Aug 9

I woke up today at about nine then went back to sleep until 12ish. I got up and chatted with the family/or listened to them chatting then ate breakfast and watch Stefy’s arabe dance performance from last year. We ate lunch. And then we (stefy, ana (her friend) and me) went for a walk. Pretty much on the weekends, argentines just walk around. This is an okay activity for me. The taught me some slang and I tried hard to listen to what they were saying. Now my brain and my legs are tired. Also we walked by a starbucks in the ritzy shopping mall and it had a line out the door! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Argentines, who pride themselves in their thimble full expresso’s drinking venti starbucks drinks. Alas it was a shocker.

Aug 8

Again started the day off bright and early at 6am. This time it was even more brutal since I had attended a fiesta with the FLACSO group. But I have decided to change my mindset. The fiesta was fun, kind of an odd feeling to be surrounded by 200 other Americans in a foreign country. It feels a bit like you are in America. My class this morning actually was a class! Yippy! I really liked it. The class has only one boy in it, and the girls seem very nice. I talked to a couple, but have generally been too shy to try and make small talk. I found out that they have a shared email address for everyone in the class, that’s how they communicate like professor to class or classmate to classmate. I never would have known. I came home and took a nap and a shower. Right as I was making plans for the afternoon, Stefi, my host sister who had been in New Jersey for the past two weeks arrived home. Yay! She seems very nice, and very outgoing. And it was fun to hear a bit about her travels around back east. She commented that New Jersey was her favorite place that she visited. J We just finished a good lunch. I was holding out on eating today and I am glad I did, milonesa and empanadas. I think I am going to try and find a cooking class here since I am enjoying the food so much. I also am going to look into a tango class. I am off to do some exploring around the city, and probably get some dessert. Since I have been here I have an extra sweet, sweet tooth. The other night we had these “healthy” cookies. And then my host mom brought out dulce de leche, basically this caramel stuff that I covered my cookie with. This is one of the popular flavors and an argentine staple. Delicious. I went to meet a friend, who turned out wasn’t planning on meeting me. But I got ice cream (dulce de leche with brownies and a chocolate flavor with nuts and brownies). Delicious, again. I headed over to flacso and registered for Spanish classes. After this I came home and chatted or listened to the family chat back and forth. We had pizza for dinner. And we got to see Stefy's pictures from the states.