My busy weekend:

I was pretty much busy every second of this weekend. Friday I went to Noel’s apartment. Noel is in my Argentine Foreign Policy class and last week Dan, Drew (other COPAs) and I went over and made pancakes and pizza with Noel and her friends. This week, I went over in the afternoon and hung out with Noel and her friends and then went back after dinner to get ready to go out. We went and met up with some of her friends from Córdoba and then went to a club to go dancing. Dan came too. We spent a few hours at the club, which was relatively close to the city and where I live (most of the clubs are way the hell outside the city, like 20 km away). Dan and I left at 5 AM because we were basically falling asleep on the dance floor (which was absolutely packed and I got stepped on). I stripped as I entered my house and left my smoky clothing outside.

Saturday morning, the cleaning woman showed up at 9 and rang the bell, which is a horrid noise. My host mom was sleeping and didn’t wake up. The woman kept ringing the bell and even called the house. I dragged myself out of bed to let her in as Mariana was dragging herself out of bed. I have no clue why she was so tired; she didn’t go out Friday night (she watched Love Actually on my computer). Anyway, the Peruvian cleaning woman had come over to teach Mariana how to make this chicken and rice dish and to clean the house a little. Luckily, she didn’t need to clean my room (there was no way I was getting out of bed again). However, they made so much noise while cooking that I didn’t really sleep much anyway. I dragged myself out of be at noon and had breakfast. That afternoon I worked on my anthro homework and went to blockbuster.

Blockbuster is 6 blocks away from my house on the main plaza of the city. Being that its blockbuster, I basically went in my pajamas (they were black yoga pants). I had to be buzzed in (and out when I left). Inside is pretty much exactly like every single blockbuster in the US: rows of movies, extremely bright lights and it was freezing. it made me kind of homesick for OT blockbuster on a Friday night when the whole world is there…aka you have to see people you know (although I’m getting to old for that because I don’t know the current high schoolers). I rented El tigre y la nieve, an Italian film that both Nancy and I had been wanting to see (but couldn’t find) the entire time we were home for break. it was a really good movie.

I watched a little of the movie and Noel texted me to tell me that everyone was meeting at Agustina and Fernanda’s apartment (10 blocks away) to take taxis to Luli’s house. The message said meeting at 9PM, but I got it at 8.45PM….so I ran out the door and hurried to the apartment, but didn’t get there until 9.15PM (ok, so I had to put on actual clothing first). when I got there, Fern was straitening Agu’s hair and they were all sitting around doing nothing. We were waiting for Dan, Drew and two Argentine girls to get there (we waited 1.5 hours). Next time, I will not be running out the door….i’ll just be late like the rest of these girls.

Luli lives in an enclosed neighborhood above the park. To enter, one of the Argentine’s in our taxi had to present her document of identity and give her name and all this info. The neighborhood felt like NJ or CA suburbs: quiet, no buses, people with cars on the street, houses with windows open….totally tranquil. It was completely different from the center of the city. I felt like I was back in the US again….this girl had a dishwasher and a mudroom with washer and dryer (these are not common in Argentina). The house also had two dining rooms (formal and informal) and high ceilings. Anyway, Luli had made pasta and lemon pie for dinner. We ate at 11.30PM and then sat around chatting until 4ish. We also played charades with movie titles which was tricky, but a lot of fun. She drove us home, which was super nice of her (we were going to call a taxi because there are none in her neighborhood).

I went to bed at 5 AM Sunday morning and woke up at 11. At 1:15PM, I was outside waiting for Mariana to pick me up (she had run some errands) to go to her sisters’ houses and get them and go to an asado (bbq) in Luján, which is about 20 minutes outside the city. Both sisters and their kids, as well as Mariana’s brother’s family and her dad were at this bbq. She has six nieces and nephews. Kate and Katie (both in COPA, each lives with a sister) were also there. We ate 5 different cuts of meat as well as chorizo (sausage) and lots of salads which mainly consisted of roasted peppers and eggplant. For dessert, one sister had made brownies with dulce de leche and meringue and the other had made lemon pie with meringue on top. Both were delicious, mainly because I couldn’t taste the dulce de leche on the brownies and they were chewy.

After the asado, Mariana drove me to the park and I went to the stadium to meet up with my friends and watch the fútbol game. Finding them was a bit of a chore. They hadn’t gotten seats and were standing on the stairs. We squished ourselves into the section (I had to climb a railing to get to them because I couldn’t get around the police barricades to go the normal way.) There were 10 of us. The people in back kept telling us to sit down and the woman in front was a major pain in the ass. She kept yelling at us to give her more room and kept giving us dirty looks…we basically ignored her and did whatever we wanted. The game was fun, but would have been much better if we were in the popular section (cheap, more “dangerous” aka the people actually enjoy the game), whereas our section was pretty boring. They cheered and yelled, but not that much. Boca (from Buenos Aires) beat Godoy Cruz (from here in Mendoza) 1-0. The game wasn’t that interesting, but it was still fun. Then we walked home, finished tigre y nieve and went to bed; the very busy weekend was over…..