dia de la independencia

so independence day is not a big deal down in argentina, as in, no fireworks, no hick gatherings, no hair singed off of over zealous children. naturally, we decided to make up for this apparent lacking by grandly celebrating our own independence day in a truly american manner: eating some burger king at like 4 or 5 in the morning.

nice.

chupame un huevo, i believe is how you say it

my father spent an exorbitant amount of money on making my younger host sister's birthday a really good one, and i'm really, really grateful. one of the things my family here has stressed to me is the idolization of the brand gap, although of course no one can recognize when i wear things from that store because nothing i own has the iconic letters on it. so i informed my dad of this infatuation (a surprising parallel to my host family in spain a few years ago, incidentally), and sure enough, he pulled through in flying colors as is his custom. however, to explain the negative tone of the title of this entry, i have to outline the process of retrieving said presents. fedex sent me a letter in super technical spanish which i understood but didn't want to think i did, in which i was informed of the necessity of my going to ezeiza airport to receive my package. i wanted to throttle someone. i had one of the coordinators of our program call in for me just to be safe and she told me i'd be expected to pay some fees for them to have held the package that was supposed to be delivered to my host family's house, and to take a remis. lisa, danielle, and julie came with me because they're awesome, and after forty five minutes and driving to the airport, i proceeded to spend another hour and a half or so going back and forth, back and forth among three offices. literally: "back to office one, sign another form," then "take this form back to office two," "okay, great, now what was in the bag? anything illegal?" "yes, if you consider goodwill illegal, you freaking idiots."

at least it's all over. i would not encourage anyone to send anything to argentina unless you know the recipient really, really wants it.

kosice

every time i see this picture i just freaking crack up. we were led to believe in one of our classes that this artist named kosice (a hungarian dude who apparently came to argentina in his 20s while vowing to never speak his native tongue again) who makes all this crazy artwork out of plastic and water and neon was planning on implementing a city in the sky as a solution to the world overpopulating. this is a description of some of the things he wanted his so-called hydrospacial city to accomplish: he wanted a room to allow people to say "mom," a room dedicated to a "mini-religion" of water culture, and a room to be the giant vagina of the world.

all i'm saying is i want in on this.

un arbol en un sueter

i find that most of what i really enjoy about this country is the stuff that catches me off-guard, that incites that, "what the hell is that" reaction that i then have the opportunity to challenge myself on, so i can start to really understand what makes a culture seem different from another, and how much of those differences are superficial, and how much of those differences can be appreciated with a little effort and a little empathy.

p.s. i'm awesome at run-on sentences.

hasta luego, mis pantalones

it has become apparent that these jeans can no longer be worn. this saddens me.

tarea...en serio

4 hours of 1 class every day...not even 2 hours of each class every day, but 4 hours of 1...i guess i should stop complaining because this sentiment about the program's organization has made me less than popular with a few important people. although really, i challenge anyone to attempt to stay awake after traveling in the cold for an hour and then listen to anyone talk about anything for 4 hours. i'll buy you as much dulce de leche as you want.

turistas

i would post some of the million pictures i took of official buildings in downtown (aka el centro), but i feel like showing things that anyone could see if they type in "argentina" in google's search engine isn't very interesting. lisa took this picture of the three of us resting after having walked all over, i think after having visited one of the art museums we've seen (which i love), in one of the rare times that it's actually felt warm enough to be without a jacket. the sculptures randomly strewn about are generally refreshing, although this probably isn't the best example, since most of my favorites are slightly more modern, and include things like wire giraffes and weird ants crawling up an announcement board. i also wish i would have taken more illegal pictures, as in inside of the museums, but alas i fall victim yet again to authority.