Another Great Weekend! :D

            4 day weekend!!! This past week I was preparing for my first swimming competition in Argentina. My club, Gimnasia y Tiro, is one of the best swim club around. We competed against Chile, Tukuman, Satiago, and many other provinces in Northern Argentina. I actually found out that some of the competitions are on TV... no pressure. Very exited that I also will get to travel with my team :D Friday I competed in the 100 FREE. The meet was supposed to start at 5:30, but Welcome to Latin America, it didn't start until 6:30. Which means, I warmed up at 6... and my first event wasn't until 8:30. Its hard to stay awake and ready to race after waiting that long... definitely will take some getting use to and a lot more training. 4th place, not bad for my first event :) I was supposed to swim in one more event that night, but the power went out! Saturday I competed in the 50 Breast and 50 free. Here's the thing, I will literally rather swim ANYTHING other then breast stroke. But, here they run things a little differently, everyone has to swim everything. Which means, breast stroke. No surprise that I was second to last in this event. After that, I got to swim the 50 free :) YAY! It was a really close race, still not sure how I did. All I know is I finished in 34 seconds... not bad at all :) (BTW, the length of the pool is a little longer... took me awhile to figure out that I was actually swimming more than I'm use to, at first I thought it was just me, one of Lydia's "blonde moments" as my friends would say) Overall great first competition. I can't wait for more to come!

50 FREE STYLE - 34 seconds

My new swimming buddies! :D <3

            Saturday, after my swim meet, I went home to pack my clothes. My family and I visited Santiago, a neighboring province, an approximate 5 hour car ride. The drive wasn't so bad, but what I'm not use to is a very small car, and five people... =very cozy :) I loved being able to talk more with my family... sometimes all you need is a road trip to spark a good conversation. My host mom is from Santiago. Santiago is very very hot! hot! hot! hot! But very beautiful. We stayed with my host moms sister... which makes her like my aunt. It gets hard to figure out who's who when there are SO many family members. Suz's house is amazing :) On top of the pool and beautiful house, she has a beautiful Golden Retriever who just had 7 puppies!! One of them she decided to keep! The cutest little thing ever! :D

Sol! :) Yes it is Spring, but feels like summer.

SO CUTE!!!

 AWWW!! The puppy is hungry :)

               Sunday we went to my mom's nephew's, my cousin's farm house to eat an Asado. I have learned that Asado is more then just grilled meat, it means so much more. It means family, friends, laughter, conversation, and love. People always ask me if I like Asado and I say, what' not to love!? It's flippin' delicious! For the first time in my life, I can actually say I LOVE meat! 

My cousin, he owns the farm and plays polo!! Which I find to be very cool :D

 YUM!

               In Argentina, especially Southern Argentina, they sing a lot of Folk Glory. It is a more modern version of they're native music and apparently the lyrics have a deep meaning... which I wouldn't really know because one of the hardest things to understand is music, that and jokes (Which I try really really hard to understand, but I'm usually the only one not laughing with a very confused type of face... patience, I will understand eventually, I hope!). All I know is the music is beautiful :D Along with Folk Glory is the Native dance, both can be different where ever you go in Argentina. Sadly videos take a long time to load, so this is the only one, but its adorable! :)

The cutest little boy in the world!

               As you can see, it was just a great time :) Some of my favorite things to do is to spend time with family, learn about culture, and listen to music, therefore I had a really great time. After listening to some music, all of the kids played football (soccer). My cousin has a small football field on the property. It was lots of fun, but I was definitely sore the next day. Once it got dark I got to learn a new card game. Luckily I'm a quick study and was beating them by the end of it :) Go Lydia!!! HAHA

A beautiful house!

 And a beautiful night :)

               Great weekend!!! And more to come!!! I really love everything about Argentina. The more I get to know about the history or understand the language and culture, I just get more and more fascinated and I guess you can say I am falling in love. I have been here for almost 2 months now... which seams crazy! I have 9 more months here and I can already tell time is going to go by very fast. There are definitely some things I miss about home, but the second I even think about being sad, its easy to remind myself of how lucky I am to be here and what an amazing experience this is. I truly believe that by studying abroad for a year, I am learning 10 times more then I would be home or at school. (PS, now that I am understanding more Spanish, I actually have to start doing more work in school, I new it had to come eventually, break time over, time to work!)

PS: If you've been wondering why I refer to my family here like my real family, it's because they really are family. One of the greatest aspects of AFS is that you build a bond with another family. They have opened their house and their arms to me, and wanted to take care of me for a whole year. So yes, they are my new family and I love them more and more every day! :) Plus it makes it a lot easier to say my cousin, or my mom's nephew, instead of saying my host mom's nephew...