Vacas gordas y dulce de leche

The last few days have been filled with preparations for enrolling in classes at the local universities. I have the choice between taking classes at the Universidad Cátolica Argentina (UCA), Universidad del Salvador (USAL), the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT), or through the program center. We have a month long shopping period to try out different classes. I'll expand on this area when I actually know what I'm going to register for.

The US Embassy came to talk to us for an hour yesterday- the first/only activity in English. I guess they wanted to make sure we understood the message. The message generally involved not carrying your passport, using the buddy system, talking to your parents, don't use illegal drugs because you will be in Argentine prison for 4-5 years, never taking anything of any value to fútbol games, and just giving your stuff to anyone who tries to rob/mug you. It was all stuff I'd heard, but the ambassadors had some pretty sobering stories to illustrate their messages.

On to a happier note, I SAW THE FATTEST COWS EVER TODAY. The city is in the middle of their annual La Rural exposition. According to Lonely Planets, it is "the mother of all livestock fairs." We had three hours free during the middle of the day, so we went for lunch. I got a choripan, which is chorizo (sausage) on bread at it was delicious!! ¡Que rica! This being the only expression that I know to compliment food. After picking up food, we went on to look at some of the animals. The horse were beautiful and were of course accompanied by beautiful Argentine gauchos. But the cow where so fat. I was way to distracted by the cows to know if the people who were showing the cows were good looking or not. Cailey and I both bough tickets to return on Saturday. An hour and a half was not enough!






There was also a car show. The layout remind me a a monster truck show, only the trucks were slowly driving up very steep hills as well as driving onto seesaw type apparatuses and then tipping the seesaw. I don't quite picture the Argentine pampas being this terrain, but who am I to know.




I may not have mentioned this, but my host mother is a very good cook. We had polenta a few days ago, a chicken a veggie dish yesterday, and an onion and corn tart today. I was also exposed to dulce de leche, like carmel only better, today as desert with an apple. There is a popular sweet called Alfajores, which is a layered cookie with dulce de leche layers and covered in chocolate. An American called them Argentine Oreos. I thought I needed to bring a semester supply of peanut butter to Argentina (which I needed to do if I actually wanted to taste peanut butter for 6 months), but I might need to bring a lifetime supply of alfajores back to the US with me.