Distractions

I have already been back from Iguazu for two days and for some reason everytime I sat down trying to write on my blog there was some sort of distraction. Its kind of the same everytime I try to study here. The city in general is just loud and I am always running into someone who creates a distraction. For example, yesterday I wanted to go get my lap top at Jareds where I always leave it and just go there to use the internet. I wanted to use it at the ISA office so I wouldnt get distracted by Jared when I was trying to do research for schoool and actually get something accomplished. I went to his house in the morning and buzzed his apartment (because someone took my cell phone by mistake in Iguazu and wasnt yet able to get it back). Marta (his host mom) answered and said he was still sleeping and to come back later. I went to the gym, showered, and returned later and then no one answered. I decided I would make due without my lap top for the day and just spend all day on it today. I then went to the ISA office to study. Of course everyone in the office yesterday was someone Im friends with and ended up getting distracted several times to talk to them. Not to mention there was also really loud construction in the building that I could only tune out with electronic tango music on my Ipod. Before I knew it I had class, then talked to my parents on Skype, and then went to dinner for Lizzys 19th birthday. I got very little studying done for my final which is tomorrow. However, the Mexican restaurant we went to called Lupita for Lizzys birthday was fantastic. All the food was very flavorful (usually hard to find) and even the margaritas that usually are bad were good. More on my distractions a little later. I have to talk about my amazing trip to Iguazu.

This was our last trip with ISA and they really did a great job with this one. We left Thursday night on a micro (charter bus) drove through the night and arrived in Missiones which is outside Iguazu around 7 am. We went to see these ancient ruins that were really neat but the tour was pretty boring. I dont do well on tours with a bunch of Americans. I would rather just explore on my own. After we drove a couple of hours to what is called a chacra (ranch, estancia in BA). It was really beautiful. It actually reminded me of the plantation I stayed on when I went to Cameroon last spring. There was a nice pool that all the (40 girls and only 4 boys!) swam in and sunbathed. We then had an asado (bbq) and ate a ton of food. We also toured a mate plantation which is the tea that everyone drinks here ( I think i described in one of my other entries). It was pretty neat, I got some interesting photos of how mate is made. After a full day of sun and too much food, we drove another four hours to the hotel in Iguazu. We had another huge meal and then Liz, Lizzy, Rachael, and our friends Fran and Julia and I just relaxed outside by the pool until we went to bed.

Saturday was supposed to be our first big day at the waterfalls. I woke up to torrential rains of course. We got to the park and it only continued to pour harder. We were only able to see one of the best falls that day before they closed the park due to extreme weather conditions called "La Garganta del Diablo"(devil's mouth). We had to walk about a mile on a metal slightly unstable bridge to get to it over a river while it was pouring down rain, extremely high winds, and thunder and lightening. I was pretty sure 4'11" 90 pound Liz was going to blow away. It was definitely worth the walk. It was the most amazing water fall I had ever seen. After seeing the waterfall we had to wait two hours for the train to take us out of the park because it closed due to the weather. Of course there were trees and branches on the train tracks which slowed down the process immensely. Finally after leaving the park, we just went back to the hotel and I studied and relaxed until dinner.

After dinner we saw Griffin and some people in his program who happened to be there at the same time and hung out with them in our room. We decided to go to the only boliche in Iguazu. As we were walking there, I somehow managed to step off a curb and my leg went right into a sewer. Luckily Griffin was there to keep me up or else I would have fallen all the way in. Unfortunately I came out with a giant bloody muddy scrape on my thigh. We got to the club and I asked if they had something to clean my leg with. They at first said no, so Fran handed me a shot of rum and I figured alcohol might prevent any nasty infection I could get from the sewer. The bartenderes later managed to find an old rusty first aid kit somewhere which had perioxide and cotton to clean my cut with. I was ok after that and managed to dance for the next several hours.

The next morning Liz and I did not receive the wake up call we were supposed to have a t 7am and woke up to Paula (ISA staff member) knocking on our day saying we had to leave in 10 minutes. Or course we hadnt packed or anything and had to scurry to get packed and clean up the room. I had set my alarm on my cell phone, because I assumed we wouldnt have a wake up call like the previous morning but it turned out that Griffins friend Skyler took my phone by mistake and that was why we didnt wake up in time. We ended up getting ready just in time to get on the bus where we were returning to the falls to see the remainder of the park. It was a beautiful day for the falls and we got several fantastic pictures of them. Unfortunately I will probably not be able to post them until I return to the states because it takes forever to upload photos here. After a couple hours in the park, we returned to the hotel to prepare for our flight back that night. After returning to BA, I went to an amazing middle eastern restaurant called Sarkees. This food also had a lot of flavor and was actually pretty healthy which can also be hard to find here. I returned home pretty laid absolutely exhausted and pretty beat up especially with my wounded leg. The next morning the extremely annoying man who works at the gym asked me what happened and of course touch my cut causing me pain which I did not appreciate. I understood his concerns but he really gets on my nerves. He always talks to me and touches my face while I am trying to get through my workout. I usually cant get away because I am on the bike or the elliptical. Hes nice but I do not want to talk to anyone when Im sweaty and out of breath.

Today my distractions continued as always. I was planning to meet Griffin before his class to get my cell phone back. I forgot that he had class in a different building than I do. I was supposed to meet him at 950 and realized at 1015 that he wasnt coming because he had class in the other building. I raced to the other building and ended up finding one of his friends who had his number for me to text him. I waited for about 20 minutes when he arrived and said he actually had class at 11 and thats why he couldnt meet me sooner. At least I got my phone back. I then went to the ISA office planning to study for the next two hours until my tutoring session. I got there and saw my friend JEssica and we started talking. I was then told my one of the staff that I had to complete an online survey which took about 40 minutes. My friend Mark then convincced me to go get empanadas with him. By the time we got back it was time for tutoring and I didnt study at all. Tutoring was helpful as always. I feel like it is more beneficcial than studying anyways. For the past four hours I have been at Starbucks, attempting to study but I really just cant get anything accomplished. i actually had to go all the way home to get a different adapter for my charger because the one I had did not plug into the outlet here. So from now until 9 I am going to try avoid any other distractions and really study for once! I have my globalization prefinal tomorrow. If I do well I do not have to take the actual final. ITs my hardest one. Hopefully I can focus long enough to acctually learn something! Por suerte!

Only two more weeks of class left!! Its so strange because all my friends in the U.S. just had midterms and I am about to have my finals. After finals, on November 6, I am heading to Peru, Bolivia, Chile and then back to Buenos Aires for my last couple weeks. I do miss home and Charleston a lot but I will definitely be sad to leave Argentina. There are so many things I want to do, but even 5 months isnt enough time to do it all. I talked to my friend Allison this weekend and we want to plan a trip to come back after we graduate.

I am gonna go backwards this week starting with yesterday. Yesterday was el dia de la madre (mothers day) here. Seeing all of the advertisements and people with their moms made me really miss my mom. At least I got to celebrate with my host mom here Virginia. Liz and I figured she would get lots of flowers and gifts from her 8 grandkids and her own kids, so we asked if we could make dinner for her and Vicente instead. Surprisingly she allowed us. We made pasta, salad, and brushetta. We tried to avoid putting too much flavor into the food because we were afraid it would be too much since the food is usually more bland here. Virginia and Vicente were really impressed with our cooking and said it was the first time any of their 80 students had cooked for them. It felt good to cook and I was happy that they liked the food. I even heard Virginia talking on the phone about how good the food was to one of her kids. Its so funny because she is constantly on the phone talking to usually her kids or grandkids. Everytime I use the phone to call home the call waiting beeps in at list 7 times. And as soon as I hang up the phone rings. Everytime she answers the phone it always seems like there is some sort of crisis, but usually its just someone telling her about their day. Its pretty funny. I guess its common for older ladies to always be on the phone here.

On Thursday Liz and I went to the leather district searching for leather boots. Liz ended up buying a leather wallet that she justified by telling herself that she had had her other one for the last 3 years. I resisted a leather bag that I was in love with, but went back to buy it on Saturday when my mom told me I could have it for a Christmas gift. Its something I will use for everything. It had be used a shoulder bag or a purse. I love it! Thursday night I went back to the jazz club that I went to the week before and actually got there on time. It was great music and I actually met a guy from Akron (40 minutes from my hometown Poland in Ohio) who is traveling through South America until December. ITs crazy how I could be in a city with 13 million ppl and meet someone that lives so close to me at home.

Friday I wasnt too productive during the day as usual. I forced myself to research classes for the spring in Charleston which was hard to think about considering my classes here have been such a breeze. Later in the day I went to Lago de Palermo and read for my globalization class because I have my prefinal next Wednesday that I decided to get a head start on. Friday night one of Virginia and Vicente's previous students came for dinner with her Argentinian husband and new baby Noah. Jennifer met her husband Juan here while she was studying and they ended up getting married after 3 years of being apart after she returned to the US and then went to the Dominican Republic while she was in the Peace Cor. They now live outside of LA and were here for the week visiting Juan´s family. Jennifer came here speaking no Spanish seven years ago and now is obviously fluent. I hope to say the same in the future. Juan said I spoke Spanish well which was good to hear.

Later that night, I was supposed to go salsa dancing with Allison but the salsa place was closed for the weekend for some kind of government inspection. We ended up going to her friend Nina's house who goes to UCLA with her for her bday party. Nina´s host brothers are our age and are planning to go to the states in December to work at a ski resort in Beaver Creek, Colorado. Thats actually what Liz's boyfriend Franco is doing also in December. Its very common for Argentinians to do that because there are many job recruiters that come here from the U.S. to get workers. ARound 3am, we went to a club called Kika which was so much fun. The club played a great mix of reggaton and some actual good American music for once. I didnt get home until around 630 am.

Saturday I went to a park in Palermo with Griffin, his roommate Lizzy, and some other friends. It was a beautiful day to be outside. So we just relaxed most of the day and then I went home for dinner later on. Dinner was pretty comical which it is most nights. Virginia insisted on watching this show about a transvestite who actually really looked like a woman. For some reason transvestites are really popular on t.v. here. I guess they provide good entertainment. Later in the show, there was a midget stripper who stole someones boyfriend. It was pretty ridiculous. OF course the phone rang several times during the show,a nd Virginia always left the table to answer it, so Vicente would change the channel to a soccer game while she was gone. She would then yell at him to change it back when she returned. It reminded me of when my dad is constantly changing the channel when my mom is trying to watch something (but is usually falling asleep), or when my dad falls asleep and I steal the remote and then he suddenly wakes up and the first thing he says is ¨Where is the remote?¨ It was a pretty funny situation, which is how Virginia and Vicente are pretty much all the time. Usually they will bicker to each other about something and then just start laughing.

After dinner, I met up with some friends and a bar called Sugar which was packed on Saturday. Afterwards I went to a birthday party with Brenda and met some of her other friends I hadnt met before. (Its always someones birthday here!) I was pretty tired from the night before so went home early (around 3). All in all it was a good week, I am looking forward to this weekend. I am going to Iguazu which is like the Niagra Falls of South AMerica. I had friends who went this past weekend and loved it. I cant wait!! Chau chau!

So apparently the shirt I was wearing yesterday made me look pregnant because when I was shopping the woman working at the store asked me if I was pregnant. When I told her no she didnt appear embarassed or apologize for her mistake. I later noticed that the shirt was bunched up under the sweater I had on and I guess could have made me look slightly pregnant. I couldnt take too much offense to it because of how direct the culture is here eventhough normally I would have considered her to be very rude. Sometimes I feel like I am being yelled at by Virginia but really she is just talking in her normal tone which can at times sound angry.

This past weekend was another long weekend due to Columbus day where pretty much no one works or goes to school. Thursday night I went to a jazz club with Griffin some of his friends from the U.S. who had arrived that day and Brenda. We got there late, and the hostess told us there was still a second of the show left and made us each pay 20 pesos (5 USD). However, the band only played about three more songs. So we were kind of mad that we had to pay so much. Apparently we could have argued with the lady and gotten some money back. Brenda told us that every restaurant and club has some kind of book that is required by the government here. If you are unhappy with your service you can ask to see it and I guess write complaints in it and get money back for poor customer service. If the restaurant doesnt have a book or refuses to let you see it you supposedly can get them in trouble with the law. At the time we didnt feel the need to do so and just stayed after the band played.

Friday I wasnt too productive during the day pretty much relaxed. That night I went with Griffin and some other people to a reggae club called Uniclub. It was a relaxed atmosphere and the music was really good. I met a girl who noticed me and another friend speaking English in the bathroom and introduced herself. Her name was Ruby and said she was from Hawaii but now lives here with her Argentine boyfriend. I told her how it is difficult to find nice Argentine guys who arent total creeps. Apparently their are some good ones out there.

Saturday I went shopping in an area called Plaza Serrano that has a feria on the weekends and all the shops are open and many local designers sell their merchandise there. It is really cool because a few of the bars that are only open at night allow the designers to set up stands inside the bar and sell until later at night. I found a lot of good things but it was nearly impossible to shop and try things on because there were so many people! Also trying stuff on gets difficult because usually there is only one size and the sizes here are so small that it makes normal body types seem obese. This country actually has the second highest rater of eating disorders in the world under Japan. The majority of the women are extremely thin and really look very unhealthy. Brenda told me that in the 90's anorexia was such a "fad" that stores only carried the smallest of sizes. The government actually had to pass a law to require stores to carry bigger sizes. I really don't understand how the people are so skinny here because most of the food is horrible for you. The milk that they drink is more like cream, a lot of the stuff is fried, breadm pasta, pizza ,and they love red meat here of course. I am really excited to have vegetables and low carb meals again and food with more flavor when I go back to the U.S.

After my shopping excursion, I went to see the Argentina vs. Peru soccer game. A group of us got there right when the game was starting but of course it was a long process to actually get into the stadium. We had to walk through several barricades because we were at the wrong entrance of the field. Most of the streets were blocked of making it impossible to get around. Eventually we got into the stadium and got up to our "seats." I felt so foreign! There were tons of Argentinians blocking the stairs to get into the bleachers, so we had to somehow squeeze through all of them to get up to the top. Once we got to the top, we had an amazing view and it was a great game. Argentina scored and was winning pretty much the whole game. Shortly after half time it started to pourrrrrr down rain. It was coming directly towards where my group was sitting of course. Within the last ten minutes of the game, Peru scored tying the game 1-1. And somehow despite the ridiculous amount of rain one of the players Maradona (who is actually a drug addict) slid and scored winning the game for Argentina. It was pretty exciting! But then we all had to walk home in the pouring down rain because it was nearly impossible to get a cab or bus. That night, I met some other friends at a little bar in Palermo called Sugar that has good drink specials. We then went to a club called Pacha which was pretty far away on the outskirts of the city. It was also still pouring down rain. The club was huge and really neat however pretty much everyone there was on drugs except for us. It was actually nice to not be approached by creepy boys because they were all in their own world. We stayed there til about 630 am and decided we had enough of the blasting techno music.

Sunday I went to San Telmo and found a really nice birthday gift for my room mates 21st which is coming up. I wont say what it is in case she is reading. That night I went out with Brenda for one of her friend´s birthdays. We had a good time dancing and the dj played a lot of really great music from the 90´s. I called it an early night since I was out so late the night before.

Yesterday I attempted to go to the gym but it was of course closed due to the holiday, so I went on a run around Belgrano and found a lot of neat little parks I had never been to. Afterwards I went to the Japonese garden with my friend Jessica. We had really good Japonese food at the restaurant there and walked around the garden and got some pretty pictures. Afterwards, I shopped around Plaza Serrano again and found a purse that I had been looking for to go out. I was pretty tired after walking around all day and attempted to go to a movie store to rent some dvds. I didnt have my passporte and so couldnt create an account there so couldnt rent a movie. I decided just to go home and watch a movie that I had bought that my friend Francisco suggested I watch. It was supposed to be in French with Castellano subtitles but for some reason the subtitles didnt work. So I attemped to understand a movie and French but pretty much just fell asleep. Today is a beautiful day...going to the Lago de Palermo with Liz. Thats all I have for now!

Its finally starting to get warm and sunny here more often which is good. Technically the first day of spring was two weeks ago but it was pretty cold the beginning of last week but was really nice all weekend. I have really been missing things from the U.S. lately and found a few things that I havent seen the whole time I have been here. On Thursday Rachael, Lizzy, Liz, Jared, and I went to a place called Pura Vida which is a smoothie and health food cafe. It was so good to have a wrap with healthy vegetables and hummus in it. Its so hard to find something healthy that actually tastes good at a restaurant here. Lizzy, Rachael, and I went back on Friday morning to have bagels which are pretty hard to find here. I hadnt had a bagel since I left the states, so I was pretty excited! After the bagel place on Friday I went to el Museo de Bellas Artes which is a European art museum in Recoleta. Along with the European art, it also had a modern art exhibit which was really colorful and abstract. After the museum, I decided to take the subway to go to a bookstore my literature professor recommended my class goes to find a book we have to read for class on Wednesday. Of course I went there on two different subway lines and the store didnt have the book I needed. I went to several other bookstores who didnt have it either. All of the store workers who I asked about the book kind of gave me a strange look (like why would you want that book?) and I have no idea why. Luckily my friend found it online and sent me the book in a pdf through email. Friday night, I went to my Italian friends' apartment to hang out before they were going out to a boliche. My friends Klaus and Stefan are from northern Italy but their first language was German, and they also study in Austria. They can speak English, Italian, German, and Spanish. They had never learned Spanish before coming here and manage to take all classes with Argentine students and speak better than me. I guess its easy for them because Spanish and Italian are pretty similar. It was really neat because there were people there from Germany, Italy, one guy from Costa Rica, another from Colombia, the U.S., and then my friend Brenda from here. Everyone spoke entirely in Spanish which was really good. Usually when I go out with my friends from the states we speak English, so I was glad to get the extra practice. I was talking to the Colombian guy, but had a difficult time understanding him and times because he used some expressions I was not familiar with. He also asked me if I liked Latino men and I told him no, especially Argentinian men because they are really forward and annoying. He then continued to tell me he liked my eyes and asked for my number! I dont understand why men here just cant tell when you are not interested. It is really hard to get away times. They will follow you around and annoy you into talking to them. Later on in the night, I went to a local bar with Brenda to meet up with some of her friends. It was a neat place with a terrace on the roof. I met a girl name Yammy (pronounced Shammy here) and her boyfriend Leo and another girl named Flor. Flor asked me about the United States and what I liked about Argentina. I told her I liked how relaxed the culture is here and how people arent always rushed when doing things. People dont seem to be as stressed out here about every little thing. However at times that can be frustrating when you really want to get something done. For example, when you just want pick up a package at the post office and have to wait an hour and then have to pay for the package that the person who sent it to you already paid for.

On Saturday I went with Brenda to buy tickets to see Phantom of the Opera on Sunday and then we had lunch near the theater down town. I got a turkey sandwich which was also really exciting because turkey is pretty rare to find here. After lunch, I had a few free hours and decided to get ahead on the 600 pages of reading for my history exam on Thursday. That night I went to Pilar which is suburb on BA with Liz and her boyfriend Franco and one of Franco's friends. Franco's soccer team had won some kind of tournament and him and his friends rented out what was like a hall in the U.S. for a party. There were a ton of people there! They bought some ridiculous party decorations and those abnoxious glasses with a moustache and nose for people to wear. I met a lot of people and spoke in Spanish alot.

We returned on Sunday afternoon and Liz and I went to lunch. Last night, Brenda and I went to see the Phantom of the Opera. It was in Spanish but I was actually able to understand most of it mainly because I have seen it in English. The music was beautiful, and the cast was very well done. Overall a great week! I have a lot o f reading to do for class this week. Chau!