Puedo hablar espanol... solamente un poquito

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On Monday, I woke up around 10am. This is VERY late for me, but I think my body needed it from the lack of sleep from the nights before. And of course, hanging out around drunk smokers always wears me out. That's one thing I really appreciate about the states-- the lack of smoke everywhere. I went and got breakfast upstairs and talked to a bunch of people from the hostel. Everyone seemed to get along really well and it was a good group of people. I must admit, a part of me wished that I didn't have spanish class and instead was able to explore Colonia, Tigre, San Isidro, etc. However, in the end I am glad I ended up taking the spanish classes. Everyone else was heading out to La Boca and wandering around (that is the people who were not hungover and still in bed. One guy is known as the infamous pee-er... he peed on some guy's cell phone. he also threw up in the bathroom. John helped clean it up. When i woke up that morning and saw the mess that the boys had left and that the maids had to clean it up, it did not make me feel very good. No one should have cleaned up after their mess.) I was trying to get folks to go to the drum show with me and tried to get in contact with Dana. No one else seemed interested, but I thought I should at least make it to the drum show myself.

I putzed around the hostel for a while until my spanish class started... and then I headed on over. I gave my payment for the spanish class and waited for my spanish teacher. My spanish teacher didn't show up, so I ended up having a Spanish lesson with the coordinator of the school. It was AMAZING. She gave me so much confidence in myself in my spanish abilities. Like I said earlier, I have all this spanish in me, but as I tell people, I really don't feel confident in using it, and I rarely do things that I don't feel confident in. This might give you a lot of insight into how I react towards things. She said to me, "If you took this class at the beginning of your trip and then used your Spanish, you would have learned so much." She also said to me probably one of the most complimentary things I've ever heard. "You're so easy to teach! I tell you and you get it!" And by far, my favorite, "You have a talent for learning languages." She continued to tell me that I knew a lot of Spanish, and that I just needed to use it... also not to give it up because I could really be fluent. We did some role plays in what I would need for my job, and she gave me phrases and the grammar I needed for that.

THEN we got into the grammar... Past tense. She and my next Spanish teacher Miranda went through all of the usages of past tense with me. in 4 hours. It was really intense. However, I seemed to understand, by the end of those four hours, how to use all the different forms of the past tense because I did the "test exercise" correctly.

That evening I went to Bomba del Tiempo with Sophie and Claudia. Sophie is actually friends with Susan who is working on the same project as Jen and Suzie. I was waiting for the computer at the hostel and she turned to me and said, "Are you Ratha?" "Um... yes?" i said. "I know Suzie! she told me to find you." Actually, this was true. When I saw Suzie on Tuesday night, she told me that Sophie hadn't been making friends in the hostel and told her to go screaming my name and she would eventually find me. Since the hostel workers knew me, asking them where I was would have probably been easier... Oh Suzie. So we chatted and I invited her to Bomba del Tiempo and she said she wanted to go. She Claudia and I headed out early to it because I tried to go last week and didn't make it. It was a GREAT time. I finally got comfortable enough to dance-- it was SOOO hot and i was wearing a sweater. I wish i was wearing a tshirt or a tank top. Afterwards we went to dinner and headed home. I didn't hang out at the rooftop bar because I had class at 9am the next day...

My spanish classes continued to be going well. we were moving onto Subjuntivo and all the usages of subjuntivo. it's SOOO much. Pablo, my teacher, was very patient and it was very easy to learn from him. Actually, he just asked me for verbs and I always seemed to be giving him the right ones (he asked about irregulars to show how to conjugate them). I guess I really am on the right path... I just still need to build that confidence.

since I had a free afternoon, i wanted to head out and do something. I ran into Sophie, Claudia, Matt and a few other people at the hostel. I wanted to try the infamous hot chocolate at Cafe Tortoni. I had the submarino. It wasn't that amazing. The hot chocolate at the place I went to with Jane was better. Matt and I had a great conversation while we were waiting for our stuff, as well as Alex, this guy from California. He said he knew I was from California because I sounded like I was from California when i was in the hostel right before we left. I laughed at him because Marco, another guy at the hostel, was making fun of me for my California lingo (totally awesome dude!), so I always overexaggerate with him. There were a lot of people from California traveling, and everyone seemed pretty cool. Afterwards Matt headed to Avenida Corrientes for some retail therapy, Alex and Ali headed off to try and get everything squared away for Uruguay, and Sophie, Claudia and I headed to Recoleta and El Atenao. For some reason, I always think that I have more time than I actually do... I only hung out with them for a little bit, and then rushed back to try and get some food. I ended up walking with Aaron to get some Chinese food (10 pesos!) I ordered Chow Fan, which I thought was thick noodles. It was actually fried rice. I was not expecting this at all! The little girl that was playing hide and seek with me (I swear, little kids are just drawn to me!), and Aaron and I headed back to the hostel and hung out with folks, chatting and then... finally off to my spanish class! More intensive subjuntivo and imperativo.

That evening, I was going to meet Suzie to head to a tango class and a Milonga. I always seem to over-estimate time and was there really early. Suzie showed up with two of her friends and there were two lessons that evening: one at 8pm and one at 10pm. The guy recommended the 10pm one so we ended up grabbing dinner first (which was great because the both of us were STARVING!). We ended up at the restaurant across the street, had a great dinner, laughed a LOT (that's what seems to happen when Suzie and I get together). Talked about Jesus land some more, gave the girls some advice on Mendoza, and then headed to the tango class.

The class was a lot of fun. It was pretty much a crash course. They did the whole entire thing in spanish. I just watched instead of listened, which was helpful. Suzie and I made a great partnership. The only problem was that there were sooo many people, we kept on bumping into everyone! Once I stopped paying attention to my feet and just relied on what I knew, I was able to really get it. After the lesson, we watched the people who could actually dance dance. It was amazing. I am in love with tango.

See, tango, to me, is like passionate love. While salsa is like lust and immediate desire. Sensual vs. Sexual. I love salsa, but I think i prefer tango much more. I also LOVE tango music... I think that might be why I want to learn the accordian.

I headed back to the hostel at the end of the night and talked to some of the folks there... headed up to the roof to hang out with folks and tried to figure out what I was going to do for my last day in Buenos Aires. I talked to some of the guys and checked in with everyone before I decided to call it quits and headed to bed.

My last day was anti-climatic, but fun. I was supposed to go to dinner and head out to a dance club, but all I really wanted to do was hang out with the people I had met. I went to my spanish classes, and it was a very bittersweet goodbye. Laura, the director said that I needed to continue with my spanish and gave me some information on classes to take in San Francisco. It'll be expensive, but I think it's worth the investment.

When I got back from class, I laid down and decided to cook, since I had a lot of leftover food, and thought that getting ready and heading out to dinner was not on my list of things I had wanted to do. Sophie, Malvin and Claudia were heading out to dinner and then to Museum. Christine and I were going to try and meet them. Christine helped me make my dinner, and she helped me eat it too, which was fabulous. Then we hung out and laughed our way through, I don't even know what. Probably Jesus Land. I am quite obsessed with Jesus land, and tell everyone they need to go. We also talked about other things. Then Daniel came home and told us that he left his wallet in the cab... which means he also lost my heart! It was ironic because the night before I had told him that he was going to keep that heart forever (my origami dollar hearts) and when we're old and grey we're going to meet up and I'm going to ask him if he still had my heart and he would say yes. I screamed this out, and everyone thought I was crazy. We ended up heading to the roof where I hung out with the people from the hostel, packed my stuff, watched people play quarters, raided Marco's bed to wake him up and Aaron and Felipe pretended like they were peeing on stuff... and then headed back to the roof to hang out some more. We did crazy tricks on my camera, made everyone think we were crazy because they thought I was taking pictures of a light (then we actually took pictures with the light to make them really think we were crazy...)... and called it a night. On my last night, I didn't have a fancy dinner, i didn't go party in style. I had already done all that. It was good times with good people I had met.

The next morning when I checked out, it was bitter sweet. I don't think the staff members realized I was actually leaving... I'm going to miss Portal Del Sur, the staff, the people I met there, and Buenos Aires...

But I am glad to be back in the states.

And thus concludes my summer journey. Of learning, of growth, and the most important part? i realized, hey i'm pretty awesome. it only took me almost 25 years to learn that. a journey, a connecting with people, and learning about myself. I also learned to be dependent and independent at the same time.

Everyone should travel by themselves at some point in their lives. Everyone.

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