Primavera, por fin!

Miercoles el 21 de septiembre – día 66

Today I didn’t have research or classes because it’s día de la primavera (first day of spring) and día del estudiante (day of the student)!  I got up and went to yoga, and on my way I saw a ton of high school students buying beer at 9:30 in the morning…  that’s one way to celebrate.  

Unfortunately I had a ton of reading to do, so I didn’t get to do anything fun, but I went to the park by my house to read.

At around 18:30 I headed home to get ready for dinner.  There were 2 representatives from IFSA’s office here and they wanted to have dinner with students in the program doing volunteer work.  We ate at an Italian restaurant and I had a vegetable calzone and tiramisu for dessert.

I got home around 22:30, talked with Clarisa for a little bit, and then went to bed.

Jueves el 22 de septiembre

Thursday I had to complete the third step in getting my residency, which meant getting up at 8:00 to go to migraciones, egh.  Unfortunately it was freezing out – a cruel joke after yesterday’s delightfully warm spring day.  I took un colectivo, got off at my stop, then walked to where I thought migraciones was.  The directions IFSA gave us weren’t very clear, and I got somewhat lost (I was only a block away but didn’t have any clue where I was) but luckily a very nice woman came up to me and asked ¿Estás buscando migraciones? (are you looking for migraciones?) and pointed me in the right direction.  Fortunately I arrived 5 minute early for my appointment and $300 pesos ($75) and 45 minutes later I was done.  Some other people in my program had later appointment times and waited upwards of 2 hours.  Now I just have to return to migraciones in ~20 days to get my official student residency!

I went to my lit class at USAL then after that I headed to UBA for psicolingüística.  The professor gave everyone candy for día del estudiante (fue ayer –it was yesterday)!  We don’t have class next week so we can study for our parcial (midterm) – which is good because I’m going to Iguazu next weekend (I was supposed to go this weekend but that fell through).  I’m kind of nervous for this exam since she told us absolutely nothing about the format, she just said she didn’t know how it was going to be, but there would probably be multiple choice.  I talked to her after class, but she didn’t tell me anything else, so we’ll see how it goes.

I took the bus home (I discovered that in this instance the bus takes way less time than the subte and drops me off closer to home) and Clarisa and I had vegetable rice with tuna mixed in, which was actually pretty good.

After dinner I showered and went to bed.

Viernes el 23 de septiembre

I got up Friday and had breakfast, then started doing some school work.  I went to get some lunch and do some reading at a little café close to my house that serves natural food.  I got on the sugerencias del dia (a daily special – literally suggestion of the day) which included pan con manteca de calabaza (bread with pumpkin butter), sopa de calabaza (pumpkin soup), tarta de salmon (salmon/cheese/egg pastry) y limonada, all for $40 pesos ($10).

The bathroom sink which I thought was really pretty

After I finished one of my readings I headed home to do some more reading (common theme for the weekend).  Around 21:00 Clarisa called me to say we would be having a pizza dinner at her friend Cristina’s house.  Cristina lives about a 2 minute walk from us and she also has an IFSA student living with her.  We got pizza from Mi Matute, which is really close buy and very delicious (they also have great empanadas!).

When we finished dinner we watched “Minuto para ganar” and Clarisa and Cristina told us about how they discovered a free trial of match.com, it was interesting to say the least.  Around 23:00 I headed home.

Ludi asked me to go to a reggae club with her so I got ready and headed to the colectivo stop.  The club was really cool, and we stayed until about 4:15.  We took a taxi home and I went to bed.

Sabado el 24 de septiembre

Today I got up around 11:30, had some breakfast then took a walk before heading to yoga.  After yoga I came home and gathered up my reading for psicolingüística then headed to a café for lunch and more reading.  It was pretty warm and very sunny so I sat at one of the outdoor tables and ordered a café con leche and medialunas rellanas (medialunas filled with ham and cheese) for a grand total of $20 pesos ($5).  

After reading for 2 ½ hours I couldn’t think anymore so I took a little walk then headed home.

Market

I did some more reading then got ready to meet Ludi, Alicia, and Rory for dinner and a play.  We went to a pizza place and got some delicious pizza tropical!

Then we went to the play, called Algo estupido (http://algoestupido.com.ar/).  It was good, but short.

Now I'm off to bed

Un beso,
Taylor

Random photo:

2 meses!

Viernes el 16 de septiembre – día 61

Friday I woke up and had some breakfast then did a little work before heading to Mario’s (my program director) house to have un reunión de evaluación.  Basically we gave us an overview of how this semester is going, then we had a really delicious lunch (raviolis with red sauce, pesto, and a mushroom cream sauce), then we discussed how we felt out experience was so far and what we did/didn’t like about Argentina.

After the meeting I headed to IFSA to pick up my stuff for my appointment at migraciones next week.  Melissa met me there and we went to my house to plan our trip to Iguazu!

When she left I did some reading then had some leftover vegetable rice for dinner (Clarisa was at a wedding in El Tigre).

After dinner I met Melissa and Vanessa at the movie theatre in Recolecta and we saw Mi primera boda (My First Wedding), here’s the link for the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X766naoFhE   It was really funny, and I’m glad I finally got to see an Argentine movie in Spanish in the theatre!

Sabado el 17 de septiembre

Saturday I got up and had some breakfast, then went to yoga.  When I got back I showered and had some lunch, then went to meet Ludi and her porteño friend Lucas in the park.  She taught me how to do slackline (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbe201MVIE4&feature=related I stuck to trying to balance and walk in a straight line).  I wasn’t very good, but it was still fun to watch.  Later in the afternoon we had mate with some of Lucas’s friends that we had met. 

Later that night I met Ludi and Alicia to go to dinner at one of their friend’s houses.  We had milanesa y puree de papas (lightly breaded meat-really delicious and mashed potatoes).  

Alicia and I headed home around 2AM and had quite an experience on the bus. There was a group of ridiculously drunk girls, one of whom had had wayyyyyyy too much to drink and projectile vomited over her seat and onto the floor.  She was in a stupor and alternating from falling asleep leaning on the window and throwing up.  It smelled disgusting and Alicia and I still had another half an hour at least on the bus.   A little while into the bus ride one of the aforementioned drunkards had to go to the bathroom.  How do I know this?  She stood by the bus door, grabbing herself like a 4 year old and started saying she had to use the bathroom over and over and over again.  Pretty soon the rest of the people on the bus were trying to suppress their giggles at the ridiculous antics of these drunk girls.  When they finally got off the bus the girl in need of a bathroom decided it would be appropriate to hike up her skirt and pull down on tights right there on curb of the sidewalk, and which point the entire bus started laughing.  It was absolutely ridiculous.

Domingo el 18 de septiembre

I’ve officially been in Argentina for 2 months now, ¡Que locura!  While I know I still have a lot of time left I can’t believe how fast time if flying.  Unfortunately for me I didn’t do anything to enjoy this 2 month milestone as I had an insane amount of work to do, so I spent my day cooped up in my room reading.

At dinner Clarisa and I watched Minuto para ganar  (Minute to Win it) while enjoying some Asian tasting vegetables and pasta.  For dessert Clarisa had bought some more dulce de membrillo. ¡Que delicioso!

Lunes el 19 de septiembre

Monday I got up and had breakfast before doing more work.  At 12:30 I took un colectivo a la escuela primaria para mi trabajo voluntario.  It was ridiculously unorganized today, as I was working with 4 second graders for over half an hour.  Not only is that too many kids to work with it’s far too long for their attention spans.  Afterwards I took the bus home.

I stopped at a photo place to drop off some of my pictures to get developed for my photo class then headed home.

I went to yoga then came home and showered.  I got ready then I headed out to meet a group of IFSA kids for a birthday dinner for Melissa and Andy.

We ate a restaurant near my house called Motts which was absolutely AMAZING!!!  We ordered a few bottles of wine for the table along with desgustacion de entradas (a sampler of appetizers).  It was delicious!  Unfortunately I didn’t get  a picture before everyone dove in, but there was breaded shrimp with avocado and pineapple served in a martini glass filled with guacamole (I didn’t have any of this since I don’t like shrimp but everyone said it was delicious), ceviche (delicious), some sort of salmon with cavier (ok), beef carpaccio – thin sliced raw beef (surprisingly really good), baked brie with tomato and basil (melted cheese can’t be bad), greens wrapped in ham, and a ton of different cheeses/spreads for some delicious bread.

For my meal I got ñoquis, which I’d never had before, but were delicious!

My dinner

Melissa's steak

Julie's rice

Inside of my dinner

Finally, for dessert we got the desgustacion de postres, which was basically heaven on a plate.  It included a chocolate volcano cake (which was obviously divine), basil ice cream (suprisingly delicious), another sort of ice cream that I forget the flavor of, a "floating island" which I can't really describe, but the texture was interesting, a creamy vanilla flavored custard and a cream/sugar concoction.

Martes el 20 de septiembre

Today I got up and had breakfast before taking un colectivo a mi clase de castellano.  After class I walked home, stopping at the photo shop to pick up my pictures on the way.  I made myself some lunch then did a little bit of work before taking un colectivo a mi clase de psicolingüística en la UBA.

After class I took the bus home, showered, and did some work before dinner.  Clarisa wasn’t home but I ate with Lu.  We had salad and this pasta/egg concoction.

Now I’m off to bed.

Un beso,

Taylor

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