Day 5: Cruella de Vile. And the First Night Out

Today was really long… and I JUST got back. It’s 4:42am and I need to wake up in 5 hours to meet up with Erika. W00t w00t. So first, sobre mi titulo. I was walking around looking for a Kodak shop to take my visa pictures and I’m waiting at the crosswalk for light walk signal to go off, when I see a lady with white and black hair EXACTLY like Cruella de Vile from 101 Dalmatians standing in front of a handbag store. Trust me, it surprised me so much… I was staring and missed my chance to cross the street. -__-;;

Second, for the first time since I’ve gotten here, every place I went to today has an Asian employee. I finally totally don’t LOOK LIKE A TOURIST! Quite fun, indeed. I’m slowly integrating myself with the city. I’m having fun, losing myself in the streets and somehow getting back to the meeting area on time.

I got assigned homework for my Spanish Castallano orientation AND Argentine history orientation. I like the Castallano one. I get to walk around with my 2 compañeras and do a scavenger hunt of the city with a camera. It’s gonna be awesome. I think I’m excited because I get to see the smaller details of the city, and not just look at the city as a whole. The Argentine history on the other hand, XP. That’s all I have to say.

The second meeting I had today was about how the academic system works here. Today, they only concentrated on the courses offered at the university I will NOT apply for, but it’s interesting to see how a public university works here. First off, public universities are free for Argentines. Second off, some courses don’t have final exams. There are three types of final exams: a mandatory oral exam, a 12-15 page paper [with little personal opinion], or no final [if the tests you took are higher than the average]. It’s interesting. I can’t wait to see how the other universities work, since all the others are private.

I realized today that “normal, non-Soka” students are very aware of the world around them. I was talking to one of the girls I was grouped with for the scavenger hunt, and she was talking about how she feels so lost because she didn’t buy the morning paper today and didn’t check CNN before she left. I need to get out of my bubble and start enlightening myself also.

One thing I thought I would never really take advantage of was the nightlife here. It’s been said that people stay up till 5am and wake up regularly at 7-8am. Well, I didn’t do so much as drinking [legal is 18 here], but my friend and I walked around a bit, waiting to meet up with her friend who had actually been studying here for a year. He recommended us this great Argentine ice cream place. OMG. It’s heaven. Dulce de Leche. Mmm, yum.

Oh so the reason we were out in the first place [at 11pm] was we were going to go see Batman: The Dark Knight subtitled. I preferred the Castallano dub, but I heard it loses the movie touch. But we had to wait 2 hours till the next showing, so we walked around, listened to some latino music, and almost got run over by a car…you know, stuff you do when you’re out at night.

We ended up going back to the theater and walked into the bookstore’s café. I had a nice dialogue, IN SPANISH, about university life. It was nice and nostalgic. T~T reminded me of Soka. I also bought a book called, Tsugumi, by Banana Yoshimoto. I’ve been looking for books by her since forever because she’s up there with Haruki Murakami in terms of contemporary Japanese novels, but American bookstores have limited things, so I’ve realized. Hopefully, I’ll be able to engross myself in this over the next few months.

Did you know that movie theaters assign you seats like an actual theater? I was impressed. And the seats are SOOOO comfortable. I could’ve fallen asleep. Anyway, I’m not much of a Batman fan, but the movie was intense and definitely one of Heath Ledger’s best performances. Mm… I think that’s all I have to say about that. You have to see it to actually know what I mean.

Aside from that… yea. A very matter-of-fact entry, nothing profound. It was just that kind of day. So yea. It’s late and I need to sleep. I get to see Erika tomorrow! Yay.

Btw, did I mention that I need to carry my bag of laundry 11/2 blocks from where I live to get it washed and dried?