Midterm

I am definitely making the most of my time here. So far I've been to a boliche, parilla, milonga, and several cervezerias, cafes y asados, so I feel like I've got the most basic argentine experiences covered. Oh, and I drank mate on the Río de la Plata. But the program's already half over (!!!) and I don't want to leave here thinking, I wish I had... The funny thing is I've been going to all these different places with the mindset that I will return someday, and at this point, I really expect I will.

I can't imagine traveling to a place where I didn't know the local language. I'm struggling enough as it is, but at least I can understand a stranger's directions and can read the signs telling me which line to get in. I feel like my Spanish is improving by leaps and bounds every day (also resulting in clumsy English, as you can probably tell, and more recently, unintentional Spanglish). But the other day several people including my host mom mentioned that I was speaking much more fluently! And I swear I understood about 2/3s of what was going on at dinner last night, which is a pretty major development.

Everyone is going CRAZY over swine flu. Some restaurants close early, several boliches are closed, and all classes in the entire nation are cancelled (except ours, of course).

My host family is super nice. They like me because I am always starving, so I always love any food they offer me. They think I'm crazy for eating steak sandwiches for breakfast, but so do most people, I guess.

Oh, and I went to the grocery store, where they have one entire aisle devoted to different brands (and flavors!) of mate, and another devoted to dulce de leche.