Alright, I know I have a lot of updating to do. Mom, keeps telling me. :) I've really just been so busy moving all over the place, I don't have too much time to write too much stuff.
I think I left off at Cordoba and I have been to so many wonderful places since then, and even another country! So, after Cordoba, I took the night bus to Parana to visit my Argentino friends Lucas and Maxi. My bus got in at about 6am. Lucky for them, it took me about a half an hour to figure out how to use the pay phone in the bus station and even longer to tell the cabbie where I was going. It was still dark out by the time I got there though and I think Lucas was just rolling out of bed. We found Maxi and went to get some breakfast before the both of them had to go to work. Maxi's family owns the best bakery in Parana and I actually had a few dulce de leche cookies later in the afternoon to confirm this. He had to go start the ovens for the day and Lucas has a government job of some sort. So, after breakfast, I had lots of time to explore Parana on my own. Lucas went to a toursit stop to get a map and tell me what neighborhoods to stay away from and I was off.
I actually headed straight down towards the river to the beaches and parks that are down there and didn't really leave until it was time for me to meet up with Maxi. The riverfront in Parana is really lovely. There are rose gardens, parks and beaches and everything is really well taken care of. The city of Parana itself is somewhat small, though it is the capital of the state, Entre Rios.
After a few hours, I walked over to Maxi´s bakery and ate my yummy cookies, which I told him he has to send some to me in the US so everyone else can try them too! We spent the whole rest of the afternoon practicing english and spanish. Maxi is taking english classes right now, but his english is about as good as my spanish... needless to say, it was a pretty intense afternoon of practice. I thought my brain was going to be fried after that.
Lucas got out of work and the three of us had a really nice lunch together down by the river. We drove around for the rest of the evening showing me all the nice places and not so nice places of the city and then I hopped back on a bus in the evening to go to IGUAZU!
