Familia

Well this week I was both missing my real family a ton while also realizing how much I'm going to miss my new family here when I go. Wednesday was my host mom's 60th birthday, and my two older host sisters planned this huge surprise party at the grandma's house. They were thoughtful enough to invite me, and I had a great time. Wednesday evening I went to Mass with Claudia because they were having a special intention about her birthday. Then around 8:30 I told her I was going out to coffee but would be home for dinner, and walked the 3 blocks down the street to China's (her mom's) apartment. When I first got there I thought it was going to be super awkward because I was underdressed and had never met the large majority of the almost 50 people there. The apartment was so huge and fancy, and everyone was milling around with their glasses of beer and appetizers. Fran had class and was going to come later, so I just tried to talk to the grandkids in the corner for awhile. But luckily a couple of his cousins my age started talking to me, and by the end I felt completely comfortable. The surprise was absolutely perfect...we were all hidden behind this wall/in the room around the corner with all the glasses cleared away and the lights dimmed and the grandma just sitting in her chair. When we jumped out Claudia just screamed and screamed and it was really funny. It was basically her ENTIRE family, like second cousins and everything. So crazy. Then we ate empanadas and they had a nice memory book and little thing to sign and everything. Claudia was so surprised to see me there too and kept telling her friends how well I had lied to her and all this stuff. It was just funny because I think they all kind of thought I was going to ruin the surprise. Anyway, I hadn't planned to stay very late because I had an exam the next morning but I ended up staying there just hanging around with the close family till the very end, and I talked to a girlfriend of a cousin about my age for probably about an hour about how she did an intercambio with Germans and all this other stuff. They really do treat me like actual family, and I'm so lucky.

On the other hand, no matter how much fun I have at their big family dinners or gatherings, it always makes me miss my own family more, because no matter how inclusive they are, I'm not their flesh and blood, I don't understand their jokes, and I don't share their history, etc. I had already last week missed Alex's graduation (and his lovely speech), and then this weekend I missed Max's Eagle Scout ceremony and my mom's big surprise of flying in his best childhood friend from FL. I feel like we have "big family events" like this much less often than they do here, because everyone lives so close to each other here and they're just at a different stage of life with weddings, babies, etc. So, it was really too bad to miss two relatively big occasions at home home. However, Friday night I got to Skype with two sets of aunts and uncles and my GRANDPA, which was really exciting. I called to see how the surprise went, and didn't realize that all of my relatives were going to be there. So it was really really nice to hear everyone's voices / blurrily see them (especially Bup, who I think was pretty amazed with the technology!). I was just in such a good mood after talking to them. Claudia waited to eat with me way longer than the 5 minutes I had said I needed, and then we had a great talk about family and I told her all about the surprise and the ceremony (she even watched it on YouTube with me after!). We've been having some really good conversations when Fran's not home for dinner, and I feel like we are getting much closer than we were before, which is nice. I also can express myself much better, which is good. Finally there are times when my Spanish is just flowing and I'm not thinking and I'm just saying exactly what I'm trying to say.

Saturday morning we had another soccer game. We won 6-0, and I got to play right midfield. I ended up scoring 3 goals, so that was pretty exciting. The first and probably only hat trick of my life. We only had 8 girls so we all played the whole game, and we just have the funniest conversations with the coach and the Argentine girls on the long train rides to and from the field. We've been making all these plans to go shopping with them and they really want to take us out dancing and have another asado and all this stuff before we leave. This is the kind of thing that makes me wish I was staying the whole year, because we finally have real friendships with them, right before we have to leave. Saturday afternoon the grandkids were over again so I played with them a little. Saturday night 5 of us went out to dinner at Juana M (my third time there--the place with the amazing salad bar) and then to Jobs, the board game/pool bar I had gone to for my birthday. One of the only games left to check out was "Sextionary" (in Spanish, of course), so we gave that a try, but the vocabulary proved to be kind of an issue. Ed kept asking Argentines what words meant, which was kind of awkward. They had SCRABBLE(!), but it was checked out the whole time. It would have been so fun to play in Spanish.

Well, basically I just have my program class paper/presentation Thursday left to worry about with regards to school. Unfortunately, the paper is a huge pain, because my class topic was Argentine documentaries, and we have to write this fairly technical cinematographic comparison using movies only available to watch at the office (when they're not being used by other students). But I have my other 2 big papers done and printed already to turn in this week, and I just found out I got an 8 on my all-Argentines theology class parcial, so I'm relieved and really virtually done, in the whole scheme of things. I leave for Chile a week from tomorrow. Also, tomorrow is the big Madison football ticket online sign-up, which should be crazy. Luckily the two hour time difference means I only have to get up at 10:30 instead of 8:30 to do it. Today was also obviously Father's Day, and I missed giving my Dad our gift of a new digital TV for the living room to replace our 1989 model. Although I was quite fond of/proud of that little TV...hopefully I'll get to take it for my dorm room in the fall. And my brother Max flies to Amsterdam tomorrow for a 2 week Europe tour with school. Phew, life is exhausting! Well, that's all for now. Chau!