First Week

okey, so here's the trip's post... (for those of you who don't know I took a trip to the U.S in these last 2 weeks whith a travel group, so basically it was me and a bunch of strangers)

Saturday 18th

It all started three saturdays ago the day after my birthday party (well, it actually started months ago when I got the mail inviting me to the trip). I had one thousen things to do that day, haircut, pack the bags, get to the class I have on saturdays, write the letter.. somehow I managed to finish just in time to get to the airport...

All the time we had to wait in the airport I spent it whith my family, avoiding my travel companions, partly because meeting new people is hard for me (I'm too shy), and partly cause I wanted to spend as much time whith them as I could before I had to leave (it was ok since most of them were whith there families as well, of course). The time finally it came when we had to get to the gate, so I said goodbye to my family and headed myself to the unkown, my travel group..

While we went throw the whole security part I was very quiet, not participating of any conversation, but throwing a few coments when I was directly spoken to. When we got to the free shop I somehow ended up walking arround whith 2 of my travel companions, Fede and Joaco, (I don't like using real names, but I'm not about inventing names for 11 people) who also happened to be the ones I was going to have to share rooms whith. So we started talking and I got my first REAL contact with my travel group.. then we headed of to the gate were we met whith the other boys from our group, Enzo, Juan Martin and Gaston, and we got into a conversation thet I wasn't really interested in (the typical guy talk) so I just nodded and laughed when I was supsed to. We hardly spoke to the girls at first (we were seating in diferent parts of the airport)

The time came for us to get into the plane, where I got the first real contact whith one of the girls from our group, Laura, who was the youngest of the girls and who ended up`being the one I got along whoth the least (we got along very well, but not as much as I got along whith the other

girls).

Sunday 19th

After the flight, we finally got to Baltimore, and we took 2 vans to get to the school where we met whith our host familys and we each headed to their respective houses. My family was nice, and they had a nice house, the kid's father and step mother were very good to me, but the kid was very shy and payed little atention to me.

Monday 20th

The next day we got to the school where I met whith my group again, and I got to meet their respective hosts, who were all very nice (most of them nicer than mine ¬¬).

When the bell rang we all had to split again and go to our hosts' classes. I was shocked by their tecnollogy (I knew they were advanced in that subject but not that much) the fact that they had a projector in every class, and that in a lot of other classes they had a giant touch screen conected to the pc, which made the blackboards they had useless. I had to take spanish, american goverment, biology and Fundamentals of Art.


Spanish was easy (dah), american goverment was borring, at biology I didn't have to do a damn thing, and art seemed an interesting class, at this class I got to meet a typical nerd from the movies who was very nice to me and who I really liked (I'm a nerd too so..) it was fun and interresting talking to her... After that my host, his cousin/friend and I walked to his house (it was very hot so I got really tired)

Tuesday 21st

The day after that, we went to an aquarium just the uruguayan kids and our chaperons, Bea and Clau, and we got to see a dolphin show which was really good and really funny and really cute.

Here I started geting along whith my group, specially whith Fede and Maru (who were the ones I got along the best during the 1st week), and I STARTED not liking very much another of my companions, Caro, because she complained a lot and for what she said when she talked about her life back home (for example how she talked about the fact that she cheated on her boyfriend about 12 times)

After that I went whith some of the guys and on of their hosts to the mall where I got my new IPOD TOUCH!!:D yeay

Wednesday 22nd

On wednesday we want to washington D.C. (again, just chaperons and us)

It was great, eventhough I'd already been to D.C. There weren't a lot of new things, but there was something I liked very much that I hadn't done before, we got to go to the post office's enclosed balcony, and I got to see almost the whole city from there, and it was beautifull.

Thursday 23rd

On thursday we went to visit an Elementary school and a middle school in Baltimore.

And in the middle school we went in to a few classes to talk about Uruguay and ourselves which got really borring after the 3rd of 4th time of saying exactly the same...

It was here, were I started geting along whith, Lore (another from my group), in fact, at this point there was just one person whith whom I hadn't really talked more than 2 sentences in a row, (her name is Andre)

Afterwards we all (hosts included) met in the

house of somone's host and had a pizza party, and they gave a gift-bag to each of us and our respective hosts gave each of us a little speech. Francly I was a bit nervous about what was my host gonna say given that we had almost no relationship at all, but he managed pretty well, in fact, if I hadn't told my group that we had virtually no relation, they probably would have thought that we got along AT ALL.. And after that we went bowling!! I didn't actually play but I did learn how to keep score and I kept score for one of our groups (we were too many so we had to plit in diferent groups)

Friday 24th

On our last day at the school we went to some clases (spanish history etc), to talk abotu Uruguay and ourselves (again), and we went to a music class

were the band played our national hymn. And we had to stay after school to a Spanish Club, to talk about us and our country (AGAIN), but it was cool cause I got to see my nerd friend again and I got her facebook name to keep in touch (I was afraid I wasn't gonna see her again before we left and I wasn't going to get her facebook name)

After that a few of us (Uruguayans) and our hosts (mine actually didn't join us)

went to an icream and snowballs place and us uruguayans had our first snowballs..

Afterwards we ALL went to eat chinese (deaugh), were I got to eat my very first fortune cookie! and then lasser taggin! which was fun even though my team lost both times and I ranked 27th and 18th (or so) out of 30 (or so)

Saturday 25th

On saturday we woke up and immediatly headed to the train station where my

group and I were going to take a train to New York, there were a lot of hugging and kissing from my friends and their hosts (because this was the last time we were going to see them). And then we had to get to the train so everyone said goodbye

and we got to were only passangers could go and when we were about to get to the train we saw the hosts waving hands in the distance, which was very touching (in my case not because of my host, because I got along whith all the other hosts better)

I know that I've talked too much about this (and it's only the 1st week), but well, it was a very important trip to me, and I know you probably don't care when was it exactly that I started getting along whith each person, but I do, and it's my blog, and as I've said before, I write to please myself not you (of course that if you like what I write all the better, but if you don't I'm fine whith that)

well, Merci if you read this whole thing from begining to end!!