Friday, July 6, 2007

Okay, I am going to make this short so that I can get caught up. The highlights of the morning were eating my usual breakfast and packing my last minute items. I only brought my backpack and my (mom’s) brown purse. I left about 10:55 with Fani. She was going to the grocery store and I was headed to meet Tammy. I had to walk a long way because we were meeting at our favorite café, Pan y Canela. I was still full from breakfast and so I didn’t eat anything. We worked on homework and talked for a bit before heading to class. Tammy carried my purse since I had my heavy backpack which was very nice of her. Oh, she told me that she asked her host mom, Silvia, about playing cards in the café and she said that it was no problem at all and that that man probably was just trying to scare us or looking for an excuse to talk to foreigners, so we weren’t really in danger of being thrown into an Argentine prison, just so you know. Wow, that was really a run-on sentence and I am not even going to change it!

The highlights of class included a girl confusing the words “porthole” and “portal” with their meanings. We were talking about the word for a round window or “porthole” and the girl kept thinking we were talking about a “portal.” It was funny. Graciana always tells us to practice our Spanish during our breaks because we need to practice Spanish and we don’t need to practice our English, but after this incident, Graciana said that on the next break, this girl should practice her English! It was very funny!

We watched an Argentine movie in class. I could understand the whole thing! I was really happy about that! Graciana would stop it every 10-15 minutes to check that we understood and to ask us questions. One thing that she wanted to check that we understood was what is meant by “jogging” (yes, that is a Spanish word). We all laughed and told her we understood. I wonder if she realizes that that is a stolen word! Haha! Oh, another interesting thing from the movie was the fact that the building in which the man worked had to be closed because there were too many papers in it. I thought it was because it was a fire hazard, but Graciana said that it is very common for office buildings to be closed and for a paper-removing company to come in and remove all the papers from the building so it won’t collapse. She asked if this happens in the U.S. and none of us had ever heard of this! I’m not sure I want to be in a building that is in danger of falling down if there are too many papers in it!

After class, I talked to Tammy for a little bit in the basement of the UB before walking to ISA to meet up with the group to go to Córdoba. I checked my email and had one from my dad (among many others) that told me the forecast for back home was in the high 80s/low 90s. This is not what you say to a person who is living in the middle of winter! We met up with Juan and Ampi who were going to take us to the estancia. We took the train instead of the subway which was wonderful! We still had to walk to the omnibus station, but I think it was safer and I know it was cheaper and faster. We had to wait for the omnibus to come but it finally did. I traded seats with some of the new students so they could sit together and I could sit next to Will. Will dropped an apple under the seat and when he reached to get it, he cut his finger really badly and was dripping blood. Good thing I brought my Band-Aids and Neosporin, just in case! We didn’t get blankets on this bus which was very strange. We did have dinner which consisted of rice and chicken with a few other things. I asked for more Coke twice, but neither waiter brought it to me. We had to watch the customary 80s music videos because what would be an omnibus ride without them. I read for a bit while they watched Blood Diamond. One of the girls sitting behind us (from our program) drank a lot of wine and then had the glass of whisky that was offered to us. Soon she was feeling terrible. I felt bad for her because she was obviously in agony, but I do not understand why people do that to themselves. Another girl sitting next to her took her to the bathroom several times and tried to make her feel better. The drunk girl tried to call her Argentine friend on the phone and she couldn’t even make any sense in Spanish because she could hardly speak English at this point. I have realized that drunk people are sometimes funny, usually loud, often rude, and almost always annoying. She finally fell asleep and I tried to sleep, too. However, I could not stay asleep for long. The only way I could get comfortable was to sleep on my side, but then my arm would fall asleep and I would have to move. I was really cold, too. I think I ended up sleeping about two hours.