summertime: the milky way, tan lines, and international relations

HEY SUMMER! I KNOW YOU´RE ALMOST OVER, BUT I LOVE YOU ALL THE SAME :)

In my town I either spend my time at home or at our campo. The campo is a big mansion house in the country that is surrounded by fields. It´s huge and spacious, with high ceilings and about twelve giant rooms. I love it there, I always feel like I´m on the verge of a historical discovery. The other day my host grandmother started pulling handwritten piano music out of a file cabinet in the office. And the other time i was there, I found a pile of pictures of the family´s relatives in Spain, one of them was of two twin sisters in matching old-style bikinis on the beach. That night, my sheets were embroidered with the letters TG (I have no idea who it could be). There´s a little chapel a short walk away that´s smaller than a bathroom, full of spiders. It´s cool, lets your imagination wander a little.

If I stay at home, like I did these past couple days, I sleep late (not a habit I´m proud of), listen to podcasts, watch TV, drink tea with my host mom, clean my room until the afternoon is over -- around six. Then I´ll go over to a friend´s house or downtown and we´ll hang out until maybe 10.30, at which point i´ll go home to eat. Around midnight I´ll go out again with my friends. If we stay in we´ll watch a movie or play cards or eat just a whole bunch of meat (haha it is Argentina after all). We spend about 2/3 of our daytime out by the pool or in the pool or talking about going to the pool. The other 1/3 is spent eating, buy food to eat, walking a long way to buy food to eat, or talking about doing any of the prementioned tasks. Summer here is really relaxing -- kids can´t have summer jobs so basically there´s a lot of free time.

summer high points:
- seeing really SEEING the milky way for the first time of my life
- meeting a new sister. sharing a room.
- ice cream -- you have NOT had ice cream until you´ve tried what they have in argentina. good fields = good cows = good milk = good ice cream!!!
- making empanadas
- long car rides with my host mom to and from buenos aires
- having the best days ever with aileen. ever.
- appreciating the sun beneath the giant argentine sky
- not being tired at 5 am, not realizing it was 5 am, and still having the energy to dance through dawn
- spontaneous trips to see people for their birthday or for no reason at all :)
- saying "good luck" to two outbound exchange students
- making macaroni and cheese that was really appreciated :)
- watching ugly betty, american idol, and desperate housewives with my host aunt every single wednesday. refusing to go buy her cigarrettes. her loving me anyways.
- musical instruments at all hours of the night.
- argentine boys speaking english.
- argentine girls talking about argentine boys ;)
- the campo. family. bread. picnics. music sharing.
- really really getting to know and appreciating the friendship of all of the amazing people below... i love you guys! really :)