No me jodas!

Hola... Another Monday, another weekend to report on. Thursday night my friend Hanna's parents, who were here for the week, took us out to dinner at the amazing all you can eat place we'd been before. Honestly, best food ever. It was really fun to be with parents again and hear them try to speak the little Spanish they'd picked up to the waiters. Friday I had my first tango class. It was a bit slow, and, as always, there were quadruple the number of girls as boys, but fun anyway. The teachers are Argentine, and one of them complimented me on my dancing posture, so that was exciting. I have "learned" the tango so many times, but everyone teaches it a little differently, the steps are weird here, and all the lessons in the world can't make me a good dancer, unfortunately. Friday night Fran and I cooked hamburgers on the stove...that was interesting.
Saturday morning we had our second soccer game against the Universidad de Palermo, and we won 2-0. I got called for a penalty kick for honestly not even touching a girl, and the reffing continues to be ridiculously tight in the games. After the game we walked 10 or 15 blocks to the next small town up the coast where a girl on the team lives. We bought food at the grocery store and sat in her backyard eating and talking for like 3 hours. It was so fun, and I'm really glad I decided to not rush to my second tango class and just stay for lunch. At first the American girls always hung out separately from the Argentines and talked in English, but now we are all legitimately friends, and we were all talking together in Spanish about boyfriends, music, and other "normal" girl things, not just the usual conversation topics of majors, cultural differences, etc. Saturday night I stayed in and cooked pasta, which was quite the process. I had to light the stove with a match, and use a pot with a handle-less top. Fran later explained to me that it broke when they were banging it like a drum out on the balcony during a protest. I had heard that people go out in the streets with pots and pans for the marches and stuff, and sure enough I looked at the pot again later and it had a ton of little indentations on the bottom. Store bought sauce comes in a bag here, and tastes exactly like the sauce in pizza Lunchables, so that was pleasant. The grandkids also came over again, which was fun.
Sunday morning I got up early to run in my first ever 10K race. It was in Palermo, through a bunch of parks and up some big avenues. Ed, Kyle, Hanna, and her mom all did it. It only cost 45 pesos (less than $15) and we got sweet yellow dri-fit jerseys. I was pretty wary about doing it, because I've only done 5Ks, and I'm always dead after those...and I am just not a runner in general, as you probably know. But for some reason, I ran the best I ever had in my life. I finished in 51 minutes and felt fantastic almost the whole time, so that was really exciting. I even beat Hanna and her mom, who are huge runners and have done a half-marathon. Now I know it's just lack of will power that doesn't let me do more than 30 min. of jogging when I got out to run...The rest of the day Sunday I just relaxed...watched two movies, went to a bar with Fran and his friend to watch the Boca game, went to night Mass. Sundays when Boca plays the games usually aren't on TV at home, only in bars and restaurants, so every place you walk by is filled with men glued to the TV. The only people on the streets are pressed up against the windows, watching the game from outside. It's pretty cool. Boca tied--they're doing really terribly this season, which is too bad.
Today I had to go to the program office to watch this historic documentary for my class. The office is on Avenida Corrientes, the huge theatre district avenue, right by the obelisk. I was sitting in this little room up on the 8th floor with another girl watching this old black and white film of people protesting the military violence of the 50s when gradually we started to hear something big happening outside. We went over to the window, and were able to see this huge march/protest coming down the avenue. It was incredibly loud--drums, whistles, fireworks (like big fireworks, M80s and such), sirens. There was paper and confetti everywhere, and all the workers were carrying signs and flags and dressed in Argentina's blue and white. From what we gathered, it was some kind of restaurant industry thing, because all the signs said "gastronomico" something or other about salaries and such. People were all out on balconies watching, and it felt like the 4th of July or the Macy's parade or something. But down on the sidewalks all the businessmen and other locals just kept walking on by with barely a look at the commotion right next to them. Honestly, protests and marches are so common here it is unbelievable. I live pretty close to the legislative district and other government offices, and literally almost every day some kind of smaller thing is going on. My host mom will sometimes say, "Oh, leave some extra time to get to school today because the news said there's going to be a big teacher's union strike in the plaza at 3" or something. There just seems to be so much more activism and participation going on here. Someone's always protesting something. Which brings me to my recent realization that the amount of political pessimism here is a huge contrast to the U.S., especially after such an exciting election with slogans of hope and change. Everyone just assumes that things are going to get worse, that the government is corrupt, that nothing is going to get done. And, sitting there watching Argentina's dark and oppressive history on the screen, it definitely made sense. People protest here because they have to, because that's the only way to make things happen. I take for granted the relatively peaceful and democratic history of the U.S....it is incredibly hard to imagine a past full of military dictatorships and mass disappearances shaping your political education. Every day I see the front of the newspaper and wish I actually had the ability to read it regularly and thoroughly...there is so much interesting stuff going on politically and I'm really lost on most of it, but it's just not feasible for me to keep up with only Spanish sources.
Well, in other news I got 2! packages of food recently so I now have a nice stockpile of chocolate, peanut butter, gum, and ketchup..which can solve just about any problem, obviously. I had to go to customs to pick them up, and that was a bit of a pain and very bureaucratic, but definitely worth it. I have just 2 episodes of The Office left to catch up on (Michael Scott Paper Company, what?!?! haha), so I'm going to do that before I go to bed. Hasta pronto amigos! p.s. "no me jodas" is kind of my phrase of the week, i've just started hearing it everywhere. it means like "are you kidding me!?!?"