Dia 21, First Time Peanut Butter, 7 de Julio

Well, today was a pretty decent day. I went to class and didn’t hate everything about politics afterwards! I guess sending the profe the email was a good thing because he spoke really slow today and kept making sure I understood. And today, I actually did understand a lot of what he was talking about. I think it helped that he had a hand out today, so we could follow along with him, and he also gave us a brief political history of Argentina, which helped also. So class was pretty decent.

During one of our breaks, I pulled out some crackers and peanut butter (it’s a great mid-day snack!) and started eating. This was the second time the professor had seen me eating peanut butter, and today he decided to ask me what it was that I was eating. We tried explaining it to him (we didn’t know if there was a word in Spanish so we said mantequilla de mani “butter of peanuts”). He looked at it and said, “Hmm…Skippy Cream” which was basically hilarious in his Argentine accent. He didn’t know what it was still, but he agreed to try it on a cracker. He tasted the peanut butter for the first time in his life and said, “¡Qué rico!” (How delicious!). I was so happy he liked it! And how cool is that to be there for someone’s first time at having peanut butter (and they’re around 50-60 years old!)? So that was a pretty fun part of the class.

He let class out about 30 minutes early and he walked us to the Academia. It’s a building that hosts the Academia of Politics and Economics of Argentina…or something like that. It’s where all the academics gather to discuss new ideas and write theses and analogies and what not. So maybe I don’t know the exact purpose of the place, but its somewhere along those lines. We all got a copy of this thin booklet that we are supposed to read in the next two weeks. It’s about the “isms” of politics. It might be somewhat interesting, but it’s all in Spanish obviously so it’ll be somewhat difficult. We’ll see.

So, since last night Bridget and I had wandered around, I thought tonight would be a good night to just hang out at home and work on my Spanish class homework. However, when I got home Serri said she was going to the movies (“The Proposal”) and asked if I wanted to go. Well, of course I said yes because it was Tuesday night and movies are really cheap during the week (less than $5 US at any time Mon-Thur), plus I really wanted to see the movie anyways. On our way there we met up with one of her friends, Ivonna who is from LA and really cool. Before we went to the movie we stopped at Freddo, and I found a new love…

…of Freddo’s wonderful ice cream! Probably the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my life. I tried something called a Tramontana. It was vanilla with dulce de leche and little cookie bits in it. SO good! I am definitely going back there! And it’s a little less than $3 US for a pretty good size amount. Enough to keep me happy! =)

Moving along, after Freddo we went and saw the movie. It was a really good, cheesy romantic comedy. Obviously not “Wonderful” or anything like that, but I was smiling and felt happy when it was over. I recommend it for anyone who enjoys a good chick flick and isn’t expecting an Oscar winner. =)

After dinner, we decided we were pretty hungry and they asked me if I’d been to La Cholita’s yet. I hadn’t so they said, “OH my gosh! It’s so good! We’re taking you there!” So we go to this little steak house that was really busy but basically hidden between two larger buildings. It was all soft light and candle light, so you’d think it was uber fancy, but there were large pieces of paper on the tables (like at Garfield’s) as well. And the food…oh, it was good. Every time I try a new restaurant I think of Aunt Kelly and Uncle Tim who always seem to have a good restaurant in mind when they’re hungry. They would LOVE to spend time here trying to find all the good restaurants. We all got the same thing “Bife lobo”. It was a size of steak that was about a foot long and maybe 4 inches wide, and it came with fries. All for only $10 US. And…this is mainly to let my parents know: I tried it with Chimmi churri (I have NO idea how to spell that) and I LIKED it! That’s right. I tried something that looked funny and has a funny name and realized it was good. I know, it’s not like a rare Argentine spice or anything like that, but it was new for me. That’s something right? =)

And after dinner, it was home, homework, then bed!

More stories later from the wonderful country of Argentina!