Wednesday: nothing special happened. I went to grammar class. It was boring, although somewhat more helpful than the past few. I went home and ate meat loaf and read for my Borges class. Then, I went to Borges and found out I didn’t have to read and we were watching a movie. After class was the birthday dinner at Mario’s house (he’s the director of COPA). A bunch of us gathered to celebrate our birthdays but I left pretty early because I wanted to take the subte home with another girl because Mario lives in a sketchy area.
Thursday: more classes. I think I went home for lunch again…and don’t really remember what else I did. Nothing special.
Friday: I went to the “post office” to mail a card to the US (who knows when its going to arrive; hopefully before Christmas). The post office is a large room with a counter, a bunch of plastic chairs, some lockers (I’ve never seen them being used) and a ridiculous amount of unused space. It also serves many functions, for instance it’s a “rapipago,” a place where you can go to pay all of your utility bills at once (they’re all over the city). Something to keep in mind: never go Fridays at noon…ever. When I got there, I took a deli number (a lot of business function with deli numbers here, for instance the hardware store…). I was 3 and they were on 23. Forty, yes 40, minutes later it was finally my turn. My friend had come to find me because I was ridiculously late for lunch. While I was finally being helped, this really pushy woman (who arrived before me, but somehow neglected to get a deli number) started talking to her. She was actually really hysterical; she told my friend that Argentina isn’t a third world country. It’s a forth, fifth or sixth world country because all of the craziness at the post office. Basically, everything here is bureaucratic and unorganized.
So we went and had lunch with our friends. Then we walked around my neighborhood and bought some cakes/pastries. We went back to my apartment so they could eat them (this is their Friday tradition)…I had my leftover fruit salad.
We spent a bunch of time at my apartment. Then some of us headed over to the Rural (a large exposition center with multiple buildings; I went to an event of the same name in August). Friday was the last day of fashion week here in BsAs. We never actually made it inside the exposition because we got distracted by the see-saws outside. I don’t understand how little kids aren’t terrified of see-saws because I really was. I nearly fell off so many times, which might have had something to do with Blythe’s really long legs and attempts to propel me into the air.
Friday night, Blythe, Sandra and I decided to go out and have a “true” BsAs night, which I still hadn’t done. We met at midnight and went to Blythe’s “cousin’s” music show. His rock band was actually really good for a couple of university aged kids. Then we went to a bar called the Alamo to get tickets to a boliche (club). To get into the bar, we were supposed to pay or something but we told them we were Americans (one girl had to show a US college ID) and apparently that’s the free ticket in. that’s the first time anything has been free for Americans but porteños have to pay… we got the tickets, saw more COPA kids that I ever want to see in one place again and left. To get into the upstairs part of the bar, all I had to do was tell them that we had been downstairs (after I helped some really confused Americans get into the downstairs one with their college ids). I think we got to the club, called Mint, at about 3ish (which means we’re cool…because its unheard of to arrive before 2). We danced and hung out there until 6:15. It was insanely large with a ton of people, but also located on the river which was really cool because we went outside and down to the beach (which we weren’t really allowed to do because we weren’t supposed to be able to re-enter the club). When we left, Sandra and Blythe decided they wanted empanadas, which meant we had to find a place that was open at that hour. That wasn’t really as hard as you might think. We actually found a lot of people walking around BsAs. Finally we went to a rather crowded restaurant in Recoleta. There were people having breakfast (after spending a night out or because it was really early in the morning) and people having full meals (the guys next to us were having meal and veggies). When we left, it was 7:30 or so and my feet were hurting a bit, so Blythe and I decided to take the Subte (which we didn’t have to pay for because the ticket woman didn’t feel like selling us tickets…I’m not joking). I went home, said good morning to my host mom and went to bed.
Saturday: I woke up at 3:30 and had some cereal. I spent the rest of the day reading and went to pilates…it was the bad class again…the boring one- no peppy/yelling teacher; no hand weights – no work out :( I went out to dinner with Blythe, Meagan, and Briana at 10ish. We went to this cute little restaurant three blocks away from where I live. We actually closed the place; we stayed until 1AM. Then, Briana and I went to go meet up with her friend from her volleyball team. We were supposed to meet them at Plaza Serrano (this hang-out area near my house). They told us they were near there…which meant that they were a colectivo (bus) ride away (porteños have a very skewed definition of directions). We would up going to there apartment (we didn’t get there until 3ish) and playing an argentine card game, which I think I understand…sort of. Its kind of like poker in that cards have values, which don’t match the numbers (where in poker you have group cards in a fashion that forms values). Also, you sort of bet each round (and can raise/change the bet like in poker). Otherwise, I have no way of comparing it…I’ll learn it better so I can teach other people when I get home. We wound up staying there until 6:30ish and then taking the colectivo back to Santa Fe (my street) and going to the 24 hour café for tea and medialunas (croissants). Another day of getting home when my host mom was getting up…two Buenos Aires nights in a row!! Oh my!! Never again…
Sunday: I woke up at noon and spent some time in bed reading. Then Meagan texted me saying she and Steve wanted to get together to study for history of America 1. I said they could come over and we wound up spending 5 hours studying. We found rather helpful encyclopedias in my room.
Monday: I went out to the suburbs to volunteer. Amy, Meagan, and I went with a group called LIFE (in Spanish, the letters stand for fighting for education and happiness for all children) and group which teaches children English, visits sick children in the hospital, and organizes activities like games for them. We went to Esteban Echeverría, a southern suburb near the airport. The woman in charge is a 30 year old Brit who basically had a midlife crisis and decided to leave London to go to South America to volunteer. One problem, she doesn’t speak Spanish. There was another girl our age who was here to volunteer also and who also doesn’t speak Spanish. This meant that Amy, Meagan and I had to do most of the work. So we took an hour long sketchy train ride out into the suburbs. The room we were teaching in is basically a large shack-like structure with an attached fútbol field. Many kids weren’t there because Monday was Teacher’s day and primario (little kid school) was canceled. Many of those that arrived really only wanted to color, which was unfortunate because we couldn’t get them to do anything. I’m not even sure it was worth it because it takes more time to get there and back then the two hours we are there teaching. It was also kind of annoying to be in a group of 5 speaking English. Both British women have had trouble here with taxi cabs and stuff. They have been given fake bills and tricked into paying more than they have to. I’m really glad I speak the language and tell cabs where we are so they know not to mess with me (oh, of course we’re on saramiento and the next intersection is libertador near the monumento a los españoles).
Tuesday: Didn’t do much. Walked around microcentro. Went to awesome pilates!! (I spend most of the week waiting for Tuesday because I love this pilates class…its so painful).
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