The Official End of Summer Vacation

I know you've all been dyyying to hear how my first 2 days of classes went, but you'll have to hold on for a few minutes because I have to discuss the weekend.

Saturday was a relaxing day - we took the trek up to Belgrano, another barrio on the northern side of the city for the day. All together, it took 50 minutes on the bus to get up to the neighborhood, a distance that portenos consider relatively short. I'm still getting used to the idea that you have to leave an hour to get from one point in downtown to another. And this is only within the eastern part of the city - getting to the western edge would take over an hour!

We were headed up to Belgrano for Chinatown (Barrio de China), but more importantly, peanut butter. We stopped first for some chinese food, a welcome change from the daily routine of ham and cheese sandwiches. Belgrano's Chinatown consists of 3 blocks of grocery stores with 2 chinese restaurants - the one we chose was the "Dragon Porteno" because who could resist a name like that? Afterwards we headed out to one of the famous chines grocery stores, always packed because they are the only ones in the city that sell peanut butter. Most downtown grocery stores stick to a variety of crackers, one of the main food groups in Argentina. I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon dried fruit and nuts (I think everyone knows my obsession).

Afterwards we wandered around the outdoor Feria de Belgrano before heading home. That night we celebrated the birthday of a girl in the program by hitting up our first boliche (club). It was very similar to a club in the US...except the key difference that when we left at 4:30 am it was still packed with hundreds of people. Yes, hundreds.

Sunday morning I woke up forgetting that Sunday is the day for family, as in many countries. So we headed out for my host grandparent's house for a marathon family lunch. I guess this would be a good time to tell you a bit more about my family.

I have a host grandmother and grandfather, both of whom are from Spain, which means that their relatively difficult to understand. But my grandfather still insists on the "rule of 2" for food. I also have 2 host aunts and 3 host cousins. Two of my cousins are 10 and 13 years old, and absolutely adorable. They love to chatter away and ask a million different questions. The 10 year old was rocking a Miley Cyrus pin (or Miley Cyroos here) and explaining to me the subtle differences between Miley and Hannah Montana. She also explained to me that she used to have a lot of boyfriends, but now she doesn't have any because boys are annoying. Wise child.

Then I have two older host sisters, 27 and 29, who don't live in the house but come over about once a week for meals. At home I live with my mom, whom I've already told many stories about, my 24 year old brother and my 19 year old sister. My host sister gets back from a trip to Spain and London on Friday and I'm excited to meet her since we both (now) go to the same University and are studying the same thing! My host brother is extremely nice and helpful, and an excellent cook. Its nice to have more people and noise around the house and he's always playing his guitar and singing.

After a relaxing weekend I was ready to start school Monday morning...