Sister/Registration/Food

July 29, 2008

Yesterday I met one of my host sisters for the first time. The apartment was much more lively with her in the mix. She is a tango dancer. I asked her about it and shared my tango experience but i couldn't quite tell if she said that anyone can dance tango around here...or that if you don't know what you are doing get off of the floor..? I guess I will have to ask again or test it out. But they speak much faster… We watched a show similar to dancing with the stars. But it is bailando por un sueno. Dancing for a dream. Partners compete for a cause…or at least that’s what I gathered. I didn’t understand a lot, but was surprised at the skimpiness of the women’s outfits. I went to bed late again only to wake up early to attend the first orientation for classes in the filosofía y letras facultad de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). This is the public university that has a lot more prestige than the private ones. This university has something like 300,000 students, and it is free to attend. I am having trouble figuring out/narrowing down/ or wading through all the classes we can take. We have a lot of different options, UBA, UCA, FLASCO, and a Spanish lab. Hopefully all will work out, I will get where I need to be when I need to be there. There is a colectivo (bus) strike which luckily isn’t affecting me (since I am in walking distance of the school), but one of the bus drivers was killed by a drunk passenger and now they are protesting. Some friends from my program and I stopped at an ice cream place on the way home…if you all are lucky I may start switching over to food blog mode.

So far the food here has been good. My host mother buys ingredients each day and spends a couple hours preparing dinner. I have just been informed that today we will be having gnoniocci (sp.) which my host dad tried to explain but I still am unclear.
Yesterday we had meatballs with veggies and a delicious savory tart thing. The only thing that has been hard for me to adapt to is the eating schedule. My family eats dinner around 11pm. by that time I am ready to go to bed...not shove more food in my mouth. Hopefully this will begin to get better as I shift my schedule back.