Rosario

On Friday night I went to some German friends' apartment and we cooked an amazing dinner. They made homemade crepes which we stuffed like enchiladas with a homemade spinach and ricotta cheese stuffing and then we topped them off with a homemade redsauce and smothered everything in cheese and baked it in the oven. The German girls, Julia Nini and Mona cooked with me, Rachael and Julie, so there were a lot of 'Jules' around. We were joined by some German guy friends as well as some Argentine guy friends and we ended up going to a party hosted by some French girls, where there were even more international people, which was a really fun crowd to hang out with. I went home rather early, a little after 2:30 though, because I had to get up at 7 to pack to go on my trip to ROSARIO!!!! early Saturday morning.

I just got back from a vacation with my program, one of the two trips that we have already paid for with our program fees, and it was to Rosario, the second largest city in Argentina (~1 million in habitants). The city is a 4 hour bus ride outside of Buenos Aires in a neighboring province, so we met up around 8:30AM Saturday morning and headed out. Once we got there the weather was beautiful and we had a few hours of free time to walk around the city before we took a bus tour. We then had a little break before dinner so Julie, Rachael and I bought a bottle of wine and some strawberries, kiwis and pears and hung out in their room under the covers relaxing and watched Mama Mia on our flatscreen TV. It was pretty great but we did motivate ourselves to make it out to the dinner we got paid for by our program.

The appetizer was sweet bread (lymph nodes for those of you who do not know) which are a very delicious part of the cow. They were grilled to perfection and served on top of grilled tomatoes with a small salad and a delicious dressing. The second course/main dish was lomo, a really good cut of steak, to me it seems similar to a filet mignon. It was smothered in mushrooms and layed on top of a bed of cooked carrots and it was also amazing. Finally, to top it all off, we had a delicious lemon ice cream/custard/cake dessert. In fact, we ate so much that Rachael and I opted to do the 25 minute walk home rather than take a taxi, in order to work off at least a few of the calories and to let our food settle in before we went to bed. Our hotel rooms each had 2 double beds (one for each person) and were very luxurious, which was a nice change from the tiny little room I have in my host families apartment, and my tiny little twin bed. I, unlike the majority of the kids in my program, went to bed early and had a lovely nights sleep rather than heading out to the notorious Rosario nightlife.

Sunday was more of the same, exploring the city and then doing a boat tour until we headed back to Buenos Aires around 5:30PM.

Don't expect me to write for a while since I am currently swamped with school work. For next Tuesday I need to write a 5 page, 1.5 spaced final paper which I will have to orally defend the following week. I also have to study for the questions they will ask me about the entirety of my literature course during my oral defense of my paper. For next Tuesday I also need to read some Borges and watch a movie for a separate literature class at a different university. For next Wednesday I have to do 2 readings, go to the theatre to watch an assigned movie, and write a critique of a book. For next Thursday I have to make an outline of a final paper that is to be 10 pages long as well as prepare for a review for my history final the following week. Now, this would all be a normal academic week in Madison around midterms/finals time, but lets remember that I thought I was on vacation here. So I planned a trip, leaving tomorrow night after class, to Córdoba. Córdoba is a western province of Argentina, about 8 hours away from the city, and they host the second largest Oktoberfest in the world. I will be camping and attending a beer festival all weekend, not exactly conducive to hard core studying. I should be back in town Monday night around 7PM so hopefully I will have time between now and Thursday and between Monday evening and Tuesday morning to cram everything in.

Chau chau for now folks, Besos!! (kisses)

oh yeah, and here is the link to my new album of photos on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062831&id=1280460131)