This blog post is extremely overdue, so I'll do my best to cover everything...
We left off at the race. That Sunday was a super great day! We got up bright and early and drove into Santiago. In the car we ate bananas, drank Gatorade, and got pumped up and competitive! I was so full of butterflies and excitement that I didn't feel any sleepiness whatsoever. I had trained all summer for this very day! We got there just as the sun was coming up and the weather was perfect for running. Not too hot, not too cold. People were showing up all over the place and the crowd just kept getting bigger and bigger. There were 17,000 participants and there were 47 different nationalities...WOW. It was quite the crowd. We had a chip in our shoe that triggered when we crossed the start line because there were so many people that you could lose up to 5 minutes just getting up to the start. The countdown to the start was the most intense and motivating start to a race that I have ever experienced...there was so much noise and craziness that my heart was just racing with excitement! I don't think I have ever been that pumped about running. Anyways, I felt really strong the whole race and I finished the ten kilometers in 45:42. I got 11th out of about 300 women in my category, and 44th out of about 4,000 total women...I was pretty happy with myself:) The excitement of that race made me want to do every single race I come across! I love being in that environment surrounded my those kinds of people; it just feels like my crowd.
After the race, Sebastian's family took me walking a little bit through Santiago and I saw the president's house...the White House of Chile. It is the same type of architecture that the Casa Rosada in Argentina has.
The next week I went to school, but we got Thursday and Friday off for Easter holidays. Thursday we packed up our things, and Friday morning we headed to the lake to spend the weekend there. It reminded me a lot of Lake Billy Chinook, and being in a wakeboarding boat blasting music reminded me a lot of summers at home. I had so much fun! The whole vibe of everything felt a lot like home. I think a lot of it had to do with the climate. The air was dry and we were in a lake surrounded by desert-y plants; it was Bend weather!
We spent a lot of time in the water, and I learned to get a little air on the wakeboard! I had forgotten how much fun days at the lake are. It makes me excited to get home to summer weather. Hopefully I can get a few lake days in before going back to school.
I LOVED LOVED LOVED my experience in Chile, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Chilean family. They are such amazing people, and they gave me some of the best weeks that I have had this year abroad. I know I will keep in touch with them, and we will never forget the beautiful memories we made together in the short time we had.
So I got home to La Plata and definitely had to get used to the Argentine Spanish again. I had just gotten used to speaking like the Chileans and the Argentine accent sounded sort of strange at first. It took me a few days to remember how to talk like that again. I went to school with my Maraton de Santiago running shirt on and got to tell everyone about it. As I heard myself talk and tell my friends about the week with my family and my trip to Chile, I realized that my Spanish had improved a lot. I think it had something to do with the fact that I had to learn how to understand a whole new accent of Spanish, and listen to the Chileans who speak a lot faster than the Argentinians. I came back to the Spanish I'm used to and it was all of a sudden a lot easier to understand and to speak.
My host dad had a birthday, and since it was impossible to think a present to buy for him, I made him cookies! Homemade presents are always better anyways. I made peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies; I figured that was pretty American. They turned out really good, and I ended up taking a lot to school to give out to friends. Everyone tends to like my peanut butter recipes...whenever I cook a dessert of some kind, I always use the peanut butter that I get from America and make something peanut butter-y to show them how delicious it is. People here are deprived of peanut butter! 
I'm getting out a lot more these days and doing things with my friends on the weekends. I went to a big party one weekend with Zac, my New Zealand buddy, and it was so much fun! I had had the impression that going out here would always be just trying to avoid the old weirdos that try to dance with me, but after going to this party I realized how much fun it can be and why the kids love going out every weekend. I'm not saying I'm going to go turn into a party girl or anything, but after going to party with kids my age that I actually knew, I decided I wont turn down all the party invitations anymore.
I also love going on little outings with my group of friends at Bellas Artes. One of our classes teaches us all about theater, so as part of the homework, everyone had to go see a play, and we all went together one night. The play was amazing; I don't think I've ever seen such amazing actors live. It felt like I was watching a crazy good 3D movie or something. Those actors just blow Disney Channel out of the water. The picture is in the lobby of the theater. It was full of little antiques and old pictures of the theater.
We've also gone to 'McCafe' a couple times to get coffee, and it's actually not that bad. It's a cute little place and pretty comfortable to hang out in. The picture is of us in there before the play. We also went on a Friday before school because they give out free little coffees in the morning.
We all walked from the theater to a place to eat dinner...we ended up being a bigger group of kids than expected which made it fun to walk through downtown together. I like being in a big group of people because I feel safe no matter what and I always have someone to talk to and laugh with.
In Buenos Aires, there was a huge book fair that went on for a few weeks and ended just this weekend. There were famous authors doing book signings, people giving talks about their books, and pretty much any book you can think of was in there somewhere. There were stands of books from every part of the world, and the place seemed to go on for miles.
The day we went, it was Emilio, Ivan, Pedro, and I, and we spent the whole day in Buenos Aires. First, we walked to a neighborhood called Recoleta, which is where I stayed with my family. Getting there was kind of fun; the day was nice and we got to be outside walking around. They don't go to the city much, and I was really familiar with that area because I had had to walk around there with my family, so I was actually leading the way somewhat. We kind of laughed because I was the only foreign one in the group and happened to know my way around a little better than they did. 
We ate lunch at T.G.I. Friday's. It was surely an American environment in there. There's not a T.G.I. Friday's in Bend, but it reminded me a lot of Red Robin. The food was really expensive compared to any other place we usually go to eat lunch, and I realized that food in general is cheaper here. I did the math, and T.G.I.F's was just as expensive here as it would be in America, but to them it was really really expensive. When I go get lunch at school, it normally costs about ten pesos, which is only two dollars. Anyways, we got two plates and shared them and it was super good! 
After we left, we went to Starbucks, because every time we go to Buenos Aires we gotta take advantage of the Starbucks! It's amazing how crazy they are here about things like Starbucks, and Subway, and McDonalds...things that are so 'meh' to me at home. I, myself, actually get pretty fanatic about going to Starbucks in Buenos Aires. I honestly look forward to it. When we went this time, I was super impressed with the guy behind the counter because he wrote my name 'Sophie' instead of 'Sofi'. He could tell I was American and wrote it the American way I guess. I had to get a picture because I'm sure it's the first time someone here had spelled it right on the first try without asking me.
And finally, catching up to this weekend, I just got back from a 5K race that I did in Buenos Aires with Maite! It was called 'Ser' and it was a fundraiser for breast cancer. Only women were allowed to participate. It was actually a lot bigger than I expected; there were about 5,000 participants. Maite and I went to Buenos Aires Saturday night and stayed in her friends house overnight so we wouldn't have to get up at the crack of dawn Sunday morning to make it on time. Saturday was really fun...we went to Starbucks! Surprise, surprise...and then we spent a few hours shopping at a really pretty mall, and then took a bus to the house. On the bus I met some guys that were studying a semester in Buenos Aires that all seemed like they were from America. It turned out only one of them was and the other two were from other countries but just spoke super good English. I was proud of myself because when I heard them speaking English I walked up and started talking to them myself. It made me realize how much I have changed and matured this year, because I know for a fact that before I left Bend, I would have never walked up to someone on a bus in a city and started talking to them. I was way too shy for that. Now I see that I am so much more confident and comfortable than before. But anyways, we got off the bus, went to the house, and for dinner we went to an Asado(barbecue). It was delicious, just as all the Argentine Asados are.
Then, this morning we got up at 7 and headed to the race! It was a cloudy day, but luckily it didn't rain, and it was actually nice weather to run in. I finished 3rd in my category and 31st overall! My time was 22:29, which is pretty good, but I know I can do better. There are a few more races that are happening before I leave and I am going to try and do them all! 
So I got home from the race, took a shower, and made myself some 'terere'. I was proud that it actually turned out tasting really good. It's mate tea, but cold and served with juice! It's the way they drink it in the north of Argentina, mostly Misiones, where Maite and Ana are from. Whenever I'm over at their place we always drink it together, so when I was drinking it by myself, it definitely didn't seem quite the same. But, I feel more Argentinian every day, and every minute it becomes harder and harder to think about the day I'll have to say bye to this life. Agrentina, you have really grown on me. I only have 10 more weeks left...and I'll make the best of it!
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