It's been 1 day

since Ashley and I have arrived to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. It's been interesting. Haha. Our manager, Luis, picked us up on his car and took us to a hotel called Cancellier. We don't have an apartment yet because a couple of offers fell through. We hope to find an apartment soon.....cause we start teaching on Tuesday. Correction: we start training on Tuesday! So....lots of pressure there. Saturday we stayed at home and at night our manager and his family took us out to dinner to a very popular restaurant with playhouses and live entertainment....called "Dumbo". The food was great though, Ashley and I shared a plate called Silpancho. It's rice on the bottom with a round breaded beef fillet on top of the rice and two fried eggs on top of the fillet. We also had freshly squeezed lemonade to go with it. It was really delicious. That was Saturday.

The day before we had a layover in Lima and my dad and uncle (Rogelio) picked us up. We also ran into my aunt (Rossana) but I didn't have the stuff to give her (I'm retarded) so that sucked. But it was nice to see everyone. We got to my grandma's house and we got to say hi to pretty much everyone in the house. The next morning, aka four hours later, we woke up and had breakfast. I took lots of pictures and was able to spend time with my family and catch up on stuff. My dad and Uncle Rogelio took us to the airport and we got there with time to kill. It was hard to say goodbye, but it was good. We left for Bolivia and had a nice flight.

Okay, back to Sunday. We went to church. The ward was called Canoto. It was a small ward but I guess they're joining another ward that meets in the same building. The YSA is comprised of 3 guys. It was interesting haha. Everyone seems really nice although we haven't had TOO much time to talk to a lot of people. We got a ride back to the hotel from an Argentine lady in the ward. She was nice though she thought Ashley was my mom. That was weird. It was probably the braces. Anyhow we came back and ate lunch at the hotel, some chicken and rice. We've decided to save on water by refilling the water bottles we have. We are geniuses. Our manager and his family came by to drive us to see some of Santa Cruz and we went to this place called Potosi. It's more jungly and that's where the rich people live with their super nice guarded houses. It was really fun to see Santa Cruz, except on our way back, the car broke down and we had to call the tow truck. Man was it hot outside! The Tow Truck came and put the car on the bed in the back. Ashley, Jared (the manager's 10-yr old son) and I sat in the car. It was a fun and bumpy ride! Don't think that's legal in the US. We went to their home and saw pictures of them and of places he's visited. He really wants to go to Salt Lake City someday. I hope he and his family are able to go. We ate at Dumbo again and I shared an appetizer with Ashley. So yeah ....it's been a long day. I'm ready to go to sleep and hope that tomorrow we get some good news about the prospective apartments. Hasta manana!

Cristina

ps. There's another blog called Bump It where all the interns write blogs together.