Are we having fun yet?

Dan: What do we do for fun? Hmm. That’s a tough one. We don’t really have a routine. It seems that at least every other weekend there is an asado or a birthday party to go to. We’ve been to quite a few parties at the rented homes of other travelers/ English teachers/ Spanish students. There is a young (or youngish) temporary foreigner community here that one can’t help being part of, because for the most part they are interesting, fun people and well, we don’t know many other people. This community is always in flux. People just disappear. Sometimes they come back in a few weeks or months and we run into them again. If we are out of the ex-pat scene for a couple weeks, the next time we join one of their gatherings, there are newbies. There is also a serious Ex-pat Community that actually lives here and has an organization bent on dominating the local economy in the name of Yankee-capitalism, but we don’t know them. For awhile we considered infiltrating their ranks to make contacts for non-teaching work, but we got busy teaching and forgot about it. Just as well. We meet enough foreigners as it is, and usually the type who are more focused on hiking through every country and dominating the damajuana of wine.

The last two weekends I’ve been to birthday parties of people from the art department at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, the biggest college here. The party last weekend was in the birthday girl’s parents’ house and we came home at around 7 A.M. That is a pretty normal schedule for the weekends, especially for young people, among whom I no may longer count myself. This weekend’s birthday party was at a sort of party room at the dorms. How old am I? Anyway, Lou and I were the first to leave at 3 A.M. There is an art gallery a few blocks from here that hosts a gathhering every Wednesday night. Okay, you know I’m not really an art show guy. I was initially lured there by the free live music and wine, but now it’s a place to go every other week or so and see the regular crowd. It’s kind of like going to Grumpy’s in Minneapolis; we always know at least somebody there, and the art on the walls changes from time to time.

I just turned to Louann and asked what we do for fun. Are we having fun yet? I’m not sure. We’re not on vacation any more, so real recreation only comes on weekends. Every once in awhile on a sunny day we go and sit in a plaza to study Spanish and watch people. Yesterday we took a two-hour walk in the big park. We went and saw “The Queen” at the cinema the other day. I play Civ 3 and write blogs on the computer. Lou does yoga, tai chi, capoeira. I hang out with Sergio, usually for a beer. I’ve sometimes helped him hang commando art works on posts and walls around town (don’t tell anyone). We have been getting busier having language exchanges. I don’t know how much it helps our Spanish, but it is something to do. Also I meet my Minnesota buddies for Skype virtual happy hour every other week They bring a laptop with microphone and camera to a bar, and I do the same here. I sit on their table like Max Headroom and jealously watch them eat buffalo wings in a patio. I feel like I was actually at Billy’s on Grand this weekend, except no one made me drink a straight Jameson at closing time. Good times.

We’ve been trying to do short trips every other weekend or so. If we don’t get very far out of town, we’ll at least go check out a winery 30 minutes away or wander to a part of town we don’t know yet, as an afternoon field trip. 9 de Julio winter holiday is coming up so there will be 2 weeks without work. We are trying to figure out what we can realistically do with two weeks. Argentina turns out to be a pretty big country. The plan right now is to try to get to Iguazu falls. Since every school in the country is closed at this time, we imagine that we won’t be alone. An alternate scenario has us travelling to the north of the country, to Salta and Jujuy.

I just realized today that the 4^th of July is coming up. It is so strange to think that summer is happening as usual up there while we’re wearing stocking caps to bed every night. I had that realization aloud this afternoon during one of my classes, to which one of my students responded that the 4^th of July is also the premiere of the Transformers movie.