Optimismo es la llave de la vida

Friday.
(Feb. 5)

Class got out at 3 as usual, and not that I don’t love learning spanish or anything...but after 1 week of intensive, I was very excited for some weekend adventures.

That afternoon Eliana and I decided that we would try out the Chabad (spelled and pronounced Jabad here) of Olleros that evening which is in Belgrano, right next to both of our universities. Of course, we went there with the hope that some nice family would see some American students and invite us over for Shabbat dinner at their home. Well, we got there and to our surprise we were the only 2 girls there. We then realized that the services hadn’t yet started and it was only mincha. When they finally did, maybe 6 more girls had walked in, 3 of whom were Israelis our age traveling in South America. We talked to them a little bit throughout the service and they told us they were staying at some youth hostel near the chabad with a bunch of other Israeli travelers. But then they said goodbye to us and that was that. We came out to the main area, but in a few minutes almost everyone had left. At this point we were just gonna go home because 1) it was pouring out and 2) where else were we going to go? We started talking to a group of boys though who hadn’t run away just yet and low and behold one of them happend to work at this hostel. He told us that every Friday night they have a big Shabbat dinner there for all of the guests and that we were welcome to come tonight. Score! At dinner we sat at a table with 30 Israelis all traveling in South America, next to our new friends from the service and another non-jewish worker and his girlfriend. Conversing was the biggest challenge of the night because you have 6 people that speak 3 different languages. We basically kept switching from Hebrew, to English, to Spanish. It was cool but extremely confusing. I think I’m getting better at not speaking Hebrew words when I’m trying to speak spanish or vise versa.

Saturday my friend Meghan and I met in Palermo, an area 10 minutes away from where I live and we had planned to walk around the area and maybe do some shopping. When I had left my apartment it looked like it was going to rain again and of course when we met up it started to. We pretty much just walked into the first place that we found to eat that looked pretty good and not too expensive. When I ordered the sweet potato and cheese ravioli, the waiter asked me what sauce I wanted and points to a list of sauces that you have to pay for separately. So this cheap restaurant wasn’t as cheap as we thought but we still decided to stay. However after our meal, we noticed a few more extra charges on our check. One was for butter and the other, a 10 peso fee for table service(not to be confused with tip). You’re probably thinking the same thing as me... what the heck is table service?! Well we asked the waiter and he said something in spanish that we couldn't understand and points to the table cloth. Next lesson learned: Don’t be fooled by these kinds of restaurants and overpay for a meal that definitely wasn’t worth the price.

Luckily after lunch the weather had cleared up and we still had a little time to walk around before I was going to meet my actual family from here. We walked around Soho in Palermo, a really cute new hip area with boutiques and cafes and cobblestone roads, and relatively cheap as well. At 4 I hopped on a bus to go back to my apartment, where I was going to meet Roberto (my grandfather’s 2nd cousin in law) his daughter, and her son. I walked up to my apartment and there they were waiting for me! The 3 of them only speak Spanish so it was definitely a few hours of good practice. We went to a cafe down the street and Roberto brought with him a photo album with pictures from when he and his wife had come to visit us when I was 6 years old! We talked about everything, family, school, etc. He also told me his wife’s sister who is actually my grandfather’s blood related cousin lives here as well in Belgrano where my university is. And apparently she has grandkids that go to my school! I’m hoping to meet them this coming week. Later that night my friends and I went out to a bar and made some new argentine friends who we hung out with for the night!

Sunday Eliana and I met for lunch, followed by a bike tour with my program around Buenos Aires. They almost cancelled it because it was raining, but luckily they didn’t because it was a fantastic tour of the city and the gardens, and it only rained on us lightly for about 5 minutes in the middle of the bike ride. Actually by the end it got pretty sunny. In the evening my friends Meghan, Lauren, and I went to a bar called Sullivans (pretty American eh?) to watch the Superbowl. Except the volume on the tv was off for most of the time so we couldn’t even listen to the commercials.

This week was also very fun. Spanish class has grown on me immensely and the 5 hours go by pretty quickly now, probably because we’ve been playing more games. Our teacher Julieta, I must say, comes up with pretty creative ones. One game we played was basically truth or dare, minus the dare part, where you pick a question out of a hat and ask it to anyone in the class. It was very hilarious. Another highlight of the week was our movie night at our director, Carmen’s house. Her husband first gave us a Socioeconomic history lesson of Argentina, which was very interesting and then we had pizza and watched a new amazing Argentine film called The Secret In Their Eyes, which has been nominated for the best foreign film Oscar. I believe it should be out in something theaters in the states if anyone is interested. Anyway, later that evening Meghan and I went to a club called Lost that everyone at school has been talking about that plays American hip hop every Thursday night. They played everything from Jlo and 50cent to Kanye and random 90’s stuff too. However, probably the sweatiest night of my entire life. The place was packed and no air conditioning. When we left it probably looked like we had just taken a shower in our clothes. No joke. Oh and did I mention we got back at 5:30 am?

Last night Eliana and I went back to the chabad in Olleros . This week there were so many more people and specifically a lot more women there than last week. We also met the new Israeli travelers who were staying at the hostel and again after services had dinner there. We felt bad not paying again but our friend that works there said its fine and that if we wanted we could come by after shabbat and donate some.

Today I’m going to Recoleta park with some friends. Its a park down the street from me and on the weekends they have vendors and live music, etc. Should be fun. Catch yall later.

besos,
Karen