Sunday, July 1, 2007

Today was a very fun and interesting day. I got up at 8 and got ready to go. I wrote a note for Fani because she was still sleeping and left at 8:30. I walked down La Pampa until I met Tammy at the train tracks (just like last week!). We walked around looking for a café that was open. We didn’t find one for a long time so we decided to walk to the church and look up the next road. We found one right past the church, of course! We went in and both ordered café con leche and 3 facturas (or pastries) for less than $2 each. I choose two media lunas and a pastry with powdered sugar on the outside and dulce de leche in the middle… yum! We sat there and ate and talked for over an hour because since we were so close to the church, we didn’t need to leave very early. Tammy and I have this problem called “English.” Sometimes it happens without us even realizing. We will be talking in Spanish and all of a sudden, I will realize that we are speaking the “forbidden language” instead! Hehe! However, in the café/bakery, we were speaking Spanish and for some reason we switched to English. We were talking and we noticed the men working there laughing and smiling. We think they were laughing at our broken Spanish. I do have to say that we must sound pretty funny! Here is a snippet of a conversation that Tammy and I had this morning, translated for your pleasure:

Tammy: My brother failed his last flight exam.
Me: What does “failed” mean?
Tammy: He didn’t pass.
Me: Oh, that’s too bad, I’m sorry.

It was funny because I didn’t know how to respond without knowing the word for “failed.” I was hoping that it meant he passed! Seriously, we must sound hilarious! I wish I could hear a translation of everything I say. On second thought, I really don’t want to know!

We walked next door at 10:20 and were greeted by a woman with an adorable blonde baby with dark brown eyes in her arms. She spoke to us in English and we spoke to her in Spanish… awkward! Tammy asked where the bathroom was and then pointed to a doorway. The woman replied, “Oh, you know the church already!” It was really cute. We went upstairs to the bathroom and then downstairs to find seats. The people were really friendly and everyone was coming up and kissing us hello (or should I say “hola”). Most of the people who came up to us were speaking English (at least a little). It was nice when someone didn’t seem to know English because we could practice our Spanish. This church was really different from the other church I have gone to here because of the hospitality of the people, but that was not the only thing that was different! We started the service at 10:40 (just 10 minutes late) and sang a lot of songs. The beginning was similar to other contemporary services I have been to, but after a while, almost the whole congregation came down to the front of the church and started dancing and singing songs without putting the words on the projector for us to read. I have never seen such an enthusiastic and energetic church! Even people holding babies were jumping up and down and twirling all around. I mentioned to Tammy that I was worried that the babies were going to get shaken baby syndrome and she said that she had had the same thought! We had communion and it was a bit strange because after we got our little cups of wine, we all traded them around. I think I switched cups about five or six times! The scripture lesson and the sermon were about David dancing for joy when the Ark was returned to Jerusalem. The pastor said that dignity is not a fruit of the spirit, but joy is. The people of the church certainly seemed to believe this message! A couple got up and gave a testimony about how they had been trying to have a baby for five and a half years and had gone to many different doctors but had been told that they could never have children, but after the doctors gave up, the couple got pregnant. It was cool to hear their story. It was encouraging to see the passion for God that seemed to be alive in this church. However, after a while, we were ready to go. I looked at my watch and the service had been going on for 3 hours! We had no idea it would last this long! We wanted to leave, but felt awkward getting up and walking out. We talked to a girl in front of us and another girl came over and said hi, too. We talked to them for a while and exchanged email addresses. The music was blaring and we had to scream in their ears so they could hear us. We asked them where there is a Christian bookstore and they gave us directions. They told us to come back and invited us to something on Saturday night. We explained that we only had a little bit of time left in Buenos Aires and that we were going to be traveling a lot over the next weeks. We said goodbye and left. The service was winding down when we left—three and a half hours after it began!

We hurried to Tammy’s apartment because Silvia (her host mom) had invited us to eat soup for lunch. However, Silvia had left to go visit someone and so Tammy changed her clothes and then we found the soup on the stove. We had a few minutes of complaining about things we don’t like about our host moms and the apartments where we are living. One thing I mentioned I don’t like is the juice because Fani makes Tang and she never lets the pitcher get empty. Every time it gets low, she adds more powder and water. However, there is always about an inch of Tang powder at the bottom of the pitcher and she never stirs it. When the pitcher is full, the juice is always watery and when it gets emptier, the juice is way too strong. We stopped complaining and heated the soup and set the table for ourselves. We dished up the soup and Tammy poured us both some juice and we sat down. After we had prayed, we started eating and I took a drink of the juice. I thought to myself that it was way more watery than the juice in my apartment and that I really should not be complaining if that is what Tammy has to drink! We kept eating and about 2/3 of the way through our meal, Tammy takes a drink of the “juice” and says that she thinks it is not juice at all, but water that was chilling before making the juice! I had to laugh as we poured it down the drain. We washed the dishes and put them away. I figured out what bus we would need and we went to find it.

We took the 118 bus and did not have to wait long for it to appear. We got on and were able to sit for a change, which was nice. We rode to Recoleta and got out and walked about 3 blocks to the Feria. It was 3:30 by this time and we wanted to leave before dark, so we didn’t have too much time. We walked around looking for gifts for people and other stuff. We both bought a few items, but not much. The feria was super crowded! At 5:10ish, we went through a mall to get back to our street because we didn’t want to fight our way through the throngs of people just to get back to the street. We walked a few blocks and found a bus stop and waited for about 7 minutes. We got on and were able to sit, once again! We rode to Juramento and got off.

We wanted to go somewhere and eat cake or pie, so we went to Juramento Café, but they didn’t have very good desserts. We went back to the café near Tammy’s apartment called “Pan y Canela” (Bread and Cinnamon). We like this café a lot. We picked out the dessert we wanted. They don’t sell pieces of their cakes here, so we had to buy a whole one—what a shame! (It was small, though.) The woman remembered us from last time—where we sat and what we ordered! She is a very cool lady! We asked her about the chocolate cake thing we wanted and she said it wasn’t cake, but was brownie, dulce de leche, fudge, and meringue. She asked if we still wanted it. We said, YES! We went and sat down and she brought it to us cut into four pieces. We decided that we need to come to this café a lot more and then the last week we are here, we want to take a picture of her with us. The dessert was scrumptious! Our friend brought us some water. Tammy and I sat there for over an hour and talked. We decided that someday Tammy is going to manage a café like this one and I am going to work there in the summer and on weekends. I am also going to offer tutoring services in the café so all the mothers can sit around and drink coffee. Tammy and I are going to live in an apartment above the café and we are going to get Gwen to decorate the interior of the café. It sounds like a good plan to me!

After the café, Tammy went home and I headed toward my apartment. However, I got sidetracked on the way home because the feria near Jurumento always catches my attention. Marissa and Molly (my friends from church) told me that somehow they always ended up at this feria on Sundays. It seems to be true because I think this was my fourth time going and I have only been in Buenos Aires for five Sundays because I was in Iguazú Falls for one! I only have one Sunday left in Buenos Aires because next Sunday, I will be in Córdoba. I walked around the feria and talked to several merchants for quite some time. I like this feria because it is a lot more relaxed than the one in Recoleta and the vendors do not speak as much English which is a good thing for me! I talked to a man selling leather things for a long time and he asked me what I was doing in Buenos Aires, how long I was staying, how well I like it, and all the usual things. I bought a bracelet from him with my name on it. I kept walking and then talked to a lady selling baskets. I wish I had more room in my suitcases because she has some really cool things! I bought a basket for pencils because it is something that I will actually use. It is made of reed type plants that grow in Tigre. It is perfect for holding pencils and I always have too many pencils for containers, but this one is very big. I like it a lot! I kept walking and once again, the both with the couple selling glass animals and things caught my attention. I stood there for a long time ooh-ing and ah-ing and asking the lady how much things cost and how to say the names of unusual animals. I decided to ask about the darling nativity scenes that I had seen a week before. The woman pulled one out that wasn’t finished and said that if I wanted to wait, the man could make the camel and donkey to finish it off. I debated about buying it, but decided to go for it. I stood there and watched him make them and talked to the woman and some of the other customers. It was really cool to get to interact with authentic Argentineans in this way. I bought my nativity set and something else and left to walk home.

It was almost 8:30, so I went straight home. I greeted Fani and told her what we did and showed her my nativity set. She fixed dinner and I put my things away. I had soup, chicken, shredded carrots and big cucumber, and peaches with dulce de leche. During dinner, we had an interesting conversation. I brought up the subject of –erías. By this, I mean the million and one words here that end this way. Most common are stories that sell a certain type of something such as an heledería (ice cream). I am making a list of all of them. I started naming all the ones I knew and Fani added ones that she knew. Some of the ones she mentioned, I did not know what they sold, so she would explain it to me. I would then ask her if there was a word for a store that sold _____ and she would tell me. Many times there would be an –ería to go with it! We then got silly and started inventing words. I love Fani! She makes me laugh! I went to go start my homework and Fani came to tell me goodnight. She said that if I needed anything, I could “llamería” (“call her,” with an –ería on the end). I told her that she was going to go to her “cam–ería” (“bed” with an –ería on the end). She said that she was going to “dormir–ía” (“sleep” with an –ería on the end) and then said that “dormiría” is an actual word. I agreed and Fani tried to think of an example for me, but couldn’t. However, I came up with one and Fani was very impressed and so was I! (What I said was, “Si no tuviera clase hoy, dormiría todo el día.” Translation: If I didn’t have class today, I would sleep all day.) After Fani went to bed, I got ready for bed and wrote this super long blog and talked to Stephanie Wicker online for a bit. Now I am going to do my homework and read for a bit before going to bed. While Tammy and I were in the café, we made a list of everything we are doing this week and our first goal for tomorrow is to eat expresso ice cream at Freddo’s at 11am because it is 2-for-1 day and I can’t eat coffee ice cream after class because I won’t be able to sleep, so we are going before class. However, there is a good chance that we might go after class, as well! :)