Friday, June 29, 2007

I slept in a bit today and got up at 9:30, took a nice refreshing shower reminiscent of a melting glacier, got ready, and ate my normal breakfast (no grapes). I wore my favorite socks today and my teal green shirt that matches Tammy and Anne. I did my homework that I didn’t get to the night before. Fani left about 11am to go to errands. I got ready as fast as I could and left the apartment because if the phone rings, she wants me to answer it and I am sure I wouldn’t be able to take a message in Spanish, on the phone, and so I left as fast as I could! I decided to go to the ISA office and see if Tammy was there. She wasn’t, but it was okay because I just sat there and finished the rest of my homework. I left the ISA office at 11:55 and walked to the UB. I was really early, but I sat outside the classroom and read about a new law that requires students to complete 12 years of school in a free publication put out by the universities in Bs.As. Tammy came and we talked for a few minutes. She gave me money out of the ATM machine. It turns out she got to the ISA office at noon, so I barely missed her! We went in and had class. Graciana told us that she had to leave to go to some office after class and so we would get out at 4:30 instead of 5:30! We did a lot of workbook exercises and went over some grammar rules. During lunch break, we went down to the cafeteria and ate there. We made the mistake of going to the bathroom first and so the line was enormous by the time we got there. Tammy didn’t even get her sandwich until 20 minutes into our 30 minute lunch break! We ate quickly and went back up. We stopped to talk to Tammy’s Brazilian friend on the stairs and I was getting worried because we were already 5 minutes late, but I should have known that it would not matter. Indeed, we were some of the first students to return! I need to be more relaxed about that! We listened to two songs by an Argentine singer named Kevin Johansen who was born in Alaska. His dad is American and his mom is Argentine. He has lived in New York, Montevideo, and now he lives in Buenos Aires (I think). One of the songs was really funny because it was all in English except for a few Spanish words here and there. It was about the different neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and some of the stereotypes about them. During the second song (all in Spanish), the CD player stopped working and so we gave up on that. We had a ten minute break and I ate a banana. We finished up with a short interview with a partner about hypothetical questions such as “If you were a color, what would you be?” We then had to listen to all the answers of everyone in our class. This type of exercise takes a long time when we have about 28 students in the class! We were assigned some homework and then we left. Tammy and I went down to the bookstore to look at one-strap backpacks and T-shirts for me. She bought one of each the other day. None of the colors of the T-shirts grabbed my attention and they were out of the backpacks since Tammy had bought the model the other day, so we left. We started walking to the ISA office because Tammy had a meeting about the El Tigre excursion tomorrow, but it was early, so we stopped at a shoe store, a kiosko and bought chocolate, and then a bakery. We decided that we need to try as many things from the bakeries around here as we can. We each picked out one treat and were going to share them. There aren’t tables in the bakeries here, so we decided to go to the ISA office and eat them. However, we didn’t want to go in the office because there would be so many people there and we didn’t want to eat our mouth-watering treats in front of them, so we decided to eat them in the hall before we went in. This plan was going to work until we heard two boys coming in after us. We went up to the next floor and were going to sit on the steps and eat there, but we were scared that maybe the boys weren’t from ISA and were going to the floor above us. How awkward would that be if they can up the very narrow staircase and there were two girls sitting there gobbling up goodies! We waited until we heard them leave and then we sat down and split the one I picked out. It was like two cookies with a thick layer of dulce de leche in the middle dipped in white chocolate. Needless to say, it was delicious! We decided to save Tammy’s until after the meeting. I was finishing up my piece and we heard the elevator moving. We were afraid it was bringing someone up, so we quickly went down the stairs to the ISA office. I hid the rest of my cookie in my hand while kissing everyone hello and then I finished it in the hallway by the bathroom. Tammy went to have her meeting and I talked to Nichelle, a girl who came here when I did. She has a cousin who has been studying for a year at the university in Chile were Tammy was before she came here. She invited me to go out to some bars and a club tomorrow night. Thanks, but no thanks! We might meet at a café tomorrow or walk around together, but I still have not decided what I want to do. I checked my email and got kicked off in the middle of an email (sorry, AM!). Tammy got done with the meeting and we left. We went to a backpack store that smelled strongly of… something; I’m not quite sure what… possibly new suitcases, only stronger and more smelly. I picked out a backpack that I like a lot. After my purchase, we walked down the street looking for a place for Tammy to get her nails done. We “accidentally” ended up in the cheapest heladeria that I know of in Bs.As. I had frutilla and frambuesa (strawberry and raspberry) and Tammy had vanilla and chocolate. I like ice cream a lot! We had ¼ of a kilo of ice cream each for just over a dollar! After we ate our ice cream, we kept looking for a peluqueria (beauty parlor) for Tammy to get her nails done, but the only ones we found were closing. It was about 7:30 at this time. We finally found one and Tammy decided to go in the morning because it was so late. We were both supposed to be home at 8:30. We hadn’t eaten Tammy’s cake thing yet, so we tried to split it in the street to take home, but it was going to be difficult, so Tammy suggested that we go to a café close by. We did and Tammy ordered a submarino which is a special kind of hot chocolate that is made by putting a chocolate bar in hot milk and then stirring it. We split the piece of cake and it was so rich that we both decided to save some for later. We split the chocolate, too. We had a good conversation and, unfortunately, had to leave in the middle because it was already 8:35! We were really close to Tammy’s apartment, but far away from mine. I alternated between jogging for about 5 blocks and then walking for 2. I still was really late and didn’t make it home until 8:50! I told Fani I was sorry I was late and she got dinner ready. I had a meat patty thing with ketchup (hurray!), shredded carrots and more big cucumber?, soup, and peaches with dulce de leche. During dinner, Fani told me a confusing story about how she had some neighbors who were Cuban. Apparently they either broke into someone’s apartment or someone broke into theirs (I’m not sure which) and put papers about Cuba all over the place (??) and broke the windows. I am not sure why she was telling me this story and I have no idea when this happened (April or 20 years ago?). It reminded me of how I used to not be able to understand ANYTHING she said! After dinner (9:30), Fani washed the dishes and went to bed. I got ready for bed and looked up some stuff online for our class, checked my email, talked to Anne online, and wrote this blog. I need to decide what I want to do tomorrow.