Bicicleta-ing

Che, boludos, como estan? Today our program organized a whole day trip for 13 of us to bike around the northern suburbs of BA. We met in the morning downtown to get our bikes and meet our guides from the UrbanBiking company. We then rode our bikes through the morning traffic and masses of people over to the train station in Retiro and took our bikes on the commuter train. This was an experience in itself, as you can probably imagine. We took the train north up the coast of the Rio de la Plata to a small town called La Lucila. From there we had a nice view of the city. We started biking up the coast toward Tigre, a fun town I spent a day in awhile ago. Some of the time we were right along the water but mostly we wound around the very expensive residential neighborhoods. The houses were absolutely insane. San Isidro, the ritziest area of greater Buenos Aires, is where a lot of wealthy CEOS and such from the city live. Or have vacation homes. There are some "barrios nauticos," or nautical neighborhoods, that are only accessible by boat. There are also a lot of crazy expensive private schools in this area. We actually biked past the gorgeous private university where I have all my soccer games. We took a nice break to drink mate and eat an alfajor (the cookies everyone is obsessed here, but I think are disgusting). Eventually we got to Tigre, where we ate lunch on a dock by the big fruit market/port. From there it was a short ride over to a rowing club, where we switched from bikes to kayaks. Hanna, Kyle, and I had a 3 person kayak. The trip was eventful, to say the least. We were the slowest people, and we ran into several other kayaks, a dock, a tree, and got stuck in the dense shrubbery and brush sticking out from the shore. I had never actually been in a kayak before, and I am apparently terrible at rowing. Anyway, it was super nice out and a beautiful day to be on the water. We got to go in some narrow channels and jungle-ish parts that I didn't go through in the bigger boat tour we took the last time we were in Tigre. The water was pretty cold (and still super dirty), so luckily no one tipped over. I again felt like I was back at my cottage, and it was nice to get a second look at all the docks and whimsically named boats and cottages. After this we took the commuter train about 45 min. all the way back to downtown BA and took our bikes down into a parking garage. It was overall a super great day, with lots of activity and cool architecture in the small towns. You see why Portenos might need to get out of the city every once in awhile. The parts on main drags with lots of traffic were a bit nerve-racking (e.g. having a bus follow 2 ft. behind you on a narrow road), but we survived.

Going back to this weekend, I meant for it to be relaxing and full of sleep and homework, but I still did some fun stuff (of course! haha). First, I watched 3 Argentine movies on my computer with Spanish subtitles, which are super good for learning phrases and improving my understanding of fast speaking and bad/regional pronunciation. Saturday afternoon my host mom's grandkids came over and we went to the park and played at the house. They are so cute, and I just get so excited that they like me and want to talk to me in Spanish. The boy, Mateo, who is 4, loves alternating between asking his almost 2 yr. old sister and me questions about what different things are called and delighting when I don't know things she does. We raced down this hall over again and he would explain how to say things like "ready, set, go" and that "I had to give Cande a head start because she's younger." Saturday night I went to another all you can eat pizza and pasta place with 4 other Madison kids to celebrate Mifflin. Afterwards we went over to Kyle's host family's house. His family has 5 kids, and they have a super cool apartment that takes up the whole first floor of an old building on busy Avenida Santa Fe. They also have a pool and a yard, which is very rare. Anyway, his host sister Mery, who is 19, had a bunch of girls over and we got to meet them and finally "hang out with Argentines." It was really fun and the girls were super friendly. Eventually around 2 AM they convinced us to come out with them to this bar over near the cemetery, closer to where I live. We went with the big group, but then it eventually ended up just being Hanna, Kyle, the sister, and me. She was very easy to get along with and promised to take Hanna and I shopping later this week (before we went out we basically just sat in the apartment admiring all of the girls' impressive fashion...and bodies). Here it is very easy to look both under dressed and obese, a lovely combination. I did also get a lot of reading and paper planning done this weekend, which was good. A lot of people are starting to have midterms, but for some reason all of my parciales are the first week of June, with the final exam or paper being the second week of June. So basically I have not much now and am going to die later. I've been getting stressed that I'm not stressed, if that makes sense, because everyone else is. I have to write a cumulative 25 pages of final papers, none of which I can start due to lack of information and clarification of assignments. Don't really know how that's gonna work out...

On a final sad note, tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, Sprecher's golden birthday. We always have a party with margaritas, hamburger meat for him, etc., so maybe I'll be able to participate for a bit through Skype, haha.

Random cultural facts (for my father): They iron everything here. T-shirts, underwear, everything. Also, both Burger King and McDonald's are insanely popular and have DELIVERY. You can actually get just about anything delivered, including alcohol at 3 in the morning.