Last Daze

I'm writing this from the airport in Santiago, Chile. I think this is my favorite city to land in - this is the second time and I am even more blown away by the incredible view of the snowcapped Andes you get as you descend into the city. The airport has huge floor to ceiling windows and you can see the mountain range rimming the city, it's so incredibly beautiful. I can't believe that I am here - that I am a mere 15 hours from a bagel and my city, and several days away from 2 months in Israel. Most of all I cannot believe that an experience I have waited for since sophomore year of high school is over. "One day you'll study abroad" - it was like a myth we talked about back then when we had just gotten back from Chile and couldn't wait to board more planes. That's when I got fixated on Chile's larger neighbor - Argentina and met Gonzalo on flickr. And here we are.

The past few weeks went very fast. All I wanted to do was see everything I had not seen, but this is school and I had a bunch of papers, tests, presentations and editing to do...the most stressfull assignment being an art history/museum theory paper en español and my spanish exam which ended up being fine. Still during the feriado I managed to do a lot - like go out 4 of 5 nights, see a show at Teatro Colon, visit Gonza's neighborhood in La Boca and see art/free concerts in Recoleta (see the photos in the post before this). I had my last day at work with my cute little spanish speaking Jewish babies (their new thing is they think it's hilarious how skinny my wrists are and kept pulling on my sleeves) and finally finally got the dorm chef to make me eggs instead of &*%$#& soya milanesa. I walked - a lot. This past Wednesday Gonzalo, Macarena, Michelle and I had dinner at Aqua Bat and even though it was a Mexican menu Nico made us incredibly pasta and spaghetti squash with pepper and parmasean and it was delicious.  They kept saying to me "don't leave, don't leave and leave us here alone!" I packed in record time, with both bags underweight. It's been retranqui.

Last night was the IES final party at the Club Sirio Libonesa (I spelled those both wrong but I'm going on a day of flying and 2 hours of sleep so perdonamé). Well the night started with me getting a card that Gonza and Maca left for me at the reception desk and me crying my damn eyes out. Maca is a graphic design major and made me a beautiful card and Gonzalo printed out three photos of me that he took last week in La Boca. It was really beautiful. I'm so so so lucky to have had them here because it completely made my semester to have friends who know the city and who were so warm and welcoming and fun. I'm really glad that after six years of chatting on Skype I was able to meet Gonzalo and even more glad that our friendship translated seamlessly to real life. Back then we were both amateur kids with kit camera's and now he is one of the most talented and driven artists I know - directing commercials for Coca Cola, shooting countless weddings, BS AS fashion week, magazine covers...I can't. And Maca - I haven't seen much of her work but what I have seen is AMAZING.

Back to the Club (not a night club, like a building for a community/society org or something)- It looked like a building owned by the consulates? I couldn't tell but it was very fancy. There was some finger food (read: all meat) and weird juices and lights to make you have an epileptic attack, loud music, caricature artists and all of us. They awarded the superlatives and there was a talent show which was nice. The superlatives were a fucking RIOT because the kids in the residence hall rigged it...the guys here all filled it out together and nominated people for opposite awards (so I got "most likely to be seen in a parilla" for obvious reasons, Stephanie who rarely goes out got "most likely to be seen in a boliche" and Ian who has a girlfriend and doesn't like Argentina got "most likely to marry a portena and stay here forever"). As more and more of us started winning and it became clear the rigging worked we just got more and more hysterical and the whole rest of the program was just kind of blank faced...what ended up as obnoxious ended up being hilarious and actually awesome cause we won really nice things - Aileen and I got nice mate cups, Steph and Vicky got nice bracelets, Doug and Ian got gloves and hats and we all got beautiful vintage looking Argentine posters. So I'd say that worked out. Then almost our whole program went to Hip Hop and that was awesome too, obviously. And here I am. Cried a lot leaving the dorm and saying goodbye to Michelle and Aileen...especially since they then stood on the curb and waved like it was a damn movie or something! But seriously, those girls were my ride or die this semester and there is no way I could have done it without them.