Dia 50! La Fantasma De La Opera, 5 de agosto

Today marks my fiftieth day in Argentina. I can barely believe it. As this time has gone by I have felt like it’s been such a long time, but as I think, “Wow, only a few days left,” I think that it’s gone by way too fast. A huge part of me is ready to go home, but at the same time, I am leaving so much here and I can’t believe I have to leave already. But I think me wanting home and my family and friends is the larger part of how I feel. I know that I really could survive living in a large city like this if I ever need to, but I also know that I prefer the small, car driving, town atmosphere. =)

Anyways… today also marked the end of my Spanish classes. We got our tests back from Monday and even though I didn’t do as good as I would have liked, compared to the first test we had in there, I’ve improved quite a bit. I even understand the subjunctive now! (Well, at least I feel as if I do). We had an oral exam today, and I feel pretty good about that as well. I even used the perfect and pluperfect tenses in my speech (which…to most of you that means nothing, but to those of us who have been studying Spanish for what seems like forever and can’t believe how hard it still is…that’s quite a feat. Lol).

After my Spanish class, we had a mini-break and then had our Culture class. However, our professor wasn’t able to make it. Apparently, he was taking the train and someone jumped onto the tracks! So of course, the train stopped and there was all sorts of chaos and what not. So he wasn’t able to make the class, however, his helper (who I guess is like a student teacher somewhat?) was there and we talked about the government of Argentina from 1983 up until 2003 when Kirchner became president. As most of you know/don’t know…(ha), in 2001 Argentina went through a huge economic crisis. The current president was thrown out and in the course of nine days, Argentina had five different presidents, yeah…five! One of them (Camagno) resigned after 22 hours and 30 minutes. I found that pretty interesting and amusing. It was probably my first class that I really enjoyed (apart from the Spanish class). Frankie (the teacher for the night) wrote on the board a lot and as he went through the history it was basically like a timeline and there were points and everything. It was so easy to follow! We have our final exam tomorrow and it’s going to be an oral exam over everything we’ve talked about. I don’t know how I feel about it all, mainly because there’s so much information! We won’t be allowed to use our notes either, and let’s just be honest; I haven’t been going home and studying my notes after class. =) Hopefully I’ll get to talk about what we learned in class today, I’m pretty confident about that! We’ll see…

After class, Thomas, Adam and I headed to the subway (which was a wonderful 12 blocks away…not fun, lol). It was the “easiest” way (that we knew of) to get to the Centro (Microcentro Barrio... like the “center” of Buenos Aires Capital Federal). Adam went on home, but Thomas and I walked around Lavalle Street (it’s a street like Florida; it’s for people only, no cars). We got dinner (pancho!) and wasted time until it was time to go see “La Fantasma De La Opera”! Oh, and we stopped at an heladeria (ice cream shop)…no, not Freddo. I can’t even remember the name, but the ice cream was more like…frozen yogurt I guess. It was good, and cheaper than Freddo (please don’t tell him that I cheated on him again! Ha), and the texture was like…that in between ice cream…and melted ice cream, lol. I liked it, but of course it wasn’t Freddo. I am glad that I am attempting to open my horizons in the world of heladerias though. =)

Finally, it was time to go to the teatro! Sure enough, the teatro was called “Teatro Opera” which was so fitting since it was showing Fantasma. We were somehow lucky enough to get seats on the planta baja (bottom floor) and although we were pretty far in the back, we could still see everything just fine. They were really great seats! The second the music started playing, my heart was in such a happy place. Every time I see a show, I am reminded why I love theatre. It’s such a magical thing, and you can disappear from the real world for a couple of hours and be sucked into whatever world you happen to be going to. The music was wonderful and even though it was difficult to understand, the music was the same and I know the story line, so I could still follow it. I got the parts that were somewhat funny and I was definitely able to enjoy it. It was a lot like the Phantom in London, the scenes were all a lot a like, so a lot of the spectacle of it wasn’t a surprise to me as it was to Thomas; however, it didn’t stop me from enjoying it. Of course, now I have the songs stuck in my head and I keep asking myself, how on earth have I not gotten the soundtrack yet? It’s on my list of things to do…

One thing I thought was weird was that they were letting people take photos of the stage before it started. I mean, it wasn’t that interesting of a set before the start of the show, but still. I was shocked because that’s such a big no no in the states and well, every theatre I’ve ever been to. I will admit I took a photo…I mean, why not? They were allowing it! =) And they allowed food and drink into the theatre as well, which is common in London so I wasn’t as thrown off by that.

We got out around eleven and then just went on our separate ways. Now I am back at home waiting on Serri to be finished with the net so I can add this update! I can’t believe I am going to be home in just a few days. We are trying to get everything figured out here…the taxi to the airport and turning in our cell phones (which we have to do by Friday afternoon, meaning Friday night is going to be difficult, what with trying to get a hold of people to go out and party for our last night in BA! Ha ha).

I suppose that’s all I have to say for the day. Tomorrow is my last day of classes here, and tomorrow night Bridget has planned a dinner at a place that’s a tenedor libre (a buffet, literally: free fork) that she’s wanted to go to for awhile. After that we are probably going back to Lost for our last Thursday night of boliches! =)

Chao for now! Un beso!