The adventure continues!

A bit of a review from the past weeks!

Since the last time I blogged many wild and wonderful things have happened. Today is Thursday the 11th of October! (When did October happen?) I got back late Tuesday night from Buenos Aires. I was travelling with the youth orchestra from my city, Sonidos de la Tierra (Sounds from the Earth). It was INCREDIBLE!!! I fell in love with Buenos Aires! It is an amazingly huge city with a metro, lots of people, crazy trendiness, good food from all over the world and cultural activities everywhere you look! The speed of life is SO much faster than my current speed of life – it was a fun change…but it wore me out! People power walk so fast it is like they don’t have time to put one foot in front of the other!
We played four concerts. I unfortunately only know two songs so I sat and listened a lot! But it was very exciting to have a violin on my shoulder again! And wonderful modivation to practice more!
Travelling with 90 Paraguayans definitely tested my abilities to be flexible and go with the flow. There was no direction or greater agenda. Well maybe there was but no one knew what it was, where the next activity was to take place, how to get there, what their phone number might be so we could call for directions or really what time we should be there! We did a lot of hanging out! There was only really ¨time¨ for one morning of touristiness. I was able to slip away while the orchestra was practicing for the big concert Monday night (I did not play cause they weren’t playing either of the TWO songs that I know!) I got to shop, power walk and take myself out for a glass of red wine. It was delightful! While drinking my glass of red wine a group of 22 retired Irishmen entered the resturaunt/bar and I swear they were NOT so distant relatives of Micks! They were hysterically funny! They were in BA for two weeks playing golf. They go to a different continent every year to play golf. They gave much advice about the world and told me to take good care of myself for my mum n´ dad. I said I would and wished them well!
I definitely have the travel bug to go back! Which is ok because………BONNIE IS COMING TO SEE ME! And we have great plans to have 3 weeks of non-stop fun together! And visit BA (which will be included in the non-stop fun!)

Other great things!
Joparadio: last night we has our second official radio show! Our topic was deforestation! Pretty exciting, huh? Jill has an Mp3 player that can record directly from the radio so we have been able to record our shows and eventually can pod cast them…so stay tuned for that!
Going To A-town: This weekend (actually tonight!) I am headed to Asuncion to meet my dad and marsha who are coming for a long weekend! (And I have a dentist appointment) I am very excited to have visitors and show off Paraguay a bit! They unfortunately wont be able to come and visit Horqueta and see my real life here – but coming to Asuncion is way better than nothing!
Hotter than all get out: I think I might die. It is soo hot! You know the feeling you get when you open the oven to check how your chocolate chip cookies are doing and there is a huge blast of really hot air? That is what its like every moment outside…except NO chocolate chip cookies!
New family that has air conditioning! My new host family has an air conditioner in my bedroom – saving grace!
Painting my house to look like watermelon: Many houses in Horqueta are painted two colors on the outside. A bottom color that is usally oil based paint so its easier to wash the dirt off the bottom of the house and then a top color that probably starts between your knee and hip. Alright so my new really bright idea is that I am going to paint my house (that I don’t own yet, or know where it is!) to look like a SLICE OF WATERMELON! Dark green on the bottom, bright pinky-red on the top with great big watermelon seeds! It is going to be ridiculous and wonderful!
Naming a dog Fulano: which wont be very funny to the rest of the world but I find it hysterical! Fulano is the name that people use here instead of saying, ¨Whats his name¨ or Joe Shmoe or Jane Doe. And they always refer to this imaginary person when talking about hypothetical situations…so its going to be my dogs name! Genius right!
The answer to the AGUA DULCE dilemma! There are many, many used American clothes here. I was asked on more than two occasions if we wash our clothes in the united states? And on the last time I pressed the issue a little bit to figure out why in the world people don’t think we wash our clothes. And here is the answer I got: There isn’t any water in the united states, it is more expensive to wash your clothes than it is to buy new ones. So instead of reusing we have disposable clothing which explains why there is so much American clothing in Paraguay and why the Americans are here….to find the Agua Dulce (Sweet Water). Dilemma solved.

As always....there is more to come!
cheers!