Tuesday was our first day of classes. I took the subte to class, which was the most claustrophobic experience I’ve had in a long time- during rush hour, you’re crammed in their like sardines. I went to my first class, Latin American Short Story (aka Cuento Latinoamericano Contemporaneo), and discovered that my professor is CRAZY. She told us that every time we were absent or late by more than five minutes (in a country where EVERYONE is ALWAYS at least 15 minutes late) would take five points off our final grade. My friends and hung out for 40 minutes after class, only to trek back for our next one, Argentina en palabras (an Argentina literature course), which is taught by the same professor. Ninety percent of us decided on the spot to drop the second class, because in addition to the crazy professor, it has a crazy syllabus. Not to mention that both classes were boring enough to bang my head against a wall.
I had lunch with Robin and Lis after class, and got to meet Lauren’s pal. Pals are basically UCA students who are assigned to foreign students to help them transition and whatnot- Lauren’s speaks English with a British accent, which we found hilarious. During my four hour break til my next class, I walked to Universidad de San Andres to time how long of a walk it is between the two schools. (Currently the only Spanish class that fits my schedule ends right before my class at USA starts, so I’d have to leave early or arrive late every week.) Decided that it was, in fact, almost a half hour walk, which was not what I was hoping for.
I spent the rest of my break hanging out in the park, and read Diez Negritos for a while. Revoluciones class with Stephen went from 6-9, and we spent most of the class watching movie clips and talking about them. I met up with Catherine after class and took the bus to her house, which is my new temporary home. We tried to go grocery shopping to pick up food for dinner, but they literally closed the doors right as we got there. We ended up grabbing dinner at the pizza/empanada place across the street, which was really good, before heading back to the apartment.
First order of business on Wednesday was to go grocery shopping so I didn’t eat all of Catherine’s food. I got to buy my own cereal (one of my main food groups- the other one is ice cream) and had breakfast. Most of the rest of the morning was spent organizing my school stuff and trying to figure out what I’m gonna do about my Spanish class, although I didn’t get very far. Had my first class at San Andres with the rest of the BC kids, and Robin, Lis, Steve and I decided to wander through one of the museums on our way home. We got out in the street and were soaked within thirty seconds because it was pouring rain. It took about five minutes for the water on the sidewalks and the streets to be up over our ankles. We ended up stopping at a grocery store and decided to just head back to the girls’ house and make dinner there instead of trekking all over the city in our wet clothes. We had pasta and empanadas and salad and just hung out for a bit while our clothes dried out a little. We all tried to figure out our various problems with our classes and schedules, and then I walked back to Catherine’s. We watched part of a very strange movie with her friend Austin and then went to bed.
On Thursday I got to sleep late for a change because both of my morning classes were canceled. I spent most of the morning emailing about course approvals and trying to figure out what courses are going to work the best for my various major/minor requirements (and taking advantage of the free internet- yes!). After a considerable amount of research, I also figured out the cheapest way to get to the airport, since paying $100 for a cab to get there only to turn around and come back was not an appealing idea. After lunch, I walked around to about a million bookstores trying to find my school books, with limited success. Made friends with quite a few bookstore staff members, though- they might be my favorite group of people in Argentina so far. I bought a few of the books I needed but clearly it’s going to be a lengthy process to find them all.
On Friday the 13th (did anyone else notice we had that two months in a row?) I got up and made some breakfast/lunch before heading over to UCA to take my pointless Spanish class. It was even worse than expected- basically, the only class that fit with my schedule is the same class that I just finished, with the same professor, in the same room. The class was an exact repeat of my first day of class in February and was incredibly boring. Afterwards, I had to rush to the bank and then to the realtors’ office to sign the contract for our new apartment. The three of us ran around like maniacs on our respective errands to get their on time, only to discover that neither our realtor nor his partner were there.
After harassing them via cell phone for almost an hour, the partner finally showed up and proceeded to write the contract that was supposed to have been drawn up already. We read through it, corrected about ten different mistakes, signed, and paid the enormous down payment that we had been carrying around (very nervously) in cash for several hours. We were then supposed to view the apartment one last time to get the inventory list, receive our keys, and be introduced to the security guards so they would know to let us into the building. Our realtor’s partner, Hector, tried to tell us that it wasn’t possible to see the apartment as promised, so we basically threw a fit until he decided that it was possible after all. After he refused to pay for his ¼ of the cab fare, we arrived at the apartment and learned that we would have to pay for and make our own copies of the keys, and obtain the inventory list and the internet code from the cleaning lady. Needless to say, we weren’t pleased.
After the appointment, Joe left for the gym and Lauren and I walked to the girls’ apartment to help them set up for their housewarming party. We did some grocery shopping and cleaned up a bit, and then people started showing up with their respective food (the girls had decided on potluck because the group is getting too big to feed on a limited budget). When Joe showed up, he was in a really bad mood and seemed like he was about to have a meltdown, so I volunteered to help him prepare his food to get him to de-stress a little. We basically ended up in the kitchen cooking for the majority of the party, but overall everything went well and people had a good time. I also can say that I cooked a meal for almost twenty people without any kitchen fiascos or fire alarms, which is more than I could say before. Catherine and I headed back to her apartment and crashed, even though at that point I had to wake up in less than four hours to go to the airport.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Let me preface this by saying that I have been homeless/without internet for two weeks.
So it's not my fault that I haven't updated. Also not my fault that you're going to have to wade through the entire freaking novel that I've written waiting for my internet to be up and running again. I'll try to break it up into smaller entries, but for all you people who read this as a way to avoid your homework, you should be able to keep yourselves occupied for a while. Most of the entries are going to be a strict recitation of events until I catch up, which may be never. After that I can put some more thought into them.
So, picking up where I left off...
Wednesday was day two at Villa Gesell. We all woke up early to take advantage of the free hotel breakfast (I think we each ate about ten medialunas). Went back to sleep for a bit, and then half of the group headed out to find somewhere to get lunch since it was raining too hard to make the beach worth it. We got lunch at a nearby restaurant and made friends with a stray dog who clearly wanted our food rather than our company, and got ice cream afterwards. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a bookstore to buy something to read, since our plan to lay out on the beach for five days clearly wasn’t working out. I found a copy of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians in Spanish (translation: Diez Negritos) and bought it so I can practice. I figure I’ve read it so many times in English that I should be able to follow it even if the Spanish is over my head. The rest of the afternoon was spent in the hostel napping/reading/watching tv/snuggling with Joe and Lauren, and we met up with everyone later on to have dinner. We were at the restaurant for probably four hours, ran up a bill of over $500 pesos, and got the waitress to bring us a bag of ice to make drinks later. (This was only possible because she had been flirting with Memo all night, and he exchanged his email for the ice). Back at the hostel, everyone hung out for a while and had a few drinks, until someone had the brilliant idea to go skinny dipping at the beach. Anyone else noticing a trend here? A bunch of kids went in the water with various amounts of clothing (I did not), and then everyone went back to partake in several group showers. Easily one of the oddest experiences of my life. About an hour later, several kids discovered they were missing various articles of clothing, and there was another middle-of-the-night beach search, in which some things were found and others were not. I’m sure the first people on the beach in the morning were slightly weirded out, but I think everything was recovered eventually.
Thursday was my last day in Villa Gesell. I had about 50 medialunas (aka croissants) for breakfast as usual, and we finally had beautiful beach weather. We all headed out to lay on the beach, and even though I used 50spf and was only out there for two hours, I still managed to get a sunburn where the entire outline of my bathing suit is burned into my back. Sigh. Took the bus home by myself, and took a cab from home from the bus station. My cab driver was pretty awesome, and taught me a bunch of useful phrases in Spanish, and explained some things about the language that were confusing me. (For example, “criminal” does not mean criminal in Argentina. It means assassin. I found this out when I commented on the number of criminals in the city and was met with looks of horror/confusion.) Picked up some things at the store and made dinner at the boys’ apartment. I read one of the books that I found in the apartment, called SPUD (it’s about a boy who goes to boarding school in South Africa- Lindsay, I thought you would get a kick out of that) and went to bed.
Friday consisted of killing time until my exam, which I completely bombed. One would think that my scores would IMPROVE after taking a three week intensive course, but clearly my brain works in strange ways. I could not utter a complete sentence on the speaking portion to save my life. Clearly an off day. Instead of taking the subte or the bus back, I wandered around the city for several hours and then headed back to the boys’ apartment. When I finally got there, I unlocked the door and walked in, only to see three people sitting at the boys’ table with all of our laptops and electronics lined up in front of them. I almost had a heart attack, thinking they were robbing the place and I had walked in in the middle of it. After I recovered from my near-cardiac-arrest, they explained that they were the owners of the apartment and were waiting for the furniture delivery of Steve’s bed, which they had scheduled for that day thinking we would still be on vacation. (They explained that they had moved the laptops because they had been sitting in the sun and they didn’t want them to overheat.) After we had established that they were not criminals trying to steal my stuff, we installed the futon, they hugged me about a million times, and they left. By that point, everyone else was back from the beach, so I met up with the girls and Joe at Kentucky Rural Pizza for dinner, and we all went to see Simplemente no te quiere (aka He’s Just Not That Into You- my new favorite chick flick) with all the UCA and Di Tella girls before heading home to go to sleep.
The next day, we all dragged ourselves out of bed to hop on a bus to go to an estancia (aka ranch) for the day. All of the BC-UCA kids (surprisingly) got there on time, but had to wait over an hour for John and Mickey, two of the Di Tella boys, to finally show up. At the estancia, we got to go in the pool for about an hour, and then we sat down for a traditional asado lunch. I tried blood sausage for the first time (gross, but not as terrible as everyone makes it out to be) and a bunch of other things as well. They also gave us ice cream for dessert and then we got to watch a cultural dance show, where they did a bunch of different traditional dances from different parts of Argentina. They explained that for the last song, it’s tradition for everyone in the room to dance, so they paired us off and taught us what I think was a polka. I got to dance with the main performer, which was pretty cool because he was good enough at it to make me look good.
The gaucho games were next, where a bunch of the ranch hands/cowboys/gauchos got to compete in horseback riding competitions and whatnot and we got to judge. I can now say for sure that the horsemanship here has to be the best in the world. They were amazing and they made it look so easy. Then the staff served us pastries and mate and we got to wander through a tiny museum exhibit that they had displayed there, and about fifteen of us piled onto a carriage for a tour of the ranch. After that, we went in the pool again since we were apparently too late to go horseback riding, and went home. The boys and I grabbed dinner at the food court in the mall (never have I been so disappointed with Chinese food) and got ready to go out for the night.
We ended up going to a club called Crobar, and somehow managed to get all the girls in for free and the guys in for $30 apiece instead of $50 got in free. If you ever go there, the secret is to say you’re with “Nacho Mendez”. I don’t know if that’s a secret code or if Nacho Mendez actually exists, but it meant I didn’t have to pay a $50 cover charge, so I was pretty happy. Crobar was one of my favorite clubs so far- good music, cool setup, lots of people, etc. We stayed til around 5am and headed back to the boys’ apartment to go to sleep.
Joe and I went to Hard Rock Café for lunch on Sunday (the 8th, bear with me) because we were craving American food, and then wandered around the feria in Recoleta for a while. Unfortunately, we think the barbecue pork on Joe’s nachos made us sick (me only slightly, because I only had a bite, but Joe was pretty miserable). We walked back, and spent the rest of the day sitting around feeling sick. We skipped dinner because neither of us was feeling up to eating, but I got to read two books, which I haven’t had time to do in a while. Ben and Steve went to Kela’s for dinner (I suspect because they didn’t want to catch what we had), so Joe and I watched Nacho Libre and went to sleep on the tiny futon that we had been sharing for days. I hate being homeless.
Results of placement test are in- I still have to take the class. Unfortunately, all of the classes conflict with my schedule, except one that ends exactly when my class at my other university starts. I talked to Silvana, and she said she’s going to try to set something up so I could take the class at the University of Buenos Aires instead, which has an entirely different schedule and a better language program. I went to lunch with Joe, who seemed kind of annoyed at me all day, and met up with Ben and Steve halfway through. The boys eventually left to go grocery shopping, Joe headed over to the mall, and I packed my stuff and went to Catherine’s to escape the pissy testosterone levels that were taking over my life. I dropped my stuff off at Catherine’s new apartment, which was really cute (super jealous that everyone else is moved in while I’m still the homeless one bouncing from place to place and living like a hobo).
Catherine and I decided to head over to the girls’ house, mostly because I was SO SICK of boys at that point. On the way, we bought a kilo of ice cream and a bottle of champagne for a mini housewarming gift. When we showed up at the girls, gifts in hand, Lauren immediately went to the kitchen to get spoons, and the six of us ate the entire kilo in about five minutes. So much for dessert coming after dinner. Since we still needed to eat real food at some point, we all made pasta for dinner, and sat around watching Harry Potter, while we drank the champagne and a bottle of wine. The boys texted us at one point asking what our plans were, and we told them we were hanging around in our underwear eating ice cream and having pillow fights, and they weren’t invited. Basically a very satisfying girls night, which I think we all needed.
More later, of course. The first round of postcards is also going out soon, I swear. I will get to it eventually. Miss you all!
So, picking up where I left off...
Wednesday was day two at Villa Gesell. We all woke up early to take advantage of the free hotel breakfast (I think we each ate about ten medialunas). Went back to sleep for a bit, and then half of the group headed out to find somewhere to get lunch since it was raining too hard to make the beach worth it. We got lunch at a nearby restaurant and made friends with a stray dog who clearly wanted our food rather than our company, and got ice cream afterwards. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a bookstore to buy something to read, since our plan to lay out on the beach for five days clearly wasn’t working out. I found a copy of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians in Spanish (translation: Diez Negritos) and bought it so I can practice. I figure I’ve read it so many times in English that I should be able to follow it even if the Spanish is over my head. The rest of the afternoon was spent in the hostel napping/reading/watching tv/snuggling with Joe and Lauren, and we met up with everyone later on to have dinner. We were at the restaurant for probably four hours, ran up a bill of over $500 pesos, and got the waitress to bring us a bag of ice to make drinks later. (This was only possible because she had been flirting with Memo all night, and he exchanged his email for the ice). Back at the hostel, everyone hung out for a while and had a few drinks, until someone had the brilliant idea to go skinny dipping at the beach. Anyone else noticing a trend here? A bunch of kids went in the water with various amounts of clothing (I did not), and then everyone went back to partake in several group showers. Easily one of the oddest experiences of my life. About an hour later, several kids discovered they were missing various articles of clothing, and there was another middle-of-the-night beach search, in which some things were found and others were not. I’m sure the first people on the beach in the morning were slightly weirded out, but I think everything was recovered eventually.
Thursday was my last day in Villa Gesell. I had about 50 medialunas (aka croissants) for breakfast as usual, and we finally had beautiful beach weather. We all headed out to lay on the beach, and even though I used 50spf and was only out there for two hours, I still managed to get a sunburn where the entire outline of my bathing suit is burned into my back. Sigh. Took the bus home by myself, and took a cab from home from the bus station. My cab driver was pretty awesome, and taught me a bunch of useful phrases in Spanish, and explained some things about the language that were confusing me. (For example, “criminal” does not mean criminal in Argentina. It means assassin. I found this out when I commented on the number of criminals in the city and was met with looks of horror/confusion.) Picked up some things at the store and made dinner at the boys’ apartment. I read one of the books that I found in the apartment, called SPUD (it’s about a boy who goes to boarding school in South Africa- Lindsay, I thought you would get a kick out of that) and went to bed.
Friday consisted of killing time until my exam, which I completely bombed. One would think that my scores would IMPROVE after taking a three week intensive course, but clearly my brain works in strange ways. I could not utter a complete sentence on the speaking portion to save my life. Clearly an off day. Instead of taking the subte or the bus back, I wandered around the city for several hours and then headed back to the boys’ apartment. When I finally got there, I unlocked the door and walked in, only to see three people sitting at the boys’ table with all of our laptops and electronics lined up in front of them. I almost had a heart attack, thinking they were robbing the place and I had walked in in the middle of it. After I recovered from my near-cardiac-arrest, they explained that they were the owners of the apartment and were waiting for the furniture delivery of Steve’s bed, which they had scheduled for that day thinking we would still be on vacation. (They explained that they had moved the laptops because they had been sitting in the sun and they didn’t want them to overheat.) After we had established that they were not criminals trying to steal my stuff, we installed the futon, they hugged me about a million times, and they left. By that point, everyone else was back from the beach, so I met up with the girls and Joe at Kentucky Rural Pizza for dinner, and we all went to see Simplemente no te quiere (aka He’s Just Not That Into You- my new favorite chick flick) with all the UCA and Di Tella girls before heading home to go to sleep.
The next day, we all dragged ourselves out of bed to hop on a bus to go to an estancia (aka ranch) for the day. All of the BC-UCA kids (surprisingly) got there on time, but had to wait over an hour for John and Mickey, two of the Di Tella boys, to finally show up. At the estancia, we got to go in the pool for about an hour, and then we sat down for a traditional asado lunch. I tried blood sausage for the first time (gross, but not as terrible as everyone makes it out to be) and a bunch of other things as well. They also gave us ice cream for dessert and then we got to watch a cultural dance show, where they did a bunch of different traditional dances from different parts of Argentina. They explained that for the last song, it’s tradition for everyone in the room to dance, so they paired us off and taught us what I think was a polka. I got to dance with the main performer, which was pretty cool because he was good enough at it to make me look good.
The gaucho games were next, where a bunch of the ranch hands/cowboys/gauchos got to compete in horseback riding competitions and whatnot and we got to judge. I can now say for sure that the horsemanship here has to be the best in the world. They were amazing and they made it look so easy. Then the staff served us pastries and mate and we got to wander through a tiny museum exhibit that they had displayed there, and about fifteen of us piled onto a carriage for a tour of the ranch. After that, we went in the pool again since we were apparently too late to go horseback riding, and went home. The boys and I grabbed dinner at the food court in the mall (never have I been so disappointed with Chinese food) and got ready to go out for the night.
We ended up going to a club called Crobar, and somehow managed to get all the girls in for free and the guys in for $30 apiece instead of $50 got in free. If you ever go there, the secret is to say you’re with “Nacho Mendez”. I don’t know if that’s a secret code or if Nacho Mendez actually exists, but it meant I didn’t have to pay a $50 cover charge, so I was pretty happy. Crobar was one of my favorite clubs so far- good music, cool setup, lots of people, etc. We stayed til around 5am and headed back to the boys’ apartment to go to sleep.
Joe and I went to Hard Rock Café for lunch on Sunday (the 8th, bear with me) because we were craving American food, and then wandered around the feria in Recoleta for a while. Unfortunately, we think the barbecue pork on Joe’s nachos made us sick (me only slightly, because I only had a bite, but Joe was pretty miserable). We walked back, and spent the rest of the day sitting around feeling sick. We skipped dinner because neither of us was feeling up to eating, but I got to read two books, which I haven’t had time to do in a while. Ben and Steve went to Kela’s for dinner (I suspect because they didn’t want to catch what we had), so Joe and I watched Nacho Libre and went to sleep on the tiny futon that we had been sharing for days. I hate being homeless.
Results of placement test are in- I still have to take the class. Unfortunately, all of the classes conflict with my schedule, except one that ends exactly when my class at my other university starts. I talked to Silvana, and she said she’s going to try to set something up so I could take the class at the University of Buenos Aires instead, which has an entirely different schedule and a better language program. I went to lunch with Joe, who seemed kind of annoyed at me all day, and met up with Ben and Steve halfway through. The boys eventually left to go grocery shopping, Joe headed over to the mall, and I packed my stuff and went to Catherine’s to escape the pissy testosterone levels that were taking over my life. I dropped my stuff off at Catherine’s new apartment, which was really cute (super jealous that everyone else is moved in while I’m still the homeless one bouncing from place to place and living like a hobo).
Catherine and I decided to head over to the girls’ house, mostly because I was SO SICK of boys at that point. On the way, we bought a kilo of ice cream and a bottle of champagne for a mini housewarming gift. When we showed up at the girls, gifts in hand, Lauren immediately went to the kitchen to get spoons, and the six of us ate the entire kilo in about five minutes. So much for dessert coming after dinner. Since we still needed to eat real food at some point, we all made pasta for dinner, and sat around watching Harry Potter, while we drank the champagne and a bottle of wine. The boys texted us at one point asking what our plans were, and we told them we were hanging around in our underwear eating ice cream and having pillow fights, and they weren’t invited. Basically a very satisfying girls night, which I think we all needed.
More later, of course. The first round of postcards is also going out soon, I swear. I will get to it eventually. Miss you all!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
On Thursday (February 26, I know I'm still behind) Lauren and I took the colectivo to school without the boys because they weren't ready yet, and unintentionally started a lot of drama. The boys claim that they were ready less than five minutes after we left, which I don't think is possible but who knows. After some petty arguments and hug refusals, we all got over it and headed in for yet another superexciting day of orientation. We waited around for a few hours, ate some empanadas, and finally registered for classes. Class list for me is as follows:
Cuento Latinoamericano Contemporaneo- T Th 10:10-11:40
Argentina en Palabras- T Th 12:20-1:50
Revoluciones Americanas Comparadas- T 6-9
Historia y Cultura de Argentina- W 4-6
Also may potentially have to take a Spanish language class, which would probably meet W F and ruin my four-day weekends, but we'll see how it works out. Headed home afterwards to clean/pack/procrastinate/steal other people's pictures off facebook (I'll post some soon, I swear). We had dinner and then headed out to a bar in Palermo called Sugar, where we met up with pretty much everyone in our huge group. We've adopted quite a few kids from other programs as honorary BC kids: Harris and Jenelle are from American University, Kela is from Chapman, Memo is from Irvine, and Catherine is from Richmond. We hung out at the bar for a while and then went off in search of a nightclub called Niceto. We got there and discovered that it was gay night/hedonism night, and there were tons of performers and cross-dressers in elaborate costumes in addition to the four million people in line and in the club. We decided to go in anyway and we had a good time, although the music was all techno-trance music and got really annoying after the first hour or so. We left at about 5am, and when Ben and I got to the house we discovered that Steve had taken the keys with him when he left before us, and we were locked out. He didn’t answer his phone and we ended up calling the house and waking Gladis up at 5:30 to let us in. We’ve decided Gladis is a saint.
Friday was the optional “dia de campo” with orientation, which we all skipped because they wanted 100 pesos from each of us and then refused to tell us what it was for. I went to the hospital with Joe to get his bloodwork done, and we ate lunch at the hospital café, which might have been one of the best meals I’ve had here, oddly enough. We got ice cream afterwards and ran errands for a while (bought laundry detergent, went to the bank to get rent money, bought flowers for Gladis as a goodbye present, tried to get a new phone for Joe) and ran into our old roommate Mariana on Calle Florida. She came by the house later to say goodbye since she was going home the next day, and gave us a bunch of suggestions for the trip we were planning before heading home. The boys and I all stayed in to pack and do our laundry one last time, and I FINALLY talked to my family on skype for the first time since I’ve been here. We couldn’t get audio to work on their end, but I typed responses and it ended up working out reasonably well.
Saturday was move-out day! I hung out and waited for Joe to finish his laundry while Ben and Steve moved into their new place. Joe and I got lunch at Fenicia across the street (which I’m really going to miss) and then headed over to the boys with a million bags in tow. We semi-unpacked, got Burger King for dinner, and then had everyone over for the boys’ housewarming party. We did the typical BC things, sitting in a circle and playing the affirmation game (where everyone goes around the circle and says something they like about everyone else) and drinking several bottles of wine and champagne. My good features apparently include eyes, boobs, hips, butt, and confidence. Who knew? After everyone left, the boys and I started getting ready for bed. Since the second bed hadn’t arrived yet and Joe and I were staying with them, we had a double bed and a futon that was about the same size. Although we had originally planned to have two people on each, (which, logically, would make the most sense) somehow the conversation ended with me sleeping on the floor, Steve sleeping on the futon by himself, and Joe and Ben sharing the bed. For anyone who says that chivalry is not dead, I’d like you to try and explain that one to me.
On Sunday, Joe and I elected ourselves to do the grocery shopping and cook lunch for everyone, which was spectacular- tacos, empanadas, salad, and fruit for dessert. Afterwards, we met up with Memo, who hooked us up with his friend to get tickets to the Boca Juniors vs. Huracan game that night. Of course, it poured the entire game. I will say that I give the fans credit, though- I didn’t see anyone leave early, and they sang and chanted for the entire 1 ½ to 2 hours that we were there. The actual game was not that impressive, and nobody even scored a goal until pretty late in the game, but it was still fun. Afterwards, it took the boys and I over two hours to leave and find a taxi to take us back. We met up with some of the girls at a pizza place for dinner (by that point it was almost one in the morning) and then we went back to the apartment. I went to stay with Lauren and her family in their hotel (because an extra bed beats the floor any day), watched some TV and went to sleep.
Monday, March 2, Lauren and I got up for the free hotel breakfast, then stayed in bed and watched movies in the room all day. I headed over to the boys’ later on while Lauren went out to dinner with her dad, and we found a Chinese/Mexican/Argentine buffet-style restaurant- all you can eat, including dessert, for approximately $8. Needless to say we all stuffed ourselves, and then Catherine and I went back with the boys to plan our beach trip. We figured out reservations for bus tickets and hostels, and finally I took a cab back to Lauren’s hotel to sleep.
On Tuesday, everyone woke up early to head to Villa Gesell, a little beach town about five hours away by bus. Lauren and I got ripped off by a taxi driver, who claimed we had only given him a bill for 2 pesos instead of the 10 we actually gave him, but since he had one of our bags in the front seat there wasn’t really any way to escape. We met up with everyone at the bus station and discovered that the buses in Argentina are really nice- they sort of fold out into beds, and they give you snacks and a (terrible) movie during the trip. Our hotel, Tejas Rojas, was literally right on the beach, so we went straight into the water even though it was cloudy and slightly cooler outside than we would have liked. When the waves got too big, we went back to the heated pool and the hotel and swam for a while longer. We eventually went back to the room (me, Lauren, and Joe had one to share) and watched movies until dinner. We ate at a local place called Café Floop, and discovered an AMAZING ice cream place next door. Afterwards, we got drinks and headed back to the hotel. At some point during the night, someone decided that it would be a good idea to go to the beach, so we all headed out and jumped into the ocean in our underwear on a whim. We headed back to the hotel only to find that we lost our key on the beach, and had to go look for it. Fortunately, we found it within the first couple minutes, and went back to shower and sleep.
Expect another post soon- if I don't catch up this week, I never will. Also, in real time (as opposed to blog time)- my family gets here in two days!
Cuento Latinoamericano Contemporaneo- T Th 10:10-11:40
Argentina en Palabras- T Th 12:20-1:50
Revoluciones Americanas Comparadas- T 6-9
Historia y Cultura de Argentina- W 4-6
Also may potentially have to take a Spanish language class, which would probably meet W F and ruin my four-day weekends, but we'll see how it works out. Headed home afterwards to clean/pack/procrastinate/steal other people's pictures off facebook (I'll post some soon, I swear). We had dinner and then headed out to a bar in Palermo called Sugar, where we met up with pretty much everyone in our huge group. We've adopted quite a few kids from other programs as honorary BC kids: Harris and Jenelle are from American University, Kela is from Chapman, Memo is from Irvine, and Catherine is from Richmond. We hung out at the bar for a while and then went off in search of a nightclub called Niceto. We got there and discovered that it was gay night/hedonism night, and there were tons of performers and cross-dressers in elaborate costumes in addition to the four million people in line and in the club. We decided to go in anyway and we had a good time, although the music was all techno-trance music and got really annoying after the first hour or so. We left at about 5am, and when Ben and I got to the house we discovered that Steve had taken the keys with him when he left before us, and we were locked out. He didn’t answer his phone and we ended up calling the house and waking Gladis up at 5:30 to let us in. We’ve decided Gladis is a saint.
Friday was the optional “dia de campo” with orientation, which we all skipped because they wanted 100 pesos from each of us and then refused to tell us what it was for. I went to the hospital with Joe to get his bloodwork done, and we ate lunch at the hospital café, which might have been one of the best meals I’ve had here, oddly enough. We got ice cream afterwards and ran errands for a while (bought laundry detergent, went to the bank to get rent money, bought flowers for Gladis as a goodbye present, tried to get a new phone for Joe) and ran into our old roommate Mariana on Calle Florida. She came by the house later to say goodbye since she was going home the next day, and gave us a bunch of suggestions for the trip we were planning before heading home. The boys and I all stayed in to pack and do our laundry one last time, and I FINALLY talked to my family on skype for the first time since I’ve been here. We couldn’t get audio to work on their end, but I typed responses and it ended up working out reasonably well.
Saturday was move-out day! I hung out and waited for Joe to finish his laundry while Ben and Steve moved into their new place. Joe and I got lunch at Fenicia across the street (which I’m really going to miss) and then headed over to the boys with a million bags in tow. We semi-unpacked, got Burger King for dinner, and then had everyone over for the boys’ housewarming party. We did the typical BC things, sitting in a circle and playing the affirmation game (where everyone goes around the circle and says something they like about everyone else) and drinking several bottles of wine and champagne. My good features apparently include eyes, boobs, hips, butt, and confidence. Who knew? After everyone left, the boys and I started getting ready for bed. Since the second bed hadn’t arrived yet and Joe and I were staying with them, we had a double bed and a futon that was about the same size. Although we had originally planned to have two people on each, (which, logically, would make the most sense) somehow the conversation ended with me sleeping on the floor, Steve sleeping on the futon by himself, and Joe and Ben sharing the bed. For anyone who says that chivalry is not dead, I’d like you to try and explain that one to me.
On Sunday, Joe and I elected ourselves to do the grocery shopping and cook lunch for everyone, which was spectacular- tacos, empanadas, salad, and fruit for dessert. Afterwards, we met up with Memo, who hooked us up with his friend to get tickets to the Boca Juniors vs. Huracan game that night. Of course, it poured the entire game. I will say that I give the fans credit, though- I didn’t see anyone leave early, and they sang and chanted for the entire 1 ½ to 2 hours that we were there. The actual game was not that impressive, and nobody even scored a goal until pretty late in the game, but it was still fun. Afterwards, it took the boys and I over two hours to leave and find a taxi to take us back. We met up with some of the girls at a pizza place for dinner (by that point it was almost one in the morning) and then we went back to the apartment. I went to stay with Lauren and her family in their hotel (because an extra bed beats the floor any day), watched some TV and went to sleep.
Monday, March 2, Lauren and I got up for the free hotel breakfast, then stayed in bed and watched movies in the room all day. I headed over to the boys’ later on while Lauren went out to dinner with her dad, and we found a Chinese/Mexican/Argentine buffet-style restaurant- all you can eat, including dessert, for approximately $8. Needless to say we all stuffed ourselves, and then Catherine and I went back with the boys to plan our beach trip. We figured out reservations for bus tickets and hostels, and finally I took a cab back to Lauren’s hotel to sleep.
On Tuesday, everyone woke up early to head to Villa Gesell, a little beach town about five hours away by bus. Lauren and I got ripped off by a taxi driver, who claimed we had only given him a bill for 2 pesos instead of the 10 we actually gave him, but since he had one of our bags in the front seat there wasn’t really any way to escape. We met up with everyone at the bus station and discovered that the buses in Argentina are really nice- they sort of fold out into beds, and they give you snacks and a (terrible) movie during the trip. Our hotel, Tejas Rojas, was literally right on the beach, so we went straight into the water even though it was cloudy and slightly cooler outside than we would have liked. When the waves got too big, we went back to the heated pool and the hotel and swam for a while longer. We eventually went back to the room (me, Lauren, and Joe had one to share) and watched movies until dinner. We ate at a local place called Café Floop, and discovered an AMAZING ice cream place next door. Afterwards, we got drinks and headed back to the hotel. At some point during the night, someone decided that it would be a good idea to go to the beach, so we all headed out and jumped into the ocean in our underwear on a whim. We headed back to the hotel only to find that we lost our key on the beach, and had to go look for it. Fortunately, we found it within the first couple minutes, and went back to shower and sleep.
Expect another post soon- if I don't catch up this week, I never will. Also, in real time (as opposed to blog time)- my family gets here in two days!
Friday, March 6, 2009
It's been a busy two weeks, as evidenced by the lack of entries up until now. I'll try to go chronologically from where I left off but the days are blurring together so bear with me.
Friday the 20th was our last day of class, finally. It ended up being pretty pointless- what do they teach you after you've taken the exam?- but they let us go early at least. I think we tried to go out and get drinks to celebrate, but everywhere was closed. Other than that, what I remember of that day is dinner and going to the movies with everyone to see Slumdog Millionaire- I highly recommend it to those of you who haven't seen it yet. Not what I expected but completely amazing.
On Saturday, a bunch of us got together and went out in search of Chinatown. We found it after a while on the subte and a lot of walking, and discovered that "China street" would be a more accurate description of the area- it's tiny. We found a Chinese restaurant called Lai Lai and stuffed ourselves full of Chinese food for the next several hours. It was a nice change from the food here, which is generally okay but very bland. Afterwards, Joe, Lauren, and I went off to go apartment hunting (the three of us are living together) and saw two apartments that would work but were on the small side for three people. We almost put a deposit down on the second place but decided that we wanted to look around a bit more before we made our decision. Our realtor, Hernan, was really nice but spent most of the time flirting with Joe's friend Frankie, which killed our hopes of flirting to get a lower price.
On Sunday, our group split into two groups- one went to Hard Rock Cafe for some American food, and the rest of us went to try an Indian restaurant nearby. The food was really good, if a little expensive, and I probably ate an entire basket of naan by myself. We had planned on going to one of the local artisan fairs, but headed back home instead because Ben wasn't feeling too well and it was starting to rain. We told Gladis that we were going out for dinner and a party to watch the Grammys (Grammies?) and gave her the night off because we found out that it was her birthday. Steve and I ended up going to Desiderio and eating AWESOME french fries, among other things, for dinner, then got free dessert and coffee because for some inexplicable reason the waiter took a liking to us. After we got home, we watched some of the Grammys and then I went to bed early.
Monday was our first day of our official orientation at UCA, and we spent a few hours being bored out of our minds while they showed us powerpoints explaining "culture shock" and the history of various monuments that we've all heard at least ten times already. After they served us pasta that had literally no taste whatsoever for lunch, we got to leave while everyone who hadn't taken the Spanish course took a placement test. I had lunch with Lauren's family, who came down to visit and help her find a new apartment. Afterwards we looked at three or four new apartments, decided to take one of them, and then I went with Joe to run errands and picked up a cake for Gladis' birthday. We had a new girl at the house named Yuku (a Japanese girl from Canada who told us she was staying for a week and then mysteriously disappeared the next day) and after we all ate dinner, we surprised Gladis with her cake and a mini birthday celebration. She told us that the cake was her favorite present out of all the ones she had gotten and that she would miss us when we left, which was nice to hear. [Side note: I get the impression that either Patricia doesn't treat her well, or most of the exchange students they house don't, because Gladis always seems really surprised when we do something for her.] After dinner, we went to see Vicky Cristina Barcelona with everyone, which was chick-flicky and strange but pretty good. We got McDonalds afterwards (Emily and I had to wait in line for almost twenty minutes only to be told that the McFlurry machine wasn't working and neither was the chicken fryer. Fantastico.) We settled for some french fries and then went home after deciding to skip orientation the next day. Silvana had told us that we only needed to go on Wednesday and Thursday for registration, but it took a day of boredom for our inner nerds to relax enough to skip.
On Tuesday, Joe and I met up with Lis, Robin, and Anne and tried unsuccessfully to find the outlets in Palermo to go shopping. We wandered through a couple stores in the completely wrong part of the city, got lunch, and called it quits. Joe and I went to take out as much money as we could for our deposit and then went to meet Lauren to sign the contract for our new apartment. The realtors for this apartment had been recommended to us by Isabel (Lauren's crazy sketchy host mother), and Isabel had looked at the apartments with us and was at the signing appointment as well. They had originally told us that the apartment was $1200 a month with $600 in realtors fees, but when we got there they claimed that it was actually $1300 a month with $950 in realtors fees. We left the room for a hurried powwow in the hallway, decided they were scamming us (especially because Isabel was really pressuring us to sign- we think she would have gotten a cut) and walked out. While it was frustrating to have to start the apartment search all over again, I think we may have dodged a bullet by refusing to deal with them. As soon as we left, Isabel followed us and changed her tune to "You were right not to sign, they were clearly scamming you, i have another apartment to show you, come with me". We decided to look at the apartment just in case but were really wary of taking her advice. The apartment was not what we were looking for anyway, so we told Isabel that we'd be fine on our own and we didn't need her help.
On top of the apartment fiasco, Lauren was robbed by a taxi driver who kept taking her money, changing it out for fake bills, and then claiming that she had given him the fake bills and he couldn't accept them. After the third exchange she realized what was happening, told him she was going to an ATM to get more money to pay him, and booked it out of the taxi and ran into the building. When we came out after the appointment, he was STILL THERE waiting for her, but when he saw that she had other people with her he took off. All in all, not the greatest day.
Wednesday orientation was horrendously boring, but right before lunch they gave us the lists of available classes, which is what we had been waiting around for all day. We took off when they let us go for lunch and skipped the afternoon part to look at apartments, since we only had three more days of housing at our homestays and needed to find a place ASAP. Lauren's family came with Lauren and Joe and I, and we looked at three or four apartments, and found one that we fell in love with. Although Lauren and I would have to share a room and install a loft bed over the existing bed to make it work, the rest of the apartment is perfect. Gorgeous living room, kitchen, and dining area, big bedrooms with built in desks, shelving, and closets, nice bathroom, etc. The location was also exactly where we wanted, close to the bus stop, the subte, and our friends' new apartments. Best of all, it has 24 hour gated security, tennis courts, and an outdoor pool and hot tub for $1200 a month, all expenses included (which comes out to a little over $400 a month for me including the commission!) The only hitch is that the apartment isn't available until March 15, so we'll be homeless for two weeks until then. Between Lauren's hotel room with her family, the boys' apartment, the girls' apartment, the hostel for our beach trip next week, and my family coming to visit, I should be able to find somewhere to stay.
Enough for now- more to say but I currently don't have the attention span to focus on it. Miss you all, start posting/sending me your addresses if you want postcards!
Friday the 20th was our last day of class, finally. It ended up being pretty pointless- what do they teach you after you've taken the exam?- but they let us go early at least. I think we tried to go out and get drinks to celebrate, but everywhere was closed. Other than that, what I remember of that day is dinner and going to the movies with everyone to see Slumdog Millionaire- I highly recommend it to those of you who haven't seen it yet. Not what I expected but completely amazing.
On Saturday, a bunch of us got together and went out in search of Chinatown. We found it after a while on the subte and a lot of walking, and discovered that "China street" would be a more accurate description of the area- it's tiny. We found a Chinese restaurant called Lai Lai and stuffed ourselves full of Chinese food for the next several hours. It was a nice change from the food here, which is generally okay but very bland. Afterwards, Joe, Lauren, and I went off to go apartment hunting (the three of us are living together) and saw two apartments that would work but were on the small side for three people. We almost put a deposit down on the second place but decided that we wanted to look around a bit more before we made our decision. Our realtor, Hernan, was really nice but spent most of the time flirting with Joe's friend Frankie, which killed our hopes of flirting to get a lower price.
On Sunday, our group split into two groups- one went to Hard Rock Cafe for some American food, and the rest of us went to try an Indian restaurant nearby. The food was really good, if a little expensive, and I probably ate an entire basket of naan by myself. We had planned on going to one of the local artisan fairs, but headed back home instead because Ben wasn't feeling too well and it was starting to rain. We told Gladis that we were going out for dinner and a party to watch the Grammys (Grammies?) and gave her the night off because we found out that it was her birthday. Steve and I ended up going to Desiderio and eating AWESOME french fries, among other things, for dinner, then got free dessert and coffee because for some inexplicable reason the waiter took a liking to us. After we got home, we watched some of the Grammys and then I went to bed early.
Monday was our first day of our official orientation at UCA, and we spent a few hours being bored out of our minds while they showed us powerpoints explaining "culture shock" and the history of various monuments that we've all heard at least ten times already. After they served us pasta that had literally no taste whatsoever for lunch, we got to leave while everyone who hadn't taken the Spanish course took a placement test. I had lunch with Lauren's family, who came down to visit and help her find a new apartment. Afterwards we looked at three or four new apartments, decided to take one of them, and then I went with Joe to run errands and picked up a cake for Gladis' birthday. We had a new girl at the house named Yuku (a Japanese girl from Canada who told us she was staying for a week and then mysteriously disappeared the next day) and after we all ate dinner, we surprised Gladis with her cake and a mini birthday celebration. She told us that the cake was her favorite present out of all the ones she had gotten and that she would miss us when we left, which was nice to hear. [Side note: I get the impression that either Patricia doesn't treat her well, or most of the exchange students they house don't, because Gladis always seems really surprised when we do something for her.] After dinner, we went to see Vicky Cristina Barcelona with everyone, which was chick-flicky and strange but pretty good. We got McDonalds afterwards (Emily and I had to wait in line for almost twenty minutes only to be told that the McFlurry machine wasn't working and neither was the chicken fryer. Fantastico.) We settled for some french fries and then went home after deciding to skip orientation the next day. Silvana had told us that we only needed to go on Wednesday and Thursday for registration, but it took a day of boredom for our inner nerds to relax enough to skip.
On Tuesday, Joe and I met up with Lis, Robin, and Anne and tried unsuccessfully to find the outlets in Palermo to go shopping. We wandered through a couple stores in the completely wrong part of the city, got lunch, and called it quits. Joe and I went to take out as much money as we could for our deposit and then went to meet Lauren to sign the contract for our new apartment. The realtors for this apartment had been recommended to us by Isabel (Lauren's crazy sketchy host mother), and Isabel had looked at the apartments with us and was at the signing appointment as well. They had originally told us that the apartment was $1200 a month with $600 in realtors fees, but when we got there they claimed that it was actually $1300 a month with $950 in realtors fees. We left the room for a hurried powwow in the hallway, decided they were scamming us (especially because Isabel was really pressuring us to sign- we think she would have gotten a cut) and walked out. While it was frustrating to have to start the apartment search all over again, I think we may have dodged a bullet by refusing to deal with them. As soon as we left, Isabel followed us and changed her tune to "You were right not to sign, they were clearly scamming you, i have another apartment to show you, come with me". We decided to look at the apartment just in case but were really wary of taking her advice. The apartment was not what we were looking for anyway, so we told Isabel that we'd be fine on our own and we didn't need her help.
On top of the apartment fiasco, Lauren was robbed by a taxi driver who kept taking her money, changing it out for fake bills, and then claiming that she had given him the fake bills and he couldn't accept them. After the third exchange she realized what was happening, told him she was going to an ATM to get more money to pay him, and booked it out of the taxi and ran into the building. When we came out after the appointment, he was STILL THERE waiting for her, but when he saw that she had other people with her he took off. All in all, not the greatest day.
Wednesday orientation was horrendously boring, but right before lunch they gave us the lists of available classes, which is what we had been waiting around for all day. We took off when they let us go for lunch and skipped the afternoon part to look at apartments, since we only had three more days of housing at our homestays and needed to find a place ASAP. Lauren's family came with Lauren and Joe and I, and we looked at three or four apartments, and found one that we fell in love with. Although Lauren and I would have to share a room and install a loft bed over the existing bed to make it work, the rest of the apartment is perfect. Gorgeous living room, kitchen, and dining area, big bedrooms with built in desks, shelving, and closets, nice bathroom, etc. The location was also exactly where we wanted, close to the bus stop, the subte, and our friends' new apartments. Best of all, it has 24 hour gated security, tennis courts, and an outdoor pool and hot tub for $1200 a month, all expenses included (which comes out to a little over $400 a month for me including the commission!) The only hitch is that the apartment isn't available until March 15, so we'll be homeless for two weeks until then. Between Lauren's hotel room with her family, the boys' apartment, the girls' apartment, the hostel for our beach trip next week, and my family coming to visit, I should be able to find somewhere to stay.
Enough for now- more to say but I currently don't have the attention span to focus on it. Miss you all, start posting/sending me your addresses if you want postcards!
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