theme of the day: no comprendo.

So yesterday Tess and I woke up to a note from our madre that said she went to the store and would be back in a little. she left us her phone number and said to call if we needed anything. With no phones and no key, Tess and I waited a little for her to return. After about 2.5 hours we told her daughter we were going to go out and get lunch (in such need of a salad, or just something other than pizza) and try to buy cell phones. She called her mom and threw around some words consisting of "mom, I CAN NOT understand them!" and then walked with us to try to find phones. FAIL. we didn't realize how much they would be and didn't have our ids with us which apparently you need. So we went for lunch and she told us to just come back to the house when we were done and her mother would take us to get phones.

We went for lunch, drank some vino, bought flowers for the daughter to apologize for our inability to communicate and walked back to the house. while it may have been a bit over the top to buy flowers, good thing we did-- when we got back the gate in front of the door was shut and the only way to ring the doorbell was to stick the stem of the flowers through the gate. SUCCESS.

The mom took us for phones which seemed to go very smoothly until we realized that neither of us could make calls. apparently we need to go buy cards to add minutes which we thought we paid for and were receiving. whooo knows. Unfortunately, Emma was in the same situation as us so basically Nina played middle man and tried to communicate for all four of us all night, which as you may guess, got sort of complicated.... oh, and then my phone died when we were in separate cars. FAIL

So at this point Tess and I were out with the daughter at a pool and bar trying to meet up with the rest of our group (which did finally work until the phones died). We felt sooo bad because we were having fun but again, with the language barrier, the daughter could not understand us at all (actually could not understand me at all, Tess is much better) and we heard her telling her mom we were like tourists, which we are. So the daughter and her friend called another one of their friends who showed up and SPOKE ENGLISH! so basically he played translator for the entire night. we ended up at what seemed to be a very trendy club. Apparently it cost 50 pesos to get in and another 200 for the VIP section we were in (around 70 dollars) but I guess her and her friends are very cool because she just gave the bouncer a kiss hello and we walked in without paying or waiting. SWEET.

It was a really fun night and the daughter is soo soo sweet and cool, we could just tell that she was under strict orders to stay with us, not give us our own key, and make sure we were okay. we tried to tell her that it was okay and we were having fun and go out all the time at home, but I don't think we communicated that very successfully.

Today's goals:
1. find the ability to make outgoing calls
2. make a successful plan to meet up with the rest of the group
3. convince the mother and daughter I am not totally lame and incompetent.

...wish me luck.