Wow, a lot to say. Friday we all woke up at 4am to finally get our student visas so we can stay for more than the 3 month tourist visa allows. It was a verrry eye-opening experience: people had been camping out for days hoping to be of the first 500 they let in daily. If you're from any other country in South America you get into one line, but since we are American citizens we are treated as royalty. I was extremely embarrassed when we skipped the line of the people who had been there for hours and days and when straight to the front. Granted, it still took so long to go through the process just to get a paper I could have made at home saying I'm a student and resident. Because of our weak planning, we missed our 4pm boat to cross the Rio de la Plata to go to Punta del Este in Uruguay (only 3 hours away!) and had to take the 9pm boat which got us to our destination at 3am after the 3 hour bus ride after the boat trip.
Punta del Este was BEAUTIFUL and we stayed at a hostel run by hippies. Although we were only there for 3 days we managed to experience the nightlife and 2 of the beautiful white sand beaches. It is almost the end of summer so it's not as crowded as it was and such a great escape from Buenos Aires's hustle and bustle. Here's my new friends Eve and Alex on one of the beaches. Under that is a pic of the cutest hippy kid in the world who lived in the house we stayed at...
