Finally caught up! Applause, please.

On Friday, we woke up and had breakfast, then did homework until Roxana, our maid came by. We showed her all of the things that needed fixing in the apartment, etc, made some lunch, and then I left for my UBA class. When I got home later, Ben came over to see the apartment, so I hung out with him and Lauren for a bit. Lauren, Joe, and I went over to the girls’ apartment yet again (it’s sad how dependent we are on internet access), and the girls, Joe and I booked our trip to Peru! We’re going at the end of June/beginning of July and hiking the entire Inca trail, visiting Cuzco and Macchu Picchu- basically it sounds like the coolest trip ever. We went back to the apartment for dinner, and then Lauren and I went to the Di Tella girls’ apartment for a while. We all sat around and ate the amazing dessert that Joanna had made and watched The Graduate, complained about how early we had to get up the next day, and headed back.


On Saturday, we all woke up early to go to the Buquebus terminal for our BC trip to Uruguay. We met up with everyone at the terminal and got through customs. Anne ended up leaving to go home because she had been sick for a few days and wasn’t feeling up to it, but the rest of us got on the ferry for the 3 hour ride. Then I basically fell in love with Ben Pickering, because he came over to me and told me that he had withdrawn extra money for me for the trip in case I needed it. (He knew Stephen still had not paid me back, and I still did not have a debit card or access to cash. The fact that he pulled out money for me without me even having to ask shows you what a sweetheart he is.) The rest of the ferry ride was spent napping/listening to music, until we got to Uruguay. We all went to hotel and checked in, and then walked around the tiny tiny town of Colonia until we found a place to have lunch. I tried chuvito, a traditional Uruguayan dish which was delicious. Also, I had the best chocolate and dulce de leche cake I’ve ever had, hands down. Afterwards, our whole group walked with everyone to the beach and hung out there for a few hours, before heading back for city tour. Most of the tour was via bus, but we got to walk around a bit and take pictures. We all went back to the hotel to nap and then went out to dinner at a restaurant called Patrimonio. We were seated outside, which was a little chilly and windy because it was right on the water, but the atmosphere and the food were great. The most disappointing part of the evening was my dessert. After tons of other people at the table decided they couldn’t eat another bite and didn’t order a dessert, they all decided to sample mine when it got there. Suffice to say there was left than half of my cake left by the time I got to take a bite. Booo. Figuring out the bill was a nightmare because we were paying with three different currencies (US dollars, pesos, and Uruguayos) and one person who shall not be named underpaid by a significant amount and refused to put more in. Got back to the hotel around two, showered and tried unsuccessfully all night to get some sleep.


The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, which was boring but not terrible. We all went to rent bikes, which is apparently the accepted method of transportation in Colonia. Some of the boys got four wheelers and mopeds, but I went with everyone else and got a regular bike. This turned out to be a relatively bad decision, because crappy bike + cobblestones + intense heat + long bike ride does not add up to a great ride. However, we biked to the beach (cobblestones = ouch), went swimming and laid out for a while, which was great. I needed more beach in my life, and that weekend definitely helped. Later on I went with Ben G on his moped, and we rode around for an hour or two touring the city and whatnot. We broke into the old bull fighting ring outside of town and took some pictures, then headed back to beach to meet up with the other. We all biked back and visited a little craft fair before finding a restaurant for lunch. Robin and I got some fantastic paella, but there were so many flies buzzing around the table (you literally could not pick up your fork for more than a second before you had to put it down to swat at them) that it kind of ruined the experience a little. A few of us took a mini field trip and climbed up in the old lighthouse in Colonia, and returned the bikes. Ben let me try driving the moped for a bit, and I got the hang of it pretty quickly, which was fun. We got ice cream on the way back to the hotel and went to the pool for a few minutes. At 6, we went back to the Buquebus terminal to catch our ferry home. Most of the ride was spent playing the “destiny” game, which is like MASH but supposedly reveals the name of the person that you’re destined to be with. Mine is apparently Ben Goldeen, and about six people got Lauren for theirs. Altogether hilarious. We were so tired by the time we got back that we basically went straight to bed.


Monday the 30th (oh my god, it’s been two months already) I laid out with Lauren by the pool for a few hours and did history reading/chatted for a while before making lunch. We went to the girls’ yet AGAIN to use their internet, and hung out there for a while. We headed back home for dinner much later (rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes, with arroz con leche for dessert, yum) and watched Breach, which came on TV randomly. The rest of the night was dedicated to homework, as usual.


The next day, I woke up ridiculously early in order to be at UCA by 8:30 instead of 10. I waited for the bus for almost forty minutes before deciding to take a cab so I wouldn’t be late. Since I only had a $100 peso bill on me, I asked the taxi driver if he could make change before I got in the cab. He assured me that he could, so I got in and told him where I was going. About halfway through the ride, he informed me that he actually did NOT have change for 100 pesos, and instructed me to get out of the cab, buy a $30 phone card at a kiosk, and give him the card as payment. Mind you, my fare was in the low 20s. After taking me to FIVE KIOSKS, none of which had change for $100, I finally was able to buy a phone card for my own phone to break the $100 bill. I told him that I was going to keep the phone card and pay him the exact fare in cash, and he threw a fit. I guess he was hoping that getting paid with a card would mean he didn’t have to report his fare, but I just threw the fare at him and got out of the cab as fast as I could, because the whole situation was beyond sketchy. FINALLY got to school in time for the movie that my prof was showing before class, and got out of class around noon. I sat in park during my 2 hour break, ate some lunch, and did a significant amount of history reading. The rest of the afternoon/evening was class and homework, until I finished and took the bus home. I had dinner with Joe, and then the two of us headed out to a café to use the wifi there without bothering the girls. We got there, and I started writing my paper (my goal was to finish it before I allowed myself any internet time at all). Joe, who needed to go online for at least a few hours, sat there and refused to ask the waitress for the access code to the internet because he was too “shy” to ask her. He wanted me to ask, but I told him that since he was a big boy and his Spanish was about ten times better than mine, I thought he could handle asking himself. He hemmed and hawed for about a half an hour, and by then the café was closing for the night, so we went home without any internet time whatsoever.


I wasted April 1st and did not pull a practical joke on anyone, unfortunately. Since Wednesday seems to be the day when we get all of our errands done, Lauren and I went grocery shopping and headed back to make breakfast. Afterwards we went back out to the pharmacy to buy hangers and other necessities, which we’ve been doing without up until now. I stopped by the girls’ briefly to email my history paper to Lauren so she could print it out for me before class, and ran home for lunch. I had classes at UBA and Universidad de San Andres all afternoon, and then Lauren and I went back to the Modena café for internet and split a ¼ kilo of ice cream. (Dessert before dinner is totally permissible in our house.) I finally found out about my PEL classes (they’re letting me switch to the ones I need, thank god) and found out that my BC housing group did not get chosen in the first round of the housing lottery for the six-man apartments. Not the end of the world, but slightly disappointing. We went home for dinner, and then Lauren, Joe, and I had a roomie outing to the movies to see “Locos por las compras”. It reminded me a little of “The Devil Wears Prada”, but was more chick-flick style. Not a fantastic movie, but cute and funny. I ran into Katie, one of my new friends from UBA (who, ironically enough, is the only other person from the USA in our class and is from Boston) and then headed home to go to bed.