Day 115: Springtime!

The weather is starting to get beautiful in the city! While fall is falling in the US, spring is springing in Buenos Aires (so corny, I know). I really love springtime here, because it means that everyone is outside all the time. People crowd all of the parks, outdoor markets, plazas, streets, benches, everywhere. It's refreshing to see people relaxing all over the place and enjoying the outdoors at any time during any day of the week, because at home its such a different experience. The majority of people in the US don't appreciate the outdoors like the people here do, and are always in a rush to get somewhere. People in the US never have time to stop and relax for a cup of coffee or tea, but you never see people here walking around with a coffee cup in hand. Maybe it's because they get more breaks from work or just have more unemployed, but it's nice to see.
Yesterday were national elections for president of the nation, and our current president Cristina won for re-election (surprise, surprise). There was a huge parade in the plaza that I pass every day on my way to school, but I didn't attend because sometimes they get dangerous. Elections here are really cool because everyone in the entire country has to vote. If they don't, they don't get a stamp in their ID booklets (kind of like a passport but for everyone living in Argentina), and therefore can't do other things such as use credit cards or take out loans. Also, everything closes down the day before elections. At 8pm the night before, they stop selling alcohol, and you can't get alcohol all day sunday either. This totally sucks for us because Saturday nights no bars or clubs are open and we can't go out. I went with my host mom Sunday morning to vote and it was interesting to see how they actually do it. The people get notified about which school they have to go to, and once there they have to find their name on a list which tells them where they go to vote. Once they go to that specific room, they wait in line for someone to take their ID booklet, which they stamp while they go into a private part of the room to write their votes. They then put the piece of paper in a cardboard box outside of the room and get their ID book back. I couldn't imagine having to count all of the votes in the entire country of Argentina by hand, but tons of people have to do it.
On Friday in class we went to a villa, which is like a slum, for a field trip to see what they were like. It was interesting because the villa was completely fenced in and guarded by people at the gates. Apparently that part of the villa is confined to people who use paco - a residue of cocaine that is addicting, very cheap, and very common among the villas in most countries of south america. We went into the regular part of the villa, and it was different than I thought it would be. Many of the houses were well-structured and a couple stories high, whereas I thought they would be one story slums made of tin and other cheap materials. The streets of the villa weren´t paved, but were very clean (cleaner than Buenos Aires), because the government gives the children that live there money for cleaning up the streets. Also, all of the buildings had running water, electricity, bathrooms, were clean and well-kept, and many had televisions. We were shown around the main buildings of the villa - the kitchen area where they fed the 1,500 inhabitants of the villa, which also served as a school where they taught kindergarten to the young kids, which the government doens´t require. The kids go to kindergarten there and then take buses to go to elementary school after that (which is required). She showed us the library, which was REALLY nice, they had tons of books (all organized on shelves by category), and had cute tables and chairs for kids to read. She also showed us their doctor´s office, which I was really surprised by - it looked like any other office with a waiting room, different doctor´s rooms with tables and materials, an office area, etc. The villa even had their own pasta making room, where they had all of the machines needed to make their own noodles. I was really surprised at how nice the villa was for being a villa.
Everything with classes is still going really well! All of my midterms are over, so now begins the wait until finals (of course, there is work in between, but it´s all a joke). One thing I´ve noticed about the teachers here is that they are very relaxed about everything. The one teacher that hasn´t returned our midterms that we took 4 weeks ago is still in no rush to do so, and last class he told us if we wanted to know the grade that we could email him. I emailed him after class on Tuesday, and still haven´t gotten an answer (it´s monday). I´m sure today in class he´ll make up an excuse for why he didn´t bring the midterms or didn´t answer any emails. They really could care less about any of our concerns.
The weird thing that has started to happen is getting ready to go back to school in the US. I register for next semester´s classes in a couple of weeks, and it´s really weird trying to get in the mindset of taking real classes. I know I´m completely screwed for when I get back and have to deal with actual classwork because I haven´t done any in so long now. I´ve also planned out every semester until I graduate, and it´s weird knowing that it seems far away but I know it´ll come sooner than anything.
As the weather is getting nicer, it´s becoming more and more annoying to deal with the people here that will do anything for money. We have the usual homeless people who sit on the sidewalk and hold out a cup for money, but that´s not the annoying part. When you´re sitting outside a restaurant eating, people will come up to you and ask you for money or to buy something they made. On the subway and on the buses people make announcements asking for money, will try to sell you things, or will play drums or other instruments and then ask for money after the show. It gets really annoying to deal with, although it is really sad, and I can only say no so many times before I get annoyed.
My dad and my grandmom are coming on Friday, and I´m really excited to see them! I remember back in September when I would talk about all my visitors and my dad´s visit seemed so far away (since it´s the last one).. now it´s almost here. What´s even weirder is that when they leave, I have less than a month in Buenos Aires and just over a month til I get back to the United States. Speaking of which, I should probably get started on planning my trip to Patagonia before I leave...
I still can´t believe that the end is so near. I´ve had to make lists of things I still need to buy before I leave, Christmas presents for when I get back for others, and things I want to see or do before I leave. Since we´re planning on going on two more trips before the end of classes around Thanksgiving, I only have two free weekends left here. Trying to fit everything in in a small amount of time is super hard, and the end crept up on me so quickly! Time to get busy...
Hasta luego!
D