Do Something!

I like having a maid.

Norma comes on Wednesday and cleans, changes the sheets and gives me fresh towels. I have her trained now not to move things. I'm very happy coming home to a very clean apartment once a week. I could get spoiled!

I left her a big chocolate bar that I bought on the Buquebus. I had some extra Uruguayan pesos since I left a day earlier than planned. I needed some for the taxi and in case there was a departure tax. Well, I didn't really, because they accepted Argentine pesos (the taxi driver in Colonia just changed his meter over and it registered in Argentine pesos), but the point is I had some pesos I had to spend because I didn't know if I could use them here.

I went to the duty free shop in the Buquebus terminal, but their computer was down and they couldn't sell anything. So I had to go to the duty free shop on the boat. It was all the way down on the bottom floor. I was in first class which was on the upper deck (it was a 3 hour trip and I decided to go in style). I went down to the lower floor, below the economy section, to the duty free shop. The boat was rocking back and forth and people kept bumping into each other. It was crowded and I didn't want to spend too much time there. I bought what I thought would use up my Uruguayan pesos - they had these giant bars of Lindt Swiss chocolate and they were 3 for the price of 2. Turned out the total was almost excactly the amount that I had in Uruguayan pesos. I got 5 pesos change, which is worth nothing.

I felt a bit plump when I got back from Uruguay after eating so much meat (and bread) and very few vegetables or fruit. I ate some of one of the bars of chocolate It is dark chocolate with almonds. I was going to bring one bar to each of my classes, but instead I brought one to Hernan when I went to visit him on Saturday and decided to leave the other one for Norma. She left me a little thank you on a post it on my nice clean kitchen counter. It is really nice having a maid.

My Italian class was moved to another room for some reason. This means I got to sit next to a new person today.

When I went to the regular room there was an English class inside already in session. There were notes on the door that the room had changed. I went to the new room and Hanna was already there. She pointed to the seat next to her and told me to sit there. As people trickled in, they looked around for a place to sit, as this room was much smaller than the other.

Two girls who were usually at the other end of the other room and I never saw because we sat in a U-shape and we were all on the same side of the U, sat down to my left. Hanna was on my right.

Hanna was really kind of jumpy today. I don't know what was up with her. I found out she is from Peru. She must have told me that before, but today I finally got it. It doesn't mean anything other than the fact that I am missing a lot in my interactions with people. She also had a little pink in her bleached blond hair today. She is quite a character. She always wears black with silver jewelry. She has a cell phone that is pink with jewels on it, and she has two buttons on her bag that say "no flogger" and "no emo". She is not a flogger or an emo, I guess maybe people might confuse her for one (though I think emos always have dyed black hair).

Blas of course asked me what I did on the weekend. I hate this question. To me it implies that you are supposed to do something, especially on the weekend. Even when I am in San Francisco, weekends are times for me to decompress. I need that time on the weekend. Here, I also really like to just stay in on Sunday. Many of the shops are closed and there is not a lot to do, so why go out? I get pleasure from staying home, cooking and just relaxing.

Well, today Blas went around and asked everybody what they did on the weekend. Since we haven't learned the past tense yet (I already learned it in Italian 2) it was a challenge for people to answer.

The new girls next to me wanted to talk to me but Blas kept stopping us. At one point he said, "Reeshard, ascoltiamo" when I was answering a question the girl had just asked me. I don't know her name because Blas never calls on her. I wish he didn't call on me.

After class I decided I wanted to eat out and I wanted something different. I passed by the Korean restaurant but knew it would be too early to go there. Sure enough, when I passed by, I could see the guy mopping the floor. They were still setting up for lunch.

I decided to walk to Santa Fe a few blocks from my apartment to a restaurant called Cocina & Cia. It is a middle eastern restaurant. They have Jewish and Arab food. They have a lunch buffet, all you can eat, for $10.

It wasn't crowded when I got there and I went up and helped myself to the buffet. They had a pretty big selection of food with a mix of Jewish, Arab and Argentine things. It was quite a varied buffet. Many of the things I ate tasted the same. There was not a whole lot of flavor to things. Also, many of the hot dishes had this white sauce on them. I think it might have been a bechemel sauce. But it was just this white stuff that covered everything and had no flavor.

I did like the more traditional Middle Eastern stuff though. They had good humus and tabouli. I had gone up twice and was planning on visiting the desert table when I noticed they had a grill in the back that people were going to and getting meat at. I thought maybe they had brisket and schwarma.

I went back and saw it was a regular parilla. I think. I still don't know the names of the cuts of meat you get at a parilla. I pointed to a piece of meat and asked the guy what it was, and I forget what he told me, but I got a little piece anyway. I got some more humus and tabouli and went to explore this piece of meat. It could have been pork. It could have been beef. It had a nice crispy skin and the meat was very tender.

I was stuffed when I left there. And tired. I came home to my clean apartment and took a nap.

That was a very full day for me. And it only takes me up to 3 p.m. Come to think of it, I do a lot every day!