Last Wednesday was day 30, which means I have been here for over a month now. So. A third done. It's gone by fast. So, econ. The teacher checked that we had binders, which I didn't, but luckily I'm not on every class list. English next. Our homework had been to list advantages and disadvantages of different forms of entertainment, but apparently we were supposed to have listed every possible form of entertainment. No one had known that, and she got mad. Teachers. Expect you to know what the homework is without even assigning it. Well, anyway. Then she told to list social problems (Actually, she was more redundant: "bad social problems in society". Every English teacher in the States just winced.) She called on me. I said "crime", even though I was thinking "poor education". Fourth/fifth hour is religion. At one point when she was walking around she asked me my religion. When I shyly answered, she smiled and made a joke. Phew. During one of the breaks, birthday-girl Mer reminded me it was her birthday and asked if I was going. I said yes. So, after school was over I walked to the mall with her and a few other people in my class. When we got to the mall, we met a whole bunch of other people in the food court. I met her family, and then sat at the end of the table with people I knew. We ate (Empanadas for me. Yum.), then left for Mer's house. I went in a taxi with two other boys from my class. I desperately tried to fasten my seatbelt, but it was stuck in the seat. After a while I realized that we would be there before I got it free. So I rode like a salteño. A salteño very much wishing he could buckle himself in. At the house there were fewer than the thirty-or-forty people at the mall. Maybe twenty. (Oh. While I'm on the topic of birthday sizes, Chiara also went to a birthday party on Wednesday that had three hundred people! That's so big it needs to be italicized!) It was a medium-sized house. Maybe slightly smaller than medium by the standards of McMansion country. I was in a bedroom with (almost all) girls from my class, trying to keep up with the conversation. They went on facebook and looked at someone's album named "disgusting". It was pretty disgusting. After a long, gross series of pictures, I went out back where other people were sitting around a table. Again, conversation I didn't really take a part in for trying to understand it. And that was pretty much it. I was one of the last people at the party (partly because Dad took an hour to pick me up when Maggie's playdate's Dad insisted he stay for mate). It was pretty fun. Awkward, yes, but it wasn't too bad of a party. Mer also invited me to a second birthday party on Friday, which I accepted. Wednesday night the four of us went out with Karina and Daniel to "El Monumental" restaurant.
Thursday began with English. That is, March, Thursday 11 began with English. More about bad social problems in society. History, she told us about the book we should buy. Jump to the future--I have my book and was looking through it when I found the paragraph on the US Civil War. And it is pretty funny (At least for someone who just went through AP US History). Here it is:
"In 1860 the president Abraham Lincoln (Already false--Lincoln wasn't president until 1861), who was anti-slavery (False, he didn't come out against slavery until 1862) and represented the interests of the North (Actually true--the only part of this sentence that is), announced his decision to ban slavery (Um. Are you joking?). The Southern states separated and the Northern states considered secession unacceptable (Hey. We did not start that war. They did. It's their fault.). So began the War of Secession (Secession?? You might as well call it "Northern Aggression"), which lasted four years. The North won, and in 1863 (Nope. Try again.) the abolition of slavery was extended to the entire country."
Sigh. And that's how everyone in my class thinks the Civil War happened. Back to the past--econ went fine, and philosophy gave me other homework instead of what the class got. It was to translate two pages about philosophy from English to Spanish. I don't know whether that means she thinks she has to give me other homework or if she just wanted to see how good my Spanish was. Thursday night we went out to the movies with Mercedes, Pablo, Chiara, Francisco, and Adriano. We watched Alice in Wonderland, "Alicia en el País de Maravillas". It was dubbed so that Francisco and Adriano could understand, but that also meant we only understood varying amounts. It was very fun, though, to go out with them to see the movie (and Tim Burton made a pretty nice movie, if he did ignore the original plotline.)
Friday was supposed to be birthday-party time for me, but it ended up not being. Anyway, first school. "TIC", then stats. I was supposed to have 10 pesos brought in for this class, but I didn't have it. Luckily, I wasn't on his class list. I'll bring it in next week. Culture was another lecture-day. But it was all spoken, no board use. I have yet to write a single word in my notebook about this class. In Spanish we read some quotes from authors about how great literature is. I think it's universal: literature teachers are most obsessed with how great their subject is, closely followed by math and science teachers, with teachers of vague humanities (any class that has "communication" in the title, basically) at the bottom. She's nice, though. It was a good class. Weekend. Finally. Maggie and I went to the mall and watched the first movie that was showing. It was The Edge of Darkness. Subtitled, thankfully. I decided not to go to the birthday party, possibly because of the large amount of alcohol promised to me. I used the excuse that we were going to Humahuaca the next morning, which was true. At Maggie's suggestion (or maybe, insistence), I had bought a CD of one of Maggie's favorite people for her, which Maggie then kept.
Saturday and Sunday the four of us went with Karina and Daniel and Karina's niece, nephew, and niece's boyfriend to the Quebrada of Humahuaca, in Jujuy, the province just North of Salta (which, as everyone in my school told me, doesn't compare to Salta's beauty. I'm not so sure. It was pretty amazing.). We left Saturday morning. It's a several-hour drive to Tilcara, where we stayed. We drove straight up from Salta to Purmamarca, our first stop. This is how I pictured the Andes. Purmamarca is a tiny village nestled between giant mountains. The people live by farming llamas and alpacas and by making various handicrafts. Handicrafts, while I'm on the subject, are everywhere. Mom was in heaven. Even I bought something, at (I think) Daniel's suggestion: a chullo hat (For those of you unfamiliar with chullo hats, they are the native costume of the North American tribe of Nordic-skiers [Hey, I can make fun of whoever I want. I have a chullo hat handwoven from alpaca fur in the tiny Andean village of Purmamarca. It even has pictures of llamas on it.].). Purmamarca, back on topic, is right near the "Hill of Seven Colors", where seven colors (eras) of rock can be seen on top of each other (This sounds like the kind of thing only a geologist would enjoy, but it was actually really cool-looking. I've never seen anything like that before.). Words cannot even describe Purmamarca, so I'll include pictures. It was spectacular. The nine of us ate in a restaurant adjoining the central square, and then we headed back onto the road winding through postcard landscapes of sloping mountains and traditional villages. We got to our hotel in Tilcara in the afternoon. Maggie and I quickly discovered a hammock and were glued to it for several hours. The first place we went was out of town to a pucará, a ruin of an Omaguaca (Amerindian) fortress. We crossed a very scary wooden bridge to get to it, but it was closed. So we went to the town center and walked around. Tilcara is very similar in feel to Purmamarca. It is a slightly-larger town hidden in between Andes mountains between Argentina and Bolivia. We went back to the hotel (i.e. the hammock) in the afternoon and some of us took naps. We went out that night to asado grill. I had what was called a traditional meal of pulled-apart meat with a fried egg on top. It was all right, but the people who had grilled meat didn't like theirs.
Sunday was equally fun as Saturday. We saw the pucará. It was pretty cool. It was a hill with the ruins of an Omaguaca settlement. At the top was (I'm not really sure about this) a sacred platform (I think?), which we took off our shoes to walk on (we didn't have to, but we did anyway). We also went to Humahuaca, the town with the same name as the quebrada. All along the road are the same fantastic landscapes I described in Tolombon (short interjection--Sorry, but I have been working for days on this and am now wanting to be done with it, so my descriptions may be a little quick. I will put in pictures.). Humahuaca was very like Tilcara and Purmamarca--a small Andean village. After that we came home with a stop in San Salvador de Jujuy, the province's capital and only city, for a snack on the city square (which of course involved looking at and buying handicrafts). So that was, in a nutshell, as they say, our trip to Humahuaca. It was very fun. I can't help but notice the parallels with our trip to Tolombon: it's a drive of a few hours through amazing landscapes that we did with family friends over a Saturday-Sunday (I'm not sure if I liked one better than the other. Not that I could say if I did. Dad has told so many people here about this blog that I now have to tiptoe around my opinions. [And he wonders why I say "I don't care" or "I don't know" so often.]). We got home late and I stayed up later finishing homework (which I didn't get finished).
Monday was an alright day. Monday was the start of gym, which I think I still need to update on. I have very little to say about the school day. My schedule was math-literature-philosophy. I handed in my translation of the philosophy papers (which I had finished the hour before in literature. Don't tell.), and my lit teacher seemed happily surprised at how much Spanish I knew. During my two breaks, I was doing my philosophy translation rather than going out to the courtyard where almost everyone else went (and, secretly [I guess not so secretly now that I'm posting it on the internet], I was kind of glad to have an excuse not to have to stand awkwardly in the corner until someone took pity on me and invited me into their group.). And so went my day. Maggie had gym a few hours after school. She has volleyball. She made some new friends (at least from what I understood, which is not much concerning 13-year-old girls). She has been sad recently about her friend situation. I'm not sure she wants me saying anything about it, though, so I'll just leave it at that (I don't think Maggie reads this anyway). Oh, wait. I was talking about gym, and then I got sidetracked (can you tell it's 12:34 a.m.?). We have extra gym uniforms, they are a blinding white: a white shirt with white shorts, white socks, and white tennis shoes. And we look ridiculous. I don't think gym went badly for Maggie. She was in a classroom the whole time (my kind of gym!). She also started dance on Monday. She is taking a crazy amount of dance here, just like at home: ballet, Spanish dance, jazz, and Carribean dance (basically, everything available to her except Irish) for a grand total of 8 hours a week. Again, as far as I know, she enjoyed it. She said the people were nice. Meanwhile, back at home, I just worked. I read a chapter of my history textbook, a chapter of my statistics textbook (Have I said yet that I am still studying world history and statistics to take the AP tests at the end of the year? Well, I am.), I did my homework, and I did a crazy amount of blogging (this is time-consuming!), but I clearly did not catch up because it's Thursday.
Tuesday. Tuesday, for the first time I took notes during class about what to write in my blog. So, here are my notes put into sentences. The first break I was all alone for the first time. The novelty of a 'yanqui' is wearing off, I guess. I was one of the last people out of the class, and then I didn't see anyone in the courtyard I knew, so I sat on a bench until break was over. The second break was better. I had a circle to stand in. My third note is that we have to pay 20 centavos for every photocopy the teacher, or we ourselves when the teacher doesn't bother, makes. That means every sheet the teacher hands out. My fourth note is that I am in love with empanadas. Man may not be able to live on bread alone, but if that bread is wrapping chicken and potatoes and spices, I think he just might. I think I could make every meal out of empanadas. And, as a person from a state famous for its rotten fish, I appreciate good local food. So, school. Tuesday was an early day. I tried to follow with some success in language, then connected the dots on my desk in my head while the math teacher explained seventh-grade algebra to students who didn't understand, then I didn't pay attention in history as the teacher dictated to everyone--not me--who didn't have their book the exercise we were to do, then I looked down and acted small in culture class. At five I had gym. I was also in a classroom the entire time. Apparently, as I read online, the handball I had heard of involving hitting a ball with your hand over a net to the other player, is only American handball, while in the rest of the world handball is something much more violent and with an unlimited number of penalties. Great. From what I saw of the other people in my class, though, they all seemed pretty short and skinny--not the football player-aggressive build who would go out for such a sport. That's a relief. That night we went to Karina and Daniel's country house, with the people we had gone to Humahuaca with and some more. Well, what can I say? I feel like I'm a broken record saying every time we go out it's 'fun'. But it was. We had asado. Mom made peach cobbler. I didn't finish my homework when we got home.
Ok. I was really lucky yesterday. The two teachers whose homework I didn't finish were both gone and we got study halls instead. That was amazing. And we didn't do much in English or TIC, either. I spent my 15 minute break inside the classroom, but I had other people to talk to in the other two breaks. I played games with other people in class during the breaks. I was recruited by a number of salteño soccer team fans yesterday. Am I a fan of "Gimnasia y Tiro" or "Juventud Antoniana"? After school, we came home. I actually had a very productive day. I did the homework I was supposed to have done and the homework due today. And I did an insane amount of blogging. Maggie had gym again, and then dance at night. Maggie got to her dance school at 7:30, and then heard that her ballet class started at 8:15, so she waited outside. While her other class was in session. Oops. I nearly caught up with myself last night. I was on Wednesday when I heard Mom and Dad come home from their dinner date with Mercedes and Nestor at one a.m. So I ran into bed to pretend I had been asleep for hours.
And now today. English-history-economics-philosophy. Nothing exciting except that my econ teacher was gone again, so I played games with other people. There was one like a North American game involving tapping hands, and if I remember what it's called I'll say. Another was basically Concentration 64, without the hand-clapping (which wasn't very fair for me, except when we did names and I could come up with a bunch of English names they had never heard of before.). I was invited to, I think, four get-togethers. One was to go to the mall this afternoon, the next to a disco (I think) tomorrow night. The next to San Lorenzo, a town a ways from here Saturday afternoon, and one to go play paintball. I went with Luluu in my class and some people I hadn't met to the mall where we stayed for a few hours and ate and window shopped (actually, this last one should be in third person). At four (when I had to be at handball at five), I started calling Mom and Dad. No answer. No answer for half an hour, actually. At that point I was on a bus home, where I waited for them until they came back from going to the pool with Vanesa and Nahuel and Guillermo (Karina and Daniel's relatives). I ended up not going to gym because I would have been so late.
And now, drumroll please..., I have officially caught up my blog to the present! Woo hoo!
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