From Riley

SCHOOL:  Here in Uruguay school is harder than the school in the USA.  We have to use really fancy cursive handwriting.  We have a 15 minute break.  School starts at 1 pm and ends at 5 pm.  We can get on the city bus free if we are wearing our uniforms.

TV:  We have Nickelodeon but it is in Spanish because it would be too hard for the little kids to read subtitles.  We have HBO in English with subtitles in Spanish.

OUT IN THE COUNTRY:  When we went on a car trip around Uruguay we saw thousands of cows roaming around everywhere.  In Uruguay there are 3,000,000 people and there are 2 cows per person, 3 sheep per cow. 

WHERE PEOPLE LIVE:: Most of the people in Uruguay live in Montevideo. 

SPORTS:  Here people are crazy about soccer.  Some people have never heard of baseball.  Kids here are really good at soccer.  Here's a chart that tells you the most popular sports.

POLLUTION:  There's a lot of dog poop on sidewalks.  And plastic bags everywhere.  And there's car pollution too.

MEAL TIME:  People go out to eat dinner around 10:00 pm and stay there until around midnight.  Sometimes when we go out to eat people start coming to the restaurant when we are leaving the restaurant.  Here is a chart:

LANGUAGE:  Here they speak Spanish.  My teacher doesn't speak any English and neither do my friends.  Now I speak a little Spanish.   

FOOD:  Here people eat MEAT, MEAT AND MEAT!  Why?  Because there are 6,000,000 cows here.

BREAK AT SCHOOL:  Kids have soccer cards and they trade them. 

Here is a picture of our uniform.  The white coat is called a tunica (toon-ee-kah) and the bow is called a mona ( the o is the long o sound as in "go" and the a at the end is pronounced like yuh).	This is Erin and me at the US Embassy.  In this picture it might look pretty but it is really a big block of cement and there are 6 floors underground so people can't bomb them.
This is us standing in the widest street in the world.  It's in Buenos Aires, Argentina. There are about 10 lanes.	This is La Boca. It is also in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  It is a very colorful neighborhood.
Our apartment is pretty big.  We have a lady who comes and cleans the house every Thursday.  Her name is Mary pronounced (Mar - ee).  It's nice because I don't have to clean my own bedroom.	The cars are not very big here.  Lots of people have motor scooters.  There are not very many convertibles and hardly any SUVs here.  Many people don't have cars so they take buses and taxis.  The buses are not very expensive (13 pesos; 25 pesos = U$S1) neither are the taxis (U$S2 sometimes).  There are lots of taxis and buses.
This is me looking at Iguazu Falls in Argentina.	This is another picture with a big pretty rainbow.  You can see the spray from the falls on the picture.
This is a toucan in Iguazu.  There were many but they were very shy.  When you went up to them they would fly away.	There were thousands of butterflies.  Butterflies in Spanish is mariposas.
This is me on a beach in Montevideo. I made a big sandcastle.	This is my class on a field trip at the zoo.
This is me in Punta Tombo.  Punta Tombo is in Argentina. I know that when you think of penguins you think of cold weather but here it was quite hot.	This is a picture of me and Erin walking on an almost deserted road in the Falkland Islands.  It was about a 10 mile walk.  It is the longest walk I have ever been on.
This is a big glacier in the fjords in Chile.  We are really close to Antarctica.  That's why we are dressed in warm clothes. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!	This is my friends and me on the cruise ship.  The pool was actually very warm.
This is a rodeo in Montevideo.  All the guys who are standing around are called gauchos.	This is me with the principal.  Here she is called the headmistress.  The other lady is the school maid.  Jose Artigas is on the wall.  He is like George Washington.

This is my classroom.  I am in line to pay 20 pesos for a field trip.  There are 38 kids in my class.

Me and my friend playing soccer on the beach.  Lots of people play soccer on the beach.