A Day in San Juan...

Even though there has been few days alike while i´ve been here an ordinary day in San Juan, Argentina for a typical school girl goes something like this...

5:45am- I wake up for school. Yes five am is extremely early (especially for me) but I don´t have to go to school in the afternoon so it kinda works out fairly well..

7-1:00pm- I have to be at school promply by 7:01. If I am tardy, for one reason or another, Monica (the school director...(dictator?)..) gives me a firm "talking to" en espanol. By the way, this has only happened once! ...I don´t think she likes me very much acually...ha ha but it is very amusing when she tries to instill some argentine discipline into my "pink head-band-wearing-head". I am now aware, thanks to the explanation given by my companeras, that we aren´t supposed to wear offensive colors such as red, and pink and all that...or paint our nails any "offensive" color. (sigh).

1:15-2(ish)- I take advantage of the seasons being all backwards south of the equator and I sunbathe in the garden

2:30-3(ish)- This is when everyone comes home to eat lunch.. EVERYone.. if you happen to be out shopping and you haven´t purchased everything you need then your out of luck until five o´clock (when things reopen) because beginning at about 1pm everyday, everything closes down and "takes a three hour nap".

3:30-4:00- I sometimes paint my nails during this little awkward space of time where everythings winding down, or check my email or sometimes go back out into the garden.

4:15-600- SIESTA!! I take HUGE siestas, except on days where I have gym class at four, in which case I just eat lunch really fast and jump into bed to try to squeeze one in... it´s very liberating to have scheduled naps, in a way, you don´t have to be tired all the time, you can just go to sleep!

6:30-8:30- This is usally when I walk to the park to run. It´s a long ways away, like twenty city blocks! but it´s good because i get to have some time to myself and it´s really fun to people watch, seven o´clock is VERY busy...

8:45-9:15- This is "chocolate milk time".. actually it´s tea time, mate, crackers, cheese, camote de dulce (which is a very very good little starchy gelatin thingy made entirely from a camote, which is like a really rich really sweet sweet potato)

9:30-11pm- On Wednesdays and Thursdays I have salsa lessons, even though i´ve been super lazy the last week and a half and didn´t go...otherwise, around nine ish is when we all sorta start congregating towards home. Antonio usually gets home from work around then and Toto starts dinner.

11:ish- This is when we FINALLy eat dinner, dinner is pretty tame and light. Many times its left overs from lunch combined with semolina and cheese, crackers, boiled eggs, and sometimes they try to cook hot dogs (the "hot dogs" are horrible)... but there´s ALWAYS tomatoes, always... it doesn´t matter what time were eating or what were eating there are always tomatoes with oil.. I like to think they only use extra virgin olive oil,.. because i´m scared to know the truth!! (ahhh) So in my imagination the food is totally fine...

FOOD TALK: Also, besides the always-present tomatoes, which are very good as long as your not sensitive to acidic foods (such as myself).. The other day Toto cooked this semolina but with this "salsa" with it.. definitely not the bogarts salsa, it was like a really delicious sauce, it was served with boiled chicken and it was awesome!!! Exotic other foods include: i´m not sure what they´re called, I can never pronounce it, but it´s like bread that´s deep fried and you eat it with ketchup and mayo.. it has a breading on it or something, but i noticed we seem to eat it a lot when Antonio is going to be late or working or in Mendoza, which I suppose means its a bit simpler...it´s good, but the consistency reminds me of wet cardboard a bit.... there are a ton of foods that are similar to the U.S. but with different sauces or flavors, but a lot of the same basic ideas... a lot of salt is used here!! they don´t sprinkle it either, its like a very healthy coating of salt that you can see across the table! .... I guess it´s always hot and everyone sweats a lot so people need extortionate amounts of salt? yeah...