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!