Transportation

I've been traveling a lot lately. Between going back and forth between La Plata and City Bell, La Plata and Buenos Aires for various reasons, it's taking a while to get settled into my apartment. This will be the first night all week that I am staying at my house for the night. Most of my furniture is still in more or less in a pile in the living/dining rooms waiting to be sanded and painted, but I'm getting there with some help. I think I have experienced nearly all of the modern methods of transportation while here. Of plane, car, bus, train, taxi, boat, subway, feet, what am I still missing?

Tuesday I was in Uruguay! I went with Paula, who lives in Buenos Aires. To get to BA from La Plata, I took a taxi to the bus terminal (because it is 20 blocks away), a coach bus to downtown BA, and then the subway to get a few blocks from Paula's apartment. Monday evening she gave me a walking tour of a sizeable part of the capital city. There's a lot to take in! Tuesday morning we hoped on a bus to take us to the port where we took a big boat across the widest river in the world (Rio de La Plata) to Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay. Colonia is a very historic city with Portuguese and Spanish influence still visible in the streets and architecture from the colonial period. It was remarkably different going there from the hustle and smog of BA. It was fun to take a little vacation and get another stamp in my passport! Other than being in a quiant and moderately turisty city on the other side of the river, it was hard to tell much of a difference between Argentina and Uruguay after several hours besides in currency. We didn't have to exchange money, but the prices were mostly in Uruguaian pesos and required a conversion.

Yesterday, I returned from Buenos Aires and went to our small group meeting. After the Bible study we watched the Estudiantes of La Plata win the Copa de Libertadores final soccer game 2-1 in Brasil. It was really exciting! They are considered champions of the Americas in futbol now! It's been crazy watching and listening to people celebrate. After the game thousands of people congregated in downtown La Plata to jump and cheer because of the victory. Tonight they are meeting up again at a plaza to welcome the team home. People have been honking and waving red and white flags everywhere I turn.