WHY WE'RE SUNBURNT

PUNTA del ESTE: Saturday we went on a trip together with all the students to visit the famous-around-here resort town of Punta del Este, about 2 ½ hours away from Montevideo.

CASA PUEBLO: Our first stop was about 30 minutes before our ultimate destination at the amazingly cool home, Casa Pueblo, of artist Carlos Páez Vilaró. If you get a chance to Google this man, please do. I really like his art, and his open-to-the-public home is breathtaking. It was my favorite part of the day.

GORRITI ISLAND: Our "real" destination, Punta del Este, has miles and miles of beautiful beaches, and, as it's the height of summer vacation here, everything was pretty packed. However, due to clever planning on the par

t of Lynette and Lee Penya, we took a boat to a little island offshore (called Gorriti) for about half the day; there was beautiful sand to be found, the crowds were much smaller, and Ken and I walked the entire circumference of the place, exploring just about everything (the girls frolicked more at the beach than anything).

LOS DEDOS: We also did the touristy thing by stopping at Los Dedos (which means The Fingers), a huge sculpture of a hand emerging from the sand. You can see our group in the picture. We also went to a crazy, wavy bridge that Autumn's Study Abroad group got to go over several times; we,

 however, were in a big, fancy tour bus that wasn't allowed. Bummer. 

We do, however, have a picture of it with Ken, Katie, and Krista. 

PIRIAPOLIS: On our return, we stopped in another resort town called Piriapolis, where we ate a fabulous dinner at a hilltop restaurant with an almost 360-degree ocean view. Despite (a) a tire blow-out on the bus and (b) a run-in-with-something-oceanic that forced us to re-dock and switch boats and (c) quite a few sunburns all around, this was an A+ day. Study Abroad student Emily said it best when she said, "This is the best day I've ever had, ever."