Thursday, July 19, 2007

Today was the day of our final and I nearly overslept! Although I went to bed at 11 last night, I couldn’t fall asleep until sometime after 1am. I woke up and looked at my alarm and it said 7:44 and I had set it for 7:30. Yikes! I quickly got ready and went out to eat breakfast. Fani did not have it ready yet. She was out of media lunas and so she made me some toast. It was interesting because she made it on the stove and it had the flavor of the pan she made it in. The word for bread in Spanish is “pan” and so Tammy and I joked at lunch about the “pan pan” (bread that tastes like a pan). I had two pieces with dulce de leche on top and one and a half cups of hot chocolate. I left at 8:30 to go to the UB. I figured I could check my email if Tammy wasn’t there yet because I was going to be early. However, I followed Tammy into the elevator and so we went to a bench outside the classroom and studied. Being the hard-working trabajadora that she is, Tammy had done all of the practice exercises. I felt bad because she wanted to compare answers and I hadn’t done mine. Oops! Since I couldn’t fall asleep anyway last night, I should have just stayed up and done them. Luckily Teal and Gabrielle had done theirs and so Tammy asked them some of her questions. We sat there for about a half hour studying, went to the bathroom, and then just stood around anxiously waiting to start. Several minutes after we were supposed to have started, we found out that we were going to join another class downstairs to take the test. We went down to the thirteenth floor and found seats. Tammy, Will, and I sat in the front (my favorite place to avoid distractions!). Graciana and another teacher passed out the exams. The theme was monkeys and how they communicate in a similar manner to humans. Both Tammy and I had several questions for Graciana during the test. I did not think the test was that bad, but I am not sure. All of the sections were familiar, but I am not sure how well I did. As Tammy said, I might have gotten an A or an F. Tammy finished one second before me and turned her test in. I was the next person to finish and handed mine in right after. We had an hour to wait while the rest of the class finished their exam, so we headed to the computer lab to check our email, but Tammy wanted to stop at the bathroom on the way. The only problem was that instead of being on our normal floor (fourteenth), we were on the 13th floor and so instead of having the women’s bathroom, it was the men’s. Tammy was talking to me and almost walked into the men’s bathroom, but I told her as she was about to go in. (That would have made it the second time this month!) We checked our email and then headed back up to wait for the oral exam. We got there just to find out that we were going back to our normal room. We went in and sat down and Graciana explained that we were going to do the exam with a partner and she would start with the people who finished the test first. She called out the first two pairs of people, but they were not there yet. The fifth test was Tammy’s and the sixth was mine, so we got to do it together! We went first out of the whole class! It was not too difficult. We were given a piece of paper with six different types of sentences we had to form such as an irreal wish and speculations about the past. It was hard to think of examples quickly, but it helped that Graciana provided us with examples on the page. When we were done, we asked about being able to see our tests. She told us we could come at 4:30 tomorrow and so that is what we are going to do.

We went out and talked to our friends from Grace. It was nice to chat with them about our host families and traveling and a few other things. Tammy and I headed to the cafeteria so we could eat our lunches that we had brought. We sat there and laughed about funny stories of my food at Fani’s (now that I have resorted to secretly hiding it under the table!) and took pictures out the window. We decided we needed to go eat ice cream so that we would have room for cheesecake later. We went to the place that Tammy wanted to try. This ice cream store has a display counter along the sidewalk and the ice cream is decorated in a fancy manner with chocolate and fruit on top. I tried white chocolate, some other flavor, and dulce de leche with chocolate pieces in it. Tammy and I both decided to get the dulce de leche because it was so good! We got cups of it. We thought it was tricky that they have the pretty ice cream display out front, but they dip the actual ice cream from containers in the back! The cash register man (I have a feeling there is an English word for this job) talked to us for about 20 minutes while we stood there with our ice cream. Because Tammy had ordered (and we had been discussing which of the ice creams contained alcohol in English), I think the man thought I couldn’t speak Spanish and so he was looking at Tammy and talking to her the whole time. He switched topics and spoke quickly and so it was hard to follow him. He talked about how the earnings of people who do manual labor, like plumbers, earn different amounts per hour depending on how many people there are to do the work (in the U.S.), he talked about all the different ethnicities in Buenos Aires and how they all live mixed together unlike the U.S. where they tend to be segregated, and then he told me that I don’t look like an American. A bus was going by and so I couldn’t hear him and had to ask him to repeat what he had said (yes, I do speak Spanish, I think!). I asked him what I looked like and he said German. He asked me what my last name was and I told him it was German. He looked very pleased with himself. He asked Tammy where her family was from and she said South Africa. He then wanted to know where they were originally from. We eventually got to go sit down at a table in the sun and it was good until the wind started blowing little leaves onto us. I tried to protect my ice cream, but still got a leaf in it. Tammy and I talked about growing up and siblings. My favorite story was how Tammy and her sister used to hide the food they didn’t like in their dog’s food bowl. :)

After our ice cream and much talking, we decided to head to Tammy’s apartment so that she could pack. We were planning on going to my apartment a little later for the same reason. It sounded like a good plan to me because I hate packing and I love being with Tammy. We walked to her apartment and I sat on her bed and was probably more of a distraction than a help, but it was fun. I just have one comment about Tammy’s packing… Tammy has a lot of clothes here! I was quite impressed by the sheer number. I helped her eliminate some things that she could leave here and assisted where I could. It was funny because when we got there we were both really hot wearing long-sleeved shirts and so Tammy loaned me a running T-shirt and she put one on, too. I then was helping her by putting a jacket inside her winter coat and the best way to do it was to actually put her coats on and pull the sleeves through with my hands, so at one point, I was wearing Tammy’s shirt and coat! She then took a picture of me with her messy room (due to packing). We left her house about 6 and headed to Freddo (on Juramento). We then proceeded to act like we knew what we were doing and went and sat down. This is what people here do instead of going to the counter to order. Every time we have gone to the counter to order, the people look either slightly annoyed or amused and tell us to sit down, so we wanted to do it right. However, I don’t think we have perfected the technique because we sat at the table for over an hour without anyone coming to serve us. Even people who came in after us got served and the waitress would walk right by us as if we were invisible! We worked on our ISA evaluations. There was a place to comment on each director, but we were not comfortable writing our remarks there before handing them in to the directors. I wondered if I could send mine directly to Texas, but in the end, we decided to write on the evaluation that we thought it was not a good idea to ask for comments about the directors when they are the ones collecting these surveys. We didn’t even finish our evaluations because they are really long (five pages, I think) and we wrote in-depth answers for them. After drooling at the entire cheesecake sitting in the display case for over an hour, Tammy finally caught the attention of the bus-girl and she came over to see what we needed. I don’t think she was even a waitress, but Tammy asked her for two portions of cheesecake. She said okay and went away only to come back and say that they were out of cheesecake. We were confused because there was a whole cheesecake in the case. She explained to us that it was just a model. I think it is a cruel trick to display a model of a cheesecake when in reality there is not! We decided to leave and go to the other Freddo, but we wanted to explain so it didn’t look rude that we were leaving. Another waitress came over and we told her that we wanted cheesecake and so we were going to the other Freddo. She looked slightly annoyed, but we smiled and left. I needed to pick up my 100 free photos and the shop closes at 8, so we decided to go there first. I went in and they explained that for some reason the pictures on the disk didn’t show up on their computer. I asked them what I could do and they told me to use the program Nero (I think). I explained that I didn’t have that program and Tammy said that she thought it was South American. They disagreed and acted like everyone has it on his computer. I told them I was leaving Saturday and asked what I could do. They asked if I had a memory stick and I said yes, but it is broken. Unfortunately, when I tried to save my blog from yesterday, it would not save to it. This is sad because for some reason, my wireless internet signal has vanished from my apartment. I am not sure when I will be able to post these blogs because of these problems. The man asked me if I had a “notebook” (no, I brought my desktop to Argentina!) and said that I could bring it in tomorrow and he could save the pictures on his flash drive. I asked when the pictures would be ready because I had had to wait three days before going to pick this batch of “pictures.” The man assured me that he could have them done later that day. I thanked him and said I would be there in the morning with my computer.

Because we were so close to my apartment, we went there quickly so I could leave some of my school stuff from my backpack and change my clothes. I didn’t have time to shower (bummer, I miss my iceberg!). My clothes were back from the laundromat and I looked through them looking for something to wear. I decided upon my khaki pants and favorite green CAT (Carolyn/Anne/Tammy) shirt, but when I put on the khakis, I found that they had done some major shrinking. Tammy and I joked that it was due to the cakes, but in reality, it is not because they were small in all parts and even were about an inch or more shorter than normal! I took them off and wore my gray corduroys instead with a maroon shirt. My CAT shirt was tighter than normal, too. It was giving me claustrophobia so it was a good thing I didn’t wear it! What did they do to my clothes this time? We said goodbye to Fani and walked to Freddo. We didn’t care how stupid we appeared, but walked straight to the front counter and ordered two portions of cheesecake. We went and sat down and the man cleared our table from the last people and then brought it to us. We were eating it (finally!) when Will walked in. He had seen us through the window as he was walking to the ISA office and decided to come in and say hi. We talked to him as he stood at our tall table and we finished our cheesecake. We got the bill and I paid so I could break my last $100 (pesos). We don’t understand why, but the bill was $8.50 instead of $6 like normal. There is no way they raised the price of a piece of cheesecake from $6 to $8.50 in one week! We left and walked to ISA. We got there and went in. There were not too many people there at first. We used the computers until they said it was time to eat. The food was more like appetizers than a whole meal. There were little sandwiches and meats and cheeses. I enjoyed my first mustard in almost two months! Surprisingly, Tammy and I weren’t too hungry. We sat with Will and Kay and chatted in the big classroom. However, when the dessert came out, Tammy and I suddenly found more room. We are without shame. I had a small piece of an apple pie dessert, a small piece of a strawberry jam dessert with clear sweet gel on top, and a small piece of cheesecake. Guillermo asked about our evaluations and we told him we were going to mail them to Texas. I then asked him if a letter for me arrives with my health insurance card in it if he could mail it back to me in the U.S. I told him I would leave him some money if he would do this. He said that if it comes, he will email me, but that it would be best not to leave money because he doesn’t know how much it will cost or if it will even come. He said that the best thing to do would be to wait until it comes and then he could email me and tell me how much I owe him. I said I thought that would be difficult because I didn’t know how I could send the money to him. He told me I could send it through Western Union. I didn’t know how to respond, so I turned away about dying of laughter and made the mistake of looking at Tammy. We were cracking up. I could not breathe, I was laughing so hard. The thought of sending less than two dollars through Western Union was simply ridiculous! We had a good laugh about his one! There were people smoking in the little “outside inside” which is a little courtyard area that doesn’t have a roof, but is surrounded by four walls of the ISA office. We took some pictures, including the first real one of just me and Tammy. It turned out really well! It is now the wallpaper for my computer! We used the computers a bit more after we ate before heading out. Tammy and I were scared about walking home so late at night. Unlike the majority of our fellow ISA students, this was the latest Tammy had ever been out and only the third late night I have had (the other two were tango lessons and Uruguay). I walked with Tammy to the corner of Juramento and Cabildo and then walked back. We prayed for each other’s safety the whole way back. It is scary because there is no way to even know if the other person made it back safely. If I got stolen on my way home, no one would even know until Fani discovered I wasn’t here in the morning when she thought that I was sleeping really late which would probably be about 11am! I probably shouldn’t think on this! These are the types of situations that cause me to depend on God so much more than when I am at home! I made it back safely and put my clean clothes away and cleaned up all the things that I had thrown everywhere. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day of packing stuff up! I wrote this blog which took a long time because I wrote so much. (You probably don’t want to know that it is more than four full pages single-spaced. That is ridiculous! Oh my! I just realized it is 2am! I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow, I am taking a shower and taking my computer to the photo store because meeting Tammy at her apartment at 11am. We are going to the religious themed park and then we are going to dress-up and go to a fancy café for cake. We are probably going to stop by the colonial museum and then we will go to class and see our grades. Tammy and Silvia are watching a movie tomorrow night and I am invited, but I want to spend time with Fani and I don’t want to pack, but I need to because I will be kicked out of my room on Saturday morning! Okay, this is enough of my foolish babbling. I bet you would never guess that I am sleep-deprived—I was tired at the dinner at 10pm—and need to go to bed! Chau!