Lemon Champ and Local Friends

After getting back from Buenos Aires the week flew by! Tuesday night after the game was dedicated to school since we had our 312L “mid-term” (yes, our mid-term was exactly one week before our final…our professor is a little disorganized) on Wednesday morning. But the test went well, and I celebrated after class on Wednesday with a very popular Argentine dessert that is pretty much now my favorite: Lemon Champ (pronounced “shomp”). I was told by my Kiwi friends in Buenos Aires to try it, and when I mentioned it to Vicky she told me that it’s a very common dessert here and she couldn’t believe I hadn’t yet heard of it. Basically it’s just a coke float, but instead of vanilla ice cream it’s lemon sherbet, and instead of using coke you use champagne. After hearing about this on Saturday I decided that I would go experience this piece of Argentine culture after my test, so Wednesday afternoon I went to the popular ice cream place among the American students called Casseratto and ordered my first Lemon Champ. I have to say, it didn’t disappoint! I’m glad it’s rather easy to replicate…I’m definitely bringing this idea back to the states with me! After all of the craziness from Buenos Aires and then immediately jumping back into school mode, it was nice to have a relaxing night on Wednesday. Thursday we didn’t have our normal classes, but we still had to go to Casa Verde for about the same amount of time to take the UT Study Abroad Examination. Before we all came to Argentina we took this same exam at UT sometime in April, and it has sections on reading, listening, grammar, vocabulary, writing, and speaking. Then, after being here for nearly the entire amount of time, they make you take it again. It’s purely for statistics and to see how well your Spanish has progressed. It was extremely daunting when I took it at UT; it was very difficult and I left the testing room feeling like I was going to die here because I didn’t know Spanish. This time, however, wasn’t nearly as bad. I know that I didn’t do anywhere near wonderful on it, but it was overall much easier and a lot less stressful. It was good to know that in just a few short months my Spanish has apparently improved that much! After the test I went home and got ready for tango class, which was supposed to be at 5:30 (like usual), but when I got there they told me that they had cancelled the 5:30 class and were just having the 7:00 one. The tango place is located in the area of town near where they have the Paseo de las Artes (the local artisan fair) on the weekends, and the area has lots of cool shops. So, to pass the time, a guy named Ben and I decided to go shopping at some of the stores nearby. Quite a few of the shops were antique stores, some were stores filled with “typical” Argentine items, and others were stores with handmade items of every kind. We were enjoying just looking at everything (I didn’t have any pesos) when we came across a store that we both fell in love with. All of the items in it were just cool; honestly, I don’t know how else to put it. They weren’t “typical” Argentine items; instead, all of them were colorful and just made in interesting, abstract ways. However, the thing that really sold us on this particular store was the woman working there. She was extremely nice, and she put up with our not-so-wonderful Spanish and talked to us for a long time. We talked about where we were from, what we were doing here, and places that we’ve visited in Argentina. She told us that she and her best friend had made everything in the store, and she pointed out the things that she had made and the ones her friend had. It was a great experience; we all want to practice our Spanish and meet people, and it’s so wonderful when somebody is willing to take the time and have the patience to talk with us. I felt really bad that I didn’t have any money, but I promised the woman that I would return because I had fallen in love with some of her work. Ben and I left the store in an awesome mood, and talked about how cool it was that we now have the capability to hold actual conversations. In the end, this is why we’re working everyday to learn the language. Although it’s usually the main focus, in the end the grades we get are not important. What’s important is being able to use what we’ve learned to talk with and get to know people and learn about their lives, and that’s exactly what we’re starting to discover that we’re becoming capable of doing.