Friday June 15

This morning we took taxis to the dairy vocational school where the students make cheese, dulce de leche and other food goods. It was pretty interesting to hear about how the students spend lots of time actually DOING what they’re learning. I think it’s also important to put it into the context that Argentina is still developing as a country and their economy demands things that are different than what the US economy demands. As we left they gave us each a block of cheese and a jar of dulce de leche (Argentina's answer to peanut butter).

We went to lunch at El Grecco where I had a hamburguesa, which is a smashed down beef patty with ham and cheese on top, with papas fritas and vino. The meat was kind of salty, but it was decent enough to eat. After lunch we didn’t have anywhere to be, so a few of us went in search of a store called La Bomba (literally…The Bomb). They have pretty cheap clothes there, so I was hoping to buy a coat and gloves. I ended up getting a scarf, gloves, a fleece sweatshirt and some socks and spent about $15 US. The coats were pretty ugly, so I decided to wait. A few of us then went to the bank and then we went our separate ways. I saw a pair of shoes I liked in the window of a store so I mustered up all of my Spanish skills and went in and spoke ENTIRELY in Spanish and managed to buy a pair of really cute ALL leather shoes in MY SIZE (after telling him the first ones were too big). The shoes were $125 pesos, which is about $40 US. When I left the store, the salesman, who was VERY patient with me, gave me the customary goodbye kiss that you give your friends. I was so pleased with myself for not speaking a WORD of English to this man and I got exactly what I wanted. As I left the store it was all I could do not to scream with excitement! I walked in search of a store selling nicer coats, and realized I was really close to my apartment. I dropped off my bags and went off to San Martin street (where there’s some great shopping) and went into a store and bought a coat in ALL SPANISH! Needless to say, I’m pretty proud of myself. I’m in no way fluent, and I do sound like I’m 4 because I don’t know any verbs in any tense other than the present tense and I tend to leave words out of my sentences, but the people get the point.

We had an optional wine visit which I of course went to. Sammy’s dad, David, is good friends with this family who has been in the wine business for 5 generations. They had a room set up for us downstairs and the owner explained how wine is made, how you are supposed to taste wine, where in Argentina the wine is produced (Argentina is the 3rd largest producer of wine in the world), and a whole bunch of other things about wine. We tried 2 white wines and 1 red wine. The white wine, Don David, was by far everyone’s favorite. The nice thing about wines here is you don’t have to worry about any of them tasting like trees because the Argentines don’t put wood flavors in their wine (they think it’s weird that in the Napa Valley wood taste is a big thing).

We took cabs to the pena with our host families at the Sport Club. Nani was at a wedding, so her super adorable parents came to be my family. They don’t speak very much English, so we talked to each other in broken spanglish. We had empanadas, papas fritas and some sort of sausage on a bun (I didn’t eat it…looked NASTY). Then we had some music for dancing. Jorge (Nani’s dad) drug me out to the dance floor to teach me some sort of traditional argentine dance. I’m not sure what it was called, but I think I did it pretty well! We all thought the pena was going to be a bit cheesey, but it ended up being really fun. Mariana (Kelly’s host mom) took me home in Nani’s car (Mariana is married to Nani’s brother, Nico). We had an early morning on Saturday, but I didn’t fall asleep until about 1am!


pictures from this day are here...
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