For the non-Spanish speaking contingency, salir means “to leave” or “to go out.” It is used not only for leaving a place, but also for going out at night. It is also used for dating, but I am not referring to that use in this, my latest blog entry….
Lets go back to Thursday night….because Thursday is the night of the weekend in the US….well at least at Tufts.
Thursday I had literature for three hours, which is always an experience. During hour number one, about 15 (out of 45) students showed up to listen to the professor talk about a poet from northwestern Argentina. At the beginning of hour two, nearly 15 more entered the room to listen to the student presentations which went on for two hours. Two groups discussed the books they had to read that none of us had read because the teachers don’t bother assigning reading and when we ask what to read they tell us nothing. (We Americans are still working this out with them….). Anyway, the first group talked forever and overdid the presentation, while the second group barely talked about the book…
I went home and met up with Anna who had been at UCong for a class. We went to the movies (free!) to see Bienvenidos al Paraíso/Vers au Sur (Welcome to Paradise, which may or may not have been the title in the US). It was a French movie about women who vacation in Haiti for the sole purpose of having sex with Haitian men. Afterwards, I returned home to find my host “mom” with three of her friends drining fernet and listening to music. Fernet is the disgusting national drink of Argentina (apparently they drink shots of it in Italy). It was described to me as a herb-based alcohol, which is horribly bitter and mixed with coke (which I hate to begin with….so fernet and coke is really gross). Anyway, we stayed up until 5 AM talking about movies and music. It was really fun and reminded me of nights in Carmie with my friends: sitting around and talking as the hours fly by.
Of course, I didn’t think it was such a great night at 8.30 AM when my alarm went off telling me to get my ass out of bed and get ready for Argentine Foreign Policy. (My alarm clock actually does talk, in Spanish, and tell me to wake up – it is absolutely fantastic and I would be lost without it). After class, lunch and half of Bridget Jones’s Diary, I took a nap. Anna woke me up several times with text messages, but I didn’t really wake up until 8PM (oops…). I had dinner and watched TV, then we went to a bar (for about 7 minutes) to meet up with half our program who were there celebrating Adriana’s birthday. We got taxis and went to GEO, a boliche (club). It was ok…I am so sick of techno/electronic music, so we left “early” aka 3.45AM.
Saturday I was awoken by Mariana’s lovely two-year-old niece who makes me never ever want to have children. Actually, I think her mother woke me. Whoever it was, they were yelling at 9.45 in the morning and it was delightful. Yelling might not be the right word because these women don’t have any kind of volume control. There is one level and it is loud. I put my headphones on to John Mayer’s new album and dosed for a while. That afternoon, Anna, Mariana, her sister María Elide, her daughter Antonela, 2-year-old Luciana, and I went to a wine bodega 80 km south of the city. It was really nice – a brand new facility with art everywhere and we got to see the wine-making process at work. The drive was nice too because we were riding along side the mountains. Anna got to experience my crazy/loud family and she swears she had a good time (except for the entire half hour of Luciana screaming on the car ride home). After the bodega, we went to dinner at a nice restaurant in the city.
Saturday night I met Anna and some people at a restaurant for some wine (its Mendoza…). Then we went in search of the gay boliche, which wasn’t really a boliche when we got there. They had a show going on and then they were going to clear the place for people who wanted to dance (aka Anna). So we walked around a little and found this other boliche, which we had never heard of. We waiting in line (eww) and then had to pay (double eww) to get in. The music was amazing. Every boliche in Mendoza plays techno and nothing else until 5AM when they switch to rock nacional (Argentine rock music) for the final ½ hour of the night. This place was playing regeton, jock jams, 50s music and other stuff we loved….it was a musical schmorgass-board (that is soooo spelled wrong and MS word isn’t helping me out). We had a great time dancing and wound up staying until 5.30, when the lights came on and the place closed.
Sunday morning I woke up at 10.30 (before Mariana who had gone to bed when I left at 12.30 AM). We got ready and packed the car to go to her farm for an asado (barbeque), which was really at the Bolivian neighbor’s house because they don’t have any building on the property of the family farm. Its really just some land with cucumbers, olive trees, chard, tomatoes, parsley, and some other stuff growing. We picked veggies and olives and spent the day walking around and being outside. Her family was there and it was a lot of fun. We also made empanadas and ate grilled chicken (I think that was the best part of the meal….I had no meat, which is generally the focus of an asado). It was also interesting to see how these people live. Most of the farms in the area are tended to by Bolivian immigrants, who are not as poor as I thought they would be. I mean, there is definitely a lack of money: small, run down house, toilet doesn’t having a flush function (you throw new water into it). However, at the same time, the kids were playing playstation (it may have been Sega) for a while. We returned at 8PM with fresh veggies, plants, flowers, 30 fresh eggs (we’re two people) and an invitation to another asado next week.
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