Christmas in October & Halloween!

October 31st, feast day of St. Wolfgang of Regensburg (Patron Saint of carpenters), birthdays and...Halloween
   
So, our Thursday adventure: CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!!    
      Yes, I wrote Christmas shopping. Angela wants to send Christmas presents to people soon so they´ll get there in time. So, we went off to la Concha and spent hours there looking at everything. I got into the Christmas spirit as well (even amongst the Halloween costumes I saw, yes apparently some Bolivians know what Halloween is...I blame Disney Channel haha).
       I found almost everything I needed, including a couple other souvenirs for friends. It was a succesful day, even found something awesome for my dad (He is often hard to shop for). Angela was great at helping me make decisions and we stuck together most of the day!  We decided to end the shopping experience with a little Christmas present for ourselves HOT BOLIVIAN JEANS! hahah 
     There was a tiny booth amongst two aisles full of jeans and the lady had a little blanket thing so we could hide behind it and try the jeans on...kinda funny with people shopping all around (good thing bolivian guys are short, we were well-hidden). On mine, the pocket design reminds me of a butterfly so that made me smile.
       On the way back, I tried a pastry on the street afterward with whipped cream and canela (cinnamon) and didn´t get sick! DOUBLE YAY. The only hard part was consolidating all my stuff and carrying it all into dance without anything getting broken.Speaking of broken, RIP Mochila...Mi mochila esta muerte. It ripped :( oh well, it lasted a good 5 years. 
       Luckily I was able to find a semi-seat near the driver on my Micro home, more like a little cusion thing. Which was great because it´s always crowded at night and standing would have been difficult. Thanks God for the seat ;) and all of my things made it home intact.

   Pasion India:
    So, love taking girls to ballet twice a week; get to have an hour or so free and walk around the city or read and practice my spanish!! Ok so I saw this book written about a Spanish girl who became an Indian Princess. It´s called Pasion India and it sounded interesting and it´s TRUE! written by a Hispanic guy (which I decided if I´m buying a book in Spanish, I might as well read one that´s written originally in Spanish). I guess people have been buying it bc, like no one had it this week and I always check for it. Only one lady had it. As I was walking up to the store, I saw a girl looking at the back cover! I was like no, she´s going to buy it! So I wait until she leaves and walk over. I don´t see it and start to get worried, but then I spy it on the other rack. WHEW! So, I finally bought it, after weeks of deliberation. I just started reading it this weekend and have started a vocab list for the book. I´m excited because it sounds interesting and it will help me immensely with my grammer and vocab! yay

     Madre de Poloñia:
What a celebration we had. So the Madre General is like the head honcho of the order Sacred Heart of Jesus (Sagrado Corazon) and she comes every three years with another Madre to check on the sisters and the different orphanages and schools they sponsor/run. She doesn´t know Spanish, but apparently she knows English (wish we knew that when she was here....)They also have a big meeting to see if they want to move any of the sisters and see how things are. I doubt they´ll move our sisters, but I guess we won´t know for a few more months!
   Day began with Mass, breakfast, and bailes! We were late for Mass because we were not told they were having 7am Mass for her. One of the older girls had to knock on our doo and we got ready in two minutes and ran down...whoops...
   The dances were great and the costumes were, again, amazing and so cute. PLUS, they danced outside in the morning so Ang got great pics while I took video. Most were traditional dances with two Christian ones (8 dances in all). Then girls played until lunch! DELICIOUS!! Arroz, pollo al horno, papas fritas, y choclo (their corn, it´s kernals are huge).

Halloween:
   Angela and I dressed up as niñas gemelas, with pigtails, leggings, high socks, and huge bows in our hair. The girls thought it was funny and the nuns didn´t see us until later and gave us the silliest looks until we explained it to them. Then the girls watched a Halloween movie on Disney channel, so we got more into the spirit of the day. So, another wonderful weekend here at Hogar San Francisco. Can´t wait to see what this week has in store...