Tuesday, June 23, 2009

My first weekend

My mother told me this morning that everyone had been asking when I was going to write again. Since I've managed to write one horrible post in the past week, I'm surprised anyone reads it at all.

I'm starting to get my feet under me. Last Friday Marílu dragged me out, and I'm so glad she did. First, we went to a language exchange group called Talk&Go, which is supposed to pair native Spanish speakers and native English speakers. I was surprised to see that the group was pretty evenly matched, though "native English" sort of went out the window. To four Argentines and a Peruvian, there were two Americans, a Korean learning Spanish, a German professor and his Thai aboriginal opera singer girlfriend. Everyone (except the other American) was really nice, and I got contact information from several of them. I went to dinner with Jaesoung, the Korean, on Saturday night and we struggled through talking to the waiter fairly successfully! Sunday, I went to el Mercado de San Telmo with the German/Thai couple. The Argentine girls promised to take me out after next Friday's meeting, too. If all goes well, with two hours of very broken Spanish I may well have made half a dozen new friends!

After that, Marilu took me to the 21st birthday party of the daughter of her friend. Yes, there are several things about that sentence that are terrifying. There were dozens of Argentine twenty-somethings in large groups, talking and laughing in unintelligible Spanish...it was too much for me to handle. I hung out in the kitchen with the moms, had some good Argentine food and wine. I unknowingly tried goose pate for the first time (I liked it!) and decided that cheap Malbec tastes better to me than expensive Malbec. The lady of the house took Marilu and I along while she was dragged around the fancy neighborhood of Belgrano, giving us the opportunity to pick mansions to buy at a future date yet to be named. When we got back, however, things got...well, a little more colorful.

There were a couple of guys sort of...hanging around the kitchen a little, before we left for our walk. When we got back, we set out the desserts and there was a flock of people to the dining room. Intimidated by the crowd, I escaped into the small back garden, and didn't get three steps outside before realizing oh no. Now I'm out here alone, and the tall dude who's been looking at me saw me go. Crap.

Sure enough, there he was. I spent the rest of the evening getting a LOT of attention from three buddies, one of which kept throwing up his arms and shouting "OHIOOOO!!!!!" Oy vey. Their names, and I'm not kidding, were Ramiro, Leonardo, and Santiago. (Cue Lara's laughing reply, 'where was the fourth ninja turtle?') Oh life in Argentina, you can be so surreal. The moral of Friday's story was cuidate: Argentine boys aren't like lazy Americans, they're much more cunning. Lesson learned!

Anyway, I lost all of Saturday until dinner with a horrible hangover, and went to San Telmo on Sunday. I didn't get to actually shop much, so I'm going back this Sunday, and I'll tell you all about it then. It was pretty great, and pashminas cost $15 pesos (just under $4) each. Not to shabby, huh? :)

One final thought: I found all the cats. People told me about all the stray cats in Buenos Aires but I hadn't seen one before Saturday night. Jaesoung and I walked around the parks by Plaza Italia, and we must have seen forty cats. Some of the trees in the park were uplit for effect, and there was a cat under each light and sitting ON each of the lights. Some of them were friendly, and you could tell that they got fed, but all the signs with pictures of scared kittens that said "Do not abandon your pets" made me sad!

Okay. Enough for now. Love you all. Miss you, but I can't really say I wish you were here...only because I think this is something I have to do on my own. Or with men with ninja turtle names...whatever.

xoxox
m

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