School stuff, Adventures and Misadventures

• Hey guys! Sorry about the format of this post but this website is a little touchy sometimes! So hopefully you all have seen that I posted a new update about my trip to Iguazu. In this post I'm gonna update you on everything else that has been going on here in Argentina, from school to cool activities to robberies, ay!
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• School has been going really well so far. Granted, classes are extremely difficult because they are about a subject I do not know in a foreign language. Paying attention to a lecture in Madison is hard enough, but here our classes are longer (usually 2-3 hours) and in a foreign language with jargon pertaining to that subject that I generally do not know. Here's an overview of my classes:
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• I'm taking a class called Argentina en Palabras (Argentina in words) at the Catholic University (Universidad Catolica Argentina). It is a class for foreign students, so my class consists of a girl from Mexico, a guy from France, 2 girls from England, 2 other American students and 2 girls from my study abroad program. About halfway through the program (at the end of April) I had a parcial exam about all the works we had read so far. It went really well and I got a pretty good grade, so yay! I also had to lead discussion for a day based on two fantasy stories by Julio Cortazar which went well, and I am currently working on my final paper which is due in two weeks. I have really enjoyed that class and my teacher is so smart and wonderful, I have definitely learned a lot!
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• I am taking an Art History class through the University of Salvador (another private university), and I recently finished all of my work for that class. Last Monday I had an in-class exam (with all the other Argentine students, the same test as them, eek!) which went very well, and a few days ago I turned in my final work. My final work was a 15 page paper about four artifacts from northwestern Argentina from about 1000 BC to 2000 DC, discussing the cultures they come from and the role they played in that society. I am so happy to be done with that paper because it took a lot of work, but I think it turned out really nicely! The teacher for that class is very nice, and her assistant (like a TA in the states) is amazingly sweet and helps us out a ton when we don't understand something. The students in the class are nice too, but a little shy. It's a year long class, so although we have 1 more class before their "winter break", all the foreign students are done with that class, woo!
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• My hardest class is a seminar at the public university about the emergence of pop culture (culture of the people, not pop culture like we think of it) in Argentina. It's a class of about 300 students, and the professor of the lecture is extremely smart, a lot of the reading for the class is written by him! The foreign students did not have to take the first exam because the teacher knew it would be way too hard for us (the class assumes we have an extensive knowledge about Argentine history, which we obviously do not), and we have a take home test sometime next week. The regular students got their take home test assignment today, but the foreign students take a separate test written by the professor, which we were supposed to receive today but did not. School in Argentina is very chaotic, as I'm sure you can tell by the fact that I do not know when my take home test will be.
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• My last class is given by my study abroad program and is about Documental Film in Argentina. This class is fairly easy because it is designed for us as exchange students and really helps us improve our grammatical skills. We have short essays almost every week that are corrected by our teachers and show us where we can improve. We have a paper due at the end of my program (the end of June) and an interview (an oral exam of sorts) with professors of the public university to make sure the program is up to par in what they are teaching us grammatically.
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• Overall, school is going very well! This is "final time" but I'm lucky to have all my stuff pretty spread out and I am actually almost done with everything. I have definitely learned a lot and my spanish has improved a lot. (on the right, a picture of me and Nico at Kansas, the American restaurant)
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• I have had some really good food in the last few months. Some highlights have been dinner at ritsy places such as Godoy- a warehouse turned into a swanky restaurant and Asia de Cuba- an Asian inspired restaurant right by the port. For my friend Alex's birthday we went to an American restaurant called Kansas and ate barbecued ribs, yum! Sara continue to make delicious dinners at home- we usually eat chicken and potatoes or empenadas. Recently she made these delicious spanish filled pancakes, and spinach soup- I didn't even know I liked spinach! Empenadas and superpanchos still are my favorite foods here, but who knows, maybe I will get sick of them in the last month!
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• My friends and I have become obsessed with a restaurant by our houses called "Los Molinos". We found this restaurant the first week because it is by me, Amy, Eddie, Emily, and Alex's houses, it is open 24 hours a day and it takes credit card (hard to come by in Argentina!). Los Molinos has become our late night spot to get some food after a night out, and we have discovered the deliciousness that is ham and pinapple pizza. Most nights, we come storming in, say hello to our usual waiter, Carlos, and they don't even bring us a menu but instead start making our ham and cheese pizza and give us tap water, which they also don't usually serve in Argentina (they make you paid for bottled water usually). Los Molinos has come to be one of my favorite spots in Argentina, and definitely a good place to wind down and eat some food after a night out.
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• We have also had some fun nights out here in Buenos Aires. We have been invited to some house parties with Argentines and other American students alike, and have tried all sorts of different night spots- from cool Irish pubs, to salsa dancing or hip hop dance clubs.
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• The circus was in town recently and my friend and I went to check it out. Apparently there's different groups from different countries that perform on different nights, so we picked an Italian act. Turns out that the "circus" here is very strange: the show was at night and there were no elephants or clowns or anything- it was Italians speaking in Italian and doing weird dancing and a few arial acts. We got in for free because the guy selling tickets thought the girls in our group were "so beautiful" (which actually happens a lot here, I think it's because we look foreign?), and we tried to keep ourselves from bursting out laughing the whole time because it was just so different than the "circuses" we used to go to.
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• 5 de Mayo was an interesting celebration here in Argentina. A Mexican holiday that Americans seem to love for some reason, 5 de Mayo is not celebrated by Argentines like it is in the US. All of my friends from my program and I decided to go out to celebrate 5 de Mayo, so we signed up for the 5 de Mayo party at a Mexican bar, only to show up and have it be all Americans with overpriced drinks. Still, we treated ourselves to nachos and margaritas and had a very fun night.
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• I have recently acquired my Argentine residency- I am a legal resident of Argentina! Until August... It seems silly that we had to do this at all, and it took soooo much time! In Argentina you can stayfor 90 days without a visa, and if you leave the country at any point and re-enter, your 90 days starts all over again. So, since I have gone to Uruguay I don't even technically need a residency, but for some reason our program needs it to allow our grades/transcripts to transfer back home. This means that we had to pay 300 pesos (about $80), take new passport photos, and go to the migrations office 3 different times to complete the process. It was confusing and definitely unnecessary, but hey, I'm a resident!
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• And now for my misadventures in Buenos Aires... A few weeks ago the director of our program hosted a big dinner with all of us so we could talk with him about what was going poorly/well on the program and what we would change. It was a very nice dinner with delicious food, and my friends and I dressed up nicely for the occasion. Usually, I don't bring a purse out, especially not when I'm going to a club, but since I had this dinner first I had it with me and we went straight out after dinner.
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• We headed to a few bars to hang out and meet up with our friends, and later in the evening we decided to go to a dance club called LOST. This place is known to have theives that will pickpocket you and steal your wallet, and I have been there many times when friends have gotten pickpocketed. The whole night I spent with my purse on my shoulder (with my coin purse that I use as a wallet inside), with all of my friends around me, and not talking to Argentines that I did not know. We had a fun night and a bunch of us took a cab home and to where else, but Los Molinos. As we got out of the cab, I realized that although I had my coin purse in my wallet, and my ID and my cards such as my Starbucks cards, I had no cash. I thought this was strange because I could have sworn I had about 60 pesos (13 bucks) in there, but my friends told me I probably spent it or something, so I brushed it off an had them spot me. I went home and went to bed, not suspecting anything.
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• The next morning I woke up to a frantic Sara knocking on my door telling me that someone was on the house phone speaking to her in engish and she didn't understand what they wanted. I sleepily answered the phone only to hear my father, who told me someone had taken my debit card and spent a lot of money on it! I had no idea how this could have even happened. Not only was my coin purse in my purse all night, but somehow they got into my purse, into my wallet and took only the money and the card- leaving the rest behind leading me to believe that only the cash was missing.
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• We cancelled the card right away and got things squared away with the bank, but I realized that I was pickpocketed, and that they are very good at what they do because I had absolutely no idea! It turns out another one of my friends got pickpocketed that night at the same place. We ordered a new card, and I had my credit card safe in my room, but I still felt terrible that I had now been robbed, just like almost every other person on my program.
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• A few days later, my friends convinced me to come out with them even though I was upset that I had gotten pick pocketed. With no debit card, I took the remaining cash I had an went and had a fun night with my friends, making sure to leave my purse at home and carry only what I needed and keep it close to my body. But yet, more was to come, and I left my phone in the cab on the way home. I was the last stop, and had been keeping my phone in my pocket (since I refused to bring a purse), and as soon as I stepped out of the cab I realized it had fallen out but the cab was gone, never to be seen again. And since we had hailed it from the street, I had no idea the company name or cab number. My friends and I tried calling my phone to see if someone to answer but to no avail. There I was, no phone and no debit card. Boo! (on the left, a picture of me, Amy, and some other girls at Asia de Cuba)
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• Although it was a very sad weekend, I chalked it up to life experiences and laughed it off. My new card came in the mail (after a funny weekend of travelling with no money with my friend Delaney in Chile, next post!) and I bought a phone for really cheap off my friend Nico who had an extra one. So, everything is okay and I now have a phone and a form of money, but it was definitely an interesting weekend. It was also amazing to see what kind of people I have around me here. My host family offered to lend me money for anything I needed and looked out for me, the program coordinators were extremely helpful, my good friend Delaney spotted me for cash all weekend in Chile, and my friends worked around me not having a phone by using skype as our form of communication. I wish that crazy weekend hadn't have happened, but it showed me what kind of people I have surrounding me and how to survive without some of my modern day conviniences.
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• Another crazy misadventure happened just this Monday. My friends, Emily, Eddie, Caitlin and I had just turned in our final work for my Art History class and we went to Starbucks nearby to study. This Starbucks is on the corner of two very busy streets in my neighborhood of Argentina, which is very safe and nice. We were standing in line by the entrance to the cafe, and me and Eddie had our backs to the door. Suddenly, I heard commotion behind me and turned around to see a man running out the door and a girl right behind him. This girl had been working at a table right by the door on her computer, when this man walked into the cafe, grabbed the computer and ran out the door! She chased him out the door and onto the street, and he jumped onto a moped that his friend was waiting for him on and they were off with her computer. Not only that, but there was a security guard at Starbucks and a police car right across the street. No one could do anything! It happened so fast! Eddie and I were right there and although Eddie went out the door after him too it was just too fast, it happened in the blink of an eye. This girl was actually working on her computer and BAM its gone! It was one of the craziest things I have ever seen!
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• Although its scary that so many things have happened around me here, Buenos Aires really only has a problem with petty crime like this, not violent crimes. Yes its sad that this girl just lost her computer, especially because she was probably working on a final paper or studying for a final exam like all Argentine students, but she is totally okay and no one got hurt.
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• Even with all these things happening, I absolutely love this country and am so happy to be here. I can't believe my trip is almost over and I only have one month left. It will be nice to come home, but there are definitely things about this country that I will miss dearly.
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• Sara and Marcelo have started telling me (almost daily) how much they will miss me when I go. They have host students all the time, I think I am their 8 or 9th student, and they have another student coming the same week that I leave (crazy!) but they say that they have bonded with me so much and we get along so well. I really do feel like Sara is a mother/grandmother figure to me, and Marcelo is a protective big brother/uncle. I can't begin to express how much I will miss them, they have welcomed me with such open arms in this country and made me feel so at home. School has been crazy recently and is now winding down, and I'm taking the time to take in everything that I will miss. In the next few weeks I plan to do the few things I have left to do on my "checklist", take pictures of all of the crazy things that exist here that I would never have expected, and take in all I can in my last month. Hopefully I will update my blog again today or tomorrow about my trip I took to Chile at the end of May, and the bicentennial celebration in Argentina. The mundial (world soccer playoffs) starts this week, so be sure to cheer on Argentina with us! Put on your blue and white and cheer hard, and I will be back before you know it! Love and miss you all!
• - -Sara