Córdoba

Well I havent updated for a while. I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Córdoba which is about a 12 hour bus ride west of Buenos Aires. But before I talk about Córdoba, news from the past few days. On Tuesday I got my first grade back from San Andrés. As I have mentioned before the grades are from 1 to 10 with a median of around 6.5. Anyway, I got a 10 in my International Relations Class. Two other foreigner exchange students got tens as well but whatever. With this 10 counting for 35% of my grade, I am well on my way to getting my 8 which will convert into 5 credits of 4.0ness. I had a doctor appointment on Tuesday because UW wanted me to complete my pre-study abroad Health Screening. Somehow I wasn´t informed of this until I had been in Argentina for 3 months. I guess this is one of the downsides of a big school is that stuff gets lost in the shuffle. Anyway, UW sent me an e-mail last week saying that if I didn{t get the health screening, I hadnt properly done concurrent enrollment, and if I hadn{t done concurrent enrollment I was technically no longer affiliated with UW. So, I decided I better take care of it so I didn{t have to reapply to UW. I scheduled the appointment last week by phone which was an adventure within itself, and luckily my Argentina insurance paid for it. So I went with the UW forms in hand and luckily the doctor spoke English. The doctor was pretty surprised by the whole process because the questions were so retarded and obviously just UW{s attempt to cover themselves from any sort of a lawsuit. The questions were something like this:
1) Does the student have any physical disability that may prevent them from carrying heavy luggage
2) Does the student have any emotional problems or a history of depression?
3) Does the student show signs of tuberculosis?
4) Is the stuent overweight?
5) Does the student have any concerns that concern him/her?
6) Is the student currently or plan to become pregnant?
The doctor said that the questions were ridiculous and most of them could only be answered from looking at medical records which she didn{t have. In spite of this she was very nice and answered all but two of the questions and for the questions she didn{t answer she put ´I don{t know¨. This keyboard is really killing me.
Yesterday I had a mexican lolllipop that was shaped like a roasted chicken and was spicy. The mexican exchange student also told us that a popular mexican desert is vannilla ice cream with chili powder on top. Yesterday was a long but glorious day. I will recount it for you first in binary, and then in words. 1100100000011101010101110100001111010110100110101011000001110101010100010101011101101101011011010010100 Alright so that was unbelievably nerdy and i{d like to appoligize to everyone. Okay so:
6:30 Wake up
6:50 Actually get out of bed
7:30 Leave for School
9:00-10:40 Relaciones Internacionales Contemporaneas (Class)
10:40-12:00 Bullshit in Spanish, mostly making fun of Palin
12:00-13:00 Eat Ñoquis in restaurant, continue bullshitting in Spanish
13:00-14:00 Ultimate Frisbee
14:00-15:00 Eat lollipop shaped like roasted chicken
15:00-16:00 Study
16:00-19:00 Spanish Class
20:30 Return home
21:00 Leave for soccer game
22:00-24:00 Soccer game (we won 1-0)
00:30 Arrive home, pack and eat
1:15 Leave for Bus Station
2:30 Leave on Bus for Córdoba
2:30-13:30 Bus Ride
15:33 Current time
I´d say that´s a pretty fucking busy day. On the bus I chatted with a conservative Argentinean who had some crazy values. First off, he supports McCain which is very rare in the international community. Within the first 2 minutes of the conversation he asked me my religion, I told him I had none. He started talking about Mormonism, and how Peruvians and Bolivians are thieves and they steal all of the jobs from Argentineneans by illegally immigrating. He asked me if I felt the same way about Mexicans. I´ve been living in Buenos Aires this whole time which, according to him, is almost like a separate country from the rest of Argentina. Buenos Aires is very liberal for South America and it´s weird to go to the interior of the country where the people are more conservative. Abortion is illegal in Argentina as well I learned. The other thing that struck me as odd in this conversation is that you don´t normally just launch into a conversation with a stranger about religion, politics, and abortion. Until 1995, to be President of Argentina you had to be a Catholic.
Well, here I am now in Córdoba and I am about to do my first Couch Surfing ever. I found a 20 year college student who lives with his family. They are six, have a pool, 4 dogs, and Oscar, the 20 year old, invited me to go with him and his friends to Oktoberfest with them. Boo yah. So I´ll meet up with Oscar later today and i´ll have to bring a bottle of wine of something for the family. I´ll let you know how that all goes. Okay, well I´ll write more when I get a chance because I am travelling very light and hence no computer. We{re talking a small school back pack. Later. DAS BOOT

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