We finally did it!

This past weekend was quite an interesting one. On Friday, after our gnocci lunch, myself and two other girls went to explore the surrounding area of the school (after all, we have a 5 hour break in between our 2 classes UGH!). We wanted to go to a bakery, but everything they had was really dry and not fresh (as Ali and I found out later when we attempted to buy something and it was less than tasty). Instead, we walked around and went to a Grido Helado--they are everywhere! It´s a ice cream and what I think is gelato (it has a similar texture to it) store with a ton of flavors. I bought a dulce to leche and chocolate chip ice cream combo, pretty tasty! It was interesting though, because they had the cones stocked in front (like in the US), but then there was this one cone, that was a cone, and then had a semi circle on either side of it so to hold 3 separate ice cream scoops. I pointed to it and said, "¿es interestante, no?" And the 3 workers just laughed and said "aparece a un pene...jajajajaja" (jajaja=hahaha in Spanish). They thought I wouldn´t understand so the joke was on them! But yes, it really did look like one; I don´t know what self respecting person would eat one of those, but who knows!

Anyways, after we returned, we went to our Culture class, where we had a presentation on folklore instruments...for 2 hours! It was interesting and I wanted to try to play their amardillo miniature guitar, but I didn´t get a chance to :( Our teacher looked like he could be a giant; think Hagrid from Harry Potter, but gray hair, and in a ponytail. After Ali and I returned home, we tried to nap before dinner, which was....GNOCCI! I could not believe that we were eating gnocci again, it was such a random coincidence and I didn´t want to tell Dora we had it previously. But hers was definitely a lot better than the school´s gnocci. Then, we started to watch the TV show, Justo a Tiempo--think Price is Right had a baby with a stereotypical Japanese game show. They leave the TV on while Ali and I eat, and it has become a tradition to watch this show after we finish. On Justo a Tiempo, the host, Julian, mentioned gnocci and Dora said it was a tradition to eat gnocci on the 29th of every month! How interesting! Good thing I like it :) I guess it comes from the strong Italian influence in Argentina.

Ali and I originally planned on going on Friday, but after going out Thursday, we decided we needed to sleep, especially since we had to wake up early to meet at UBP for our tour Saturday.

Saturday, we visited una estancia (a farm owned by Jesuits), ate at a real argentine restaurant, and visted Che Guervera´s childhood home. The estancia was FREEZING! There was no heat on our bus, in the estancia or anywhere...I think the temperature must have been around 35 or 40. I definitely did not pack enough warm clothes! As for the restaurant, it was pretty good. It had a salad bar, so I filled up on a nice green salad, yay vegetables!, and bread. It took so long to receive our food since there was 24 of us, but I´m glad it did because I did not like what I ordered. I wanted to order something really Argentinean, so I got Matambre a la pizza, based on Jhonny´s reccomendation (one of our guides in Argentine, really cool, fun, young, goes out with us, buys us shots, convinces beluches (clubs) to let us in for free, without IDs). It is similar to our pizza, but instead of bread crust, the meat, matambre, was the crust. It was matambre with tomato sauce and cheese on top. It was a rectangle shape. I was hoping it would be good since I had eaten a matambre empanda here and liked it, but I was dissappointed. The meat was so fatty! And my first bite tasted like a salt mine had exploded in my mouth. Thank goodness for dessert too! :) We had a vanilla-chocolate ice cream ball covered in a chocolate shell with dulce de leche in the inner center.

While at lunch I heard some funny stories about people´s host families, the funniest came from Andrew and Michael. When they arrived, their mom did everything for them. But then, with each day she adds a new chore for them to do. Here are some examples: take out the trash, make their beds, make their beds with the comforter under the bed sheet SO THAT their beds match, their comforters are different, buy bread for dinner (she gave them a 2 peso, and it cost 5!), etc... I almost died laughing at this. Ali and I are so lucky to have Dora, she is such an amazing person!

Finally it was time to leave to go to Che Guervera´s house. It was interesting...when all took a lot of photos "on" (think people trying to push the leaning tower of pisa) the infamous motorcycle (from the movie motorcycle diaries). Then we saw a movie about how amazing and what a hero he was. My culture teacher, Roberto, had guided us here and kept interjecting. He would go on for 10-20 minutes at a time. Once, however, he went on a rant, on how awful the US is towards South America and I got mad. I felt like he was calling us ignorant, and we only listen to our parents and CNN and don´t care to learn or read books. I finally said something to my teacher because I think that is really unfair to say, considering we came on this trip voluntarily; we wouldn´t be here if we didn´t care. Especially seeing as I am optionally taking HIS culture class.....

Whatever. When push comes to shove, I had to forget about it, but I am not looking forward to seeing him today for class. When we got home, we decided it would be the ideal time to go out since Sunday was our ONLY free day during the trip. We met up with our group at Contender again around 12 and were ready to dance (beluches don´t open until at least 1 or 2 though!) We finally all shared remises (taxis) to go to Studio Theatre. It was definitely a lot of fun, there was this HUGE room with hundreds of people and a stage (that of course our group took over!). There was also a chiller bar room type place--it was great! We stayed out until about 330/4. I could have stayed out longer, but I think I would have started to drink more and I didn´t want to spend the money.

We took a cab home and went to bed. We woke up pretty early, since Dora was having an asado at her house for her sister-in-law, Blanca, Jessica (our friend from Clemson who "lives" with Blanca, Blanca´s daughter, husband, and new 8 month baby and her dog) as well as another woman. We ate good empandas, spaghetti, chicken, quiches (called tarta here) and desserts. I loved this thing Blanca´s daughter made, it was water crackers with chocolate and grounded oatmeal and refridgeratd...yummm! The meal was kind of awkward for Ali and I because everyone spoke so fast, that we were left silent until a question was directed at us. It was nice though to see so many people.

After we ate, Ali left for el centro for homework help while Jessica and I went on a walk around the area. We went to a playground and seesawed and swinged. It was great :) When we got back to the house I took a nap while she read. After my nap, Jessica left, and so had everyone else except Blanca. I went and talked to Dora and Blanca for 3 hours about just about everything--religion, politics, my life, my family, etc. Then Ali returned home, we ate asado leftovers and off to bed!

I had my first test in my Literature class today, and I hope I did well! I didn´t know one thing so I hope I got an A! That´s all for now, I need to go eat!

ciao!