Last night was my first supper with my new “family.” It was so much fun. Some of the other students in the house don’t speak as much Spanish and so the students for the most part speak English to each other. I think that might bother me later since I am here to learn Spanish, but for right now it has been really helpful since they have explained a lot of things to me in English that I might have otherwise had a really hard time figuring out. The diner was fun though because even the students who didn’t know Spanish before the trip were able to communicate very well. Everybody, especially Luciano, used a lot of hand gestures that made everything really easy to understand. There was a very playful attitude to the conversation which led to a lot of joking around. We had something similar to chicken fried steaks with lemon juice and French fries. I certainly didn’t expect that!
After supper we all lounged around for an hour or so, but then we got ready and went out! We didn’t go out until Midnight (still early by B.A. standards.) We went to this great place called Mundo Bizzaro. This particular bariloche (bar) had a lot of fun booths and couches. There was this big projector screen that was showing music videos that demonstrated various oddities (real and imaginary) from our bizarre world (mostly vampires) hence the name Mundo Bizzaro. I tried my first Fernet and Coke (the popular local cocktail.) All the guide books call it a bitter acquired taste, but I like it. It was raining a little and it was just a titch chilly so we took a radio taxi there and back. I ended up going to bed at 3:30! Overall a great end to the first day.
This morning I slept in until 11:30, got up and ate breakfast. Our breakfast is served continental style and is there between 9:00 and 12:00 during the week and until 2:00 on the weekends. I felt like I was being lazy sleeping in so late, but my roommates all commented on how early I was up. After breakfast I showered and was just hanging out in my room until one of my roommates knocked and invited me to go shopping. My plan for the day had been to wait for an invitation to do anything from anyone of my roommates so this was perfect. Also, I only brought one suitcase for 3 months, so I need to do a little bit of shopping to supplement my limited wardrobe. We went to Alto Palermo. According to my roommates it is one of the nicer malls here. There I finally got to go to Zara. (For all of you who have been to Spain and told me so much about it, you weren’t kidding it really is that cool!) I got a couple of cheap t-shirts and one really cool top to wear on the town. We ate lunch at the mall. I had shrimp stir fry.
Tonight I experienced my first asado (BBQ)! The food was amazing!!! I had chorizo and grilled beef and some sort of grilled squash and a grilled red pepper. I washed it all down with some really great red wine. For dessert I had my first alforete. This is a dessert that is made with dulce de leche (a caramel like sweet) and is sort of like a cookie. It will be a miracle if I don’t gain weight during my stay with great local specialties like alforetes! The asado brings with it a great party like attitude. The conversation from this dinner started at 9:00 and lasted until 12:00. During that time I also taught everybody how to play Pass the Pigs. This is the game I brought as a gift for my host family along with some Jiff peanut butter. It was so much fun, and Luciano and María kept commenting on how much fun and how silly the game is.
The weather today was a little damp and little windy. It felt like a nice day in early September in South Dakota. Everybody kept commenting on how cold it is; I just laughed!
