My Average Day in Paraguay

That rhymed a little too well, my apologies.
Since nothing ground breaking has happened in the past week (that I know of), I decided that today I'd write about an average day for me here in the beautiful country of Paraguay.
6:00 a.m. - Time to wake up! An average day here for me is a school day. I wake up at 6 (grudgingly) and put on my uniform. Lately it has been a bit chilly (nearing 0 Celsius in the mornings) so I've been wearing LOTS of layers. My uniform is a navy blue short sleeve shirt and navy blue sweatpants. So comfortable! I can't wait until it warms up so that I can wear my skirt uniform! I have to fold my blankets and clean up my room a little bit every morning, otherwise it turns into a disaster.

6:30 a.m. - Breakfast! Breakfast here is a bit smaller than in the states, because I usually eat a snack at school. Every morning I have coffee. It's so much better here! We make it with milk and stir-in coffee granules. Usually I'll have some bread with dulce de leche, or mixto which is basically a hot ham and cheese sandwich.

6:50 a.m. - Off to school. Depending on the weather in the morning, I either walk to school with my brother Juanro or I get a ride from my mom. Today I had to walk, which was REALLY COLD. The school is about 10 or 15 minutes away by foot.

7:00 a.m. - Arrive at school. Every day before classes start, a teacher or a student reads a passage from the bible, and then everyone says a prayer. It's really different coming from a non-religious public school. On Mondays and Fridays this happens outside because we have to raise the flags of the school and country.
We usually have around four classes every day. Today was an early out so we only had one. A normal day, for example, I might have Statistics, English, Spanish Literature, and Logic of Mathematics. That's only a few of the classes we have. There's also Physics, Ethics, P.E., Arts, Guarani, and something called Orientation. Some of the classes are kind of difficult, like Ethics and Physics. But in some of the classes I don't do anything, like Guarani and Spanish Literature.
In my class, there are around 50 students. In Paraguay, the students stay in the same classroom all day while the teachers change classrooms. I like that, because I don't have to haul books around to each classroom. In the future I'll post pictures of my school and classroom.

9:45-ish a.m. - Break. Here it's called "recreo". We usually just go outside and hang out in the sun. There's also a little cantina where we can go to purchase food, like empanadas or sandwiches.

10:30 a.m. - Back to class. We have, on a normal day, 2 classes in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. Some days, if a teacher doesn't show up, we get to go back outside again for another break.

12:30 p.m. - School gets out. Unless the weather is really bad, I walk home. I can find my way home by myself. Usually I walk with my friend Alexa because she passes by my house to get home. It's sometimes difficult to get home because it's really hard to cross the street. Yes there are traffic laws here, but they aren't really enforced. If the light turns red, welcome to Paraguay and gun it! So on busy streets I always cross with someone else.

12:45 p.m. - Lunch. We don't eat lunch at school. Instead, we go home to eat with our families. I really like that. I'll explain food some other time. There's always juice to drink with lunch. I haven't had plain milk here yet, just with coffee.

1:30 p.m. - Siesta. My favorite time of the day lately. Siesta is basically a time to rest. It isn't hard core "one must sleep" like some countries. But I sleep a lot during siesta because being an exchange student is tiring. Lately I've been waking up around 4 p.m., but I need to start waking up earlier. When I don't sleep, (like today, I haven't yet) I usually use my computer or do homework if I have any.

6:00 p.m. - Merienda. Another meal! Merienda is the meal between lunch and supper, like a snack. If it's cold out, I like to drink coffee at merienda. Then I'll eat some bread with dulce de leche or Nutella, or a dessert if we have one. Sometimes I eat a food that I don't know how to spell. It's pronounced 'bay-joo', more or less. It's kind of like a pancake made from corn flour and something else. It's so delicious!
After merienda I usually watch television with my mom and niece. We drink mate too, which is hot terere.

8:00 p.m. - Supper. Sometimes we have merienda and supper a little bit earlier, but this is about normal time. During lunch we usually eat all together, but supper is more like when you're hungry. The opposite of the states, more or less. We have juice at supper too. Juice here is delicious! Usually we drink either orange or grapefruit juice. You have to add sugar to both of them though. 
After supper we just relax some more.

9:30 - Like I said earlier, being an exchange student is tiring work. Usually around 9:30 I go upstairs to take a shower and go to bed. I fall asleep quickly most nights because I don't have Wi-Fi in my bedroom. Since its quite cold and the houses here don't have heating, I sleep under two big blankets and usually wear a sweater too.
I'm going to rephrase that. The house doesn't have heating because it really isn't needed here. In my bedroom I have an air conditioner that also can give off heat, but its not terribly warm so I don't always use that.


That's a typical weekday for me, more or less.
I'll try to post pictures soon! I haven't taken a ton yet, but the ones I have taken are on facebook and instagram.
Happy Hump Day/Sexual Wednesday to everyone reading!