three weeks out!

it's been awhile since i've written, and i have so much to say! i have gone to a lot of new places this week... i saw el fantasma de la opera on corrientes two weekends ago, which was awesome. i went with three other girls from the program and we bought cheap tickets, but when we got there we were able to bribe the usher into moving us up closer! haha love south america. apparently that's custom... i'm glad i have it practically memorized because it was in spanish and the translations aren't exact, so sometimes it's hard to catch, esp. if someone's singing! it was beautiful, though. pictures to come. and the masquerade scene was my favorite. ahh that show is awesome! i hope i never stop going to stuff like that. it's always so much fun.

aaaand yesterday i went to san telmo, which is a HUGE outdoor fair thing where an entire street (defensa) is lined with people selling crafts and stuff like that. weird, but i saw some guys from wabash there... depauw's rival school. that was so twilight zone! haha i saw some of the same people i saw in january, selling in the same spots! the nice man who sold me the beautiful glass art clock (? how to describe it...) was there, and we talked with him and his wife. the two girls i was with both bought one, so now we all have one from this same guy. that's cool for him to have such an influence, his art is being displayed all over the world!

okay, this was a long weekend so i have so much to tell... friday night (i think haha) i went with a girl named kari to a bar that was pretty cool. we didn't go until like 1 or later and after a while there was a drag queen, which was the funniest thing ever because she was talking in spanish! hahaha it was at least 10 times funnier, seriously. then we danced, but the music here is not like in the US, it's more like, how do you say, mariachi band. i miss my chris brown/sigma chi mix haha. when they choose to play american music, they always pick stuff that we actually don't listen to which is hilarious. oh! and everywhere is playing michael jackson. EVERYWHERE. haha last night i went to a jazz bar with a girl named angelica, and they were playing michael... yeah. but last night we met some paraguayans and they live really close to me, so hopefully we can hang out sometime. two of the three spoke really good english, so it wasn't hard to understand them, obvi.

so, now for saturday... saga. i went shopping with kari for boots, because they are everywhere and she wanted some, so literally the first store we go to the shoe salesman is like, hey, you guys want to hang out with me and my friends tonight? so being the americans wanting to meet argentines, we were like yes, actually. saga. so we MEET at 145, take a cab to this club, and there are a ton of people in line but it's not moving. so we meet his friends who for the most part don't know any english at all=fun, but after waiting for like an hour for this line to move, we decided to go somewhere else. (we did get to talk to other people in line though... i love argentines! haha they are so nice. people are happy and friendly here, which is cool) so we go this somewhere else, and it's packed. like sick packed. and all the guys there are extreme creepers. the music was better, but oh my gosh. creepers. so long story short, on my way home in my cab, i heard a beeping sound and didn't know where it was coming from, and i realized it was my watch. to wake me up. haha yeah, it was like 730. i went home and ate breakfast haha

at some point i need to write more thoughtful things than just what i did... yesterday i talked to my host mom for awhile during dinner, and i need to remember what she said because it's really insightful about what argentines think about their government. it's really sad, actually, because she said that in their government, for her it's a problem of morality: like they are just out to improve their lives and their own gain, and they have little respect or insight into how to improve the country. and from what i've studied about lots of recently developed nation-states in africa, that same corruption exists. i don't understand, how could a person with a strong national identity be proud of who they are if they are screwing their people? and it could be much worse, but what the people see is their politicians vacationing in other countries (why are they leaving?) in huge houses (unnecessary luxury considering the economy) and neglecting the issues. it's like they're too proud to admit they have a problem... estela (host mom) said christina kirchner (female president of argentina) said to obama that argentina doesn't need a plan b. as in they aren't in that bad of a crisis. but yet the country was practically bankrupt in 2001, and is still recovering from that setback. it's arrogance, and potentially very dangerous arrogance. the problem is the people who suffer are not the politicians, but those in the provinces, and even in buenos aires. estela had to move just before i came to a smaller apartment down the street because she could no longer afford the other one. and let's be real, this one is small. it's enough and i'm not complaining, but people are definitely feeling it here. the US is hurting, but it's amazing to see how much we effect the rest of the world. the argentine peso is 4 to 1 (USD) which makes it cheaper and in our favor, but it's really hurting them, considering it used to be 1 to 1 in 1989 i think when they dollarized the peso and made them equal.

SO. all in all, a lot of things going on. pretty much everything interests me, so i find it hard to keep to one topic! haha but really, i'm trying to learn as much as i can everyday. i'm trying to live on less: less stuff, being less needy, whatever, and i'm so proud of how many amazing places i've already been, and all over this city. when i hear about something, i go straight to investigating where it is and how to get there. that's an amazing feeling. knowing i have the ability to go anywhere and do whatever i want. very metaphoric, no? story of my life : )

okay. enough for now. had to catch up! thanks so much for keeping up with me. i've made friends here but of course i miss my friends in the US dearly : ) and my dog hahaha for some reason, everytime i leave home, i just really miss my dog (this is totally a sidenote... but it's a blog, what did you expect??) i think it's because you can tell she misses me. when i come home, she sleeps in my room and when i sit on our couch she sits by me, and she's just my buddy i guess haha so yeah holla to my girl midnight!!! HAHAHA

thanks for the
love. emily