August 28th, 2010

my mom told me i needed to update my blog, so this is me with my updated life haha.

we are having issues pulling out money for the rotary, but i think its because we are trying to pull out 300 dollars in pesos which is about 1200 pesos, so i think the machines brain hurts when i try to do that, so tomorrow we are going to try for the 3rd time ha.

a girl from wyoming lives about 40 minutes away in another town called bragado, and i think she is going to come over sunday so she can see chivilcoy and we can trade stories of our headaches trying to learn spanish. no matter what we are doing we go to bed no earlier then 3am, we eat dinner at 10 or later every night its pretty great.

i went into town with a guy a met from canada my first night here a few days ago, we drank some mate then walked around and window shopped because neither of us wanted to spend money, then we went and ate some torta (cake) and it was so good. not as good as my sister julias cake but it was pretty awesome. then we rode around on his mo ped thing and he showed me the town and it was all really cool and pretty. i met his parents, they both grew up here but his mom has an american accent. they told me if i ever needed help or anything they would be there because not many people speak english here so that was nice.

i had my first rotary meeting that night, and thank god mery went with me or i would have been soooo lost ha. they all dont speak any english, but all we did was eat and listen to them talk about raising money for a baby boy wiht a heart condition. i donated 5 pesos and they all thought i was an angel or something it was nice. i got my first monthly allowance which is 150 pesos that night too. the food was amazing, we had meat empanadas, salad, and asado beef and chicken. then vanilla gelato wiht dulce de leche in the middle and chocolate on the outside. :) i have two counslers named juan, i say juan numero uno and juan numero dos because i dont know their last names (apellidos).

friday morning we had to get up and go meet my teachers at my school, they wrote some sort of document stating that i will get credit or something i dont know there were 5 people speaking spanish at once so i didnt really follow the whole conversation. then we went to a volleyball school and signed me up for the team. i have practice on tuesdays and thursdays from 7 to 8 but from what i understood i can stay til 9 if i want? i dont know. and we dont have to pay for a while to make sure i like it and want to play for them or wahtever which was pretty cool, i will let you know how practice goes. i start volleyball the same day i start school...tuesday, so i will be soo tired on tuesday. so i will let you know after tuesday ha.

then i came home and ate some lunch that julia made that was awesome then napped for a while, then mery and i went to her school to see our friends and i was like a celebrity. the teacher pretty much quit teaching and spent 2 hours talking to me in spanish and allowing the class to talk to me too. they all had so many quesitons and they said i was speaking spanish very well whcih was cool, and when i didnt know how to say something i had mery there to help. :) then when school got out, mery, carla, carmela, corii and i went back to merys house for mate and churros where they made fun of my accent and we talked about school and things. then we left and went shopping for some little accesories and we decided we were gonna go out to dinner and have a friends night.

so mery and i went home and got ready and we left for dinner around ten. it was me, javier, mery, carla, and corii. we ate at this place i dont remember the name, i have pictures i will post on picasa and facebook, but the pizza was AWESOME! mmmm then we got the bill and we were all going to split it but they made me not pay because i am foreign haha. then we went and got dessert at the same place i got the cake with nick the canadian ha, and we were there for maybe an hour. then javii left and we walked around for a while until carlas boyfriend picked her up, then javii came and got mery corii and i and we went back to his house and drank mate with his friends rodii and brunoo :) we drank mate and listened to music and talked until 330am. they asked me how to say things in english and i spent about 7 hours of that day speaking spanish so i was on a roll ha. i found out rodiis birthday is the 10th of november and he is 16 too, so mine is the 5th, his is the 10th, and katies is the 15th. party month!! :) then coriis parents came and picked us up and we finally came home and crashed.

and today i woke up with no voice. i sound like a man. i thinik it is from being so tired, and julia thinks it is also because i am stressing my voice to speak spanish so it is exhausted. i was going to go to a birthday party tonight with everyone but now i am jut going to hang out with julia and watch a movie or something. :) i need a few days of r and r but i doubt i will get it here, these people are loco!! haha

mery leaves monday for wyoming, and that is the latest update from the life of aubrey. i will domy best to write one at least once a week, so please be patient with me, i am very busy haha.

i miss you all and love you all lots
un beso grande :)
chau

aubrey

first few days

wow where to begin...
my first night  here i was thrown a party which i had mixed feelings about. i was emotional and exhausted and i didnt understand anyone but it was nice to meet people and kinda make friends. then i really made friends because we went out dancing til 5am. okay thats when you know these people are crazy haha. mery's friends are helping me learn a lot of spanish and they are very patient with me. they speak slow and repeat themselves and even when i dont use the right verb the correct me sometimes but most of the time they get what im saying so they dont really mess with it ha.

i slept til 3pm woke up and was homesick again. i put my clothes in the closet and that made me really sad, it kinda made this my official home if you will and i dont know if i am ready to quite dive into that fully yet. then we walked around the entire town and i saw many sights and things and took lots of pictures. i will put the captions on the pictures later i was too tired to do it last night. this place is gorgeous all the people are crazy drivers but are very nice. mery taught me how to make mate last night which is pretty much all i drink right nwo because i love mate and so does my family. i learned how to make it at 4am haha. then we went to bed at 5 becasue mery and i just talked down stairs for forever, then we had to wake up at 10 to go to the correo (post office) so i could send my first two letters to my family and my boyfriend. with buying stamps and sending two letters it cost a total of 80 pesos! you all are so expensive haha.

then i was very tired but i wasnt allowed to sleep because i had to go with my mama carmen to my school with my rotary counsler juan to talk to the head of the school about me going. i start in a week and my mama wants me to study and get good grades but for the next two months i doubt that will happen haha. my brain hurts with all my spanish being crammed into it.

i like that they are keeping me busy even though they think we arent doing anything but at the same time i feel like i need a few days jsut to kinda watch and learn and sit and read and write and hang out and just kinda observe the life. i jumped into it so fast my brain is having a nervous break down every few hours.

i told my host mom not to be offended when i cry, because apparently a lot of people think when you are crying on exchange its because you dont like them or their house or whatever so i told her that wasnt the case but i dont know how to say i am home sick or i miss my mom and dad or my boyfriend or my sisters or my friends or whatever. so i just kinda nod and smile and cry whenever i feel like it because my sisters said that is the best way.

i have talked to a lot of the other exchange kids that are in other countries that i know from back home and its nice to hear that they are feeling the same or if they have advice or whatever. its nice to have friends from all over the sectrum i suppose. so i guess to sum it all up the words would be chaos, overwhelming, awesome, stressful, depressing, fabulous, and new. and it feels likei have been here for weeks not 3 days by the way, thats how tired my brain is ha.

i miss you all and love you lots! feel free to email me or add me on face book
aubrey@hethnet.com
or Aubrey Rose Heth on facebook
if you comment my posts i read them but i am not going to write back ha sorry but i like reading all of them so please dont stop!!

besitos
aubrey rose

Finally here...

I am using my host sister Julias computer so my punctuation and capitals are going to be somewhat non existant in this....ha
the airport was super emotional...we all cried, we all held back tears because we didnt want to be completely sobing in this middle of a bunch of strangers...i went through security alone, found my plane alone, rode it to dallas alone, transferred alone, and rode a ten hour flight to argentina where the only person who speaks english in my family is leaving in a few days for exchange. alone. my moods are as inconsistant as ocean waves, coming in heaps of excitement, sadness, nervousness, and scarednesss . i was able to sleep a little on the plane thanks to lack of sleep for the past two weeks and thanks to tylonal pm. when my plane touched down i got so excited looking at this beautiful place and then it hit me again...im here to see this with only my two eyes and no one elses. 
the rotary prepares you for lots of things, but no one can prepare you for this. everyone here is so excited you finally are here they forget you just left a whole life behind. everyone here is so nice and wonderful and i feel awful because all i want to do is sleep and watch tv and talk to my friends and have friends here, but for the next month or so thats not how its going to be. i am going to have to push myself to all areas of my soul to learn a new language, make friends, go to school, learn a new life style, re learn my entire life. its so scary but at the same time knowing that i can do it. will do it. makes it all worth it. i am already speaking more learning more and i have only been here a few hours. i know i can do this, and i am hoping it gets easier.
i talked to my parents on the phone when i got here and it was so hard. i didnt even see their faces and just hearing my mom say hello? made me cry. i miss everyone back home terribley, but not in the way i thought. i dont want to go home, i want them to come here. i have only been here a day and i already love it. i love how new everything seems, how different, how exciting.
my advice to any parent who may consider sending their child, do it. even though at the beginning it just hurts all over, it makes you such a strong independent person. my other advice is dont just take rotarys word for everything...because they don't know. i am so thankful i had laura to talk to because otherwise i would have been way more overwhelmed. for example, no one cares if you are wearing your rotary jacket or not, they wont give you the time of day because your a teen in their country not knowing their language, so being prepared to have to deal with people who dont want to deal with you is helpful. also, learn hand signals. rotary doesnt tell you how hard it is to communicate with people. i am lucky because my sister mery speaks english but she is leaving soon...which i dont even want to think about because without her i am screwed for a while...ha.
oh and apparently jonas brothers are a big deal here haha fyi.
i will try to write again when i am not exhausted and emotional. i miss you all i love you all, keep in touch.
besitos

Last Day in America

Wow thank you so much to everyone who came to see me and say a final good-bye. Your words of encouragment really mean the world to me and I will forever remember you all. For those of you who couldn't make it, you are all still in my hearts and I cannot wait to share my journey with you.

I am so overwhelmed with everything that has happened this past week. Running around Denver finding everything to help little miss me survive down in Argentina, pack two suitcases full of things and wondering if I am exceeding the weight limit because I have so much...ha. The most emotional part of this whole thing for me I think was tonight, the 19th. All of my close friends came by for one last good-bye and it is so hard to say "see you in ten months" as opposed to "see you tomorrow." But knowing I have all of their full support really gives me the strength to know I can do this. I am on an emotional rollercoaster, changing from sad to excited to anxious to nervous back to excited etc. But in the end I know I will have such an amazing time and learn so much how can I not be super excited?

I think tomorrow will be the strangest emotional feeling of my life. On one hand I turn away from the family whose always been right by my side to leave them for almost a year...but on the other hand it's finally happening, I am finally going to Argentina. I know there will be more tears more hugs and kisses, and even harder good-byes, but I know I will always have their full support in this and that is what makes me so excited. For those of you that are parents, I would strongly encourage your kids doing this in high school or college, because in the end, this kind of thing makes you a better person. I am so excited to start my life changing adventure, I just hope I feel that way when the first football game rolls around...

Departure Date!

So I finally have my departure date, its the 20th of August 2010 and my flight leaves at 2:00pm. I will arrive in Dallas at 5:00pm then have a two and a half hour lay over to go through customs and find my flight at all that jazz, then I will arrive in Buenos Aires Staurday morning! It is finally all coming together, I am nervous, excited, anxious, sad, I don't know how to handle it all right now, so I will keep you all posted. My going away party will be the 14th of August, we don't know the time yet but I will let you know! :) besitos

Getting ready to leave!

Phew this has been a crazy few months, driving to Houston to get my visa, dealing with insurance trouble, always waiting for news from someone, etc. But I know it will all be worth it in the end. I am so excited, nervous, sad, scared, everything. I am making a blog which makes me feel kinda nerdy, but I figure this is the new age way to keep up with the happenings. I will do my best to post once a week, but I can't promise anything. Everyone's on edge at this point and I am just becoming more anxious by the day! I can't wait to tell you all about my new home :) well that's about all for now, ciao!