October 26

Yesterday. Hot day. Rainstorm.

I chose to skip Tango (partially to recuperate from Tuesday, but mostly because I just wanted to go party with Lauren). I got to her house at about 5 pm. We went to the store so I could buy ingredients for a sangría recipe that Spencer gave me. I was providing sangría to some 16 people so I bought a lot of it. Wine, Ginger Ale, Peach/Apricot Juice, Vodka, Lime Juice, and Fruit Cocktail. The recipe called for cherry juice and cherries... but those were very expensive, so I improvised. I thought there was going to be way too much, but turns out it was a HUGE hit and the Argentines drink more than Flacso likes to say they do. But I knew that all ready. Anyway. Then we sat around in the kitchen and listened to music, drank mate, and made a music mix for the evening. Eventually Lauren started making the tacos which ended up being awesome! Surprisingly the Argentines arrived early and the Americans arrived late. But we ended up with 12 people I think(5 Argentines, 6 Americans, and 1 Austrian), sangría, tacos, sandwiches, potato salad, teriyaki chicken, sushi, brownies, chocolate oatmeal cookies, sweet bread, corn bread, and apple crisp with vanilla ice cream (which Lauren made from scratch, the apple crisp, not the ice cream, and it was amazing!). It was a fabulous time! After we ate and drank our hearts out we went to an electronic tango milonga. It was interesting. The music was very untraditional and the dancing was almost nothing like what I've been learning. But it was fun! One of the Argentine guys plays traditional tango piano and taught us some tango moves (he dances too). I got to talk to him a little bit about what tango really is. We left at about 3:30 because Lauren had to go to class at 9:30. I thought we'd done pretty well, but the poor Argentines complained the whole way home about how early it was. *rolling eyes*. Anyway, I ended up walking around for a while on the way home with the tango pianist. He has a knack of simultaneously making you feel like you are doing something wrong with your life and telling you to calm down in the same moment. I think he just wants people to be chill and with his philosophy about what chill is. shrug. He's not a bad guy and I don't think he means to do this but, he made me very confused and introspective to the point where I was awake until 6 am writing about it. I skipped my 11 am Spanish class. But I finally found some peace... in my breaths. All in all it was a fun birthday party! Hopefully Lauren and I will get to Uruguay this weekend. If we don't... i don't know... but I won't be happy. :D