Dia de los amigos y mas (Friend's Day and more)

Friendship Day here is very important, and this year, it was celebrated last Sunday, July 20th. In all the shops, little friend's day gifts are sold - there are even cards specifically made for this day! I thought it was such a great idea and wondered why we don't have friendship day in America. After some research, (and I hope my sources are correct), in 1935, the U.S. Congress established the first Sunday of August official "Friendship Day," and who is our friendship ambassador? Why none other than our very own...Winnie the Pooh!

I felt like friendship day lasted more than a week, but I enjoyed it =)

Two Thursdays ago, I went over to Julie's house after work. Julie is one of the secretaries in Fundacion Causana. I met two of her brothers and her mom, who has an awesome mate collection. Her 10 yr old younger brother is so cute! He had his friend over too, and he told me how he was learning English in school and seemed happy to be talking to me with the ltd English that he knew =) He even showed me his English grammar and vocabulary tests! Anyway, then Julie and I walked to Andrea Franchescini's to get some ice cream, which is supposed to be muy rico (very rich)! We met one of Julie's friend's on the way, Gino, who is Argentine but lives in Miami and was just on vacation in Argentina at the time.

On Friday, I went with Jorge downtown. Jorge is a volunteer at Fundacion Causana who used to work at Causana, but now he works at a school. Anyway, Jorge knows a lot about the city of Cordoba, and we just walked around downtown and he told me some history. No one knows if this is true, but it is said that there are many escape tunnels underground Cordoba, but why - I can't remember. We ate a delicious meal at Il Gatto, and then I met UT students up at Angeles. From there, we walked to Sha's, a restaurant and then went to a boliche for Brandon's birthday. Oh my...what craziness. I believe there were more than 20 UT students there and we also met some other U.S. kids. I got sleepy, so I slept for a little bit. Yeah...I don't know...the music didn't bother me? But I believe Jeb, Shivani, and I got home at about 6am?? Never again. I realize, I like my sleep, and I like being proactive during the day =)

Then I woke up at 11:45am. Shivani and I had lunch with another Argentine friend, Jessica, in Patio Olmos at El Hombre que Fue Jueves. Since it was the Saturday evening before Friend's Day, there was a lot of activity going on that night. Some students had dinner at Sushi Club, but I went to spend the night at Karina's place. She had about 7 friend's over, most of who were about 30 yrs old. Her father and one of her friend's were cooking an asado...yummy...lots of roast meat, lol =) When I was eating some salad, her dad came and put fish on my plate. He cooked fish for me after realizing that I don't eat meat! Isn't that sweet?
After dinner, we ate Grido's ice cream =) Mmmmm. I love ice cream. Then we played pictionary/charades, women vs men. I had to draw "La Aldea" or "The Village" and act out "El Juego del Miedo", both of which my team guessed! Obviously, the women won, haha. We talked for a little while, and then slept at about 4:30am.

8am. We all went to church (Manatiel de la Vida) early the next morning. The service started at about 10am, but it was about 1/2 hr from Kari's house. I got back to my house at about 3pm. Then Vale and I ate at Betos...mmmm!!! Delicious! I ate lomito vegetal (vegetarian sandwhich with eggplant and vegetables). And I tried a little eggs and fries. In the evening, Jeb, Shivani, and I went to watch Batman. Ok, that movie was crazy. El guason was psycho!! And I only found out he was Heath Ledger after the movie.

It was a wonderful friend's day weekend.

During the week at work, we all had one Amigo Invisible. There was a box at the front desk in which we put our "pista" or hint for our friend. Everyone just gave some little candy with a note attached to it. My invisible friend wrote his note in English, so during the week, I tried to figure out who could speak English. The grammar wasn't perfect, so I knew it wasn't my boss. Anyway, then Friday was our celebration at work. Everyone brought their friend a present. Each person had to guess who their invisible friend was before opening the gift. My invisible friend was Misael and he gave me mate with a bombilla and containers for yerba and sugar!! I thought that was very nice and and thoughtful. I only started liking mate with sugar at work. Mate amargo is without sugar. It's like a very bitter green tea. Shivani came with me to my work party, and I went to spend the night at her house after we got back.

Yesterday, Saturday, I woke up at about 12pm. Gosh, Shivani and I had such a relaxing day. Shiv made french toast for us, which was mmm - delicious. We watched "She's the Man", and then took a VERY long walk. I believe we left the house at about 5pm, and got back at around 9pm? We stopped at places on the way that looked interesting to us. Our goal was to get to Caseratto, which was supposed to have scrumptious desserts. On the way, we stopped at Disco and a baby store. On the way back, we stopped at an empanada place, and had two vegetarian empanadas. Empanadas look like samosas, but the choices for the filling inside included cheese and tomato, roquefort and albaca, and cebolla and cheese. Later on at night, Ashley, Alicia, Shivani and I went to El Arrabel, where tango shows are held Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. The show was fantastic! Although, I realized that the tango dance is not that entertaining to watch. I prefer salsa =) The singers had such strong voices, and the dancers were sophisticated. The place was elegant and there were visitors from Brazil, Canada, Holland, France, and many other places. My friend from Holland was there also!! After the show, we went to meet up with some UT students at Mitre. After getting a little tired of techno, Shiv and I came home and drank some suave coffee before going to sleep. For some reason, coffee puts me to sleep...

It is now Sunday! I'm uploading some photos, but now Shiv and I are going to do some yoga. (Her mom is a yoga instructor and has a yoga room!) Tonight, Shiv and I are going to go to church with David and Vanesa, y despues vamos a charlar en un restaurante (we're going to chat in a restaurant!).

Ciao!