Sorry for not posting last night!

As I'm sure you all can imagine, I had a pretty busy day yesterday... by the time I usually blog, I was working on homework and quite tired. I'll try to make up for my blog right now, but this is going to be pretty quick.

Activities of the day if you don't want to read:
-Bank
-Brunch
-Class
-Speaker
-Dinner

So, Brad and I woke up yesterday and immediately headed over to a place with ATMs. Although this is a normal occurrence, it was slightly different in BsAs than back home. First, there is a room with several ATMs, and although there are several ATMs, there was a HUUUUGE line. We walked in and didn't even see the line. Ugh. So we were standing behind someone at an ATM, when someone says something to Brad en espanol... and points behind him. There was a line of about 5-7 people... even though there were at least 3 ATMs, hahaha.

So yea, that was interesting.

After that, I was hungry, so we decided to just go back to Pertutti for lunch/breakfast. We didn't try any new places because we thought we were running late... which is how you feel when you don't have a watch or working phone. Blegh.
For lunch I ordered a spinach and cheese... thing... hahahaha. They looked like huge meatballs, but they were made with spinach and ricotta cheese. It also had a piece of cheese melted over the top, and was surrounded by a cream sauce. It was decent. No where near as healthy as I thought it would be, haha. Oh! I learned something new: when they put a basket of bead/crackers on the table, it's not that it is for your meal or anything, but if you decide to eat it they will charge you. Yep, I learned it from experience at brunch, haha. Oh well. Everything is a learning experience, right?
Brad was pretty nervous about being late to class, so he kept saying "I hope we're not late to class...." throughout our meal. Maybe I'm a slacker, but I have the attitude that if I am late for class, it's not really a big deal. I'm in Argentina!!! Why would I worry about being late for a class that doesn't count for credit?! Haha. :)
Either way, we were actually 30 minutes early to class. :)

Class was interesting. I really AM learning a lot and quickly!!!! Despite constantly speaking Spanish with Brad (our Spanish levels are too beginner to carry a meaningful conversation, haha), I am picking up quickly. I am learning enough to journal en espanol!!! This makes me suuuper happy. :DDD
In class we learned how to say things in the past, which is awesome. However, if on the second day we are conjugating in the past tense, it really makes me question the curriculum in the U.S. because I don't remember conjugating Spanish in the past tense until Spanish 2. I could be wrong, seeing as I took Spanish 2 in my sophomore year, haha.

After class, Brad, a girl from his class and I went to get a quick snack [We're out of class by 5PM] at a cafe. I ordered a basic vegetarian sandwhich, while Brad and the girl ordered medialunas. It was delicious. I'm starting to think they can't go wrong with the coffee here!

Today, the kids in the medical program had a guest speaker! She is a Public Health official in Bs.As. from the Health Ministry, so apparently she is pretty high ranking. She was scheduled to talk for 3 hours! Oh. My. God. That was too long of a time, haha. We didn't get out until soooo late. After 9 PM. :(
Her discussion was really interesting though! [Sidenote, I was incredibly happy because she was lecturing in Spanish and a translator was telling us what she would say in English, and I understood at least 50%! I know she was probably talking like she would to a kindergarten class, but I'm still pretty happy. :)]. She told us all about Argentina's health care, which is very different from the USA's. We were allowed to ask as many questions as we liked, and I asked 3. I asked about MRSA and if it was a common problem in Argentina because so many people self medicate with strong medicines (prescriptions are not needed to obtain most medicines, excluding psychotic meds). She told me that it is a huge problem, but that they are trying to push to preventing illnesses rather than curing illness and disease, but prevention is still a really new concept so it is taking a while to catch on.
I then asked if there were issues with people making illegal drugs from the legal ones, because the legal ones are so easy to obtain. Yea, there's a huge problem with illegal drugs, haha. No kidding, right? :/
My last question was easily my favorite. I backtracked a bit and asked what they are doing for preventating illness and if it spills into other areas of health... specifically air quality. I really wanted to know if there were any laws protecting the environment, because that is a HUGE part of health. There isn't. This actually really surprised me because BsAs is a mammoth city, and I can't even imagine what kinds of pollutants the inhabitants (and visitors!!!!) are breathing in! :O
I followed up the question with another about incidence of respiratory disease and asthma especially. She said that Asthma is a big problem in BsAs, and that they actually ask people to self medicate for acute asthma attacks because they do not have enough beds for everyone. So crazy.
Yea, I thought that was super interesting. I wish I could study the social aspects of the country, rather than the health care system. Even if it were health-related, rather than the system... I don't know. At least everything was super interesting. :). Oh gosh, it did take forever, though! :/

At 9 PM, when the speaker was asked to come back to answer more questions on another day, I was super duper hungry! Lizette, Brad and I went out to eat at a place called Molina's. Lizette and I ordered "pizza", while Brad ordered Milanesa... which was kind of like chicken fried chicken and mashed potatoes, haha. The pizza I ordered was vegetariano, but it still wasn't pizza! Hahahaha. It was bread, spinach and a cream sauce. It was alright, but by this time I was spinached out! :/
Lizette ordered a realllllly delicious pizza, that didn't have meat! It was called neopolitano or something. Just normal pizza with tomatoes. Oh, speaking of tomatoes... I don't know if they use less pesticides or anything here, but their tomatoes taste different! They taste wayyy better than our store-bought ones, in my opinion. Along with that, they also hurt my mouth more. One bite of a raw tomato here and my tongue goes crazyyyy. :/ Oh well. I'll [hopefully ;) ] live. hahaha

We walked Lizette home, so we were able to explore a few blocks in a direction we'd never been in before. it was pretty nice! I can't wait to look in other places around the city!

After that we just went home, studied and hung out hahaha. It was a nice, albeit LONG, day. :)