Week Numero dos

yumm Mimi just brought me tea and crackers. She is too cute. This week has felt so long and it is only Wednesday, oy! Monday was a tad uneventful, lo siento. To start my day I had my first exam. I thought is was only going to take twenty minutes, I was misinformed. It took me a good hour to finish and I was the second to finish. Two classmates of mine took over an hour and half. The teacher had to tell them to wrap it up in order to learn something useful for the rest of class. Despues de la clase I had my first tutoring experience with Paula. Elizabeth (roomy) told me all you do is talk and she corrects you in Spanish. Sounds easy enough. Well after about ten minutes of trying to speak Spanish and getting corrected every other word, it starts to get really frustrating. Therefore I started talking softer and softer because I was tired of making mistakes and resorted to simple sentences. She was really nice and patient, but after constant criticism (at least that's what it felt like to me), I just kind of gave up. 

The best part was that I discovered my dyslexia transcends languages. In the beginning I told Paula that my sisters were dieciseis anos (16) instead of veintiseis (26). I started talking about how they live in Chicago and Pittsburgh and I don't see them that often. Then she asked me why they moved there and I said to be with their boyfriends of course??!!?!! Her mouth drops and she's like, "Que??!?!!? What is wrong with your family?" At this point I was confused. She then said "At sixteen your mother let them move in with their boyfriends!! I can't believe it!"... that's when I hit my head on the table, covered my mouth with both hands and said sheepishly "my bad. I meant 26.---I'm dyslexic. This happens a lot." She had a good 3 minute laugh after that while I turned red and decided not to give any more descriptions of things unless she specifically asked for them. Nisht gut (not good in Yiddish). I guess you could say it went down hill from there.... 

Tuesday was a lot better. It was freezing!!! I made the mistake of wearing only a t-shirt and a thin fleece. My saving grace was my scarf from Italia. I wrapped that thing around me as many times as possible until it covered half my face. When i walked into class my friend was like, "are you wearing that to protect yourself from El Gripe (Swine Flu) b/c that's not gonna do shit." wow, thank you. ----Side Note: So South America had their first person die of Swine Flu on Monday or Tuesday, I forget which day exactly, so ppl are flipping out more than usual. This girl in my class, Alicia, got sick over the weekend and told her director of her tour. They both went to the hospital b/c her symptoms were similar to El Gripe (aka the flu or any basic cold) and they both ended up in quarantine. Since then Alicia has missed class all week and can't leave her house for another ten days even though all she really has is a sore throat and a headache. That's basically the rest of our stay here. Talk about worst case scenario. It gets better, her roommate who isn't sick at all is also in quarantine in the house but is allowed to leave the house every so often, but when she does she has to wear a face mask. Ridiculous!! Another funny side note: So the first outbreak of El Gripe in this area occurred the first week we got here. This girl in elementary school caught it when she was at Disney World! How funny is that? The authorities decided to quarantine the ENTIRE school so Mimi's granddaughter was stuck at school for almost a day. The school is about two blocks from the University so it was a local spectacle. 

Continuing.... in class we learned about the preterit tense. For a fun activity our teacher gave us a list of questions that we had to get the answers to by asking people on the street. They were about famous people from Argentina, like: What is the name of a popular comic book character? Name the most famous person in tango history? ect... Besides the fact that is was freezing, we couldn't understand the answers that people were giving. One lady tore the pen out of my hand and corrected my entire list of answers because she saw that what i was writing down was no where close to what she was actually saying. Rude, but helpful jaja. It was a fun mini adventure. After class I got a small group of friends to come with me in search of the best pizza in Buenos Aires. True to my nature, I researched everything the night before. How to get there, what to order, how much it would cost, and so forth. (you taught my well el padre!)

Well we got off at the right subte station but then I realized i forgot my map. THE ONE AND ONLY DAY I LEFT THE HOUSE WITHOUT MY DANG MAP. Well, lucky for mis amigos I have a good sense of direction and only made us turn around twice jajaja. Just to make sure we were going in the right direction I asked one of those guys that hands out flyers and wears a billboard over their clothes. To paint a picture he was crossed eyed, hunched over, and limping. I kind of don't know what I was thinking when i approached him, but I asked him where the street i needed was and he gave me accurate directions. After that my friends were like, "why did you just ask the shadiest, creepiest man on the street for directions?? If anyone was gonna rob you, stab you, or follow you it would have been him." lol

El restaurante se llamo a Guerrin Pizzaria and it was muy deliciosa!!! I ended up splitting a mozzarella and pepper pizza with a friend. I also ordered this local dish called Faina. It's a thin layer of crusted chick peas that you order and put on top of your pizza. It is suppose to absorb the grease of the pizza and make it easier to eat it. Alone it didn't have much of a taste but with the pizza it was quite good. I'm glad I tried it. I also tried a local white dessert wine called Moscato. I shared a bottle with friend because a bottle is only 14 pesos (approx 4 dollars). what a deal!! It was funny because when the cajero (waiter) poured the wine it came out brown. Humm that's not what white wine is suppose to look like?? Eh, we drank it and it was delicious. It was actually my first alcohol of the trip. I saved the rest of my bottle and plan to drink it at another occasion later on. Side note---the bottle was made in Mendoza, Argentina and I plan on visiting Mendoza aka "Wine Country" with my family later on. 

After pizza we rode the crowded subte back home. Crowded enough that a good four people touched my butt. Alllllll part of the BA experience. Got home did some homework, read Twilight, watched the Hills finale (yeah, that's right. I watched it), then had dinner. Around 10:30pm I left with Elizabeth to meet some friends at McD's to then take the colectivo to this bar called Alamo. Its a sports bar that has beer pong on Tuesday nights. Andrew's roommate runs the table so he told us that we'd get it all to our selves. Saweet. yeah, its good to know that the comforts of home are never too far away. So the McD's had its own mini cafe adjacent to el restaurante and served legit ice cream. I thought Bethesda had an upscale McD's but this one put it to shame. When we all finally had everyone at 11pm we found out another friend of ours was having an awful day so we changed our plans and met her at a cafe to help her drink her sorrows away. We took el tren to the bar. You don't need a ticket after 9pm so literally you can just hop on as it passes by. I felt like I was a run away jaja. 

The cafe was called Proxi and we were the only ones there. I tried my friend's Champagne and it was delicious. I said it tasted like Andre and he was like what's that? I explained that its this cheap champagne that girls like to drink. My friend then let Andrew try it and Andrew was like, "oooh this tastes like Andre." bahahah I got a peach smoothy with water (instead of milk. its cheaper with agua). It was surprisingly tasty. My friend John was the only one to get food. He wasn't sure what he order but it looked like a pancake. When they brought it out they drenched it in rum and lit it on fire. John was extremely confused but once the flames were extinguished he ate it. That's called flambe. Thank you Top Chef! After we closed the cafe down we chatted up some local los gatos then headed to a pool bar. The bar was pretty empty. It was called Wrangler bar and it was Texas themed: cow horns, western posters, and cowboy hats galore! I felt right at home. My friend's ordered beer and when they brought it out it was in this huge blender looking thing that had it's own tap. Pretty cool. We played one game of pool for over an hour because we were all awful at it. The host watched us the whole time and I could tell he was getting annoyed because we were so bad jaja. The only reason the game ended was because my friend sunk the 8 ball in lol.

Around 1:50am I decided to call it a night since I had homework to finish AND school at 9:30 the next morning. It felt like a typical Thursday at college. I think that's what threw me off because today I could not believe that it was only Wednesday. I'm so excited because I leave for Igauzu Falls tomorrow. We leave at 7pm Thursday and drive on this really comfortable bus to the falls which is approx a 20 hour trip. The bus has attendants (like flight attendants) who provide us with dinner, breakfast, and our every desire (i wish). How cool is that? So yeah, I won't be posting blogs until I return Sunday night. Enjoy the weekend. I know I will :) chau!!

Fotografias

My apologies, for I have been trying to load my pictures into an album through York photos, Kodak, and facebook and have yet to be successful. I'm sorry to report but you might just have to wait until I come back to the States to see all of my photos. I also apologize for the fact that most of my photos are scenery. I have never been a huge people person photo taker, but I will try my best to throw a person into the mix every once in a while. jajaja but i do have a few pictures of cats. Think of it as Where's Waldo. The best I can do is upload a picture here and there to accompany a post. I will say that I have taken over 144 its only been day 10.  LO SIENTO!!!!!

donde está la tumba de Eva Peron?

The gods answered my prayers because Sunday was a beautiful day! Saturday night I planned out my route and decided to take on the Recoleta barrio yesterday. I got my bag all ready and headed out for the subte Jose Hernandez estacion. Again it wasn't that crowded at all on the subte and I left my house around 1ish. I was a tad disappointed that I wasn't offered anything new by the gypsy people, just the same old Jesus cards and sewing kits. Once I arrived at the Pueyrredon estacion in Recoleta I had to walk a good ten blocks to reach the Cemetario de Recoleta.

 I really enjoyed the neighborhood. It was clean, the shops were interesting, there were parks, and the buildings were really cool. I enjoyed the walk because every Pasteleria looked scrumptious. It was a good thing I ate before I left because every pastry, cake, pie, loaf of bread, chunk of cheese, and pizza looked beyond amazing. In my head I was planning on where to stop on the way home hehe. I finally recognized the wall surrounding the Cemetery, but I couldn't figure out where the entrance was. I walked around all three sides of the squared wall until I found this artisan market that looked like it might lead me to the entrance. They were selling some really unique things but I told myself I was not going shopping today. But again, the food that the venders were selling smelled and looked delicious. I was rally upset with myself that I ate lunch before leaving. After frantically circling the market a few times I finally found the entrance.

The Cemetery was an elaborate maze. I tried to figure out where Eva Peron's tomb lay but I guess I heard the directions wrong because I asked for alternate directions three more times. I finally had to follow some Americans who were racing around trying the be the first to find her tomb. The whole cemetery was pretty chill (jaja a made a joke). It reminded me a lot of the cemetery i visited in New Orleans. I found some famous generals and people who were the names of calles in mi barrio. To be honest I was a little disappointed with Evita's tomb. I figured it would be this grand, eloquent, tomb with hundreds of plaques surrounding it. Unfortunately it was the same size as the tombs around it and was sandwiched by some general and Ricky Martin (jajaja the tomb actually said Ricardo Martinez, but some american kid was like "dude i swear Evita is buried next to Ricky martin, look!") Also reading the tour book, I was expecting hundreds of plaques with inspiration quotes but in actuality there were maybe ten. I felt like I just found out my favorite love song was written about a sandwich. (27 Dresses anyone??? Kerry???) I took over 70 pictures in the cemetery and most of them had kitties in them. There were cats EVERYWHERE. They just seemed so out of place to me because they were sleeping, bathing, and laying out on these famous tombs as if it was some door step in an alley, but that's just my opinion.

After the cemetery I ended up purchasing my first souvenir of the trip: a sign that says "Tango Bar" decorated in Porteno art. It was more expensive then I had anticipated so I began to walk away without it, but then the lady lowered the price for me. I'm a natural at bargaining. After the market I walked around this park, took some pictures of statues, ran into two people from my program and found this awesome bridge. It had some crazy graffiti all over it and I loved it. Not sure why, but currently I'm obsessed with graffiti. I like it more than the art I saw at the museum, but I'm not there yet. From the bridge I could see this awesome sculpture called the Floralis. (see picture) Is was built by Eduardo Catalano in 2002. I liked it a lot. After the bridge I headed into the Museo National de Bellas Artes. It was gratis (free) and had two floors of mostly Argentine painters and sculptors. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not a huge fan of art and I personally prefer graffiti, but I'm glad I went. Feeling very satisfied with my touring for the day and hungry at this point I decided to return home. I planned on having my first experience with the world famous ice cream at the best heladoria in the city, Freddo. Everyone recommended I get Dulce de leche granizado so I did. It was to die for!!! Yummm. I timed it perfectly for i finished my ice cream right as i got to the subte.

Sigh, it was a great day. I explored, I conquered, and I got ice cream :) When I got back I watched the Boca game and called it a day. This coming week I plan on hitting up another Cemetery, some authentic Porteno Pizza, and iguazu Falls this weekend. Can't wait. Chau!!

la lluvia, lluvia sale. se vuelve otro díae

My first day to explore Argentina on my own and on my own schedule and ITS POURING (and cold)!!!!!!! You didn't think that would stop me did you? Good. Ha! I was motivated to explore and refused to give into the bad weather. I couldn't tell how badly it was raining until I got down to the lobby and the door man asked in spanish "you know its raining right?". I politely smiled, pulled out my raincoat, said "Si, claro" and walked out the door. On the way to the subte station I brought a snack and was eating it as i walked and again everyone starred at me. I didn't realize that eating on the run was an American thing as well. geez....

I took the Subte all the way to the end of Linea D to the Catedral stop. My plan was to conquer Plaza de Mayo, Avenida de Mayo, Puerto Maderno, and 9 de Julio. It was ambition, but I was motivated. I had my iPod, my map, my camera, and my journal so I was ready to go. The subte ride took a good thirty minutes and when I arrived at Catedral it was raining harder. Eh, I retraced my steps from our first day of touring to take the pictures that accidentally got erased on that first day. As I walked around the Plaza de Mayo I realized that nobody was around. I was virtually alone with all the homeless, gypsy people. That was the moment I realized i should put my iPod away and try to "blend in" with my bright red raincoat. I was confused, it was 12:30-1pm and this tourist destination was DESERTED. strange, I guess when you go out until 8am the next morning you really don't start your day until 3-4pm. I also noticed that people don't really rely on raincoats, they all use umbrellas. Well, now I know.

I next headed over to the port area to take pictures of Women's Peak. The locals say it looks like a woman dancing the Tango. Frankly, I don't see it but it is pretty. (See Picture)

From there I decided to conquer Avenida de Mayo. Well to my disappointment there really wasn't much to see. I guess all the artisan shops were closed because of the rain. I saw some of the famous buildings the tour book mentioned like the Tango Museum and some famous architecture, but all in all i wasn't that impressed. I guess I need to go back on a sunny day. Also, the rain and the wetness started to get to me and I was ready to call me trip off. Not to mention I was wearing flip flops, which wasn't a big deal because i always wear flip flops in the rain, but I had stepped in some suspicious puddles and my toes were turning an interesting red/purple color so I told myself to make it to the Obelisco and call it a day. I was also starving but I just wanted to go home so I decided to try and get food once i got off the metro. 

Well when I got back to Belgrano I was so wet and cold i told myself I would check out the little cafe next to my apartment. Yeah, all it had were pastries. errrrrr Well I got home and was happy that Elizabeth was there so I could ask her how to order Empanadas. So baked empanadas are AMAZING!!!!! I put on sweats, uploaded my pictures then joined Elizabeth in watching some tv. She and mimi had told me that normally the weekend has the worst tv shows and movies, but yesterday they were playing really good stuff. The day started with Shakespeare in Love and ended with Boondock Saints. The empanadas ended up taking a really long time so my stomach was growling very loudly. When they arrived, it was amazing. I had Pollo and Carne Suerte empanadas. I highly recommend the Carne Suerte. We then watched Mean Girls in Spanish and talked for a few hours. After that I headed to my room and watched Iron Man/napped. Then I skyped with mi madre and relaxed for the rest of the day. It is amazing how weather makes a person lazy. I was proud of the fact that I went out despite the rain and accomplished something for the day. I can only image what the rest of my program did today since they got home at 8am??!?!!?!

¿usted quiere mi pelota?

Friday I had my first training session with the San Lorenzo women's club team. Dario is this guy who works here in Buenos Aires and helped my parents plan their stay in BA as well as connect me with a team to play with. He picked me up from my house in Belgrano and drove me to the stadium. If I were to take the colectivo (bus) to the stadium it would take me around an hour and then I would have to take another mini van/bus to take me directly to the stadium. He warned me that the stadium is not in a nice area of town and that it is extremely dangerous. This is why he insisted that I ride the colectivo with one of the players, Flo. To bad for me Flo does not speak ingles.

About half an hour into our ride the scenery changed significantly. I'm not gonna say that I was scared by the neighborhood, but its not the kind of place that they recommend tourists visit. You know those movies or documentaries where rich people slowly drive into the poor neighborhoods of Africa or India and they start crying because its so horrible and shocking to them and they feel so bad that they are so privileged and these people are eating out of trash. Yeah, I kind of had a moment like that expect i wasn't shocked. I'm not naive, I know there are places like San Lorenzo all over the world and I've seen them in other countries. I was glad I got to see it thought. I would compare Belgrano to Bethesda, Maryland and San Lorenzo to the southeast section of DC, just to give you a picture of the disparity between the two barrios. Trash was everywhere, stray dogs were eating out of the garbage, and people were selling random useless things in the street. I'm glad I saw it. I don't wanna be sheltered, I want to see the good and the bad of a place/country when I visit. Dario also said almost every stadium in Argentina is surrounded by the same kind of neighborhood. It makes sense. anyways....

On the way to the estadio, Dario told me a few things about the team. 

 1. They come from lower class families so don't wear anything flashy like jewlery, watches, or lots of flashy gear. Got it: no jewels!

 2. The soccer for women here is in no comparison to the soccer in the states. After I told him I haven't touched a ball in awhile nor have a run in the past three weeks, he reassured me that I would still be better than some of the girls.

 3. Don't show off. Don't try to nut-meg them or make them look foolish. You might get an elbow to the eye. (It's funny because during practice the team was rehearsing a corner kick and I saw the coach talking to the players about marking and holding shirts in a way that ref's can't see. Then I saw a few players make gestures that suggested if they had to they would gladly through a few elbows or clothes-lines if they had to. I was just glad I wasn't in the play). I guess I'll have to save my rainbow/maradona,/scissors move for pick up.

4. The facilities are no way near the kind of facilities I'm probably use to. Pot holes, check!--- Well honestly, when I got there the place was really nice, they had at lest 5 different fields and they were all occupied by youth and developmental teams for the club. Sadly, only one field is allowed for the women and it was being used by a boys team when we arrived. Typical. 

5. The last and most important thing he told me was that most of them are lesbians. In the car Dario was like "Do you play with many lesbians?" jajaja At first I didn't know what he was asking but them I figured it out and i started laughing. I said I've been on teams with one or two but the majority of female soccer players are not gay. I had to explain to him that people don't really use the word "lesbian" as frequently as they do "gay", when describing both men and women. I said normally you ask or start out with "are you gay?" and then respond with "oh, your a lesbian." This is just my experience with the term, I have no idea if this is correct or not. Sorry if i offend anyone!!!! 

So feeling some what prepared for my soccer debut in Argentina, my nerves started to settle. We arrived and walked around all the fields to find the girls team. As we walked around I noticed a lot of eyes on me. It made me feel a little self-conscious but at least I wasn't alone. Dario showed me the indoor facility and I saw these girls twirling around on roller skates. It was awesome! I wanted a picture but Dario said it wasn't a good idea. :( He explained that its a sport down here, its like ice skating but on roller blades. heheheh I would like to try it sometime.... We finally arrived and I got dressed as the team listened to the coach for like 20 minutes. Reminded me of my club days with my coach Brad. I saw some girls zoning out while others played with their shoes while he talked. Dario informed me that they were playing Boca on saturday and it was a HUGE game because last season San Lorenzo beat them in the final for the first time in 6 years, so they have to defend their title. 

After the lecture we finally headed out to the la cancha (field). The nicest girl was the keeper who was around 30 years old with lots of gray hair jajaja I have no idea how to pronounce her name but at least she tried to talk to me. Their idea of a "warm up" is one touch keep away with two girls in the middle of a circle of ten girls. The twist is that if the girls in the middle get nut-megged or hit with the ball on the first pass they have to stay in longer. I was thinking, great I can do this, but then they stringed maybe 3 passes in a row before the ball was hit out of bounds. I touched the ball once and watched as the girls interacted. In my opinion it wasn't much of a warmup at all. I was introduced to the only girl who spoke Ingles because she grew up in, guess where, TEXAS. I'm fairly sure that I met more people from Texas during this trip than i ever will for the rest of my life. Her name was Juliette and she was nice but didn't really talk to me that much. After the "warm up" the girls did a combination of agility and running warm up exercises. I enjoyed them and I thought they were useful things to start a practice with. I thought it was funny when some girls kept messing up, while I got it right even though all the directions were in Spanish.

After the agility drills I expected the real drills to begin. Oh no, I was very wrong. They went straight into scrimmaging. I would have been fine except I hadn't touched a ball, I wasn't use to the field, I was playing center mid with a girl who gave off a "oh great i have to work with the foreigner vibe", oh and did i forget to mention that they don't use pennies????? I had no idea who was on my team. They all wore the same thing and i didn't know any of their names, plus the coach just switched people freely. HELPPPPPPP!!! The two or three times I actually touched the ball I lost it because I had no idea who to pass it to. It was a great first impression. On top of that the coach told me to play defensive mid, while the other girl plays offensive but the whole time my teammate was marking the girl near me and never moved up. I was completely lost! Harumph!!! Also, they were playing starters vs. second string and everyone knows how unfair that normally is. This was my first time on the second string side of the table and it was NOT fun. Finally after a while the coach comes up to me and is like "You get off now." jajaja I was like "gladly." sigh, I was frustrated but it made me miss practice and playing soccer. So on the sidelines I talked to Dario and met one of the girls little brother Tomas. He asked me all kinds of questions like "Do i like soccer?", "Do I speak Spanish?", and "Have I ever met anyone famous?". He was adorable and the nicest person of anyone. We ended up passing and juggling together until the practice was over. 

Practice ended and I got my things to leave. The keeper asked if i was going to shower and I told her i didn't have a towel, which was true, but in the back of my mind i was thinking about how most of them were gay and that made me a tinyyyyyyy bit uncomfortable. Plus I wasn't really sweaty. Dario was nice enough to drive me home but he also agreed to drive home these two guys as well. They didn't speak Ingles so I had a hard time keeping up with their conversations in the car. HOWEVER, when i took out my snack i saved and started eating I heard Dario say "  ella dkfjdksljjorf dkfdkjl  SNACK ehrehreh jeneifnnfrf...". I could tell they were talking about me. I asked Dario if he was talking about me and he smiled and said "Of course not". Yeah, he was explaining to the guy that Americans snack in between meals (In Argentina snacking doesn't really exist). Oh silly Americans and there silly ways!

So I'm not gonna say that I enjoyed my first training experience, but it wasn't horrible. I'm really worried/scared to take the bus alone to the field because I'm nervous about getting off at the wrong stop and having to walk around in a shady part of town alone. Normally I don't have any issues about going to places on my own, but the buses don't run that frequently in the dangerous neighborhoods, I would have my purse and other valuables with me that i travel with because I would be coming from class, and I don't have a good map of the area. I'm gonna talk to Dario about taking a taxi to the stadium and see if that could work. I will say that futbol is futbol and you can't keep me away from it for too long :)

If I bought everything I was offered on the Subte...

Here is an ongoing list of random things that people sell on the Subte. Everyday I encounter something new:

1. Card of Virgin Mary (really handy)

2. Sewing kit---this is kind of practical and I actually saw two women purchase a kit

3. Children's Stickers

4. Hair bands and Bobby Pins

5. La Guia Tour Book--- this is the one thing I was about to pay for b/c all the kids that have been here for a few months got it for free from ISA, but then I remembered that I could just borrow my roommates

6. Newspaper

7. Card of another Saint

8. Sturdy Wall Hangers

9. Mini Bibles

10. Pens

11. Virginity (I kid, I kid!)

This sums up Argentina

Jugá Limpio