Well, I'm less than a week behind now. I'll catch up eventually.

Whoever told me that living with three boys would be SO much easier than living with girls was wrong. All three of them take longer to get ready in the morning than I do. Thursday, because of their tendency to change their outfits a million times (for Amanda- I will never make fun of you for doing that again- they put you to shame), we were running really late and ended up sitting down to lunch at the time when we should have been at school for one of our excursions. The café we went to, Abril, was really good, and we decided to go back when we have more than approximately thirty seconds to eat our food. We got to school just in time to catch the bus for the excursion.

The trip wasn’t nearly as exciting as we had hoped, mostly because after the hour-long bus ride everyone was hot and tired and bored. We went to a science museum which had some cool exhibits but wasn’t all that exciting, and then after another hour bus ride we went to a gorgeous cathedral. We took the tour and got to go up into the tower where you could see the entire city of La Plata, and after another long bus ride we went back to school. The boys and I walked home for dinner, and then we split up for the night. I stayed in but Joe went and hung out with one of the friends he’s made here, and Ben and Stephen went to a jazz café with a couple of other kids for a few hours.

On Friday we went to class and did a secret-santa type gift exchange in honor of Valentine’s Day. There were some interesting presents, ranging from shoes to jewelry to a pack of cigarettes. Our teacher explained that while Argentines don’t generally celebrate Valentine’s Day, it’s becoming more popular because the people here consider American culture to be really cool and try to emulate it. After class and dinner and such, we went to a party that was being hosted for all of the international students at a local bar/dance club. I spent the entire time on the dance floor as is typical for me, and we considered going to a boliche afterwards but decided against it.

On Saturday I woke up early to do laundry (we are allowed to do it free of charge, btw- after Patricia dropped the $50-per-load bomb on us, we called Silvana and she saved us yet again. We don’t know what she said to Patricia but she got us free laundry, so whatever it was, it was effective. Silvana is basically my hero, if you haven’t figured that out yet). Ben and Steve and I went back to the café Abril again for lunch, and then went to one of the local parks and hung out there enjoying the 85 degree weather and watching lots of shirtless boys play soccer. After we went home, I found an email in my inbox from the boys, telling me and the other girls that we were to meet at our house at ten o’clock. The boys banned me from the kitchen all day and went on a bunch of mysterious errands, and when all the girls showed up at ten o’clock they finally told us what was going on:

In honor of Valentine’s Day, they had set up our dining room with place settings for each of us, with a rose, chocolates, and a valentine for each of the girls. They also got a few bottles of wine and crackers and cheese, and then each of us had to read our valentine and find out who it was from. Joe, Ben, and Steve had each sent two, and then we discovered that our roses were color coded to show whoever our “date” was. Lauren and I were Steve’s dates, Robin and Emily were with Ben, and Ann and Lis were with Joe. Then each of them took us to a different restaurant for dinner (Steve took Lauren and I to El Cabildo, which was delicious). After dinner, the whole group met up again at our house to hang out. From there, almost everyone went home, but Ben, Steve, Emily, and I went to a boliche around 4:30, and didn’t come home until 7am, when we collapsed and went to sleep. Basically the best Valentine’s Day I could ask for, considering that my boyfriend is currently on another continent (sorry hon). I’ve concluded that I have the best roommates ever and I can forgive them for being slow in the mornings.

Sunday was pretty uneventful since we obviously slept most of the day, but we went to McDonald’s for a late lunch (not worth it, by the way. McDonald’s here is terrible, and the girl behind the counter would not let me have a large fry but insisted that I have a medium.) Afterwards we met up with a bunch of the girls and went to one of the artisan fairs in San Telmo to wander around for a while. Steve and Ben and I hung out at one of the plazas near our house with our friend Kela until dinnertime, and after dinner we did homework and other random things until bed.

End week 2.