whoa. another week gone by.

I cannot believe I have already been here over two weeks! The time is passing so quickly and I am shocked when I realize my time here in BA is almost over! Right now I have booked two more weeks of classes and living in this apartment, then I have two open weeks to travel before going to Lima. I'm considering extending my classes and apartment stay by one week, but not sure yet. I spent some time digging around in my Lonely Planet this week and I am certain I want to visit Península Valdés (duh...if I were an animal, I'd be a whale, therefore must go see the whales), El Calafate (ice, so much ice) and Ushuaia too. I think I can do that in a week...but we'll see. Need to make some plans. Will hopefully be going to Iguazu Falls next weekend with roommate and want to make a weekend trip to Mendoza too...so much to do!!! In the mean time I'm still not finished with my nursing school apps...OY. It's so hard to sit down and actually make structured progress on an essay when I'm in such a different setting. MUST NOT PROCRASTINATE...however, I am doing it right now :)

Had a great week in classes, but it's still so hard to feel like I can communicate. On Wednesday I went to an awesome salsa class with some peeps from my school and we had a great time. On Thursday Cat, Teddy and I went to an event at a bar/restaurant called Spanglish. The purpose of the event is to give people a chance to practice their conversation skills in either English or Spanish. There were about 15 tables and each table had a native Spanish speaker. There were about 15-20 English speakers (mostly European and some Americans) and we were initially assigned to tables and then rotated to different tables throughout the night. A bell would ring that would signal the first five minutes of conversation in Spanish, then after five minutes it rang again and we switched to English. It was cool to talk to people who have lived their whole lives in Buenos Aires or somewhere else in Argentina. The Spanish was frustrating at times, but it was also great practice. It was really interesting and I think we'll probably go again next week. 

Today is a big day. This afternoon I'll join about fifteen classmates and we're going to see the Argentinean national futbol team play against Peru. These are always exciting games, but this is one of the final World Cup qualifiers and Argentina really needs to win to secure a spot in South Africa. I've talked to several locals about Messi, arguably one of the world's best players, and he's pretty controversial here in Argentina. He has lived and played most of his life in Barcelona, and many people here don't feel like he's really part of the Argentinean national team. It's very interesting that he's lived nearly his whole life abroad, but still plays for Argentina. In any case, should be a great game and I'm really looking forward to the experience!

p.s. also sending some huge hopes out for Cal today...Dear Golden Bears, I know it's been a rough two weeks but I really believe you are better than we've seen lately. Stay calm, be confident and please score a touchdown today!!! Roll on you Bears :)