Burritos and beaches and boats and boliches

Monday started out with our orientation to our second university, La Universidad de San Andres. All of the BC kids have to take a mandatory class there called "History and Culture of Argentina" throughout the semester, but from what we can tell it's easy, fun, and had a bunch of free field trips. It's also going to count for my cultural diversity core requirement and a history elective, so needless to say I'm pretty happy with it. The orientation was essentially a what-to-do-when-in-Argentina class (never tip the cab drivers, for instance, and in restaurants a 15% tip is only for excellent service- 10% is pretty standard) which we had already figured out by that point anyway.

Afterwards, we stopped at CBC Burritos for lunch, which had been recommended to us by a friend but doesn't really compare with Chipotle. Walked a few blocks in that rain to get to UCA for our Spanish class and took the bus home after to watch an Arsenal soccer game on TV (Ben's favorite soccer team- he's slowly turning us all into fans) and eat dinner. I don't remember if we did anything after dinner or not, but clearly it wasn't that exciting if we did.

On Tuesday, the boys and I met up with Lauren for lunch before class and ended up at this restaurant near our house that looked good but was actually pretty terrible. Nobody liked the food and the waiter clearly did not like us, so we got out of there as fast as we could. Joe had to go to the embassy that morning to file a petition to get his backpack back (yes, that mess is STILL going on- the police have effectively stolen his bag and refuse to give it back) and Steve decided to go with him. The rest of us went to class and got ice cream on our break, then went home for dinner and studying.

The next day we had the written portion of our final exam for our Spanish class, which started at 9am but didn't take nearly as long as expected. A bunch of us went out to lunch with Catherine, one of our new friends from class, at a nearby cafe and got ice cream afterwards. We headed back to school for 1:15 for our next field trip, this time to the River Tigre. The group split in half, and my half went down to the docks, where we were paired off and given two-person kayaks. Lis and I had one with a broken rudder, which was interesting, but for the most part we were able to keep up with the group. We kayaked down the river for about an hour, and enjoyed the peace and quiet. The river was beautiful and cool and didn't have any bugs, despite what we had been told, and it ended up being really fun. We landed at a small beach with a bar and volleyball net, where the other half of the group had been taken by boat, and got to hang out on the beach for a while. I went swimming, of course, with a couple other kids, but most of the group played volleyball on the beach, drank, and laid out in the sun. After a few hours, the other half of the group took our kayaks to make the return trip, while my group took the boat back. We headed back to school and made it home just in time for dinner. Again, not sure what we did after dinner. See above.

On Thursday, Joe had yet another appointment with the embassy and Silvana, but he met up with Ben and Steve and I at Abril, where the waiters recognize us now and save us a table. It was unbelievably hot- 101 degrees, as we found out later, plus humidity and minus any sort of breeze. We went to class expecting to take the speaking part of our final, and we waited in the classroom with all of the other kids while the professors took us out in groups of three for the exam. While we were waiting, Joe felt sick, so I walked with him to the cafe at the end of the building to get him some water. After about 20 minutes, it became pretty clear that something was wrong, because he was disoriented and couldn't really walk on his own, and had a bad headache as well. I called Steve, who rescheduled our final for the next day, and we brought Joe home. At one point we had decided to take him to the hospital, but after a few more minutes, some medicine, air conditioning, water, and gatorade, he finally fell asleep. Silvana came out to the house to check on him (I swear, she is earning her paycheck- she said she's never had so many things go wrong with one of her groups before, but I think she loves us in spite of everything) and recommended that even if he felt better, he should go get bloodwork done the next day just in case. He managed to eat dinner with us and stayed in that night, and thankfully is feeling a lot better now.

That night, the rest of us went to an Irish bar called "Shamrock" to hang out for a bit, and our friend Memo from class found us there and took us to a boliche called "Lost", which apparently has hip-hop night every Thursday. We had a blast- it was definitely my favorite of all the clubs I've been to so far. By the end of the night, though, we looked like we had gone swimming because we were so covered in sweat. Part of it was definitely the 101 degree weather, but apparently the club also just has a reputation for being really hot in general. We had so much fun that Thursday nights at Lost might become a tradition. Got back really late, showered even though we were exhausted because we smelled THAT bad, and finally collapsed into bed.

PS: Feedback on the entries- too long? too short? what do you want to hear about? Comments are always appreciated.