LLuvia, lluvia, y mas lluvia (lluvia=rain)

(Written this past weekend about last week, but my apartment lost internet again a few days ago therefore I’m posting it now at the internet cafe down the street...)

This week has been pretty relaxing. Aside from last saturday night when all my friends and I went out to probably the biggest club I’ve ever seen...(may be tied with lechet-for all the ycers reading this) and stayed out dancing to latino music till 7am...which I believe is a new record. When we left it was completely light out (which puts you into this weird daze where you feel so overtired but don’t exactly feel like going to sleep) so instead of going home we went out to breakfast and I finally ate scrambled eggs in Argentina! Then of course we all went back and crashed. The next day was valentines day which I realized Argentines actually celebrate because literally in every street corner there were roses being sold. Eventually when I woke up that day I met Meghan and we went venturing for some place to eat. We found a cute cafe, that we were a little skeptical of at first but then we noticed all of their homemade jams on the wall so we figured it had to be good, and it was. We then treated ourselves to some Freddo icecream- arguably, the best ice cream in all of Buenos Aires.

On Monday I signed up for a pilates class down the street from me. Its definitely a lot harder than those do it at home videos or maybe I’m just really out of shape...either way my abs were in pain for the rest of the week. Tuesday I went to the movies and saw Valentines Day, and on Wednesday I went and met some more family after school. This is my grandfather’s other cousin, Elisa..who is really also an in law but still exciting nonetheless. I went over to her apartment which is in the same part of the city that my school is at. She is super nice and we chatted for a little while before her grand-daughter who is 18 came over. Then another grandson who was 23 happened to call and he came over as well. By the end another grandchild and Elisa’s sister’s 2 grandchildren who were all my age had come over to meet me! We all sat around at the dining room table talking while Elisa put out coffee and a bunch of different desserts out for all of us. It was such a cool afternoon meeting all this family that I never knew I had. Later that night Eliana and I went to dinner at a kosher steak house that we heard was really good. This place was hoppin and everyone around us was very friendly. We talked to these 2 Israelis sitting behind us who were club promoters (good contacts to have) and they told us about some big purim party they were planning. Then we talked to a couple who sat right near us who was from Colombia and had lived in the U.S. but were now living here. We finally left the restaurant at a quarter to midnight.

Thursday we had empanada making night at Carmen’s house which was awesome. We made 68 empanadas for 12 people and ate them all followed by a really good fruit pie that is made from the jelly of a fruit called quince in english which I have never heard of.
Later that night Meghan, Thereasa and I went out for a bit of a girls night and got drinks up on some rooftop bar...followed by going to the club Lost, the one we went to last week, however not as fun this time. Friday me and Eliana had a bit of a different Shabbat than what we had been doing in Buenos thus far, at my cousins from the states’ family friends in Buenos Aires. It was quite the trek there though because again it was raining, and again the city was flooding. Its crazy. My friends told me that last week when it rained, they were actually walking in water that was waist high in the part of the city that they were stuck in. It wasn’t as bad this time because the heavy rain only lasted for half a day, but it still meant that the subway stopped running, and there was no electricity in some stores in part of the city that I was in, which was a problem because I had just run out of minutes on my phone and the locutorios (kiosks with phone booths) all said that they were closed because of the rain. And the one day I happened to not bring my umbrella! Luckily the family called me 10 minutes after I had gotten there to see where I was because there is no buzzer or any other way to get into the apartment. From there on though, everything was great. I sat down and talked to the mother and her girls for a while until Eliana came and we hung out for another hour or so with everyone. The family has 6 children, 5 girls and 1 boy who is the youngest, all of who either speak hebrew fluently or are learning. This made it really easy because again we would have run into the same problem of us not knowing enough spanish or them not knowing enough english to have a conversation. We did try to speak to them in spanish a few times..because we really are trying to learn, but, subconsciously you just go back to the language you know you can communicate in. Shabbat dinner was amazing, soo much good food I couldn’t even believe it. And the most amazing parve fruit cake for dessert. It would be great to get that recipe, especially for UMass shabbat dinners. I decided to sleepover there with Eliana because I figured my trip to Uruguay the next day was going to be cancelled because of the rain. I found out later that night that it had been postponed so luckily I didn’t have to wake up at 7am and start making calls.

The next day, Meghan, her friend Adrienne and I did our own little walking tour of the city with the intention of ending up at MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires).When we got there though, the line was out to the waazoo so we decided to keep going and came across another museum of impressionate art that we went into instead. That night a bunch of kids from my program and I all went to this really cool looking restaurant that is directly in between my friend lauren and my apartments that we always pass and say we’ll eventually go there. Well, we finally went and it was awesome. They had really good and still pretty cheap pizza, and wine, lots of it! From there we continued on to the area that I’ve previously spoken about, Palermo Soho with bars and clubs and all that jazz. We went to one bar, and then out to a dance club that played such good music again. Why aren’t there any places in the states that play remixed-oldies? One theory of mine is that Buenos Aires is stuck in the year 1990. Or maybe they just know good music. Anyway, fue muy divertido (it was very fun). Sunday was another rainy day. This time we spent our afternoon at a super nice mall not far from our apartments called Palermo Alto. You’d be suprised but they have a pretty legit food court. I got a salmon stir fry with a bunch of different vegetables (yes parents, if you are reading this be proud I ate some new veggies).

More blogging to come soon. By soon I mean as soon as I get internet back, or am back at this cafe.

Chao chicos.