Now Time for a Real Blog Post
2013 September 22
Tonight, I’m starting the ambitious project of catching up with the present. I will be blogging as much as I can remember starting from August 26, the Monday after we returned from Iguana Zoo Falls (that one is so bad, it’s an anti-joke). It’s been raining all day, which is partially the reason why I am inside on a Saturday night updating my blog like a nerd. There’s a good place to start: the rain.
So it’s officially the first day of spring in the Southern Hemisphere (haha, Yankees), but supposedly that means a lot of rain. From last Saturday to last Tuesday it was pretty much a constant aguacero (“downpour” for those that are context clue disabled), followed by 80 degree Fahrenheit weather for about 3 more days and now it’s raining and about 50 degrees again. Last Monday when I walked home from school, my jacket was drenched as well as my shoes. I stepped on one of the many loose tiles in Bs As and it splashed all over my pants. But at least I can take comfort in the fact that storms are a necessary part of nature working to balance out the difference between warm fronts and cold fronts.
The school week of the 26th of August to the 29th of August was another school week believe it or not. However, on the 30th, La Universidad de Belgrano put on their annual Noche Internacional (by this point unless it’s a super-important translation, I’m just going to direct you to translate.google.com if you don’t understand what things are). This event actually reminded me of a night in Australia last March in WorldMUN as a part of the Creighton University International Relations Club trip (this is a shout-out to you guys). Back in March (and yearly at WorldMUN events), the students from all over the world dressed up in “traditional” (read: “stereotypical”) clothing of their country and had tables set up all over a courtyard where food and drinks were served from their country of origin. On the 30th of August, in the basement of the university, tables were set up all over the room where food and drinks were served from students’ countries of origin. I, of course, enjoyed everything I ate (even the “burnt chocolate” tasting stuff from Brazil, which was the only chocolate I’ve seen girls not like). And later in the evening, we had a tango performance put on by none other than our tango class. It wasn’t very long, about 2 minutes at most, and there wasn’t a lot of space, but that probably just made it more entertaining to watch (unfortunately I can’t find any videos of it, but it’s probably better that way). Side note: there were no burgers at the US table, only peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. I’m so disappointed in us.
The next night we went to a place called Jammin’ and saw this thing.
Good luck not having nightmares.
Jammin’ was fun, but to be honest, reggae isn’t exactly my thing. I don’t mind it too much, but other styles of music are usually preferred. Luckily, at the same club, there was a whole other room with more Latin American beats. I thoroughly enjoyed that night.
And then September happened, and I’m still not happy for what September did to August but I guess I’ll have to live with it. Another week of school (sorry I don’t talk much about that – I promise I’ll dedicate one of these entries entirely to the Keynesian Theory of Economics). And then another weekend. This weekend (September 6, 7 and 8) we had a “tour” of downtown Buenos Aires, set up by our program. Except, at that point we had been downtown at least 10 times already, and our guides had arrived in Argentina (from Holland) just a couple weeks before. But, I didn’t mind the tour. It was more fun talking to the Amauta interns (the Dutch people) and learning about their lives than a tour would ever be. What I find weird is that although the Netherlands is a small country far away from Argentina, I’ve met more Dutch people here than anywhere else. Holland must have a special Latin attraction to Argentina. Maybe this video can explain some things.
http://home/spencer/dontcryformeusa.com/public.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc
The next day saw a quick visit to a museum. This museum had pictures and other old stuff. The pictures and old stuff were put on display for people to stare at.
And that Saturday we went to Jobs, a bar-type place that had board games, pool, ping pong, and archery. Notice how these items are ordered in levels of funness when combined with alcohol, which is exactly what this place did.
And Sunday night, Morgan and I went to the Offspring concert because why not.
Protip: a “pit” ticket in Argentina doesn’t mean “mosh pit” ticket, much to our dismay. This was a fun event, and after seeing The Offspring 4 years ago in Sioux City, I didn’t expect to see them again, much less in Argentina. Plus, despite his age, Dexter Holland’s voice hasn’t crapped out on him yet, even though he’s made a living basically shouting at people in the upper ranges of his voice. When I saw Ozzy Osbourne, this was not the case.
Another week went by in school, and the weekend after that was last weekend from now. This marked the cumpleaños of Amy. And if you have a birthday in Argentina, that obviously means you have to go to a German restaurant.
It was called:
Baviera? I can’t read it either.
WarSteiner, or WarFteiner. It’s your pick.
We went to Jobs again.
And then it was “parciales” week (I’ll give this one to you for free: “midterms” because Google translate just says “partials”). Believe it or not, I don’t feel like writing about los parciales. I’m impartial to them. (But I’m actually somewhat mad about them because of the word MIDterms! MID! MIDDLE! NO!). I’m sure they went fine, but I guess I’ll find out la verdad de la milanesa later this week.
This Friday our program (AIFS/Amauta) set up a chacarera class for us. The chacarera is a traditional Argentine dance that is not tango. It was pretty easy and fun, pero aun prefiero el tango.
And last night we went to the most relaxed rock show I’ve ever seen. The music was loud and boisterous, but everyone kind of stood there, nodding their heads in amusement, like after a long week of work everyone decided that the best way to calm down was to go to a rock show.
The music was good, and while we were there we saw some other Americans (sorry, “US citizens”) that go to our university and hung out with them for the night. And, of course, it was fun. However, we stayed out way later than I wanted to (until about 5:00 in the morning). There are only so many nights in a row I can do that, and that’s the other reason why tonight, a Saturday night, I’m staying in to update my blog like some kind of supernerd.
And this morning afternoon, we went to Brazil Fest in la Plaza de Mayo.
This is a Brazilian lady.
This is multiple Brazilian ladies.
It was raining and we were outside and I had homework so we left after not too long. The drums in the parade kind of made me miss marching band, but the wet shoes (another element of early morning East High marching band) didn’t.
And now here I am.
Some random things:
-My mom has been telling me for the longest time to get a picture of our house.
Here is it. I use the middle-right door.
-I bought shoes before leaving to study abroad, but the city of Buenos Aires requires so much walking that they look about 10x’s their age. I may actually buy another pair while I’m here.
-I joke that I’m not going to write about school, but really, I’ve had/am going to have group projects for every single one of my classes. It’s sort of a nightmare at times.But in all honesty, classes are going well.
-I’ve been reading a lot on Subte rides, bus rides, while going to bed, etc on the Nook app on my phone and I’ve read more books here than I’ve read in years. Some of them have been: A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron, A Dog’s Journey by the same guy, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, Bossypants by Tina Fey, and now I’m reading 1984 by George Orwell to hopefully get more cultured ‘n’ smart ‘n’ stuff.
-One time I saw a little dog run out in traffic right in front of it’s owner. I almost ran to catch it, but unfortunately… someone else got to it and I couldn’t be the hero.
-Spotify has been a blessing. I get so bored of my iTunes sometimes, and it’s nice to be able to just download a song when someone mentions an artist I’ve never heard of, which happens a lot in Argentina. Calle 13 might as well be the soundtrack of my walks to and from class.
-And I have some more material to write about this whole backpack robbery. The story there isn’t finished yet, so I’ll write a post dedicated to just that when everything finally wraps up in that situation.
Again, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this. And for now, I’ll leave you with this.
