Less than a week....

I was planning on doing some traveling after my program ended (June 14th is when most of the group left), but I have actually been spending time with my host family in Buenos Aires. I have been exploring/walking around neighborhoods, shopping, and going to some museums but then I got a little sick a few days ago...I am pretty sure it was an ear infection, so the last few days have kind of sucked. Plus I was kind of sad about my friends from the program leaving, so that didn't really help. I think it must've started out as a cold and spread to my ears or something, but luckily I had packed away some antibiotics!

One of my dogs, Toppy:

This past weekend:

Hm. I didn't sleep well because my ear kept me up, hence I was really crabby/tired. However, I did manage to fit in some fun things! My sister, Paula, works in various schools around Buenos Aires, mostly in poorer neighborhoods, and gave me the contact of one of her friends that works in a villa, or neighborhood. I contacted Alicia and ended up meeting up with her on Saturday and she took me to a villa on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. It was about a 30 minute bus ride to get there and I had a great time- the villa is pretty poor and every Saturday, teachers/helpers come out to lend a hand with the kids with their homework and lead activities. When I first got there, Alicia introduced me to all the other teachers and helpers and they asked which subject I would like to work on with a child. When they found out that I spoke English, they placed me with Lucas, a 13 year-old boy who was working on his English homework. I have never really tutored before, unless you count helping people with their homework a little in college, but I dove right in! I corrected some of his exercises and explained how to use the present tense. It was difficult at first because I didn't know what level he was at, but after awhile, it went pretty smoothly. I explained it in Spanish and then wrote down examples of sentences in English and Spanish so he would understand. I liked helping him and would like to try more of it in the future. It was really cool to watch him understand a concept and then apply it to his homework. After helping Lucas, the other teachers handed out a map of all the countries and had the kids draw in the countries that are still in the World Cup (they obviously take their soccer seriously here...). I played with a 5 year-old boy who had glasses that took up his whole face and of course, he didn't listen to the directions, so he just colored wherever he wanted. He was adorable! Afterwards, I went back home and Juan, my brother, and I ordered sushi and watched a movie. I haven't had sushi in MONTHS, so I loved every bite. I went to bed early and woke up around 10 today. For father's day, my parents made lunch at the house and Juan and Paula came over. We ate cheese fondue with various meats and bread, it was so delicious. Also, my Mom's nephew from Salta is taking a class in Buenos Aires for a few weeks, so I went to the airport with my parents to pick him up. Other than that, I just hung out with my family/drank mate. And my ear is almost better!

End of program/last week:

In my last post, I mentioned that my group went to a small town outside the city for the night as a kind of "closing" orientation. It was really nice- it was fun to spend time with everyone and catch up with people that I haven't really had the chance to talk to in the past month because of our research project. I chatted with one of my professors, Nuria, about my grades, my final paper, and how I thought the semester went (I did really well on my research project, which is super exciting). Other then that, it was very relaxing and one night, we had a big group dinner at a local parrilla. It was a fun dinner- we gave out our secret buddy gifts and told funny stories about one another from the semester. Before giving out our secret gifts, we had to impersonate the person we had in front of the whole group and everyone else had to guess who it was. Some were hilarious...this one girl is from Long Island and she always makes fun of the accent there. The person that had Bri spoke in a "Long Island" accent and everyone knew it was her!

Anyway, we got back to Buenos Aires on Friday morning and later that night, I went out to dinner with Sam, Ally, Freddie, and Freddie's family because they had just arrived to Argentina to travel at the end of the program. We went to a Spanish restaurant called Club Espanol and the food was AMAZING. I had bife de lomo (steak) with potatoes and the decor was gorgeous, too. I wish I had taken a few photos from inside the restaurant!

Sam on her birthday!

The girls after dinner

Last Saturday, it was Sam's 21st birthday as well as the Argentina vs. Nigeria fútbol game. We watched the game at my apartment and made mimosas and ate medialunas (croissants). And Argentina won!! It was fun to watch and later in the afternoon, we ate lunch at Ateneo, once a beautiful theater that has been converted into a huge bookstore and café. To celebrate Sam's birthday, we cooked a delicious dinner at Freddie's apartment and hung out there for a few hours. As I mentioned earlier, Freddie's parents and brother visited Argentina and rented out an apartment while they were here, so we were able to use that. We went out to a bar later and met up with some more SIT friends and hung out there for the rest of the night. Then on Sunday, we had our closing dinner with all of the SIT students plus their host families and a few students even brought their parents from the U.S. that were visiting. It was a nice evening as well and there were so many people there! All of the students and their host families spoke very briefly and some of the families were so sweet. Later, almost everyone from our group went out to a bar to have one last drink together. One of our directors even came and we hung out there for awhile. Since a lot of people left the next day, I said good-bye to them which was really sad. I think if a random person would have walked by the bar, they would've seen about 15 Americans, crying and hugging one another...we were quite the scene!

Host family at the final dinner (minus Paula and Sebastian)

Two of my good friends on the program left on Monday so I hung out with them until they left and that was an even more difficult good-bye. I still cannot believe that the program is done and that our ISP is finished and almost everyone is home now....I was so used to seeing all of those people nearly everyday so it was a hard adjustment for me for a couple of days. Some of us are planning on having a reunion in New York some time next year, so hopefully that will happen. Anyway, the night my friends left, I was feeling kind of upset and my host Mom gave me a glass of wine before dinner and was like, "Have some wine....you look like you kind of need it." Otherwise, I have been hanging out in Buenos Aires, visiting sights/purchasing last minute things. Tomorrow I am going to Tigre with my parents for the day and Tuesday is the next fútbol game, so obviously I will be watching that!

Besitos.