Classes and Crashes

Hey everyone! I hope you have all had a wonderful week. In lovely Mendoza my week was filled with classes, decisions, and organization for school. I FINALLY (with advice from other students, my host mom, the academic director of the program, my DU advisor, and the professors themselves) have picked out my classes!!! Here is my schedule for the next 'semester':
MONDAY:
History of Political Ideas ~ 9:30am-11:30am
Spanish Language ~ 1pm-3pm

TUESDAY:
Argentinean Regional Development ~ 1pm-3pm
Sociology of Communication ~ 6pm-8:30pm

WEDNESDAY:
Childhood (Regional Development Focus) ~ 8:30am-10am
Spanish Language ~ 1pm-3pm
Tango ~ 5:30pm-7pm

THURSDAY:
History of Political Ideas ~ 9:30am-12pm
Regional Development (sometimes) ~ 1pm-3pm

I'm SUPER excited about it, especially the tango class!!! Now that I have that officially figured out, I have to start buying books, making photo copies of the material and doing homework... :( BOO on that, but I guess I'm here to "study". :) In all honesty I really am looking forward to the classes and all the material. I really like them and with the exception of the sociology class I have friends in every class from the program. I went to the first Tango class on Wednesday night and it was WONDERFUL!!! There are about 30 of us in that class and no one has any idea what is going on, but the teachers are great and its going to be a lot of fun!

Tuesday night I finally experienced the sociology class. Apparently it had taken place the week before, but only half the class had gotten the message that the room had changed. As a result, I essentially "missed" the first class, but I talked to the professor and she said everything is fine. She seems really nice and I truly enjoyed the class, hence the reason it is part of my schedule. :)

In other news...Thursday was Ellen's 21st birthday (she's another DU student here) and so of course we went out to celebrate. There were more than 30 people at the restaurant from our group! We enjoyed margaritas and 'spicy' food by Argentine standards (they don't like spicy AT ALL). I actually ate earlier though with 3 other girls at a local pizza restaurant. Every Thursday night is "ladies' night" more or less and so there is all you can eat cheese pizza for the whole night. They literally bring you pizza after pizza until you ask them to stop and it doesn't matter how many drinks you order or how much time you spend there. It was delicious! And free of course is good too... :)

Friday I got up early and went to the program office to speak with the volunteer coordinator. I have been hoping since I discovered the Mendoza program to participate in community service while I'm here. I really wanted to work with children, but to do that I have to take the regional development class with a focus in children and the focus section conflicted with another class. I was hoping that I could talk to the lady about offering another section or changing the time, because I knew I was not the only one who had a conflict. After talking with her, she agreed to offer another section on Wednesday morning! Its SUPER early (especially by Argentinean standards) but its definitely worth it to me to take the class. Friday afternoon a group of us went shopping at a mall about 30 minutes away. It was pretty fun and I found some new clothes, which is great since wearing the same few outfits over and over gets old pretty fast when you only have 5 or so (I planned to buy some clothes here). :)

On our way back, we had quite the adventure. We were on the micro (bus) on our way back and the bus was PACKED! All of us were standing and holding on to rails etc. We turned a corner and all of a sudden there was a loud bang and a huge jolt in the front of the bus. I almost fell over and everyone was trying to figure out what was going on. The driver pulled to the side of the street and got out to look. I thought a front tire had blown because the bus was tilted to the front right. However, when we all got out, it was not the tire that had blow, but in fact the ENTIRE wheel that had come off! I kid you not, the entire wheel, tire and all, was laying in the middle of the street!!! No one was hurt and it was clear that the bus was going no where, so we set off walking, guided by 2 lovely Mendocinans that we had met at the bus stop. We walked all the way back to the center of town probably about 2 miles and then to our separate houses.

When I got back to the house, I had a friend over for dinner and we had ravioles and home-made flan (of course with dulce de leche y whipped cream on the side). It was DELICIOUS! Possibly one of my favorite meals here so far! After dinner we relaxed and watched "He's Just NOT That Into You" which is officially one of my favorite movies. Who knew you could rent movies from iTunes?!! How cool! Since it was 3:30am when the movie ended, I slept until noon on Saturday and then accompanied a shopping trip for my friend. Last night was pretty quiet. A bunch of us met up at an Irish pub in town for drinks and (as usual) took over a vast percentage of the space and hung out talking until 5:30am. Its crazy to me the schedule here!!! This pub was really fun and aside from being there with friends, there was a constant stream of highly entertaining music videos playing (complete of course with a short streak dedicated to Michael Jackson).

Today has been very relaxing (as I slept until 1pm) and then hung out at the house until after lunch. Then I met up with a couplet friends at the central plaza and we went to see the play of Aladín at a local children's theater. It was really funny and although I will admit I could not follow the whole story line, we had a great time. Today has got to be the nicest weather day we've had so far! I didn't even need a sweatshirt! Summer is just around the corner!!! I'm SO excited.

This week looks to be full of classes, home work, and reading. I'll keep you all updated and hope that everyone has a great week as well. Good luck to everyone who is going back to classes and for those of you who aren't I hope you are enjoying your final days of summer. :) I miss you all and hope to hear about what you're up to as well. Take care!

All My Love!