Today´s mission is to call Air France in Maracaibo in order to change the date of my return ticket. We´ll see how that works out.

I was supposed to have a student from 10 to 11.30 but he never showed up. This is a Colombian boy, 8 years old, and I´ve only had one class with him sofar. We have two new English teachers at Ruge, a guy an a girl and they robbed me of two of my nicest students. So no more musicians for me I´m afraid. But in a couple of weeks I´ll be teaching Germn in Ruge. It should be interesting since I´ve never taught German before, except for the Aiesec gang like 5 times in 6 months. We don´t have any materal yet, but I hope Ruge in Caracas will send me something. We are also waiting for our shirts. We are supposedly going to get shirts that we have to buy and then use for work. I´m not excited at all about that. I usually wear a sweater and a scarf and I´m still freezing, so I don´t know how I´ll surive in a shirt, even if I´d put a t-shirt underneath. Fortunately we are in Venezuela so I don´t think the shirts will show up any time soon.

What else...last night I dreamed about Finnish chocolate. I was in a supermarket in Finland with my sister and I looked at the Fazer chocolates and thoght that they are really good. Today I bought a Venezuelan chocolate bar. Not too bad.

4 min internet time.

Well, if you come to Maracaibo I´ll take you to some gaita bars and museums and maybe a beach and it will be great so you should all come.

last weekend kasia and I facilitated in an Aiesec seminar in Caracas. The seminar was for the venezuelan people who are going to do an Aiesec internship abroad. Now I am totally exhausted but it was interesting and everything. I skipped the party on Sat evening and I´m glad I did cause I´m falling asleep at work.

For the seminar there where two groups: one in Spanish and one in English. There was a group in English because "Elina does not speak Spanish". I felt sooo insulted. Like I´ve been here for 6 months, I have friends I speak only Spanish with and someone says my Spanish is like nothing. I was sooo angry. But oh well, the work at the seminar was a millino times easier for me cause I could speak English. But I´m still angry. One night I had a nightmare about Spanish grammar.

My family left this morning. Sigh. Now I´ll tell you a bit more about what we did, so you know where I can take you when you come to visit.

After my aunt and cousin arrived we spent two days in Caracas before going to Maracaibo. I would have wanted to stay longer in Caracas, cause I thought it would be a more interesting place than Maracaibo and that there would be more things to do. So what we did was: On the first day we went to Parque del Este (spelling?), and in the evening we ate in a chinese restaurant, where I used to go for cheep beers with Kasia, Demetrio, and Jeff, when I was living in Caracas. The food was actually really good, so we went back to the same place the day after. The second day we went to Bellas Artes, where there is another park, a museum, and street vendors who sell neckleses, ear rings etc. We visited the museum and bought some souvenirs. In the evening we met up with Demetrio (the guy I met on the plane coming to Caracas almost exactly six months ago), had some beers, and then my cousin Verneri and I went out to a really cool bar with him. Ulla, my sister, wasn´t feeling so well so she stayed at home with my aunt. By the way "home" refers to the place where Kasia and I stayed our first mont (and two months in Kasia´s case) in Caracas. Jeff was kind enough to let us use his room while he was away and Angela (a new Austalian girl who now occupies the room where Kasia and I used to stay) let us use her room.

So, about the bar where we went in the evening - Suka. It is situated in the San Ignacio shopping mall, where I used to work. It´s a really expensive bar but a nice one. They music wasn´t the typical mix of merengue, salsa, and reggaeton, instead they played electronic music and the place was packed. In one conrner there was a big net, kind of like a hammock, and Demtrio told us that the net is from the movie Peter Pan (with Robin Williams), the net from the house of the lost boys. Kind of cool. Another interesting detail (for me at least) was that when we retured to Maracaibo and I told my DJ student about the place he told me that he used to spin records there and thet it is one of the best places in Caracas. Small world.

Then we came to Maracaibo and I´ll have to tell you about what we did here another time cause my internet time is up and I have to get to work.

Christmas was delicious, new year was fun, and I am still alive. I haevn´t been writing cause I have no internet access at home (for the time being).

The big news is that my sister, aunt, and cousin came to visit. My sister came before new year, so we spent new year together with a bunch of Aiesec people at the a beach (Tucacas) near Caracas. My aunt and cousin arrived on the third. We spent a couple of days in Caracas and then we came here to Maracaibo. It´s great havnig them here. The first morning when I woke up and heard people spekaing Finnish in my apartment I felt really at home in my apartment for the first time.