Thursday, I had English. My English teacher definitely favors me. Well, not so much favors, as is nice to more than the rest. Next history, then economics. For two weeks now, my econ teacher has been gone. And lastly, philosophy. She assigned three pages of translation for the weekend. Just for me.
Viernes (see how I'm just slipping the español into my words?) started with Technology of Information and Communication. For the umpteenth time, he dictated and we copied. Stats test third/fourth hour. I don't think it went too badly (Numbers are the same in English and Spanish, after all.). I have decided just to take advantage of not understanding all of what my culture teacher says. I copied down what was on the board about "counterculture". Every day so far, culture class has followed basically the same pattern: there's no work, the teacher just has a lecture/discussion. She starts off the lecture, then she starts calling on students for opinions, and then in evolves into an argument between teacher and pupils, with the teacher eventually just giving the students her opinion. My last class was language, and then I came home. That night, we went to Mercedes's house, with Nestor and Nestor's friend Eduardo. I can't remember whether I've mentioned Eduardo before. Dad and Maggie met him at a photocopy shop. He heard them talking English and (as he speaks fluent English) introduced himself. It turns out he is friends with Nestor. Mom and I met him on Friday. Now here is the weird part: he is Argentine and had only once visited the United States, but he had a Texan accent. Apparently he speaks English only with his Texan friends. Nestor made "puchero", a boiled meal. Some of the things, I have to admit, might have been a little too strange for me (bone marrow?), but it was not a bad dinner. We stayed extremely late, as always.
Saturday we went to the salt flats of Jujuy. It's a long drive, but it was worth it. The salt flats are just simply a flat desert made of sand that stretches for miles around. And they are amazing. I don't how else to describe it. I feel like the salt flats were striking enough to deserve a long paragraph, but that's really all it was--which is what made it that cool. For a long ways around, it's completely flat, and in the distance, you can see the Andes mountains. The sand is bright white, so much so that you need sunglasses to see. The landscape is completely devoid of plants and animals--I'll say it again, there is nothing but salt. It is the strangest, most amazing landscape. On the way back we saw vicuñas, which are basically long-necked llamas.
Sunday we had dinner with Karina and Daniel and friends, and then we went to their friends Lily and Carlos's house for a while.
Monday after school we did nothing. We stayed home all night and ate in.
Tuesday we went to watch Maggie dance at her studio (She looks pretty much the same as she does at home.), and then we looked at some churches downtown (They were very beautiful, but we didn't stay long because it was Easter Tuesday and there were things going on.), and we went to a restaurant for dinner.
Wednesday was the last day before Easter break. In TIC the last hour, Noel asked me to write something on his binder ("Just write whatever"). He had taught me the word "vago" a few weeks earlier, which I think means just "dude", so I wrote on his binder, "¡Hi Noel! ¿How are you?" Then I crossed out "How are you" and wrote "Oh, no. I mean, ¿What's up, vago?" I didn't think it was too original, but he did. By the end of the class, everyone had been shown or told what I had written.
Thursday we made empanadas at Carlos and Lily's. This took all day. We made dough, chopped meat and potatoes and onions, cooked the filling, then rolled out the dough, and tried (and failed, for the most part) to twirl the filling into the dough like they do here. That night we ate the empanadas at the house of another friend of Karina and Daniel's.
Friday evening we went to Mercedes's house and ate tacos that Mom and Dad had made. The people there (some of them anyway) had never had tacos! It's weird to think about from our norte-americano perspective. I think we (or I, I shouldn't generalize) think of Mexican food as basically what everyone South of us eats, but that's not true at all. Mexican food is much more foreign to them than to us.
Saturday again we went to Mercedes's with (as usual) her four kids and Nestor. We each brought different dishes this time.
Sunday we drove South to Cachi where you can see the Andes (Apparently the mountains we can see are really just the foothills!). Well, not quite. We tried to. But it was so foggy we ended up turning around. We went out to dinner again with Karina and Daniel and Lily and Carlos.
Today, finally. School is back on. Nothing exciting to report, though. We only stayed home after school.
Ok, I'm sorry about the one-sentence days. But there were just some days I have nothing to say about (And I'm really tired of being so far behind on this blog).
The days are ticking away quickly now. Strange and sad as it seems, we're planning our return now. Maggie has been begging for weeks to be let out of school a week early, and it looks like it might possibly happen now. But no promises, of course. I have been constantly reminding myself that I have to study AP Statistics, but I am incredibly far behind. I'm actually ahead of my classmates in AP World History, but I'm having some troubles forcing myself to do math. Oh well. Maggie is boy crazy. This is nothing new, of course. She's been boy crazy for a while, but it's gotten worse now that the boys are tanned, have accents, and play soccer (Evidently, playing soccer automatically make you more attractive. Maybe I shouldn't have quit my little 4th grade league). There was one boy who smiled and waved at her twice, and she has not stopped talking about it. Completely unrelated-ly, Maggie's interest in taking evening walks by the park has spiked since we've been here.
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