New Beginnings in a New Country: Massages and Private Chefs

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I have been teaching everyday, coming home, planning for the next day's lesson, and going to sleep. There was a pretty bad thunderstorm here the other day, so I cancelled one of my classes. I came home and took a 2 hour nap and I feel like a completely different person now. I think that's exactly what I needed it.

One of my classes got changed, so now I am able to go to Spanglish during the week. It seems like there's a new group of people coming in so I've been able to meet some more expats. Also there are a few Argentine regulars that I have gotten to know better. I like that because it's very difficult to make friends down here. The foreigners are normally only here for a few weeks and the Argentine's pretty much have their group of friends already.

I had a big break through with my Spanish last weekend at Spanglish. I spoke with 2 girls from Colombia who I understood perfectly and had a real life conversation with them. I was so confused because up until that moment I thought that I was an idiot for coming here and that I didn't know any Spanish at all. There is something about the Argentine accent that I just can't pick up. Their pitch changes when they say words and it sounds completely different. They also have a lot of slang which is pretty confusing. I can understand Spanish perfectly when it is written down, but the moment Argentine's speak, I feel like I'm hearing Chinese. Luckily now I am not near as frustrated as I was the first 2 months of the trip. I realized that I do actually know Spanish, I just need to think a little harder and pay attention more to understand the accent here. Up until last weekend, I had pretty much given up, but now I'm ready to start speaking and learning more.

My friend Lauren isn't moving to Hong Kong anymore!! I'm super excited about that. She is studying Thai massage at the moment. She wants to practice, so obviously I am more than willing. I went to her house the other night with Analia and just ate cookies and talked while she gave me a massage.. it was awesome. I think I'm definitely gonna be going to see her a lote especially since she lives so close.

Johanna's birthday was on Thursday. After work, I met her at Spanglish and then we went to have dinner at a buffet with some of her friends for her birthday. It was a lot of fun. It's nice doing something with friends. At first when I got here, I was wondering if I would even make any friends. But now that I have made a lot of friends, it's going to make it that much harder to leave.

The main reason I'm writing this blog is to tell ya about my awesome experience last night. I went to a closed door restaurant. It was about 20 people in someone's house and there is a chef who prepares a dish for you. I went to Casa Mun. Unfortunately, it wasn't him that was on Iron Chef America it was his teacher... which was still pretty awesome. And just FYI, on Iron Chef America the chef's are told 3 months in advance what the secret ingredient is so they can practice. It was a 5 course Asian meal and it was awesome. I ate tofu, sushi, and quail egg. The tofu wasn't that bad... the sushi, well my thoughts haven't changed, I still don't like it, and the quail egg was actually ok. I knew what I was getting into before I went and I'm really glad that I did. I don't think actually I know that I would never have tried anything like that back home. I definitely want to try another closed door restaurant soon. I think when mom and dad come we will try one called Casa Salt Shaker. One of my friends recommended it to me, so I wanna try it out.

Today I went to Barrio Chino aka Chinatown. There was some festival for Budda or something, I don't really know. It was called Bano de Buda which mean's Budda's Bath. I'm still not exactly sure what it's all about, it was just a big street festival. We just walked around and got some pretty good food.

I hope everyone is doing great... love you all!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Thank you for everything, I love you. You are the best