El arte

Alright, so this past week I tried out both the beginner painting and drawing classes. We didn't do any actual art for any of the classes, it was just introduction to what we were going to do for the year. But after sitting in for both of them, I decided I like the painting class better. The profesora is so sweet, and amiable, and I just had a better feeling about that class.

Either way, no matter which class I choose, they professors have to go the head of the facultad and ask if us foreign students can receive a grade for the semester, because these are both year-long classes.

I also bought most of my art supplies. The store I went to buy mine was missing a certain color I needed, and one of the paint brushes. But other than that I have everything. And it was much cheaper than I thought it would be. I have a lot of artist friends, and I know how expensive art supplies can run back in the United States. I went into the store thinking everything would cost the same after the conversion to pesos. But no, everything came out to under 30 pesos! That's like $10! So we'll see how painting goes again tomorrow, and if I'm actually any good at it!

This past Friday, Jennifer, Emily and I went to the Feriada de Internacionales Artesanias which was way out in the boonies of Córdoba. It was fun though, but not as International as I was lead to believe. The majority of the artisan booths were from right here in Argentina. But we saw a few cool booths and crafts from Bolivia, Peru, and Paraguay.

There were also too booths selling middle-eastern items, claiming they were booths from India. (They weren't really.) There was also a booth with two African guys that were selling cheap and gaudy watches and jewelry, like you'd see on the streets of New York City.

Emily and I split a bag of jelly fruit candy from one of the Bolivian booths. (Or Paraguay, one of them.) The candies were good, but when we handed over our money, one of the men at the booth held up one of our 2 peso notes and said it was a fake. I don't know which one of us had the counterfeit bill, but when the guy saw how confused we looked, he just let us go on our way. I guess he let it slide by since it was only 2 pesos. I don't know who would make counterfeit 2 peso notes. That just doesn't seem worth the time.

There is a huge counterfeit bill problem in Argentina, but it's mostly with the 50 peso notes. (100 pesos coming in second actually.)

Anyway, I ended up not buying anything at the Feriada because everything was expensive and all the prices high. I saw two booths selling handspun yarn, and I though about getting a skein for Jen Waterhouse (since that's how I'm paying her for rent, for using her basement as storage) But they were all 50 pesos and up. And the yarn that was within my price range was all scratchy.

We ended up waiting for almost an hour for the colectivo after we left the Feriada. We had to take E1 back, and most of the E1's that were coming by weren't going back to the centro, which didn't make any sense to us. A huge crowd built up waiting for the E1 bus. Finally, an completely empty one was sent over to take us all back.

When we got back to the centro, we noticed an unusual amount of cars blocked up. When we went to la calle 27 de Abril, we noticed all the colectivos jammed up. It took awhile to take the other bus back home. I learned later downtown was so crowded because there was a Belgrano game that night. So everything was crowded because all of the fanatics were out.

Yesterday, I went downtown early (early being 9:30 pm, which is really early for going out in Argentina.) I had planned on meeting with some friends to go see a movie, but they were taking their time. Patio Olmos was crowded, so I decided to walk over to the Plaza San Martín, and to my surprise, there was tango going on! There were a few old couples dancing, a few young couples, and I saw a mother dancing with her daughter. It was so cute!

Jen finally arrived around 12:15, and we went to go see the Blindside at 1am. (Which is called Un Sueño Posible en español.) It was really good!

I spent this afternoon just working on my homework, and then looking at all the classes for next semester, since I'm going to have to register for the fall term next week! I now I have only two requirements left for my major, and maybe one or two Gen ed credits left, most of which should be taken care of here in Argentina. So there's only one Spanish class I have to take next semester, because all the others are either beginner level, or I already took them. If I play my cards right, my senior year might be really easy and just full of fun classes, which would help for time on working on job applications, like the JET program, or that English teaching program in Spain. It's so weird. It's making me think I should go full forward into planning for my whole life right now, but I just want to focus on being here in Argentina.

It's also kind of a joke to me, to be planning my life. Because most of everything in my life that has happened, or I chose to do, in the past 10 years or so, was done on a whim. Well, we'll see how it goes!