The First Day of School

Tuesday, Feb 7^th, 2012

As I hoped, I placed in the advanced Spanish class—with my friend. I couldn’t believe it. Normally in these situations it seems to be that I immediately get separated from the person I started to befriend in the beginning, so I have to start from square one again. But I had the great fortune of even getting to sit next to her. Que suerte! For my class, I have one teacher for MWF (or LMV) and another for TTh (or MJ). Our professor today was an older woman—the kind that would judge you in the streets or in class if you made an ass of yourself, but knows her shit. The 5 hours passed quickly more or less and seemed almost like an uneventful day in Spanish class. But the streets of Buenos Aires were a different story…

After class, we realized we needed to buy groceries for our lunches because the cafeteria food wasn’t going to cut it. In addition to being expensive, it was greasy and not something one should partake in even once a week. Although we knew that grocery stores here were not going to carry the almost ridiculous amounts and types of groceries available in the US, I think our expectations were a little too high…We entered the first store, which looked like a hole-in-the-wall, and consequently was a hole in the wall.  Passing through the aisles, we kept expecting that the next aisle would surely have what we needed there. And they kind of did. After 10 minutes we’d seen everything and realized a sack lunch was gonna be a lot harder than in the US, where certain foods are made to be in a sack lunch. I decided on some saltines, yogurt, rice cakes and bread. I was amazed at the selection. There was virtually nothing convenient (in that it was something that had to be prepared—pasta, soup, etc.); nor was there anything healthy. It was all soda, cookies and snacks. Seriously. There’s no “healthy” portions for a sack lunch. Short of just packing all fruits and vegetables, you’re SOL. Where’s all the fiber and protein!?!?!? And I mean, I knew this going in, but WHY IS THERE NO PEANUT BUTTER HERE!? Send peanut butter. And Clif bars. And Wheat Thins. And the Winco bulk section. Or just Winco. Send me the whole damn store.