It was definitely a good week! Friday found me having nothing to do and loving every second of it. After I rolled out of bed, I had a quick breakfast and then just fooled around on my computer for a bit. For lunch, my host mom made the best tasting ravioli I have ever tasted! I don’t know what it was exactly that I loved about it; all I know is that I didn’t want to stop eating it no matter how full I felt! After a siesta, I headed over to the park because a group of people had all said that they wanted to meet up to play some Frisbee. However, the girl who was supposed to bring the Frisbee had forgotten that she had class at the agreed to time. What’s more, is that when I got there, there was only one other person there. It appeared that everybody else had decided that, since we didn’t have a Frisbee, there was no reason to go to the park at all. We stayed there for a little bit to see if anybody else would show up. A few more people did, and, after waiting 30 min. we all decided to call it a day and go do something else. While waiting we had come upon the topic of the McDonald’s that we had seen in central. During this conversation we talked about the Milka McFlurrys that they had there (Milka is like the Hershey’s down here). The second that we brought those up, they were all that we could think about… so naturally we decided that walking to a McDonald’s needed to become a priority. And it makes sense… getting a McFlurry is kind of like playing ultimate Frisbee for an hour, right? We trekked to the McDonald’s in the city and were not disappointed! They were so good! The vanilla ice cream was delicious and they added the chocolate Milka bar and topped it off with warm dulce de leche. It was a religious experience.
We stayed there for a good hour just savoring our McFlurrys and fries while we talked about the most random things. It was great! When we were done, no one wanted to move because we were all so satisfied with where we were. Eventually, we did get up and went shopping for a bit before ultimately calling it a day. I made my way home, made myself dinner from the left over ravioli that we had had for lunch (which I was more than fine with) and then went out with some friends to a bar. We stayed there for a few hours talking and only when the cell phone clock struck 2am did I decided that it was probably time for me to go home. I had made plans to go see my friend, James, in a basketball game at 10am the next day with Elizabeth, so I figured if there was any chance at all of me dragging myself out of bed to make it there, I had better get to sleep.
My alarm woke me up and my first thought was actually, “I don’t like James this much.” Seriously. But I sucked it up, made my breakfast, and headed out to meet up with Elizabeth. The basketball game was actually enjoyable and, though he didn’t get to play, James appreciated us showing up. That night, I went out to a bar with a bunch of friends once again, and then we headed to Taco Tabasco for dinner. It had been a long, but good weekend so I was really disappointed when I had to head home to get ready for the new week. Most of the week passed by without any major events worth describing… until Thursday in Argentine Lit class. As you’ve read in my past posts, the North American students have become accustomed to never having to pay attention in class, due to the fact that we never know what they’re saying. It would soon be discovered that this day would be the one to slap us back into reality. As I was sitting there, minding my own business and daydreaming about the complexities of life, I notice that my friend Emma, who was sitting next to me, started tentatively raising her hand. She began looking at the rest of us nervously and whispered “raise your hand!” At this moment, I’ve noticed that ALL of the Argentine students are turned in their seats looking at us, along with the professor, who was looking at us expectantly… “shit” was my first thought. We had just been asked a question, and none of us knew what it was! The conversation continued as follows:
Prof: “So, what is it like?”
Amurrikans: “………”
Prof: “Do you understand what I am saying?”
Eloquent US representatives: “Yes…”
Prof: “……..”
North Americans w/out a clue: “………”
Prof: “You’re national anthem?”
Children w/proud parents paying thousands for education: “Oh! Yeah, we have one…”
Argentine Students: “Are these fools for realzzzz?!?!?!?”
It. Was. PAINFUL!!! Luckily, we managed to gather what we saw on the board and what was being said by the professor and make an educated leap. It took a while, but finally we were all on the same page, and managed to make it through the conversation and even helped some of the Argentine students understand certain parts of our anthem and the days that we play it on (like holidays, before sports games, etc.). We were doing real well until the professor just had to go and ask us the year it was written. Now we had to deal with freaking NUMBERS!!!! [this prof. hates us, there’s no other explanation] For those who don’t know, in Spanish they say the year as one long number (like 1,775) instead of two individual numbers (17 [space] 75) like we do. Now, the entire class was treated to five dumbass North American kids trying to remember what comes after ‘veinte’. The teacher actually thought we didn’t know the date, but the Argentine students could see that we were trying and actually told the professor that we did, just didn’t know how to say it. It was nice for them to speak up like that. Maybe we might make friends after all!!!
After that horrific episode of I’m proud to be and American, I wanted to flee the country in shame, but I didn’t out of pride (I didn’t have a car to get me to the airport) and strength (the tickets are too expensive). Thankfully Friday was merciful, and the only thing I did was finalize plans for our week long break that we get in September. I spent the weekend relaxing and hanging out with friends. Now, I have to brace myself for the new week. God only knows what this one will bring!
