  Hopefully I'll make some hip new friends who are interested in traveling around with me to visit some of the sights.

 Hm... What am I missing? Oh right! I leave Saturday. My accommodations have been really unsure until today---so here's this post coming to you within 72 hours of my leaving.
So you should start getting ready to read about my newest adventure sooner rather than later.
As always,
Julia Rose