Birthdays, Bears and Brrrrrr it's cold!

There are so many things to write about but I decided it was best if I combine a few entries into one! I know I promised to write on my blog more often and I will keep trying to improve on that promise. Writing is not the hard part, it's uploading the photos that I don't have the patience for.

As I write up my little anectdote for you all I sit bundled up in three pairs of socks, sweat pants, two shirts a sweat shirt on top, a scarf and a beanie. It's officially winter here, leaves are strewn about the sidewalks and you can see little clouds of smoke form when you talk outside. My apartment doesn't have heating so I suffer. However, when it turns cold it also means it's time to celebrate as Adrian, his brother and his mother all have birthdays within a week of eachother. First we celebrated the 24th birthday of the older brother Andres, a week later was Adrian's 22nd and this last week was Perla's. By the time Perla's birthday came round she was quite tired of celebrating during the week until 2am in the morning and then having to get up and go to work the next day, so she did not want to plan anything for her special day. However, two other American girls and I --who all three of us lived with Perla at one time---decided to throw her a surprise family get together. I baked a cake (my first ever and it turned out great!) and we all pitched in and bought pizza, faina and figazza. Delicious!

Another exciting event was the visit of a former classmate and friend from ASU. We took a couple Spanish classes together as we both did the major at ASU. She happened to be in Buenos Aires for five weeks and decided to come visit me in Uruguay. She stayed for about five days and I took her to the touristy spots and had a blast getting to know Montevideo once more. Unfortunately she came at a time when we had some pretty bad weather here so it was not too fun going outside in the cold and rain. However, on a couple of the more beautiful days we did get to spend time walking along the rambla of Montevideo's beaches and exploring things in the old city such as the display of bears in the plaza Independencia that represent countries from around the world.