First few days in La Plata, Argentina

Thursday morning around 930am we arrived in Buenos Aires. Our first experience of the country was quite interesting...because of the whole swine flu scare in the USA and Mexico, to deboard the plane we had to fill out health questionnaires and wear face masks until we were completely out of the terminal. We also had to go through a heat sensor that checked for a fever....as hot as it was it's a wonder we didn't all get detained! After we left that, we were greeted by both the STINT team for Buenos Aires and La Plata and we immediately boarded a bus for an hour ride to la plata.

After checking in at the Hotel del Sol, we went to Plaza Moreno where we had lunch and were greeted by several students involved on La Vida Estudiantil, the campus ministry here in Argentina. After eating we went to the cathedral located in the plaza which is supposedly one of the biggest in South America. The cathedral had two towers - one to represent Mary and the other to represent Jesus. For a few passos we got to go up on the Jesus tower which gave us a paneramic view of the city.

Later that evening we went to the sede which is the headquarters for la vida and also where the guys on the STINT team live. They Got us dinner early thtlat night, rather than asking us to wait til 10pm which is normal in Argentine culture.

On Friday we had our first full day of Argentine life. We learned a lot about the history and culture of the country and met a lot of other students involved here. That night was also English Club, where we played games to help students learn English better. Right after that was a talk in their la vida meeting, debating the existence of God. There was probably a dozen non believers present. The debate ended up lasting 4 hours! Needless to say after eating empanadas (which are very cheap and popular here) we left around 11pm.

Friday we also learned out to dance a Folklore dance known as el gato which was really cool to learn!

Saturday was long but so awesome...probably one of the coolest days for me thus far. We went on a scavenger hunt of the city, taking silly photos at some places like the bosque ( forest), zoo (which had cats in it!), and creation museum. We also bought churros and learned a soccer chant!

Saturday I also met some awesome Argentines involved in the ministry here. I met Andrea who actually went to keynote summer project last year on bass guitar. She was a comp sci major in college and loves speaking English. We decided we were probably twins separated at birth. Then there was Andres who plays bass and is a music major here studying orchestral conducting. And then there is Fabiano who is from chile and has a band he is going to bring me a CD of to listen to! they play a mixture of jazz, funk, African, rock, etc.

The coolest is Graciella, who said I was an answer to her prayers because in a year she is planning to come to WV to study, probably at Liberty college. If not, I convinced her Marshall was a good second choice ;). She had been praying someone from WV would come to Argentina so she could know someone when she came to the US. It was just so cool to know that that right there was one of the reasons God brought me to Argentina this summer. I talked to her for an hour and then gave get a WV tshirt I had brought. I can't wait to see her an my friendship develop over this summer.

Yesterday evening we also went out to eat for the first time. The menu was all in Spanish of course but I figured it out really easily. However, ice cream was a different story. Being the Americans that we ate we orders the 1/2 kg size. Needless to say each of us ended up with a pound of ice cream. Hahaha

Well today we are just going to relax and spend time as a group which is fun. Can't wait to hear from everyone about how their week has been!

¡Beso!