Entering the last month (???!!!)

This is going to be a real blog post but first I just want to talk about how I'm sitting in the living room minding my own business but have realized that one of the cats (probably Ron because he's not as smart as Panzoti) has shut themselves into the coset and can't get out. I will go let him out now, I guess...

Anyway, here we go! Since I last posted I have gone through midterms and had to do some ACTUAL work for my classes. I feel really lucky that a) the university system here is less demanding than what I'm used to and b) Georgetown only counts our classes as pass/fail, they don't transfer the grades. Lots of my friends here get their grades directly transferred to their universities in the US, which doesn't make much sense to me but also means that they have to do really well, even though the system is set up completely differently. Fortunately for me, that's not something I have to worry about! Finals are about to start and it looks like these last few weeks are going to be filled with paper writing. Boo.

I have also, really really unfortunately, gotten my debit card either stolen or lost from me three times. The first two times it was stolen, and the third is questionable as to whether I dropped it or it was stolen. This is a fact I am very embarassed about, but just thought I'd throw it out there since it has been taking up A LOT of my conscious thinking and causing decent amounts of stress/inconvenience. I have rarely felt actually unsafe, in terms of feeling like my physical self was endangered, but people get robbed pretty frequently. Not just tourists or people who are out late at night, but people walking down the street during the day...one time I was walking down an extremely busy street in the middle of the afternoon and saw this guy run up behind a woman, grab her bag off her shoulder and keep sprinting down the sidewalk. Luckily another guy in the street chased after him and managed to knock the first guy down so that he dropped the purse, but the would-be thief jumped right up and hopped onto the back of his buddy's motorcycle, which was apparently waiting for him, and they sped off. It's not all the time, but it is something that people in any big city just have to be careful about. Sadly I have not been careful enough, it seems.

In terms of fun things, I have been making an extremely concerted effort to stay home/hang out with my host people more, and I think it's really been working! I was concerned for a pretty long time that I was spending most of my time with my friends from FLACSO who are also from the US, and not really getting a cultural experience. So, I decided to try to put myself out there more with Carla, Luciano, and Tilsa, and I have really been reaping the rewards! We have had a lot of really great conversations about life and politics, Tilsa has opened up to me about her family, we've laughed (not cried...yet!) and had good times and sat and done nothing together. It's delightful! Tilsa and I even hung out together outside the house, which was GREAT. We went to a Buenos Aires arts festival that Luciano's band played at (they're practicing in the house right now). Here are some pictures:

Luciano is the one with the accordion. I went with Natasha, Colby, and Crystal to a market that happens every week in San Telmo (and that Grandma Linda, Grandpa Jack, and Colly would LOVE) and perused the goods, but then, once it got dark, there was a milonga in the plaza! A milonga is basically just a gathering of people who dance tango in a given space...so it was just a little plaza area right off the street, but people had put up lights and were playing tango music and anyone who wanted to could go dance. We just stared at all of the regular, talented Argentines dancing, and we had a great time. It was so cool!

There is TONS of public art all over the place - on the sides of buildings, walls, etc. It's graffiti, but not just graffiti how I normally would think of with words. They are extremely intricate and beautiful murals. I really need to start taking pictures of more of them!

Luciano also, early in the semester, told me about this really cool cafe/bar place near FLACSO that's a meeting place for people who organize community things a lot of the time. They do workshops every now and then, and it was started to be a community meeting place by this group of women who started an alternative publication called "Mu" (like the sound a cow makes...in Spanish! haha) and who have a press called "La vaca" (the cow). The place is really cool and they sell lots of cool things there. They focus on publishing things that are just generally about political and social awareness...it's great! Here's a picture of Natasha in Mu, the cafe:

Haha. I also went with Natasha to visit the city Rosario, which I think is the second biggest city in Argentina. It was really really pretty (the architecture in all of the cities is gorgeous), but we didn't really do anything too much out of the ordinary because there weren't really any particular attractions there. I also didn't take any pictures :(

So now I'm kind of sick which is annoying, but I'm starting to feel better. Want a visual for my time left? I made one on paint because, since I don't have intertnet that often, I wanted to be able to access it at all times. Here's what it looks like:
See you all really soon, I guess!