Day 3! Mate and partying it up!

First thing of the day was exchanging money. The exchange rate here is pretty cool. We got 5.3 pesos for every American dollar. So everything is really cheap here for us which is really awesome because even if it looks like a lot of pesos, if I divide by 5 then the prices look really really reasonable. After exchanging money we went of a bus tour of Alta Gracia. It was really interesting to learn briefly about the history of the city and the different museums here in this town. Then we went to a church and we got to look around. What is really interesting at this church is that there used to be a statue of the Virgin Mary in an alter but they removed the statue to fix it or clean it or something but this shadow of the statue is there. You can’t see this shadow within the first row of the alter but as you back away from the second row, the shadow is more prevalent. It was really cool. I have a picture. I’ll try to post it somewhere. After that we went by a river and drank Mate. It is some kind of green tea that they put in this special cup and everyone shares it. Drinking Mate and eating little cookies is a very social thing to do so it was very interesting. It tasted like green tea with sugar added. Without the sugar it was kind of bitter but I did like that. I wish we did something like drinking Mate as a social thing. We don’t really share drinks a lot in the United States but in Argentina they share stuff all the time. Germs are germs you mind as well share things. I just find it really funny because I don’t share drinks with friends from home that I have known forever but the first night that I was here I was sharing drinks with my classmates. I don’t have a problem with sharing drinks but I think it has to do with if anyone is sick or not. A lot of people are also germ phoebes at home. Okay, enough of a rant, back to my actual trip… After sharing Mate (Someone has a picture of me drinking it so I will have to get that from them…), we went to a restaurant near by and ate pizza. The pizza was not that good but then again I just think its because the pizza is different so I am not a huge fan of this pizza. Then we just took a bus ride back for siesta so I took a nap on the bus… naturally. J

Siesta is probably the best thing every invented. I might put one in my daily schedule in America. America really needs to have Siesta. It is just basically nap time and rest time so you get to sleep and hang out with your friends. Its makes you more refreshed for the nighttime but then again the Argentine night time is very late compared to ours. They eat dinner at 9am at the earliest, which is really hard for me to get used too. We had a little meeting after siesta to learn about some more history of Argentina but then we had a whole night of freedom!

First we were going to the market and just walking around because a bunch of us were not that hungry. We ended up running into Ignacio, the son of the principal of one of the schools who is the daughter-in-law to our professor. It was really cool because it was him and two of his friends and their brought Mate. So we drank more Mate and it like woke up everyone who was in the group because it is tea. We are not really on the Argentine schedule yet so we are normally really sleepy at night but I was wide awake after drinking Mate. We walked around the town with them so it was fun because we were just talking and walking. We ended up meeting them up later at night to have a party at one of Ignacio’s friend’s house. It was just a giant dance party. We were suppose to go to a discoteca around 4am because that is what they do here on the weekends but apparently it was dead due to a concert in a far away different part of town so we just stayed at the house until like 5am. It was awesome!

One thing I found kind of awkward was the kind of kissing on the cheek greeting thing that they do. They also do it when saying goodbye. I guess I didn't really realize how weird it was until we were saying bye to all the guys we hung out with all night because there were like 8 of them and it was just weird kissing the cheek of a bunch of guys that I hardly knew. I know it is custom here so I am embracing it. Hopefully I won't bring that back to America because people have personal bubbles in America... lol I do but I'm trying to embrace this culture.

I’ve only been in Argentina for 3 days but it feels so much longer. It’s a great new experience and I hope the rest of the month is a great as these first 3 days have been.