voting/tango

Oct 3
Sitting here in my room drinking mate and eating cookies while I write this. I didn’t have Spanish class today so I am free for the afternoon. I got up and ate my breakfast, chatted with my host mom about the pilgrimage I am going to be doing tomorrow, and was off to the American embassy to turn in my ballot. I had imagined just a box or something I could throw it in and be done, but after being let into the embassy going through security and finding another room with many little windows I still hadnt accomplished my mission. I had underestimated this errand (I arrived at 11ish and was supposed to meet a friend at 12 to talk to people about the pilgrimage). I took a number. My number was 729 and they were on 604. It was a bit ridiculous. My cell phone had been checked along with my other “suspicious belongings” and I was stuck. The woman sitting next to me started up a conversation, she was born in DC and lives here and teaches history to middle schoolers. She was quite a chatterbox but a really nice lady. Her number was 607. I chatted with her for about 30 minutes and she kept telling me to ask someone about the ballot (the squeaky wheel gets the grease). Finally she said that I should just come up with her when she gets called. I came up with her and she explained that I wanted to turn in my ballot, and 2 minutes later I was out the door. Oh what luck. She had saved me from hours and hours of waiting for what could take 2 seconds. This was a nice reminder that most people are just really nice people, and I should take every chance I get to get to know them. I took the subte back to FLACSO where I was to meet my fellow pilgramager, and we went to a school that one of our teachers had recommended to try and find a group to go with. We chatted with the doorman and the priest and he recommended we go to another church. We called the other priest and are going to meet with him this afternoon. Mailed some letters which was also an ordeal (had to take a number again ahhh). I am pretty excited for this pilgrimage, it will be quite an experience. My feet are a little sore from tango last night so I hope that will go away so I can walk my heart out tomorrow.

Oct. 2
My Thursdays are busy. Headed over to the UBA for class from 11-2, it was an okay class, but its kind of hard to understand. I have gotten the impression from my tutor that all I need to do is do the paper, and go to class and read the readings to write a better paper. So if it doesn’t relate to my paper then I don’t need to be that worried about it. I hope this is right. From this class I hustled to language lab, and from language lab I hustled home to get ready to go to tango. The tango class was fun, but the 6.30 class attracts a different crowd than the 10.30 class. It was a smaller class so I learned a lot more (or should I say reviewed). But there wasn’t a very good selection of dance partners if you know what I mean . My shoes worked out okay. The shoes were fine but all the weight on the front of your foot hurts after a while. The class was uneventful. After the class I got another semi class by a dancer named fredrico. He was nice and taught me some sweet moves (leg flippies and such). Everything comes back to the language barrier…I felt a bit inept just because I didn’t know what he was saying or how to say what I wanted to say. That’s why tango is so fun. No need to say anything just dance. Came home and ate dinner and helped my host sister download a video on youtube.