My First Weekend...and other things

Today, I got caught in the rain and had to walk several blocks in it.  Well, that’s an understatement…Today I got caught in a torrential downpour and walked 40 blocks in it.  Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.  Today, for real, I walked about 23 blocks in a heavy rain.  Why, you may ask, did I walk 23 blocks in the rain? Because I was 23 blocks away from where I needed to be, of course.  Today was a pretty light day for me, I don’t have my Spanish class Monday and Wednesday (like many people do), but am one of the people who has it Tuesday and Thursday.  So all I had to do today was register for classes at the local university UCES…and that’s pretty much it.  So I was able to sleep in (sort of, it was so humid before it rained and my room was so hot and sticky…it was gross, also by hot I mean like 95 degrees (Fahrenheit of course) hot) and take my time getting ready, but I wanted to get to the Center because I wanted to check my email to see if there was anything important that I was missing because our internet is still not working…well sort of, but I’ll get to that later.  Anyways, I make it to UCES with minimal problems (I was at the bus stop for about 15 minutes before it came, but that’s about it) and when I got there I had to fill out a form and give them the passport sized photos I had taken earlier in the week, but then she said I’d have to come back tomorrow at like 3 to actually register for the class I want, so that gives them time to put my info into the computer.  It’s Monday now, and the class I want doesn’t start until Wednesday, so I’m pretty ok with this, it’s no big deal.

So I walk back to the center (it’s only like 5 blocks away) and chill there for a bit, and then decide to see if I can get a Sube card.  A Sube card is like a bus pass, sort of.  You can put money on it and use it to pay for the bus or the subway.  Apparently there’s one super close to the center and I want to check it out.  So I walk over (it’s not even a block away, it’s seriously super close) and the place is set up like a DMV…that already is not a good sign.  So after wandering from one line to the next (not really sure where I should be going) I see a little sign that says if I want a Sube card I don’t need to take a number (too late) and I just go in a certain line.  So I go in that line, but there are two girls in front of me, and they ask for Sube cards too and the person tells them that they don’t have any.  I’ve heard that this is a common problem in trying to buy a card.  So I leave the little store and head back to the center. 

By now it’s about 1:00 or so, and so it’s definitely lunch time, and I don’t want to go out to eat alone.  So I call Annalise (who had her Spanish class this morning) to ask her what her plans are.  I called her while I was in the elevator going up to the 12^th floor and as it turns out she was waiting on the 12^th floor for the elevator.  So we meet up with another one of our friends to work out a game plane for the next couple hours.  The both of them were going to the UMSA tour to register for classes there, and that was at 2:30, however, even thought Annalise had told her bank she would be in Argentina, they hadn’t done anything about it and so when she tried to take out money from and ATM, it wouldn’t let her.  So this was obviously worrisome, especially because she only had 11 pesos on hand…which is like $3.  And of course, she’d already used up her phone card that they gave us when we got off the plane.  So we logged on to one of the IES computers to see if her bank had an interactive online…thing.  You know, like a chat with one of the employees…well it doesn’t. 

So we left the building (by now, “we” is Annalise, Olivia (our other friend) and myself) and really close to the IES center is a kiosk where you can buy another phone card.  Luckily it’s only 10 pesos so she was able to buy one.  Of course, to use a phone card, you must use a landline, no cell phones allowed (which is why, mom and dad, I haven’t used mine yet, I haven’t asked to use the phone yet) and so we head back to the center and up to the 13^th floor this time (both floors are for IES) and Annalise asks if she can use one of their phones to call her bank.  She’s on the phone for like 10 minutes and when she comes out of the office, she’s all set to go.  So we leave the center and now she needs to find a bank.  Well, thanks to my hours of wandering, I actually know that there’s one close by (or have a hunch at least), and sure enough, my hunch was right and we had three banks right in a row to choose from.  So we go into one and she is able to withdraw money and everything is happy in the world.  It’s now probably like 1:30 and so we only have an hour before they have to leave for their UMSA tour. 

Now, the Center is pretty close to the corner, and on the corner across the street is a restaurant we’ve been to before and the last time we were there it was super fast.  So we sit down to eat and we’re talking and all is good and dandy, but we only had an hour and so our conversation was cut short as they had other things to do.  So as they went on their tour, I decided I would walk down one of the main business Avenues nearby, just to see what kind of shops they had.  So it’s 2:30 in the afternoon, it’s still super humid and super hot…just remember that.  So I kind of lost track of time and before you know it…or before I knew it at least…I’m 25 blocks away from the center, it’s almost 4:00, and it’s starting to rain.  Also, somewhere along the way I found another place that sells Sube cards, and they were also out.  She said they’d have some next week…it’s Monday. Bleh. Anyways, so I turn around and start heading back, and at first it’s just a little bit of rain, but people start whipping out umbrellas like the rain will kill them…I was just like “Whoa, calm down, it’s just a little rain”. 

Well, a couple blocks later, it was coming down a little harder to be a consistent and steady flow of rain.  I was pretty wet, but not drenched, it was still ok.  However, the sidewalks were getting more and more slippery and I was wearing my sandals that are like, 2 inch platform sandals (which are more common here than one might think)—let me tell you, they are not the most ideal shoes to wear on slippery grounds while it’s raining.  So after probably 8 to ten blocks it really starts coming down, like serious rain.  The sidewalks are pretty much cleared, but only because people are now walking on the sides of it to be close to the buildings because many places have awnings or something like them…ok, now even the people with umbrellas were walking there, and that was pretty frustrating because I was the one who ended up moving more into the rain for them.  But at this point it didn’t even matter because I was drenched. Completely, head to toe soaked.  My purse was not doing much better and I was kind of getting worried about my phone, but I didn’t dare pull it out.  So for another 10 blocks (at least, it felt more like 100 though) I’m soaked, walking as fast as I can (which is getting slower by the minute) to get back to the center.  The reason I want to get back to the center is not only because I know how to get home from there, but also because at 5:30 they’re showing a, Argentine movie that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2006 (it was incredibly good and I would highly recommend it, yes it’s in Spanish, but get subtitles. It’s called El Secreto de Sus Ojos—it’s seriously so good). 

Anyways, so I’m walking back and although after a bit, the rain lightens up from mega downpour to steady flow, it doesn’t even matter anymore because I’m soaked.  There were several points where the streets were almost flooded and so I did not just cross streets, I waded through them. So after blocks and blocks of wondering “Am I there yet?” I finally made it back to the center.  There were a couple people waiting under it (it has a pretty big section that protects you from the rain) but none actually from IES. 

I figured the people in the building wouldn’t like it very much if I walked in soaking wet, so I sat on the three or so steps in from of the building letting myself dry off a bit. After a few minutes of just sitting (and also making sure my phone was ok—it was fine, it had been in an inner pocket and hadn’t gotten wet at all) I stood up and started wringing out my dress (PS I’m wearing a dress).  Well pretty soon some homeless guy comes up and stands right next to me and starts talking to me, pretty much just saying something along the lines of “Oh you got a little wet, huh?”  And because it was harmless I let it go, but then he stayed standing kind of close.  So I decided I was dry enough to go inside (even though I was still quite wet) and went inside.  So by now it’s like 5:00, so I’m happy I made it back with plenty of time to dry off.  So I go to the bathroom and wring out my dress for pretty much 20 minutes.  By the time I’m done, it’s still pretty damp, but so much better than it was!  So I go into the room where the movie will be and decided to check the rest of the contents of my purse.  The results were not so good.

The guidebook they gave us at orientation (which has saved my butt a number of times) was wet all along the binding of it (but it’s a spiral-notebook-style book, so it’s not too incredibly bad), my “Guía T” (the guide to all things transportation) was completely soaked and totally ruined, it shouldn’t be a big deal to get another one though, what I hadn’t remembered was that I had taken photocopies of some pages of my passport earlier that morning.  Also, I wasn’t sure how many pages I’d need to register for classes (I knew it was some, but couldn’t remember) so I had my copy of every page of my passport with me—thank goodness all the pages were in a plastic page protector thing (Thanks Dad!), some water still seeped in from the top, but the damage could have been much, much worse.  My actual passport was fine also (thank goodness), but it’s a bummer to have only wrinkly pages to give to the Visa place and the background check place (PS we’re all getting background checks because…well I don’t really know why it’s required but it is…and it only covers our background in Argentina…so for almost all of us it will be pretty darn clean) and so that seems really unofficial and boo.  But I guess it could have been a lot, lot worse and I should be grateful that I got off pretty easily. So I am.

So we watched the movie (which was so good!) and by the time it was over, I had been sitting in a damp dress in an air conditioned room for over 2 hours.  When I stepped outside, it was still raining (compared to before it was barely a drizzle though) and I just became so stinkin cold.  As I was standing at the bus stop, I got a call from Yelena asking if I’d be home for dinner.  I told them I was at the bus stop and that they should just eat without me.  So after no less than 10 minutes (but probably more like 15 or so) of waiting for the bus, I was shivering almost non-stop, and it was the first time (I realized) since I had gotten off the plane, that I was actually cold in Argentina.  It took me a week (a little over, actually) to get there, but it happened.

So I finally got home, and I ate dinner, and now I’m here, writing this.  But as promised, more details about our internet.  Apparently it works on her desktop now, but the wireless is finicky.  Yelena can connect, but I can’t seem to be able to get the internet to work L It’s very sad.  Hopefully I can get it to work soon, or find some way to upload this today anyways (it won’t be that hard), but I’d really like for my computer to work.

And even though this post is already three pages long in a Word document, I must tell you about my yesterday.  So when we were at the ranch we were able to sign up for bike tours if we wanted to.  Of course, my group of friends wanted to, so we did.  We signed up for Sunday at 1:15.  We all walked over together (and because we didn’t want to be late, we left pretty early and ended up getting there like, half an hour early…yeah) and once the entire signed up group was there, we were about 10 students strong, with 2 guides, and 1 IES staff member.  So it was a decent sized group of people.  We start biking along (on the street—yes I wore a helmet) and we would stop at certain places and the tour guide people would tell us a little history about where we were.  It was all actually really interesting and really fun.  It was a Sunday and so the roads were super clear, and the weather was pretty much perfect.  One place we stopped for a while was the Ecological Reserve, part of which includes a beach.  Well, as it turns out, the beaches in Argentina are super unsafe to swim in due to all the pollutants and toxins that were dumped in the water over many many years—seriously there was a cop there that would blow his whistle at people that got too close.  So while we were there we drank Terere, which is pretty much cold mate, but with juice instead of water. 

Ok, culture lesson. Mate.  (Mah-teh).  It’s a drink here in Argentina that is similar to a very strong green tea.  There are very specific cups that you use for mate as well as a certain straw (una bombilla).  The straw can be one of a variety of styles, leaving people to pick their preferred style.  Examples of different styles would be that the end of one may look more like a strainer, whereas the end of another may look more like a coil.  The difference is in the way it filters the tea leaves (la yerba), and thus the way the mate tastes.  Typically, mate is a hot drink.  You fill your mate cup 2/3 of the way up with the yerba (which looks a lot like chopped and dried parsley flakes), pour very hot (but not boiling) water in, put the straw in, and let it steep for a few minutes.  You’re not supposed to stir it in any way, you just let it sit.  Then, once steeped, you drink it.  Of course, on a hot day, hot tea is not ideal. So there is another way to drink mate and that is either with cold water or with cold juice. (I’m not sure if any cold mate or just cold mate from juice is called Terere, but at least the juice is.)  Although mate is acceptable as one person’s drink, it is also quite common for a group of friends to drink mate together.  When that happens, there is one server, one cup of mate, and several people.  The server will pour the (in our case) juice into the cup and hand it to a person who drinks until the juice is gone. They then hand it back to the server who pours more juice and hands it to the next person.  This cycle continues until either 1) There’s no more juice, 2) The flavor is gone from the drink, or 3) People just get sick of it (ok I just made up that last one, but I’m sure it happens…maybe). So to recap: mate is a drink—very common in Argentina—that can be shared among friends or drunken separately; it is a type of tea; it requires a special cup and straw; it is delicious. End of culture lesson.

So we had mate with pineapple juice and it might have been the most delicious drink I have ever tasted in my life.  Yeah we were all sharing the same straw and the same glass, but it was totally fine and no one really cared.  We also were able to finalize the rules of our new game we’re playing now.  It’s a picture-taking game.  1 point if you take a picture of a couple making out (it’s so common here…so common), and 5 points if you’re the one making out (of course, that means you have to take a picture while kissing someone, and also I don’t plan on getting points this way).  We’re calling the game “Tourism”.  If I had been camera-ready, I could have gotten two points today.  Oh well, there will be more opportunities for points. I guarantee it.  We’re also making a fake email address to give to people that we all will have access to; we want to see who responds and how they do…it should be a blast J.  After the ecological reserve we continued on our way.  One of the stops was La Plaza de Mayo (I’m sure you’ve heard of it).  We got a pretty sweet history lesson, and then we were able to walk around.  In case you don’t know (I didn’t until I visited) the capital building is in La Plaza…but instead of a White house, they have a pink house. 

Now, there are two legends about the color, one is that the President at the time wanted to show that he was mixing the fascist way of thinking with the communist way of thinking, to be one united country. Thus, white and red make pink.  The other legend is that they used animal blood to mix with the primer to help the paint last.  In any case, we were able to go in (all you had to do was put your bag through the conveyor belt-scanner things they have at airports and boom, entrance to the capital building.  We asked one of the guides there why it was pink, and I’m pretty sure he said it was nothing more than that the president at the time was named Rosado (which means “pink”), which is not nearly as interesting, but probably accurate.  After riding around a bit more (it was a 3 hour tour—with stops) we ended up back where we started.  Now, where we started just happened to be a block away from one of the guide’s favorite bars, called La Puerta Roja (the Red Door), which has no sign, and is simply a red door.  The signature drink of this place is the Chili Bomb.  It’s some type of liquor (don’t know what kind) that has part of a habanera pepper in it, and you drop that into half a glass of Red Bull and chug.

Of course, we had to go there to try it…but it didn’t open until 6 and it was only about 5, so we went to the market, which was conveniently located right by where we were.  There were several blocks of market-y things, and apparently this happens every single Sunday, so we’re pretty pumped about that.  One thing that was on the minds of many people was buying their own mate cup and bombilla.  There were many, many options.  After walking up and down the entire market (probably 4 or five blocks or so) only a handful of us had actually bought mate cups—I am one of them J.  So now I have my own cup and bombilla, I did not, however, buy any yerba…it’s super easy to find and I had already spent quite a bit that day.  Side note, we also at an outdoor place and I had…chori? I can’t remember what it was actually called, but omg it was the best thing I’d ever eaten.  And I don’t even know its name…such a sad story!  So anyways, by now it was about 6:15 and so we made our way back to the street the bar was supposed to be on.  We passed one red-doored place, but it didn’t seem to promising, so we kept walking with the intent to return if there were no other red doors.  However, a few more shops down, there was a tall, narrow, bright red door.  We figured this had to be it.  We opened the door to a stair case, and at the top of the staircase, it had a sign that said “Happy Hour” and then a list of drinks. Yep, we found it. 

Our main goal of going there was to just check it out and see what it was like and to see if we would want to come back again sometime. Short answer to that is yes.  It’s a very chill bar, with a pool table, and lots of places to sit and chat, it just seems like a really cool place.  Well of course, happy hour was from 6-10. We couldn’t pass that up, and people were dying to try the Chili Bomb.  So of the 8 or so of us there, 6 tried it and loved it (the other two (myself included) didn’t try it).  After that, we all ordered beers and went to go sit down.  Yes, I ordered a beer.  A Quilmes, for those of you that care.  It was ok.  I only drank about a third of it before I started to feel the effects of it, and by that point we’d probably been there about half an hour, and people were ready to leave and continue on with plans for the night.  So I had a little help finishing my beer and we headed on our way.  Most of the people in the group wanted to eat dinner picnic-style at a concert that was happening in town.  The plan was to go home and shower (we were all so grimey!) and then meet back up and head out.  Well, I had already made plans to eat dinner with Yelena, and I didn’t really feel like I’d be missing out on a lot, so I said my goodbyes and headed home for the night. 

I must say, Yelena and I felt very Argentine when I got back at 8:30 and we were just starting to get hungry.  It’s a good feeling knowing you can adjust to a culture’s eating habits!  We went out to a little restaurant and were able to order food, and we even had some sobremesa (mini culture lesson: sobremesa (literally “over table”) is time spent after dinner talking.  This usually goes anywhere from 1-4 hours, but in our house it’s usually almost non-existent due to language barriers. Also, another mini culture lesson: here, it is considered very rude for a waiter or waitress to bring the check if you have not asked for it, thus allowing time for sobremesa; people stay in cafés for hours, even if they just order a cup of coffee, and it’s totally ok.) So basically what I’m saying is that I had a good time hanging out with Yelena and I’m glad we’re finding it to be easier and easier to talk about, well anything and everything.  I’m sure it also helps that our schedules have started to drift apart a little more, and so we really don’t know how the other’s day was, and so we can fill each other in on new things learned, or new people met.  We went to another café after dinner so that we could have some dessert and use the wi-fi.  It was nice J

Also, I forgot to tell you about Saturday night.  Friday night was such a bust (if you remember) and Saturday was so much better.  Annalise has a local friend that she’s known for…I don’t really know how long, but her name is Lou.  We (Yelena, Annalise, Lou, and I) went out to eat, then later went to a café for dessert, and we were there for maybe, two hours just talking and having a good time.  The thing is, Lou and Annalise started making Yelena and I speak only in Spanish.  And Lou is kind of a grammar nazi, so we learned a lot because she wouldn’t let us get away with making little mistakes—it was great.  That’s what I want to happen when Inés is here, I want to be able to ask for clarification in English if I need it, and learn how to say things correctly in Spanish.  All in all, it was a pretty good weekend, and I’m excited for this Friday when Inés finally gets back from the States.

Well, three pages later, I’m finally done. I hope you enjoyed my weekend as much as I did! Now I just need to find out how I can post this…but the good thing is that by the time you’re reading this, I already did. Oh yeah, I rule…or I hope I will at least, lol.  The closer to Monday night I post this, the more I rule.  Let’s just go with that.

Ciao!

Kiki

P.S. *Sigh* Alas, I do not rule.