06/21/10

Today, I got up around 10:30, then went to look for a travel agency place to figure out my upcoming adventures. Today in Argentina was flag day, so all the shops were closed. I then bought a new hair straightener, due to the fact that mine gets extraordinarily hot even with the volt converter (and another girl in the group had her hair straightener actually catch on fire.... i decided not to risk it)... 250 freaking pesos. not cool. oh well. It's also nice that the girl who left today, left the blow dryer that she bought here. Jacob (freshman guy in the group who doesn't speak much Spanish) and I went to Lujan today. It was about a 2 hour bus ride from the plaza. We saw the gran basilica (WOW... facebook pictures soon, but they don't nearly do justice... the place rocked). We couldn't find the zoo after we saw the basilica, so I practiced my Spanish in getting directions. Most people here speak to me in fast, normal lingo because apparently my Spanish is so much better it actually sounds decent. After some nice guy gave us directions, we took a bus a few miles out of time to zoo lujan. Now, for this experience, you've GOT to see the facebook pictures. yes. it's real. I touched an elephant, baby tiger, BIG tiger, and lion, held a vibrant pretty bird (not sure what it's called), and rode a dromedario. seriously. yes. real. wild animals in some sort of petting zoo. I also had a camel give me an entire face kiss. Pretty awesome. We caught the bus back around 6:30, but it was so crowded we were sitting on the floor. I was expecting the same fare as getting there, but neither Jacob nor I had colectivos (coins)... only dollar bill type money.... WELL, guess what, the bus doesn't take dollar bill type money........... GREAT. The bus driver let us on anyway, well, not exactly, we were already on the bus and driving before he realized we didn't have the kind of money we needed, haha, and his Spanish was very very odd... I told him to speak slower because I didn't understand.... he was a jackass and spoke faster in some sort of Spanish-Portuguese mix. So we sat on the bus and everyone looked at us weird. The bus driver got off at one of the stops, bought us tickets, and had us pay him back. Quite an experience. We made it back for dinner, and had some delicious breaded chicken thing and salad and talked about what we did today. My host parents also said how much better my Spanish is after just one day. How awesome is that. My host padre Luciano also is letting me borrow a cell phone for local calls or text messages, which is great. After dinner a couple of us went out for submarinos (a better version of hot chocolate) and alfajores (the best, most fattening dessert ever) because today was a COLD day. Time to sleep now. Placement Spanish exam tomorrow.