Hola, todos!
First, the bad news: Last Sunday my purse (along with my keys, cell phone, camera, school ID, and $50 US) was stolen at a café in San Telmo. I try to be careful about that — while walking, I have my purse in front of me and with my hand over it, and at the café I had wrapped my purse strap around the arm of the chair I was sitting (an English professor told me that someone stole her laptop at a café in Chicago right from the case she was trying to guard between her feet). The team efforts with someone there to distract you or threaten you are unfortunately hard to prevent.
In my case, a woman with tangled hair and an unusual indigenous poncho bumped into my table and spilled my water. She said "Perdón, perdón, perdón!" I was confused about how she could have bumped into my table on accident, because there was a pretty wide pathway there (I figured she was drugged or drunk), but I said "Está bien...", "It's fine." Then a different woman ran out of the café (I was sitting outside) and told me that someone had stolen my purse. I looked down the street and saw four people, but didn't know which one of them had my purse or what to do, and I saw them get away in a pick-up truck.
Luckily my house keys were easily replaceable, and my landlady (my new English student!) replaced them for me for free. Jorge let me borrow an old cell phone of his, and both Jun and Leo offered their old phones to me, too. Good friends make all the difference!
The thing I miss most is my camera. I am going through photography withdrawal, and seeing so many things I'd like to take pictures of. (My graduation, birthday, and return to the US are coming up, hint hint... haha.) But at least I didn't lose any of the texts for school I'd worked so hard to read and underline, the notebooks I write memoirs and fiction in, or my Korean purse or cards.
More bad news is that the ash from the volcanic eruption in Chile has arrived to Buenos Aires (and to a much greater degree, to the south of Argentina). I can see the ash cached in the grooves of car tires and between the tiles on the rooftops. The "buenos aires," "good airs" here are apparently not so great right now! haha. But the situation is fine in Buenos Aires, and I'm perfectly okay. Anita, a friend of mine in Bariloche, in the south of Argentina, posted pictures of her house completely covered in ashes — it reminds me of stories about the Dust Bowl/Dirty Thirties in the US (the dust working its way into every corner, into the dishes). A lot of the animals down there are dying, and according to the news, inhaling too much ash can cause cancer.
Yesterday Jorge and I went to The Kilkenny, an Irish bar with great rock music. He showed me an Argentine newspaper to give me commentary from an Argentine's perspective. The news about volcanic ash started on the second page of this edition (and continued for about four pages). On the first page was the news that the plane-full of weapons that the United States army had illegally flown into Argentina (supposedly for a police training program) had been returned to them. News about the US (unfortunately, mostly negative) is always on people's radar. He pointed out the ads for prostitution: even though prostitution is illegal here, there are advertisements for it everywhere, on the street and in the classifieds (I think that happens almost everywhere).
As for the good news: I had my second Social Psychology test last Thursday and feel sure that I passed (I'll get my grade tomorrow). I have one more pre-finals test to go, then finals, and then I'm done! Some of my finals will be oral, and I am nervous about it, and pretty stressed... But I try to assure myself I'll do fine, because I always do and I'm studying hard.
Other than that, I've been going to some expositions, dancing, and drinking matés and espressos with friends as usual. Fede (libertarian) took me to his favorite dance club, a discoteca that plays 70's music and has a multi-colored, light-up floor like the one in "Saturday Night Fever." It was really fun!
Last week I went to Rumi, a kind of exclusive, high-fashion dance club, with some of the girls at my house. I wanted to go just to experience that atmosphere. It was definitely something interesting and new. Everyone was all dressed up. Most of the men had gel in their hair and I was probably the only woman in the place not wearing high heels (a bad idea when you're planning to dance for five hours, if you ask me). There was smoke and lights, bad techno music, a lot of picture-taking, and two violent fights on the middle of the dance floor (the impact of one punch pushed fifty people back in an instant, and one guy hit another with a bar stool). It was not my kind of place at all, but I had fun dancing with the girls and experiencing something completely new.
On Sunday the weather was beautiful and I went to Chinatown and the botanical and Japanese gardens.
I saw some great expositions at Centro Cultural Borges (a photography exhibit themed around "hair," and the best exposition of paintings I've ever seen, featuring 12 contemporary Argentine artists) and Centro Cultural Recoleta (caricatures from London, funky-colored paintings of airports and train stations, and tiny paintings of everyday objects).
Jorge and I made a delicious beef, sausage, and salad dinner, and this week I'll make tacos for us. I made Leo some miso soup. For myself I'm planning kimchi-stirfry and spicy tofu!
And that is all the news for now!
Cariños, ¡que estén muy bien!
Kaeli
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