I've now have 1 full week of classes under my belt (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - if you can call that a full week of class). It seems as if I'm actually going to get my schedule to work out where I only have obligations 3 days a week, and I can use the other 4 to travel/ attempt my homework/ bum around Buenos Aires. Last time I wrote was Tuesday night after my first day of classes so lets jump back to Wednesday.
My second day of classes was pretty uneventful. My cold that I had been acquiring for a few days came on full force and I actually slept through the 1 class I meant to try-out, so I just ran a bunch of errands that had been piling up such as taking care of things for my residence in Argentina and trying out a Chinese restaurant (which was just REALLY bad American style Chinese food). Thursday was a little better - I returned to the two classes for foreigners that I had tried on Tuesday and had actually done the homework for my literature class, which turned out to be interesting as well as insightful into the politics of Argentina's past. I then went to a third class that was supposed to start at 6:00 at la Universidad de Salvador (History of America 1).
Let's start a new paragraph, because there is a lot to say about this class. First off, the class commenced ~30 minutes late, in true Argentine fashion (punctual is really not a word here). One other American girl from my program and I arrived early to the class and had a chat with the 1 Argentine girl who showed up in the first 15 minutes of class - she gave the Professor and the class a raving review, from her experience from the previous semester. Just to clear things up, its WINTER here folks, so it's the second semester and jumping into annual classes is a little dicey, but necessary. Slowly about 8 Argentines trickled in and then the professor, in a very fancy suit. We held class and reviewed the 16th century (which they covered last semester and luckily I also took a class on last semester) and then we had a break at 7:30. I was thinking GREAT, I can stretch my legs, go to the bathroom, eat the Oreos I have stashed in my backpack... NOPE!
The whole class got up together, walked 3 or 4 blocks to a cafe, and we got some drinks. Thank god there was another American girl there I would have thought they were just messing with me because I'm a foreigner. It's a tradition of the class to take a ~1/2 -->1 hour siesta at this cafe and drink. My professor and another guy in the class drank whiskey and the rest of us split 2 liter sized beers. Afterwards we made our way back to class and resumed for about 40 more minutes (trust me, keeping my ancient Spain and Mexico facts straight while getting lectured to in Spanish is a little harder after a beer). Needless to say, after this class got out at 9:15PM I decided I was definitely taking it.
Friday I ran more errands like buying a couple turtle-neck shirts (which are awesome, I will never go back to regular long sleeves), a jacket/pea coat type thing that makes me look less foreign, a scarf (more keeping warm apparel) and a surplus of black tights. The one time I have worn tights here they got cigarette burns in them at the boliche, so I decided to buy a back stock in case I ever needed a pair without runs and burn holes. The last thing I bought was a little coin purse made out of green, plastic snake skin and it cost about US$1. Then two other kids from Madison, Julie and Chris and I went to see Inception, one of the best movies I have seen in a LONG time. During the night I went out with a different friend from Madison, Lee, and her roommate here, Olivia. Olivia is a student from a different program who is living with the same host family as Lee (she's a Mexican who hails from Colorado so her Spanish is more or less fluent). We met up with a random acquaintance of Lee's and went to a pool/billiards bar and hung out with a bunch of porteño guys, which was really fun. (Remember that porteño is what people from Buenos Aires call themselves). We played pool, although I am absolutely horrid, and then the three of us called it a night around 4:15AM when they wanted us to all go back to one of their houses in a far away neighborhood to drink tequila. I was ready to go to bed.
Saturday I went to my host sister, Cande's, 46th birthday party. It was tea and home-made dessert type dishes. She also home-made Chai tea (from scratch folks) for me, and it was absolutely amazing. Around 7:45 I left to go to a dinner/tango show which turned into a dinner/flamenco show because the joint was empty when us gringos arrived at 9PM so we went nextdoor. And from there I ended up home, where I am now.
Today looks like it holds some outdoor flea market type shopping and soccer again tonight at 6. Until next time.
YOU CAN ALL SEE MY PHOTOS ON FACEBOOK AT http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1280460131&aid=2047034
No comments:
Post a Comment