¡Feliz Dia de Gracias!

Next time you travel around the holidays, you should know that it is really difficult to explain our tradition of Thanksgiving to others. It started with descriptions of settlers and indigenous folks all getting along and eating together for a day of peace, or a time of thanks, or...when we got the part about eating a lot and gathering together with your family then we started to make some sense. When we mentioned turkey and wine, we were speaking the same language, literally.

In order to avoid the sure homesickness that would come on this special day of thanks, we celebrated our first holiday together by finding an all you can eat and yet true blue Argentinan Parrilla. Picture a huge room full of friends and families gathered around tables with wine, all talking loudly and descriptively, hands waving everywhere, a long stretch of appetizers and all types of salads inbetween the tables including tortas and empanadas, and-the best part-a HUGE grill with 4 or 5 guys behind it just ready to serve up any cut of beef you can imagine and as bloody as you can handle it, or some lesser meat like chicken if they must. We found Thanksgiving here! Except for it was just a regular Thursday night at midnight for this place, perfect for us. And, for the record, one of the salads had some turkey in it.

Since our last entry, we have celebrated ¨El dia de la musica¨ which was fantastic! We were basically a small fan club of two running around this gigantic city´s many plazas, parks, and busy corners to see as many musical events as possible ranging from funk to jazz to folk to classical. For the morning we involved ourselves in a small parade with a creole jazz band hiding behind the tuba and ended the night after class in the midst of a huge celebration at the grand finale. There we learned about a type of music more Argentinan than tango with a dance that seemed even more difficult. Very beautiful.

Classes continue to go really well, we have a favorite teacher named Manuel with whom we discuss the many problems of the world, politics, religion, career, and friendship all through the perspectives of different countries and different people. He is a fascinating guy who has also been instrumental to our learning, especially because he is so encouraging and because we really enjoy talking with him. Our favorite thing that he says is ¨Miravos!¨ when you say or do something correct or interesting, it basically means ¨Look at you!¨ Always makes us laugh...

A parting story to tell: This week we have started to try and speak only Spanish, even with each other (exhausting but necessary). So last night as we entered the pharmacy while shopping for a phone card, we were feeling quite confident. I asked in my best castellano for a ¨tarjeta de telefonico¨ after which the guy nodded knowingly, left to retrieve it, and promptly returned with some pills. I shook my head and explained more-no for the phone, for calling another country...to which he responded that they didn´t sell them there. We thanked him, still somewhat confused as to what had occured, and started to walk out of the store when he stopped us, ¨Wait, do you still need the anti-diarrhea pills?¨

And a final confession: This is Emily! Could you tell?

Love you all! Cant wait to see many of you soon!