Traslado a Recoleta

6 Julio

Monday was the first day of school in a new location, and it marked 3 weeks since I first came to BA. Luckily, one of the colectivo routes that uses a monedero goes straight from near my house to the new location. I arrived about 30 minutes early. When I got there, I pressed the intercom button to be let in, but no one answered. Luckily, Marcelo, the director of the international program for Austral was walking up to the door. He is a really cool guy. He's never lived in the US, but he speaks English really well and intellegently. He's like a younger, smarter, less nerdy, Argentine Danny Tanner from Full House, and he's fun to talk to. We talked about various things while we waited on the other students to show up. After a couple came, we started talking about coffee here, and how I can never get what I want. He gave us a lesson. They drink less quantities of coffee here, but it's stronger, like espresso. If you just order a "cafe" you will get a tiny cup, less than half the size of a mug, filled with black espresso. "Cafe con leche" means the same thing, but with milk added, so it's in a normal sized mug, and it's weaker. If I only want a little milk, I order a "cafe cortado" but I'm pretty sure that's in a tiny mug, too. If I want black coffee in a normal mug, that's "cafe doble," because it's like two shots of coffee. So, if I want a normal-sized mug filled with coffee and a little milk, (which is what I usually want), I must order a "cafe cortado doble." And there's even another option, "cafe lagrima," which is a tiny amount, a "tear," of really strong coffee added to milk. I'm glad that three weeks in to living here, I've finally figured out how to get the coffee I want.

Class was fun as usual with Marta. Afterwards, Cambria, Adam, and I walked around the barrio looking for somewhere to eat lunch. But, we learned that from 3-6, most restaurants don't serve their full menu, just coffee and pastries. This time of day is called "merienda," and it's like afternoon tea. This was discouraging for our stomaches. Cambria just went home because she lived nearby and had food there, and Adam and I went to McDonalds, the only place not having merienda. Adam wanted to eat his icecream with his meal, but the McDonalds worker, in trying to be considerate, told him to order it later. It ended up being pretty frustrating. I wish I could say that I enjoyed my McDonalds, but it had some sort of nasty, unnatural, white cheese on it. No me gusto. But, it filled me up. After that, I checked out the Havanna chocolate store, Argentina's national chocolate, made in La Plata, and I bought a variety pack of chocolates. They were all pretty good, but none of them compared to the dark chocolate morsel filled with dulce de leche. I shared the box with my host family. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but everyone here is nuts about dulce de leche, which is like a thicker, buttery-tasting carmel, but it's made with milk. The put it in and on everything: as a spread on toast, on fruit, in chocolates, as an icecream flavor, on flan, etc. At first I wasn't crazy about it, but now I really like it.

Later that day when when dinner was winding down, Brenda held a chunk of her belly and asked me what we call it in English. I told her "flab," and then added that if there's a lot of flab in her trasero (behind), we call it a "badonkadonk." It was fun teaching her some slang and hearing her say it in her thick Spanish accent.

7 Julio

Tuesday was Political Science and Economics with Carlos again. Apparently, Cambria had sent him a pretty riveting email, and Carlos spoke much slower, which was better for all of us. Unfortunately we have to read a big packet about changes in the Nation-State. We left class a little early, and Carlos took us to a nearby building where the National Academies meet. He explained that this is something that the U.S. doesn't have. It's a place where all of the experts in a field of science or thought, come together and discuss and research topics of national interest. Carlos knew the people in the building, and they seemed pleased to give us a tour. Pictures on Facebook. Part of the building was a library, which, I learned from the librarian, uses a decimal system, but not the Dewey Decimal System. I'm pretty sure I just went home after that. For dessert that night, Alejandra had made FLAN, which was really good. She had seen on Facebook that I took a test called "What kind of face do you have?", and my result was a face of flan, which, of course, I was pleased with because I love flan. I loved Alejandra's flan, too, and we joked about me being narcissistic because I loved my face so much.

8 Julio

Wednesday was class with Marta again, after which us five students went to a nearby heladería called Freddo. I got a coffee which I ordered using Marcelo's advice, and it was perfect. With the coffee they gave me a dollop of really strong dulce de leche ice cream. After that, Cambria, Adam, and I went back to Ateneo to explore it some more. It is a book store that used to be a theatre. Again, you can see it on Facebook. It's really beautiful. According to Marta, it's the second most beautiful bookstore in the world. The first is in Scandinavia or Switzerland or something. Then I went with Cambria to her house, but first I had to find some food from a kiosco. I chilled at her place for a while. We did some grammar homework and talked about CP. Come to find out that there's a bus stop that's less than a block away from Cambria's house that goes straight by my house and uses the monedero! On the colectivo, I noticed a man wearing a yamaka and holding a book with Hebrew on it. Yay! An opportunity to converse. I asked him what book he had (it was Numbers), but at first he just called it the "fourth book." He wasn't a priest, but he studied a lot of Hebrew. He confirmed that there was a large Jewish population in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, he got off the colectivo pretty soon. I wondered if it was because he didn't want to talk to me any more. :)

9 Julio

Thursday (today) we did not have class because it is 9 de Julio, Argentina's Independence Day. Strangely, they don't do anything special on this day like we do. All they do is just take off work. It's like our memorial day. When I woke up, I walked to a bus station to get some information to plan our weekend, and then I went by Plaza Miserere to get a Super Pancho. Most businesses were closed, but there were still several open. It was like a Sunday. After leaving the house that once, I've had a grand old time, updating my internet life, planning my weekend fun, doing some homework, listening to Relient K, and, yes, even watching some LOST. I was not too pleased with the last episode I watched because it basically said that you had to be baptized to go to Heaven, and it said that John the Baptist cleansed Jesus of his sin when he baptized him. I hope the world knows that these things are NOT true to what the Bible says even remotely. It's frustrating that television spreads falsehood about Christianity to an audience that that already doesn't trust it. Even if you look at it from a non-religious perspective, it's never cool to misquote a piece of literature and to say that it says something that the author never intended it to say. Whether it's Matthew or Hawthorne, it just makes that person look foolish to those who are familiar with the real story.