August 20

I think I just gained about 5 pounds. I just had breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one sitting. It’s my fault really. I should have gone downstairs for breakfast at 9 am when I woke up, but I wanted to finish dreaming of my abandoned loved ones. So I determinedly remained in bed with my eyes closed reliving my happy memories for an hour before sitting up and reaching for my computer in order to (and this is going to sound really lame) work on my budget and schedule, which oddly enough happen to be two of the most satisfying activities that I spend my time on. I think it makes me feel like I’m in control of my ever changing life. Not that I mind that it’s always changing. I just take out my anal retentive side on my Microsoft Excel. In any case, I didn’t get down to the kitchen until after 2 pm when I foolishly fed myself, before accepting the vegetable soup dish from Vero and the milanesa dish from Sebí. Silly me. It was delicious though. I just won’t eat ever again…

I haven’t written in a while because I have been too busy. Finally. I had three classes this week: two International Relations of South America classes and my first Contemporary Dance class. OMG. Dance! It had been 3 and ½ months since I had set foot in a dance class, and I thought I was going to die. It was fun. We did a lot of things I had done before in Modern I, but without all the thorough explanation. I think there was some explanation but as I couldn’t understand it, I followed along and tried to use the principles I had learned in Modern. When I told the teacher after class that I was from Alaska… he looked REALLY concerned that I probably couldn’t understand what he had been saying. I had this experience when I did Tai Chi with my roommates Tuesday morning also. I wish they wouldn’t worry about me. I’ll be fine just following along until I pick up the language enough to understand them. I don’t want to feel like a problem. I have to deal with that enough just trying to communicate socially.

Thursday night the Austrian’s roommates invited me to their house for a Chocolate Fondue party. I brought a bottle of wine. Tangent on wine: I love it. This makes me think about Spencer every time I drink or buy it (and it IS really nice to be able to buy my own wine). The wine here is EXCELLENT! And CHEAP! I went to the store and bought one of the more expensive bottles I could find, 11 pesos instead of the 3 pesos that were the cheap bottles of wine. That’s about $4 for one of the better wines I have ever tasted. Anyway, back to the party. There were a ton of people there, everyone seemed to have brought a bottle of wine, and the table was full of bowls of sliced fruit and a pot of each dark chocolate and white chocolate. It was delicious and really fun. All the people who live in William’s house are from abroad as well, there are like 12 of them, mostly from Europe, and so most of the people at the party were from other countries. I met people from Canada, the U.S., Columbia, Mexico, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, England, and the Netherlands, to name a few. I was there until 5 am. It was great.

Saturday, Lauren and I walked around a few different parts of town with Tracy from CIEE before taking the Subte to the edge of town to have dinner and ice cream with on of Laurens friends from school. We ate at a Mediterranean restaurant. It was good, if a little expensive. Later, I’m talking around 1 am, Lauren and I met up with a couple Argentines who we’d met before and hung out in a pretty nice bar (Asian themed with a huge blue and orange lighted disco ball) until around 5 am. It was very fun and good Spanish practice. And I honestly slept until 2:30 pm when my phone rang. I think that has to be an all time record…

After I pulled myself out of bed in mid afternoon on Sunday I voyaged to Laurens house to bake our first banana bread and watch House, Moulin Rouge, and Bruce Almighty. The banana bread was fabulous. Especially with Dulce de Leche spread on it. And we ordered in some empanadas which only cost me 7 pesos. Ordering in is something really common here that I am finding I really like. Especially since I can’t cook.

Today is a holiday so there aren’t any classes.

I miss the sky.

I was going to say something I missed and then end with something I love about this city… but I can’t think of anything I really like about the city. Not really very surprising considering my background and lifestyle. Oh well. I’m learning, and I love that. And although they don’t have peanut butter… they do have Nutella!