August 25, 2018: One of the best days of my life

Holy baby jesus today was amazing.

For as much of a planner as I am, I’m realizing that I often enjoy my days most when they are less structured and less rigidly scheduled. The pregame last night ended up being sooooooo fun and an amazing way to start my day. Here are the deets:

There were 4 French girls, 2 Argentine boys, and 3 American girls in total. The French girls’ apartment was sooo sick. The interior design was just so unique. Lots of oddly shaped rooms and all 3 bedrooms were lofted with a little staircase leading to each one. The night was so fun because we were all talking about our cultural differences and about each other’s accents. We asked the French girls what their stereotype of Americans is and they said, “All the boys are strong and have big muscles and play soccer. And they date the cheerleaders and everyone drinks milkshakes!” HAHAHA I think they were picturing a scene from a diner in a 1950’s movie. We asked them about American names too and they said, “Ehhh an American name… Fred!!!” The night was just so hilarious but also filled with stimulating conversation. We talked about a lot of heavy topics like politics and it was cool to have so many perspectives in one room.

We left at 2:15am and walked to the parking garage where our friend parked and the old man who was working in the booth was SOUND ASLEEP. We were screeeeeaming and pounding the gate to wake him up but this manz was soooo tired lmao he would not wake up. We were screaming, “SEÑÑÑOR!!!!!” and this manz would not budge. He FINALLY woke up like 10 minutes later and let us in, but wow what a funny memory. Oh, I also asked the 2 Argentine boys who, out of the 3 American girls, looks the most Argentinian and one of them said it was Julie and one of them said it was Kat. So I said, “What?! I don’t look Argentinian!? If you saw me on the street, would you know I’m not from here??” And they both said something along the lines of oh god yeah.

I slept well and when I came downstairs to eat in the morning, my host mom was up and moving and the radio was playing. It felt very homey and it was nice to see her first thing in the morn. She made me mate and prepared my breakfast for me! We also had a much-needed heart-to-heart and I felt like a massive weight was lifted off my shoulders after talking to her. I told her all that I had been stressed about and she was very reassuring and she also told me that she feels bad and doesn’t want to dump her problems on me. I really appreciated her recognizing that she might be guilty of that at times but I also reassured her that I am here to listen! We agreed that we will try to talk to each other more about the positive things in our life too. Best convo I’ve had with her so far.

After breakfast, I did lots of little productive things. I signed up for a salsa / bachata lesson with Julie and made very preliminary plans to travel to Córdoba with Julie and Kat (and maybe others). After that, I walked to the phone store to try to fix my foreign phone but it was closed so that was a bummer. So then I went on a run and it was very nice outside and I walked to pick up my laundry afterwards. Please enjoy this collage of me carrying my laundry, snapping a selfie with my fanny pack on, and the random third photo.

Did some abs lol and then partook in a series of many many facetimes. First I talked to Ashley, one of the freshmen on the track team and that was dope and she’s so cute and funny and hearing her perspective on Davidson is always entertaining. Then I facetimed my mom and my brother and we figured out when they’ll each visit and now we have an idea of where I’ll go with each of them. Then I facetimed Susannah and it was nice to talk to her and catch up! Then I facetimed my papi and he told me he thinks he looks thin these days and I told him you wish, old man.

After those 4 facetimes (I’m really popular), I ordered pizza from the place I always go to on Saturdays and then walked home and waited for Julie to come over. Then my other friend facetimed me out of the blue and I officially set a record for most facetimes in a day. Julie and I came up with our final project idea and then spent a healthy amount of time showing each other embarrassing photos of ourselves from the past. Then we ate a looooot of pizza and little vanilla cookies.

Our friend Kat came over and the 3 of us starting planning a trip to the province of Córdoba! Then we watched the second half of Julie and Julia (Julie and I had already watched the first half together ironically cuz that’s our names) and we finished the movie with Kat. We all decided it was necessary to get ice cream after so at 11:00pm we walked to get it and the 3 of us split half of a kilo of ice cream. It was dulce de leche con nuez (nuts), chocolate rocher (tasted exactly like Nutella), and banana split (with a ton of caramel and chocolate bits). We spent $2.12 each on the best ice cream of our lives. The shop we went to has 66 flavors and we set a mission to at least try all of them. I'll keep you posted on that.

Julie Ubered home and Kat is sleeping over and I can easily say that today was my favorite day here and also one of the best days of the 7,401 days I've lived. I also read 2 pages of homework. Haha.

Cheerz, betch.

Song Recommendation of the Day: "New Light" by John Mayer