Final Happenings

Well, in a matter of about 10 hours, I have jumped from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere, bypassing fall and going the reverse direction to sweet summertime (after I finish one more paper, that is). Currently, I'm sitting in the Washington-Dulles airport, waiting on Obama to take me to breakfast....and for my flight to Raleigh in about three hours. And just like that, I'll be home.

But I know, I know, you want to hear about the last week or so in Buenos Aires before I get into the reflective mode.

I finally made it to Liquid, the bar my family talks about all the time- and now I wish I would have found it earlier! It actually had more of a club scene than a bar, and I was perfectly happy with that, especially when they played a Will Smith song. Yes, thats right friends, Will Smith. Also on the DJ's list was Shania Twain (I wasn't aware she made it to South America), The Beatles, a wide selection of 80s pop music, and eventually the DJ settled on popular Argentine music (which made sense as this was definitely not a tourist bar). Although Liquid may have appeared to be a little confused in its music selection, I'd prefer to say that it was original, and definitely one of my favorite bar/clubs in Buenos Aires. Oh, I was also given a couple dance lessons in traditional Argentine moves, which were once again unsuccessful.

On Friday, although I didn't know it then, we went over to Ila, David and Karin's for the last time. Sally and Stephanie had gone to an asado earlier that day and brought back a ton of leftover meat to share for dinner. It was really nice to just relax and enjoy one another's company without the noise of a party, like many of the times we go over there. On the way home, Stephanie and I, who were both craving an alfajore, stopped by a kiosk to satisfy that craving. I asked the guy for the best alfajore he had in stock, and he surely did not disappoint. So, in case anyone is wondering, Cachafaz is the best brand of alfajore out there- forget about Havanna (they're the same price anyway).

Saturday and Sunday were filled with family activities, and I wouldn't have had it any other way on my final weekend. Mary and I lounged around Saturday morning, drinking maté and chatting for a bit before I headed down for a final visit to the Recoleta market. I didn't stay gone for too long though, as I had been appointed chef for the evening. We were hosting another empanada party, and this time Nacho let me try my hand at his recipe. Apart from bawling my eyes out from cutting the onions, it is a pretty easy recipe to make and I am excited to share it with everyone :) I think in total, I cooked up about 120 empanadas.

May 25th is Argentina's Independence Day, so Mary had asked if everyone would wear an Argentine emblem to the party. Not very many actually did, but Stephanie actually showed up with a party hat with an Argentine flag. Major props go to her! A couple of Mary and Nacho's friends brought guitars, so as the night dragged on, the guests began singing, off-key with both guitar and voice- but that really didn't matter here, everyone was having a great time. Annnd eventually the guitar was passed to my hands, so I dusted off a few pieces to share. A melodious time was had by all!

On Sunday, Lean invited everyone over to his house for parilla style pizzas. He mentioned several times that he wanted me to see his house before I left, and I'm very glad I got the opportunity to do so. Lean lives a little bit outside of the greater Buenos Aires area, in what I think would be considered Chacarita. I was incredibly impressed by how neat, orderly, and very cleverly decorated his house was. It actually reminded me a lot of my grandpa's house in Arizona. His house was very spacious, although only two bedrooms, and was decorated with an indigenous theme. Scattered around the house were various percussion instruments from different countries, including a didgeridoo from Australia. The most impressive part was the terrace. After outside to the patio and up a tiny staircase, you emerged in to this incredible open-air space, complete with a parilla. The terrace was decorated with tons of plants, all potted in unique pots, such as an old cement block or a hubcap or basically anything that one might find in a junkyard or antique garage. Lean and his uncle constructed a bamboo roof that covered a part of the seating area. Really, this place was great, and I totally did not expect that from him!

Mary made homemade pizza dough and then adorned the pizzas to be placed on the parilla on the terrace. If that doesn't sound good to you, I don't know what would. Definitely some of the best pizza I've had in my life. The night was absolutely lovely, spent eating and talking with my family for one of the final moments. Beautiful.

The rest of the week was filled with checking last minute things off of my bucket list, oh, and taking my Spanish exam.

The park close to my school became the site for a tower of books display, inspired by the Tower of Babel and Buenos Aires' title of being the book capital of the world. The spiraling tower was built completely of books from all different countries, donated by the various embassies in Buenos Aires. As Mary told me, soon the city is going to start building a library filled with books from all languages. Very impressive.

I finally found a frozen yogurt place- better late than never, I suppose! But unfortunately, it is an affiliate of a Sweet CeCe's competitor, PinkBerry. In South America they go by PinkFrost, but they're little sneaky name changing ways didn't throw me off! It was a good experience, not self-serve, and they didn't have honey for a topping, but at least they have frozen yogurt!

I should be ashamed to say, that even though I lived in the neighborhood, it took me to my last week in Buenos Aires to visit the famous Recoleta Cemetery. This place is the final resting place to many of Argentina's elite, including former president Sarmiento, and Eva Perón. I wandered around for a good hour, but never actually found Eva's grave. The place was actually pretty eerie, and I don't understand the point of creating huge mausoleums for dead people. I'm sure they did great things, but really? I'm pretty sure that money could've been spent on a lot better things around the city. That being said, when my time comes, I would like to be cremated- and if anyone is up to it, I'd like my ashes to be scattered all over the world, to provide incentive for someone to travel. But enough of that talk.

Sally's parents were in town this week, and they were extremely nice to take me out to eat with them a couple of times. Following the advice of a traveler book about the top 10 best eats in Buenos Aires, we found ourselves in a small restaurant located within a grocery store. While it wasn't my choice cuisine, it was pretty impressive and had a bit of a Spanish flare (although it claimed to be authentic to Buenos Aires). Later in the week, to celebrate the end of classes, her parents took us to a very nice parilla. A couple of our plates were served with literally just a piece of meat on it, something you would never see in the United States. You would also probably never get such choice meat for such an incredible price in the States either.

I decided to play chef one more time for my host family this week, and cooked up a Mexican dish to share with them. They all know how much I love Mexican food, and I was very excited to share it. I found a new recipe for black bean burritos, which means I actually found black beans (something that is hard to come by in Buenos Aires)! I also whipped up some guacamole, which was eaten very quickly. Nacho did criticize me for having to look at a recipe for the dish- apparently I had him fooled that I was making something I make all the time. Therefore, he said I wasn't a real cook...but whatever. You gotta try new stuff sometimes! And I know he said it all out of teasing love haha.

CEA hosted a farewell lunch for us at Siga La Vaca, which is a very nice, all-you-can-eat parilla. After the meal, a couple of prize drawings were held for students that completed the end of year survey. Lucky me, I won a HardRock Buenos Aires t-shirt! Woo!

After lunch, Melanie and I took crossed another thing off of my bucket list by visiting the ecological reserve in Puerto Madero. Hidden behind the largest population of trees in the city was a peaceful pathway that led to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. Bikers, runners, and causal walkers accompanied Melanie and I as we toured the park, but we definitely stuck out like sore thumbs;  having come from our farewell lunch, we were fairly overdressed for this outdoor occasion.

I finally began packing Friday evening.  It was a lot easier packing to go home than packing to come down to Buenos Aires simply because everything had to go back. I wish it were always that easy! I took great care in wrapping the wine bottles and other souvenirs, as we all know how great of care the airline people take with luggage!

My last evening in Buenos Aires was spent eating dinner with Mary and then going out one more time in Plaza Serrano with Sara and Melanie. We got a couple of drinks there, laughed at the odd sites (a party bus, followed by a bus with an entire band playing inside) and recapped on an incredible semester.

Loli and Lean took me to the airport around six on Saturday, which was so kind of them to do, and I'm so grateful for that. Although no tears actually fell, they did sit in the bottom of my eyes for a while.

And just like that, I got through security and immigration and shortly after, boarded my flight for the USofA. May surely came quickly.

I plan on writing one more update in a little bit to give a little more closure on my semester abroad. For those of you who have kept up with me, thank you. You've encouraged me to keep writing which has now become a great passion of mine. Thank you for your support, whether you realized it or not.

Thank you.

Comings and Goings

Blogging is a lot easier to do after coming back from a trip, as those always seems more exciting than home- wherever that may be. But I realize I should probably keep note of my final weeks in Buenos Aires, and perhaps there's a few of you out there who are still intrigued by all this. Forgive this post for it's potential to be scattered, but I'll attempt to give you the highlights as of late.

The despedidas, going-away parties, have begun as I have several friends who are in different programs than I. Laura, an Argentine friend, decided she liked Spain better so she packed up her things and headed to Europe. She lived in an apartment with Sarah, Bene, Ila, and David (and now Karin), which is where I've spent a lot of time this semester. Bene left in March and his friend Karin moved in to take his place. The Zabala house has become a little family for me, and I've shared many great memories with them. Iris, who also left to go back to Germany a few weeks ago, is another part of this family whom I will miss dearly. And now, Sarah leaves to head back to the States just a few days ahead of me. All of this creates a wave of nostalgia as I look back on this semester.

Some of the CEA students, who were a part of the Spanish intensive program, packed up their things this past weekend as well. CEA sponsored a lovely dinner at the same place we had our first lunch at. This time, I was a little more knowledgeable about the food on the menu and I had a great cut of lamb with a plumb sauce. This was accompanied by a side of potato puree, a cousin of mashed potatoes. Like our arrival lunch, this meal was concluded with a champagne toast by one of the program directors, Nahuel.

Sarah's mom has been in town for the past week or so, in between their traveling to Chile and time here. One night, a few of us went out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, which is uniquely located inside an old pink house in one of the ritzier areas of the city. You have to ring the doorbell in order to enter, and there are only so many tables set up in what was formerly a living room. Other than our party of six, there was one other large party in the room, who were there celebrating the dad's birthday. Both of our tables kept to ourselves throughout the course of our meals, but then the lights went out and chaos began.

After they turned the lights out, the Chinese family brought out their version of birthday cake and the happy birthday song was sung....first in Spanish, then Chinese, then English (as we decided to join in), and maybe a line or two in Italian. The owner of the restaurant, or at least I presume he is, brought over a bottle of champagne to pop in celebration. All of this opened the door to friendship between our two tables, and a particular interest was formed between Sarah's mom and the birthday dad. Apparently, Sarah's mom just leaned over to tell him happy birthday, but seeing that he was a bit drunk, he decided to come over and chat it up at our table. His grown sons found his drunken self fraternizing with the Americans to be rather funny, so they started filming him. Sarah and I talked a little bit with one of the girlfriend's of the sons along with some of the rest of the family, who were all very sweet.

And then it became someone at our tables' birthday. I can't tell you who's it was, because, well, it was no ones. But for some reason, the ancient Chinese man comes over to our table with another bottle of champagne and asking who's birthday it was so he could sing to the right person. We just went with it. The rest of the night was spent laughing with our new friends about everything that happened over dinner. A very strange, but absolutely hilarious evening.

Ah! Loli's mom was in town for a couple days last week. Although she's stopped by here from time to time, I've never really talked with her. I don't think she knows any English so perhaps that was a bit of a hinderance. But this past visit I got to know her a little more. She definitely won my heart when I came home one day to a kitchen full of homemade alfajores (dulce de leche sandwiched by two short bread cookies). My family has figured out I have a deep love for sweets and desserts, and I'm not ashamed of that. Loli's mom also makes really great jam, which if I'm still here when she comes by again, she said she'd give me some to take home! Mmm :)

In keeping up with current US news, Bin Laden's death has been well reported here as well. We talked about this a bit in one of my business classes and the Argentine's have a vastly different view point on this whole situation in that many of them don't believe he is actually dead. This stems from the lack of trust they have in their own government and are questioning why North Americans are so quick to believing what our government tells us. The Argentines want proof of a body, rather than just news the government could make up because its what the people want to hear. Without going in to much political talk, this mentality says a lot about the relationship between the Argentine citizens and their government and the amount of corruptness that exists within the country.

After talking about wanting to go for the entire semester, I finally made it to the Beatles' bar. Unfortunately, I wasn't so impressed, but I'm still glad I finally went. The bar also has a museum which was birthed by the owner of one of the world's largest collection of Beatles paraphernalia. I didn't actually go in to the museum as it cost 40 pesos to enter, but I did enjoy a Yellow Submarine, which is a tall glass of hot milk accompanied by a chunk of semi-sweet chocolate to dunk. Very tasty.

I finally found a good representation of a burrito at the San Telmo market. There is a man that rolls around a thermal box of burritos and nachos for sale for 10 pesos each, or about $2.50. And let me tell you, as a Mexican food connoisseur, this was definitely a winner. I'm just sad that its taken me this long to find the burrito box man, but I have every intention of getting another one next week.

Right now I'm in the middle of final exams and presentations. I'm working on a 6-10 page paper on the relationships within the Argentine workplace in comparison to what I've experienced in the States...in Spanish. So thats a bit of a challenge. I also have a couple business projects and presentations, one of which Melanie and I came up with a brilliant business plan, which I'm excited to see what our professor has to say about. And then of course, a couple final exams which will be here and there until next Wednesday. And then....

I'm home in 12 days. Where has the time gone?

I've had such an incredible time here, and I really will miss it all, but I am also very much looking forward to being home. I miss my family, I miss TLC, I miss Nashville, and driving, and Chick-fil-a, and playing my guitar and being understood in my language. But for the next 12 days, I won't dwell on those things as I want to fully enjoy my last moments in Buenos Aires.

Ok, it's getting late and I've managed to sleep about 10 hours this past weekend, so need to try to catch up.

Un beso!