well, another week has gone by! i think the fact that i only have classes 3 out of the 7 days of the week makes each day just fly. this week was crucial because our "shopping period" ended, so our official schedules needed to be in by monday. right now, i am taking 5 classes: IFSA-Butler castellano (spanish class), historia social de argentina I (social history class about argentina), argentina del siglo XX a traves de sus mujeres (20th century women in argentina), guerra, mujeres, y libertad (war, women, and liberty), and musica popular de argentina I (popular latinamerican music). still haven't really figured out if credits/classes will transfer back to bowdoin, but i'm glad i decided to take these classes. the social history class is quite heavy on the reading, while the others aren't... but i think i picked a good balance! i am excited for the day that learning and taking notes in spanish comes easily to me.... i have had to re-do several days of notes in order to fill in holes and look up vocabulary words!
this week has been pretty uneventful other than finalizing my schedule. i haven't gotten lost on the bus or fallen in an acequia yet. a group of us, did, however, go out to a boliche (a nightclub) last night. it was quite an experience! last time we went, it was scheduled through the receptionist at the IFSA-Butler office; and the nightclub was only open to select people. this time, we were on our own to get there, get in, and get back. after going to a bar for snacks, we piled into 2 taxis and drove 15 minutes south of mendoza, to the section of godoy cruz (yes, where i got lost! except where we went was a nice, strip-mall area). apparently this boliche is "el mejor" (the best) for thursday nights. the actual building was huge! there were 3 or 4 bars open til 4:30am and a huge dance floor with hundreds of disco balls on the ceiling. for the first hour or so, an argentinian band was playing. although we didn't know any of the words, the argentinians did, and were going crazy-- they must have been pretty good! after 3am, the american pop music came on and we went crazy...it felt so good to dance and sing along to music i knew! although, with the ability to sing in english comes with a price. obviously, we were the only ones who knew the words, because all the songs were in english. there were a lot of guys who would try and break into our dance circle and dance with one of us (the argentinian guys here love gringas!). it's so funny to tell them that you don't want to dance with them because they just don't understand--so persistent! around 4:15am, we decided to leave, and grabbed two taxis back into the city, and back home. i got up around 1pm, went for a long run, and then hung out in the park and walked around with two of my friends. we had a really good conversation (in english, i know, sorry) about the food here and how it is so different from the united states! my friend's boyfriend is coming to visit her in mendoza in less than two weeks and he's bringing peanut butter! although, i don't know if i want some right now, i think it would be pretty cool to say that i haven't eaten peanut butter in 5 months when i get back to the states.....
the next few weeks aren't that exciting, but my two friends and i are planning a trip to patagonia for our 10-day vacation in 2 weeks! i'll keep you all posted! we're planning on driving down (look at a map for this one) to patagonia on a bus- say hello to a 36 hour bus ride! part of the experience, right? as is everything here...
love to all at home and in foreign lands xxx
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