Attempting the Tango: Aprovechar

Long time no blog! Sowwy to those of you who care… I guess I’ve been having too much fun. That’s good, right? I’ve only recently had a couple of days where I felt like I had time to relax and do nothing. In general though I’m trying to take advantage of (aprovechar) all of my time here. It’s already going by too quickly. I’ve been doing a lot of walking, which is awesome except for that I think I might die of pollution poisoning. Also, my feet were angry with me before I left, and now they may never speak to me ever again. But there’s still so much to see!!

This past week my friend Forrest, who’s studying in Sao Paolo, visited me and it was awesome because he showed me parts of the city I haven’t even seen yet. We walked around the normal tourist spots, but also around Once, a barrio known for its immigrant communities, especially Jews. I finally walked around the famous Recoleta cemetery for more than ten minutes and hung out with some of his friends from Brasil, who were really cool – just as I would expect Forrest’s friends to be. Because he didn’t have a phone, it was always a crapshoot whether or not we’d actually find each other. I’ve become one of those people who’s perpetually late, so that didn’t help. Luckily (magically?), it always worked out more or less.

One night when Forrest was here, we went to a club that Cynthia had invited me to. She told me and my housemate David to meet her there at eleven, so we showed up at 12:30, and then she didn’t get there until like 2:30. Oh, and everyone there was in their thirties because she had been invited by her thirty year old sister. Woops. It was fine because drinks weren’t too expensive and we could just talk amongst my friends, but we had been promised dancing, so we were disappointed there. So when she finally got there we all left in search of another club where we could dance. One had been recommended but it turned out to be hipster times a million and there were like four people in total, spaz-dancing – not what we were looking for, but by then it was late and we were lost and tired so we went home. It was kind of disappointing but also not really because we walked around a lot, spoke lots of Spanish, and I had this amazing drink called Sálvame María (save me Maria) that was delish. I’ll just add it to my list of bizarre nights and places in this city.

Ok so backtracking…. I turned 21 on el 22 de marzo. The part that I remember was very fun. I went out to dinner with my friends, who planned an amazing night, which included Indian food, a bar playing music I actually liked, and a pink-feathered crown. Cynthia came so I spoke lots of Spanish and made all my friends fall in love with her. I have this language partner that IES set me up with, who is a 23-year-old Jew, and he brought a bunch of his Jew friends (from la ‘cole’, or ‘colectiva’, which roughly translates to ‘from the tribe’) to my party. Then a bunch of us went to their apartment (my sketchiness meter was down at that point, I guess) and that’s about the extent that I actually remember (sorry mom and dad). If you want more details, you can ask me at another point in time… Luckily Cynthia apparently takes care of her borracha friends all the time and got me home in one piece. She told me the next morning that I did in fact speak Spanish to her on the way home and kept saying ‘gracias, mija’, which kind of means ‘thanks, my child’. Then the next morning to celebrate my adulthood I went to the zoo with Marina. South American animals are crazy! They are like from another planet.

I took a trip to this place called Tigre on a day off, which was beautiful… AND I started Tango class yesterday! I am definitely ‘attempting’ it at this point, but I have hope that I’ll get the hang of it eventually. The professor is this big man with a serious mustache and his female partner looks like she has had a lot of work done. There is approximately one hombre for every six mujeres in the class, but we’re all learning both parts. I’m definitely out of my element with the whole partner-dancing thing, but that’s the point, right? I’m wimping out and not taking classes at UBA, the major university here, but it just didn’t seem worth it. It’s hard to make friends with Argentines here, but I’ve been told that doesn’t really happen in UBA classes anyway, and I didn’t want to mess up my GPA.

I’m speaking a sufficient amount of Spanish now, anyway, which is one of the reasons that I’m staying in this homestay. AND! – I met Marta’s three-year-old grandson Felipe, who is quite possibly the cutest Spanish-speaking child on the face of the planet. He is blond and immediately started playing with me and speaking his tiny baby Spanish and it makes me want to die - in a good way. Have I mentioned my Argentine poetry class yet? because I usually find poetry lame, but my professor is amazing and, twice a week, he just talks to us about life and death and how profound everything is. It's effing awesome.

Tonight I get to see Marina’s parents and go to a milonga (Tango bar). Then on Friday I’m going to Colonia in Uruguay with my friend Heidi’s mom. THEN, during Easter break, we’re heading to Mendoza! I might be broke when I leave here, but gosh darn it I will have aprovechar-ed every minute.

Hope you’re aprovechar-ing in your part of the world. I’m excited to do the same when we are reunited in the US!

Besos,
Sarah

fotos for the visual-minded folk: