Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Happy Fourth of July, Everyone! I am such an unpatriotic citizen: this is the second Independence Day in a row that I have been out of the country! Of course, on July 9, they will be celebrating Independence Day here, but I don’t think that is quite the same thing!

Anyway, my day started by waking up at 8:45, getting ready, and eating breakfast (two media lunas, two cups of hot chocolate, and tostadas with dulce de leche). We opened a new container of dulce de leche today, but it is my least favorite of all the brands I have tried so far. It is not bad, but I liked the other ones better. This brand has a farm scene on the container. The laundromat man brought back my clothes, but I was missing one of my socks that say, “I love my cat.” I told Fani and she called them, but they said that it came by itself. I think that is kind of doubtful since when I take my socks off, I put them right into the dirty clothes hamper, but I suppose it is possible. I looked under my bed and around my room without success. I hope it turns up. At least it is not my favorite pair of socks! That would be horrible!

I got my stuff ready for the day and left at 10am to go to the ISA office. I checked my email, tried to call my mom (she didn’t answer), and looked up some stuff on the computer for our presentation. Tammy arrived and worked on her homework while I continued to search for info (in Spanish) about Boca Juniors (the soccer team I am researching). Tammy shared some really yummy chocolate with me in a cute foil wrapper. We saw Trevor, the boy who was going to work with us on our presentation and hasn’t been to class in about 5 days, and we asked if he wanted to work with us or if he wasn’t coming to class anymore. He said that he wasn’t going to come anymore, so I guess he is dropping the class.

We left at 12:10 to walk to the UB. We were a little early so we talked to Will about our presentation and made plans to meet him tomorrow at 10:30 in the ISA office to work on it. In class, we said what we would be doing today if we were in the United States. (I said that we would be having a parade with our dogs and flags!) We went over the homework and talked about a story that we had read as homework the night before about Anaconda. During the lunch break, Tammy and I sat at a big table with Meghan, Nichelle, Omar, Kay, and Will. I ate my usual peanut butter sandwich and an apple and two Oreos with dulce de leche-flavored filling in the middle. They were good, but not incredible. We went back to class and talked about fairy tales and special vocabulary related to them (Once upon a time, etc.). We then read the story, “La bella durmiente” or “Sleeping Beauty.” We did some exercises related to it and then we got into groups and had to tell a famous fairy tale. Our group had seven people and we choose The Ugly Duckling. We wrote it out because not everyone knew the story, but then we got messed up when we were presenting because we had not had time to finish the story. Will and Tammy read almost all of what we had written and then I added more on the spot and saved the last line of the story for another girl. I couldn’t remember how to say the word “reflection” so I just left that part out. Oops! It was funny because when another girl was presenting part of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, she used the word “ojo” (eye) instead of “oso” (bear). It was funny to think about Goldilocks having three eyes. When that group was talking about the food Goldilocks ate “avena” (oats), they used the word “arena” (sand) instead. It was really funny!

We had our “pausa” after this and I just stayed in the room and talked to Tammy and Will (in Spanish, of course) about people cutting off their fingers and getting electrocuted. It was a joyful conversation! When we started class again, we played a game where we were divided up into two teams and Graciana gave a volunteer a sentence to draw on the board. It was hard because the phrases were similar to “I wish that you would have come to the party.” Graciana wanted us to get every word correct and so we would all just guess random things and she would stand there and nod or shake her head at us and then she would get excited and shake her hand at us. It was really funny! We couldn’t get one of the sentences and I guess Graciana thought the “artist” was not doing a good enough job, so she started drawing and her dog looked more like a pig and got us all confused. The sentence ended up containing a word for “puppy” that none of us even knew! It was kind of a silly game and I don’t think it really was helping our Spanish much, but it was very funny because of Graciana! A group presented information comparing families in Argentina and the U.S. It was very informal and they stayed in their seats. I don’t think I need to stress out about this presentation after seeing how theirs went, so I am happy about that!

After receiving our homework assignment, Tammy and I left and went to a bookstore because she wanted to buy an Argentine cookbook. We found a really good one with yummy and easy-sounding recipes that was fairly small and cheap. Then we went to the boot store for Tammy to try on the boots that she likes. She tried them on and walked around and decided to buy them. We headed out to find a bank so she could purchase them and found one fairly close. We returned to the boot store and she bought them. We then headed to our favorite café, but our favorite lady was not working. Tammy was being stubborn and made me decide what we were going to get. We stood there for about 10 minutes trying to decide, each wanting the other person to make the decision. I finally said that we probably should eat the brownie, dulce de leche, fudge, and meringue creation again. We are only in Buenos Aires for 2.5 more weeks, so we probably should eat as many cakes as possible, at least that’s my philosophy! We did our homework as we ate. It was difficult, so I was glad that Tammy was there to help! By the time we finished our homework (the cake was long gone!), it was almost time for me to go back home. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to so I could be home on time and Fani wouldn’t worry.

Tammy walked two blocks with me and then I walked the other 15 (I think) blocks alone. I was running a little late and so I was power-walking and my calves were burning and I was about dying of heat stroke in my fleece. Today is Fani’s half birthday and I have been thinking about something special I could do for her on this day for several weeks. She likes chocolate, but she is so afraid of gaining weight, that I would be afraid she wouldn’t want to eat it. I saw some cute little bouquets of flowers the other day and decided that I would buy her some. However, when I got to the flower stall on my way home, it was closed! Luckily, there was another one closer to my house and I bought her a small bouquet. When I got home, Fani called out from her bedroom and said that she was ________. I didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t come out, so I went to my room and took off my backpack and fleece and waited in the doorway. After about three minutes, Fani came out and kissed me hello. She carried a chair out of her room and said that she had been looking for something in her closet. I then realized that she had said that she was “up high” (I know that’s a bad translation) when I got home. I told her I had a surprise for her and gave her the flowers and told her that it was her half-birthday. I thought she was going to start crying. I could tell it meant a lot to her. She kissed me thank you and put the flowers in a vase.

I told her about my day and what I did while she got dinner ready. I had soup, shredded carrots (really dried out) and big cucumber (still weird), homemade (!) pizza with a spinach-ish vegetable on the crust with white cheese on top. It was kind of different, but good. I would not really call it pizza, but it was still tasty. For dessert, I had half of a canned peach with dulce de leche on it. Fani received a call from her niece while I was finishing up. Fani cleaned up the kitchen and I brushed my teeth and organized some stuff. Fani went to bed after thanking me for the flowers again and saying goodnight. Shower update: lukewarm (goosebumps, no shivering). I got ready for bed and brushed my hair. I checked my email and wrote this blog. Now I am going to read for a bit before going to sleep. It is 11:15pm here, so it is 10:15pm in Indiana which means that everyone is probably getting ready to go to the fireworks. If I were at home, I would probably be sitting on the roof of our van with Anne Marie watching the fireworks…