Potpourri

Okay. In order to get caught up, and have reasonably sized posts, I need to fit the past 16 days or so into about 5 paragraphs, so here goes nothing:

While staying at Amanda's house, the following things occurred:

• I realized what it would feel like to have younger brothers, and I enjoyed the 'what if' scenario
• I ate many tasty meals at the house and discovered milanesa.
  
• I was taken to my first boliche (night club) experience, and the clubs have excellent music choices in general
• I went with Amanda's daughter, Amisel, and her friends to another boliche, and I had fun dancing at the boliche with 7 girls (some things never change) :)
• There are probably more things that occurred that I do not recall, however, suffice it to say that her family was extremely nice to me

On Tuesday, March 23rd, I moved into Silvio's house. He is an English professor at San Roque, which is not the same institute where I will be working. Mine is called 'Almirante Brown.' He is awesome and told me to think of him as his big brother, so I guess now I enter the opposite situation of having a 'big brother', though not in the 1984 Orwellian sense of the word.

I also happened to get my foot into the door of the salsa scene. I went to a beginner and intermediate lesson at the Cultural Center in town, and some people my age told me there was a salsa night, so I had to decide whether to go there at midnight, knowing I had to catch a bus for my weekend trip to Córdoba at 6:00 AM. Of course, I decided to go. I walked to the bar, and people were inside, but no one was dancing. I had a feeling in my gut to go, so I paid and entered. I decided to get a drink so I could occupy myself with something other than sitting awkwardly alone. After half of the drink was gone, a group of people my age walked in and a girl I had talked to at the lesson about this night invited me to their table. I have since been to more lessons and have spent time with these new dance friends.

I have had several meetings with professors about how I am going to help them with their classes. There are some really awesome ideas floating around, and I will expand upon them as the classes take form.

During the long weekend (due to a new holiday here called 'Día de la Memoria,'), Stacy (who is in Rafaela) and I decided to take a trip to Córdoba. While there we visited some museusms, went to neighboring towns: Alta Gracia (where we went to a Jesuit mission and Che Guevarra's childhood home, and Villa Carlos Paz (where we took in the touristy town full of people walking). In Carlos Paz, we also had a lot of tasty ice cream for only $1.25 in USD.

As to the place I'm living, I like it. It is centrally located, and I do indeed walk everywhere. I haven't even tried to figure out the bus system yet. Also, since I am essentially training my body every day to have better endurance, I decided to train for the minimarathon like my friends at home. I already tried 8 miles on for size, and will try to get a better time on that before moving on. Also, I joined a gym, and my membership starts in April (in the nick of time with all the rich food they eat here).

So this was a short run down of many, many days. I will try from now one to have shorter, more frequent posts with funny blurbs about Argentine society and cultural diversity.

---B