Black Coffee.

I should probably warn you, this is a mega post:

These past few days I’ve felt like every minute was an adventure in one sense or another - it’s exhausting. I finally met my host mom, Alicia. She is divorced with two older sons and is a dance instructor. She works every night which is nice for me because I enjoy independence but like so many people in Rosario, she smokes. She also speaks a lot of English with me which is obviously easier but we all know I need to be forced to speak Spanish... Thus far I’m not the biggest fan of her but we get along well enough. It gives me a good reason to get out and see the city anyways. Incidentally I live next to an AMAZING park - score! And, whether or not I enjoy it I am experiencing and learning about how life is when one doesn’t have awesome parents like I do. I might be biased though.

My first day of classes were on Thursday. Alicia said we could take her car if it wasn’t blocked. Upon arriving at her car I was convinced it was blocked - and by blocked I mean both bumpers touching other cars. She proceeded to get in so I followed suit and pretended like it was all very normal to me but I was secretly freaking out inside. I was curious to see what her escape plan was. Well, she threw it in reverse pushed the car behind us back. Then went to first and pushed the car in front of us forward a few feet. And just like that we were off to classes, which I am loving so far.

That night we had a crazy awesome thunderstorm. The only non-awesome part was the fact that I was at Lacey’s house which is a solid half-hour walk from my place and it was super dark. This led to me hailing my first taxi cab. I’m not gonna lie, I felt pretty cool.

Friday was one amazing moment after another. Argentina has a very laid back culture which is focused on relationships and spending time with one another. There are very few “take-out” restaurants but rather everyone sits and spends hours eating or drinking. I’m also really good at forgetting to ask for cafe con leche so I’ve been drinking 2-3 cups of straight black coffee a day. Wired. Anywho, we had great lunch of patella, although we quickly realized it included squid, tentacles, clams and the like. Meh. When in Rosario.

After lunch we went on a walking tour of Rosario which was beautiful to say the least. I will never forget Friday night though. Lacey, Morgan, Nicki and I went to an orchestra concert on the steps at the flag memorial. Thousands of Rosaritos showed up and we scored an incredible spot sitting on a statue overlooking the river. There was a fireworks show and the orchestra played a lot of famous theme songs: Godfather, Mission Impossible and James Bond. Exiting was chaos and we ended up accidentally moshing to an extent. Check that of my to-do list. As if that wasn’t enough we then went to see Nicki’s apartment. We ended up drinking tea with her mom for 2 hours talking about everything under the sun.

Saturday we spent going on a boat tour of the Parana River - so beautiful! We then spent the afternoon shopping around different street vendors, which naturally reminded me of the Saturday Market only in Argentina.. Last night was a massive soccer rivalry game between Brazil and Argentina. It was being held in Rosario so there was epic tension and passion in the air that night. Some of us went to a local pub/restaurant to watch the game. I've never experienced anything like it. The place was packed with people all cheering and supporting one national team and sport. Unfortuantely, Argentina lost 1-3 but it was still awesome to watch, and we got to drool over all the good-looking soccer boys.

All this to say: Despite my bummer housing situation I’m having an exhaustingly awesome time.