Midwest, stand up!

Well, I've spent about 15 hours this weekend studying for my huge midterm Tuesday, so I'm going to take a little break and write this. Not really a very exciting week. Monday (Labor Day) was Independence Day here, but sadly there were no fireworks or anything exciting :( However it was my host sister's birthday, so the whole family came over for dinner, plus her husband's sister, mother, and grandparents. The whole in-laws being best friends thing here weirds me out a little. Anyway, there are two pictures of her with my host mom. She was pregnant and actually had her baby, Tomas, last night, which was exciting. Thursday was my midterm...it actually went pretty well I think. Thursday night right after soccer practice a bunch of us went out to a bar for awhile, and we've started to make social plans with the Argentine girls on the team, which is nice. Yesterday our soccer game got canceled on account of rain, of course after we'd already gotten up early and taken the bus to the train station. Very Argentine. My friend Emily from BC and I decided to get coffee and medialunas then, since we were already up. The train station is kind of a sketchy area, but we were at a nice little cafe. While we were there, two guys came in and sat down behind us, then left without ordering. We even commented that it was weird, and after my friend Danny's backpack situation I should have immediately known something was up, but anyway they stole Emily's iPod out of the pocket of her jacket on the back of her chair, so that sucked. I must be bad luck or something, because I've been with three people during attempted or actual robberies. Last night I went to this dinner party that an American girl from my program / one of my classes was having. Her friend from high school is visiting, so they rented an apartment, and therefore could cook/have people over. She made delicious falafel with yogurt sauce and Thai peanut butter soup, and we had wine and homemade banana bread. It was so nice to eat something different and fresh for once! It was a very fun but interesting time, because of all the girls, 3 go to Barnard, 3 go to Smith, one goes to Tufts, and one goes to a tiny college in Vermont. They were all dressed so fashionably, with boots and tights and high skirts and what have you, talking about their houses in the Hamptons and Maine. Everyone was kind of like, "wait where do you go again...", and as we were leaving this one girl actually said "Everyone I meet from the Midwest reminds me of my one friend from the Midwest. Is that weird?" So yeah, the culture shock of being with 8 Coasties was almost as much as being in a room full of Argentines! haha. Afterward we got ice cream, and then my friend Kara and I went to have a drink at a restaurant. We were apparently looking lost looking up buses in our Guia T, and this huge group of twentysomething Argentines approached our table. These three super nice guys started talking to us and helping us out, then one of them takes out this pamphlet about a church, and they tell us they are "Evangelios" and we'd be welcome at their services next weekend, etc. etc. It was a bit bizarre. Then after waiting in the freezing cold at 3 in the morning for a bus for half an hour, we went to go meet up with my host brother Fran and his friends at this bar/boliche place where someone was having a big birthday thing. It is very common here to rent out an entire place for your birthday and just have a ridiculously big party with bouncers, drink specials, etc. Anyway, we get there, and it is this kind of mini two-story boliche. It was incredibly loud, hot, crowded, and dirty, with broken glasses and alcohol all over the floor. Fran introduced us to a bunch of people, then kind of left us with these two guys, both named Santiago, to apparently entertain us. We started dancing and it was just a disaster because a) i was wearing a sweater b) i had to hold onto my fleece and huge purse for my life c) i cannot dance to any music, let alone cumbia and other Latin American hip moving stuff d) consequently half the club was watching me for entertainment e) this guy was a huge creep. He was very drunk, and kept saying ridiculous things, asking over and over for my name/number, trying to kiss me, whatever. We eventually escaped from him, although he continued to follow me around the rest of the night. Then I started dancing with this Portuguese guy, and couldn't understand anything he was saying to me, until we switched to English. He had spent a winter (his summer) in Utah working as a ski lift operator. I feel like more than half the guys I meet here have done this or are planning to do it...no wonder I've never met an Argentine in the U.S...they're all out west on the ski hills! Anyway, inevitably the conversation quickly switched from cultural comparisons to "you're beautiful, i'm crazy for you, kiss me, i love you, etc. etc." I mean, this was really my first experience going out dancing but unfortunately all the guys were exactly like the Latin American stereotype (shoe store take 2). It's just uncomfortable, what do you even say to that? I just want to dance or have a normal conversation, not hear drunken, pathetic, and comical one-liners from some guy who's been repeating the same thing the entire night. I just find it annoying and demeaning almost. And they're just all over you immediately, so physical and doing stuff that at home that would be considered sexual harassment. Although I guess that's not very different from drunken college parties...it's more the verbal stuff that's so weird. Fran wanted to stay later, so around 5:30 AM I had to figure out how to get home alone. I walked a couple blocks to catch a bus on a big street, but while I was walking this car of four drunk guys pulled up next to me. They were shouting to me to get in the car, and then reversed and drove up on the sidewalk in front of me. Then I kind of freaked out and just stopped in front of this closed kiosk where I could see a young guy inside, but when I looked to him for assurance he kind of gave me a snide smile and laughed with the guys. By then the bus was passing, and luckily even though I wasn't at a stop I pounded on the door at the stoplight and the driver let me on. The bus ride at 6 in the morning was honestly as crowded as lunchtime rush hour rides I take through the downtown to get to class on weekdays. Young people, old people, children. The night life is just absolutely ridiculous. The majority of the kids in the program have this experience, actually like times 10 at a huge boliche with a lot of drinking, every weekend. I don't know...I just have no desire to do it. I gave it a try because it's a cultural thing, but I felt terrible all day and it's just not worth it to me. Oh well.

So today (after sleeping till noon...Fran slept till 4!) I've just been studying more for my exam. I am extremely nervous, because I didn't understand anything from the readings that it's on, and although we got the (very complicated) 5 questions beforehand, I have 8 pages of answers I bullet-pointed out, and I'm basically just memorizing phrases that I wouldn't know the meaning of in English. Sooo, it's basically a disaster, and I don't know how I'm going to write in Spanish for 3 hours. Yuck. This coming weekend I'm going to Iguazu Falls though, so I'm really excited for that. I tried to put up some kind of random, day in the life kind of pics in the subway, of one of my school buildings (white), the YMCA where I have soccer practice (upstairs on the right of the brightly lit pedestrian street), and Avenida 9 de Julio (the 14 lane one that is impossible to capture in pictures). Also, just thinking of more cultural tidbits, up until high school all the kids wear little white lab coats to school. Public, private, over the uniform or regular clothes..it's super bizarre looking. There is a new show on TV called "Gran Cunado" (big brother-in law), a take off on "Big Brother." It's political satire, and it's all heavily made up men playing the president, Cristina, her husband, Nestor (the ex-president), and other big names. It's set inside the Casa Rosada, and supposedly is hilarious, if you know what's going on politically, which I don't, ha. It reminds me a lot of the SNL political stuff from the election, and it's been kind of controversial and in the news a lot here. My host family hates the president so much it's kind of disturbing. Yesterday the little grandson who's 4 starting singing some song about "Cristina, hija de puta" and to keep my window shut Fran folds up newspapers that have her picture on the outside and slams the glass shut on her face. They say things out loud like they hope she dies tomorrow. Okayyy, well, enough procrastinating, hasta luego.